On the need for critical reasoning 29 Oct 2009 Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s codiscoverer of natural selection as an evolutionary mechanism, was something of a contradiction. On the one hand he argued with a flat earth advocate, getting involved in a lawsuit as a result. On the other he opposed vaccination and promoted spiritualism. It is not the case that simply being a person of good intentions and will protects from stupid ideas. For that, you need critical reasoning skills. Below the fold, from Robert Grumbine’s blog, is a short talk on why vaccination is necessary, and why critical reasoning skills are a matter of public wellbeing. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFVE8csrcRw&feature=player_embedded] Education Science Social evolution
Epistemology Facts are too scrutable! 23 Sep 2010 I love the mouseover. Go there and check it out… it’s objectively true. Read More
Evolution What is “nature”? 2 Jan 20142 Jan 2014 Many critics of science, including Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig,attack something they call “naturalism”, the view that the natural world is all there is. As Papineau notes in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry, the term has no very precise meaning in philosophy, or in science…. Read More
Evolution Scientists as historians 11 Sep 200818 Sep 2017 I’m supposed to be marking essays, but the reaction to Thony’s recent guest articles has triggered in me a conditioned reflex: the uses and abuses of history by scientists. Read More
I mean, seriously, who are you going to believe? The unanimous opinion of the entire (non-quack) medical and bioscience establishment? Or a former Playboy model?
I didn’t watch that video, or read that blog post (too tired, need sleep), but I still feel compelled to remind the readers here of the recent example of these kind of contradictions: Bill Maher.