The philosopher, AC Grayling, was interviewed in last Sunday’s Guardian about his new book, “The Good Book: A Secular Bible”. You really should read both the interview, and of course the book itself. To temp you, here is a small extract from the interview:
…
The Good Book mirrors the Bible in both form and language, and is, as its author says, “ambitious and hubristic – a distillation of the best that has been thought and said by people who’ve really experienced life, and thought about it”. Drawing on classical secular texts from east and west, Grayling has “done just what the Bible makers did with the sacred texts”, reworking them into a “great treasury of insight and consolation and inspiration and uplift and understanding in the great non-religious traditions of the world”. He has been working on his opus for several decades, and the result is an extravagantly erudite manifesto for rational thought.
I started out with a posting on “Woo Words“, then moved on to “Evidence not Credentials“. Now I’m adding more thoughts that will hopefully help to enrich your Bullshit detection kit.
I do hope this one is obvious, really obvious. In fact I’d be astonished if it was not, and yet so many of us still fall for it.
When somebody famous is engaged to push a specific product we all know in our heart of hearts that its just marketing hype, so why does it still happen? Well, basically because it works. The celebrity in question gets a wad of cash for their services, so they are quite happy to do or say whatever is required, and the advertiser reaps a jump in sales.
The UK’s Guardian started a live blog buildup to the Royal Wedding yesterday. It starts at 07:30, and was full of juicy gossip, but then at 11:38 this appears … We’ve received a communication from Buckingham Palace suggesting that some of the contents of this blog could contravene the Treason Felony Act of 1848. According … Read more
It may sound silly to say it, but the very clear message being delivered is this … Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter … Read more
As far as Bullshit Detection goes, I appear to be on a bit of a roll at the moment. I blogged here about spotting woo words a week ago, and that resulted in some interesting debate in reddit, so I’ve added an update to that original woo-words posting.
OK then, so what else can we add to our “Bullshit detection kit”? Well how about developing a healthy respect for evidence and learning to be skeptical about claims that are backed with nothing except credentials.
You do of course appreciate that you can obtain a degree in just about anything without actually studying or passing any exams; just pay the appropriate fee and become instantly accredited. A great example is Thunderwood college. This is a site run by Brian Dunning of Skeptoid and offers you free instant degrees. Brian is not attempting to con anybody, he simply designed the site to drive home the point that many credentials are bogus and meaningless. The mainstream academic community will of course issue valid degrees as proof that the recipient has acquired a specific level of knowledge. Unfortunately, there are also thousands of others churning out worthless credentials not recognized by the academic community, so unless the credentials are from an institution that is recognised by the mainstream academic community as an accredited organization, its meaningless.
