The paradox of polemic and related interpretive phenomena

by Dave Maier Recently I’ve been reading a couple of books attacking postmodernism and/or leftist politics, which the authors – not surprisingly – tie together as closely as they can, albeit from rather different perspectives, for maximum polemical effect. Maybe we’ll get into the gory details some other time (haven’t got very far into them yet),…

Guess

by Dave Maier I’ve always been a big fan of logic puzzles, especially Japanese ones (heyawake, nurikabe, gokigen naname, hashiwokakero), but I recently ran across another kind of puzzle which has been driving me crazy. So I thought I would share it with you, so maybe you also may be driven crazy. You’re welcome! I…

Why science critics shouldn’t be postmodernists (and vice versa)

by Dave Maier Nowadays the term “postmodernism” is synonymous with a certain sort of trendy, obscurantist philosophical nihilism, the self-consciously radical negation of solid common sense (“Words have no meanings!” “There is no truth!”). This is a shame, as it seems that one might very well criticize certain aspects of the modern era in an…