ETC.: A Review of General Semantics articles from October 2006

ETC.: A Review of General Semantics archives from October 2006

Yearning to Know.(Paul Dennithorne's work at the International Society for General Semantics)(Editorial)
October 1, 2006... THE SCULPTURE on the cover graces the entrance to the Starpoint School on the campus of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Founded in 1966 by Fort Worth entrepreneur M.J. Neeley and his wife Alice, the school was one of the first...

Interview with retiring editor Paul Dennithorne Johnston.(Etc. Publications)(Interview)
October 1, 2006... Paul Dennithorne Johnston retires as Editor of ETC with this issue. In an email interview, Nora Miller, who takes up the position starting with the January 2007 issue, talked with Johnston about general semantics, people, editing, writing and...

Excerpts from ETC.(Excerpt)
October 1, 2006... Between 1989 and 2006 Johnston wrote more than 50 articles and short stories for ETC. The following excerpts were selected by Nora Miller in recognition of Johnston s retirement as Editor. From: ESCAPE FROM A FROZEN UNIVERSE: Discovering...

On being time-bound in Fort Worth, Texas: a testimonial.(Seminar-Workshop Report)(Conference notes)
October 1, 2006... AFTER INTRODUCTIONS at the summer 2006 IGS Seminar-Workshop this June, the first thing Steve Stockdale does is take a photo off the wall of Read House, the new Institute of General Semantics building. The room is lined with such photos, each...

The debate over Chinese-language knowledge among culture brokers of acupuncture in America.
October 1, 2006... ... those who rule the symbols, rule us.--Alfred Korzybski OVER THE PAST 30 years, acupuncture and Chinese medicine have transformed the way many North Americans view health and health care. Today over 40% of Americans utilize some form...

Science versus religion: a false dichotomy?
October 1, 2006... THE ASSUMPTION that science and religion are in conflict seems to underlie much of today's discussion about such matters, but is it a valid one? Does such an oversimplified "war" metaphor encourage us to ignore important details? Using...

Zen Buddhism and general semantics.(Student Paper)(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2006... "General Semantics can be considered an inter-disciplinary discipline that makes it easier for you to live with yourself... to live with others... and for others to live with you."--Steve Stockdale FROM JUST this one statement...

Creation science: Newspeak before its time.(teaching of biblical cosmology)
October 1, 2006... ORWELL WROTE THAT some of Big Brother's minions would be using Newspeak by 1984. Actually, a religious variant of it appeared as early as 1963 with the founding of the Creation Research Society. (1) Following that came The Creation-Science...

Google (2006).
October 1, 2006... DO YOU "google" something, by looking it up on the Google search engine on the internet? I do, and I tell my students to do it also, if they have not been able to find information elsewhere on the internet. Enough other people do this too that...

"Abstinence-only"--a GS analysis.(general semantics)
October 1, 2006... THE VALUE OF general semantics is that it can examine issues dispassionately, regardless of their substantive content. Substantive matters can be discussed on their own merits; general semantics provides a cohesive analysis of the thought...

Personalized journalism lacks depth.(dramatization of news events)
October 1, 2006... LANCE BENNETT and other researchers have noted that many media outlets report stories of vast importance in a personalized way. In his classic media criticism book, News: The Politics of Illusion, Bennett points out that journalists often...

Overmediating our children.(current educational system)
October 1, 2006... I DON'T GO IN MUCH for conspiracy theories, but I don't think it took a covert conspiracy for us to end up in the current educational morass. The "ricochet" generation (offspring of the baby boomers) started arriving in schools just about...

Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 1, 2006... Niles Eldredge. Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life. New York: Norton, 2005. Charles Darwin was born in 1809 and today, almost 200 after his birth, he continues to be a towering figure in Western culture, having inspired scientific...

On Bullshit.(Brief article)(Book review)
October 1, 2006... Harry G. Frankfurt. On Bullshit. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005. Many people are rather confident of their ability to recognize BS and to avoid being taken in by it. Thus, the phenomenon has not aroused much...

Do Animals Think?(Book review)
October 1, 2006... Clive D.L. Wynne. Do Animals Think? Princeton, NJ: 2004. In comparing humans with animals, psychology professor Clive D.L. Wynne, proposes a sandwich analogy. It looks like this: The bottom layer of the sandwich is a layer of...

From the archives.(learning of symbolic behavior)(Reprint)
October 1, 2006... Fifty Years Ago in ETC, Volume 14, Number 1 RICHARD DETTERING, "THE LEARNING OF SYMBOLIC BEHAVIOR AND ITS IMPORTANCE TO EDUCATION" (EXCERPTS) The private symbols of the child become social symbols when other people use and respond to...