Search results for: Scientism

As well as several recent posts – [Secular Politics] [The Art of Freedom] [Freedom Regained] – there are a number of other items and events on the topic of freedom. [Still to publish a complete review of Baggini’s Freedom Regained, referenced in the above – but a recommended read.] Prompted to post this after seeing the headline “Atheism … Continue reading “The Freedom Agenda @BobChurchill @BenedictRogers @microphilosophy #ypfpspeakers”

Noticed this NYT opinion piece (Hat tip to tweet by Bob @IHEU) a couple of weeks ago and my initial response to the statement … Why our children don’t think there are moral facts. … was, that there aren’t any. Of course the sentiment of the piece is correct, so my problem here is a language game, … Continue reading “Moral Relativism ? @IHEU @Elizaphanian @kenanmalik”

It’s pretty well known that following his joint discovery of the structure of DNA with Francis Crick (helped by Rosalind Franklin and Ray Gosling amongst others), James Watson made some dubious suggestions about racial differences based on DNA – disgraceful by today’s standards. It’s also quite likely as “men of their time” that Watson (and Galton, referenced) actually … Continue reading “The shunning of James Watson. Better to understand than to deny?”

Mentioned a couple of times recently since reading Nagel’s most recent (2012-ish ?) Mind and Cosmos, that I’d felt the need to go back to some of his earlier work of which I was aware by reference and quotation, but had never properly read. So, I’m reading The View From Nowhere (1986), and despite so … Continue reading “Nagel’s View From Nowhere”

Just a holding post for now. Will have to digest and comment on this later, but first impression is disbelief. (I recall being unimpressed by Wolpert when I saw him in a debate a couple of years ago, must dig up the blog.) [Post Note: I did in fact go back to try to make … Continue reading “Scarily Arrogant Wolpert”

I came to be reading Thomas Nagel’s Mind & Cosmos. because I came across this review, which was itself a balanced comparative review of Nagel alongside Max Tegmark’s mathematical take on reality, but it was clear Nagel had ruffled a few orthodox scientific feathers with his heretical ideas. Coincidentally when I ordered Mind and Cosmos … Continue reading “Panpsychic Alternative to Reductionism? Nagel’s latest recommended #mindandcosmos”

Put my comment in the thread already : “Richard Dawkins, what on earth happened to you?” by Eleanor Robertson in The Grauniad. Stick to the science, Dick. Don’t know enough about Ms Robertson as to why she gets to publish a personal tirade against the individual, but the point is real (of all the 4, … Continue reading “Dick Dawkins on Rape”

We may be getting somewhere, slowly. One of my agenda threads is that the naturally tendency of science and many scientists to defend themselves against (so-called blind, unreasonable) “faith” is to treat all accepted scientific models as objective fact (despite formally qualifying themselves with concepts like evidence, contingency and empirical falsifiability) – something, after Maxwell, I refer … Continue reading “Cracks in the Cosmic Egg”