I just listened to the somewhat abortive Bill O’Reilly interview on NPR’s Fresh Air last week. All in all, quite an interesting meeting of the minds.
First of all, I’d just like to say that, if that was a hatchet job, then NPR’s in for a long, cold winter unless they sharpen their blades. Had “defamation” been the intention of Ms. Gross, there was plenty of material in O’Reilly’s statements for her to use. One of my favourites was when he was defining the difference between spin and opinion — an important distinction, in fact — and gave some examples of facts being spun to say something else. Of course, he himself had just done this; he said that he never claimed that a certain show had won a certain award, then immediately explained that he’d misspoken when he’d made the claim. Hmm…
I also found it interesting that O’Reilly affirms the argument of Pascal’s Wager: the idea that the expected value of believing far exceeds the amount of work involved. O’Reilly didn’t actually mention Pascal by name, or in fact that the result of his meditations had a historical antecedent. (It’s possible he didn’t know; although he did go to Catholic schools for several years, theology isn’t generally a big topic in high schools. Even Catholic schools.) He also makes what amounts to the Argument from Design: nature works perfectly, Man is incapable of perfect works, therefore there must be a Being above Man Who is responsible for Creation. (BTW, “Man” is his usage.) Of course, the problem with this argument is that it’s making the assumption that there is a design at all. Now if the universe is the result of intelligent design, then I might accept his argument that the Designer must be omnipotent, etc. Maybe. But assuming the antecedent without proof is bad, bad form, logically speaking.