Believe me, I’m well aware that I’m not posting much and then I come in with something like this. You’re right to feel offended. Not that I care at all, but I won’t deny you your affrontage.
So I was thinking earlier of the varying attitudes held when the subject of UFOs (or UAPs if you prefer, for Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) and extra-terrestrials and so on comes up.
Naming this post that probably wasn’t the best idea, because it immediately makes me think of the song by Johnny Mathis, which predates me significantly, but was one that my mother liked (I think – memory may be bad.) I thought it was older than it is, but it was released in 1957 which is well after the time period my parents’ would have found it most influential, and in fact they
So, I started this category many moons ago with the idea that it would be used to answer (mostly unasked) questions that religious folk like to pose towards atheists, essentially showing how a secular standpoint covers more bases than it’s usually given credit for. At times since, the structure of posing an initial question hasn’t really worked, yet I still felt that the topic fit in
There is a concept, a meme if you will, that shows up a lot in critical-thinking circles, and I’ve even tackled it a few times before here. Commonly known as “Occam’s Razor” but also by the less folksy term of parsimony, it provides a very simple measuring stick: if multiple explanations can be advanced for any given facts or events, the simplest
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
Reading an old post, it occurred to me that there’s a lot of misunderstanding about skepticism, enough so that perhaps it could stand a bit of clarification as to where it comes from, and why at least some people find it to be useful. In many circles – circles that spend a lot of time discussing ghost stories, or UFO encounters, or miracles, and so on – ‘skeptic’ is
This one’s going to be a little bit weird. I mean, more so than usual. It started as just an offhand comment, but grew into a strange bit of philosophical inspection.
I recently read, yet again, the journalistic cliché about someone “beating the odds.” Which is complete nonsense. No one ever beats the odds, though they might fall right in line with the odds in a favorable way –
There’s a method of presenting information that I see way too much of, from writers and educators that really should know better, and I can’t help but believe it’s doing more harm than good. I’ve probably used it a few too many times myself, but now I’m going to be aware of it and try never to use it, at least in circumstances where it is misleading. I refer to “language
Note: I’ve had this is draft form for several days, tweaking it and waiting for a good opportunity to put it up I try to rotate and space out posts, and just recently put up another of the numbered series posts. Then this morning, Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True posted virtually the same sentiment, and now I look like I’m copying him. So here it is anyway.
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Some things get accepted into culture, maybe unintentionally, maybe in a casual way, but then become established enough that we get fooled into thinking they came from a reputable source, or from careful consideration most of philosophy is this way, it seems. One that I’m going to address here is something that I’ve coined unevidence.
Unevidence should not be confused with the curious