Tag: determinism
Descartes’s Blunder
What is it that we are most sure of? It’s a fundamental question, the object of philosophical analysis for millennia.
Blade Runner 2049 Poses Questions about AI Machines and Moral Value
Rather than get all caught up in esoteric musing, I suggest an entry level test for determining whether an entity has any moral value.
Behe Reviews Miller’s Latest Book, Only a Theory
Michael Behe has a brief review of Ken Miller’s new book up at his Amazon blog: Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, has written a new book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, in which he defends Darwinism, attacks intelligent design, and makes a case for theistic evolution (defined as something like “God used Darwinian evolution to make life”). In all this, it’s pretty much a re-run of his previous book published over a decade ago, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution. So if you read that book, you’ll have a very good idea of what 90% of the new book concerns. For people who Read More ›
Evolutionary Psychology
In case you missed this gem from The New York Times, you’re going to love the logic: Nonetheless, Dowd’s views do bring solace to some, going by reactions from parishioners who claim that a scientific perspective has helped them come to terms with their follies of the past. For some at least, the recognition of genetic and biochemical frailty is a healing act. Last fall, for example, after Bob Miller, an 81-year-old man, heard Dowd’s sermon at a Unitarian church in Pensacola, Fla., he felt his guilt over a string of affairs from four decades ago melting away. “I could never quite understand why I had behaved that way,” says Miller, who was climbing the corporate ladder when his infidelities Read More ›
Second Verse Same as the First: Practice Science, Follow the Evidence Where it Leads
I might have titled this post, “Eastern Mystics Join Western Fundamentalist Conspiracy,” except that there are those out there that would howl to the highest that I had finally admitted we are fundamentalists with a secret conspiracy. (First, I’m fundamentally not a fundamentalist, and the so-called “secret conspiracy” is neither secret nor a conspiracy.) Instead, I have a title that neatly sums up the point made in the Asian Tribune today, titled Is our evolving universe an intelligent design?, by essayist Vasantha Raja. It is an excellent article in which Raja shows that following the evidence where it leads isn’t a fundamentalist conspiracy to convert the world in whichever direction at all, it is rather what the scientific method should Read More ›