Budziszewski is onto something here. In a Darwinian universe, there is no reason not to lie to achieve a survival goal. In the traditional universe, classically assumed to exist by most human civilizations, morality is intrinsic to the nature of the conscious entities of the universe.
Philosophy
New edition of Aeschliman’s Restoration of Man challenges scientism again
But isn’t science on a downward trajectory now anyway? Never mind the multiverse nonsense. What about the war on science and the war on math?
Natural philosopher insists, science is deeply imaginative
Okay but the multiverse crowd does not lack imagination. Nor do those who have convinced themselves of panpsychism. The thing about imagination in science is that it must be disciplined. If it isn’t, it ends up competing with fiction, without the style.
John Gray thinks that the humanities cannot now be saved
Gray: “‘Critical thinking’ has become a cluster of progressive dogmas, which are handed down as if they were self-evident truths.” Gray’s thesis is that liberalism tiself led inevitably to the collapse of standards (which now threatens the sciences). Agree, disagree, read the whole thing.
“Skeptical Inquirer” calls National Geographic book a “natural disaster”
The main thing to see here is that the book is published by National Geographic, once a source you would not have expected to be backing this stuff. The real war on science is not doubts about Darwin. To the extent that so many people have allowed Darwinists to snooker them into believing that, they likely don’t know what to do now that seriously fact-challenged points of view can parade as virtue.
Why do atheists need to deny free will?
Eric Holloway takes on a reader’s question: Reader: Harris basically reduces everything to atomic physics and says all causality happens there, so the world is deterministic (i.e. no free will). While I vehemently disagree with that idea, I do respect that at least he can articulate himself well. Do you have any thoughts on the […]
“Why is there something, instead of nothing?” (–> being Logic & First Principles, 24)
Heidegger famously posed this question, giving it redoubled force as a first question on critical analysis of worldviews: To philosophize is to ask “Why are there essents rather than nothing?” Really to ask this question signifies: a daring attempt to fathom this unfathomable question by disclosing what it summons us to ask, to push our […]
Is human cloning possible? Neurosurgeon and philosopher spar
Human cloning: It can’t happen vs. It can but wouldn’t matter much.
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 […]
Feynman, says Massimo Pigliucci, is wrong about beauty and truth in science
Massimo Pigliucci: But as the German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has pointed out (also in Aeon), there is absolutely no reason to think that simplicity and beauty are reliable guides to physical reality. She is right for a number of reasons.
Yes, the Big Bang could be wrong, but what would that really mean?
Actually, multiverse cosmology would make a starting point irrelevant or else subject to endless redefinition. Powell’s bookmark-able summary can’t address the problem, of course, but that’s precisely what the multiverse does. Facts no longer matter much because contradictory facts have equal status.
Is today’s biology missing a Big Idea?
Talbott: Every organism is an entity in which certain ideas and intentions are manifest — observably expressed and realized. We have to be willing to say, as everyone does say, “This cell is preparing to divide.” We would never say (as I mentioned earlier), “This planet is preparing to make another circuit of the sun.”
Inferring onward, from design to designer
One of the notorious talking points used by inveterate objectors to design theory, is that it is about stealth creationism. Closely tied, is the suggestion (or, assumption) that the claim that design inference on empirical sign only warrants inference to design as process is a dishonest stalking horse. Given a long saddening track record of […]
Atheists suffer apocalypse anxiety too, it seems
Reviewer: Routledge suggested the behaviour of religious doomsday fretters was similar to atheist political activists. ‘I’m increasingly seeing a similar sort of fatalism on the secular left,’ he continued.
New vid series takes aim at toxic materialism in science
Science Uprising calls out indoctrination by people such as Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson.