Keith Parsons's Blog, page 14
October 22, 2012
October 19, 2012
Homeopathy
Well, monotheistic weirdness is but a subset of the weirdness we humans are capable of. And damn, are we capable of an awful lot of brain-melting, asinine notions that tie into spiritual beliefs. For example:
(Sounds of me banging my head against a wall...)
(Sounds of me banging my head against a wall...)
Well, monotheistic weirdness is but a subset of the weird...
Well, monotheistic weirdness is but a subset of the weirdness we humans are capable of. And damn, are we capable of an awful lot of brain-melting, asinine notions that tie into spiritual beliefs. For example:
(Sounds of me banging my head against a wall...)
(Sounds of me banging my head against a wall...)
Myself, Peter Atkins, Richard Swinburne, Ard louis,(and Richard Dawkins) in conversation
Here
is a fairly long video of a discussion between myself, Richard
Swinburne (philosopher), Peter Atkins (chemist), Ard Louis (physicist),
and also Richard Dawkins (who was in the audience) at one point. The
theme was Life, The Universe and Everything - The Quest for Truth.
My main contribution is at 39 mins 30sec.
(nb. Dawkins is at 1hr 18 min 20 sec [he has a pop at Swinburne and me] and my response to Dawkins at 1hr 24 min 30 sec).
I posted on this before, shortly after the recording. Go here.
This included quite a good discussion on the nature and value of philosophy, I thought.
is a fairly long video of a discussion between myself, Richard
Swinburne (philosopher), Peter Atkins (chemist), Ard Louis (physicist),
and also Richard Dawkins (who was in the audience) at one point. The
theme was Life, The Universe and Everything - The Quest for Truth.
My main contribution is at 39 mins 30sec.
(nb. Dawkins is at 1hr 18 min 20 sec [he has a pop at Swinburne and me] and my response to Dawkins at 1hr 24 min 30 sec).
I posted on this before, shortly after the recording. Go here.
This included quite a good discussion on the nature and value of philosophy, I thought.
October 17, 2012
Halloween: Satan's Plot To Turn You Gay
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012...
When you live in a parallel universe where dinosaurs were on the Ark with Noah, and talking snakes crawl into your garden, and vaccinating girls for HPV makes them promiscuous, and the Rapture could happen tomorrow, and the whole universe is 6000 years old, and trick-or-treating is a Satanic plot to make you gay, I can't help but wonder: How do you manage, in the real world, to dress yourself, drive cars, pay bills, vote (arghhhh), or hold a job? How does someone live half in reality and half in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land? How does a brain manage this without going stark raving bay-at-the moon mad?
When you live in a parallel universe where dinosaurs were on the Ark with Noah, and talking snakes crawl into your garden, and vaccinating girls for HPV makes them promiscuous, and the Rapture could happen tomorrow, and the whole universe is 6000 years old, and trick-or-treating is a Satanic plot to make you gay, I can't help but wonder: How do you manage, in the real world, to dress yourself, drive cars, pay bills, vote (arghhhh), or hold a job? How does someone live half in reality and half in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land? How does a brain manage this without going stark raving bay-at-the moon mad?
October 13, 2012
Ian's Review of Carrier's Proving History and Carrier's Reply
An atheist named Ian with a deep background in math and science has written a critical review of Carrier's Proving History.
A Mathematical Review of "Proving History" by Richard Carrier
Among other things, Ian complains that Carrier uses a version of Bayes's Theorem (BT) that is "unduly complex" and "highly idiosyncratic." I disagree. I think one's assumptions can play a huge role in historical Jesus studies, so it valuable to use a version of BT which explicitly includes background knowledge (B).
Other critical posts on Ian's site:
An Introduction to Probability Theory and Why Bayes's Theorem is Unhelpful in History
Error in Bayes's Theorem
Carrier's reply may be found here.
A Mathematical Review of "Proving History" by Richard Carrier
Among other things, Ian complains that Carrier uses a version of Bayes's Theorem (BT) that is "unduly complex" and "highly idiosyncratic." I disagree. I think one's assumptions can play a huge role in historical Jesus studies, so it valuable to use a version of BT which explicitly includes background knowledge (B).
Other critical posts on Ian's site:
An Introduction to Probability Theory and Why Bayes's Theorem is Unhelpful in History
Error in Bayes's Theorem
Carrier's reply may be found here.
October 9, 2012
October 8, 2012
How to be Secular
I just read Jacques Berlinerblau's How to be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom. It's a good book and well worth reading, precisely because it will rub a lot of atheists the wrong way.
I see little to object to in Berlinerblau's description of the poor state of secularism in the United States. I'd be even more blunt: secularism has not just faded, it has been defeated, and any attempt to resuscitate it must start from the fact of defeat. I also tend to agree with his description of atheism (particularly "movement atheism" and New Atheism) as political irrelevancies except to the extent of the damage they do to the secularist cause.
There are a few things I didn't understand—though I'm not sure these add up to any real criticisms.
First, I didn't see why, given their insignificance, Berlinerblau paid attention to activist atheist groups and their foibles in the book. He makes a strong case that secularism stands or falls almost entirely due to whether moderate religious people and religious minorities respond to Christian Right progress toward bringing back an informal Protestant establishment. He makes an intriguing argument that secularists should abandon church-state separation and see what they can get in the present accommodationist climate instead. Fair enough, but then the overall argument should be more directly addressed to moderate religious people. Why even involve atheists? Parts of the book read like Berlinerblau is too close to, even invested in, atheist infighting.
Second, I found his expressed motivation for secularism very conventional and indeed quite weak. Berlinerblau does a good job of telling the reader about historical and legal scholarship that expose how standard secularist stories about the alleged secular legal framework of the United States is in no small part mythical. But other than a few citations in passing, he doesn't address the weighty political thought that criticizes secularism as a nondemocratic, even oppressive idea. Secularists need new arguments, not just a repetition of pieties about preventing religious strife and establishing order—notions that carry some dubious historical baggage in their own right.
Third, the wider context for the recent struggle over secularism is overlooked in the book. The Religious Right didn't succeed on its own; it has worked in close alliance with other American right wing currents. Religious populism has fitted very well with plutocratic and market fundamentalist aspects of American conservatism; it's misleading to treat the defeat of secularism in isolation from a broader defeat of liberal political views in the United States.
But these aside—and my lack of understanding here may well say more about me than anything else—this book should, if all goes well, start some interesting arguments. I can only hope that nonbelievers who read it will use it to start some substantial discussions, and not just get pissed off and leave it there.
[image error]
I see little to object to in Berlinerblau's description of the poor state of secularism in the United States. I'd be even more blunt: secularism has not just faded, it has been defeated, and any attempt to resuscitate it must start from the fact of defeat. I also tend to agree with his description of atheism (particularly "movement atheism" and New Atheism) as political irrelevancies except to the extent of the damage they do to the secularist cause.
There are a few things I didn't understand—though I'm not sure these add up to any real criticisms.
First, I didn't see why, given their insignificance, Berlinerblau paid attention to activist atheist groups and their foibles in the book. He makes a strong case that secularism stands or falls almost entirely due to whether moderate religious people and religious minorities respond to Christian Right progress toward bringing back an informal Protestant establishment. He makes an intriguing argument that secularists should abandon church-state separation and see what they can get in the present accommodationist climate instead. Fair enough, but then the overall argument should be more directly addressed to moderate religious people. Why even involve atheists? Parts of the book read like Berlinerblau is too close to, even invested in, atheist infighting.
Second, I found his expressed motivation for secularism very conventional and indeed quite weak. Berlinerblau does a good job of telling the reader about historical and legal scholarship that expose how standard secularist stories about the alleged secular legal framework of the United States is in no small part mythical. But other than a few citations in passing, he doesn't address the weighty political thought that criticizes secularism as a nondemocratic, even oppressive idea. Secularists need new arguments, not just a repetition of pieties about preventing religious strife and establishing order—notions that carry some dubious historical baggage in their own right.
Third, the wider context for the recent struggle over secularism is overlooked in the book. The Religious Right didn't succeed on its own; it has worked in close alliance with other American right wing currents. Religious populism has fitted very well with plutocratic and market fundamentalist aspects of American conservatism; it's misleading to treat the defeat of secularism in isolation from a broader defeat of liberal political views in the United States.
But these aside—and my lack of understanding here may well say more about me than anything else—this book should, if all goes well, start some interesting arguments. I can only hope that nonbelievers who read it will use it to start some substantial discussions, and not just get pissed off and leave it there.
[image error]
October 7, 2012
William Lane Craig: "Animals aren't aware that they're in pain"
Recently, some theists have attempted to deal with that part of the problem of evil
generated by horrendous animal suffering found in nature - including
hundreds of millions of years of animal suffering before we humans even
showed up - by saying that animals aren't aware that they are in pain.
They maintain this is what "science" has shown. That helps bring the
problem of suffering down to size!
Indeed, that animals
aren't aware that they are in pain is a remarkable "recent scientific
discovery", said Christian apologist William Lane Craig in his debate with me, for example. Craig claimed that all animals other than higher primates lack a pre-frontal cortex, and thus are unaware that they are in pain (see
Craig speaking in the video below from about 2 mins 30 secs - P.S. he
says e.g. cats have a level of pain awareness, but he maintains science
has shown that cats are unaware that they are in pain, which, he says,
will be a great comfort to animal lovers like himself).
Actually,
that's a load of pseudo-scientific rubbish, as scientists in this new
video explain (the video has nothing to do with me btw).
The first responds directly to what William Lane Craig said: "that's not true". (at 6 mins 20 secs)
Another,
Professor Bruce Hood, confirms that Craig's key "scientific" claim that
animals other than higher primates don't have a pre-frontal cortex is
just wrong (from about 8 mins)
Indeed, Joaquin Fuster,
the author of a classic textbook on the pre-frontal cortex, says about
Craig's statement that it is "wrong on several counts", and explains
that all mammals and some birds have a pre-frontal cortex (from about 9
mins 30)
As the commentator points out, "that so many animals possess a pre-frontal cortex is just a google search away."
Oh,
and by the way, the source Craig quotes to back up his "scientific" claims is not a scientist - Michael Murray is actually a Christian apologist and philosopher.
Several
of the scientists also point out that, in any case, even if some
animals did have no, or a smaller, pre-frontal cortex, that wouldn't
justify the conclusion that they are unaware that they are in pain.
P.S. Hopefully Craig is a straight enough guy to issue an unqualified mea culpa on this one. He's just got the science very wrong.
[image error]
generated by horrendous animal suffering found in nature - including
hundreds of millions of years of animal suffering before we humans even
showed up - by saying that animals aren't aware that they are in pain.
They maintain this is what "science" has shown. That helps bring the
problem of suffering down to size!
Indeed, that animals
aren't aware that they are in pain is a remarkable "recent scientific
discovery", said Christian apologist William Lane Craig in his debate with me, for example. Craig claimed that all animals other than higher primates lack a pre-frontal cortex, and thus are unaware that they are in pain (see
Craig speaking in the video below from about 2 mins 30 secs - P.S. he
says e.g. cats have a level of pain awareness, but he maintains science
has shown that cats are unaware that they are in pain, which, he says,
will be a great comfort to animal lovers like himself).
Actually,
that's a load of pseudo-scientific rubbish, as scientists in this new
video explain (the video has nothing to do with me btw).
The first responds directly to what William Lane Craig said: "that's not true". (at 6 mins 20 secs)
Another,
Professor Bruce Hood, confirms that Craig's key "scientific" claim that
animals other than higher primates don't have a pre-frontal cortex is
just wrong (from about 8 mins)
Indeed, Joaquin Fuster,
the author of a classic textbook on the pre-frontal cortex, says about
Craig's statement that it is "wrong on several counts", and explains
that all mammals and some birds have a pre-frontal cortex (from about 9
mins 30)
As the commentator points out, "that so many animals possess a pre-frontal cortex is just a google search away."
Oh,
and by the way, the source Craig quotes to back up his "scientific" claims is not a scientist - Michael Murray is actually a Christian apologist and philosopher.
Several
of the scientists also point out that, in any case, even if some
animals did have no, or a smaller, pre-frontal cortex, that wouldn't
justify the conclusion that they are unaware that they are in pain.
P.S. Hopefully Craig is a straight enough guy to issue an unqualified mea culpa on this one. He's just got the science very wrong.
[image error]
October 6, 2012
Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos" Reviewed by Michael Weisberg & Brian Leiter
"We conclude with a comment about truth in advertising. Nagel’s arguments against reductionism are quixotic, and his arguments against naturalism are unconvincing. He aspires to develop “rival alternative conceptions” to what he calls the materialist neo-Darwinian worldview, yet he never clearly articulates this rival conception, nor does he give us any reason to think that “the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two.” Mind and Cosmos is certainly an apt title for Nagel’s philosophical meditations, but his subtitle—”Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False”—is highly misleading. Nagel, by his own admission, relies only on popular science writing and brings to bear idiosyncratic and often outdated views about a whole host of issues, from the objectivity of moral truth to the nature of explanation. No one could possibly think he has shown that a massively successful scientific research program like the one inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection “is almost certainly false.” The subtitle seems intended to market the book to evolution deniers, intelligent-design acolytes, religious fanatics and others who are not really interested in the substantive scientific and philosophical issues. Even a philosopher sympathetic to Nagel’s worries about the naturalistic worldview would not claim this volume comes close to living up to that subtitle. Its only effect will be to make the book an instrument of mischief."
Read the review in its entirety here. h/t Leiter Reports
[image error]
Read the review in its entirety here. h/t Leiter Reports
[image error]
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