A few days back, in the comments to an article regarding the really piss-poor showing of Americans in their acceptance of evolution, someone argued about the poll question which delivered these results by pointing out that the concepts of god and evolution “are not mutually exclusive.” For instance, god
Category: Critical Thinking
But how? Part 17: god’s plan
[EDIT 4:30 PM: This post went through numerous drafts over a period of days, which means it was in process long before this little squirt of utter bullshit came out, and I managed
On the horizon
From time to time, and surprisingly in some rather serious media sources, we hear about the technological singularity, the fast-approaching (so we’re told) point where artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence, and quite often right alongside we have speculations about the “machines taking over.” As over-dramatic as that sounds, some
But how? Part 16: Revelation
The topic of this one has occurred to me several times before, and I think I avoided it because I consider it a cakewalk, a facet that’s all too easy to explain. And yet, there are a lot of people who put great stock in it, never seeming to view it with any form of critical appraisal, so let’s go ahead and look at some answers to the question, “But if there’s
You’re a what?
I’ve mentioned before, I have occasionally considered splitting off the portions of the blog devoted to critical-thinking from those discussing photography – the main part of the site is, after all, about nature photography, so the latter posts are certainly appropriate to the theme. But there’s a bigger reason, and it’s that I’m an outspoken atheist in the bible belt,
Hello? I’m sorry, the connection is weak…
Let’s start off with the correction, or at least the admission that a statement that I’ve made numerous times in the past was not supported by facts. The statement, in various forms, was essentially that before various empirical proofs came along, people generally believed that religious scripture was literal and factual this was largely used when I was discussing the
Homey don’t play that
As a species, we like to occasionally speculate on extra-terrestrial life – what it would be like, how prevalent it is, what we could learn from it, and so on. More than speculate, really, because we’re actively looking for it (or at least some of us are,) and have done some interesting theoretical science along those lines. I’ve written a few posts about it myself (first of a
Friends with benefits
I’m not surprising anyone when I say humans are a social species, both from the biological definition and from our own self-description. But it goes further than that – we’re socially-influenced and socially-dependent, meaning we make a really stunning number of our decisions based on how we feel others will respond to them, often without any other consideration at all. This isn’t
Insufficient
[Repost of original posted January 4, 2015, destroyed by hosting failure.]
This one’s just for fun, mostly, but hopefully will provide a bit of perspective as well.
Arthur C. Clarke once offered his three predictions for the future, which came to be known as Clarke’s Three Laws, and the third is fairly frequently
How not to be a conspiracist
While this post was sparked by some recent discussions (it’s that time of year, or at least, it was a little over a month ago,) what I talk about here is quite common, and I’ve seen it all over and over again. So, I figured it was time to address it again.
“Conspiracist” is defined as someone who believes or promotes a conspiracy theory. Which means that my use of it herein