Meant to share this last week, since it tied into my post about the state of our civilization, and the difficulty of keeping the broad sweeps of history in sight, but it fell between the cracks until now. The world is becoming a better place...slowly. TWO decades ago the extremely poor accounted for more than a … Continue reading Daily chart: March of the middle class | The Economist
The multiverse as a scientific concept — part II
Lava, not water, formed canyons on Mars
Every so often we get a reminder that all scientific conclusions are provisional. The canyon-like scars which line Mars' crust are seen by many as evidence for liquid water. But a study now suggests that a different kind of fluid – one much less hospitable to life – may actually have carved these features. via … Continue reading Lava, not water, formed canyons on Mars
Pseudophysics: The New High Priesthood
Wow. Somewhat in balance to yesterday's reblog of part one of Coel Hellier's post defending multiverse theories as scientific, here's Amir Aczel skewering many of the proponents of multiverses and other untestable cosmological theories. He takes aim at Brian Greene, Max Tegmark, Lawrence Krauss, and others, for presenting metaphysical assertions as science. The universe is a marvelous … Continue reading Pseudophysics: The New High Priesthood
xkcd: Fish
xkcd on the Fermi Paradox. Click through for the full sized version. xkcd: Fish.
The multiverse as a scientific concept — part I
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
Philosophy: A Fruitless Endeavor?
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
SelfAwarePatterns 