Okay, so I was discussing the pathetic understanding of science, and especially our developing scientific understanding of us humans, among the so-called scholars of the humanities, with a co-worker of mine. I was specifically panning Deleuze and Guattari, who have written some total claptrap about science, so bad I remember cheering when I finally found someone dismissing them wholesale over it. I have some patience for Foucault, though my respect was a little tarnished by discussions suggesting he based his work on, well, more on his own sense of how things were than on source materials and so on. Actually, …
Tag: philos
Who’s More Embarrassing, Ted Haggard or Richard Dawkins?
Over at Goth House Comics you’ll find a “a really long essay about the nature of religion” which I think merits some attention, though I disagree with parts of it. It was, apparently, written in response to this interview with the wonderful, terrible, fascinating Richard Dawkins, whose latest book, The God Delusion, is on my to-read list though, with the number of books I brought back from Canada, it may be quite a while until I actually read it. (And, I should add, Elaine Pagels’ The Gnostic Gospels is on the very same reading list.) The post reminded me of …
Syriana
I just watched Syriana, and found, well, entertaining enough. There were lots of plot threads running at once, and while they all kind of came together, I could see where they were headed, mostly, about halfway in. Still, some of the ideas bandied about in the movie were interesting, if a bit disturbing. How do people deal with crippling loss? How do people deal with hopelessness? How do people deal with their own guilt? And what might the Middle East look like in a century? All interesting questions. Unfortunately, the answers to most of them, as offered in Syriana, were …
Animal Art
I’m currently reading Jared Diamond’s book The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal and I’m at the bit where he’s trying to find roots for human arts in animal art, which got me curious enough to look around online: Here’s a gallery of art by Koko and Michael, two apes. Mulatta records has put out an album of recordings of a Thai Elephant Orchestra, including samples. This essay-page is the only place online that I could find where any of the line-drawings of Siri the elephant were on display. There’s a book on her art out …
Documentary on Disbelief
After a long silence, the exxcellent Marvin of The Electric Smack Shack has posted links to Jonathan Miller’s wonderful documentary A Rough History of Disbelief, which apparently is available on Google video. Highly recommended.