Yet another tiresome skeptical rant from P.Z. Myers on the occult…
Last night at the Cheltenham Science Festival, I attended a Q&A between Robin Ince and Alan Moore… Much of the talk was about Moore’s belief in magic — in a science festival, you say? Yes, and it actually made a lot of sense.
Moore has an affinity for a 2nd century oracular sock puppet, but he doesn’t worship it. He believes in magic, but he doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He also doesn’t like religion. I agreed with almost everything he said 100%…
…So keep on trusting in the sock-puppet, or (once upon a time) taking hallucinogenic drugs, or staring at crystals, or dealing tarot cards, or using random number generators to spark novelty. It really does work well, and better than relying on narrow reason, which tends not to deviate much from what has worked before.
Wha….hey?! Did I read that right? First I was like this, and then I was like hmmm. But in the end I just realised that Alan Moore is simply one huge gateway drug to the woo…and P.Z. Myers has been main-lining Moore for years.
Seriously though, nice to see P.Z. acknowledge an aspect of all this that most of us crazy irrationalists have been saying all along. Though (non-existent-)God forbid that any religious folk get similar inspiration from their faith…
