I've been slowly reading through Le Guin's last few collections, reluctant to let them "go" in the sense that, once completed, there will be nothing new from her that I have left to read.
No Time to Spare is a fantastic title, but the subtitle Thinking About What Matters is somewhat curious because this is a collection of blog posts, and while they are more finely written than the typical internet fare, they are largely about seemingly inconsequential matters.
So is the subtitle a poor one? Or after 80, are matters that seem inconsequential to the young (or even middle aged) quite important because there is no time to spare?
The post "Belief in Belief" struck me as important. In essence, it points out the importance of choosing words carefully to improve communication; specifically, she looks at the oppositional "belief in God" versus "belief in science", and offers:
I don't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. I accept it. It isn't a matter of faith, but of evidence.Wise words.
But troublesome for the choice of words in Bayesian statistics, which heavily uses "belief" to describe probabilities of material events, and not spiritual truths.
In case you haven't seen this: https://youtu.be/bkMikZ5LH9w
ReplyDeleteHm... I haven't seen this, but while I'm not particularly religious, I don't see a belief in the spiritual to be entirely opposed to acceptance of scientific evidence. And so while I don't want someone who's religious to try to convince me of their religion, I don't think it's a good thing to try to convince people of faith that they're "wrong". I'm anti-proselyzation. :-)
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