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Introduction Many have read books and articles by renowned Harvard social scientist Steven Pinker. In his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Pinker cited a huge amount of historical and sociological data to conclude, counter-intuitively to many, that violence has declined “at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and Continue reading Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now”: Humanism and scientific progress A MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS AVAILABLE HERE. A MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS AVAILABLE HERE. Serving food at an aid center. Introduction Recently several writers have attacked religious belief as a pernicious delusion [Dawkins2006; Dennett2006; Harris2006; Hitchens2007; Stenger2008]. Victor Stenger, for example, specifically rejects claims that there are any health or social benefits from religious beliefs or participation. Other writers sharply disagree, noting benefits bestowed by religion throughout history Continue reading Does a sense of purpose improve one’s health? MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark is no stranger to controversy. In his 2014 book Our Mathematical Universe, Tegmark proposed that our universe and everything in it are merely mathematical structures operating according to certain rules of logic. He argued that this hypothesis answers Stephen Hawking’s question “What breathes fire into the equations?” — there is no Continue reading The future of artificial intelligence: Utopia or dystopia? MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE TREATMENTS OF THESE TOPICS ARE AVAILABLE HERE and HERE. A MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS AVAILABLE HERE. Introduction In Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion (pg. 23-24), he asks us to imagine “a world with no religion … no suicide bombers, no 9/11 no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles,’ no Continue reading Does a secular worldview lead to greater rejection of pseudoscience? Hollywood stars as public spokespersons Nowadays it is not at all unusual for Hollywood stars to lend their public celebrity status to endorse or promote some cause. For example, Angelina Jolie has lent her name and support to international efforts dealing with the refugee crisis. Sean Penn personally assisted efforts to deal with the Haiti Continue reading Are Hollywood stars qualified to comment on science? C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” Back in 1959, the influential British scholar C. P. Snow gave a lecture entitled The two cultures and the scientific revolution. In this discourse Snow warned of a widening divide between the scientific world on one hand and the humanities on the other: “This polarization is a sheer loss to us Continue reading Carlos Rovelli’s “Reality Is Not What It Seems” |
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