A template for philosophical debates 16 Jul 201216 Jul 2012 [Click through to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal] Mind, equally popular is this syllogism: If P is true, then my opponent will be sad. I wish my opponent to be sad. Therefore P is true. Humor Logic and philosophy Philosophy
Philosophy On ontology and metaphysics: substance abuse 31 May 2008 I have for a long time now been very dissatisfied with the metaphysical categories bequeathed to us from Aristotle via a multitude of commentators and philosophers ranging from Boethius to Ockham to Locke to Hume to Kant. It seems to me that they are based on a prescientific notion of… Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design Is history a science? Creationists don’t think so 4 Sep 20134 Sep 2013 I received a query by email recently from Jennifer, an MD. Dear Dr. Wilkins, I’m wondering if you had the time if you could perhaps steer me in the right direction of help me understand the philosophy behind the argument of creationist use to negate the theory of evolution saying… Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design Noah’s Ark and the creation of the species rank 19 Jun 201719 Jun 2017 This is a section of my forthcoming revision to Species, presented here for comments that I can steal – umm, I mean for peer commentary. At this point in our narrative, we still do not have a uniquely biological notion of species, nor of a fixed rank in logic. As species concepts evolved,… Read More
The theological version is, I believe “If P is false, baby Jesus will be sad. I do not want to burn in hell for eternity/I want to sing with angels for eternity (delete as appropriate for your denomination), therefore P is true.”
This is a philosophical question on the scientific understanding of life. DNA is sometimes referred to as “strands of life.” Within the nucleus of a cell, DNA “unzips” itself during the S phase, and each single strand (RNA) is a template for a new complete strand. RNA is said to have “chemical messengers” that carry the necessary information to make the proteins needed for reproduction, but how can a chemical “contain” and “use” information? When it comes to the cellular level, I can understand cell reproduction because a cell contains organelles. A cell doesn’t start with a nucleus. It starts with DNA (nuclear division). But with DNA, reproduction is supposedly all happening simply because of chemical reactions. What tells the cell to “unzip?” Please don’t just leave me a website link. `
If you won’t read the material that answers your question, why should I bother trying to explain it to you?