Grayling on Fuller 9 Sep 2008 I am presently reading Fuller’s Dissent over Descent, but here’s A. C. Grayling’s review in advance of mine. The money quote: The demerits of ID theory itself – so woeful as to be funny: in this world of ours, with so much failed experiment of life, so much repetition and haphazard variety of endeavour to meet the challenge of passing on genes, to claim the existence and activity of a supernatural designer would be a sort of blasphemy on the latter, if it existed – are well enough known not to require the wasted effort of iteration; nor does the overwhelming security of evolutionary theory in biology require defence. In the interests of our forests, therefore, I stop here, save to bemoan the fact that Fuller has produced not merely an irresponsible but a bad book, whose one saving grace is that, by default, it drives another nail in the ID coffin. I think Grayling is an optimist, but then, he’s British. Book Creationism and Intelligent Design Evolution
Creationism and Intelligent Design A sense of self 31 Aug 201131 Aug 2011 Humans have an insistent need for illusions. We need to think we have selves, that there is a point to existence, and that we are being watched over by a benevolent and powerful being (who, nevertheless, will beat eleven kinds of crap out of us if we don’t do what… Read More
Evolution Popper peeps papally at UD 15 Aug 2007 Popper’s view of science has been supplanted by a number of later views, not least being the sociological accounts of Kuhn and Lakatos, which, being sociological, don’t tell us what is science but only how it proceeds descriptively. Prescriptive views of science are much more nuanced than Popper these days, and they lack a simple slogan like the cry of “falsifiability!” They typically focus on the heuristics (rules of inference) and how they have developed overall and in particular disciplines. If you want to argue that ID is science, go read van Fraassen, or Hacking, or Giere, or Laudan and get back to me. Read More
Book That’s not an Origin of Species; *this* is an Origin of Species 24 Sep 2009 I would strongly suggest that if you find Kirk Cameron’s “edition” of the Origin of Species that you quietly dispose of it in an environmentally conscious manner. However, if you want a good edition, I recommend this one by Jim Endersby, a well known historian of the nineteenth century, from… Read More
That’s the other thing about the British. They don’t all think that a sentence has to be five words or less.
That’s the other thing about the British. They don’t all think that a sentence has to be five words or less.
We should start a collection to buy AC Grayling some more full stops (I’ve saved those from his name in a pot) so he can write shorter sentences. But I don’t think he’s recommending that we rush out and buy Steve Fuller-Schitt’s opus, is he?
We should start a collection to buy AC Grayling some more full stops (I’ve saved those from his name in a pot) so he can write shorter sentences. But I don’t think he’s recommending that we rush out and buy Steve Fuller-Schitt’s opus, is he?
If you think Grayling is bad you should read traditional academic German. Back in the middle of the 1980s one of my regular tasks at the university was to make the one hundred or whatever copies of the typescript of my professor’s Monday lecture. He would invariably start writing this at 6 o’clock on the Monday morning and I would usually receive it to make the copies at 8 o’clock for the lecture at 9. Once on the first day of the new academic year my colleagues and I noticed that the first sentence of the typescript seemed to be rather long and took a closer look. In fact the first sentence was one and a half A4 pages long!
“Indeed! For at the end of these nearly 300 pages of wasted forest he tells us what science needs in order to justify its continuation (oh dear, poor science, eh?)…” For some reason, I don’t think he liked it.
John, what’s your professional opinion (or non-professional opinion) of Grayling as a philosopher. I quite like reading his articles but have not read any of of his technical stuff. He quite likes to lambast relgion in that dry English manner. Which is probably why I like reading him. Anyway, thoughts?
I liked the style of writing in the article. Some writing can be terminally confusing even in short sentences but the good writer can make sense even at length. I think a lot of it depends on an ephemeral lyricism that approaches art. Why does art make sense? Beauty is symmetry. Balance is confidence and confidence is its own reward.
I liked the style of writing in the article. Some writing can be terminally confusing even in short sentences but the good writer can make sense even at length. I think a lot of it depends on an ephemeral lyricism that approaches art. Why does art make sense? Beauty is symmetry. Balance is confidence and confidence is its own reward.
John wrote That’s the other thing about the British. They don’t all think that a sentence has to be five words or less. I’m reminded of something E.B. White (I think) wrote, to the effect that ‘she dove into the ocean of her sentence, finally emerging triumphant on the other side with the verb in her teeth.’ Possibly from The Once and Future King, though that neuron seems to be on holiday at the moment.
John Wilkins @#2 That’s the other thing about the British. They don’t all think that a sentence has to be five words or less. …Unless. We’vebeen. Watching. Too much. Star Trek!
John Wilkins @#2 That’s the other thing about the British. They don’t all think that a sentence has to be five words or less. …Unless. We’vebeen. Watching. Too much. Star Trek!
….In fact the first sentence was one and a half A4 pages long! To make the obligatory German joke: “….and all 43 verbs were at the very end!” 😉 More usefully (or at least, not intentionally joking), I have to question the paragraph beginning: “And what has atheism done for science?….” (there was a thread at Pharyngula ‘tother day on this). Grayling seems to be overstating the case a bit: while growing intellectual freedom depended on the diminution of Church power, I don’t think it was explicit atheism or atheists that did most of that, historically. This only works if one adopts a simplistic schema in which any move away from strict orthodoxy is to be deemed a move towards atheism — and I seem to recall John having an argument on t.o a few years back, against a rather obtuse poster who was quite insistent on viewing the history in exactly that manner (something about “Galileo being as atheist as he could”).
….In fact the first sentence was one and a half A4 pages long! To make the obligatory German joke: “….and all 43 verbs were at the very end!” 😉 More usefully (or at least, not intentionally joking), I have to question the paragraph beginning: “And what has atheism done for science?….” (there was a thread at Pharyngula ‘tother day on this). Grayling seems to be overstating the case a bit: while growing intellectual freedom depended on the diminution of Church power, I don’t think it was explicit atheism or atheists that did most of that, historically. This only works if one adopts a simplistic schema in which any move away from strict orthodoxy is to be deemed a move towards atheism — and I seem to recall John having an argument on t.o a few years back, against a rather obtuse poster who was quite insistent on viewing the history in exactly that manner (something about “Galileo being as atheist as he could”).