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/ 19 November 2007

The perils of truthism

In the fevered talk these days about religion and secularism, there is little room for the thing Africans like me most fear: religious or cultural rationalism. Outside of tiny labs the general ignorance about science, even among people with good educations, is very high. I remember a famous Afrikaans rugby player, a medical doctor, saying in the 1990s that science had determined that black people could not swim — something to do with muscles and heavy bones.