A lot of people take TED very seriously, and might lend credence to specious ideas if stamped with TED credentials.
Bromwich understands Burke as a connoisseur of delusion, of specious ideas whose apparent plausibility wins support for misguided or dangerously sinister causes.
A quote from Peter Medawar, a British scientist who wrote a famous critique of a book of specious ideas about evolution, comes to mind: "Its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself".
The whole idea seems specious and anti-free-market to me: if the government could legally enact Medicare for all, and tax all of us to pay for it, why is mandatory insurance not legal?
The arguments against the idea are specious.
Why not just wait until college?" There is a certain specious appeal about the idea of deferring the teaching of evolution to college, which can be felt even by those who accept evolution.
He added: "Why she would make this specious claim, I have no idea".
The specious present is perhaps not really specious: the idea that it was specious depended on an idea that the real (nonspecious) present had to be instantaneous.
The idea that accounting caused the crisis is specious, but Europe's politicians, egged on by banks that took huge write-downs when market prices swooned, have nonetheless lashed out.
Here is an idea, hospitality industry: stop trying to conjure specious "character" in your venue using flea market tat (most of which is no less mass-produced than the crockery in Ikea), and please concentrate instead on a) the quality of what is on the plate, and b) said plate being fit for purpose.
