Monday, April 20, 2015

Rationality

I buy CDs from “The Great Courses,” a company that provides college level courses from various professors..  I just finished one by a Lafayette professor on the “Renaissance and Reformation.”

The course ends with Newton and Galileo and the rise of the Enlightenment, when rationality began to replace superstition and received wisdom.  Or so I thought.

I just read a recent “Harper’s Index” which provided the following statistics:
Percentage of Americans who believe that vaccines are safe and effective:  53.
Percentage of Americans who believe that houses can be haunted by ghosts:  54.


That whirring sound you hear is Newton and Galileo spinning in their graves.

3 comments:

  1. 30% of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on 9/11.

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  2. Dr. Christman, I just checked out "great courses" and if I ever get time, I would love to take one of those but they are not cheap! Have you ever tried a MOOC? They are free.

    ReplyDelete
  3. They aren't cheap, but neither is college. By the way, what is a MOOC?

    ReplyDelete