Tag Archives: epistemology
Postmodernism: The Destruction of Thought
[Note: The following appeared, in slightly altered form, in a previous article, but I’ve added a new beginning.] The only real way that knowledge and human progress can be derailed is by the systematic rejection of inductive reasoning, which forms the underpinnings not just of all science and the scientific-method, but of the entirety of…
The Great Electrifier Takes on Climate Change
Climate change — or global warming, if you’re antiquated — is a dead duck. It always has been. The Great Electrifier explains why:
Climate Change, National Geographic, and the War on Science
Don’t be fooled by the latest cover of National Geographic and their absurd conflation of climate change (so-called) with the other items they’ve listed on that same cover. No serious person, skeptic or believer, denies that climate changes. In fact, that’s precisely what skeptics have been saying for years: climate by definition is constantly changing,…
Free Will
A reader writes: Dear Ray Harvey: Can you prove that humans possess the faculty of choice? — Waffling Dear Waffling: Yes, I can. And so can you. But first let me point something out: in the same way that you could not ever conceive dreaming if you’re never awake, so you can never conceive choice…
Interview
The following interview, which was brief but I think penetrating, was conducted January 27, in Aspen, Colorado, and appeared in the February issue of Cunning Stunts. The questions were put forth by the interviewer, Ms. Eileen Appleton, who has graciously allowed me to reprint it here: If he’s anything — and there does seem to…
Logical Fallacies
A reader writes: Dear Ray: I’ve always been told it’s better to be shot at and missed than shit at and hit. While getting shit on obviously does suck, getting shot at means someone doesn’t like you enough to want to shoot at you in the first place. So is it really better? Scatman Dear…
Proof Of God?
A reader writes: Dear Harvey Ray: Is there proof of God? Can science prove that God doesn’t exist? Signed, Hopelessly Devoted Dear Hopelessly Devoted: No, science cannot. In fact, nothing can. Yet we can be certain that God doesn’t exist — by virtue of the very nature of proof. The meaning of proof precludes proving…
Global Warming
Politically, global warming and climate change have little if anything to do with climate science, and the fact that this subject has become such an overwhelming political issue is a fine testament to how poorly the world understands the legitimate functions of government, and why those functions are legitimate. Indeed, it turns out that the…
The Elegant Universe
A reader writes: Dear Sir: You are reported to have said that there is no order or disorder in the universe apart from what man himself puts there — this in spite of your well-known preoccupation with a fluid and congruent universe. Can you tell us how you reconcile this, with regard in particular to…
Epistemology: The Science Of Thought
Epistemology is the science of knowledge. The word derives from the Greek episteme, which means knowledge. Epistemology proper didn’t actually begin until Rene Descartes (1596-1650), but the stuff of epistemology — logic, reason, deduction, induction, et cetera — has been with us since the Ancient Greeks. Epistemology is an extraordinarily complicated discipline that starts with…
Postmodernism: The Destruction Of Thought
Postmodernism, in all its vicious variations, is a term devoid of any real content, and for this reason dictionaries and philosophy dictionaries offer very little help in defining it. And yet postmodernism has today become almost universally embraced as the dominant philosophy of science — which is the primary reason that science crumbles before our…