Focus on the “how”, not the “why” 12 Aug 2009 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH40zaUxTTE&hl=en&fs=1&] Philosophy Politics Religion Science
Epistemology What is a philosopher? 10 Jun 2009 Before you all go making rude comments, go read this post by Michèle Lamont at Crooked Timber and especially the interesting comments that follow. Read More
Evolution God and Evolution 5: The problem of chance 23 May 201324 May 2013 Many religious thinkers hold that chance is the enemy of God. God is omniscient in many theisms, and so if chance occurs, and chance is unpredictable even for God, then the reality of chance means that God does not exist. This doesn’t apply, of course, to gods that are limited… Read More
Politics Beatles’ ode to John Howard 27 Nov 2007 This is kicking a man when he’s down, but the iPod popped this up to me last night, and I thought how appropriate it is to the election outcome: Read More
Me too. I met him back around 1982, when he was doing a college tour of Australia. I worked for the local student union and had to shepherd him for ten minutes before his act. He was pretty distracted, so I didn’t get to talk to him much. He also wasn’t yet famous, so I didn’t know I had to.
If you want to hear a Celtic comedian making the case for critical thinking, then Dara O’Briain is your man. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIaV8swc-fo “But there’s a kind of notion that ‘Every opinion is equally valid.’ My arse! Bloke who’s a professor of dentistry for forty years does not have a debate with some idiot [eejet] who removes his teeth with string and a door, right? It’s nonsense. And this happens all the time with medical stuff on the television. You’ll have a doctor on talk and they’ll to the doctor and be all ‘Doctor this’ and ‘Doctor that’, and ‘What happened there?’, and ‘Doctor, isn’t it awful?’, right? And then the doctor will be talking about something with all the benefit of research and medical evidence, and they’ll turn away from the doctor in the name of ‘Balance’, and turn to some — quack — witch doctor — homeopath — HORSESHIT peddler on the other side of the studio. . . .”
I sympathize with Connolly’s sentiments of course, but “how” and “why” can often be used interchangeably. Why did the Cambrian explosion occur, vs How did it occur? Why is the sky blue, vs How is it that the sky is blue? You can argue that “why” often suggests teleological origins, but isn’t that just a subset of “how” that emphasizes subjective rather than objective causes? For example: Why do you believe in god, vs how is it that you believe in god?
In such cases, “why” just is a “how” question. Why questions are pleas for justification – give me a reason why that happens, or give me a reason why it should. Reasons why are calls for something beyond the how it happens. I think Billy is using this in the journalist’s sense of the five questions: how, when, where, who, and why?