> [From the current Chronicle of Higher Education]
> In Studying the Stubborn Mind, What Is the Upside?
>
> By John Horgan
.....
> The benefits of scientific knowledge must outweigh the
benefits of faith. Otherwise, why practice science at all?
Why do these idiots keep associating religion and science as if these things are moving in opposite directions?
This guy Horgan cracks me up. His earlier work, what was it, The End of Science ?? Whatever. He does all these interviews and then, after the interview is over, he writes a psychological profile of each person he talked to. Most of these folks are depicted as being scared little (genius) (of course) babies trying to preserve their little corner of the university against all reason... (which points to "the end of science").
Stent: "a crack" and an "ironist" (for linking antihumanist philosophy to the low self-esteem of black youth).
Popper: "his... work may be best understood in psychanalytic terms... his relationship with authority figures..."
Feyerabend: a hypocrite for going to the doctor after rejecting "western rationality" as universal.
Gould: a Marxist in "fear of his own field's potential for closure."
Chomsky: a wishful thinker "exhibiting just another odd spasm of self-defiance."
Geertz: an "ironic" social scientist who peddles away just to "give us something to do."
I could go on... but really, why bother.
ken