Rationally Speaking

In Pursuit of Positive Skepticism

Massimo Pigliucci is a Professor of Philosophy at CUNY and author of Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science. See full bio

November 6, 2009

David Chalmers and the Singularity that will probably not come

David Chalmers is a philosopher of mind, best known for his argument about the difficulty of what he termed the “hard problem” of consciousness, which he typically discusses by way of a thought experiment featuring zombies who act and talk exactly like humans, and yet have no conscious thought (I explained clearly what I think of that sort of thing in my essay on “The Zombification of Philosophy”). Read More

October 29, 2009

Cable news: who cares?

The recent news coming out of the perennial war of ratings among cable news channels was shocking, I tell you, just shocking: CNN, which three decades ago invented the whole business of cable news, is now dead last in terms of prime time viewership! Read More

October 26, 2009

On the scope of skeptical inquiry

There has been much discussion lately on this blog and elsewhere about the relationships among skepticism, atheism, and politics. I have roundly criticized Richard Dawkins for extending scientific skepticism into areas that are more properly the domain of philosophical analysis, as well as Penn and Teller and Michael Shermer for doing the same with politics to support their libertarian views. Of course, even a cursory reader of this blog will easily find my own pieces about religion and politics, which may make it seem like I’m a sinner throwing stones at my fellow skeptics. Read More

October 14, 2009

Penn & Teller: More Bullshit!

All right, I promise to leave Penn & Teller alone for a while after this post, though I’m beginning to think that their show has run out of gas, and that they need a couple years of rest. Catching up with season 6, I just finished watching the episode on “world peace.” It has now become a very predictable pattern: P&T are effective and at the peak of their game when they take on the paranormal and other forms of pseudoscience. But, when they veer into politics, they are full of bullshit. Read More

October 8, 2009

Michael Moore’s Capitalism, a Love Story

I’m not shy about admitting that I like and even admire Michael Moore. For those of you who made it past that first sentence (this blog has some highly opinionated aficionados who don’t necessarily buy all I write), let me qualify. I do not think for a moment that Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko or, for that matter, the current release, Capitalism: a Love Story are documentaries. They are clearly not. I think of them as op-ed pieces, films that blend factual information, anecdotes and silly (but funny!) stunts to make a point, to force people to think by shaking them out of their complacency. And boy does this country need a bit of shaking and a lot more thinking. Read More

September 25, 2009

Dear Penn and Teller: Bullshit!

I like Penn & Teller, the magicians and debunkers of pseudoscience and general inanity. I regularly use clips from their show in my critical reasoning class, despite cringing every time Penn indulges in his “fuck this” and “motherfucker that” exercise in free speech (it distracts the students from the real point, not to mention the always lurking possibility of an administrator asking me about the appropriateness of foul language in a philosophy class). Heck, I even recently went to Vegas to see them in person, had a photo taken with Teller, and managed to tell him (to his surprise) about how my students enjoy stimulating discussions triggered by the duo’s antics. Read More

September 16, 2009

Fish against curiosity

Readers of this blog may begin to think that I have a personal antipathy for New York Times editorialist Stanley Fish. I don’t, really. Don’t even know the guy. And yet, somehow he manages to get criticized in writing by yours truly more often (and certainly more harshly) than Richard I-don’t-know-what’s-wrong-with-Bill-Maher-but-I’ll-endorse-his-award Dawkins. Read More

September 10, 2009

Ah, metaphysics!

The other day I went to a talk about the fall and revival of metaphysics, given by Sebastian Kolodziejczyk at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Metaphysics these days has a bad reputation even among philosophers, so I was aware of its “fall,” but I was rather curious about the possibility of a “revival.” I came out of the lecture without much conviction that the 21st century is going to see anything like a resurrection of metaphysics. Read More

September 4, 2009

The logic of skepticism

Being a skeptic is a rather lonely art. People often confuse you for a cynic, and I’m not using either term in the classical philosophical sense, of course. In ancient Greece, the cynics were people who wished to live in harmony with nature, rejecting material goods (the root of the word means “dog-like,” and there are various interpretations as to its origin). The Western equivalent of Buddhist monks, if you will. The skeptics, on the other hand, were philosophers who claimed that since nothing can be known for certain the only rational thing to do is to suspend judgment on everything. That’s not what I’m talking about. Read More

August 26, 2009

Definitions, definitions

Scientists are often assumed to be obsessed by definitions. After all, if you cannot precisely define a concept, say what a planet is, or what a biological species is, you literally don’t know what you are talking about, and how can you then possibly do science using that very same concept? And yet, the practice of science is very different, and to a surprising extent does not seem to depend on definitions of its objects of study. Read More

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