Stellingen van deze week

Greek authors, despite their attempts at objectivity, became slaves of mythical thinking whenever they tried to explain the invisible. Modern medicine also makes use of imagination when faced with the limits of what is available to observation, even though those limits are constantly being extended.
Maribel Adame, 4 april (geneeskunde)

Although general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot yet be married into one physical theory, their combined epistemology is already featured in multimedia and computer games; by going back to the classical ideal of faithfully representing the outside world, these modern works of art can surpass even T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land in their use of the philosophies of knowledge which follow from both relativity and quantum mechanics.
Jasper van Wezel, 4 april (theoretische natuurkunde)

Because consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, the internet should by now have developed an idea of its own existence; to enable it to eventually communicate that idea to us, all we need to do is to allow it sufficient freedom to evolve.
Jasper van Wezel, 4 april (theoretische natuurkunde)

The fact that the recently discovered 4500-year-old wooden structures at Durrington Walls form the largest known Neolithic village in Britain indicates that 'Stonehenge' was a palace and the seat of a powerful king rather than a cathedral or observatory.
Jasper van Wezel, 4 april (theoretische natuurkunde)

De verplichte toevoeging van een lijst met 'stellingen' aan het Leidse proefschrift is evenzeer een anachronisme als de toevoeging van een wormvormig aanhangsel aan het menselijke spijsverteringsorgaan: het oorspronkelijke doel (het testen van de academische scherpzinnigheid van de kandidaat en het losmaken van discussie in de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap) is reeds lang geleden verloren gegaan. Net zoals in het geval van hun anatomische evenknie zouden daarom ook de 'stellingen' uit de lijst van reglementaire vereisten verwijderd moeten worden bij het geringste teken van ongemak.
... Au.
Jasper van Wezel, 4 april (theoretische natuurkunde)

It is not without irony that the current historiography of the bi-polar struggle between the colonizer and the colonized serves the ruling class of Sri Lanka which benefited most from the colonial encounter by cooperating with the Dutch.
Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, 4 april (geschiedenis)

If Asia is a western construct, as Edward Said suggests, what about Paul Valéry's assessment of Europe as Cap d'Asie?
Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, 4 april (geschiedenis)

Having learned English at the age of 26 and Dutch at the age of 36, I believe that the professional global historian who has no proper knowledge of one or two foreign languages is doomed to go the way of the Dodo.
Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, 4 april (geschiedenis)

Traveling back and forth over the past few years between chilly, 'peaceful' and affluent Leiden and hot, war-torn and poverty-ridden Colombo, where so many of my friends, colleagues and countrymen have lost their lives as well as livelihoods was indeed a memorable experience.
Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, 4 april (geschiedenis)

(3 april 2007/SH)