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Life

Reason is just another faith

By Philosopher Mary Midgley

23 July 2008

Read about all the problems with reason in our special issue

IN 1960 Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, wrote: “It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people… The future belongs to science and to those who make friends with science.”

This was doubtless intended as a manifesto for reason, but it also sums up a major justification people have for objecting to reason. Such pronouncements were…

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