Monthly Archives: June 2011
Belief and evolution
One of my favourite songs is “I don’t believe in the sun” by the Magnetic Fields, in which the protagonist declares that there can’t be a sun because it would shine on other guys, not me, when his woman love … Continue reading
Filed under Epistemology, Evolution, Philosophy
Sorry for being absent
Stuff has been happening, and I have been Blogor absentibus, for which I apologise. I will soon be doing an introduction to argument series which will begin when I can take material I used in teaching and format it. I … Continue reading
Filed under Administrative
Atheists aren’t entirely human, part whatever
I’ve lost track of the number of cases I have linked to in which the irreligious are outright or subtly suggested not to be fully human. Here’s another example, in an “uplifting” Father’s Day story about a man who drowned … Continue reading
Technical problem
Is anyone else seeing this? If so, leave a note. Reader Shawn Hamman gets it and I’m trying to track down the problem.
Filed under Administrative
My article in Times Higher Education Magazine
Is here (scroll down), based on a prior post on this blog. In it I make the somewhat radical suggestion that medial and legal degrees should be removed from universities also. One of the commentators there took issue: I worry … Continue reading
Filed under Academe, Education, General Science, Politics
Disambiguating the Theory-Dependence of Observation thesis (TDOT)
For the past half century it has been largely agreed that one cannot observe without prior theory. This is rarely explicated, however, and there seems to be some ambiguity in the claims made. So I will do a rough taxonomy … Continue reading
Filed under Epistemology, Philosophy, Science
Is reality liberal biased? Are liberals reality biased?
Josh Rosenau has a piece up on Chris Mooney’s latest article on the Republican war on science in the US. Conservative bodies around the western world seem to resist science when it conflicts with policy (usually driven by PR from … Continue reading
Filed under Academe, Australian stuff, Philosophy, Politics, Social evolution
