Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for July 22, 2005

Worst Argument in the World

By

“I know of an argument which, although it is almost-unbelievably bad, has not only escaped critism by philosophers, but has received the endorsement of coutless philosophers. I think it is the worst argument in the world…” and so began a note from D.C. Stove at the University of Sydney in 1986. To find out which argument he is referring to read more at …

http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/stoveworstargt.pdf .

Be sure to scroll down to the second page at the link.

Louis Hissink

By

When I started this blog it was with some trepidation as I outlined in my very first post, https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000549.html .

And I wondered whether anyone would comment. I like comments because I like to know what I might have got wrong, and what I might have got right and I like to read different perspectives and have my ideas challenged.

Louis Hissink definately gets the prize for the most comments at this blog.

Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cringe, sometimes I learn something, when I read the comments from Louis.

If you do a google search on Louis you will find comment that includes:

“Regarded as the best diamond field geologist in Australia.”

“His free time is spent researching ancient history, writing comments on environmental or mining matters and, as frequently happens, re-installing the operating system on the computer. He is a book worm and writes book reviews for Henry Thornton,
http://www.henrythornton.com/contributors.asp?contributor=9 .”

Louis has won a prize for posting the “worst argument” against global warming. Given the judge (Tim Lambert) listed other contenders as
McKitrick & Michaels, Baliunas and Soon – he can perhaps feel honoured.

There was a period recently when there were no comments from Louis. I gather he had headed off bush for 3 weeks to Wooleen,
http://www.wooleen.com.au/

Louis has written about Wooleen:
“I think it (the homestead) cost 145,000 pounds to build a century ago – wool really was the go then. Not now any more – current stocking is 2000 head from the usual 14,000. Drought is in 5/7 year cycle, so another 2 years of pain apparently.”

Thanks Louis for your contribution, for taking the time to comment.