The Evolutionary Advantages And Present Disadvantages Of Our Conformist Minds

August 1, 2009 By 2 Comments

John Wilkins has a good post on the value of our minds’ readinesses to defer to authorities from an evolutionary standpoint: The evolutionary justification for this is, of course the following: if evolution were a designer, trying to ensure that thinking beings learned and knew what they had to to survive, a cheaper rule than [...]

Filed Under: Authority, Epistemology, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Moral Psychology, Nietzsche, Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Do The New Atheists Target Religion Too Broadly?

July 26, 2009 By 4 Comments

A reader at The Daily Dish has the following objection to the New Atheists: As an agnostic who sees all sides of this issue – brought up in a conservative Christian household, against which I rebelled, only to try to understand where they’re coming from, I can say that the main thing I object to [...]

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Atheist Groupthink?

July 25, 2009 By 1 Comment

Replying to a blog post at End Hereditary Religion, 0ne of the commenters spoke out against the “scarlet A.”  The scarlet A serves as the rallying symbol for Richard Dawkins’s “Out Campaign”, which is designed to encourage atheists to own up to their atheism more publicly and vocally, and to support one another as fellow [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Faith, Political Secularism, Secularism Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

10 Basics Of Group Dynamics

July 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Go here for the explanations of each of the 10 basic “psych 101″ points and also to find further articles on the topic.  I found point 6 most interesting and so included it in full below: 1. Groups can arise from almost nothing 2. Initiation rites improve group evaluations 3. Groups breed conformity 4. Learn [...]

Filed Under: Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Sciences, Sociology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment