Defending liberal democracy 17 Mar 20094 Oct 2017 I urge people to go read Russell Blackford’s submission to the Human Rights consultative committee in Australia. It deals with the changes and challenges to civil liberties in the modern era and although Australia-focussed, it generalises well once you get past our odd spelling conventions and local events. Censorship Politics Religion
Evolution Popper peeps papally at UD 15 Aug 2007 Popper’s view of science has been supplanted by a number of later views, not least being the sociological accounts of Kuhn and Lakatos, which, being sociological, don’t tell us what is science but only how it proceeds descriptively. Prescriptive views of science are much more nuanced than Popper these days, and they lack a simple slogan like the cry of “falsifiability!” They typically focus on the heuristics (rules of inference) and how they have developed overall and in particular disciplines. If you want to argue that ID is science, go read van Fraassen, or Hacking, or Giere, or Laudan and get back to me. Read More
Accommodationism Accommodating Science: the backfire effect, and conclusion 10 Mar 201411 Mar 2014 [This is the final section of the book. I will return to the section on neurobiology and religion later.] The backfire effect If science is to be communicated to the wider community in a way that will change how people think, then it would seem an obvious idea to look… Read More
Censorship The lies of the internet censors: Your. Filter. Won’t. Work. 16 Dec 2008 The title is the title of a nice essay at Crikey. I especially like this: Bernadette McMenamin of ChildWise, you’ve crossed the line, defaming everyone who’s protested the government’s plans. “Most of these people are not fully aware of the facts and secondly, those who are aware are, in effect,… Read More
I argue that fully adequate protection of our rights and freedoms would require all of the following: The inclusion of core civil liberties — such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of belief, conscience, and worship, and freedom of association — in a constitutionally-entrenched Bill of Rights, along with strong procedural protections before anyone can be subjected to punishment, imprisonment, detention, ill-treatment, or other loss of liberties. Hey! We Merkins tried this. It even works … occasionally. Very good, Russell.
I argue that fully adequate protection of our rights and freedoms would require all of the following: The inclusion of core civil liberties — such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of belief, conscience, and worship, and freedom of association — in a constitutionally-entrenched Bill of Rights, along with strong procedural protections before anyone can be subjected to punishment, imprisonment, detention, ill-treatment, or other loss of liberties. Hey! We Merkins tried this. It even works … occasionally. Very good, Russell.