Culture

UPDATE: Sometimes, it is needful to drive home a point, even when it is on an unpleasant matter and deals with uncivil conduct. For, unchecked incivility, willful disregard for the truth and fairness, and associated enabling behaviour are patently destructive. [For those who need help here, methinks the ghost of Pilate has somewhat to say to you, here.] In this case, slander by unjustified invidious comparison and enabling thereof on the pretence that nothing wrong has been done. A cross check at TSZ this evening has revealed a doubling down by the owner there, in response to my further corrective that the owner of that blog is denying patent reality, when she earlier posted a bland denial of unpleasant reality Read More ›

It seems I need to headline a corrective footnote on basic reasoning, from an ongoing exchange in a current discussion thread: ________ >> I decided to take a look around via Google. It was saddening but unsurprising to see the party-spirited objections to first principles of reason coming from the circle of objector sites. Inadvertently, they show the very reason why there is a serious problem of want of basic rationality in our civilisation in general, but in particular among those strongly influenced by avant garde, ideologically popular secularist, evolutionary materialist progressivism and that species of ultra-modernity that likes to call itself post modernism. A few points: 1 –> The first steps in reasoning do start with our common sense status Read More ›

Yesterday, I ran across the video to be shown below and posted a comment that I think needs to be headlined and seriously pondered if we are concerned that the university functions in an objective, fair-minded, truth-seeking way: This study (HT: WK) as presented in a short lecture by Dr George Yancey — a sociologist — on bias against Christians in the academy, among progressives (especially cultural progressives) and even in IQ tests, should give food for thought as we reflect on the above. Video: Dr Yancey’s  IQ test questions (strictly: fallacy-detection questions, evidently used by some to claim that Christians are less intelligent than secularist progressives and fellow travellers) are especially revealing of how biases are embedded in what Read More ›

“Cool” is often presented as the iconic, somewhat glamorous state of being calm, collected, in control.  It is often viewed as highly desirable, sexy, balanced, stylish, just plain “right.” Oh, soo, desirable . . . But, beneath the surface of “cool,” there too often lurks a reptilian coldly amoral ferocity that marks all the difference between the Christian virtue of self-control and the manipulative, demonically controlling. The dark triad, satanic side of cool. Dark triad? Though this sounds a little like an overly melodramatic movie title, it is actually a term of art in modern psychology, to describe a destructive cluster of personality syndromes that is increasingly seen. As Susan Whitbourne, writing in a Psychology Today article, sums up in Read More ›

From ENV  — even as Dr Eugenie Scott of NCSE retires (having championed the ID is Creationism in a cheap tuxedo smear for years and years in the teeth of all correction . . . ) — we see a development, courtesy a whistle-blowing Law School student: The latest attempt to insert creationism into the classroom is what is known as the Theory of Intelligent Design. The theory is that all of the complex natural phenomena could not have happened randomly; there had to be a design and a designer. Since the concept of the designer does not require a biblical interpretation, its advocates believe that it could possibly pass constitutional muster. Some states have proposed that science standards be Read More ›

Slate.com is all upset that repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008 was was rejected yet again in a 3-2 vote in the State Senate. 19 year old Rice University Student Zack Kopplin has been leading the charge to get this “outrage” done away with once and for all, with help from the usual suspects. What’s interesting to note is the reason that one Senator, Elbert Guillory, D-Obelousas, who essentially cast the deciding vote, gave for his vote against repeal. Sen. Elbert Guillory, D-Opelousas, said he had reservations with repealing the act after a spiritual healer correctly diagnosed a specific medical ailment he had. He said he thought repealing the act could “lock the door on being able Read More ›

Off topic, but important as a service to UD’s readers. HERE. Pardon, I took some days before commenting, until I found some useful info beyond the media panic headlines. Notice the clip from Oracle’s advisory, the link to the FAQ and the further link on gory technical details. The bottomline is that over the past year Java has apparently been the vector used for 50% of hacking attacks, and Adobe reader has been used for 28%. Internet Explorer and Windows — the “traditional” targets of hobbyist hackers and those who hack for money from organised crime or spy agencies —  by contrast, have gone way down. At least, as percentages. Hacking is not going away, and we need to take Read More ›

( To comment, kindly go here) One of the objections to the markup of the Wiki ID article is that this is tilting at a windmill. I disagree. It should already be plain that the Wiki article is representative of a standard set of talking points used to polarise the unwary against design theory, and to lead them to think there is nothing serious to see here, move along. But, as has been shown step by step over the past several days, this is based on a willfully constructed false narrative. One, that brings Wikipedia’s vaunted commitment to a neutral point of view and to objectivity into serious question. However,  there is a second good reason to putting on record Read More ›

(To comment, go here) As we continue to mark up the Wikipedia introductory remarks on ID in its dismissive article, the next focal issue on failure to achieve the vaunted NPOV or carry out responsibilities of truthfulness, warrant and fairness,  is: Intelligent design is viewed as a pseudoscience by the scientific community, because it lacks empirical support, offers no tenable hypotheses, and aims to describe natural history in terms of scientifically untestable supernatural causes. I will contend  — as can be seen from last time — that: a: on the contrary, the design inference on tested and reliable empirical signs such as FSCO/I is empirically credible and well supported, thus b: it is itself a tenable hypothesis (all laws of Read More ›

As we continue to mark up the Wiki article on ID, the next thing to notice is how the anonymous contributors have projected unto ID,  an accusation of trying to redefine science and its methods in service to supernaturalistic creationism: Intelligent design (ID) is a form of creationism promulgated by the Discovery Institute . . . . Scientific acceptance of Intelligent Design would require redefining science to allow supernatural explanations of observed phenomena, an approach its proponents describe as theistic realism or theistic science. It puts forth a number of arguments in support of the existence of a designer, the most prominent of which are irreducible complexity and specified complexity.[5] The scientific community rejects the extension of science to include Read More ›

Yesterday was a hard day, even for those like me who were quite late to the news. We woke up here to the news on BBC — a Caribbean tradition — that someone in China had attacked a classroom with a knife of some kind and had slashed twenty-two children. This, in a country where there is a very harsh one child per family law, backed up by forced abortions etc. And, apparently, it is not the first such recent attack in that country. (Cf article in the Hartford Courant — and yes, that is tragically close to home.) Then, across the course of the day, news emerged of a similar attack in an elementary school in Newtown Connecticut, USA. Read More ›