Naturalism

From Denyse O’Leary (O’Leary for News) at Evolution News & Views: State religion? You, reader, object (of course): That scenario is not plausible! The theories are not believable! No? In the 20th century, Marxist economic theories became a state religion. These theories were propounded and enforced for decades, and dissenters were punished, despite the fact that mass starvation was a common outcome. Hunger was predictable, predicted, and widely known. Thinkers naturally assumed that evidence and reason would prevail over enforcement and dogma. But when evidence is rejected, reason has little to work with. Eventually, reason does prevail but much else prevails meanwhile. And in that particular case, great scientists such as Einstein, Godel, and Lakatos were surprisingly complicit, knowingly or Read More ›

Language specialist Norbert Francis seems to think creationism played a role, as he writes at Quillette: In the aftermath of the persecution of biology professor Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State College, we need to pause and look back. With the Higher Superstition exposé by Gross and Levitt in 1994, many of us assumed that the postmodern fashion would begin to fade. This prediction was wrong. This has prompted me to reflect on a similar suppression of academic freedom that passed virtually unnoticed years ago, when world-renowned Hopi language scholar, Ekkehart Malotki[*], was censored and vilified by the same inquisitorial thinking proliferating once more on American campuses. Far from fading, it is becoming entrenched and the current science establishment is either Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: The impulse to be kind to strangers was long thought to be unique to humans, but research on bonobos suggests our species is not as exceptional in this regard as we like to think. Famously friendly apes from Africa’s Congo Basin, bonobos will go out of their way to help a stranger get food even when there is no immediate payback, researchers show. What’s more, they help spontaneously, without having to be asked first. Who writes this copy? Many intelligent animals will assist strangers without being asked (see the self-taught therapy cat vid below), provided they perceive no loss or threat in doing so. Turtles, not known for high intelligence, will right each other, though they can’t right Read More ›

From Paige Madison at Aeon: The assumption, then, was that death rituals were practised only by modern humans, or perhaps also by their very closest relatives. The possibility that primitive, small-brained Homo naledi could have engaged in the deliberate disposal of dead bodies not only challenges the timeline about when such behaviours appeared; it disrupts the whole conventional thinking about the distinction between modern humans and earlier species and, by extension, the distinction between us and the rest of nature. More. Actually, it does nothing of the kind. It suggests that the Naledi were able to think in an abstract way, but that fact casts doubt on the claimed importance of brain size as opposed to humanity. Death is a Read More ›

From Robert Arvay at American Thinker: Many scientists no longer regard us as having any special place. We are no longer regarded as having a spiritual dimension, but only a physical one. We are seen to be products of a cold, uncaring universe, indeed, not even a product, but only a mere byproduct, an accident, an unlikely outcome of events that had no plan, no purpose, no meaning. Indeed. Nearly 50% Americans now think humans are not special. The inevitable extension of this purely physical view of humanity is technological barbarism. If we are mere atoms, biological machines, then by what right can we expect to be treated as anything more than that? Indeed, there would be no rights at all, Read More ›

Closing our scheduled religion coverage for the week, we note, re Reason to Hope: We regret to advise that the 2018 Global Atheist Convention, Reason to Hope , has been cancelled. If you are a ticket holder, you are entitled to a refund (including fees) and we will be in touch with you directly. More. Apparently, Ayaan Hirsi Ali pulled out. Richard Dawkins and Salman Rushdie were expected, as were other atheist luminaries. The cited reason was poor ticket sales. Poor ticket sales don’t just happen. Is it possible that the public is losing interest in “bad boy” atheism, whether it is represented by profane Darwinian bloggers or high class hatemongers (religion as a “virus of the mind,” etc.)? Apart from professional obligations, Read More ›

Here is a piece I (O’Leary for News) wrote for the first edition of Salvo (2006). Interesting to see how it has held up after more than a decade has past. – 0 – About three years ago, I predicted that the intelligent design controversy would explode in a few years, with every instapundit punding away furiously — some thoughtful, some foolish, some merely malign. The latter mood was expressed beautifully by a board member of Kansas Citizens for [promoting materialism in] Science, who summarized her public relations strategy against intelligent design advocates in February 2005 as follows: She advised her troops to portray them “’in the harshest light possible, as political opportunists, evangelical activists, ignoramuses, breakers of rules, unprincipled Read More ›

From Philip Ball at New Scientist: The idea that we create reality seems absurd. But an audacious new take on quantum theory suggests the fundamental laws of nature emerge from our own experiences That woo-woo has been around forever, or at least since the last remnants of the Stone Age. It was one of the things people had to fight, to get science off the ground. Now some are contemplating a mind-boggling alternative: that a coherent description of reality, with all its quantum quirks, can arise from nothing more than random subjective experiences. It looks like the “perspective of a madman”, says the author of this bold new theory, because it compels us to abandon any notion of fundamental physical Read More ›

At his blog: Recently I was interviewed by Matt Fradd for his Pints with Aquinas podcast. We talk a bit about Five Proofs of the Existence of God, but our main topic is Richard Dawkins’s critique of Aquinas’s Five Ways in The God Delusion. We work through each of the objections Dawkins raises and discuss where they go wrong. Matt is posting the interview in two parts, and the first part has now been posted. (podcast) If you think that anyone born after the invention of the Bomb must be smarter than the Angelic Doctor (Aquinas,1225–1274), fetch a mug and sit down and listen. Note: Aquinas points to ponder. See also: How naturalism rots science from the head down

From Ken Francis, journalism prof and author of The Little Book of God, Mind, Cosmos and Truth, via a road trip through the United States, New English Review: On the Reagan road trip, there are many fond memories beneath those soulful, Doo-wop skies over the vast desert plains off Route 66. Driving into the night, with the car window rolled down and the radio playing A Thousand Miles Away by the Heartbeats, the fragrance of the desert breeze was enough to induce slumber. What did a tiny spec of metal automobile, crawling slowly below on the desert floor, like a nocturnal lightning bug, look like from the night splendor of those starry constellations? A sky where the vastness of God’s Read More ›

Kirk Durston here: In a recent speech, former astronaut Julie Payette, now the Governor General of Canada, displayed her unquestioning belief that science alone is worthy of our total trust and mocked those who are “still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process!” … Contrary to her leap of faith that science has shown us how life began, real science has utterly failed to reproduce such an amazing feat. Maybe someday, highly intelligent scientists will figure out how to build a simple life form, which will underscore the need for intelligent design, but we have not reached that milestone yet, much less Read More ›

But she may have undermined the Liberal political party she obviously sympathizes with. Sorry for all the news from Canada but sometimes a smaller place can be a bellwether. Re “Canadian astronaut turned governor-general trashes all Canadians who doubt that life is a “random process,” Mark Bonokoski at The Toronto Sun: “Imagine if [former Prime Minister] Harper had appointed Julie Payette as Governor General, and she had spouted off the same speech in which she mocked religion and ridiculed the faith of believers?” Actually, Harper was never quite arrogant enough to do that. It’s a new development. And Payette is not just a feckless office-seeker spouting off and learning the hard way. She speaks in the name of the Queen. Read More ›

David Bentley Hart at The New Atlantis. “The Illusionist” is a longish essay, reviewing Daniel Dennett’s Bacteria to Bach and Back. Read it all but here are some highlights: In a sense, the entire logic of From Bacteria to Bach and Back (though not, of course, all the repetitious details) could be predicted simply from Dennett’s implicit admission on page 364 that no philosopher of mind before Descartes is of any consequence to his thinking. The whole pre-modern tradition of speculation on the matter — Aristotle, Plotinus, the Schoolmen, Ficino, and so on — scarcely qualifies as prologue. And this means that, no matter how many times he sets out, all his journeys can traverse only the same small stretch of Read More ›

From Global News: “And we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process.” … Payette was trained as a computer engineer and later became an astronaut and licensed pilot and in 1999 was the first Canadian to board the International Space Station. … She urged her former colleagues in the room to be “vigilant” and aim to make science a topic so well known and understood it is a subject of conversation at cocktail parties in the same way people now talk about the weather or the latest hockey scores. More. If Payette’s former colleagues follow her lead Read More ›

From CBC: BC’s Hogan twins, featured in the documentary Inseparable, are unique in the world. Joined at the head, their brains are connected by a thalamic bridge which gives them neurological capabilities that researchers are only now beginning to understand. Still, they are like other Canadian eleven-year-olds; they attend school, have a favourite pet and are part of a large, loving family determined to live each day to the fullest. Krista and Tatiana Hogan share the senses of touch and taste and even control one another’s limbs. Tatiana can see out of both of Krista’s eyes, while Krista can only see out of one of Tatiana’s. Tatiana controls three arms and a leg, while Krista controls three legs and an Read More ›