Bartlett on Sober’s Occam’s Razors: I’m only 30 pages in, and its already worth the time and price of reading. Even if it were all downhill from here, I highly recommend it! A great discussion on the philosophy of science and the principles of reasoning from Copernicus forward.
Philosophy
From The Poached Egg: How Darwinism dumbs us down
From Nancy Pearcey: In a famous essay called “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” Dewey said Darwinism leads to a “new logic to apply to mind and morals and life.”
Why do some biologists hate theism more than physicists do?
British physicist John Polkinghorne thinks that biologists see a more disorderly universe: I think two effects produce this hostility. One is that biologists see a much more perplexing, disorderly, and painful view of reality than is presented by the austere and beautiful order of fundamental physics. . . . There is, however, a second effect […]
New England Journal of Medicine, seeking new editor, urged to get woke
Journal editor: “The main job of journals will not be to disseminate science but to ‘speak truth to power,’ encourage debate, campaign, investigate and agenda-set — the same job as the mass media.
Was Thomas Kuhn not so “evil” after all?
Philosopher of science: If Errol or Kripke or anyone can tell me something absolutely objective and unchanging about what’s out there in the natural world, I sincerely want to hear and believe that. Maybe I should (re)turn to Jesus.
Logic spaghetti: Who created God?
Tapscott: What are the most difficult questions to answer? Solid candidates are those which by virtue of how they are posed eliminate the only logical and correct answers. (Introducing mathematician John Lennox)
Kirk Durston: In defence of experimental science
I am not aware (and I’ve thought long about this) of a single conflict between faith in God and experimental science.
It is possible to demonstrate that AI will never think as humans do
Based on what we know of how algorithms work, it can be demonstrated mathematically that algorithms cannot deal with non-computable concepts: There is another way to prove a negative besides exhaustively enumerating the possibilities With artificial general intelligence (AGI), if we can identify something algorithms cannot do, and show that humans can do it then […]
Logic and First Principles, 15: On the architecture of being. Or, are certain abstract entities (“abstracta”) such as numbers, natures, truth etc real? If so, how — and where?
For some weeks now, an underlying persistent debate on the reality of numbers has emerged in several discussion threads at UD. In part, it has been cast in terms of nominalism vs platonic realism; the latter being the effective view of most working mathematicians. Obviously, this is a first principles issue and is worth focussed […]
Atheist public intellectual John Gray separates the atheist wheat from the chaff
Graham McAleer: This book should put to rest the canard that atheism is free thinking, and oh so much more broad-minded and gentle than what is on offer from the dull and cramped-spirited God-fearing types.
Darwinism and ethics: Does the idea of a blind, undirected cosmos govern our ideas of sexuality?
Is there a natural way to live? Are we happier if we follow it? Are we happier if we follow it? Nancy Pearcey, author of Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, defends that view.
Darwinism’s influence on philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn
A friend writes, “There was one paradigm that Kuhn assumed was not a paradigm, but a fact of nature: Darwinism. His whole approach to scientific revolutions was Darwinian. New paradigms emerge as accidental mutations, not because of new evidence. “
Philosopher of science Steve Meyer will be on Ben Shapiro’s show Sunday
Steve Meyer is the author of Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt. Not everyone wants to hear what he has to say: It was announced on Twitter this morning, and as you can imagine, the Twitterati are not pleased. They are bombarding the show with replies about “bunk science and the 6,000 year old […]
Was philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn “evil”
Postmodernism is to science what rabies is to dogs. That is, it will lead to post-science as surely as rabies leads to post-dogs. But by all means, let them fight in the meantime.
At Nature: Waging war on the science deniers!
Sadly, there is a war on science, of sorts, afoot. Social justice warriors, for example, are taking dead aim at math. And at objectivity generally. It’s as if, unable or unwilling to even name, let alone withstand the threat, establishment science types hope to distract themselves with a different story until it goes away. Good luck with that. They see you have funding. And they always need more money.