Accommodationism The “developmental hypothesis” of belief acquisition 29 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 In the last two posts I have discussed why members of belief-groups have silly beliefs (that is, beliefs that the wider population finds silly), and why those particular beliefs, whatever they are, are the ones they believe. In broad terms, the answer is that these are arbitrary, costly hard-to-fake signals… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Why do believers believe THOSE silly things? 28 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 If, as I argued in the last post, believers believe silly things in order to make the community cohere in the face of competing loyalties of the wider community, why is it that they believe the things they believe? For example, you will often see Jews attempt to argue that… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Why do believers believe silly things? The function of denialism 26 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 Bishop Butler wrote in a sermon in 1729: Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why, then, should we desire to be deceived? [Sermon 7] It’s an interesting question. Why should we seek to be deceived about the consequences… Continue Reading
Australian stuff The discrimination of the age 23 Jan 201418 Sep 2017 There are many kinds of undue and harmful discrimination in modern society, all of which collectively tend to privilege a few. Women are treated with less respect and given fewer opportunities than men; heterosexuality is privileged over “deviant” forms of sexual identity and the alphabet community (currently LGBT and variants)… Continue Reading
Freedom The problem with logic 19 Jan 201420 Jan 2014 When teaching students critical reasoning it is an article of faith that we should teach them logic. Of course, we ameliorate any benefit this might have by teaching it incomprehensibly and in artificial cases. But still, we believe logic is what is most important in philosophy and in culture generally…. Continue Reading
Australian stuff Why anti science? 23 Nov 2013 Over the past few decades there has been an increasingly negative attitude by governments, pundits, religiosi and faux philosophers against science. We have seen an increase in denialism about climate change (one of the most well supported scientific models of the day), vaccination, evolution, medical research in general, and the… Continue Reading
Australian stuff NSW removes protection for marine parks 11 Nov 201311 Nov 2013 I received this from NYU CUNY philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith: The NSW government recently decided to temporarily lift the ban on line fishing in NSW marine sanctuaries. They may well decide to make the new regime permanent, effectively abolishing all real marine sanctuaries in the state. This is such a bad… Continue Reading
Epistemology Are smarter people irreligious or just nonconformists? 14 Aug 201314 Aug 2013 There’s been a lot of discussion around the traps that studies show repeatedly that those who are atheists or otherwise irreligious are on average a bit smarter than those who aren’t. The usual ballyhoo has followed, with atheists claiming that religion makes you stupid or only stupid people follow religions,… Continue Reading
Politics How to solve corporate tax evasion 3 Aug 20133 Aug 2013 One of the content problems with taxation in capitalist societies is the tendency of multinational and large corporations to evade tax to shift the burden onto individuals usually in the middle class. Over the past thirty years, the middle class has become increasingly stressed, and their tax burden has increased… Continue Reading
Australian stuff 100 days to the Australian federal election *sigh* 6 Jun 20137 Jun 2013 As we count down to the election that we have to have, a few observations are in order. 1. The two main parties are effectively indistinguishable. Both are serving corporatist interests, not the interests of the people. Both have a xenophobic and borderline racist view of refugees contrary to Australia’s treaty… Continue Reading