December 2011
14 posts
2 tags
Grammatically Correct, Historically Absurd
There have always been, and doubtless always will be, men who feel a strong antipathy towards certain words or expressions or particular constructions, especially with the taint of novelty about them. Usually such men do not make their objections felt beyond the circle of their friends. But occasionally an individual whose name carries weight and who is possessed with a crusading spirit offers his...
Losing My Marbles
The concept of the multiverse is compelling not only because it explains the problem of fine-tuning. As I mentioned earlier, the possibility of the multiverse is actually predicted by modern theories of physics. One such theory, called eternal inflation, is a revision of Guth’s inflation theory developed by Andrei Linde, Paul Steinhardt, and Alex Vilenkin in the early and mid-1980s. In regular...
1 tag
A Strange Handicap
One obvious reason is that, among the chattering classes, hardly anybody knows anything about it. Today’s children of the native-born bourgeoisie study cinema or gender studies or even marketing, but not so much physics or chemistry, at least in my experience. It’s indicative, perhaps, that in 2006 (the most recent year for which I could find data), foreign students earned nearly two-thirds...
3 tags
The Burthen of My Generation
Whatever the theoretical justifications underlying the left’s agenda, its biggest problem is a lack of credibility. Over the past two generations, the mainstream left has followed a social democratic program that centers on the state provision of a variety of services, such as pensions, health care, and education. That model is now exhausted: welfare states have become big, bureaucratic, and...
3 tags
Gained in Translation (Hopefully) →
A review by Peter Gordon of Jürgen Habermas’ new book An Awareness of What is Missing: Faith and Reason in a Post-Secular Age. From the New Republic.
1 tag
“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him, than can a...”
– C.S. Lewis (via missfolly)
