Monday, September 12, 2005

Epistemology Primer

We all know things that we KNOW are so.

We all know there are things that are so that we do not know.

But can we live happily admitting that there are things that we do not know we do not know?

Apparently not.

Too often we fall prey to the sleight-of-mind demagogue who tells us the things we WANT OH SO BADLY to be so.

You will find them on television, on the op-ed and editorial pages...AND twisting "facts" in news stories to slant the meaning and effect.

I suggest none of us is careful enough in pressing the template of what we KNOW over the shadowy insubstantial reportage and pontification of dunces at least as clueless as we are.

Skepticism? You bet your Backsides !!

I just had a note from a fellow "naturalist" who can still see and who keeps me posted.

He says a Scot hiker in the Lothians came across a small brown fritillary butterfly that has not been seen north of the "Border" since 1870.

This, of course, is absolute PROOF of "global warming.