There are various angles to be taken about the nature of life and how it came into existence. One question in open play right now with the discovery of so many planets throughout our own galaxy and even other galaxies is: Does life come into existence as a result of processes likely to occur often … [Read more…]
In my most recent post, the essay: How a Christian Finds Metaphysical Truths in Empirical Reality, I argued that Christians should respond confidently to what lies around us, to our concrete and thing-like realm of Creation and to all the other realms which remain yet in our universe which is our world when seen in … [Read more…]
Good news from genetic research. At least it’s good news for those of us who believe in the value, and truth, of moral purposefulness. A recent article, Be Happy: Your Genes May Thank You for It, tells us: People who have high levels of what is known as eudaimonic well-being—the kind of happiness that comes … [Read more…]
I’ve often referred readers to one of my early essays, Einstein and Bohr’s debate on the meaning of reality:, for a very short discussion of Bohr’s insights into the primacy of relationships over stuff—in fact, it’s not clear to me that Bohr fully realized the implications of his stance but that’s true of many a … [Read more…]
Most human beings alive in this year of our Lord 2013 freely and fully accept the evidence that the human race wasn’t a special creation by God. Our ancestors were knuckle-draggers who rose from that position to one we consider, with some prejudice perhaps, to be more noble. Remarkably, many who have accepted our biological … [Read more…]
This is the third and final part of this essay. The first part dealt with an essay by Donald Kagan, Ave atque vale, which provides a highly summarized history of liberal arts education in the West along with a few hints toward a profound understanding of human knowledge and education and, finally, an assessment of … [Read more…]
The anthropologist John Hawks has published a short discussion, Crazy evolution movies, which is really about wrongful understandings of evolutionary processes. He states: To be fair, this scenario [of the evolution of intelligent apes in Planet of the Apes within 2 or 3 millenia] is quite consistent with some people’s models of human evolution, in … [Read more…]
Most scientists, many supporters of science, don’t seem to believe that past works, outmoded works—even some with serious and avoidable errors, are worth the effort of study. This is probably at least partly due to the fact that science has been so important a part of the modern cultural mainstream that scientists have naturally come … [Read more…]
A few weeks ago, Ed Yong posted an analysis of the current state of research in the study of the human brain: Neuroscience Cannae Do It Cap’n, It Doesn’t Have the Power. It is statistical power that is missing. For reasons discussed clearly by Mr. Yong, results in neuroscience are often false or exaggerated. A … [Read more…]
I’m going to take a quotation from Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals somewhat out of context: The bad conscience is an illness, there is no doubt about that, but an illness as pregnancy is an illness. [second essay, section 19 from the translation by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale, Vintage Books, 1989] What is … [Read more…]