In the recent discussion on causation, I noted: KF, 72: >>As I think about cause, I am led to ponder a current discussion that echoes Plato on the self-moved, ensouled agent with genuine freedom. Without endorsing wider context, John C Wright draws out a key point that we may ponder as a nugget drawn from Read More…
Philosophy
Is Buddhism really the most “science-friendly religion”?
Thompson’s point is applicable beyond Buddhism. “Theistic” evolutionists, for example, start with the premise that God wouldn’t “create” anything. That is really a message about God, not about nature, and it is bound to be a church-closer.
A classic reminder from MIT that most important science problems “await solution”
New discoveries don’t just add to old ones; they can greatly change or destroy their significance. That’s exactly what is happening to Darwinism today and we are living in the middle of it.
Harvard astronomer tells us why ultra-complex physics theories come to exist
They are not principally data-driven. “In today’s fierce job market, fledgling scientists sometimes attempt to impress their senior colleagues with lengthy derivations marked by challenging mathematical complexity.” If he thinks evidence is important, that should rule out the multiverse.
Michael Egnor sympathizes with people who think the universe is conscious
Michaael Egnor: There is no doubt that consciousness is a fundamental property of animal and human existence. As philosopher Philip Goff notes, a philosophy that cannot plausibly account for it cannot be correct.
Massimo Pigliucci: Feynman was wrong about truth and beauty in science
He starts out well but notice how Darwinism, flung into the works like an old shoe, undermines the topic completely. If beauty is really “in the eye of the beholder” full stop, there is really no such thing as beauty. If the “capacity for aesthetic appreciation” evolved “possibly involving natural selection,” then it is unrelated to the object and best understood in terms of how many children artists have.
Consciousness: Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci skates around the main problems
It’s time to revive dualism: “And lastly, Pigliucci insists, without offering evidence, that dualism is “antiscientific.” Dualism is a logical conclusion from our circumstances; we are beings of both mind and matter. And those who would refute dualism tend to involve themselves in stranger claims, as we have seen.”
Sabine Hossenfelder on avoiding cognitive biases
Hossenfelder: But the most problematic cognitive bias in science is social reinforcement, also known as group think…
Asked at The Scientist: “Does science describe experience or truth?”
As it happens, the loss of theism puts science in an impossible position. A traditional monotheist (and probably most deists) would assume that God creates according to logic and reason and that the scientist can indeed find out the truth by “thinking God’s thoughts after him.” But otherwise, why? Loss of the theistic perspective leads directly to the current demands that science credentials and acknowledgements be apportioned on the basis of fairness as if they were public goods of some kind.
Imagine someone asking just how much wisdom there is in the scientific crowd?
Surprisingly, someone did. Wow. Read and bookmark the whole piece. Remember it if some yob accuses you of being anti-science because, based on experience and judgment, you question some finding widely puffed in media.
David Berlinski chats with Ben Shapiro
Did we mention? Darwinism’s over. People who make their living off it better think of some other way to seem smart.
We’re always hearing about crises, in science and other areas. Can the Intellectual Dark Web help?
Douglas Murray, for example, challenges sessile campus organisms
Roger Scruton, a non-Darwinian intellectual, was honored recently in Czech Republic
Where he did much to keep intellectual freedom alive during the communist years
Philip Kitcher’s candid assessment of the textbook “scientific method”
“The high school textbook’s caricature of scientific method is not just bad philosophy, entirely inadequate to account for scientific practice. It is also bad history… “
But do we really need quantum physics to announce that objective reality doesn’t exist?
Wouldn’t making free, legal pot available accomplish the same intellectual goal?