Depletion of fish stocks not a problem, fisheries scientist says, if future generations like plankton stew.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Not All Destruction is Human-Made
Jan 21st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Fire storm near Canberra destroys observatory and all its equipment.… Read the rest
Love That Derrida
Jan 20th, 2003 10:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonI sort of hate to agree with The National Review about anything, but then it’s not my fault: if the left will insist on being so silly all the time, they have only themselves to blame. Anyway this is a very funny piece about Jacques Derrida and his inexplicable hold over the minds of far too many literary critics and other “theorists”.
… Read the restIndeed, the critical point to be borne in mind with regards to Derrida…is that he is not now, nor has he ever been, a philosopher in any recognizable sense of the word, nor even a trafficker in significant ideas; he is rather a intellectual con artist, a polysyllabic grifter who has duped roughly half the humanities professors in
Moon Landing Skeptics
Jan 20th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
You know how the gummint is, they cover up alien landings in Roswell, so why not fake landings on the moon?… Read the rest
All Over the Map
Jan 19th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Observer gets the views of thoughtful people on war with Iraq. Responses are not predictable.… Read the rest
Not Really Such a Brilliant Idea
Jan 18th, 2003 9:43 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is a very peculiar comment in the Guardian. John Sutherland recommends that Blair and Labour imitate the American way of getting more racial minorities into higher education: via athletics. Why? He never really says. He does say he thinks it’s a good idea and that it’s been a great success in the States, but he doesn’t say why he thinks it’s a good idea, or in what sense it’s been a success. He does say that the athletics programmes created open doors through which not only black athletes, but also non-athletic blacks, could enter, but then he fails to explain what he means. He says the figures speak for themselves, but they don’t, at least not clearly enough … Read the rest
Not a Philosopher but a Con Artist
Jan 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A rude look at Derrida and the worshipful movie about him.… Read the rest
New Admission Criteria
Jan 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
One side sees disadvantage and discrimination, the other sees a need to take more variables into account.… Read the rest
How Does He Know?
Jan 17th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘But if you begin to think about it you can start to feel like the ashamed schoolchild who has just been caught drawing smutty pictures.’… Read the rest
Eat the Dog
Jan 17th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Very witty quiz on ethics in the Guardian.… Read the rest
Rashomon at the White House
Jan 16th, 2003 5:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonWe all know history is written by the victors. It’s also worth remembering that it’s written by a lot of other unreliable witnesses besides. By participants, loyalists, traitors, friends, enemies, people with various kinds of axe to grind, people who were paying only selective attention (and who ever pays anything else?). Which is not to say that it’s all a fairy tale, that no history is more accurate than any other so there’s no need to be careful with the evidence or the conclusions we draw from it. It’s only to point out how tricky it all is. This story in the Guardian is a good example. Tony Blair and the people around him are quite sure they have influenced … Read the rest
Positive Discrimination
Jan 16th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Not quotas but targets; European human rights laws; poverty and privilege. Difficult questions without clear answers.… Read the rest
Confusion for Future Historians
Jan 16th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Powell thinks it’s Powell who tames the President, Blair thinks it’s Blair. So history is written.… Read the rest
Yes But How Does it Work?
Jan 16th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Even evidence is not enough, in the absence of a theory, Michael Shermer explains.… Read the rest
When is a degree not a degree?
Jan 15th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Are some university degrees more equal than others?… Read the rest
University Press Publisher as Deity
Jan 14th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Boston Globe interviews an editor at Harvard University Press.… Read the rest
A Scientific Controversy In Progress
Jan 13th, 2003 | By Ophelia BensonThe Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty, a branch of the Danish Research Agency, issued a report on January 7, 2003 that Bjørn Lomborg’s book The Skeptical Environmentalist was ‘dishonest science’. The seventeen page report explaining their reasoning provides a fascinating case study in the workings of science: it’s a small education in itself.
One thing it teaches (in case we didn’t know) is how difficult and complicated such questions are. There is no eureka moment, no Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot pacing the hearthrug while he explains how All was Revealed, no conclusive proof. There is only a huge and complex variety of evidence and the hard slog of interpreting it, there is only probability and ‘if…then’ and statistics. There … Read the rest
Dishonesty or at Least Incomprehension
Jan 13th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Danish panel says Lomborg did not comprehend the science in his cheerful environmental book.… Read the rest
What Ivory Tower?
Jan 13th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Education and politics are and should be intimately connected.… Read the rest
Case Study in Scientific Disagreement
Jan 13th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Danish panel says Political Scientist Lomborg, ‘strangely for a statistician’, uses the word ‘plausible’ often without attaching any probability to it. And there is more…… Read the rest