Debates about religion and physics are annoying because usually, no one has any idea what they’re talking about. Actually, this is true of all “religion and [science X]” debates where X is not psychology or evolutionary biology, because these are the only sciences for which half-decent popularizations are available. And, while unlike most people I [...]
Category Archives: physics
Why philosophers shouldn’t be assumed scientifically competent
Posted by Chris Hallquist on March 2, 2009
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Later this week, I’m going to try to post something on the recent Plantinga-Dennett debate. I’m listening to the audio as I type this, actually. But until I finish the audio, a blog post inspired by one of the comments on the initial report: I don’t think the ‘Lots of people think God exists; so [...]
Review: David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion
Posted by Chris Hallquist on February 3, 2009
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As I wade through the sludge of recent anti-atheist tracts, I keep trying to think of ways to make my reviews amusing. For this review of David Berlinski’s book The Devil’s Delusion, I think I can sum it up this way: Berlinksi is one of the mathematicians my mother warned me about. Mom has a [...]
Evolution the greatest theory ever?
Posted by Chris Hallquist on February 1, 2009
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Hemant asks, Dawkins and Dennett say “yes.” I personally think this is kind of unfortunate. Evolution isn’t as fundamental to the scientific picture of the world as the idea of fundamental physics: that a small combination of principles, like Newton’s Laws + Maxwell’s Field Theory + Quantum Mechanics, could explain everything that happens on Earth. [...]