johnnyb

In this next installment from the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism (AM-Nat) conference, Salvador Cordova gives us his perspective on epistemology, which he calls “Gambler’s Epistemology,” which intends to be a metaphysically neutral way of analyzing claims based on their costs and payoff possibilities. Cordova shows that naturalism does not have a history of high payoffs, and that the ENCODE and similar projects by the NIH are good gambling bets but have caused consternation for those metaphysically committed to naturalism, which has historically been shown to be impractical.

This video is from the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism 2016 conference held earlier this year. It deals with using non-naturalism in order to improve the quality of machine learning programs using a technique called “imagination sampling.” The results of a limited test run are given.

In the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism conference, Paul Nelson gave a great talk on Design Triangulation – the inference from system-level functional necessity.
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If humans are just meat robots, can we be rational creatures? Tim Stratton argues the case that libertarian free will is required in order to consider ourselves in any way rational – that if our decisions are solely the result of physics and chemistry, then we cannot then trust them to be rational in any significant sense. Even if naturalism were true, its being true would undercut our ability to justify the belief that it was true. Read Article

This is an online conference, so anyone can attend from anywhere in the world. Convert time zones.

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Here is the second preview session for the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism 2016 Online Conference. The actual conference will be held online on April 16th.

The Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism Online Conference is holding our second online free preview session this morning, April 4th at 7:30 AM Central Time. Login now to join us! This session is on methodological dualism and multi-explanation frameworks in Psychology by Dr. Sam Rakover, Professor Emeritus at the University of Haifa in Israel.
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UPDATE – updated title to reflect that the conference has already occurred now.
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For those interested in attending the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism Online Conference, we are doing a free preview session Tuesday (March 29th – today!) at 7:30 PM Central Time. Check back here tomorrow for more details. All you need is your web browser to join.

For those interested in attending, the AM-Nat Conference Schedule has been posted. If you want to find more detail about any of the talks, you can find them on the summary page.
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I was asked today for a comment about a paper regarding irreducible complexity – Eliminating the Requirement of an Essential Gene Product in an Already Very Small Virus: Scaffolding Protein B-free øX174, B-free by Min Chen, Asako Uchiyama, and Bentley A. Fane, 2007.

I noted that despite this having been written in 2007, no one at all seemed to comment on it one way or the other. So, here is my short commentary on their criticism of Behe’s Irreducible Complexity. It is late, so I didn’t spend a lot of time reading in-depth, so please correct me where I am wrong.
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One common criticism of the upcoming Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism conference has been that “scientists just follow the evidence where it leads.” Even among fellow ID’ers who disagree with methodological naturalism, they find it difficult to envision why we would need an alternative that is different from “just go with the evidence.” The answer is simple – the scientific imagination. One of the reasons why I started the conference is because Methodological Naturalism (hereafter, MN) constrains thinking in ways that I am not sure even people led entirely by the evidence are aware of. Theory construction is often treated by both scientists and observers of science as an automatic given once the data is in. In actuality, though, it is Read More ›

Just a quick reminder to everyone that if you want to present at the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism Online Conference, you have until March 15th (that’s Tuesday) to submit your abstracts! Read More ›

The list and scope of presenters at the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism conference continues to grow. The conference committee is very pleased with the response to the conference so far. Register today to be a part of it!
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Recently a criticism was leveled against Dembski’s 2005 paper Specification: the pattern that signifies intelligence. As is often the case, if you read the criticism carefully, you will realize that, even though he says Dembski is wrong, it turns out that the more exacting answer would favor Dembski’s conclusion more strongly, not less.
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