Humphrey Clarke is not impressed with Jason Rosenhouse’s recent review of Galileo Goes to Jail. Rosenhouse’s reaction to the book demonstrates the difficulties of refuting the set of comfortable myths that people on both side of the science-religion debate tend to subscribe to. Although you might succeed in denting them, you will commonly find that… Continue reading
I’m reading the Fodor/Piatelli-Palmarini book now, but John Wilkins is not impressed. Jerry Fodor is a smart guy in his field, but if this is his argument, it is childish. This, which is called “referential opacity” in philosophy (“You know your father. You do not know the Masked Man. Therefore the masked man is not… Continue reading
Three things media publishers still don’t know about how the digital future is going to go.
The temple begat the city. Göbekli Tepe—the name in Turkish for “potbelly hill”—lays art and religion squarely at the start of that journey. After a dozen years of patient work, Schmidt has uncovered what he thinks is definitive proof that a huge ceremonial site flourished here, a “Rome of the Ice Age,” as he puts… Continue reading
Sean Trende takes Paul Krugman to the wood shed: Let’s also be clear that an awful lot of this spending is Obama’s spending, not Bush’s. The summary tables for Bush’s last budget (FY09) can be found here. Bush wasn’t doing ten-year budgeting, but his outlays for 2011 were $3.1 trillion, for 2012 were $3.2 trillion… Continue reading