Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

JDK argues against objective morality—by assuming the truth of objective morality.

Moral subjectivists never fail to entertain me when they try to make their philosophy seem reasonable and workable. UD commentator jdk, for example, doesn’t seem to realize how often his unstated assumptions undermine – or even nullify – the very points he is trying to make. In one exchange, he denies the existence of objective morality, but he does say, nevertheless, that he “judges” murder to be wrong – not objectively wrong – but wrong in the sense that a moral judgment is a subjective act. So I asked him to explain why he “judges” murder to be wrong. He graciously (and courageously) answered the question , and I now follow with my analysis: JDK: [I judge that murder is Read More ›

Why did human Y chromosome diversity “collapse” 7000 years ago?

From Stanford University at Eurekalert: Starting about 7,000 years ago, something weird seems to have happened to men: Over the next two millennia, recent studies suggest, their genetic diversity -specifically, the diversity of their Y chromosomes – collapsed. So extreme was that collapse that it was as if there was only one man left to mate for every 17 women. Anthropologists and biologists were perplexed, but Stanford researchers now believe they’ve found a simple – if revealing – explanation. The collapse, they argue, was the result of generations of war between patrilineal clans, whose membership is determined by male ancestors. … It’s not unprecedented for human genetic diversity to take a nosedive once in a while, but the Y-chromosome bottleneck, Read More ›

Tour the exoplanets – virtually – courtesy of NASA

From Lisa Grossman at ScienceNews: If you’re looking for starry skies, exotic plant life and extreme weather on your summer vacation, NASA’s Exoplanet Travel Bureau has just the spot. Consider a trip to Kepler 186f. This extrasolar planet is nearly 558 light-years away, so a real trip may be out of your budget — and astronomers aren’t sure if the sphere even has a life-sustaining atmosphere. But NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration website offers a virtual tour of what visiting the alien world might be like. More. Hey, don’t miss out on these artist’s impressions. The way things are going with the search for ET, humans, our domestic pets, menageries, and sanctuaries may be the first and only life these countless inhabitable Read More ›

Physicist Eugene Wigner on the principal argument against materialism

From Nobelist Eugene Wigner (1902–1995): “The principal argument against materialism is not that illustrated in the last two sections: that it is incompatible with quantum theory. The principal argument is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied. On the contrary, logically, the external world could be denied—though it is not very practical to do so. In the words of Niels Bohr, “The word consciousness, applied to ourselves as well as to others, is indispensable when dealing with the human situation.” In view of all this, one may well wonder how materialism, the doctrine that “life could be Read More ›

Well, physics probably HAS gone off the rails if NBC is reporting it

They used to be a regular stop for news of crackpot cosmology. From Dan Falk at NBC, discussing Sabine Hossenfelder`s new book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray (June, 2018): But the new century brought a rough patch. Yes, there have been some remarkable findings, including the 2012 discovery of the Higgs Boson and the discovery of gravitational waves four years later. But those triumphs were based on theories developed decades earlier — a full century earlier in the case of gravitational waves. And new ideas like string theory (which holds that matter is made up of tiny vibrating loops of energy) remain unverified. “All of the theoretical work that’s been done since the 1970s has not produced a single successful Read More ›

Lizards and snakes backdated to Permian era, lizards lost or changed limbs many times

From at ScienceDaily: The 240-million-year-old fossil, Megachirella wachtleri, is the most ancient ancestor of all modern lizards and snakes, known as squamates, the new study, published today in the journal Nature, shows. The fossil, along with data from both living and extinct reptiles — which involved anatomical data drawn from CT scans and DNA — suggests the origin of squamates is even older, taking place in the late Permian period, more than 250 million years ago. Tiago Simões, lead author and PhD student from the University of Alberta in Canada, said: “The specimen is 75 million years older than what we thought were the oldest fossil lizards in the entire world and provides valuable information for understanding the evolution of Read More ›

BO’H asks: “aren’t the axioms that mathematicians assume subjective? (they may be rational, but they’re not the only possible axioms that could be used)”

This is yet another significant issue that emerges from the ongoing exchanges on subjectivity, objectivity, possibility of objective moral truth, etc. And, the deep interconnectedness of what we are discussing is proving quite fruitful. So, I think it is useful to now headline Bob’s remark in the rebooting ethics education thread, which ties in Mathematics. And those who find it hard to follow use of indented text blocks to quote, please pardon that praxis: BO’H, 25 :>>but aren’t the axioms that mathematicians assume subjective? (they may be rational, but they’re not the only possible axioms that could be used) What follows after that is (or at least should be!) objective, of course.>> My response is: KF, 26: >>No. Instantly, an Read More ›

Neuroscientist debunks hype about no free will, etc.

A friend writes, “This young German brain researcher publicly condemns exaggerated claims of neuroscientists, “debunking” of free will, so-called dangerous brains, and so forth.” Talk by Dr. S. (Stephan) Schleim at the 2014 Heymans Symposium ‘Research Worth Spreading’ of the Psychology department of the University of Groningen and Understanding the possibilities and limitations of brain imaging (2009) Interview with Stephan Schleim, researcher at the University Clinics Bonn, Germany, during the bid-workshop ‘brains in dialogue on brain imaging’. See also: Physicist: Do the defects of real numbers open the door to free will in physics? and How can we believe in naturalism if we have no choice?

Astrophysicist: Evolutionary worldview must answer the question, Where is ET?

A new book from astrophysicist Milan M. Ćirković, The Great Silence: Science and Philosophy of Fermi’s Paradox:  The Great Silence explores the multifaceted problem named after the great Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and his legendary 1950 lunchtime question “Where is everybody?” In many respects, Fermi’s paradox is the richest and the most challenging problem for the entire field of astrobiology and the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) studies. This book shows how Fermi’s paradox is intricately connected with many fields of learning, technology, arts, and even everyday life. It aims to establish the strongest possible version of the problem, to dispel many related confusions, obfuscations, and prejudices, as well as to offer a novel point of entry to the many Read More ›

How string theory can be a theory of everything

From astrophysicist Ethan Siegel at Forbes, t’s one of the most brilliant, controversial and unproven ideas in all of physics: string theory. At the heart of string theory is the thread of an idea that’s run through physics for centuries, that at some fundamental level, all the different forces, particles, interactions and manifestations of reality are tied together as part of the same framework. Instead of four independent fundamental forces — strong, electromagnetic, weak and gravitational — there’s one unified theory that encompasses all of them. Phlogiston and the ether were theories like that too. They explained so much but… Right now, there are only a few sets of dimensions that the string/superstring picture is self-consistent in, and the most Read More ›

An unusually clear description of how scientism functions as a religion

From Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish: “Why do you hate science?” That’s the question leftists have taken to asking non-leftists. Leftists claim to love science, insofar as anyone can love a method for testing a hypothesis, and accuse their enemies of hating it. How can anyone love or hate an indifferent set of techniques? And how can an ideology that believes technological civilization is destroying the planet really claim to love the science behind it? But swap out “science” for “god” and the question, “Why do you hate science” makes perfect sense. So do the constant assertions of love for science. These aren’t scientific assertions, but religious ones. Actual science doesn’t care whether you love or hate it. That’s not Read More ›

Is it time to “reboot” our formal and informal education in ethics, to save our civilisation?

On reflecting on the ongoing discussion on ethical matters (as part of the science and worldviews in society theme of UD) in the thread in response to Sev on moral truth, I suggest yes. Not least, because the already in progress, suicidal moral bankruptcy of our civilisation will take down science, math, technology, sound governance systems, sound policy-making and linked engines of progress if we go over the cliff: KF, 105: >>The onward exchanges are interesting, underscoring however the persistent, widespread failure of our current formal and informal ethical education. Thus, instead of being teachers to the world, we need to think afresh and go back to first, mother’s milk baby stage steps and principles. Our civilisation is like land Read More ›

Where did the laws of nature come from?: Astrophysicist Hugh Ross vs chemist Peter Atkins

Hugh Ross. Peter Atkins. From Premier Christian Radio: Unbelievable? Where did the laws of nature come from? Hugh Ross vs Peter Atkins Justin is joined by Christian astrophysicist Hugh Ross, founder of Reasons to Believe, and atheist scientist Peter Atkins of Oxford University, to debate whether the laws of nature came from ‘nothing’ or from God. Peter Atkins’ new book Conjuring The Universe: The Origins of the Laws of Nature’ claims that the Universe and it’s laws reflect the ‘nothing’ from whence they came. Hugh Ross has recently released a 4th edition of ‘The Cosmos and the Creator’ and explains why he believes the scientific evidence is continually growing for a creator of the universe and its life-permitting laws. More.

The Eight Commandments of Carl Sagan – updated

Ross Pomeroy, writing at RealClearScience, tells us that his holy book is Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World (1997). He offers eight commandments of Sagan (1934–1996) with supporting comments from him, including Thou shalt demand evidence for claims to knowledge. “If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience.” More. That sounds nice but it is breathtakingly naive. What is and isn’t adequate evidence is always a matter in dispute. Many in science believe strongly that there must be extraterrestrial intelligences out there, to say nothing of a multiverse, yet there is no evidence for either. And does that matter to them? There is lots of Read More ›