.png){kind=logo}
Cynthia Kenyon at TED: via Colin Farrelly Your Thoughts?
Archive for the ‘Science’ Category
Mimicking the Brain in Silicon
November 20th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke MIT researchers make progress towards a potentially amazing accomplishment: For decades, scientists have dreamed of building computer systems that could replicate the human brain’s talent for learning new tasks. MIT researchers have now taken a major step toward that goal by designing a computer chip that mimics how the brain’s neurons adapt in response to [...]
Is Oxytocin The “Morality Molecule”
November 7th, 2011 Daniel Fincke That is Paul Zak’s theory. The video is fascinating: Now I just need to find 8 people to hug me everyday. (via Philosopher’s Haze, who you can read for a summary if you cannot watch the video for some reason). Patricia Churchland’s book Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality explores the role of Oxycotin in morality [...]
Posted in Biology, Biology, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology 
Tags: Adam Smith, Empathy, Oxytocin, Paul Zak, Trustworthiness 
9 Comments »PZ Bait
November 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Is this squid dead or alive? Michael at a Nadder! explains what is going on:
Defending Philosophy 1: A Reply To Dr. Coyne
October 29th, 2011 Daniel Fincke A little Nietzsche to set the tone: Of the friend Our faith in others betrays wherein we would dearly like to have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer. And often with our love we only want to leap over envy. And often we attack and make an enemy in order [...]
Posted in Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, Science, Science 94 Comments »“Not Everything In Life Is Logical”
October 24th, 2011 Daniel Fincke When we rationalists, naturalists, and other assorted atheists insist that no one should form beliefs that disregard logic and evidence, the defenders of faith often tell us that “Not everything in life is logical”, or use some variant of this phrase. What might they mean by this? Where is their confusion exactly and how best [...]
Posted in Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Astronomy, Astronomy, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Biology, Biology, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Evolution, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Intelligent Design, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Physics, Physics, Rationalism, Religion, Religion and Science, Science, Science, Secularism, Technology, Technology Tags: "Not Everything In Life Is Logical", Logic, Naturalism 17 Comments »Documentary with Stephen Hawking about Whether God Created the Universe
October 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Your Thoughts?
Posted in Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Physics, Physics, Religion, Religion and Science, Science, Science 2 Comments »Homosexuality As Naturally Good Part 1: Laying Out Objections To Ethical Naturalism, Some On Behalf Of Gays
October 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I intend to lay out the case for the ethical goodness of homosexuality for homosexual people in a way that is consistent with my funadmentally naturalistic ethical theory. Many philosophers, natural scientists, social scientists, and laypeople alike are averse about trying to base ethical judgments on appeals to nature. And there are a number of [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Evolution, Evolution, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Love, Love, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Ethical Naturalism, Naturalistic Fallacy, Objections to Ethical Naturalism 8 Comments »Autism Linked To Absence of a Cluster of Genes
October 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Dr Wigler suggested the missing cluster is a 27-gene grouping on chromosome 16. Most people have two sets of the cluster – individuals with autism have only one, or just fragments of the second, the researchers say. Now Dr Wigler’s colleague, Alea Mills, has found the deleted gene cluster not only plays a role in [...]
A Fluorescent Green Cat Could Help Combat AIDS
September 19th, 2011 Daniel Fincke For real. Learn how here. (via) Your Thoughts?
The Objective Value of Ordered Complexity
September 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I argue that the word goodness should be interpreted to mean, in the most fundamental sense of the word, “effectiveness”. I also argue that since effectiveness is a factual issue, goodness is a factual issue. These controversial positions of mine raise a lot of thought provoking questions and challenges from readers. I am using this [...]
Offer Nominations for 3 Quarks Daily’s Prize for Best Blog Writing in Philosophy
September 4th, 2011 Daniel Fincke For the third straight year, 3 Quarks Daily will award a prize for blog writing in philosophy. Nominate what you think is the best philosophy blog post from the last year by 11:59pm EST on Monday night (September 5). Below the fold are both the full details of the contest and a very good video interview [...]
Posted in Biology, Biology, Ethics, Evolution, Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Psychology Tags: Cognitive Science, Neuromorality, Neurophilosophy, Patricia Churchland No Comments »"How People In Science See Each Other"
August 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The absolutely brilliant and hilarious chart in most respects goes for the rest of academia too. Only you’ll notice who is missing—we adjunct professors. And that’s appropriate, since we are invisible. via PZ Your Thoughts?
On Evolution
August 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart A process atheist is someone who agrees that every question that used to be answered by appealing to God can be better answered by appealing to some form of evolution. So you might wonder about the meaning of the term evolution. Since the term evolution is abstract, it’s definition will be abstract: [...]
Learn About Dark Matter In One Minute
August 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke More one minute physics lessons here. H/T: Greg Laden Your Thoughts?
Loveliness is Rare
August 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart Order, complexity, regularity, patterning, are all examples of features that I’ll just refer to as lovely. It’s a term of art, and it’s a lovely term. Within many familiar systems, loveliness is very very rare. It’s very rare within the models of simple physical theories and even more rare within the models [...]
Posted in Atheism, Cosmology, Featured, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Science, Uncategorized 5 Comments »Some Explanations for Our Universe
August 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart The following is a quick-and-dirty survey of the current literature on explanations of our universe: It is widely thought that our universe is highly unusual. It has certain features that make it lovely. Note that the term “lovely” is merely a term of art. It has no connotations beyond designating that our [...]
Contra-Steinhart: Why We Should Not Identify As "Evolutionists"
July 31st, 2011 Daniel Fincke While I agree with Eric Steinhart’s claims that atheists need to take metaphysics seriously and while I would be open to considering evolutionary models for answering metaphysical, ethical, and cosmological questions if they are promising, below I am going to briefly surmise several serious reservations I have to Eric’s suggestions that we ditch the term [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Biology, Biology, Cosmology, Cosmology, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Evolution, Evolution, Faith, Faith, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Science, Secularism 5 Comments »Atheists = Evolvers
July 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart I always hate to be called an atheist – it characterizes me in terms of what I don’t believe, rather than in terms of what I do believe. And that sucks. Worse, the label itself seems purely negative: ok, so there’s no God, but what is there? And worst of all, the [...]
The History of the Singularity
July 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart Many philosophers portray the cosmic process as an ascending curve of positivity. As time goes forward, the quantities of intelligence, power, or value are always increasing. These progressive philosophies have sometimes been religious and sometimes secular. Secular versions of progress have sometimes been political and sometimes technological. Technological versions have sometimes invoked [...]
Adam Winnik Illustrates Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot"
May 1st, 2011 Daniel Fincke Pale Blue Dot – Animation from Ehdubya on Vimeo. Your Thoughts?
Synthese Intelligent Design Controversy
April 27th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart The philosophy journal Synthese has become embroiled in a controversy regarding a special issue entitled “Evolution and its Rivals”. The chief editors of the journal have behaved in ways which have struck many philosophers as inappropriate. You can learn more about the controversy at the Leiter Report. If you’re an academic, you [...]
Why Can't God Heal Amputees?
April 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Because apparently he doesn’t know enough science. Thankfully UCLA, on the other hand, does: Your Thoughts?
Recent Comments