Philosophy

Scott Adams offers some insights on P. Z. Myers, prefacing them as follows: . . . Some people are quite certain that I am misusing my minor celebrity status to confuse the masses and turn them into creationists or pyramid worshipers. Is it intentional, they wonder? Do I really believe the things I write? Or am I simply stupid, as it appears. . . . MORE

I just pulled out my 1972 edition of Jacques Monod’s “classic” work, Chance and Necessity, subtitled A Philosophy for a Universe without Causality. From the back cover: The outstanding French biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize, here explains to the layman his revolutionary approach to genetics and its far-reaching ethical and philosophical implications. For some time now, the unpleasant idea has been dawning on mankind that it may owe its existence to nothing but a roll of some cosmological set of dice. But until recently hard proof has been missing and the larger philosophical implications have remained obscure. What Jacques Monod is here to say in his difficult but important book is that the proof is now available and the Read More ›

Over at ATBC one of our brightest detractors Altabin (banned here, natch, because he’s just too smart for us) suggested an experiment. He misquoted the bible of course. It’s wolf and lamb or lion and calf. But we get his drift.

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53. Were all the animals friendly to man before the Flood? Idea: raise several baby animals like snake and mouse together to see if they remain friends as they are older.

That one may not have such a happy ending. Next time try it with a lion and a lamb.

As it just so happens… Read More ›

1. Paul Nelson is such a cool and brilliant guy
2. I’ve never met him before
3. There are lots of extras at the event he is speaking at, such as:
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I debated Lee Silver last year at Princeton and reported it on this blog (for a video of the debate, go here). Silver is a Princeton bioethicist with a Ph.D. in biology. He and Peter Singer are soulmates. Fundamentalists? We? Bad science, worse philosophy, and McCarthyite tactics in the human-embyro debate. An essay by Patrick Lee & Robert P. George We have in many places argued for the humanity and fundamental dignity of human beings in the embryonic stage of development and all later stages. In defending embryonic human life, we have pointed out that every human adult was once an embryo, just as he or she was once an adolescent, and before that a child, and before that an Read More ›

Carlos, Mark Frank, and I were discussing design detection over at Alan Fox’s blog, Languedoc Diary, last week when a mountain of work I had allowed to pile up forced me to take a short blogging sabbatical. Well, I’m back (for the moment at least), and I thought I’d post my response to Mark’s last comment here at UD.
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Casey Luskin has posted an interesting response (part II) to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account, Here he addresses Dr. Forrest’s usage of quotations from ID proponents: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/09/response_to_barbara_forrests_k_1.html As is typical in the Evo camp, Dr. Forrest attempts to make the usual conflation of ID and religion by quoting Phillip Johnson and William Dembski. Many cite Johnson as the founder of the current ID movement. Popularizer perhaps, but founder he was NOT, nor can he authoritatively be credited with setting its parameters. Luskin notes (as does Dembski in ‘Cosmic Pursuit’, 1998) that Charles Thaxton and Dean Kenyon first wrote on the subject during the ’80s. But is concept even that new? “Throughout the centuries theologians have argued that nature exhibits features which Read More ›

In response to Bill’s earlier thread Who said evolution wasn’t progressive, to say nothing of warm and fuzzy?, Rob Crowther posted a followup here: Beasts in the Forest.

Crowther points out Discovery Institute CSC Fellow Wesley Smith has a quote appearing on Starbuck’s coffee cups. Read More ›

Vatican Astronomer Replaced by Bruce Chapman

Chapman writes:

Pope Benedict XVI has replaced an evangelizing Darwinist, Dr. George Coyne, as director the Vatican Observatory, according to Zenit News. A Jesuit with a doctorate in astronomy, Dr. Coyne in recent years made himself the public scourge of Darwin critics and scientific proponents of intelligent design. Increasingly his theology resembled that of “process theologians” who believe that God is still learning and could not have known what his world was becoming.
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Terry Mirll sent me the following predictions and anti-predictions related to materialism.

If naturalistic materialism is true:

1. We are nothing but the sum of our parts. Our bodies are wholly explicable in terms of nature, and there is no aspect of our bodies that cannot be described in purely naturalistic terms, nor any means of describing ourselves other than naturalistic ones. Human beings are simply organic beings and nothing more, composed of organs which are composed of cells which are composed of molecules which are composed of atoms which are composed of sub-atomic particles (and, if string theory is valid, the particles are composed of various strings of energy), and that’s it. We are thus material beings and not spiritual ones. We have no souls. Consciousness is therefore nothing but a curious offshoot of biochemistry, a higher reasoning function of our brains that has arisen from the natural advantage afforded to us by both the size of the human brain and its level of complexity. It is NOT evidence that Man is a creature imago dei, but rather evidence of the power by which natural selection operating in tandem with random genetic mutation can operate.

THEREFORE, I PREDICT that scientists will one day construct a device capable of transporting a human body across vast regions of space–a device comparable to the “teleporter” as portrayed in the “Star Trek” TV series. It will disassemble a living human body at a molecular or sub-molecular level, transport those small bits of living organic material at high speed across great distance, and reassemble them to their original macroscopic configuration, with no ill effects to the body it has transported.

IF, HOWEVER, after several hundred years of scientific advance no such a device will have been formulated, this fact should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true. Read More ›

Graeme Hunter (a philosophy professor at the University of Ottawa examines Michael Shermer’s recent piece on confirmation bias published in Scientific American: . . . Shermer tells us – or rather science does and Shermer is only its messenger – that opinionated people actually suffer from what is called a “confirmation bias”, which Shermer defines as a condition in which “we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence.” Members of political parties, it seems, are particularly prone to this disorder. Not Shermer, though, as he tells us in the jocular, self-deprecating manner that makes his article such a joy to read: “Pace Will Rogers, I am not a member of Read More ›

Check out SALVO: http://www.salvomag.com. It’s hard-hitting and in-your-face without being ponderous. I love the “fake” ads, like The Center for Human Enhancement’s ad that features a stylized human head with the caption “be perfect” and the recommendation to “visit upgrademe.com.” Denyse O’Leary as well as other allies have pieces in the premier issue (autumn 2006), which is now out. The first issue focuses on the materialist reduction of soul.

For those of you enjoying the antics of those bungling buffoons over at the PT circus (I know I am!), I’d like to warn you that too much of that stuff will rot your brain. Never fear, however. I’ve got just the thing to remedy that. Bill Vallicella (aka the Maverick Philosopher) has a blog on which he posts and discusses his philosophical ruminations. It’s a place I like to go when in need of some good mental excercise. Check it out!

In addition to the engineers, physicists, chemists, and mathematicians who dissent from Darwin, anywhere from 33% to 60% of medical doctors dissent from Darwin (see Nearly Two-Thirds of Doctors Skeptical of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, HCD Research Poll, also check out PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS WHO DISSENT FROM DARWINISM).

Pro-ID sympathies are reflected by the fact a moderately pro-ID book received an endorsement by the Dean of Harvard’s medical school, Dr. Joseph Martin.

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