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Category Archive for 'K-O'

Is a pretty sure sign of confusion. Here, in reference to the “Science is Real” portion of those signs, is Richard Feynman: Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says […]

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Worth While

Arnold Kling hits this one out of the park. Here he is on “creating worthlessness”: The gap between the college-educated and the less-educated is arguably due to differential treatment by government programs and billionaire philanthropists. We create a well-paying job for a college-educated ZMP in the “sustainability office” of a government agency or industry trade […]

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The purpose of science is not to be “settled” as nothing can be settled – unless you claim to have met the “maker” of the universe. Those of us who claim to be in pursuit of capital “T” truth are also fooling ourselves. Sure, the pursuit of something MORE truthful is surely worthy, but we […]

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The Universality of Science

From the wonderful Freeman Dyson, There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. But there is one common element in these visions. The common element is rebellion against the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing […]

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We can debate to the cows come home whether there IS an absolutely definitive objective truth. I get it. But the desire to know more, to be better, is a bit different. I content that many of our ills today emanate from our unwillingness to suggest that there are things that are more right than […]

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Emersonian Wisdom

A good friend (CD) e-mails me some choice pieces from Emerson’s essay on self-reliance. I think these are useful to keep in mind as the whirlwind of identity consumes us these days … “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great […]

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It is good intellectual practice (probably not dinner party practice) to take your ideas until they can go no further. If I had one magic wand to wave, one feature I might consider is that all of our attempts to be liked or at least not appear to be one of the deplorables were seriously […]

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Leo Rosten’s delightful short story on an “Infuriating Man” …

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One of the most shocking reads from the past couple of years has been Thomas Leonard’s Illiberal Reformers. The book goes through, in gulp-worthy detail, the history of the rise of the “Progressive” movement’s support for various labor market interventions and immigration policies. Almost all of it is hard to reprint here, but the idea […]

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Why Are Atoms So Big?

From the Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume 1, Chapter 2: Why Are Atoms So Big? Why are atoms so big? Why is the nucleus at the center with the electrons around it? It was first thought that this was because the nucleus was so big; but no, the nucleus is very small. An atom has […]

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