Blog Stats
- 2,676,929 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- Anonymous on Genocide or Justice?: William Lane Craig, the Canaanites, the Holocaust, and Jihad
- Anonymous on Genocide or Justice?: William Lane Craig, the Canaanites, the Holocaust, and Jihad
- Top 100 Non-Fiction Book: #98 – The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1776) – The Top 100 Reviews on Adam Smith and Capitalism for Beginners
- Casual But Smart on Adam Smith and Capitalism for Beginners
- Liza Minnelli on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Liza Minnelli on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Anonymous on Walt Whitman: “To be indeed a God!”
- wdawdaw on How Many People Could the Ancient Colosseum in Rome Hold?
- Marcos Borges on Judge William Adams Alludes to the Bible as He Beats His Daughter, Hallie
- Roy West on Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Stacked Corpses
- Blue Beazley on In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Gabry on Michael Jackson Pedophile Reality Check: Is It Mean to Suspect that Michael Jackson Might Have Been a Pedophile?
- Dave on Dissipation-Driven Adaptive Organization: Is Jeremy England The Next Charles Darwin?
- Chris on Dissipation-Driven Adaptive Organization: Is Jeremy England The Next Charles Darwin?
- Oliver Stark on Matthew 27:51-53: The Bible’s “Night of the Living Dead” Passage
Top Posts
- How Crazy is Dr. David Jeremiah?
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Matthew 27:51-53: The Bible's "Night of the Living Dead" Passage
- What is a Human, Really? Thinking about Definition via Aristotle
- In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Ludwig Wittgenstein for Beginners
- What Did Friedrich Nietzsche Take from Charles Darwin?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
-
Recent Posts
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.10: Emerson’s “Circles”
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.9: Imitation And Emulation With An Eye On Competition
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.8: Selection And Editing
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.7: Audience And Rhetorical Strategy
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.6: Moving From First Sentence To Thesis
Recent Haiku Tweets
- AOC says it well. twitter.com/CNN/status/108… 4 months ago
- nytimes.com/interactive/20… 10 months ago
- RT @mrchan: So much has changed in America, and yet so much hasn't https://t.co/x2mthUr4Kc 1 year ago
- Perfect. twitter.com/newsundayheral… 2 years ago
- RT @goldenglobes: At tonight's #GoldenGlobes we honor Hollywood legend Meryl Streep with the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award. https://t.… 2 years ago
Tag Archives: epistemology
Neutrinos Faster than the Speed of Light: Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
Or, as the New York Times put it today, “Incredible claims require incredible evidence.” The reference is to the mind-blowing (apparent) discovery that there are neutrinos that can outpace the speed of light. Here’s more from the New York Times: According … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged critical thinking, einstein, epistemology, lizard lick towing, physics, science, speed of light, truth
Leave a comment
Ron Paul Rejects the Theory of Evolution
Very discouraging. I didn’t know that Ron Paul was on the anti-science dark side: . I think that this part of his comment is especially noxious and stupid: Well, first I thought it was a very inappropriate question, you know, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged anti-science, atheism, epistemology, evolution, libertarianism, philosophy, Republican party, Ron Paul
5 Comments
Is God Belief Unhelpful?
Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean by “unhelpful.” If you think it’s plausible that the universe has an ultimate (good) meaning grounded in a Great Mind that preceded matter, then it becomes an existential question whether or not it … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, epistemology, existentialism, God, Jesus, philosophy, psychology
8 Comments
Paradise Lost: The Problem with God Belief as Properly Basic
Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has written that one’s experience of God can be properly basic for the believer in the same way that, say, the hearing of a piece of music is properly basic for the hearer. It’s an experience … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alvin Plantinga, apologetics, atheism, atheist, epistemology, God, innocence to experience, Jesus, philosophy, psychology, sensus divinitatis, william lane craig
3 Comments
Critical Thinking Tip #5: Distinguish Between Conscious and Unconscious Rationality in Yourself and Others
The following are the opening five sentences to Bertrand Russell’s essay, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish”, which was first published in the midst of World War II, in 1943, but then broadly distributed after the war: Man is a rational animal—so at … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, bertrand russell, critical thinking, epistemology, Freud, fundamentalism, philosophy, psychology, reason
14 Comments
Critical Thinking Tip #2: Be Alert to Your Premises
Thomas Jefferson once encountered a jaw-dropping claim. The claim that confronted Jefferson was from eyewitnesses who said that they had seen rocks fall from the sky. They even claimed to retrieve fragments from them. And here’s the kicker: the witnesses, under normal circumstances, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Ayn Rand, critical thinking, epistemology, God, meteors, philosophy, skepticism, Thomas Jefferson, wierd things
10 Comments
The Case against Dumbing Down
I don’t know about you, but I’m totally against dumbing down subjects or language use before my students. I believe, for example, that if the undergraduates sitting before me in a class have limited vocabularies (and they all invariably do), it’s … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged academic culture, college, education, epistemology, pedagogy, vocabulary
4 Comments
A Nice Quote for Countering Epistemic Closure and Confirmation Bias
R. Gordon Wasson has been a long time advocate of a seductive hypothesis: that entheogens (psychedelic mushrooms, etc) have played a significant role in the evolution of many religions, from Hinduism in the East to Persephone devotion in the West … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged eleusis, entheogens, epiphany, epistemic closure, epistemology, magic mushrooms, perception, persephone, philosophy, psychology, screenplay
4 Comments
A Jesus and Mo Cartoon That I Disagree With
There’s a recent Jesus and Mo cartoon (you can see it here) that I disagree with. In the first frame Moses (or is it Muhammad?) is sitting at a bar with Jesus, and Mo says this to the barmaid: If … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, atheism, atheist, caspar melville, dialogue, epistemology, faith, jerry coyne, Jesus, Moses, muhammad, philosophy
12 Comments
Sean Carroll on What It Means to Have a “Sciencey Attitude”
I like this pithy summary, by Sean Carroll, of what science is: Propose an idea, see where it leads, toss it out if it conflicts with the data, build on it if it seems promising. But what if your idea … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged critical thinking, epistemology, physics, reason, science, scientific method, sean carroll, skepticism
Leave a comment
Why I am not a young earth creationist
When it comes right down to it, the tensions between science and biblical literalism boil down to epistemology: how do we go about knowing things, and when is it reasonable to say, “I know something”? In this, the scientist, in his or … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Biblical literalism, creation, epistemology, evolution, evolution v. creation, Genesis, God, Jesus, John Macarthur, Richard Dawkins, the Bible
11 Comments
A critical thinking question: what do you do when experts collide?
On the question of whether the United States is headed for an inflationary period or a deflationary period, highly trained economists are divided. This today at the Economist: Last week, we launched our economics channel with a debate on whether inflation … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Allen Ginsberg, critical thinking, economics, epistemology, evolution v. creation, experts, life, reason, skepticism
14 Comments
Thinking about Nietzsche: does truth matter?
One thing that the religious fundamentalist and the secular scientist agree on is this: what is actually true matters. Or, as they say on the X Files, “The truth is out there.” I’m not interested in denying that the world really … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Ayn Rand, epistemology, existentialism, freedom, hippies, imagination, lies, Nietzsche, the counter-enlightenment, truth
9 Comments
Hell is Real, Pope Benedict Says
So according to the Times of London: Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, the Pope has said. Addressing a parish gathering in … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, atheism, atheist, Catholicism, epistemology, God, hell, Jesus, pope benedict, reason, the Bible, torture
6 Comments
Blogging Schick and Vaughn’s “How to Think about Weird Things”
Every other year or so I find myself returning to Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn’s critical thinking text, How to Think about Weird Things, and rereading the whole darn thing through again. Schick and Vaughn’s book is a rather popular college text, and it’s in its sixth edition. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, atheism, bertrand russell, critical thinking, epistemology, knowledge, philosophy, reason, religion, stephen gould, weird things
2 Comments
“Horton Hears a Who”, Alvin Plantinga, and a Tree Stump in Ireland
In Dr. Seuss’s famous children’s book, Horton Hears a Who, an elephant equipped with giant elephant ears can hear the voices of very, very tiny “people” that really are there, lurking among the grasses. Others cannot hear them (because they … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alvin Plantinga, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Calvinism, epistemology, God, horton hears a who, Jesus, salvation
Leave a comment
Evolution v. Creation Watch: A Caution about Jumping to Conclusions
Abiogenesis (how life may have come from nonlife) continues to be a thorny problem for science, but ID people and creationists should be careful about running too quickly to the conclusion that the problem is insoluble. I was reminded of this … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged abiogenesis, apologetics, chemistry, Darwin, Darwinism, epistemology, evolution, Genesis, God, life, science, skepticism
4 Comments
Why I’m an Agnostic (and Not an Atheist or Theist)
I would liken my agnosticism about God and the afterlife to someone who is agnostic about life on Mars. At this point in the 21st century, we have enticing Martian clues about methane on the planet, but nothing definitive (it could be … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, doubt, epistemology, God, Hamlet, life on mars, Mel Gibson, Shakespeare
9 Comments
