Meme: ‘An Age-Old Argument’. The Necessity of Explanatory Power

I have come across the following picture many times. The picture involves a historical argument: There have always been explanation-seeking questions that appeared to refute a theory. Yet, the theory turned out to be successful. Conclusion: We can ignore certain explanation-seeking questions that appear to refute current beliefs. Despite the good intentions, the argument is […]

Ricky Gervais, the pull of the nature and the inevitability vs. contingency of science

The following caption of Ricky Gervais analyzing the difference between science and religion (taken from here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOi2AgNfQCg) is widely used in memes around the internet. I appreciate that Ricky Gervais speaks for science and does so in an eloquent and intuitively compelling manner. However, I want to make some (critical) comments on the topic: First […]