Science Has All Kinds of Non Scientific Influences and Motivations

_{Cornelius Hunter

September 25, 2014

Intelligent Design}

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Philosophers of science well understand that everything from enticements (prestige, publishing, etc.) to threats (tenure, funding, etc.) influence scientists and science, but perhaps no one has said it betterthan Dr. Bruce Charlton: Read more

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William Dembski Explains Why Intelligent Design Does Not, and Cannot, Make Sense Under Materialist Premises - September 26, 2014 - video http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/william_dembski_1090041.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-nBKm_-SWsbornagain77_{September 26, 2014
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Neuroscience Tried Wholly Embracing Naturalism, But Then the Brain Got Away - Denyse O'Leary - September 25, 2014 Excerpt:,,, Actually, it is somewhat unusual during the reign of naturalism for so much dissent to come from within the discipline, as it has in neuroscience. Most cosmologists accommodate untestable multiverse cosmologies, origin-of-life researchers guard naturalism zealously despite its fruitlessness, and human paleontologists are more numerous than important fossils, with the usual results (much ado about nothing). Why might human brain research be different?,,, There is also the fact that most people think of neuroscience as part of medicine. That tends to ground its clinical practice in the real world. So, it is still conventional to assert that the mind is not merely the brain -- http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/neuroscience_tr090061.htmlbornagain77_{September 26, 2014
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related note: Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let's Dump Methodological Naturalism - Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: "some feature of "intelligence" must be irreducible to physics, because otherwise we're back to physics versus physics, and there's nothing for SETI to look for.",,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set090071.htmlbornagain77_{September 26, 2014
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"Zombie" science. What an apt description for neo-Darwinism. A useless, largely tax-payer funded, pseudo-science that is defended by mindless Darwinbots as if their very soul, the one thing they deny, was dependent on it.
The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - Ross Douthat - January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
It is also of related interest to note that the concept of 'philosophical zombies' was used very aptly by David Chalmers to clearly illustrate the 'hard problem' of conciousness:
David Chalmers on the 'hard problem' of Consciousness - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo
Supplemental notes:
"I have argued patiently against the prevailing form of naturalism, a reductive materialism that purports to capture life and mind through its neo-Darwinian extension." "..., I find this view antecedently unbelievable---a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense". Thomas Nagel - "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" - pg.128 The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3 Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/
Not only is it impossible for the zombies of Darwinism to live their life as if materialism were true, but it is also impossible for materialistic zombies to conduct science as if materialism were true,,,
Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html "In any philosophy of reality that is not ultimately self-defeating or internally contradictory, mind – unlabeled as anything else, matter or spiritual – must be primary. What is “matter” and what is “conceptual” and what is “spiritual” can only be organized from mind. Mind controls what is perceived, how it is perceived, and how those percepts are labeled and organized. Mind must be postulated as the unobserved observer, the uncaused cause simply to avoid a self-negating, self-conflicting worldview. It is the necessary postulate of all necessary postulates, because nothing else can come first. To say anything else comes first requires mind to consider and argue that case and then believe it to be true, demonstrating that without mind, you could not believe that mind is not primary in the first place." - William J. Murray
Verse and Music
Matthew 23:27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Red - Feed The Machine - music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj2uZO7xnus
bornagain77_{September 26, 2014
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AVS 1 I agree. Mr. Charlton is long on rhetoric, but seems short on specifics.anthropic_{September 25, 2014
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I just skimmed the what was in the "read more," but I didn't see any examples of the "so many vague, dumb or incoherent scientific theories apparently believed by so many scientists for so many years." Anyone care to enlighten me, or is Mr. Charlton just blowing smoke out his rear?AVS_{September 25, 2014
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