The rap against cognitive psychologist Pinker, who always seemed ready with a Darwinian explanation for everything, is that he offered some interpretation of language to Epstein’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz.
Naturalism
Study: Psychiatric diagnoses are “scientifically meaningless”
People can certainly derive help from their relationship with a psychiatrist but that is an entirely different matter from saying that the science is sound. As science buckles under the strain of trying to be a secular religion, it pays to get things like this straight.
Philosopher: Morality is merely community norms
Why is it that the people most likely to be attracted to this sort of naturalism (nature is all there is), often called “materialism,” also appear to be full of rage against what they perceive to be injustice, smashing stuff and people? And none of their theories about how they’ll make anything better sound very convincing.
J. P. Moreland: Anxiety and depression are largely habit
Moreland: If you are suffering from anxiety and depression, I want you to know that you can change. I want you to have hope because there are things you can do to get better.
Is human cloning possible? Neurosurgeon and philosopher spar
Human cloning: It can’t happen vs. It can but wouldn’t matter much.
Computer sim universe: An escape from the facts of fine-tuning?
Walter Bradley Center fellows weigh in: The idea that we are a simulation by space aliens is a staple of science fiction, of course (think The Matrix, 1999). But some scientists take this simulation hypothesis seriously. Serious discussion started with a paper by philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2003, “Are you living in a computer simulation?” […]
Jeff Epstein’s cultural dumpster fire spreads to ID vs. evo controversies
Just because people are in the news doesn’t mean they did anything. It rather shows how a bad actor can change the news picture.
Why do plant scientists need to tell the world that plants are NOT conscious?
You didn’t think plants were conscious, did you? Did you really think salad is murder? Yet telling us that plants are not conscious is the gist of a recently published major paper in Trends in Plant Science. (open access) Part of the background to the “plants think like people” movement in science, which they oppose, […]
Ideologies that devalue human life – with historian Richard Weikart
You can go away screaming I suck! at an uncaring universe if you like or else you can look at evidence-based alternative views.
Was Orwell a better techno-prophet in 1984 than Huxley was in Brave New World?
Generally, the materialist constructors of brave new worlds entirely believe in design in nature, as long as they design it themselves. Anything else is a botch or else it sucks, right?
Revealing things scientists told media about our “simulated” universe
Falk is careful to say, above, that experiments to test the idea have been proposed. Maybe we should all say nothing about the matter until they have been done and the results announced.
At Peaceful Science: An anti-creationist psychiatrist misunderstands evidence for an immaterial mind, says Michael Egnor
In neurosurgeon Michael Egnor’s view, “Here is one way of seeing it” If someone took a sledgehammer to your computer and pulverized it, yet it still worked fairly well, you would conclude that there was something rather strange about the computer that you had not previously considered: I am not arguing that fMRI imaging of […]
Atheism’s problem of warrant (–> being, Logic and First Principles, No. 23)
Atheism seems to be on the table these days here at UD and a few points need clarification. First up, what is Atheism? The usual dictionaries are consistent: atheism n. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. [French athéisme, from athée, atheist, from Greek atheos, godless : a-, without; see a-1 […]
Why do secularism and scientism coincide with a huge rise in superstition?
Come to think of it, believing in artificial intelligence or space aliens as god-like makes as much sense as believing in lucky numbers and charms.
Researchers: Comatose people do show self-awareness
Michael Egnor: This study is consistent with the work of Wilder Penfield, who showed that higher-level abstract thought did not seem to arise from the brain in a material way.