Word: speciousness
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This approach does not always make for good movies. An actor's revelation may not be a character's truth; a series of bravura scenes may torpedo the narrative structure. What is meant as a species of cinema verite may too easily become as specious as old-fashioned movie-star acting. Cassavetes is a deadly serious director, but his films are best seen as rickety star vehicles. His most shining star-his Bette Davis, his Gloria Swanson, his Joan Blondell-is his wife Gena Rowlands. In Gloria, he has finally realized her strengths and her limitations...
...However specious that claim may seem to students of history, it does not behoove the Democrats in an eelection year to grin and bear stunted growth and unrelenting unemployment. Carter, whose foreign policy pronouncements have left even the most attentive listeners wondering what he really means, has yet to define what he calls "responsible" behavior at home. He should lead by example instead of watching public opinion polls and reflecting the mood of the moment. And though his hesitancy to impose a tax cut marks a departure from his habit of appeasing the pollsters, it's ironic that...
...tonier cooperative apartments, that's who. Last January Vanderbilt put down her deposit on a $ 1.1 million duplex. In April the purchase was vetoed by the co-op's board of directors on the ground that she was a public figure. Vanderbilt found that argument specious, since Henry Kissinger and Broadway Producer-Director Joshua Logan already live in River House. She has gone to court, charging that the board's real-and illegal-reason is fear that she might marry black Pianist Bobby Short, a close friend who appears with her in jeans commercials. Nonsense, replies...
Which is not to say most will not find something useful or valuable. It includes, for example, caloric counts for popular junk food items (A Whopper has 606 compared to a Big Mac's 557); a broad bibliography; a profile of wunderkind Bill Rodgers; a re-evaluation of the specious but spiritually uplifting legend of Pheidippiedes; a thourough survey of running equipment, apparel, and periodicals; and up to the minute status reports on the latest pertinent medical studies...
...human behavior is concerned, to characterize the debate as biological determinism is a dangerous and specious rhetorical ploy. Learning has an evolved genetic basis with organized and discoverable characteristics leading to adaptation. Behavior can be, with no paradox, simultaneously the result of cultural and evolutionary forces, in equally meaningful but very different senses. Evolution shapes the nature of the developmental programming which guides learning, and socialization is the process by which the panhuman learning system adapts the individual to her or his cultural surroundings...