HT: Ben Witherington

A survey of John Searle's philosophy of consciousness.

For Searle, genuine freedom is incompatible with determinism, and that’s that. Given this, he turns to quantum mechanical indeterminism to make space for free will. His admittedly tentative solution is that the unreduced conscious mind might play an independent role in directing brain processes that are subject to indeterminacy at the neuronal level.

That's ok, I didn't understand it either.


HT: A&LDaily

The C. S. Lewis foundation on the role of beauty within science:

It would appear that beauty functions as sort of handmaiden to the truth in the process of discovery. She either ushers one into the presence of her master, or testifies to our place in the presence of greatness. If that be the case, then it might also be the case, as Chandrasekhar suggests in his work, that a mind trained or gifted with a strong aesthetic sense, one that can recognize beauty when she is revealed, is one that is particularly equipped to make the sorts of discoveries that form the foundations of our most profound and productive understandings of the universe. In other words, those who know beauty when they see it will be the best physicists.

Examining the scientific grounds for the social and psychological effects of birth order. I'm basically a textbook case: smart, conscientious, bossy, and melancholy.

I thought the part about older siblings developing their knowledge by teaching the younger made a lot of sense. Teaching is the best way to learn.

MercatorNet on the new atheism.

The irony of this new desire to further the spread of atheism is that, unlike the cool and laid-back atheists of an earlier age, these new atheists write like true believers...

More about how stuff is made than you'd ever want to know.

(HT: the evangelical outpost)

MercatorNet on animals and personhood:

Humans are not two separate substances, but have two parts, and an ability of one part is that of forming ideas starting from what we sense, imagine, and remember; all of the latter though are functions which involve the brain. Our immaterial intelligence is thus meant to work in conjunction with our body; it is not meant to exist as an independent entity. The immaterial part of us will continue on after we die, but it is not a complete human person.

Getting back to the significance of chimps having a lot of the same DNA people do, first, to talk about DNA is to talk about something material. However, as I argue above, those who think that this proves there is no real differences between the two species are working on the faulty assumption that humans, like apes, are purely material beings.

What? Carbon? Bring it on! We're up against global cooling!

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world.

(HT: Instapundit)

MercatorNet sends another one sailing out of the park - this time it's about Richard Dawkin's campaign against theism:

Dawkins confuses religion and the use of religion – I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt intellectually and assume he does so deliberately -- in order to promote his thesis that religion is evil. Religion itself is not evil – just as science is not evil – but it can be used for evil purposes, just as science can.

Using religion to convince the 9/11 terrorists to commit mass murder by knocking down the World Trade Towers was a profoundly evil use of religion. Using airplanes to carry out that evil was a profoundly evil use of aeronautical science. However, Dawkins looks only at the evil uses of religion – never the good it effects -- and only the good uses of science – never the harms it does. A balanced ethical approach requires us to recognise both the goods and harms of both religion and science, and to try to stop the evil uses and to promote the good ones of each.

Read the whole thing.

Only in America could you put together a roundup on fluorescent bulbs:

• Instapundit wants to change a billion.
• LVMI thinks they're ugly.
• Some technical details from a Tennessee blog.

Pretty boring, I agree.

Evolutionary science is getting more entertaining all the time. Upon finding protein within a dinosaur femur, we have this striking conclusion:

As far as the hypothesis that protein would not survive more than a million years... we have obviously proven that to be false.

Wise fool.


(HT: PJM)

Quite a match-up: Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life) and Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation) debate the existence of God.

HARRIS: Any scientist must concede that we don't fully understand the universe. But neither the Bible nor the Qur'an represents our best understanding of the universe. That is exquisitely clear.

WARREN: To you.

HT: The Christian Mind

Proof that scientists don't have enough to do. (HT: Instapundit)

More environmentalist humor: preaching in parkas.

My, my: since when are death threats good science? Whether or not the planet is heating up, tempers surely are. More here.

Gene Redlin with more on the fight against global warming gobbledygook.

Stephen Hawking

I've always had a sort of inexplicable liking for this guy, perhaps because of the heroic combination of handicap and genius. He just always seemed to me the right sort of scientist. Instapundit reports that he's receiving a free, zero-gravity ride out of Cape Canaveral.

Peter H. Diamandis, chief executive of Zero G, said that "the idea of giving the world's expert on gravity the opportunity to experience zero gravity" was irresistible.

I don't like the sound of this.

From the latest National Geographic (March 07, p. 123) :

Primordial in appearance, the great hammerhead is actually one of evolution's most advanced sharks.

Hmmm!



Image courtesy of bsactravelclub.co.uk

AU: "This time, science won."

Hmmmm.



Some more commentary from the Parish Blog.