Now I am off to White City to discuss the grievous stupidity of the Royal Society on Radio 4's Today programme.
That's the way it is this morning. Mind how you go. Good night and good luck.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
All the News that Fits
It has been a momentous week. Ever since I failed to take him up on a lunch invite, Guido has gone mad - 'The FSA is depised and nobody in the City respects it.' Now let me see, how can I put this? Ah I know - who gives a flying frick what anybody in the City respects? The FSA may be hopeless, but in view of what the City has lately done to the world economy, jobs, lives etc - a trillion here, a trillion there soon adds up to real money, boys - we must all hope that whatever replaces it is loathed and feared by the City. And, speaking of City, Robinho scored on his first appearance and then discovered he was playing for a team with no defence to speak of. Don't worry, Robbo, unlike United, they are authentic. Meanwhile, I have probably met more geniuses than most. I was only absolutely certain of two - Samuel Beckett and John Ashbery - now I am certain of a third. See tomorrow in The Sunday Times. I think I just heard that J.K.Rowling, not a genius, is donating £1 million to the Labour Party because it helps children. Er.....? Is there something wrong with Blair's teeth? This is troubliing because American viewers of The Daily Show will be confirmed in their ancient prejudice about British dentistry. They're right, of course, but that's not the point.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I heard you on Radio 4. The simple point you evaded is this: Do we believe that it is possible to seek truth from observed facts?
ReplyDeleteIf yes, then creationism is a pointless waste of time in science lessons.
If you do not believe that what we see and measure is what is true, then why assume that who ever wrote the bible (or whatever creation myth one might subscribe to) is any better than unreliable personal evidence?
Just because people believe something, does not make it right or true.
The point of science is not that it 'knows' the truth but that it has a means of seeking truth which it claims is infallible - theory, test, change theory.
Religion is a means of stopping thinking. An 'eternal verity' may be comforting but if it does not fit reality, it is useless. Science changes to take account of evidence. Religion does not and cannot do this.
It is hugely depressing that this point about the nature of science is constantly ignored by those who trust faith more than what they can measure. Read Popper. Read Kuhn
Well done Bryan, you absolutely nailed it. 3-0
ReplyDeleteThe problem here is communication, If I believe something is true its only because I believe I have fully understood the counter argument, I got the impression from him and the first replay here that they don't even understand the counter argument, they are so wrapped up in post-modernist Kuhnian paradigm thinking its impossible to speak to them, the math is never neutral to them, and the results are to be seen in the trillion dollar credit quake, Poppers positivism is lost.
Bryan, Guido has always been mad. And now America is going to buy all the dodgy mortgages everyone is talking as if this crisis is behind us. I'm almost disappointed; i really enjoyed seeing Irwin Selzer conceding defeat to Naomi Klein on Newsnight-his face like a collapsed prune.
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