Would any readers who pay taxes in the state of Oregon like to write in and explain what they pay taxes for? Is this how you think your tax money should be spent?
academic freedom
Apparently, some people have noticed the nonsense at Nature Communications about geology as not a safe field for persons of color
About that third comment above: There is no reason to put “scholarship” and “Nature Communications” in the same sentence if this “paper” is supposed to be an example of the type of thing it produces.
Bret Weinstein now smeared at Wikipedia?
Readers may well remember biology teacher Bret Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying, a progressive teacher couple at Evergreen State College, early victims of the very Woke they had themselves encouraged, without realizing where it must end.
A panel on CV19 with a co-inventor of mRNA technology
See here: Okay, embed seems to work. If not please click the link. This is a FYI news item, no discussion. END
L&FP, 47: The challenge of “proof” in a world of radical doubt and hyperskepticism
“Prove it . . .” is a familiar challenge, one, often strengthened to “unless you prove it I can disregard what you claim.” However, ever since Epictetus, c. 100 AD, it has met its match: DISCOURSESCHAPTER XXV How is logic necessary? When someone in [Epictetus’] audience said, Convince me that logic is necessary, he answered: Read More…
Haeckel’s biased, manipulative, dishonest drawings
It is strange that Haeckel has come up again, so let us first understand just how manipulative and dishonest he was in his books that popularised Evolutionism in Germany and elsewhere. As a start, here is his infamous drawing of heads of men and other primates: This was a time when photography was not ubiquitous, Read More…
L&FP 46: A big questions challenge — confident objective knowledge vs grand delusion in a going-concern world
In recent weeks, we have seen again and again how the acid of hyperskepticism has reduced our civilisation’s confidence in self-awareness much less understanding of the world and its roots. Even as Evolutionary Materialistic Scientism, Officialdom and their media promoters (and censors) seek to create a dominant narrative. So, how do we attack this issue? Read More…
L&FP 44a: What is 2 + 2, Mr Smith? (1984 as demonstration of how first duties and first truths are inextricably intertwined)
1984 is a classic satirical novel on the nature of tyranny in the mass media driven, information age, totalitarian surveillance state. Accordingly, it is vital to appreciate the force of the Winston Smith on the Rack scene — yes, taken from the related movie — where the issue of the self-evident truth 2 + 2 Read More…
L&FP44: What are Self-evident truths [SET’s] and why do they matter?
A classic case in point of self-evident truth can be seen by splitting our fingers into a two and a three then joining them again — and, sorry, this needs to be hammered home hard as we are cutting across the grain of current education and cultural conditioning. So, pardon demonstration by undeniable example and Read More…
L&FP43: Big-S Science, Official Consensus and the pessimistic induction
It is highly relevant and timely to now ponder “Big-S Science and appeals to official consensus i/l/o the logic of the pessimistic induction and what warrant entails,” with “degrees of warrant, open mindedness and tolerance/diversity.” It is probably best to start with the pessimistic induction, here, via SEP: If one considers the history of scientific Read More…
L&FP, 42a: The limit on Mathematical knowledge
Here, a video series explores Godel’s incompleteness results: The core point is that Hilbert’s scheme collapsed, nicely summarised. The Godel incompleteness results and the Turing machine halting challenge made Mathematics irreducibly complex. So, Mathematics, too, is a venture of knowledge as warranted, credibly true (so reliable) belief, which must be open to correction. An exercise Read More…
Then, they came for Sir Isaac . . .
Newton. The latest year zero reset target, as Telegraph reports: Sir Isaac Newton has been labelled as a potential beneficiary of “colonial-era activity” in draft plans to “decolonise” the engineering curriculum at Sheffield University. Students learning about the mathematician and scientist’s three laws of motion, the core of modern physics, could see changes in their Read More…
Wikipedia presents pseudo-“knowledge” [fake “knowledge”?] on ID, yet again
In discussing implication logic and first duties, Wikipedia on ID came up yet again. The lead’s manifest failure to be responsibly objective, descending into slander from the outset, speaks volumes: Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as “an evidence-based scientific theory about life’s origins”.[1][2][3][4][5] Proponents Read More…
Bob Jones University prez fires back at Swamidass re doxxing creationists
Prez Pettit: “BJU students regularly score above the 90th percentile on the Medical College Admission Test …” But that’s just the problem, Steve. They can’t get your students on lack of competence so they have to engage in covert viewpoint discrimination. Swamidass is suggesting a means of proceeding along those lines.
Josh Swamidass on the need to single out and punish creationists
One key effect of Cancel Culture is the elimination of competition by citing grounds that are irrelevant to performance. As Klinghoffer puts it, employers “will wish to know if they are about to take aboard a creationist in a science-related field. For example, a pediatric nurse oncologist, caring for little kids with cancer, while believing that the world is under 10,000 years old.” Someone with “Correct” views on the age of Earth will be deemed more acceptable even with fewer gifts in pediatric nursing. It’s a recipe for Virtuous underperformance.