Dennett’s Thesis isn’t Evidence for Very Interesting Claims

Last updated on: November 8, 2012 at 5:44 pm By Leah Libresco

This post is part of a series discussing Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. The main thrust of Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell is that the history of religion is not incompatible with evolutionary theory. That sounds a lot less exciting than an attack on religion, but it’s what the book is actually about. Dennett’s book doesn’t mount up any direct evidence against the truth claims of religion, but it does make the argument that religion is something you might be reasonably likely to observe in... Read more

And, now, some #natesilverfacts

Last updated on: November 9, 2012 at 3:26 pm By Leah Libresco

A Dennett post later today, I promise, but I’m terribly amused by the #natesilverfacts meme on twitter. Here are my favorites: @mdlevinson: Nate Silver’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson’s name is going to be Hari Seldon. #natesilverfacts @temiri: Nate Silver once walked over each of the bridges in Konigsberg exactly once. #natesilverfacts @dilefante: Nate Silver’s samples have only a median and a mode. Because no number would be mean to Nate Silver. #natesilverfacts @edwardbenson: Nate Silver escaped from a Prisoner of War camp by... Read more

A brief election-related post

Last updated on: November 6, 2012 at 3:22 pm By Leah Libresco

Look, I don’t want to derail our contentious discussion of Dennett’s Breaking the Spell with a contentious discussion of the election, but I think it’s very important that you all know about the parody Nate Silver twitter account (@fivethirtynate) that’s popped up. Among my favorites: Now is the nowcast of our forecasts, made glorious projection by this mean of polls. Teach a man to survey and he knows the race for a day. Teach a man to aggregate and there... Read more

Put Your Moral Philosophical Hands Where We Can See Them, Dennett!

Last updated on: November 8, 2012 at 5:45 pm By Leah Libresco

This post is part of a series discussing Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. Very early on in the book, (page 17 in my edition), Dennett explains the title of his book: The spell I say must be broken is the taboo against a forthright, scientific, no-holds-barred investigation of religion as one natural phenomenon among many. I’ll have more to say about this endeavor (which comprises the vast majority of the text) tomorrow, but let me say briefly here that I have no... Read more

The Bit I Liked Best About Dennett’s Book

Last updated on: November 8, 2012 at 5:45 pm By Leah Libresco

This post is part of a series discussing Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. Daniel Dennett is the only one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism I hadn’t read, and I felt like, for the sake of completeness if nothing else, I wanted to take a crack at Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. I’ll be getting more in depth with the meat of Dennett’s thesis tomorrow, but there was one quote near the end I wanted to draw attention to: Anybody... Read more

Those (Souls) You’ve Known

Last updated on: November 2, 2012 at 4:50 pm By Leah Libresco

When I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I didn’t cry until Fred died, and then I started sobbing. (Many apologies, confused people who were on that plane with me!). After I was finished, I was at loose ends, not sure what to do next. And I ended up listening to “Those You’ve Known” from Spring Awakening on repeat. As in Deathly Hallows, the protagonist is comforted and led by the spectral presence of deceased characters. It’s come back into my... Read more

7 Quick Takes (11/2/12)

Last updated on: November 2, 2012 at 12:03 pm By Leah Libresco

— 1 — Since the next Quick Takes will run after the election, and some subset of my readers will be too unhappy to read election themed Takes at that point, I’m running them this week. But I’ll have mercy during this last run up of mostly useless coverage. Election takes will alternate with miscellaneous awesome things. So, to start on a high note: Vi Hart has another video up about hexaflexagons! — 2 — I’ve been complaining about the... Read more

Ideological Fight Club

Last updated on: November 1, 2012 at 11:40 am By Leah Libresco

Julian Sanchez offers an antidote to poisonous political discourse that reads like a hybrid of the Ideological Turing Test and steelmanning (the opposite of strawmanning – deliberately trying to improve your opponent’s argument and rebutting that attack). I offer a modest proposal for American universities. All freshmen should be required to take a course called “Offense 101,” where the readings will consist of arguments from across the political and philosophical spectrum that some substantial proportion of the student body is... Read more

The Best Part of the Protestant Reformation

Last updated on: October 31, 2012 at 1:58 pm By Leah Libresco

On October 31st 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses. Hundreds of years later, a bunch of my classmates relyricized Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” and shot a music video. The song doesn’t quite make up for the fissuring of the Church, but the lyrics are pretty good. I think my favorite lines are still: I warned y’all that Rome best agree to the terms If not, then you can eat my Diet of Worms! Read more

“Seatbelts, everyone!”

Last updated on: October 31, 2012 at 9:21 am By Leah Libresco

As several of you guessed, this year I was Ms Frizzle from The Magic Schoolbus for Halloween. If you (sadly) aren’t familiar with the PBS show and the tv show, here’s the theme song and intro: Ms Frizzle’s dress always matched the curriculum for that installment, so I’ve got a belt and sleeve trim made of streptococci bacteria that are being consumed by white blood cells. There are red blood cells all over the dress, but some of them are... Read more

What principle does "love covers a multitude of sins" teach?