Showing posts with label Karl Popper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karl Popper. Show all posts

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Just a thought

To attack a man for talking nonsense
is like finding your mortal enemy

drowning in a swamp
and
jumping in after him with a knife.


Karl Popper

Friday, August 31, 2007

To be fair against Mr Akyol

It's not easy to lose twice in row.

Therefore here, to be fair against Mr. Akyol, quasi with open visor an announcement.

But let's first read the final passage of his reply to Mr Bekdil:

This “theory of taqiyya,” which Mr. Bekdil repeatedly refers to, is an “unfalsifiable” idea, to use a term coined by political philosopher Karl Popper. What this means is that the person accused with “taqiyya” can never falsify that. The more he rejects the accusation that he is willing to destroy the secular republic, the more the ultra-secularists become convinced about the imagined conspiracy he supposedly cooks up. It is like believing that all top politicians are freemasons; the fact they deny this would only prove how effectively the secret brotherhood works. It is a pity that such an immature paranoia is shared not only by the superficial demagogues of secular fundamentalism, but also otherwise reasonable and sophisticated minds like Mr. Bekdil. I am sure he can do better than that.

Hope this was green enough, and everybody could read.

Now, there is (almost) no doubt that Mr Akyol is a talented writer. I should like to compare him with my friend Tetrapilotomos, a writer who would not write for reasons that I shall probably never understand.
Anyway, if I did so and came to the conclusion that ... that ... that Mr Akyol were more talented than Tetrapilotomos, (I suppose) according to Mr Akyol (who seems to have read Karl Popper) this would be unfalsifiable.

This said, I promise Mr. Akyol that next time he will raise his sword ... hm ... his feather (what a picture in these times!) to take up the cudgels for praising so-called intelligent design, he will be asked to falsify, that is: to prove or declare false.

The Peace of the Night.

Postscriptum: Apropos "mature paranoia", Mr Akyol. Do you think Mr Bekdil is psychotic? Language, Sir, language!

And be careful with your answer.
As Tetrapilotomos uses to say: I do always mean what I say, but I wouldn't say all I mean.