What, Why & How do we Know ?
We live in a world hemmed-in by PC rules. When I started this post about 5 tweets ago, it was about the latest “Sokal” prank poking satire at gender-based social-science research. Of course, being PC rules, they are broken ironically all the time, so the levels of irony – odd or even – become crucial … Continue reading “It’s Now Illegal to Mock Fruit”
Just a quickie, a hold-that-thought post (prompted by the US Glyphosate court verdict, but not specifically about that): Two things – herbicides and pesticides, and controlling vermin. Humans are an intelligent evolved species. We didn’t get where we are by allowing the environment to take over our lives – we legitimately manage our environment in … Continue reading “Poisoning the Environment”
Rarely was a program so well named. Exemplary dialogue handled by Evan Davis on BBC R4 Sweet Reason on “Offense”. The thesis being discussed was implicitly: Weaponised Offense Taking as part of Identity by Victimhood. Contentious topic on PC-Ness of free expression. With Jordan Peterson (white-male) and Dr Clare Chambers and Shaista Aziz (non-male / non-white) … Continue reading “Sweet Reason”
There are some Proof-of-ID trials happening in the upcoming local elections in the UK. Naturally the system is “flawed”. All the usual responses of course, to the infringement if individual freedoms aspects. If freedom is worth anything, it’s worth protecting IMHO. But I say: Cock-ups like Windrush happen because of a public attitude to (things … Continue reading “ID Cards & Voting – Enlighten Me Someone?”
[NOTE August 2024: Skip down to see actual “Rules START:“] With Elon Musk taking a free-speech-absolutist approach to his takeover of X/Twitter, it is becoming ever more obvious that these good-faith rules of “civilised discourse” below, apply to open social media communications just as much as to any other limited discourse, dialogue, argument or debate … Continue reading “Rules of Engagement in Discourse”
Heard Ed Atkinson of Citizens’ Climate Lobby UK speak last night at Teesside “Skeptics in the Pub”. Although they’re already a decade old, and I have long-standing interests in the energy business and in climate change science and policy, it was the first time I had really been aware of CCL and their very specific climate … Continue reading ““Fee and Dividend” Carbon Tax”
Vive La Différance – or a white swan in the hand is worth more than risking a few black feathers in the bush. I’ve regularly used the Derridan version of difference (différance) ironically and usually when talking about gender differences. That minefield of: what differences there really are between men and women (specifically archetypically, but … Continue reading “Vive La Différance, Again.”
Frankie Boyle sums it up nicely most recently here, most magnificently here: “it’s difficult to explain why an ingrained assumption is wrong in a soundbite” Contrasted with Margaret Beckett patiently explaining the labour party review of its post-Ed-defeat policy problems on BBC R4 Today – resisting the demand for a single “thing” to “blame”. The point … Continue reading “Memetics – the real bogeyman?”
By a strange coincidence, after the facebook exchanges yesterday, on the anti-Copernican indications of the Cosmic Microwave Background being mysteriously air-brushed from the record (*1), I find myself reading Arthur Koestler’s “The Sleepwalkers“. Coincidence because I just happened to pick it up randomly off the ex-library second-hand book cart at Conway Hall last night. I’d heard … Continue reading “The Devious Ways of Science”
The evolutionary scientists and philosophers (say, Dawkins & Dennett) seem to be predicting religion is steadily on its way out, quite independently of any immediate ills and conflicts laid at its door, people are finding less reason to believe. Actually I think they may be wrong, but let’s hold off thinking about what might be meant … Continue reading “The Future of Religion – a Rose By Any Other Name?”