Thursday, June 02, 2005

"Doubt - a corrosive poison"

The title above is an entry taken from the Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense, a witty compendium of tongue-in-cheek definitions poking fun at the language of anti-reason. Here are a few more good ones:
Assumption:
Something to be examined when it is our opponent's and taken for granted when it is our own

Evidence:
1. Something that can be tailored to the requirements of my arguments.
2. A tiresome thing that may conflict with something that I believe.

Opinion:
Everything. Often confused, by prepostmodern people, with entities like truth, reality, the world. "That's just your opinion," is the approved rebuke in such cases.

Positivism:
The insane, harmful, elitist idea that one should have some evidence before deciding something is true (see empiricism)

No comments: