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Some really interesting tips for detecting liars. A lot of stuff here that I hadn’t thought of before but they’re really intuitive and make you realize the many ways people can clumsily go about trying to deceive. A few I found particularly worth note: • Timing and duration of emotional gestures and emotions are off [...]
Archive for August, 2009
You Are Not A Beautiful And Unique Snowflake
August 18th, 2009 
Daniel Fincke but you can make beautiful and unique snowflakes by clicking here!
A Fate Worse Than F
August 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Simon Fraser University is instituting the grade of FD, a grade worse than F, for “egregious cases of academic dishonesty.” It can only be given by authorities higher up than professors and it would have possibly long lasting implications: The FD would remain on a student’s transcripts during their time at SFU and for two [...]
Scientology
August 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke A really disturbing look at some incidents from Scientology‘s dark and abusive history..
Posted in Religion 
Tags: Cults, Pseudo, Religious Abuse, Religious Violence, Scientology 
No Comments »On The Necessary Connection Between Reasoning And Accepting Rational Norms As Having Merit
August 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Wandering Internet Commentator asks You’ll have to excuse my ignorance here, whereas you have a doctorate in philosophy (I think) I’m just a Wandering Internet Commentator whose experience with philosophy extends no farther than a 101 college class. I’m very close to the doctorate but not quite there yet—check back in a few months… So [...]
On Unjustifiably Leveraging One’s Credibility
August 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke WIC writes this reply to recent remarks I made to him. I am only quoting here the portion I specifically address, to read his counter to me in its entirety, click here. The question then becomes whether or not Collins is truly ‘sloppy’ outside the lab in regards to religion. You, Harris, Myers, and other [...]
When Should A Scientist’s Faith Disqualify Him From Scientific Institutional Authority?
August 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In reply to this post addressing previous objections that Wandering Internet Commentator made to me, WIC returns volley (sentences in italics are quotes he has taken from my previous post to him): I anticipated creationists figuring in your reply. The problem is, though, I’m not really sure they’re the best example of religion ‘polluting’ the [...]
Posted in Creationism, Ethics, Evolution, Featured, Francis Collins, New Atheism, Philosophy, PZ Myers, Religion and Science Tags: "The Language of God", Academic Specializations, Bill Clinton, David Heddle, Ethics and Darwinism, Expertise, NIH, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Wendy Wright No Comments »More Thoughts On Scientists In The Public Square
August 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke My previous post today on religious scientists was based on a comment I first made on the blog He Lives in reply to a post there. Below is a subsequent comment from that blog from “Wandering Internet Commenter” interspersed with my replies to him. Normative arguments are fun and all, but it never hurt to [...]
Posted in Atheism, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Ethics, Featured, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, New Atheism, Philosophy, Religion and Science Tags: Academic Disciplines, Academic Specialization, Epistemic, Jerry Coyne, Political Ethics, Public Intellectuals, Richard Dawkins, Value Perception No Comments »On Ill-Prepared College Freshmen And Grade Inflation
August 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Steve Salerno paints a dark picture: Loath to force ill-prepared students to stretch by mandating a core sequence in math and science, most colleges permit them to concentrate in their major subjects and fluffy electives.A 2004 study of 50 major colleges and universities found that half failed to require students to take a suite of [...]
Diploma Mills
August 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Ridiculous: Jefferson High School Online and Vencer High School Online BBB has received complaints from consumers in Texas, Ohio, and South Carolina who say they passed Jefferson High School Online’s test and paid more than $200 to receive a high school diploma. When the students tried to enroll in college using the diploma they were [...]
How PZ Myers Differs From Rush Limbaugh
August 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Prometheus Unbound takes issue with PZ Myers: I certainly understand why people like PZ Myers’s style. It is easy and uncomplex, and impatient with nuance. It’s what makes Fox News so popular. And it may well draw a crowd of young people. Myers is ever on the ready to stir the shit. And he is [...]
What’s In A Name? On Redefining Belief In God Rather Than Rejecting It
August 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke VorJack summarizes Robert Jensen’s thesis that God is mystery itself, rather than a principle that hopes to explain them: Jensen is not saying that God is a mystery. Instead, he is saying that God is mystery itself. God is what we call all those things about the universe that we don’t or can’t understand. Let [...]
What’s Wrong With Religious Scientists?
August 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke As we have already noted previously, Jerry Coyne has attacked the notion that scientific illiteracy can be blamed on the recent rise of the New Atheists as though they have scared religious people away from science in their mere 5 years as an identifiable movement. Recently in reply to this debate between “New Atheists” like [...]
Posted in Evolution, Faith, Featured, Religion and Science Tags: Accommodationism, Faitheists, He Lives, Jerry Coyne, Michael Ruse 3 Comments »Catch Up Day
August 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke I might not blog at all today as I’ll be concentrating on my dissertation pretty heavily. I’ve bumped many of my more substantive posts to the front page for you to peruse and consider catching up on. I also encourage you to find more pieces in the right hand column’s “recommended posts” list as well [...]
Woodstock And The Wonder Years
August 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In honor of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock—Joe Cocker needs a little help from his friends: And the way the song will always sound in my heart:
Posted in Music, Music Videos, Videos Tags: 1969, Joe Cocker, TV Shows, Wonder Years, Woodstock No Comments »Dispelling The Myth That Nazism Was An Outgrowth Of Darwinian Atheism
August 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In April of last year, Richard Dawkins wrote this letter (which should be read in full) to someone duped by the slander that Darwinian atheism led to Hitler’s ideals and goals: His horrible bidding was done by millions of ordinary German footsoldiers, and the great majority of them were Christians. Many were Lutheran, and many [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Christianity, Ethics, History, Metaethics, Politics, PZ Myers, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism Tags: Adolph Hitler, Artificial Selection, Ben Stein, Christian Anti-Semitism, Darwinism, European Anti-Semitism, Expelled, Herbert Spencer, Hitler and Atheism, Hitler and Catholocism, John D Rockefeller, Mein Kampf, Michael Shermer, Natural Selection, Political Ethics, Richard Dawkins, Science and Ethics, Social Darwinism, World War II No Comments »The Meaning Of The Parthenon
August 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Camels With Hammers regular (and my former student at Fordham), Evangelos has revived his blog and has a fascinating post which weaves together all the various things that Greece has stood for, both to Greeks and to the rest of the West at various times and places, and which explains how the competing attempts to [...]
Posted in Arts, Culture, History, Religion, World Affairs Tags: Architecture, Byzantines, Classicism, Classics, Elgin Marbles, Enlightenment, Enlightenment Appropriation of Greek Symbols, Evangelos Vekios, Greece, Greek Orthodox Church, Greeks, Hagia Sophia, Humanism, Parthenon, Symbols No Comments »Brad Pitt’s No Religion Platform
August 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Atheist Media Blog is all over this story.
Posted in Atheism, Bill Maher, Cultural Secularism, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Political Secularism, Politics, Religion, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Videos Tags: Brad Pitt, Celebrities, Legalization of Marijuana, Marijuana, Real Time With Bill Maher, Today Show No Comments »Bill’s Asked, Bill Tells
August 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Clinton replies to a request that he call for the end of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” by recounting his side of the story of what happened 16 years ago: [P]residents aren’t dictators. They voted — they were about to vote for the old policy by margins exceeding 80 percent in the House and exceeding 70 [...]
Posted in Civil Rights, Gay Rights, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Politics Tags: Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, Dilemmas, Don't Ask Don't Tell No Comments »In Defense Of Mocking And Embarrassing Religion
August 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke (I’m moving this post from last summer to the front page today since its topic is relevant to “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.) Unreasonable Faith just profiled this interesting looking documentary on a tour of debates between Christopher Hitchens and Doug Wilson. In the comments section to that post, Custador wrote the following about Christopher Hitchens: [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Christopher Hitchens, Faith, Featured, Rationalism, Religion, Secularism, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: Custador, Cynics, Debate, Doug Wilson, Embarrassment, Emotions In Reasoning, Fairness, Irrationalism, Kierkegaard, Mockery, Rational Argumentation, Socrates, Sympathy, Tradition, Unreasonable Faith 12 Comments »Logic, Numbers, and Mary’s Conception
August 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Numbers 5:14, 18, 44: If feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure—then he is to take his wife to the priest…. After the priest has had the woman stand before the LORD, he [...]
Music, The Mind, and Bobby McFerrin
August 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Fascinating stuff: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Featured, Music, Psychology Tags: Bobby McFerrin, Pentatonic Scale, World Science Festival 2009 No Comments »Religion As A Morally and Politically Ambivalent Force
August 14th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Two weeks ago, I profiled various remarks from Jerry Coyne for the incisive way they challenged assumptions that (1) religion is indispensable for moral progress, (2) that religion is even on balance usually an aid to moral progress, and (3) that moral progress is even something observable over the course of history. Coyne’s remarks were written [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Faith, Featured, God, Koran, Political Secularism, Rationalism, Religion, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Secularism Tags: Faith, Game Theory, Inclusivity, Jerry Coyne, Monolatry, Monotheism, Moral Progress, Moral Universalism, Non-zero-sumness, Peter Singer, Polytheism, Religious Traditionalism, Robert Wright, St. Paul, Stephen Pinker, The Evolution of God, The Expanding Circle, Tradition, Traditionalism, Universalism 4 Comments »
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