How do we determine the truth of something? How do we know what really happened? During the course of any investigation into whether something is true or not, any claim that is made needs to be testable/disprovable, otherwise it has no value. For example, let’s say that I claim that there is an invisible dragon on my shoulder that tells me what to do. There’s no reason for you to believe me unless I can provide some evidence. If you try to grab at it, I can say it was on the other shoulder. If you grab again, I can say it hopped away outside of your reach. If I provide no further way to test this claim then you have absolutely no reason to believe me, especially if the claim presupposed things which are contrary to established knowledge (namely that dragons do not exist, nor are any creatures invisible).
I just found a wonderful article on the common phenomenon, in our culture and especially on the internet, of the Galileo Fallacy. That people who have unpopular ideas must be right because people who have been attacked due to their unpopular ideas in the past turned out to be right.
There’s a form of very bad thinking that I see a lot in some very smart, thoughtful people.
The thinking goes like this:
“Great thinkers throughout history have had unpopular ideas that everyone disagreed with.
“I have an unpopular idea that everyone disagrees with.
There’s a nice short article in AlterNet about AIDS and vaccine denialism. One contributing factor they find in how denialism continues is short collective and individual memories.
No. She doesn’t remember.
And that’s the problem.
I consider myself an open-minded person. I try not to pre-judge things and I am willing to change my mind about my own opinions if I find new and compelling evidence. I am skeptical of the claims of all major religions, not based upon anything I might wish to be true about them, but rather what seems to be the case based on an objective analysis of the facts. However, some people might accuse me of not being as open-minded as I profess based upon my collection of books. Of the books that I have read, very few are from an explicitly Christian perspective, which might prompt some to claim that I am biased or only willing to read things that already reinforce my pre-concieved views.
Naomi Wolf, author of End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot has a new post at The Huffington Post talking about her concerns over the rise of fascist policies of the U.S. government.
We need to get PZ Myers to write more book reviews.
Whoa. Bryan Appleyard has reservations about the book. That tells you how bad it has got to be. If you show your new baby to your sister, and she doesn’t scrunch up her face and say “OOOH, she’s cute widdle one!” but instead starts talking about the miracles plastic surgery can do, you know you’ve got a really ugly baby. This book is one ugly baby. It’s the baby that would inspire your sister to get her tubes tied to prevent the possibility of repeating your mistake.
Hopefully this isn’t reflective of the music industry as a whole, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.
A lawyer for Sony BMG, Jennifer Pariser has views that I believe are endemic of movements within the larger entertainment industry:
Pariser has a very broad definition of “stealing.” When questioned by Richard Gabriel, lead counsel for the record labels, Pariser suggested that what millions of music fans do is actually theft. The dirty deed? Ripping your own CDs or downloading songs you already own.
I thought it might be telling to keep an eye on the Expelled blog and see what’s going on there. Ben Stein has a new post which is rather cryptic [edit: the post has been inexplicably removed]. It basically is setting out to create a climate of victimization (which the film seems to be doing as well) starting out with a quote attributed to Jonny Cash.
It’s good to be hated by the right people.”
I’m not quite sure what to make of the following quote, though if it turns out to be some sort of parody, I’ll be pleasantly surprised (though I’m not holding my breath).
Looks like Expelled really isn’t going to provide anything new under the sun. An article on Beliefnet gives us a little more information on what the film might include.
Let the buzz begin. Not that “Expelled’s” intentionally incendiary tone will need much help from the pastors and religious-school teachers in attendance at yesterday’s meeting. From the clips and trailers they showed, the film presents a world of–to use a quote I heard repeatedly yesterday–”the new scientific movement” (Intelligent Design, in case you weren’t sure) vs. the tired, old “theory” of evolution. Relying on news-clip montages, interviews, even cut-away shots of concentration camps, “Expelled” talks of faithful scientists and other believers losing jobs, losing grants, even losing friends in defense of ID. And, relying on footage of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and other atheists du jure, it sets up a worldview of ID vs. atheism, with no gray areas in between.
