Although I’ve come to have important doubts about Noam Chomsky’s political work, largely through articles such as Weintraub’s, I am more and more impressed by his scientific work, in particular his comments regarding the inherent creativity and constraints of language use, often humorous – John ate a sandwich. Sandwich a ate John. – and his [...]
Not so random, obviously, but it offers a concise title. Herewith pith: “The giveaway of ideology is emotional hostility to skeptics.” For fans of bulletin board systems, I’m enclosing this appeal from Stephen Jones of SDF: So .. What can you do to help? We need largish SATA drives. If you have spares, email me [...]
Too often, as the WSJ’s puffery shows, we take scientists to be super-human, rationalists above all else, never prone to the human frailties of ego, jealousy, etc. I would argue that it’s because scientists have become our “secular priesthood“, as Chomsky observed. Dethroning God was all well and good, if one sought the facts, but [...]
Continuing along, The Wall Street Journal provides reputable cover — Give us time to consider, to test alternative hypotheses, to falsify theories—to do our work without worrying if the results support your causes. Science is a valuable and unique societal institution, but not if it is consumed by short-sighted political goals. Agreed, but once the [...]