Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Category

Naturalism

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 29, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience

Proposed anxiety remedy: Your brain isn’t for thinking, just surviving

Denyse O'Leary
November 29, 2020
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience
If the brain is really just a mechanism for deposits and withdrawals, who or what thought up the image that describes it that way? Unthinking things cannot characterize themselves. The brain is characterized, correctly or otherwise, by something that operates with but beyond the brain. For convenience, we refer to it as the mind. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 16, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism
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Is Jerry Coyne undercutting his own argument against free will?

Denyse O'Leary
November 16, 2020
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism
Michael Egnor: “Except for action of any quantum events”? I challenge Coyne: What in nature isn’t the action of quantum events? Certainly, every event in the brain is quantum in nature—every brain state, every action potential, every secretion of a neurotransmitter, every bit of protein synthesis or ion flow—is the consequence of quantum events. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 15, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism
Tagged
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A debate at Scientific American: Can a pill change your mind about basic issues in life?

Denyse O'Leary
November 15, 2020
Culture, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism
Readers who remain skeptical that hallucinogens can change our values may wonder how religious and political values— so often rooted in decades of history, family history, and personal experience—could really be overturned by a mere trip. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 2, 2020
Categorized
Cell biology, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Origin Of Life
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The philosopher and the biologist offer a “fantasy” of how Darwinism can create minds

Denyse O'Leary
November 2, 2020
Cell biology, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Origin Of Life
The problem isn’t with their believing that cells feature lots of intelligence but with their effort to equate human and cellular intelligence. Human intelligence is something quite different. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 30, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism
Tagged
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James Randi (1928-2020)

Denyse O'Leary
October 30, 2020
Culture, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism
Thing is, the kind of skepticism Randi represented was based in a world where everyone agreed that 2 + 2 = 4. Today, it is NOT doubters of Darwin, etc., who are destroying science. Hardly! It is the ensconced science bureaucrats who are willing to entertain the destruction of math and—be sure of it—eventually, just plain literacy. It would be good to think that Randi never came to know of the doom. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 26, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience
Tagged
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Michael Egnor addresses an objection to free will raised here at Uncommon Descent

Denyse O'Leary
October 26, 2020
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience
Egnor: [fMRI isn't decisive.] But fMRI is worthless in the neuroscience of free will. To understand why, note that fMRI has very poor temporal resolution. fMRI measures changes in blood flow in the brain in response to activity of neurons, and these changes lag neuronal activity by at least several seconds. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 23, 2020
Categorized
Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Physics
Tagged
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Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is being labelled “anti-science”

Denyse O'Leary
October 23, 2020
Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Physics
Also, let this sink in: Despite believing in determinism, Hossenfelder believes we should “decide” against a new particle collider… We can decide? On that account, to other naturalists, she is “anti-science.” Naturalism is weird like that. Eats its own. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 20, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Philosophy
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Free will makes more sense of our world than determinism—and science certainly allows for it

Denyse O'Leary
October 20, 2020
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Philosophy
Scientists weigh in on both sides but accepting free will allows us to avoid some serious problems around logic and personal freedom. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 20, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Peer review
Tagged
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One of those rare instances where science is self-correcting … Ioannidis is vindicated

Denyse O'Leary
October 20, 2020
Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Peer review
Hey, that's good news. But what about all the people whose lives were turned upside down by the herd of stampeding buffalo otherwise known as our moral and intellectual superiors? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 4, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism
Tagged
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Mathematical Association of America gone Woke: Math is created by humans

Denyse O'Leary
October 4, 2020
Culture, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism
Math is not, of course, created by humans but only recognized by humans—a critical distinction. 2 + 2 = 4, even if the Woke burn down research labs under the banner of “2 + 2 = 5!” The biggest losers will, of course, be those with the fewest private resources when public ones are destroyed. Read More ›