The Hump of the Camel

Let me first return to Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, which I’ve mentioned a couple of times before, and especially here (hat-tip to Clinton Ohlers’s work), since it can be used to explore many aspects of modern science, especially in relation to faith. Continue reading →

The spontaneous grass-roots occupation of central London last week, in order to force the government to implement drastic climate-change measures by democratic … civil disobedience, immediately reminded me of the equally spontaneous demonstrations of my youth that turned out, in due course, to be orchestrated by highly motivated societal manipulators, with highly ideological agendas. Continue reading →

Our four year old granddaughter had a slight melt-down on Wednesday. She’d been with us for nearly the whole week, and for breakfast enjoyed all kinds of healthy and less healthy cerials. However, just before the relevant meal that morning she conversationally mentioned that the last time she was here, she’d had breakfast that went “pop.” This was rapidly identified as Rice Crispies. Continue reading →

Over at Peaceful Science, I have been labelled by one poster as a “climate change denialist,” which is more interesting for the way the diagnosis – or actually, slogan – is used to foreclose discussion of a factual story I cited, rather than anything else. “Denialism” is one of those many Newspeak words designed specifically as a demonization-label. It’s used primarily of climate change science (where the “science-deniers” are often scientists doing the wrong research or declining to doctor their data to fit the consensus), and of “creationism” so called, where it may label, once more, qualified scientists proposing “the wrong kind of theory,” or those supporting more obviously unlikely explanations, indiscrimately.

In other words, the “denialist” words are descriptively useless. The lesson is to refuse to use such words at all, and be highly suspicious when anybody else does. Unfortunately that means living in a constant state of suspicion, nowadays. Continue reading →