Michael Flynn's Blog, page 36

Fun with Statistics

Against the Storks of Oldenburg A Humean BeingA few centuries back as the crow flies, David Hume (among others) discarded the concept of final causation.  However, this left efficient causation hanging in the air.  If there is nothing in A that "points toward" B, then there is no reason to suppose that A causes B "always or for the most part."  So committed was he to discarding finality that, faced with this inconvenient truth, Hume discarded causality entirely.  A does not "cause" B.    It is only that B happens to follow A "always or for the most part."  So far.  Tomorrow, it might not.  What appear to be laws of nature are simply the human tendency to "see" patterns regardless whether they are there.  This, of course, pulled the entire metaphysical rug out from under the new natural science; but scientists responded with a clean, manly cognitive dissonance.  They accepted the premise (final causes = boo!) while while whistling past the graveyard (of efficient causes).  That is, they acted for the most part as if causality was alive and well.

Well, they were physicists.  But over the centuries, Humean correlation gradually encroached on causation.   In the social sciences, correlation is triumphant. 

Which brings us to the topic du jour.  Does belief in heaven encourage criminal behavior?
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What Rough Beast is This?

Slippery Slope? What Slippery Slope?Because the Late Modern world has concluded that the End justifies the Means, provided only that the End is approved of by all right-thinking people (i.e., that it involves personal pleasure), we lately pay little attention to the form of the argument made in favor of the End.  The conclusion, after all, is predetermined, so the argument is typically ad hoc rationalization. 
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The Undefeatable Argument in Philosophy

[image error] h/t Mark Shea

Captive Dreams

Coming Soon

Order early  and often
Some blurbs that are not too unkind:

Another mystery solved!

Here

Clearing the Tabs

Odds and EndsTime to clear the tabs once more.  Details below the break.
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Quote of the Day

Laughter is the diamond in the crown of reason.
-- Brandon Watson

A head of the game

Game of Heads

Article Sold

The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown and Down n' Dirty Mud-Wrassle

Sideways

Steven Silver sends the following announcement:
 We are pleased to announce this year's nominees for the Sidewise Award
for Alternate History. The winners will be announced at Chicon 7,
this year's Worldcon, in Chicago, Illinois during the weekend of
August 30. The Sidewise Awards have been presented annually since
1995 to recognize excellence in alternate historical fiction. This
year's panel of judges was made up of Stephen Baxter, Evelyn Leeper,
Jim Rittenhouse, Stu Shiffman, Kurt Sidaway, and Steven H Silver.

Congratulations and best of luck.

Short Form

* Michael F. Flynn, The Iron Shirts (Tor.com)
* Lisa Goldstein, Paradise Is a Walled Garden (Asimov’s, 8/11)
* Jason Stoddard, Orion Rising (Panverse 3, edited by Dario Ciriello,
Panverse Publishing)
* Harry Turtledove, Lee at the Alamo (Tor.com)

Long Form

* Robert Conroy, Castro's Bomb (Kindle)
* Robert Conroy, Himmler's War (Baen Books)
* Jeff Greenfield, Then Everything Changed (Putnam)
* Ian R MacLeod, Wake Up and Dream (PS Publishing)
* Ian McDonald, Planesrunner (Pyr)
* Ekaterina Sedia, Heart of Iron (Prime)
* Lavie Tidhar, Camera Obscura (Angry Robot)

The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were conceived in late 1995
to honor the best allohistorical genre publications of the year. The
first awards were announced in summer 1996 and honored works from
1995. The award takes its name from Murray Leinster's 1934 short story
"Sidewise in Time," in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth
to swap places with their analogs from other timelines.

For more information, contact Steven H Silver at shsilver@sfsite.com
or go to http://www.uchronia.net/sidewise.