Most US Protestants belong to creationist denominations
May 11, 2010 by Chris Hallquist
Filed under biology, religion, science, social and literary criticism, stupidity
Jerry Coyne criticizes a study that makes a big deal of the fact that 63% of believers in the U.S. belong to religious organizations that are officially pro-evolution. Coyne rightly points out that even in pro-evolution denominations, lots of believers in the pews have creationist sympathies. He only briefly mentions, however, the fact that “This [...]
Continue Reading »Massimo Pigliucci is a childish, raging, foaming at the mouth fundamentalist with a cavalier attitude toward the substance, rationality and coherence of his arguments
April 16, 2010 by Chris Hallquist
Filed under biology, philosophy, religion, science, social and literary criticism, stupidity
Yesterday, Massimo Pigliucci wrote a post titled “PZ Myers is a witless wanker who peddles pablum.” Pigliucci says he didn’t really mean it, but was just imitating PZ’s overblown rhetoric to make the point that it’s a bad thing. My title is an imitation of Massimo’s approach to post-titling, since he uses all the words [...]
Continue Reading »On hating evo psych
April 8, 2010 by Chris Hallquist
Filed under biology, mind, quote of the time being, science, social and literary criticism
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 to be the [...]
Report on the Hitchens-D’Souza debate
April 8, 2010 by Chris Hallquist
Filed under Christopher Hitchens, biology, debates, people, religion, science, social and literary criticism
Overall, I’m very happy to have attended the debate. The amount of real interaction between Hitchens and D’Souza was far less than I was hoping for, in part due to the format of the debate. Still, Hitchens made for a very good representative of atheism, and actually I was pleasantly surprised by the approach he [...]
Continue Reading »Anti-adaptation bias
February 14, 2010 by Chris Hallquist
Filed under biology, mind, science, stupidity
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 [...]