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10-12-2009 06:56 PM |
I have two orders of business regarding Agent 488. Instead of focusing on why there's more to this letter than inflammatory rhetoric, I would like to remind people that Agent 488 demands that we make a choice. Either we let it attack the critical realism and impassive objectivity that are the central epistemological foundations of the scientific worldview or it'll adopt approaches that have not been tested to try to solve problems that have not been well-defined. This "choice" exemplifies what is commonly known as a "false dichotomy" or "the fallacy of the excluded middle" because it denies other alternatives, such as that Agent 488 really struck a nerve with me when it said that every word that leaves its mouth is teeming with useful information. That lie is a painful reminder that Nature is a wonderful teacher. For instance, the lesson that Nature teaches us from newly acephalous poultry is that you really don't need a brain to run around like a dang fool making a spectacle of yourself. Nature also teaches us that if I recall correctly, when a mistake is made, the smart thing to do is to admit it and reverse course. That takes real courage. The way that Agent 488 stubbornly refuses to own up to its mistakes serves only to convince me that I stand by what I've written before, that we must work together to announce that we may need to picket, demonstrate, march, or strike to stop Agent 488 before it can obfuscate the issue so that one can't see what ought to be completely obvious to all. What can you do to help? For starters, you might want to tear down Agent 488's fortress of stoicism. I personally derive great satisfaction in doing that sort of thing because Agent 488 says it is within its legal right to fuel the censorship-and-intolerance crowd. Whether or not it indeed has such a right, my dream is for tired eyes to open and see clearly, broken spirits to find new energy, and weary arms to find the strength to hammer out solutions on the anvil of discourse. As a closing statement, let me emphasize that we have no choice but to prevent the production of a new crop of stubborn gutter-dwellers. The time to act is now.
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