What was that I was just saying the other day about people translating ‘evidence’ into ‘proof,’ thinking the two words are interchangeable, just plain confusing the two? You’d think at least science journalists would know the difference, wouldn’t you? Well you’d be wrong, apparently.

Sir Patrick said scientists used peer review “almost exclusively” to publicise findings. But he said researchers could still attract publicity “for highly questionable results even when they offered no evidence that their research had been checked”. This was evident earlier this year when the Raelian sect announced the births of human clones. The only proof the sect’s US-based company Clonaid produced to support its assertion was a photograph of one of the children alleged to have

Yet another enthralling Start the Week, this one from June (I don’t listen to them in any sort of coherent order, rather I listen to the ones that sound most interesting first, in case I get run over by a bus before I get a chance to listen to them all). It’s interesting in general, but especially for the moment when, after everyone else has expressed great enthusiasm for a film about a charismatic Los Angeles preacher at a gospel church, Norman Finkelstein dissents from the general applause. He thinks it’s all an irritating exercise in white primitivism, and that the preacher in question is an embarrassment. It takes a bit of nerve to say that!… Read the rest

Another thing irrationalists like to do is translate. Well I suppose all arguers translate, but irrationalists are especially fond of doing it. But then that’s not surprising, is it. Irrationalists are woolly by definition, so naturally they think one word is as good as another, vague approximations of meaning will do well enough, clarity is not necessary between friends.

One translation that’s especially popular – I may even have droned about this in a N&C before, I don’t remember, it certainly comes up a lot – is from evidence to proof. They seem to think the words are interchangeable – only they never say evidence instead of proof, no, it’s always the other way around. I suppose they have themselves … Read the rest

Well to be sure it is a waste of time arguing with irrationalists, but on the other hand I did find out something I’ve been wanting to know, which is what they mean when they say that rationalists and atheists define evidence too narrowly. That seems to be a fashionable thing to say, I keep hearing it and seeing it, but the discussion always seems to go off in another direction before I can pin down what they mean by it. But this time after I asked about fifteen times, the irrationalist (who claims to have a PhD in cognitive science, which I hope is a bit of Walter Mittyism) finally said what he meant: ‘In terms of “evidence”… it … Read the rest

Now, hang on. Surely one doesn’t have to be a postmodernist to have some doubts about the WTO. Well no, one doesn’t, because I do and I’m not. QED. But there seems to be some confusion on the matter.

This week in Montreal, there was an anti-globalization riot in which windows were broken in protest against a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting. But the Habermas-Derrida declaration praises the WTO and even the International Monetary Fund as part of Weltinnenpolitik…Yet it is not much of a stretch to claim the young anti-globalists as disciples of postmodernism and Derrida, who has hitherto been a foe of “logocentrism” (putting reason at the centre), “phallologocentrism” (reason is an erect male organ and, as such,

What a chump I am. I’ve frittered away a lot of time and energy on a discussion board, arguing with someone who disagrees with my ‘Science and Religion’ In Focus article but can’t come up with a convincing argument. Sigh. Same old bollocks. Atheism is a belief, theism and atheism are exact equivalents, you’re defining evidence too narrowly, I can’t prove god is there just as I can’t prove I love someone, blah blah blah. Can’t they do better than that? Well no, of course they can’t, that’s the whole point. Can’t come up with better arguments and can’t see how lame their own are, apparently. Right, I’ll just give us a quotation or two by way of refreshment.

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