Thinking According To Scale

November 21, 2011 By 3 Comments

PZ and Crommunist offer nice denunciations of the significance of a graphic which has been going around the internet which concludes that the chance of any given individual alive today ever existing was 1 in 102,685,000.  Below the fold is the graphic, key snippets of their remarks and the lesson to draw for how we should consider [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Biology, Biology, Ethics, Ethics, Evolution, Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Probability, Psychology, Psychology, PZ Myers, PZ Myers, Science, Science, Sociobiology, Sociobiology Tagged With: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Offer Nominations for 3 Quarks Daily's Prize for Best Blog Writing in Philosophy

September 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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 [...]

Filed Under: 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 Tagged With: , , , Leave a Comment

Why Bad Beliefs Don’t Die

February 25, 2011 By 3 Comments

The thoughts of Gregory W. Lester (as edited down by John W. Loftus) (okay, now I feel like calling myself Daniel W. Fincke): Because senses and beliefs are both tools for survival and have evolved to augment one another, our brain considers them to be separate but equally important purveyors of survival information….This means that [...]

Filed Under: Epistemology, Epistemology, Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Skepticism, Skepticism 3 Comments

RSA Animate Of Stephen Pinker, “Language As A Window Into Human Nature”

February 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Fantastic, insightful, and intuitively correct stuff about why we bother to use innuendos and other forms of indirect language where the literal meaning of what we are saying is undisguisedly clear: Thanks to Shane. Your Thoughts?

Filed Under: Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Language, Psychology, Psychology, Sex Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Subjective Valuing And Objective Values

October 6, 2010 By 7 Comments

In reply to my post a week ago on the incoherence of saying that we relied upon God, or at least religion, in order to either discover or verify what was good and evil, Clergy Guy asks: Daniel, do you have some thoughts on defining good and evil apart from religion? How do we/should we [...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Featured, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Teleology, Teleology Tagged With: , , , 7 Comments

Tom Rees On Why Loss Of Faith Might Be A Two Generational Process

July 2, 2010 By 6 Comments

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life study this February revealed that less than one fifth of all American adults under 30 report regular church attendance.   But they still also overwhelmingly claim belief in God.  Tom Rees thinks that despite their beliefs, their abandonment of the pews may indicate that a multi-generational secularization [...]

Filed Under: Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Sciences, Sociobiology, Sociobiology, Sociology, Sociology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments