mmoa_writes

Quite possibly the only stuff that's keeping me sane during revision:



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You know how there are just some things that only hit you a while after you start thinking about something? The other day, whilst doing some volunteering, I was fortunate to indulge in a rant about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film with someone of exactly the same opinion. As we got onto the patronising 'Alice as Victorian feminist' theme, we mentioned China and then this eensy weeny cinematic 'oops' popped into my head. I'm a bit disappointed with myself that I didn't even think of it in my original critique of the film, but there you are.

As with Avatar, I suspect it's one of those things where you don't quite realise how much you dislike something - and the reasons why - until you hear someone else go on about it.

EDIT: The Magic Cure - about placebos and use in medicine 'proper'.

Well, I lol'd.

And I am very surprised that any magazine that has the audacity to call itself 'Reason' has managed to hang around for 40 years.

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Oh look, Hitchens has said something interesting and intelligent. OK, if he writes like this for Vanity Fair, why does he seem to let himself go for UK publications? Maybe it's that thing of being able to walk around in one's underwear when at home, when you wouldn't think of doing so elsewhere. Maybe they just pay him better. Now that, I could completely understand.

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How the Scientist Got His Ideas; if there's one thing this got me thinking about, was just how much I despise IDers, who have transformed the debate into one purely for or against. This is stupidity incarcante because it means if someone - who is clearly an evolutionist - talks about the 'problems' of evolution (usually meaning the problem of finding an answer to ome feature of life/existence/whatever using what we know about evolution) not only are they usually snapped up by the IDers, but they are also subject to attacks from fellow evolutionists who haven't quite taken the time to read everything they were actually trying to say.

I tink it's partly due to the fallacious tecnique employed by IDers and others of their ilk wherein any little gap or problem or issue is immediately taken as a reference to the existence of God. Not only is this bad theology (which is embarrassing enough) it is bad thinking full stop. It's sad, because there are very interesting implications - maybe more from a philosophy of science perspective, admittedly - concerning the 'failures' of evolution (which have nothing to do - as ever - with God's existence or lack thereof) just as there were about quantum mechanics, which I sometimes worry won't be fully discussed about because we have entered the discussion already wired up for the 'God or Not' argument, even when we think we're being quite open minded.

But what would I know. These are just impressions. Shared impressions, however, which is a false comfort at the best of times, I know but a comfort nonetheless.