All the Ricochet Videos

Someone asked me for the links to all the Ricochet videos featuring Claire Berlinski attending the "secret" Italian conference on political correctness, the unappreciated genius of her father, David Berlinski, and other extremely important scientific topics. That's not so easy, because the Ricochet site is really hard to navigate. But here they are, to the best of my ability to produce them.

Great Expectations Under the Tuscan Sun, June 11

This Morning's Panel: Political Correctness, June 13

Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology, June 14

Why Are Young American Scientists Too Afraid to Appear in This Video?, June 14

Why Haven't Our Great Expectations of the Sciences Been Met?, June 14

Your Questions Answered, or at Least Asked, June 15

Great Expectations: Two Memories,
June 16

Free Markets, A Lunar Eclipse, the Engines of Innovation, and Intelligent Design, June 16

From Popper to Gödel: Your Questions Answered, June 16

The most interesting new discovery for me was this: "The point of the conference was to ask: What if we've been looking at these problems in too limited a way? What if in fact, the so-called materialist hypothesis has already achieved most of what it can achieve? What if the most interesting ideas in science are precisely the ones no one wants to talk about, because they might lead to spooky metaphysical conclusions?

One presentation suggested a path from a new program for inquiry in biology toward interesting results in biotechnology. The ultra-secretive people--I may now reveal--were investors, mainly in the high-tech industry, who are at the end of their tether with orthodoxy about the ideas they are and aren't allowed to think about. They're asking themselves, "If we look at these problems in a different way, might we invent something new, something from which we can make a lot of money?" Yes, you read that right: a lot of money. Capitalism, engine of human progress, strikes again."

Of course, this is utter bilge. On the one hand, there's absolutely no reason to think that believing in imaginary sky fairies is going to help you build better hardware or software. On the other, there's no one in high-tech industries who says "you're not allowed to talk about this idea" because it brings in "spooky metaphysical conclusions". That's just some bizarre wacko fantasy.

There's only one man I know who combines these kinds of bizarre obsessions and is interested in investing: George Gilder. How much do you want to bet that Gilder was behind this foolishness?