
Opinion by Mitch Daniels
photo above: Steven Koonin, then under secretary for science at the U.S. Department of Energy, speaks at the 2011 CERAWEEK conference in Houston. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg)
October 12, 2021
WN: The article highlighted below points to the unsettling claims of “settled science” about climate change . . .
I must add: Que sais-je?–What do I know?
Michel de Montaigne famously coined the question with reference to the early-16th-century- Reformation and the subsequent Council of Trent (1545–1563). We read:
In time, however, Montaigne came to be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt that began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, ”Que sçay-je?” (“What do I know?”, in Middle French; now rendered as “Que sais-je?” in modern French).
“Que sais-je?” (QSJ) (French: [kə sɛʒ]; literally: “What do I know?”, ISSN 0768-0066) is also an editorial collection published by the Presses universitaires de France (PUF). The aim of the series is to provide the lay reader with an accessible introduction to a field of study written by an expert in the field. As such, they are a good example of haute vulgarisation (high popularization). The sentence “Que sais-je?” is taken from the works of French essayist Michel de Montaigne.–Wikipedia
I guess this question is always sobering . . .
excerpts:
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