Utopia, you are standing in it!

“Ideology is a menace” Paul Collier says in his forthcoming book The Future of Capitalism and I couldn’t agree more: ideology (and by extension morality) “binds and blinds”, as psychology professor Jonathan Haidt describes i. And ideology, especially utopian dreams by dedicated rulers, is what allows – indeed accounts for – the darkest episodes of humanity. There is a strange dissonance among people for whom political positions, ideology and politics are supremely important:

• They portray their position as if supported by facts and empirical claims about the world (or at least spit out such claims as if they did believe that)
• At the same time, believing that their “core values” and “ideological convictions” are immune to factual objections (“these are my values; this is my opinion”)

My purpose here is to illustrate that all political positions, at least in part, have their basis in empirically verifiable claims about the…

In 1969, Colonel Luke Quinn, a U.S. Army Air Force officer in World War II, was diagnosed with inoperable gallbladder cancer. Surprisingly, he was referred to Dr. DeVita, the lymphoma specialist at National Cancer Institute, by the great Harvard pathologist Sidney Farber — famous for developing one of the most successful chemotherapies ever discovered. Nobody imagined back then that Colonel Luke Quinn, a wiry man with grey hair and a fierce frown with his unusual and likely incurable cancer, would significantly impact how we look at cancer as a disease.

Having been coerced to take up the case of Colonel Luke Quinn, despite gallbladder cancers not being his specialty, Dr.DeVita began to take a routine history, much to the annoyance of Luke Quinn who was used to being in command. Though Quinn glared at Dr.DeVita for reinitiating another agonizing round of…

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin on November 30, 1667 –only a handful of years after the end of Puritanical rule in England– to an English mother and an English father, who died of syphilis just before Jonathan was born, supposedly the disease was contracted while he was away from home sleeping in a pair of “dirty sheets.” Jonathan was an only child, raised by various friends and family members. His English lineage as well as Irish ethnicity together affected his sense of civic duty as he maintained a lifelong sympathy for the Irish struggle. His upbringing was of an upper-crust variety among Anglo-Irish ruling class. He attended Kilkenny School from 1674-1682 and then Trinity College in Dublin from 1682-1686.

In 1689, Swift moved to England to reside at Moor Park in Surrey where he served as secretary to its owner, Sir William Temple, a retired diplomat who had pretensions…

The politicians seem to have steered clear of the controversy over matauranga Maori and science in which the Royal Society of New Zealand has become embroiled.

This is perturbing. The meaning of “science” in this country – and how it is taught – will be influenced by the way the controversy is resolved.  So, too, will the difference between truth and belief.

Soon the government will be evaluating feedback after launching the Te Ara Paerangi – Future Pathways Green Paper to prompt a consultation on the future of the country’s research, science and innovation science system.

Associate science minister Ayesha Verrall ominously said at the launch:

“Te Tiriti needs to be embedded right across the design and delivery of the system, and more opportunities need to exist for mātauranga Māori.” 

Does she mean opportunities for a belief system? An alternative view of the world? Or what?

She has also declared: