“The New York Times obtained the documents, which the church fought to keep secret, from…” It appears we are once again going to be seeing these words in the newspapers. A lot.
M. John Harrison on Ian McEwan’s latest novel, Solar: For some readers it will return to McEwan a little of the credibility he seemed to be working so hard to lose with novels such as Saturday and On Chesil Beach; others may require more of him. I didn’t realize British literati think McEwan was jettisoning… Continue reading
Tom Bethell and the Romance of Scientific HeresyBack in November I linked to Stephen Barr’s post spanking American Spectator columnist Tom Bethell for his long held, ideological grudge against Einstein –and further, his irresponsibly uncritical championing of a pet theory devised by his friend and fellow traveler, the late Petr Beckmann–which Bethell has now summarized… Continue reading
Darwin and Teleology
Brandon Watson has an excellent post on Darwin and teleology: The most important is that the word ‘teleology’ is ambiguous, and was already ambiguous in Darwin’s time. By ‘teleology’ you can mean Paleyan teleology, in which organisms exhibit a design plan that is explained by the imposition of a designer in a special creation at… Continue reading Darwin and Teleology
Four Things Publishers Do Know–about the future of digital publishing. Most important (to me, as a writer who wants to sell books): Public literary discussion is dying. At least, if you read only print media. As newspaper book reviews get cut and boutique literary magazines struggle for survival on meagre Arts Council handouts, it has… Continue reading