Owen Harries writes in today's Financial Review, "On political matters, intellectuals tend to share two characteristics: they are slaves to fashion; and on the big questions, they tend to get things hopelessly wrong." Harries proceeds to give a … [Read more...] about A Herd of Independent Minds
Philosophy
Intelligent Design in Outer Space
A reader of this web-log sent me this link, with the note: I wonder what this gamma ray burst of 13 billion years ago does for the Intelligent Design argument? I have previously commented on Intelligent Design here. … [Read more...] about Intelligent Design in Outer Space
Chicken Little, Prof Lowe Pre-empts the Movie
I was going to proceed chapter by chapter through Ian Lowe's new book 'A Big Fix: Radical solutions for Australia's environmental crisis' but by the time I get to chapter 6 I'll have missed the key points, or lost my audience, or both. So here goes … [Read more...] about Chicken Little, Prof Lowe Pre-empts the Movie
Scientists as Philosopher Kings
Chapter 2 of 'A Big Fix:Radical Solutions for Australia's Environmental Crisis' by Ian Lowe (Black Inc 2005) is titled 'Defining Sustainability: What does it Mean?'. As I began reading the chapter I thought of Michael Crichton (author of Jurassic … [Read more...] about Scientists as Philosopher Kings
Intelligent Design
E-journal Online Opinion published a piece today titled Evolutionary science isn't a closed book about the pros and cons of teaching Intelligent Design (ID) in schools and universities. I read about the concept of ID in the August 15 issue of Time … [Read more...] about Intelligent Design
Herd Behaviour
Hi Jennifer I've read an interesting article, written in 1989, about 'herd behaviour'. You are probably aware of the piece anyway, but just in case I thought I'd mention it. Here's a section that looks like it relates to current controveries, even … [Read more...] about Herd Behaviour