The Chronicle: Colloquy: Responses

Melburn Thurman: I'm not attempting to second-guess the purpose of your questions, but only to correct a view that I thought you had attributed to me, namely that there is no useful distinction between science and magic. I now see that I misread your statement, which was that I believe it is not impossible to distinguish the two. My bad.

As I see it, an important difference between science and magic is that science is an inquiry first, an attempt to discover truths about the world by means of observation and experiment. Magic, I think, is not primarily an inquiry; the magician seeks to control the world, not necessarily to understand it. I do not suggest that science is indifferent to control -- far from it -- but the scientist wants to achieve control by first understanding what is true. The magician wants control even if he cannot understand how his magic works (assuming it does). Maybe I'm being unfair to the magicians, but this is how I see it.

Religion is a tougher nut to crack; when I have more time I'll try to get back to it.

: -- Todd Moody, assoc. professor of philosophy, St. Joseph's University (posted 2/14, 10:40 a.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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