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A Short Overview of Free Will
Last night, I gave a short presentation on Free Will in order to kick off some discussion between mixed groups of atheists and theists. It went quite well, I feel, and the discussions that I was involved with went pretty well. The notes I used are included below. It’s a really just a rough overview,…
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Free Will: Illusion or Real? A Theist and Atheist View
I will be presenting one half of a discussion on Free Will tomorrow evening (in Vancouver, BC, for non-local readers). I (and the other presenter) will be giving a short 15-min introduction to the topic, and then everyone will be breaking up into smaller discussion groups. If you’re interested in having positive (I hope) discussions…
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Brute Facts are not Reasons
Unlike a lot of my friends, I don’t find articles written by Christians to be completely stupid, or ignorant, or “unscientific”. The problems with them are those of basic reasoning, and this problems are not limited to Christians. In any case, I find them to be extremely useful to explaining reasoning, and how to articulate arguments,…
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and his Confusion about Words
I’d like to preface this essay by saying that I’m a big fan of Dr. Tyson. I have enjoyed pretty much every presentation of his that I’ve seen (that I can recall), and I think he’s doing an important and necessary job of communicating science (well!) to the general public. I think his new Cosmos…
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Anti-Abortion Arguments, Including the Secular Ones, are Uninformed Drivel.
I’ve had something of a writing block for the last month or so, so I’m thankful to Hemant Mehta over at Friendly Atheist for providing me with some fodder to dissect. I’ve always figured that there had to be some folk out there whose anti-abortion stance wasn’t built on a foundation of religion, as the…
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To The Stone: Please Pull Out of Your Nose-Dive
The Stone is part of The New York Times, an outlet for Philosophy and public discussion of philosophical issues. Generally speaking, I think it’s an excellent idea: philosophy needs more public engagement, and the public needs to engage with more philosophy. Its most recent article (“Is Atheism Irrational“), however, is pure, unadulterated dross. Under the…
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Jon Stewart, Healthcare.gov, and Ignorance
I want to talk about ignorance. I mean, I often talk about ignorance, but this post will be about addressing Jon Stewart’s ignorance, regarding Information Technology (IT), specifically as it applies to the healthcare.gov website. I understand that Stewart’s main goal is to ‘be funny’, and to poke fun at the politics and policies of the US…
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Anti-Fluoridation is Science Illiteracy
A few days ago, as part of a twitter conversation I was having with the basically anonymous @SafeWaterHfx, I was sent an article in support of their claims that fluoride shouldn’t be added to municipal tap water. The anti-fluoridation crowd make a lot of noise online (they’re not unlike the anti-wifi folk in that regard), but…
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Anti-GMO == Climate Change Denialism
I generally don’t like to reblog things, but this piece should be spread far and wide. It should be a deep embarrassment to progressives, but the truth is that anti-GM activists are as guilty of anti-scientific thinking with regard to their pet subject as the Koch Brothers or the American Enterprise Institute are on global…
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Astrology Now!
I’m a big fan of science education, and those institutions whose reason for being is the furthering of knowledge, and the encouraging of the young to follow math-based ambitions. That stuff is hard, and requires a whole heap of enthusiasm and motivation in order to slog through. Conversely, it’s somewhat shocking when I find a space…
