18Aug 2020 by Post

The Main Argument of The Abolition of Man

Alec King, Aristotle, British schools, C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Culture & Ethics, debunking, England, English, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gaius, Hinduism, literature, Martin Ketley, Men without Chests, pedagogy, philosophy, Plato, propaganda, Saint Augustine, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, sublime, Tao, That Hideous Strength, The Abolition of Man, The Conditioners, The Control of Language, The Green Book, Thomas Traherne, thumos, Titius, upper forms, values, Wheaton College
Lewis foresees a class of men called “the Conditioners.” The Conditioners have “seen through” all attempts to ground behaviour in any ultimate truth. Source
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09Jun 2020 by Post

The “Virus That Infected Philosophy”

art, barbarism, conservatism, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Evolution, Ideas Have Consequences, Immanuel Kant, Michael Egnor, Mind Matters, modernity, Nominalism, noumena, phenomena, philosophy, Politics, realism, Richard M. Weaver
Keep an eye on a new series at Mind Matters by Michael Egnor. In 1948, Richard M. Weaver wrote a little book, Ideas Have Consequences, that became a foundational text of 20th-century American conservatism. He traced modern barbarism to a wrong intellectual turn by William of Ockham in the 14th century — advancing nominalism over realism — leading from there through Darwinian materialism to most everything else that’s wrong with modern life. Egnor explains, “Nominalism is the view that universals exist only as concepts in the mind, but not in reality.” He concludes his first post in the series: Nominalism leads inexorably to Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena — things as they appear to our senses and things as they are in themselves. That distinction locks us into a…
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14May 2020 by Post

COVID-19, Random Mutations, and Aristotle’s Matrix of Design

Andrew McDiarmid, Aristotle, bodies, coronavirus, COVID-19, Evolution News, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Medicine, Michael Egnor, mutations, neurosurgeon, philosophy, Podcast, purpose, random events, viruses
On a new episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid speaks with neurosurgeon Michael Egnor about Dr. Egnor’s recent Evolution News article, “The Coronavirus Demonstrates How Evolution Presupposes Intelligent Design.” Download the podcast or listen to it here. Egnor notes that the coronavirus and other viruses are not, strictly speaking, considered living things, even if they depend on living hosts for their continued existence. Egnor also discusses the role of random mutations in viruses and draws upon Aristotle to argue that these and other random events only occur, and have their meaning, against a backdrop of purpose and design — in this case, the designed systems, the bodies, that viruses invade.  Image: Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (1811) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. The post COVID-19, Random Mutations, and Aristotle’s Matrix of Design…
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05May 2020 by Post

From Pfizer, Scientism and Self-Congratulation

art, authority, Brian Miller, C.S. Lewis, China, coronavirus, COVID-19, Creativity, Discovery Institute, Douglas Axe, economic collapse, entertainment, history, mask, medical science, Medicine, Michael Egnor, music, pandemic, Pfizer Inc., philosophy, Politics, religion, Rich Lowry, Robert J. Marks, scientism, social distancing, totem, Wesley Smith, worship, Wuhan
In the race to defeat the coronavirus, good fortune to Pfizer Inc., among others. The drug giant said last week “it will begin testing of its experimental vaccine in the U.S. as early as next week.” But this new ad from Pfizer goes over the top in its self-congratulation: They say: At a time when things are most uncertain, we turn to the most certain thing there is: Science. Science can overcome diseases, create cures, and yes, beat pandemics. Because when it’s faced with a new opponent, it doesn’t back down. It revs up, asking questions till it finds what it’s looking for. That’s the power of science. Well actually, that’s the power of creative ingenuity in general, a capacity unique to human beings, that is put to use in…
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24Apr 2020 by Post

Philosophy is more Certain than Science

AFR, Apologetics, app, cross examined, cross examined official podcast, CrossExamined, crossexamined podcast, Frank Turek, google play, iTunes, philosophy, Podcast, podcasting, Radio, Radio Show, science, Spotify, stitcher, Weekly Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window How can philosophy be more certain than science?  How can morality be more certain than science?  That goes against the common wisdom.  Join Frank as he uses COVID 19, as an illustration, to show we know philosophy and morality at least as well if not better than we know scientific truths.  Since science is built on philosophy in at least nine ways, science is only as good as our philosophy.  Frank also addresses questions on why God created us knowing we would sin, and how to deal with doubts. Subscribe on iTunes:  rate and review! Thanks!!! Subscribe on Google Play: Subscribe on Spotify: Subscribe on Stitcher: Free CrossExamined.org Resource Get the first chapter of "Stealing From God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case" in…
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22Apr 2020 by Post

How to Restore Science’s Lost Luster

Agnes Grudniewicz, arXiv, bioRxiv, C.S. Lewis, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Christian Reflections, Christos A. Ouzounis, consciousness, Cornell University, De Futilitate, Economics, EMBO Report, Evolution, evolutionary anthropology, Francis Bacon, high school, history, information ecosystem, integrity, Intelligent Design, J.P. Moreland, Janet Browne, Jay Richards, Jennifer Allen, journals, laymen, March for Science, morality, Nature (journal), pandemic, peer-review, philosophy, PLOS Biology, Politicians, predatory journals, quantum chromodynamics, Science Advances, Science and Scientism, scientific conferences, scientific meetings, scientific method, scientism, scientists, Stephen Meyer, Tom Coburn, universe, Wastebook, Westworld, World War II, X Club
Scientists used to be among the most trusted individuals in society. The white lab coat marked an individual who was highly trained, very intelligent, and ultimately credible. Changes in the last century have cast severe doubt on that picture — and scientific organizations sometimes admit it themselves. Some are very worried about loss of public trust in their “expert” opinions. They should be worried. In his book Science and Scientism, J.P. Moreland helps put scientists in their place, as did C.S. Lewis before him. Moreland loves science. He trusts much of what scientists say. But he demonstrates that scientism is not credible, because it refutes itself. Many important fields of inquiry, he writes, are off-limits to science, and to the extent scientists invade areas outside their domain, their opinions have…
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21Mar 2020 by Post

Listen: Kirk Durston on Fantasy Science and Scientism

Atheism, biophysics, Evidence, experimental science, fantasy science, historical sciences, ID The Future, inferential science, Kirk Durston, materialism, mathematics, multiverse, philosophy, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, proteins, testing
On a new episode of ID the Future, Kirk Durston, a biophysicist focused on identifying high-information-density parts of proteins, completes a three-part series on three categories of science: experimental, inferential, and fantasy science. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Fantasy science makes inferential leaps so huge that virtually none of it is testable, either by the standards of experimental science or by those of the historical sciences, which reason to the best explanation by process of elimination. One example of fantasy science, according to Durston, is the multiverse. As he argues, that is an imaginative story largely untethered from evidence and testing, but told using math instead of literary devices. Scientism, “atheism dressed up in a lab coat,” can lead to fantasy science of this kind because it commits…
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11Mar 2020 by Post

With a Hopeful Message About Life’s “X Factor,” Episode 5 of Secrets of the Cell Is Well Timed

accidents, Charles Darwin, Culture, Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Michael Behe, philosophers, philosophy, scientists, Secrets of the Cell, theology, X Factor
Michael Behe is a biochemist, leading proponent of intelligent design, and a wise guide to understanding the wonders of life with its mysterious “purposeful arrangement of parts.” The new series from Discovery Institute, Secrets of the Cell with Michael Behe, concludes today with a last consideration of the “X Factor” that appears to lie behind the wonderful, irreducible complexity of biology. That “X Factor,” he explains, is an intelligence inconceivably beyond our own: Secrets distills the argument for intelligent design in five-to-eight minute episodes, five in all. I’m sure ID has never been presented more accessibly, in a way anyone can easily understand. Share Secrets of the Cell with your family, friends, and social media network! What a remarkable thing that the design of the universe was almost universally appreciated,…
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07Mar 2020 by Post

Rats Are People, Too!

ambassador, Animal Welfare Act, animals, anthropocentrism, bioethicists, Culture & Ethics, human exceptionalism, humans, Jane Goodall, Kristen Andrews, lab rats, medical experiments, Medicine, mice, misanthropy, monkeys, Nuremberg Code, philosophy, rats, reduction, refinement, replacement, Susana Monsó
If animal-rights activists ever had their way, all uses of animals by humans would cease — no matter how beneficial to our welfare and thriving. That emphatically includes animal research in medical and scientific experiments.  Animal rights activists falsely claim that no value to humans comes from such experiments — a claim I have rebutted often. Not only does animal research save human lives and offer invaluable information about biology, but it has also been deemed a crucial human-rights protection. The Nuremberg Code specifically stated that animal studies must be conducted before human subject research. International laws and protocols have encoded this wisdom. Rats Are “Empathetic”? But animal rights activists keep fighting. The latest effort — by Kristen Andrews, a professor of philosophy, and Susana Monsó, a bioethicist — argues that…
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16Feb 2020 by Post

Michael Aeschliman in National Review — Berlinski Detonates “Fatuous, Flattering” Optimism

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ben Shapiro, biology, climate change, coronavirus, Culture & Ethics, ethics, First World War, future, Herbert Butterfield, Homo Deus, Human Nature (book), Incarnation, intellectuals, Ivy League, Jonathan Swift, Law of the Jungle, linguistics, Malcolm Muggeridge, Martin Luther King, mathematics, Michael Aeschliman, Middle East, National Review, philosophy, Reinhold Niebuhr, Steven Pinker, Sunday Special, T.S. Eliot, The Better Angels of Our Nature
From climate change to the coronavirus, one tendency among writers and commentators is to an urgent, insatiable, almost sexual desire to cast unwarranted terror over other people. This tendency is matched by an equal appetite, among a large part of the public, for being terrified. The market is well matched with its suppliers. But this dynamic is mirrored by its opposite: a wish, proceeding from different personal imperatives but no less urgent, to assure us that the future looks better and better, all progress with little pain. There’s a market for this, too, and the relationship with the suppliers is just as tight. It’s to this second pairing that David Berlinski turns his attention in his recent essay collection, Human Nature. Two Celebrity Intellectuals Dr. Berlinski gets a fabulous review…
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