I picked up the "Mismeasure of Man" by S.J.Gould and couldn't help but think that these 'sins' are the very same grave errors one finds in much of Biblical Studies.
Reductionism: the desire to explain partly random, large-scale, and irreducibly complex phenomena by the smallest constituent parts.
Reification: the propensity to convert an abstract concept into a hard entity
Dichotomization: our desire to parse complex and continuous reality into two's
Hierarchy: our inclination to order items by ranking them in a linear series of increasing worth
4 comments:
yea, I wonder too?
It seems the more we are aware of them the better, but when we become passionate about something and seek to argue to a wider audience these fallacies are the natural way to win over audiences, and we use them for convenience.
Now this is perhaps not the case in good scholarship where our peers might ridicule us for such offences, but when we want to persuade, these become rhetorical devices for our ends.
what happened to your blog, bro?
are you attending DC this year?
Yea, first 'coffee' is on me!
Damn, I wish I was going to be in DC - I'd love to see both of you.
Then come, your house will dry itself out over time, its a cyclical process!
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