thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
“Confirmation bias …. is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way …. [or] interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.” (Wikipedia) Atheists often accuse christians of confirmation bias, […]
In recent decades, cosmologists have investigated the ‘fine-tuning’ of a number of physical laws and values that determine the structure and nature of our universe. It appears that these parameters have to be very carefully selected for our universe to survive and for intelligent life to evolve. This scientific conclusions has been used to argue […]
David Sloane Wilson has long been a critic of Richard Dawkins for having unscientific views about religion (and other things). He criticised him again in When Richard Dawkins Is Not An Evolutionist, but it is another of his comments I am more interested in. One of the things Wilson says he and Dawkins agree on […]
I am a great fan of the Science on religion blog and website. I have gained much insight and information, and not a few blog topics, from these sites. I’ve bookmarked dozens of topics, some of them a little obscure, and I think it is time to introduce you to some oddities.
We all like to think we are thoughtful, rational people. In our modern scientific world, it has become an ideal. To label someone as ‘irrational’ is a severe insult. But have we taken this ideal a little too far?
My post on Your brain, faith and disbelief generated some critical comment. The problem wasn’t so much with the main point of the post (that neuroplasticity appears to explain some of why believers and unbelievers are so polarised about God) but a side comment that there are demonstrated mental and physical health advantages in belief […]
How can believers and unbelievers disagree so strongly? We all experience the same world, we have the same information from science and history. If it was anything else but religious belief, you might expect opinions to be a little less polarised. But highly educated people like Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig disagree profoundly even […]
Alex Rosenberg is a philosopher and an atheist. He was one of those participating in the Moving Naturalism Forwards workshop, so he is apparently well-respected by his fellow atheists. I previously blogged about his thinking in Atheism: reality or illusion …. or both? In 2011 Rosenberg published a book, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying […]
It was billed as a “three-part conversation” between two well-known, respected and accomplished speakers, across three Australian cities, on the theme Life, the Universe and Nothing. I attended the second “conversation” in Sydney last night, but found it disappointing.
We are all conscious when we are awake. We observe, feel emotions, react, and form memories. But how does the brain do this? What is the relationship between our brain and our conscious mind? You might think this isn’t a very interesting or important question, but it is one of the most important questions today, […]