Recent content by David

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    Project Poseidon: bored? come give me feedback

    I hope this doesn't rub anyone the wrong way, but I'm looking for feedback on my blog and on my podcast. I think the subject matter I cover and my approach to it (a "grounded approach to fringe subjects") would appeal to listeners of Skeptiko. my blog: http://projectposeidon.blogspot.ca/ my...
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    Mod+ 270. ASU PROF. LAWRENCE KRAUSS CALLS FOR DALAI LAMA TO STEP DOWN OVER REINCARNATION CLAIM

    When he says, "If you’re going to make an extraordinary claim in science that means you’re in some sense contradicting–generally an extraordinary claim is contradicting generally accepted wisdom which is based on the evidence. So you’re saying the conventional ideas and theories are wrong. And...
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    Mod+ 270. ASU PROF. LAWRENCE KRAUSS CALLS FOR DALAI LAMA TO STEP DOWN OVER REINCARNATION CLAIM

    I just finished listening to the whole thing. Alex, my humble opinion is that you're losing your footing when you get into a discussion about "meaning." The end of that rabbit hole is the realization that we're looking at the universe inside-out... too easy to get lost along the way, especially...
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    Mod+ 270. ASU PROF. LAWRENCE KRAUSS CALLS FOR DALAI LAMA TO STEP DOWN OVER REINCARNATION CLAIM

    Did this guy used to be a Christian? He rants and raves like those silly street corner fundies waving their little signs around.
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    Feathers seem to be getting ruffled around here.
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    There's actually good science showing that communities which behave altruistically succeed because they are playing the game of life better. This is true for glue mats as well as for human societies. Of course, human society seems to be currently on a collision course with a Mass Extinction...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    That's more hand-waving though, isn't it? Science as a social process is anything but objective, as Kuhn showed. I think your average materialist/skeptic sees THEMSELVES as somehow being an objective party, or wants to be seen that way by others. Has anyone ever gotten Dawkins to admit...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    Well said. Though I think I see what Alex is getting at... the notion that a falsification of the materialist paradigm also puts to bed the overreaching assertion materialists usually make that the cosmos is somehow fundamentally "faceless". Err... am I right? I think you're close to the crux...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    A "bootstrap" model of physics like Fritjof Capra once posed (where everything is the cause of everything backwards and forwards in time) and the holographic model of David Bohm (the whole is in each of its parts) both make the quantity issue interesting. Even from a materialist viewpoint...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    I sort of go with the "you are the universe observing itself and assigning meaning to itself" view of things. Our processes are a subset of greater processes that are probably beyond our concepts of meaning, intelligence, consciousness. Whether the universe is meaningful or not is sort of a...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    I find the number of vocal and celebrated scientists in need of a lecture about how science should work to be significant. Philosophers of science seem to be fumbling the ball badly if the state of public science discourse is any indication. Stephen Hawking has gone so far as to declare them...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    First there was nothing. Which exploded. And expanded. Into nothing. Becoming something. Then, later, some amino acids got together and <redacted>. Resulting in life. And consciousness. Which is totally normal. And insignificant. Nothing to see here, move along. There. Mystery solved...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    Yeah, everyone thinks they have a better epistemology. My reality can beat up your reality, etc. I donno if you'll get a takeaway from your time here, Richard, but I'm going to suggest something for you to chew on for a while. I think you are, at heart, not a scientist, but a fideist. By that...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    I mention Popper for a couple of reasons. First of all, scientism strikes me as having a great deal in common with the outrageous arrogance of positivism as practiced in the late 19th and early 20th century. And this sort of thinking is increasingly widepsread. But Popper put a few bullets in...
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    Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

    Richard, first off; bravo for having the balls to go swimming in a shark tank alone. I disagree with your stance on some of these matters, but the vigour you're putting into converting the heathens is almost admirable. I sort of noticed that you claimed not to be driven by a belief system...
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