(first published in online Daily Telegraph 12/1/2008)

Browsing through the various word-offerings in this morning’s online Telegraph, I notice that we don’t have a normal virus situation, here; we have a Norovirus. Is this like one of those Nogoviruses that presumably create the Nogoareas that Bishop Nazir-Ali was warning us about during the week? Is it worse or better than a retrovirus, and, if so, will there be a Noro movement in art and music to go with it? In any event, the answer seems to be “over-the-counter” diarrhoea treatments. Just squitting it out and drinking copious amounts of rooibos is no good, it seems.

On to another new word I learned here this morning, “counterknowledge”. It has, I learned, nothing to do with knowing which of the wintersquits remedies is the best buy in terms of ringsting avoided per pound paid, as I was hoping. Instead, it is the latest piece of name-calling the so-called rationalists and skeptics have chosen to smear the targets of their hate, lumping together ludicrous theories with well established faiths such as the Creation of the world in a smug and offensive propaganda buzz word that is nothing more than a dressed-up argumentum ad absurdam. Continue reading “Over-the-counter Counterknowledge and Nogoarrhea” →