The birth of a conspiracy theory - Occam the Ripper

I have been giving thought lately to William of Occam. Hence my post below. In the course of my researches I downloaded his image. That is him on the extreme left. After posting on Occam below, I found my thoughts drifting to the association between Occam and razors.

The association led me in due course to thoughts of Jack the Ripper - another famous razor man. On impluse, I downloaded a police artist's sketch of Jack the Ripper and juxtaposed the sketch with Occam's profile.

Spooky eh! I know that these two are alleged to have lived in different eras. But the striking resemblance, and the razor connection are enough for me. Jack the Ripper and William of Occam are one and the same person. I shall name him Occam the Ripper. Stand by for another runaway conspiracy theory.

Faculty Follies - Occam's Manure Fork

If William of Occam were alive today, and if he had the gumption to tackle the social sciences and humanities, I'm sure he would need more than a puny little razor to work his magic.

I give you Occam's manure fork; the Occam's razor for today's academy.

Fallacy Phil's False Analogy

Phil Impugns Motives and provides an example of a False Analogy, in Making a quick buck out of eternity:

FORGET Microsoft, Boeing, KFC, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Nike and Philip Morris. All Johnny-come-latelies and also-rans. And while George Lucas deserves some credit for turning his silly Star Wars into a multi-billion-dollar franchise - covering every-thing from video games to action figures - he's the rankest of amateurs when compared with the greatest entrepreneur in history. Ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for the founder of the very first and still the mightiest of all global corporations: St Peter, first CEO of the Roman Catholic Church.

Technically he's not really fallacious as he doesn't advance an argument. Just some vitriol pointlessly directed towards one of his favourite targets. The entire opinion column continues in this vein:

This brings us back to George Lucas and his Star Wars action figures. Once again, we’re looking at knock-offs from the Catholic original. The church has been marketing its superhero for millennia, with action figures in every church, and a wide range of other goodies – rosaries, candles, Virgin Mary statues, miracles, St Christopher medals.

Wow. What a genius, coming up with such a clever metaphor all on his own. I suppose I ought to explain why Phil's analogy is poor. Well, Yoda could lift an X-Wing out of a murky swamp with no hands and his eyes closed, and don't get me started on how badass Darth Vader's "force grip" is. Though Jesus is cool and all, what with his water into wine power, he's not comparable (he doesn't even come with a light-sabre).

For an atheist, Adams is more obsessed with religion than most of the religious people I know. And if you are going to have a go at religions, I'd say there are more worthy targets than the Catholic Church. Most Catholics are fellow lefties for crying out loud Phil!

Update - Yoda and Jesus would have been best mates.















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Technorati Tagged - Fallacy, Skepticism, Impugning Motives, False Analogy.

Leunig and duck now estranged - shock photo

I did this because I can.

I didn't do it very well, not because I can't, but because I couldn't be bothered.

A cheap shot. Cheaply executed. Sweet.

More Leunig here. And here. And here.

Da Vinci Code Reviews

I haven't sullied my eyes by either reading the book or seeing the movie. However that doesn't stop me giving my opinion.

The movie was faithful to the book.

Both were crap.

Also Tom Hanks' portrayal of Leonardo Da Vinci in the movie was totally unconvincing (see picture).