From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Tue May 09 2000 - 07:02:40 MDT
On Sunday, May 07, 2000 7:15 PM QueeneMUSE@aol.com wrote:
> > Granted, they do make
> > reading more pleasurable, but they can also lull one into agreement
merely
> > because the author seems pleasant, witty, and an all around nice
person.
>
> Actually he seems quite a disagreeable man. I simply don't disagree with
his
> politics as much you do.
But the point was not his politics as such or even my disagreement with
them, but whether they influenced the rest of his thinking. I contend they
do. (You (plural) might have noticed, I've very thin skin when in comes to
biology.:)
Also, in his _The Mismeasure of Man_, I think his goal is quite clear: to
blacken the notion of general intelligence so badly as to make it completely
unpalatable. This he does not only by direct assault -- which, by the way,
he fails at -- but also by juxtaposing it with phrenology and the like.
I.e., he tries to associate what he does not like but might have some
credence with what is generally thought to be ridiculous.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
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