Anyone who has ever spent time in a discussion about religion and lack thereof, or even about the value of the scientific approach, has come up against the argument of “meaning.” “But if we live in a random, uncaused universe,” comes the plaintive cry, “then life has no meaning.”
This is a curious statement. After all, the search for the meaning of life has been
All right, I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while now, and since it’s come up again in my personal life, I think it’s about time.
Very frequently, when I’ve been present on blogs and forums debating about the existence of one thing or another, a common proverb is set forth: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” On the face of
A month ago I made a post asking some questions about wildlife photography ethics, most especially the how, when, and why of staging shots using captive animals or controlled conditions. Audubon Magazine decided to one-up me on this topic and posted their own article, naturally going into a little more detail than I did (but I brought mine in under a much tighter budget, so there!)
To their credit,
There was probably a few things missing from my previous post on the Perimeter article from Wired, so this is part two. If you haven’t read the first, you either should, or skip this one too ;-)
Since I’m sure you’ve read everything on this blog by now (snerk!), you already know I’m in favor of critical thinking. But, you may ask yourself (you have my permission), what does this look like? How is it applied? Directly to the forehead? Under a full moon? Far be it from me to let unasked questions go unanswered, so let’s do an exercise with a recent article from Wired
Over at the blog Twisted Physics, Jennifer Ouellette relates her views on an encounter during The Amazing Meeting 7, which prompted me to put out my own viewpoint, just as much for the sake of showing what “the other side” thinks.
In that post, she tells of being approached by an atheist who felt distinctly disadvantaged when speaking with someone who believes in an afterlife, because
…or perhaps, with certain people doing so.
No, I’m not going to attack what other people choose to write about or how they do it. This is a blog – it’s supposed to be about me! ;-). What I’m starting to find now is that I don’t like writing something as a “stream of consciousness” or introducing an idea. I’m a personality type (I think,
Okay, this is kind of a frustration. It’s also kind of an accomplishment. What you’re seeing above is a northern black racer (Coluber constrictor constrictor) that has just captured an eastern garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis).
I was cutting up a trail through the woods while at work when I heard a rustle practically at my feet. One of the things I teach in my classes and seminars
In trying to upgrade and backup my previous installation of blog software, I somehow seemed to have lost the system. Not sure yet if the posts have vanished entirely (I made my own separate backups, but they may require the database to be coherent), so if anyone’s reading, be patient. I decided to dump B2Evolution’s software and go with WordPress, so I have to reformat the whole thing.
[Reconstructed after software failure]
A few days back, Rev. BigDumbChimp (gotta love that name) linked to an article on another blog concerning the origins of christmas. All well and good, and most of it I’d heard before. I didn’t