We think ourselves now so sophisticated because we know the world isn’t designed, at least not in the way of a human engineer. But there are patterns and the ways of thought which provide some serious understandings of those patterns arising from states of seeming disorder are difficult and are certainly not yet part of … [Read more…]
Let me recount some of the ways in which we modern Christians are confused: We are still trying to apply categorical reasoning to creatures and relationships in a world of evolutionary and developmental processes. We have no way, even in principle, of saying which of our ancestors was the first creature to fall into the … [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…]
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’ve nearly finished reading The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin. I didn’t have any particular plans to comment on the insights and delicately ironic prose of Professor Boorstin until I read these words: For while Eliot, reformer though he was, still thought and talked about “subjects” of study, Hall, Dewey, and their … [Read more…]
As I prepare to finish a half-written book on the human mind, I’m reviewing some of my earlier writings from my two blogs. I’m posting links to four essays which seem to me to be fundamental to my explanations of how to understand of that strange entity, the human mind. 1. The modern world as … [Read more…]
I don’t think it matters much that there is reason to believe Human Brains Unlikely to Evolve Into a ‘Supermind’ as Price to Pay Would Be Too High. The brains of individuals might not evolve much while still allowing a substantial amount of advancement in the minds which form and also draw upon a human … [Read more…]
In Brain Performs Near Optimal Visual Search, we read of some interesting research on the power of visual search techniques used by human beings: In the wild, mammals survive because they can see and evade predators lurking in the shadowy bushes. … This ability to recognize target objects surrounded by distracters is one of the … [Read more…]
I’ve just finished reading Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He’s quite aware of the objective nature of reality but he speaks of major changes in understanding of the world leaving scientists (or others in different conversations) as if in a new world. Elsewhere he speaks a bit more reasonably of the scientist … [Read more…]
John Hawks, prominent anthropologist and leader of the Neandertal Anti-defamation League, made some interesting comments in reviewing the article Language processing in the occipital cortex of congenitally blind adults, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(Early online) by Marina Bedny, et al. See John Hawks Weblog for his review, Language bootstrapping the … [Read more…]