06.30.10
Posted in Evolution at 4:32 pm by nemo
Our discussion today of agnoticism deserves to be generalized to the question of evolution, that is, evolutionary dynamics.
Part of the reason for the endless debate over evolution lies in the way it resembles the theism/atheism perplexity, with a similar status as an unknowable.
We can detect evolution as a set of facts, but to pin down the nature of its mechanism is not so easy.
If you think that the question of evolution is simple, check out the eonic effect, over world history, and you will see the problem of closing in on the elusive mechanism. That issue resembles the issues related to the Kantian noumenon, as beyond knowledge. That’s why trying to pin down the question of evolution ends in a natural selection/design dilemma.
Check out the fourth edition of WHEE, and follow the chronicle of history and evolution, and it will become clear how the projection of natural selection onto deep time is a metaphysically illusory gesture.
Permalink
Posted in Kant, Philosophy, Schopenhauer at 2:11 pm by nemo
We have already linked today to: An Agnostic Manifesto, but the essay is worth reading.
I was often over time ‘a sort of atheist’ without realizing it, and this position was really closer to agnosticism than atheism. With the arrival of the New Atheists, vacating the atheist position becomes an necessity since this cultic brand is highly intolerant and contains an entire bible of related beliefs.
The problem is that, philosophically, theism can revinvent itself constantly in ever new guises, in a manner that, while not truly convincing, is dialectically alive. Much atheism arises from the silliness and infantile deterioration of theism into a degenerated theism. A spate of atheism is often a negation of this perverted theism, and as such healthy for the mind.
But the real idea of ‘god’ is not so simply dismissed because it is not so simply defined. And very powerful antinomies of reason, as clearly portrayed by Kant, haunt both the affirmation and/or negation of ‘god’.
This often takes the form of the antinomies of the beginning in time/no beginning in time (The manifesto linked to has a version of this in its question about creating something from nothing).
The mind will be like a dog chasing its tail as it wobbles between theism and atheism. The search to still the mind might be found in an agnostic position.
Beyond that, the transcendental idealism of Kant, seemingly theistic in the case of the latter, and atheistic (or agnostic) in his great successor Schopenhauer, gives us the truest ground for agnosticism, contra Kant, in its reminder that the noumenal is beyond knowing, behind the phenomenal. We cannot ‘know god’ (save that ‘gnostics’ in another sense do so claim) either as a positive or a negative.
Unfortunately Kant muddied his position by reintroducing a redefined version of ‘faith’ to posit an ‘atheist’s redefined god’ somewhere in the vicinity of his ethical discourses. Schopenhauer in a way swept all this aside in his streamlined agnostic transcendental idealism. One problem is that Schopenhauer is almost Buddhist in his strain of pessimism and his concealed metaphysics of the will. But, whatever the case, the great insight into transcendental idealism starting with Kant reminds us that agnosticism confronts the noumenon as it is.
Transcendental idealism, despite its confusing and misleading name which doesn’t mean what it seems, is a highly useful non-belief system constructed as an extension/commentary to Newtonian physics and is highly adaptable to a modified science.
Again, the question of ‘god’ is never simple. Note that the Israelites did not use this word, but instead IHVH, as something to point to beyond simple theism.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 12:04 pm by nemo
Comment on Refutations (of Darwinism)
Stephen said,
June 29, 2010 at 1:23 pm ·
Summary of my arguments: There is no disinterested science. Self-interested logic has been unable to make a distinction between the precondition of natural selection (which is a presumed randomness and an assumed fitness landscape) and with apparent teleology. The distinction never comes within ontology, and when you look to evidence the situation becomes even more contrived as evolution is found more and more complicated. In other words, this problem never goes way until it is realized that life`s “struggle” for survival is a metaphysical projection that should in fact be pointed at in public schools. Seems like a tight argument to me!
Permalink
Posted in General at 11:51 am by nemo
An Agnostic Manifesto
At least we know what we don’t know.
By Ron Rosenbaum
Posted Monday, June 28, 2010, at 2:03 PM ET
Let’s get one thing straight: Agnosticism is not some kind of weak-tea atheism. Agnosticism is not atheism or theism. It is radical skepticism, doubt in the possibility of certainty, opposition to the unwarranted certainties that atheism and theism offer.
We have been endorsing agnosticism repeatedly here, so it is good see this article on an ‘agnostic manifesto’.
One problem with the New Atheism is the simplistic view of almost everything that goes with it.
Starting with Darwinian pseudo-science, reductionist scientism, and not least a refusal to study the history of religion, where the prescence of atheist religion is clear.
The New Atheism is doomed sooner or later to turn fanatic.
Permalink
Posted in atheism at 11:49 am by nemo
Richard Dawkins’s backwards logic over atheist schooling
Richard Dawkins’s belief that any properly brought up child will naturally be an atheist leads him into absurdity
Permalink
Posted in atheism at 11:47 am by nemo
Should I Quit My Religion? Some Questions for the New Atheists
The new atheists negate the contributions of religious people in the reforming of religion and the resisting of injustice.
Permalink
Posted in Science & Religion at 11:45 am by nemo
Pick your slogan: ‘I know,’ ‘God knows,’ or ‘Celebrate uncertainty’
This cosmic question mark comes from a collection of photos released by NASA commemorate the work of the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s a combination of Images taken through blue, green, and red filters showing a group of galaxies and a stream of young stars. Do you think the answers to the universe are in science or religion — or neither?
CAPTIONBy NASA”I don’t know” is the gets-no-respect response these days when everyone broadcasts or blast-tweets their very self-certain opinions. But Slate’s Ron Rosenbaum makes the case for the “Don’t Know” spot on the belief-disbelief spectrum — the case for agnostics.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 11:43 am by nemo
Scientists herald 10-year anniversary of human genome
By Jean-Louis SANTINI (AFP) – Jun 23, 2010
WASHINGTON — The decade since the human genome was first sequenced has ushered in great leaps in understanding of the origins and evolution of mankind, although medical applications thusfar have been limited.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 11:41 am by nemo
Mitochondrial DNA, chloroplast DNA and the origins of development in eukaryotic organisms
Several proposals have been made to explain the rise of multicellular life forms. An internal environment can be created and controlled, germ cells can be protected in novel structures, and increased organismal size allows a “division of labor”among cell types.
These proposals describe advantages of multicellular versus unicellular organisms at levels of organization at or above the individual cell. I focus on a subsequent phase of evolution, when multicellular organisms initiated the process of development that later became the more complex embryonic development found in animals and plants.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 11:35 am by nemo
Outliving the Ice Age: Tale of a Rhinoceros
ScienceDaily (June 29, 2010) — Species extinction is a fundamental part of evolution: the best adapted species survive, while others die out. A new study examines why certain species can suddenly disappear, despite hundreds of thousands of years of successful survival.
Permalink
Posted in archaeology at 11:33 am by nemo
Hunting Weapon 10,000 Years Old Found in Melting Ice Patch
ScienceDaily (June 29, 2010) — To the untrained eye, University of Colorado at Boulder Research Associate Craig Lee’s recent discovery of a 10,000-year-old wooden hunting weapon might look like a small branch that blew off a tree in a windstorm.
Permalink
Posted in biology at 11:31 am by nemo
Depressed Mice Could Aid Research on Drug-Resistant Depression in Humans
ScienceDaily (June 29, 2010) — New research shows that a unique strain of laboratory mice characterized at Penn State University has behavioral, hormonal, and neurochemical characteristics that are similar to those of human patients with drug-resistant forms of depression. The mice — which have a defect in a gene — are expected to be useful as a new model organism in the effort to develop more effective medications for specific forms of depression.
Permalink
Posted in biology at 11:29 am by nemo
Embryonic Cell and Adult Pig Islet Transplants Cure Diabetes in Rats
ScienceDaily (June 29, 2010) — In a step toward curing diabetes in humans, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have alleviated the disease in rats using transplants from both embryonic and adult pigs.
Permalink
Posted in technology at 11:28 am by nemo
Introducing Robofish: Leading the Crowd in Studying Group DynamicsScienceDaily (June 29, 2010) — University of Leeds scientists have created the first convincing robotic fish that shoals will accept as one of their own. The innovation opens up new possibilities for studying fish behaviour and group dynamics, which provides useful information to support freshwater and marine environmental management, to predict fish migration routes and assess the likely impact of human intervention on fish populations.
Permalink
Posted in In the News at 11:25 am by nemo
Published on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 by TruthDig.com
We Can’t Afford War
by Amy Goodman
“General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts,” began the MoveOn.org attack ad against Gen. David Petraeus back in 2007, after he had delivered a report to Congress on the status of the war in Iraq. George W. Bush was president, and MoveOn was accusing Petraeus of “cooking the books for the White House.” The campaign asked “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” on a full-page ad in The Washington Post. MoveOn took tremendous heat for the campaign, but stood its ground.
Permalink
Posted in global warming at 11:23 am by nemo
Published on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 by Environment News Service (ENS)
Ancient Fossils Show Arctic Now Near Climate Tipping Point
BOULDER, Colorado – Current levels of Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide may be high enough to bring about “irreversible” shifts in Arctic ecosystems, according to new research published today by scientists from the United States, Canada and The Netherlands.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:19 am by nemo
Oil Spill in Gulf Could Cause ‘Dead Zone’, Further Hitting Sea Life
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1244?akid=95.96588.qoGHkt&t=8
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:18 am by nemo
John Pilger: There Is a War on Journalism
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1249?akid=95.96588.qoGHkt&t=18
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:17 am by nemo
Dean Baker: Why Should We Trust the IMF?
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1255?akid=95.96588.qoGHkt&t=30
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:15 am by nemo
Linda McQuaig: Police, Bankers Exempt From Austerity
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1256?akid=95.96588.qoGHkt&t=32
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:14 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jun/28/bus-cuts-cars-bp-oil-spill
Bus cuts drive Americans back to cars
The BP oil spill may make people reconsider their dependency on cars – but budget cuts are limiting public transport options
Permalink
Posted in Science & Religion at 12:18 pm by nemo
From Dennett
Have you noticed how self-proclaimed (and self-satisfied) agnostics often sneer at us arrogant, over-confident atheists without expressing any parallel contempt for the Pope, Rick Warren, the imams, and so on for their similar if opposite avowals of certainty? In the future I plan to insist on agnostics being equal-opportunity sneerers.
This is complete nonsense. How has Dennett measured this? He feels annoyed at agnostics because they have a more sensible attitude than atheists.
Agnostics are a variable lot, some are religious, some not.
It is possilbe to be an agnostic religionists, and/or an agostic near-atheist.
The problem with atheism is that you can’t negate ‘god’ without defining it/that. Further the belief in atheism, wrongly and unnecessarily, always leads to a set of views about the unverse that are false.
It is safer to hang loose and not jump to conclusions.
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »