1. Religion ? Einsteinian or Supernatural

Comment #90862 by kareldepauw on November 26, 2007 at 2:15 pm

Melanie Phillips published another distasteful rant in today's Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=496394&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=256.)

Compare it with the following from a letter by Rosalind Franklin to her father in 1940:

"You frequently state, and in your letter you imply, that I have developed a completely one-sided outlook and look at everything and think of everything in terms of science. Obviously my method of thought and reasoning is influenced by a scientific training - if that were not so my scientific training will have been a waste and a failure. But you look at science (or at least talk of it) as some sort of demoralising invention of man, something apart from real life, and which must be cautiously guarded and kept separate from everyday existence. But science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment. Your theories are those which you and many other people find easiest and pleasantest to believe, but so far as I can see, they have no foundation other than they lead to a pleasanter view of life (and an exaggerated idea of our own importance).

I agree that faith is essential to success in life (success of any sort) but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e. belief in life after death. In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvement of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining. Anyone able to believe in all that religion implies obviously must have such faith, but I maintain that faith in this world is perfectly possible without faith in another world."

2. In honour of Dan Dennett

Comment #77507 by kareldepauw on October 9, 2007 at 1:01 pm

Steven Jay Gould? A minor polemicist from the Dennett-Dawkins era ...

3. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #62095 by kareldepauw on August 8, 2007 at 6:27 am

Not so long ago Ms Philips paraded her abysmal ignorance by taking up the cause of the MMR-vaccine-causes-autism brigade and now we have her expertise on the big bang, the origin of life and the Cambrian era. Truly, 'Gegen Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens!'

4. The Courtier's Reply

Comment #14944 by kareldepauw on December 27, 2006 at 3:17 am

Brings to mind the words of the immortal HL Mencken on such occasions :
'One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.' (with thanks to James 'the Amazing' Randi!)