My Sincerest Apologies

by tristero

Dear readers,

Recently, I wrote a post criticizing Sam Harris. When it received many negative comments, I wrote a follow-up post defending my criticism of Harris. And to be frank, I liked writing both of them and felt I had made a good case. I was under the impression that Sam Harris was a legitimate, if somewhat under-intelligent and morally naive, voice who deserved at the very least to be taken seriously. Hoo, boy, was I ever wrong.

Turns out Sam Harris advocates torture. Perhaps some freshman who’s passed a philosophy course with a c+ or higher would like to decimate his I-use-the-term-loosely reasoning. It won’t take very long to expose Harris as a total fool on the subject, and I would do so myself, but I have some paint drying and frankly, watching that would be a far better use of my time.. His arguments are unworthy of serious comment. No wonder PZ Myers called Sam Harris a “dingbat”, abeit for an entirely different screwy argument he made. Apparently, his fans confuse being different with being smart and bold. Sometimes, my friends,”different” is just plain stooopid.

So, dear readers, I apologize for the waste of time dealing with Mr. Harris. I won’t do so again, except in passing. Perhaps on some other subjects he has something useful to say – maybe he’s an expert on collecting string! – but chances are good that then someone else, who knows better than to advocate torture will also say it.

Thank you, Night Light for bringing Harris’ pro-torture comments to my attention.

love,

tristero

P.S. I wrote about torture here.