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The Conspiracy Generator: How to Turn Any News Story Into a Conspiracy Theory in a Matter of Seconds

What will the next major world event be? It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, as an old Danish proverb says (variously attributed to Niels Bohr or Yogi Berra or Mark Twain). But here’s one thing I can predict with great confidence: whatever happens, the event will soon spark a range of conspiracy theories gainsaying the official version of events. Some people… Lees verder »The Conspiracy Generator: How to Turn Any News Story Into a Conspiracy Theory in a Matter of Seconds

Farewell to a Beautiful Mind

In memory of Dan Dennett (1942-2024) (From now on new posts in English will be published on my Substack, please subscribe there to receive my newsletter.) Dan Dennett didn’t believe in the myth of the solitary, individual genius, the person who figures it all out by himself (in the mythology, it’s always a male). In his evolutionary worldview, design always… Lees verder »Farewell to a Beautiful Mind

The Conspiracy Generator

We’re proud to present the Conspiracy Generator, an interactive, GPT-powered tool that can turn any story from your newspaper or from history books into an intriguing, shocking, mind-bending, earth-shattering, but still plausible-sounding conspiracy theory. Here’s how it works. By following three simple steps, you select your:✅ official story✅ culprit✅ motive And in a few seconds, out comes the real truth… Lees verder »The Conspiracy Generator

The Seven Laws of Pessimism

If life is better than ever before, why does the world seem so depressing? Have we just lived through one of the best years in human history? As we look at 2023 through the rearview mirror, I think that’s a defensible claim. In fact, the same thing could have been said at the end of pretty much every year since the beginning of the… Lees verder »The Seven Laws of Pessimism

How GMOs can eliminate world hunger (A conversation with Marc Van Montagu)

If there were a Nobel Prize in biology, Marc Van Montagu would certainly have won it. Almost half a century ago, the Belgian molecular biologist pioneered the use of GMO technology or genetic modification. Together with his colleague Jeff Schell at the University of Ghent, Van Montagu discovered that the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which was known to produce tumor growth in plants, has the ability to… Lees verder »How GMOs can eliminate world hunger (A conversation with Marc Van Montagu)

Forget About Overpopulation, Soon There Will Be Too Few Humans

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“Why don’t you mention the problem of overpopulation?” Whenever I give a talk about climate change and what to do about it, or about human progress during the past two centuries (or about any other topic, really), this is the one question that never fails to be asked during the Q&A. It is almost always meant to be a rhetorical one.… Lees verder »Forget About Overpopulation, Soon There Will Be Too Few Humans

I have a Substack!

I’m probably the very last person on the internet to set up their own Substack, but finally, here I am! Why now? Because I’m excited to be part of the first cohort of the Roots of Progress writing program, together with 19 other writers, intellectuals and entrepreneurs. Roots of Progress is a new nonprofit organization, founded by my fellow philosopher Jason Crawford… Lees verder »I have a Substack!

Is there anything wrong with “conspiracy theories”?

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Is believing in “conspiracy theories” irrational? Well, it depends! If by that term you merely mean “any hypothesis or explanation of an event involving a secret plot”, then obviously it isn’t. History books are full of real conspiracies: the Watergate break-in, the Iran-Contra affair, the murder of Julius Caesar, the Moscow show trials, and just about any terrorist attack or… Lees verder »Is there anything wrong with “conspiracy theories”?

In defense of scientism. Discussion on Reductio Malayalam podcast.

Here’s a marathon interview I did last week with two Indian philosophy enthusiasts on the nature of scientific knowledge, the reliability of our cognitive faculties, the limits of science, the question of scientism, the evolution of reason and adaptive misbeliefs, whether we should trust gut feelings and intuitions, the misguided principle of “methodological naturalism” in science, whether we are living… Lees verder »In defense of scientism. Discussion on Reductio Malayalam podcast.