When I first got Plantinga’s latest book, I was a little unsure of what to say about the version of evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) he presents there. I’ve long been irked by Plantinga’s apparent lack of curiosity about what scientists who work on the evolution of the mind would say about his argument. On [...]
Category Archives: mind
Neuroscience and religious experience
Posted by Chris Hallquist on December 7, 2011
6 comments
In the So what do people want me to write about? David Ellis asked: Anything on the psychology of religion. Lately I’m more interested in knowing more about why people believe irrational things than in dissecting plainly bad arguments. Which was followed by Andy Scicluna saying: Gotta go with Ellis. A lot of Theists nowadays [...]
On hating evo psych
Posted by Chris Hallquist on April 8, 2010
0 comments
A criticism of evolutionary psychology that literally centers on insulting the opposition’s mating fitness and social status? Now that’s irony. –A comment on BoingBoing Also: the people in the comments who say feminism isn’t monolithic are absolutely right. Some definitions make you as “they have a word for that?” while in other contexts feminism seems [...]
Anti-adaptation bias
Posted by Chris Hallquist on February 14, 2010
0 comments
Here’s Jerry Coyne on the evolutionary roots of religion: I like the “byproduct” hypothesis, if for no other reason than it’s almost self-evidently true. Surely every human behavior is in some sense a byproduct of genes that evolved for other reasons. And if religion, like music-making, jokes, and pornography, is an outgrowth of genes that [...]