I Hardly Recognize What I Do Well.

Some Beliefs May Be Subject To Such Instant, Brutal And Unambiguous Rejection. For Example: No Left-coiling Periwinkle Has Ever Been Found Among Millions Of Snails Examined. If I Happen To Find One During My Walk On Nobska Beach Tomorrow Morning, A Century Of Well Nurtured Negative Evidence Will Collapse In An Instant.

When We Seek A Textbook Case For The Proper Operation Of Science, The Correction Of Certain Error Offers Far More Promise Than The Establishment Of Probable Truth. Confirmed Hunches, Of Course, Are More Upbeat Than Discredited Hypotheses. Since The Worst Traditions Of "popular" Writing Falsely Equate Instruction With Sweetness And Light, Our Promotional Literature Abounds With Insipid Tales In The Heroic Mode, Although Tough Stories Of Disappointment And Loss Give Deeper Insight Into A Methodology That The Celebrated Philosopher Karl Popper Once Labeled As "conjecture And Refutation.

Contrary To Current Cynicism About Past Golden Ages, The Abstraction Known As 'the Intelligent Layperson' Does Exist - In The Form Of Millions Of Folks With A Passionate Commitment To Continuous Learning.

Ordinary Speciation Remains Fully Adequate To Explain The Causes And Phenomenology Of Punctuation.

I Despair Of Persuading People To Drop The Familiar And Comforting Tactic Of Dichotomy. Perhaps, Instead, We Might Expand The Framework Of Debates By Seeking Other Dichotomies More Appropriate Than, Or Simply Different From, The Conventional Divisions. All Dichotomies Are Simplifications, But The Rendition Of A Conflict Along Differing Axes Of Several Orthogonal Dichotomies Might Provide An Amplitude Of Proper Intellectual Space Without Forcing Us To Forgo Our Most Comforting Tool Of Thought.