Philosophy

When Darwinists say that ID hinders science because once we decide something is designed, we stop inquiry. That is like saying, “there is no point in studying designs and its designer once we decide something is designed.” This is like saying once something passes our own personal Explanatory Filter, and we recognize design in an artifact, we just give up trying to learn more? I don’t think so. When I first heard this wonderful piece of music, I wanted to learn more about its architecture, I wanted to study the written notes that generated the music, I also wanted to learn more about the designer, Massenet himself. [youtube 96d9mlRmjus] As a child, when I first heard a piano rendition of Read More ›

My neo-Darwinian friend, Francis Smallwood, has now written a response to my previous instalment in our dialogue. If you want to read it, go here. Below is a small excerpt of the response by Francis. You can read his full response by going to his blog. Follow the link at the bottom of the page. I think that his latest reply is considerably better than his previous writings. Over the past year or so his critique of ID has become sharper and more substantive, and I think he makes some very good points. I still happen to think he is largely mistaken though. It is well worth engaging with this one, so please do discuss some of his points either Read More ›

Random Brain Waves Save Free Will? The debate continues with a new publication. But the new study by Han-Gue Jo and colleagues of Freiburg makes a strong case that the “RP” is not really a ‘thing’ at all. They say that, in the two seconds before a button press, you see both negative and positive changes, in roughly equal numbers. There are slightly more negative ones, so on average, there is a small negative “RP”, but only on average. See: Exp Brain Res. 2013 Dec;231(4):495-500. doi: 10.1007/s00221-013-3713-z. Epub 2013 Oct 9. Spontaneous EEG fluctuations determine the readiness potential: is preconscious brain activation a preparation process to move? Jo HG, Hinterberger T, Wittmann M, Borghardt TL, Schmidt S.

This post was originally written as a response to Barry’s recent post; however, Barry correctly pointed out that I had significantly mis-read him – I was reading much too fast. Apologies to Barry, and to those who read the earlier version of the post. I have now re-written it to not refer to (my careless misreading of) Barry’s position. I hope it still provides something helpful. As a YEC, when listening to opposing positions, I sometimes hear a combination of criticism of the YEC framework, combined with talk of logic and evidence as an alternative to having an interpretative framework. This is philosophically very naive. It is talk which is especially prominent amongst the New Atheist crowd. Listening to them, Read More ›

Here: It is precisely in the area of medical treatments that the science-pseudoscience divide is most critical, and where the role of philosophers in clarifying things may be most relevant. Our colleague Stephen T. Asma raised the issue in a recent Stone column (“The Enigma of Chinese Medicine”), pointing out that some traditional Chinese remedies (like drinking fresh turtle blood to alleviate cold symptoms) may in fact work, and therefore should not be dismissed as pseudoscience. Especially not by the turtle.