ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 785
January 9, 2015
Astronomers Determine Saturn’s Location With Astounding Accuracy
Photo credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
By combining signals from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft with observations from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NRAO) very long baseline array (VLBA), scientists have been able to accurately identify Saturn’s position to within a single mile. This information will be useful in understanding the orbits of planets in the outer solar system, and will have other widespread implications for future research.
The Deep Future: Crash Course Big History #10
Finally, after what seems like eons and eons, the end is nigh. We’re talking not only about the end of Crash Course Big History, but also the end of everything. The end of humanity and the end of the universe.John and Hank Green will teach you about what the future holds for humanity and the universe. Spoiler alert: in the long, long, long, long, long, long term, it doesn’t look good. In the short term though, it’s not too bad. But don’t lose hope, there is an upside. You’ll have to watch the video to find out.
Learn more about Big History here: http://www.bighistoryproject.com
January 4, 2015
Imagine No Religion 5
Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss head up a full weekend of amazing speakers in Richmond, BC June 5-7, 2015.
Details here: http://www.imaginenoreligion.ca
This Is The True Size Of Africa
Photo credit:
Kai Krause
How large is Africa compared to the United States, or Western Europe? Most inhabitants of the latter places might guess it is a little larger, but few would have any idea of the scale of the difference. This has led German graphics designer Kai Krause to produce this map to shake people's perceptions a little.
Slow Motion Video Reveals How Raindrops Fall on Sand Like Asteroids
Photo credit:
R. Zhao et al., PNAS 2014
What does a rainy day on the beach and catastrophic asteroid strikes have in common? Despite the massive difference in scale, a whole lot it turns out, according to new work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. Using high-speed imaging, researchers have captured the impact of raindrops falling on sandy surfaces: the surface deforms like a liquid while preserving a circular crater like a solid -- just like when an asteroid strikes Earth.
Atheist Experience #267
AE-DVD-267 11-24-2002 Martin Wagner w/Ashley Perrien.
We welcome your comments on the open blog thread for this show.
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
YouTube comments are at present disabled in our channel, to the displeasure of some. However, each video has a prominent link to the associated open thread that appears on our blog. In the past we’ve tried opening up the channel to comments, but we found that a very high number of episodes wound up being flooded with a combination of spam, long winded apologists, and various obscene or misogynistic comments directed at various hosts by people with an axe to grind. This seems to be the nature of YouTube comment sections, in our experience.
We do moderate the blog, the same way that we moderate chat during the show, as well as comments on our Facebook group. For comment sections that are “officially” associated with our show (and, to a much lesser extent, channels that may give the unintended appearance of being official), we prefer not to play host to straight up ad hominem attacks and bigotry. As a general policy we do not block commenters simply on the basis of disagreement with our point of view. However, we do prefer discussion environments that don’t actively chase off more reasonable contributors.
——-
The most up to date Atheist Experience videos can be found by visiting http://atheist-experience.com/archive/
You can read more about this show on the Atheist Experience blog:
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE?
The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin.
The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.
We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism.
VISIT THE ACA’S OFFICIAL WEB SITES
► http://www.atheist-community.org (The Atheist Community of Austin)
► http://www.atheist-experience.com (The Atheist Experience TV Show)
More shows and video clips can be found in the archive:
► http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive
DVDs of the Atheist Experience can be purchased via:
► http://www.atheist-community.org/products
MUSIC CREDITS
Theme song: “Listen to Reason,” written and performed by Bryan Steeksma.
► http://www.youtube.com/bryansteeksma
► http://www.myspace.com/bryansteeksma
NOTES
TheAtheistExperience is the official channel of The Atheist Experience. “The Atheist Experience” is a trademark of the ACA.
Copyright © 2014 Atheist Community of Austin. All rights reserved.
Profundity and belief revision
My last blog entry was a text-based discussion I had with a friend. The conversation centered around the potential doxastic threat of thinking one’s conclusions were profound. In this brief post I’ll clarify my reasoning behind our exchange and offer a few additional speculations.
The feeling of profundity and the role it may play in our epistemic lives is interesting to me because it relates to one of my research questions: What prevents people from revising their conclusions? (There’s a line of literature on this, broadly termed “doxastic closure”. Some of this literature details a suite of factors explaining why people have an inability or unwillingness to revise their thoughts, beliefs, conclusions, etc., but a rigorous analysis of this, including a definition and analysis of terms, extends beyond the purpose of this brief post.) Chief among these is the belief that holding a certain conclusion makes one a better person (for more here see Dennett). In other words, lending one’s belief to a proposition is a moral act and revising one’s belief is immoral.
Another factor inhibiting belief revision could be the feeling state that arises from holding certain thoughts. In the context of my text-based discussion, the sense of profundity could contribute to a closed doxastic state by extending one’s confidence in a proposition beyond what’s warranted by the evidence. That is, the feeling that one’s thoughts capture a deep insight about reality could make it less likely that one would be willing to revise one’s conclusions. This is because, I hypothesized, profundity could contribute to the state of thinking one’s uncovered the truth, and thus circumvent the desire of continuing to search.
What’s important to note here are the mechanisms responsible for doxastic entrenchment: Attitudes and feeling states. Belief revision is often not achieved on purely epistemic grounds, that is, depending on the domain of inquiry, people don’t change their conclusions because they’re presented with new evidence, or informed of reasons previously absent. Conclusions are revised, or not, for non-epistemic reasons—emotional valence, social benefits, honesty with oneself, etc.
The feeling of profundity could be a contributory variable for whether or not people are willing or able to revise their conclusions. I don’t know whether or not this speculation is accurate. Understanding the mechanisms of belief formation and revision are tricky, multivariate, and likely extend into the domain of cognitive neuroscience. If this speculation is accurate, however, then being aware of this sensation may act as a prophylactic from wedding ourselves to bad ideas.
Atheist Experience #265
The Atheist Experience #265 for November 10, 2002, with Martin Wagner, Ashley Perrien, and Jeff Jones.
We welcome your comments on the open blog thread for this show.
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
YouTube comments are at present disabled in our channel, to the displeasure of some. However, each video has a prominent link to the associated open thread that appears on our blog. In the past we’ve tried opening up the channel to comments, but we found that a very high number of episodes wound up being flooded with a combination of spam, long winded apologists, and various obscene or misogynistic comments directed at various hosts by people with an axe to grind. This seems to be the nature of YouTube comment sections, in our experience.
We do moderate the blog, the same way that we moderate chat during the show, as well as comments on our Facebook group. For comment sections that are “officially” associated with our show (and, to a much lesser extent, channels that may give the unintended appearance of being official), we prefer not to play host to straight up ad hominem attacks and bigotry. As a general policy we do not block commenters simply on the basis of disagreement with our point of view. However, we do prefer discussion environments that don’t actively chase off more reasonable contributors.
——-
The most up to date Atheist Experience videos can be found by visiting http://atheist-experience.com/archive/
You can read more about this show on the Atheist Experience blog:
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE?
The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin.
The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.
We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism.
VISIT THE ACA’S OFFICIAL WEB SITES
► http://www.atheist-community.org (The Atheist Community of Austin)
► http://www.atheist-experience.com (The Atheist Experience TV Show)
More shows and video clips can be found in the archive:
► http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive
DVDs of the Atheist Experience can be purchased via:
► http://www.atheist-community.org/products
MUSIC CREDITS
Theme song: “Listen to Reason,” written and performed by Bryan Steeksma.
► http://www.youtube.com/bryansteeksma
► http://www.myspace.com/bryansteeksma
NOTES
TheAtheistExperience is the official channel of The Atheist Experience. “The Atheist Experience” is a trademark of the ACA.
Copyright © 2014 Atheist Community of Austin. All rights reserved.
Atheist Experience #264
The Atheist Experience #264 for November 3, 2002, with Martin Wagner, Ashley Perrien, and Arlo Pignotti.
We welcome your comments on the open blog thread for this show.
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
YouTube comments are at present disabled in our channel, to the displeasure of some. However, each video has a prominent link to the associated open thread that appears on our blog. In the past we’ve tried opening up the channel to comments, but we found that a very high number of episodes wound up being flooded with a combination of spam, long winded apologists, and various obscene or misogynistic comments directed at various hosts by people with an axe to grind. This seems to be the nature of YouTube comment sections, in our experience.
We do moderate the blog, the same way that we moderate chat during the show, as well as comments on our Facebook group. For comment sections that are “officially” associated with our show (and, to a much lesser extent, channels that may give the unintended appearance of being official), we prefer not to play host to straight up ad hominem attacks and bigotry. As a general policy we do not block commenters simply on the basis of disagreement with our point of view. However, we do prefer discussion environments that don’t actively chase off more reasonable contributors.
——-
The most up to date Atheist Experience videos can be found by visiting http://atheist-experience.com/archive/
You can read more about this show on the Atheist Experience blog:
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE?
The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin.
The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.
We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism.
VISIT THE ACA’S OFFICIAL WEB SITES
► http://www.atheist-community.org (The Atheist Community of Austin)
► http://www.atheist-experience.com (The Atheist Experience TV Show)
More shows and video clips can be found in the archive:
► http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive
DVDs of the Atheist Experience can be purchased via:
► http://www.atheist-community.org/products
MUSIC CREDITS
Theme song: “Listen to Reason,” written and performed by Bryan Steeksma.
► http://www.youtube.com/bryansteeksma
► http://www.myspace.com/bryansteeksma
NOTES
TheAtheistExperience is the official channel of The Atheist Experience. “The Atheist Experience” is a trademark of the ACA.
Copyright © 2014 Atheist Community of Austin. All rights reserved.
Atheist Experience #263
The Atheist Experience #263 for October 27, 2002, with Martin Wagner, Ashley Perrien, and Arlo Pignotii.
We welcome your comments on the open blog thread for this show.
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
YouTube comments are at present disabled in our channel, to the displeasure of some. However, each video has a prominent link to the associated open thread that appears on our blog. In the past we’ve tried opening up the channel to comments, but we found that a very high number of episodes wound up being flooded with a combination of spam, long winded apologists, and various obscene or misogynistic comments directed at various hosts by people with an axe to grind. This seems to be the nature of YouTube comment sections, in our experience.
We do moderate the blog, the same way that we moderate chat during the show, as well as comments on our Facebook group. For comment sections that are “officially” associated with our show (and, to a much lesser extent, channels that may give the unintended appearance of being official), we prefer not to play host to straight up ad hominem attacks and bigotry. As a general policy we do not block commenters simply on the basis of disagreement with our point of view. However, we do prefer discussion environments that don’t actively chase off more reasonable contributors.
——-
The most up to date Atheist Experience videos can be found by visiting http://atheist-experience.com/archive/
You can read more about this show on the Atheist Experience blog:
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE?
The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin.
The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.
We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism.
VISIT THE ACA’S OFFICIAL WEB SITES
► http://www.atheist-community.org (The Atheist Community of Austin)
► http://www.atheist-experience.com (The Atheist Experience TV Show)
More shows and video clips can be found in the archive:
► http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive
DVDs of the Atheist Experience can be purchased via:
► http://www.atheist-community.org/products
MUSIC CREDITS
Theme song: “Listen to Reason,” written and performed by Bryan Steeksma.
► http://www.youtube.com/bryansteeksma
► http://www.myspace.com/bryansteeksma
NOTES
TheAtheistExperience is the official channel of The Atheist Experience. “The Atheist Experience” is a trademark of the ACA.
Copyright © 2014 Atheist Community of Austin. All rights reserved.
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