Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Pascal Bruckner Against Environmental Panic ???

I've read a few writings by a popular media philosopher named Pascal Bruckner who spends a lot of time insinuating motivations onto other's - but, never establishing any sort of firm case.  I am offended that he has chosen to attack science in a most childish manner, dressed up behind fancy words and fanciful notions that are never supported with any sort of case study grounded in real world events.  

Heck, Pascal clearly demonstrates he doesn't even understand the difference between substantial and insubstantial, see ¶3.  Though it doesn't slow down his distain for the professionals who study our planet and the information they share.

Last year over at WhatsUpWithThatWatts.blogspot.com I wrote up a detailed critique on "Essay: Carbon footprint as 'original sin'."  I've now come across another article based on his book "Fanaticism of the Apocalypse."  Here again Bruckner weaves a cynical tale supported by nothing but his own muse.

Bruckner displays not the slightest understanding of what Earth scientists do, or the information they gather, nor the real life implications of that research.  Instead he feeds right into the Libertarian/Republican handbook of smug disregard for down to earth facts with an astounding amount of unjustified self-certitude.

Since Pascal Bruckner has decided to become a pawn in their strategic attack on science and rational learning - his words deserve to be examined and exposed for the farce they are.
  
Admittedly I'm no scholar, and it would be great if someone of more credibility take on the task - but until then, here is this layperson's critical review of Pascal Bruckner's fantasy as displayed in his The Chronicle of Higher Education article "Against Environmental Panic


{originally published at my WUWTW.com}  
{I have informed The Chronicle of Higher Education... 
no response so far.}
{If anyone wants, feel free to copy and use as you see fit.}

=========================

June 17, 2013
Against Environmental Panic

By Pascal Bruckner (4200words)

¶1  In Jesuit schools we were urged to strengthen our faith by spending time in monasteries. We were assigned spiritual exercises to be dutifully written in little notebooks that were supposed to renew the promises made at baptism and to celebrate the virtues of Christian love and succor for the weak. It wasn't enough just to believe;

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Human Knowledge, Reliability and Fallibilism by Mariano Artigas

Reposted from WUWTW:

In doing some research on my next post I came across an essay by  Mariano Artigas.  Although not intended as such, it is an eye opener to the various ways contrarians have been able to misrepresent Popperian philosophy with their disingenuously contorted "necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statements" argument.


I am reposting the following essay complete and unaltered {except for adding paragraph #s, some line breaks and highlights} and hope some will find it informative and helpful in their own educational process.


For a look at Mariano Artigas' larger body of work regarding Popper visit:

The Ethical Roots of Karl Popper's Epistemology

http://www3.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/ti/artigas.htm. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

This article appears at the website of the 
University of Navarra Group of Research on Science, Reason and Faith (CRYF) 
http://www.unav.es/cryf/english/conocimientofiablidadyfalibilismo.html

Reposted under authority of CreativeCommons license NC-ND3.0 
along with much thanks to the University of Navarra.

"Human Knowledge, Reliability and Fallibilism"

by Mariano Artigas 
Napoli, 1992


¶1  One of the main subjects that we must face when we consider the image of man in our scientific age is the value of human knowledge which, in its turn, appears to be strongly dependent on our evaluation of empirical science. In this context, questions about the reliability of science occupy a central place. Jürgen Habermas has written that if we were to reconstruct the philosophical discussion of modern times as a judicial process, the only question that should be decided would be this: how can we obtain reliable knowledge? [Habermas 1968, p. 11].

¶2  It is well known that fallibilism is one of the main ideas of the Popperian philosophy and that it implies the negation of any kind of reliability.