I have recently posted a new video presentation on my YouTube channel. In the video I talk about some of the reasons why I think the debate over Intelligent Design and biological origins is of great significance. Aside from just being a fascinating area, it has many implications in several areas of life. This video, Read More…
Popular culture
Brian Keating on the problem with “Follow the Science”
Readers might remember that Brian Keating recently interviewed Steve Meyer but here he himself is interviewed.
A reminder (or two) to our civilisation from Plato:
First, the Parable of the Cave: Second, the Ship of State: >>[Soc.] I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which the Read More…
Thinking More Deeply About Causation
Most people (including experts) tend to have a one-level view of causation. That is, they have a static idea of what the subject matter is, and then they look to see how the pieces bounce around within that static structure. That more or less works for physics. It totally fails everywhere else.
At Aeon: Airing doubts about the Darwinian view of human nature
The Twitter mob must be at lunch or something. An entire industry of bestselling Darwindrivel is disrespected and this prof still has her JOB?
The science-based arguments against Copernicus and Galileo
Pop science writing typically misleads us by portraying the conflict as if the rightness of the Copernican universe were self-evident. For sure not at the time.
How come millennials, educated in Darwin-only science classes, are big on astrology?
We’re not claiming it’s a cause. Just noticing that aggressive defense of Darwinism and other kinds of naturalism proves no deterrent to nonsense.
Silenced! Selectivity too close to truth?
Should science pursue truth regardless of consequences? Or must we succumb to political correctness? Must selectivity of females always equal males? Consider: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole – by Theodore P. Hill “In the highly controversial area of human intelligence, the ‘Greater Male Variability Hypothesis’ (GMVH) asserts that there are Read More…
Origenes vs CR on the challenge of criticism
Sometimes, a blog comment is so cogent that it desrerves headline billing. In the following case, Origenes brilliantly rises to that level in responding to frequent critic, CR. So, from the moral grounding thread: Origenes, 268:>>CR @ CR: My point was and has continues to be: how does a proposition obtain the status of being Read More…
ID conference in Portugal, October 23, 2017
Here: The event will essentially consist of debates about the Theory of Intelligent Design (TDI) and Evolution Theory highlighting points and counterpoints about its theoretical assumptions, the development of Science and implications for society, promoting the scientific debate between the naturalist worldview and the advances of physics, chemistry and modern biochemistry on the origin of Read More…
Douglas Axe on science and public opinion
From Douglas Axe, author of Undeniable, in response to Atul Gawande (“Scientific explanation stands in contrast to the wisdom of divinity and experience and common sense”), who was complaining about lack of public confidence in science. At Evolution News & Views: Maybe the better way to restore public confidence is to abandon the condescending mindset Read More…
Not just science journals… plagiarism at Wired too
From RetractionWatch: Last Friday, WIRED editor Adam Rogers got a direct message on Twitter that no journalist wants to see. Christina Larson, a freelance writer in China, told him she had seen overlap with her own work in a few WIRED stories, and included links to the relevant pieces. “She was gracious, just asking for Read More…
ID and the Overton Window/ BATNA/ March of Folly issue . . .
The parable of Plato’s Cave in The Republic — vid: [youtube d2afuTvUzBQ] . . . is a classic point of departure for discussions of true vs false enlightenment, education, worldviews, liberty and manipulative sociocultural agendas or power games that open up marches of folly. ( I think Acts 27 still has the best classical case Read More…
Babble on, pop neuroscience. The crowd is listening.
From The Register: Neurobabble makes nonsense brain ‘science’ more believable Neuroscientific explanations of human behaviour appeal to people because we’re suckers for simplified, mechanistic brain-centred explanations – even if they’re rubbish or don’t make sense. A droll study by four psychologists tested psychological statements and placed them alongside “irrelevant” information from neuroimaging fMRI scans, to Read More…
VIDEO: Sharyl Attkisson (in a TEDx) cautions on Astroturfing and pseudo-consensus
Here: [youtube -bYAQ-ZZtEU] And while one may have reservations or quibbles about particular cases, the overall point is well taken. In her article on a “top ten” list of astro-turfers, she comments, soberingly: What’s most successful when it appears to be something it’s not? Astroturf. As in fake grassroots. The many ways that corporations, special Read More…