Tim > Recent Status Updates

“The Poet used to say we all have a particular topography in which we feel ourselves at home, though not all of us are fortunate enough to find the landscape which makes us so aware of that thing called ‘the soul’. It is mountains for some, deserts for others, wide open plains for the most obvious in our midst. But you and I… we are creatures of water”

"You think the world is a line and I think it's a circle"

Book is crazy good

"Mann begin with a hypothesis that the global temperature record had been pretty stable for 900 years and then in the 20th century it soared up ... Mann put it 'one set of tree-ring records' was 'of critical importance' in conjuring his stick.. only because a tree ring that produces a hockey-stick is given 390 times the weight of a tree ring that does not."

"That mentality cannot coexist with an esteem for the truth and I believe is responsible for some of the unfortunate trends in recent intellectual life... The inevitable reaction: a culture of 'politically incorrect' shock jocks who revel in anti-intellectualism & bigotry, emboldened by the knowledge that the intellectual establishment has forfeited credibility in the eyes of the public" 2002 Pinker

"The denial of human nature has spread beyond the academy and has led to a disconnect between intellectual life and common sense... The Problem is not just that claims are preposterous but that writers did not acknowledge they were saying things that common sense might call into question. This is the mentality of a cult, in which fantastical beliefs are flaunted as proof of one's piety"