37 min listen
Rationally Speaking #6 - Fluffy Thinking
Rationally Speaking #6 - Fluffy Thinking
ratings:
Length:
33 minutes
Released:
Apr 10, 2010
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Fluffy Thinking is a peculiar type of uncritical thinking that sounds sophisticated, and is next to impossible to criticize frontally both because it barely has anything to do with empirical evidence, and because it is hard to articulate what, exactly, these people are saying. These people include scientific luminaries like Freeman Dyson and Paul Davies. Also, Karen Armstrong, author of "The Case for God", and Krista Tippett, author of "Einstein's God" and host of National Public Radio's "Speaking of Faith", where scientific notions are regularly distorted and mixed up with barely intelligible mystical “insights” that are put forward as profound truths.
The question is not only whether there is anything interesting in what these people are saying, but rather the much more difficult issue of why it is that smart individuals, who make their living thinking and writing about science and philosophy, are attracted by fluffy thinking.
The question is not only whether there is anything interesting in what these people are saying, but rather the much more difficult issue of why it is that smart individuals, who make their living thinking and writing about science and philosophy, are attracted by fluffy thinking.
Released:
Apr 10, 2010
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Rationally Speaking #11 - Guest Eugenie Scott on the Status of the Creationism and ID Wars: Guest Eugenie Scott updates us on the status of the intelligent design wars. Plus Eugenie's "un-pick": The website of the Institute for Creation Research. by Rationally Speaking Podcast