Welcome.
This blog is about thinking; critical thinking. It’s about encouraging intelligent people to think intelligently, and to avoid the common logical fallacies that plague our lives.
I hold a Ph.D. in molecular medicine, and I am a professional scientist, in the sense that I earn my living through the practice of science. This doesn’t make me any more or less intelligent than anyone else, but it does mean that I’ve been privy to some very silly thinking over the years.
My hope is that this blog with encourage you to be skeptical of everything, and to accept nothing because I or anyone else says so.
The title of the blog is taken from the so-called ‘post hoc’ fallacy, which is encapsulated in the latin phrase – Post hoc, ergo propter hoc – After this, therefore because of this…
You’d be shocked how often this fallacy is used as evidence of this or that.
I hope you enjoy Propter Hoc. I very much enjoy writing it.
May 21, 2007 at 10:33 am |
“There still remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, that is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking” – from Christopher Hitchens’ new book: god is not Great – How Religion Poisons Everything. I’m reading it right now, and, having read several of your entries, heartily recommend it to you. I’m quite enjoying it. Keep up the writing. It is great to see someone trying to set everyone straight – with conviction AND science.