Quote: The modish cause of today’s chattering classes, says Brendan O’Neill, is overpopulation. They thrill to hear how a world of seven billion people is imposing an “unbearable strain on nature’s limited larder”. They rush to the London theatre where an Oxford don has been giving “a lecture dolled up as a drama” on the …
Continue reading ‘Ingenuity will save us from starvation?’ »
I finished Redondi’s book on Galileo, possibly the worst written book I have ever encountered. So, for those who are interested, I will try to sum it up in accessible English, and preferably in one paragraph. That will relieve you all from having to read it. The trouble started in Rome with Galileo’s book ” …
In his Assayer of 1623, Galileo explained his notion of the difference between the qualities, mostly found by touch, that are inherent in bodies (weight, roughness, smoothness, etc.) and those that are in the mind of the observer (taste, color, etc.)–in other words, the difference between what we call primary and secondary qualities. In this discussion he …
Epicurus believed that everything is made up of invisible particles that are in constant motion, clashing with one another, coalescing, falling apart and decaying. These particles , or atoms, are indestructible and immortal. The forms they coalesce into are temporary, but the constituent parts are eternal. This idea became increasingly accepted from the 17th century …
There was no single moment of creation, but a gradual evolution, with many false starts and dead ends. Various tools were added to help species survive. Eyes are a good example. But survival is not a foregone conclusion. Many species have been and gone, and maybe we are in self-destruct mode ourselves owing to selfishness, …
Epicurus taught that there was no intelligent design. The particles that make up the universe, you, me, the animals and the trees, have not been put together by an unseen hand, but are made up of myriads of atoms that over eons of time have coalesced or broken apart by accident. That we have stars …
Immanuel Kant taught that enlightenment was a process, not a state, namely the process of thinking for oneself, and therefore living autonomously without submitting yourself to group-think and conformity with all those around you. Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another…..Sapere Aude! …
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called “alarmist” for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote “in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and …
Another triumph of liberty over the common man! BPA is found in a host of plastics, including baby bottles and food containers, that have been linked by one hundred independent published studies to adverse health effects. BPA can mimic estrogen and miniscule amounts introduced to fetuses or infants can , according to scientist Frederick vom …
The democratically supported ban on handguns in the District of Columbia is being challenged in the Supreme Court today. In addition to the ban DC requires rifles and shotguns kept in private homes to be unloaded or to have a trigger lock. You would think that to be entirely reasonable. I can’t imagine why I …
" Brazil is set to produce most of its biodiesel from soya beans, which have virtually no advantage over conventional fuels in terms of overall greenhouse gas emissions, let alone the millions of hectares of tropical forest that have been cleared for large-scale soya plantations. Automatically classifying biofuels as renewable energy regardless of how they …
Recent findings from a poll of 52 environmental experts and 36 climate researchers, who were asked to rank regions at greatest risk of climate change: One year from now: Indian summer monsoon is destabilized and erratic. Could flip chaotically, with floods one year and drought the next. 10 years from now: Arctic ice melts (high …
“The flow of immigrants into the US has reduced the US white population from 90% to 70% in 40 years, and will push it below 50% by 2050.” Quoted by Eric Kaufman reviewing “God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis, by Philip Jenkins*
Immanuel Kant taught that enlightenment was a process, not a state, namely the process of thinking for oneself, and therefore living autonomously without submitting yourself to group-think and conformity with all those around you. Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity, immaturity being the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another…..Sapere Aude! …
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” * If being an Epicurean means anything it must mean thinking for yourself . I live in a city where there is one readable newspaper. One goes to dinner parties and one hears the issues and …
