1. Judge orders La. school district to stop Bible giveaways

Comment #166679 by PacificWind on April 23, 2008 at 11:29 am

Having grown up in an adjacent school district, this story doesn't surprise me one bit. This type of thing is quite common in the area - for instance, my high school principal once ordered the ten commandments be posted in all classrooms (although they were taken down after a few weeks due to complaints). It's good to see that someone is finally challenging the school board's ridiculously pro-Christian policies.

btw - in La. it would technically be the "crawfish mafia"

2. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #104910 by PacificWind on December 30, 2007 at 12:01 am

Steve and tribaly...

By the time I finished reading the article, I was also confused about what Dennett meant by "Darwinian." But reading over it again, it makes more sense. At the very beginning, he describes the Darwinian explanation for the creation of a bird's nest as

involving an intricate interplay between genetic variation, long-term developmental and environmental interaction and short-term environmental variation–in opportunities and materials accessible at the time

I think that is also what he means when he labels human activities as "Darwinian." We are generally used to that word being synonymous with evolution through natural selection, but I think Dennett is using it in a more general sense. As you have both noted, it basically means "no magic." While such a statement is obvious to most of us here, Dennett seems to be targeting this piece at those in the art/literature world, hence his dismissal of the "spark of genius" mentality.

So Steve, while I agree with your comments on the importance of self-organization in the brain, I don't think that Dennett meant, by calling the brain's algorithms Darwinian, that thoughts necessarily "evolve" gradually. You suggest that a "flash of inspiration" could occur suddenly, "out of the blue" - I assume you mean as a result of self-organized pattern formation through feedback mechanisms. I would argue that prerequisites for such an occurrence are the gene-controlled construction of the brain, its programming through long-term developmental and environmental interaction, and the activation of a certain logical pathway by certain environmental inputs - basically, what Dennett defines as Darwinian.

I'll admit I can't really follow his comments on cultural evolution, especially his critique of Pinker. I just got hold of one of Pinker's books, so maybe reading it will shed some light on their disagreement. If anyone here has some insight, I'd be happy to read it.

3. Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Comment #52930 by PacificWind on June 28, 2007 at 2:40 pm

I agree with the first part of Davies' article and the previous posters. At this point in time, I think the main utility of the multiverse proposal in the science/religion debate is as a plausible alternative to the creationist argument from fine-tuning. It shares with creationism/ID the property of being undisprovable (if that's a word), but does not require an improbable intelligent designer. I agree with bonzai that the correct stance is to "admit that we don't know" but it is at least helpful for our side to have some sort of counterproposal to the creationist claim, in lieu of a real scientific answer.

That said, I also don't understand Davies' new hypothesis at all. I don't mind all of the information theory talk, but I don't see what kind of mechanism could allow the universe to "engineer its own bio-friendliness." It seems like there would have to be some sort of feedback loop that would reinforce bio-friendly aspects of the laws of nature and suppress others. But given my understanding of cosmology, life-as-we-know-it could not have arisen until after the formation of the first stars and their supernovae (which produced the heavy elements necessary for organic chemistry). At that time, the physical laws were pretty much fixed (certainly the case that Davies considers – the mass difference between proton and neutron – would have been decided long ago). Thus the self-engineering universe would have to have tuned its own physical constants for bio-friendliness before any life had in fact arisen. It would have to "know" in advance the outcome of its tuning. I don't see how that could be possible, so I am very skeptical of bio-friendliness as a guiding principle of cosmological evolution. Does anyone know any more detail about Davies' idea? He is a cosmologist, so I would at least expect him to make a little more sense.

4. In the know

Comment #50205 by PacificWind on June 15, 2007 at 4:58 pm

I agree with the comments above. In TGD I think Dawkins does a good job of tearing down the false certainties of religion without erecting others in their place. He states quite clearly his definition of atheist, and it is clearly not what Vernon assumes in his article.

I also took exception to this passage:

"They too want to push people to fundamentalist extremes - this time following scientific rather than religious dogma. In the name of humanism and tolerance they are actually contributing to a less humanistic, less tolerant world."

While it is true that the world Dawkins envisions is less tolerant of religion (but likely more tolerant in many other areas as a consequence), how is it less humanistic? Isn't a world without God the most humanistic world possible?

Also I'd like to know what he considers "scientific dogma" - this sounds like an oxymoron to me. Vernon claims that "faith for Augustine was about deepening the capacity to enter this cloud of unknowing" - but as a scientist I can attest that science serves exactly the same purpose. The difference is that science emerges with some verifiable answers, while faith will only produce mirages.

5. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45844 by PacificWind on May 29, 2007 at 11:43 am

So, Martin Kettle, you say Richard Dawkins doesn't understand the "wishy-washy middle ground?" Please do enlighten us with your superior insight on this enigmatic demographic...

I'm waiting...

still waiting...

Oh is the article over already?