Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Logic and First Principles, 6: Reason/Rationality and Responsibility (i.e. moral government) are inextricably entangled

One of the common presumptions of our day is that facts and values are utterly, irreconcilably distinct. That is, that IS and OUGHT are irreconcilably separated by an ugly gulch that cannot be bridged. But, this is again one of those little errors in the beginning that have ruinous consequences as they spread out into our thinking and living in community. Let’s start with Hume’s Guillotine argument from his A Treatise of Human Nature: “In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I Read More ›

Can cities serve as cauldrons of evolution (speciation)?

For spiders, raccoons, and such? Big, high-tech cities are new and different. But you don’t get remarkable results from these independent theatres of evolution. That’s clear from a recent long article, well worth reading, mostly for the fascinating information but also for the need, so common these days, to assert that something is happening which obviously isn’t. Read More ›

Experimental physicist: Particle theory is “in a crisis” and a bigger collider IS the answer!

So we should do it because we can, not because we really expect to learn very much? It may be that Dorigo is just not a good spokesperson for his position; he spends a good deal of time attacking Hossenfelder and her book. Anyway, somehow, naturalism (nature is all there is) isn’t providing the hoped-for return on investments. Read More ›

“But it can’t be design, M’sieur. Design is an illusion.”

If there is no design in nature, then it is an illusion and Macron will have to settle for minimizing the influence of the people he doesn’t like, without claiming that there is some "meaning" or “design” behind their actions. Read More ›

Refusing to Participate in a Lie Can be Costly; Just Ask Peter Vlaming

I will never forget the day many years ago when I first confronted the transgender issue (though we did not call it that then) in my law practice.  I received a call from a school principal asking for advice in dealing with a kindergarten boy whose mother was dressing him up in girl’s clothing and insisting that he be allowed to use the girls’ restroom.  I was shocked by the mother’s demands and advised the principal to deny her request. I might have used the word “duh” at some point in the conversation. I also advised the school to consider whether a report to Child Protective Services of possible child abuse was in order. Of course we are talking about Read More ›

Plato’s Library: Why information is the true source of new wealth

Jonathan Bartlett explains the relationship between information and prosperity as set out in Eric Holloway’s new paper: our ability to “read from Plato’s Library” of new ideas provides us with an ever-growing supply of side information that powers the economy. Read More ›

Was 2018 kind of a quiet year for science?

Here’s a Top Ten science stories list from a techie science mag I (O’Leary for News) regularly monitor and cite from: This year taught us more about distant planets and our own world, about the ways we’re influencing our environment and the ways we’re changing ourselves. A whole lot of stuff happened, and last January seems like it was, well, a year ago. Ryan F. Mandelbaum, “The Biggest Science Stories of 2018” at Gizmodo Okay, nothing in particular jumps out at Mandelbaum, who does a good job of gathering the information, and one can see why his tone is muted. Here are some of the Gizmodo picks: – Mars exploration continues, space equipment is retired or commissioned (but still no Read More ›

Top Ten AI Hype 2: AI Can Write Novels and Screenplays Better than the Pros!

AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Software can automatically generate word sequences based on material fed in from existing scripts: In 2016, Ars Technica was proud to be sponsoring “the first AI-written sci-fi script:” As explained in The Guardian, a recurrent neural network “was fed the scripts of dozens of science fiction movies including such classics as Highlander Endgame, Ghostbusters, Interstellar and The Fifth Element.” Sunspring, the title of the AI written play, was computed after the trained neural network was given a “set of prompts.” A Guardian writer terms the resulting script “gibberish.” Here’s a description from sponsor Ars Technica: Ars is excited to be hosting this online debut of Sunspring, a short science fiction film that’s Read More ›