1. pharyngula
  2. Mary Midgley wastes our time, once again

Mary Midgley wastes our time, once again

By pharyngula on August 28, 2010.

At least we can dismiss her latest fluff in the first sentence:

Is physical science - as some people say - omnicompetent? Can it (that is) answer all possible questions?

"As some people say" is one of the more perniciously lazy phrases in the English language. And setting up a straw man as the starting premise of an article is not encouraging. The answer to both is no. We don't know all possible questions, and science is just a tool. A very successful tool, but one with no alternative in sight (and Midgley certainly offers none).

To be fair, Midgley goes on to chatter about some very unfortunate hyperbole from Nicholas Humphrey, who seems to think we're close to solving all of science's questions, which is also an extraordinarily silly statement to make. But I can safely say that her questions are still ridiculous.

Tags
Uncategorized

More like this

I owe Nicholas Humphrey an apology
When I critized Mary Midgley the other day for her sloppy critique of Nicholas Humphrey, I also pointed out that Humphrey had apparently indulged in some unfortunate hyperbole himself, saying "So successful has it been that many scientists would now say, and even fear, that there will soon be…
Bumblin' Midgley babbles again
Is Mary Midgley supposed to be the epitome of philosophical confusion and bungling incomprehension? She's like the Emily Litella of science criticism, always going off on harebrained tangents of her own invention, but unlike Litella, nothing ever compels her to offer a meek "Never mind". Midgely…
Did the President's Nominee for Science Advisor Say He Thinks A Billion People Are Gonna Die?
No. But that's apparently not enough to keep some people from making the claim. There's a story that's making the rounds on some right wing blogs that John Holdren said, at his confirmation hearing, that he thinks that 1 billion people will die as a result of global warming by 2020. So far, that…
The Liar Paradox
The liar paradox is the statement: “This sentence is false.” Let us refer to this sentence simply as L. The paradox comes when we try to assign a truth value to L. Is it true or is it false? If we declare it to be true, then what it says must actually be the case. But it says that it is false…