It is a sign of significant loss of cultural confidence when people are willing to reconfigure their “deepest convictions” even when the evidence against them isn’t “compelling.” Almost always that’s because what they call their faith is not actually among their deepest convictions.
Naturalism
Michael Shermer’s Case for Scientific Naturalism
Shermer’s piece, in which he is looking back on his years as a Scientific American columnist, feels like an elegy. The reality today is that, however people may universally seek freedom, China is dedicated to using the high tech born of science to stamp it out and enlisting many other natures to do the same. And science, as opposed to technology, is coming under serious assault from those who demand that nature itself do their social justice bidding.
The phony war of science vs. religion pales in the face of the “social justice” assault on Darwin
Coyne is right. Atheists got hold of science. But the atheists’ opponents have traditionally been theists who are scientists who believe that truth is important. And much that is claimed to be “science” in Coyne’s own field is questionable but is defended because it supports atheism. But now, along come the social justice warriors…
New atheism in decline?
Well, we have heard that astrology is on the rise but not much about new atheism being in decline. A Google Trends graph from 2004 through 2017 shows Sam Harris, rising and Richard Dawkins declining: Dawkins has always been the heart of New Atheism, meaning its decline and his decline are linked at the hip. […]
Nature (journal) goes to Tackytown for Christmas
Christmas carols with “science” lyrics: [30:52 Hark! It’s Hayabusa2: The last of this year’s songs is an ode to a lander that touched down on an asteroid millions of miles away from Earth. Scroll to the transcript section below for the lyrics.podcast with Benjamin Thompson and Ali Jennings, “Podcast: Quantum physics adds a twist and […]
Jerry Coyne is learning fast, but fast enough?
One of our scouts has been following the way retired professor of Darwinian biology Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne is trying to confront the SJWs in science, where others are capitulating. The recent question has been whether sex is a real category in biology. (We explain here.) Anyway, Coyne decided to look more closely into […]
Bots are to blame for science credibility issues!
At least, if you credit a National Academy of Sciences study on the subject: Iyengar and Massey (hereafter I & M) are convinced, in any event, that the revolution in media over the last three decades means that the world is sinking into abject falsehood. In the 1970s, as they relate, media were controlled by […]
Rob Sheldon: Have a little pity for scientists scared of SJWs
Our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon takes exception to my (O’Leary for News)’s post, “The Darwinians’ cowardice before SJW mobs explained in detail: They thought the mob was coming for someone else, ” At least in part. He writes, I thought the Aero article was the most honest I have met in a long while. […]
Is Darwinist Jerry Coyne starting to get it about SJW “science”?
And anyway, does it even matter, if no one will join him? At least, that’s the word on the street, they’re scared.* Meanwhile, here is Coyne, the author of Why Evolution Is True, concerned about a Woke science studies course that tells us: In the course of this survey, we shall engage a number of key questions […]
The Darwinians’ cowardice before SJW mobs explained in detail
They thought the mob was coming for someone else. Amid the dead silence in the combox following “The perfect storm: Darwinists meet the progressive “evolution deniers” — and cringe…, , EDTA pipes up 1, Well, how does it feel now that the universal acid shoe is on the other foot? And who on the evolutionist side […]
What makes otherwise intelligent people believe in an AI apocalypse?
Stephen Hawking was hardly the only one: Along with Sir Martin Rees, Elon Musk, and Henry Kissinger, among many lesser knowns, the late Stephen Hawking worried about an AI apocalypse (the “worst event in the history of our civilization”). Otherwise very bright people don’t seem to have a grasp of the underlying situation. Let’s take […]
Broadway play features the hard problem of consciousness
In a move reminiscent of Tom Wolfe tackling The Kingdom of Speech near the end of his life, Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) decided to tackle consciousness: Consciousness is a hard problem for science, principally because no one quite understands what makes us the subjects of our experiences. According to one critic, the problem that has […]
Could the recent Pew Center survey on meaning help us interpret some controversies?
What do Americans think matters in life? Americans with high levels of household income and educational attainment are more likely to mention friendship, good health, stability and travel. A quarter of Americans who earn at least $75,000 a year mention their friends when asked to describe, in their own words, what makes life meaningful, compared […]
Naturalism and ethics: an inevitable contradiction?
Ken Francis, author, with Theodore Dalrymple, of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd, writes to tell us of an effort to account for objective moral laws and duties form the perspective of pure naturalist atheism. He thinks it doesn’t work but you, the reader, shall judge: From Reasonable Faith: And […]
Michael Ruse update: “Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction…
. . . And any deeper meaning is illusory.” Reader Ken Francis, author with Theodore Dalrymple of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd, read our piece on Darwinian philosopher Michael Ruse explaining why he is not a new atheist. He thought other readers might be interested to know of something […]