The “No True Scientist” Fallacy:
In his 1975 book Thinking About Thinking, philosopher Anthony Flew outlined a form of argument that he dubbed the “No True Scotsman” fallacy:
Argument: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Reply: “But my uncle Angus likes sugar with his porridge.”
Rebuttal: “Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Read the whole thing.
(Via First Thoughts.)
Richard S. Lindzen: The Climate Science Isn't Settled - WSJ.com:
Is there a reason to be alarmed by the prospect of global warming? Consider that the measurement used, the globally averaged temperature anomaly (GATA), is always changing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and occasionally—such as for the last dozen years or so—it does little that can be discerned.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Campaign Standard.)
A lot of people are spun up over the material stolen from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Some are spun up over the material, some are spun up over the stealing, some are spun up over others being improperly or inadequately spun up themselves.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Disputations.)
ClimateGate: The Very Ugly Side of Climate Science - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com:
When we think about “scientists,” most of us probably envision people toiling away in the lab or the field, accumulating and analyzing data in order to test theories, leaving their personal biases at home, scrupulously considering any confounding data or theories and willfully distancing themselves from the political implications of their research.
Read the whole thing.
Whatever it is we’re doin’… ain’t workin’!:
I don’t know how many times my own proposals, or those of others I have heard about, were rejected because of "young people". "No, no. We have to do [FILL IN BLANK] for young people".
Read the whole thing.
Occasionally the question comes up as to why I get my news from blogs instead of conventional big media news sources.
Read the whole thing.
The relatively abysmal state of Catholic education and literacy is making for a lot more heat and very little light when Church teaching on moral principles is concerned. For example, the phoney war Rep. Kennedy has been waging on the Catholic Church for his own political advantage has been illustrative of this problem. Bishop Tobin has been exceptional amongst his brother bishops in that he has not let the calculated ignorance of the scion of the Kennedy clan to go unremarked. He has been temperate and reasonable in his dealings with the CINO politiican. The resulting circus of condemnations from the ignoranti who were, no doubt, educated in the "Spirit of Vatican II" and little else, has been proof positive that the revolution in catechesis since the Second Vatican Council has been a spectacular failure. Could this be one of the most illiterate Catholic generations ever?
So here is a little light to dispel the darkness:
Abortion, Capital Punishment, and War — One of These Things is Not Like the Other:
Ed Stoddard of Reuters’ religion blog Faithworld carries a roundup of the skirmish between Congressman Patrick Kennedy, the son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, has claimed that Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin.
Read the whole thing.
(Via First Thoughts.)
by Marcus Grodi One of the more commonly shared experiences of Protestant converts to the Catholic Church is the discovery of verses "we never saw." Even after years of studying, preaching, and teaching the Bible, sometimes from cover to cover, all of a sudden a verse "we never saw" appears as if by magic and becomes an "Aha!" mind-opening...
Read the whole thing.
(Via New Advent World Watch.)
or so Bill Buckley once said back in the sixties. I wasn't sure if he was being facetious. Now in my old age, I see the wisdom. Limited to choices that look like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, they can at least keep us entertained through the show-democracy that we have settle for.
On this basis, I quite enjoy the madness that arises whenever Sarah Palin is in the spotlight. And I'm not the only one to notice:
AP Goes Full Sullivan on Palin:
...devotes ***11*** freakin' reporters to pore over ghost-written piece of self-promotional fluffery.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)
We’re sorry, your appointment tomorrow with Dr. Hasan has been canceled.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Southern Appeal.)
I'm sitting at home wrestling unsuccessfully with some virus or other. I've been spoiled by relative resistance to diseases over the year. When the rest of the family gets ill, I merely got tired and grumpy. But the years are catching up.
This has been a lovely Autumn, something we don't get every year. So, walking to work has sent me into reveries about Fall colours, dying, death and re-birth. Why do we associate Autumn with starting out? The school year begins. Football and Hockey start over. And yet Nature is retreating, preparing for the sleep of Winter
And does any of this tell us something about ourselves when we enter our own personal Autumn? I would argue that Nature, beautiful in every season, is at it's best now: Colourful, brilliant, especially on the grey days that we're likely to see. Are we at our best in our Autumn?
Thomas Aquinas apparently said that we reach our prime from 50 to 70 years of age. Is this our Autumn? Should we start out anew in these late months of our life, armed with experience, education and intelligence? Well, experience anyway.
The colourful leaves drop, winter's sleep ensues. But beneath the white coat the dead leaves are preparing to nourish new life in the Spring. If we refuse to live our lives to their peak at these late stages, are we denying those to come nourishment for their Spring? Didn't our parents and their generation give themselves completely to life, enriching us in the process?
Random thoughts at a keyboard while recovering from one of life's little insults.
Schism! Denial! Infighting! Name calling! And that's just among the atheists...:
The God Delusion made me ashamed to be an atheist...
Read the whole thing.
Oh my, I do love the cool, calm, and rational thinking...:
Mercy! The man is a wit wrapped in a genius outfit, swaddled in sassy, deep-fried in searing sarcasm, and smothered in spicy polemics. Throw in a 20 oz. lemonade and a Charles Darwin action figure and you have a super-duper Man of Science value meal that kids ages 6 to 12 can enjoy—well, at least until they throw up and grow up.
Read the whole thing.
In regard to Dawkins' bigotted rant, Damien Thompson at the Telegraph asks a pertinent question:
The peg for this piece? The Pope’s offer to make special arrangements for Anglicans converting to Rome, a matter I would have thought was none of Prof Dawkins’s business. But I’m not going to bother to argue with any of his points, because these are the ravings of a man who appears to have lost all sense of proportion. Seriously: is there something wrong with him?
The answer is clearly yes.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Lex Communis.)
EARLY RETURNS | Midwest Conservative Journal:
The RCC can reach into its sofa cushions and find more peeps than attend Episcopal churches.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)
It comes from today's classic Krauthammer column on the White House's war on Fox:
Defend Fox from the likes of Anita Dunn? She's been attacked for extolling Mao's political philosophy in a speech at a high school graduation. But the critics miss the surpassing stupidity of her larger point: She was invoking Mao as support and authority for her impassioned plea for individuality and trusting one's own choices. Mao as champion of individuality? Mao, the greatest imposer of mass uniformity in modern history, creator of a slave society of a near-billion worker bees wearing Mao suits and waving the Little Red Book?
Read the whole thing, as they say.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Campaign Standard.)
As the Second Vatican Council developed, traditional Catholics in England were distressed because they saw Rome giving up the Old Latin Mass for a vernacular both shallow and shabby. Further, as Evelyn Waugh put it, "This was the Mass for whose restoration the Elizabethan martyrs had gone to the scaffold. St. Augustine, St. Thomas à Becket...
Read the whole thing.
(Via New Advent World Watch.)
Liberals are beginning to twit.
They are just warming up, but soon it will be a grand mal twit.
Read the whole thing.
Standing on My Head: Personal Ordinariate - the Background:
Daily Telegraph religion journalist Damien Thompson is sometimes a bit gossipy for my liking, but in this article he does an inside analysis on some of the other major things happening in and behind this week's stunning announcement of Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Lex Communis.)
the News from Rome is the inspiration for this break in silence. My reading of this is that the old man is moving the establishment against it's will. One report from England seems to confirm this. Four-plus years in and the Pope is slowly but steadily moving the bureaucracy towards his idea of ecumenism.
And the announcement before an actual Apostolic Constitution is finalized signals two things to me. First, the Vatican is getting a little more media-savvy. Second, there were rumblings from the establishments (in London and Rome) that the move would be sabotaged with malicious "leaks" if Rome waited for the text to be ready. Talks with the Anglicans will continue, of course. It's just that there will be less and less to talk about.
Consider what some wiser heads than mine have to say about this news:
Fr. George Rutler (convert from Anglicanism) on new Anglican provision:
On CNA Fr. George Rutler comments on the new Anglican provisions. My emphases and comments:
October 20, 2009
Fr. Rutler discusses Vatican’s Anglican provision
By Fr. George Rutler *
Editor’s Note: Fr. George Rutler, a convert from Anglicanism, was asked by CNA what his reaction is to the Vatican’s new Anglican provision. Fr. Rutler’s reply follows.
It is a dramatic slap-down of liberal Anglicanism and a total repudiation of the ordination of women, homosexual marriage and [this is important] the general neglect of doctrine in Anglicanism.
Read the whole thing.
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"Thinking with the Church begins with thinking"
Father Richard Neuhaus
