Month: June 2014

Non-experts challenging the expert consensus is rarely wise, even when scientists do it

Chris Mooney has an article at Mother Jones, explaining why it's not a good idea for non-scientists to challenge the scientific consensus, in the process, reviewing Harry Collins's new book, 'Are we all scientific experts now?'. Read all the online stuff you want, Collins argues—or even read the professional scientific literature from the perspective of … Continue reading Non-experts challenging the expert consensus is rarely wise, even when scientists do it →

American positions on moral issues and tensions between the moral foundations

Gallup did a poll on American positions on various moral issues, finding that Americans are now more accepting than ever on a range of issues. Most of these I don't find particularly surprising.  Of course, it turns out that Democrats and Republicans have differences of opinion on many of them.  HuffPost, in their write up of … Continue reading American positions on moral issues and tensions between the moral foundations →

People attribute free will to mind, not soul

Broadly speaking, there are two conceptions of free will.  The first is libertarian free will, where one has metaphysical freedom from the laws of nature in making decisions.  Libertarianism is usually understood to require mind-body dualism, in other words, a non-material soul. The second is compatibilist free will, which generally recognizes that thoughts arise from the brain … Continue reading People attribute free will to mind, not soul →

The Big Bang’s Identity Crisis – The Nature of Reality

Think of the Big Bang, and you probably imagine a moment in time when matter, energy and space itself all burst into existence at once. Yet many astrophysicists now believe that the “Big Bang” was actually two distinct events: first the inaugural instant of space and time, and second the generation of most of the … Continue reading The Big Bang’s Identity Crisis – The Nature of Reality →

Max Tegmark and MinutePhysics on the mathematical universe

This is a subject that we've discussed repeatedly here, so I thought you might find Tegmark's narration of this video interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGG4HmlotJE I'm pretty sure that mathematics are not only something humans created, that they are based on relations we observe in the world, but beyond that, I remain largely agnostic on the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis … Continue reading Max Tegmark and MinutePhysics on the mathematical universe →