Naturalism

No, you don’t need any more evidence, but where O’Leary for News lives, this is the time of year one cleans out stuff and takes stock. From David Klinghoffer, quoting a biology grad at Evolution News & Views: I’m just finishing up my master’s degree in evolutionary biology and likely starting a PhD in evolutionary genetics next fall. I was at an evolutionary genetics lab for a few weeks earlier this year and the world-renowned geneticist there was mocking other views. Even in the absence of answers to big questions like how life started and how new enzymes arise, evolutionary biologists are closed to answers that don’t come from Darwinism. The scorn towards Darwinian skepticism is quite strong in my Read More ›

In the recently settled soft dino tissue find case, part of the fired prof’s evidence was the following incident: The lawsuit contends that [creationism was] why Armitage’s employment at Cal State Northridge was terminated, with one professor allegedly storming into his office and shouting: “We are not going to tolerate your religion in this department!” More. It strikes me that Prof Stormer thinks that there is a hard and fast distinction to be made between “science” and “religion.” But the distinction falls apart when examined. Here is a hypothetical example: My religion, we’ll say, teaches that killing animals is wrong and therefore eating meat is wrong. It would be easy to come up with a wealth of science information on Read More ›

The Kingdom of Speech From E. J. Spode at 3 AM Magazine (“Whatever it is, we’re against it”), a longish review of Tom Wolfe’s The Kingdom of Speech: Because, in this day and age, it isn’t about finding the truth; it’s about winning the news cycle. This attitude is pristinely reflected in a review of the book in Canada’s Globe and Mail. “Wolfe is a reporter and an entertainer, an opinionated raconteur rather than a scientist, and that is why we will always report on his jocular provocations. And if they serve as an excuse to explain what universal grammar was in the first place – as it has done – then Chomsky should be thrilled.” Right. Because what could Read More ›

Stefaan Blanche and Peter C. Kjærgaard indulge fears at Scientific American: We have both had encounters with creationists. They come in all shades and represent all major denominations. They live in cities and in rural areas. Some are well educated, some belong to the establishment, others don’t. Some are well organized and well funded, others are not. Several are dedicated to a cause, many as missionaries with the role of spreading the word of divine creation as opposed to evolution; others keep to themselves. But despite their differences, they have something in common—they are all Europeans. A certain type of education prevents the average European intellectual from considering the possibility that such a disparate group may be united more by Read More ›

From Douglas Hoffman, interviewed at Quanta: Quanta Magazine: People often use Darwinian evolution as an argument that our perceptions accurately reflect reality. They say, “Obviously we must be latching onto reality in some way because otherwise we would have been wiped out a long time ago. If I think I’m seeing a palm tree but it’s really a tiger, I’m in trouble.” Hoffmann: Right. The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those Read More ›

Apparently, the US House is on an anti-science rampage. From himself at New Yorker: From climate change and evolution to sex education and vaccination, there has always been tension between scientists and Congress. But Smith, who has been in Congress since 1987 and assumed the chairmanship of the Science Committee in 2013, has escalated that tension into outright war. Smith has a background in American studies and law, not science. He has, however, received more than six hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions from the oil-and-gas industry during his time in Congress—more than from any other single industry. With a focus that is unprecedented, he’s now using his position to attack scientists and activists who work on climate change. Under his Read More ›

Imagine if atheistic materialism was actually true and humans are nothing more than biological automatons – complexly programmed and reactive robots that behave and think in whatever manner happenstance chemical interactions dictates at any given time.  Let’s think about what would actually mean. There would be no way for a biological automaton to determine whether or not any statement was in fact true or not since all conclusions are driven by chemistry and not metaphysical “truth” values; indeed, a biological automaton reaches conclusion X for exactly the same reason any other reaches conclusion Y; chemistry.  If chemistry dictates that 1+1=banana, that is what a “person” will conclude. If chemistry dictates they defend that view to the death and see themselves Read More ›

Just a reminder to those wanting to present at the AM-Nat (Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism) Biology conference, abstracts are due October 28th.

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From Anil Ananthaswamy at New Scientist: How does something as physical as the brain create something as immaterial as your sense of self? It could all just be one big trick of the mind … Broadly speaking, those trying to solve the hard problem fall into two camps, according to psychologist and philosopher Nicholas Humphrey. There are those who think that consciousness is something real and those who say it’s a mirage, and so dismiss the problem entirely. More. (paywall) Generally speaking, a trick is more complex than straightforward information, so it only adds to the difficulty if consciousness is regarded as a trick. By whom on whom? These people are not going to get anywhere any time soon. See Read More ›

This is an ongoing discussion we are having with Dr. Swamidass over the question of Methodological Naturalism in science. For those who haven’t been keeping up, I posted Dr. Swamidass’s questions to critics of MN to UD a few weeks ago, then posted some of my questions for proponents of MN. Then, my first response to Swamidass’s questions is here, covering the nature of scientific inquiry, and this present post continues to answer Dr. Swamidass’s specific questions. You can find Dr. Swamidass’s original blog post here.

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Painful. Closing our religion coverage for the week (a bit late, as it is the Labour Day weekend) from Rabbi Moshe Averick, in his Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism: Atheists are prepared to deny our very grasp on reality Atheists are prepared to burrow very deep down the materialist rabbit hole in order to avoid any possible confrontation with the spiritual. How deep? Deep enough to cast doubt on our very connection with reality. The skeptic claims that a scientific investigation of the brain leads us to the conclusion that there resides within us a separate “executive self” is an illusion. Leaving totally aside the issue of whether or not that assessment of the Read More ›

Here: Perhaps the most striking trend in American religion in recent years has been the growing percentage of adults who do not identify with a religious group. And the vast majority of these religious “nones” (78%) say they were raised as a member of a particular religion before shedding their religious identity in adulthood. … About half of current religious “nones” who were raised in a religion (49%) indicate that a lack of belief led them to move away from religion. This includes many respondents who mention “science” as the reason they do not believe in religious teachings, including one who said “I’m a scientist now, and I don’t believe in miracles.” Others reference “common sense,” “logic” or a “lack Read More ›

From Matthew Mackinnon at Psychology Today: Illusion of Choice: The Myth of Free Will … It is at this point that you have the conscious experience of, “I chose to wink with my right eye.” The human brain is a logical machine and it seeks to establish linear causation regardless of the temporal reality. The fact that your prediction aligned with the actual action is interpreted by your brain to mean that your conscious thought caused the action. In reality, your thought, “I chose to wink my right eye,” is nothing more than a retroactive inference generated in an attempt to transmute a largely unconscious process into a conscious one. More. These claims come in many varieties but their outcome, Read More ›

A restaurant owner decided not to boil a rare golden lobster. From Kirschner’s Korner (“Let’s make the world a more humane place”): What do decisions like this tell us about the human race? Even though people will often teach children not to judge others based on their religion, appearance, sexual orientation, race, or other distinguishing factors, these rules don’t apply to animals. This thought process is known as speciesism. … Sending a yellow lobster to an aquarium while killing the rest isn’t praiseworthy except in a society that fails to grasp the concept that all animals matter equally. More. Here’s how to blow off most people who talk this way. Ask him what he thinks of this, Methods of abortion Read More ›

Dr. Joshua Swamidass, a computational biologist from Wash U, recently posted some questions to critics of methodological naturalism like myself, and also explicitly named the AM-Nat (Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism) conferences as an example of those searching for an alternative to methodological naturalism.  After some discussions with Dr. Swamidass, I thought I would take some time to write a response to his questions.  I apologize for the length, but these issues take some time to suss out.  Therefore, this response will be broken into two parts.

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