If I Have Any Insight

Skepticism's Bad Rap Arises From The Impression That, However Necessary The Activity, It Can Only Be Regarded As A Negative Removal Of False Claims. Not So... Proper Debunking Is Done In The Interest Of An Alternate Model Of Explanation, Not As A Nihilistic Exercise. The Alternate Model Is Rationality Itself, Tied To Moral Decency--the Most Powerful Joint Instrument For Good That Our Planet Has Ever Known.

When We Seek A Textbook Case For The Proper Operation Of Science, The Correction Of Certain Error Offers Far More Promise Than The Establishment Of Probable Truth. Confirmed Hunches, Of Course, Are More Upbeat Than Discredited Hypotheses. Since The Worst Traditions Of "popular" Writing Falsely Equate Instruction With Sweetness And Light, Our Promotional Literature Abounds With Insipid Tales In The Heroic Mode, Although Tough Stories Of Disappointment And Loss Give Deeper Insight Into A Methodology That The Celebrated Philosopher Karl Popper Once Labeled As "conjecture And Refutation.

If Evolution Almost Always Occurs By Rapid Speciation In Small, Peripheral Isolates, Then What Should The Fossil Record Look Like? We Are Not Likely To Detect The Event Of Speciation Itself. It Happens Too Fast, In Too Small A Group, Isolated Too Far From The Ancestral Range.

Charles Darwin Viewed The Fossil Record More As An Embarrassment Than As An Aid To His Theory.

If There Is Any Consistent Enemy Of Science, It Is Not Religion, But Irrationalism.