Month: March 2011

“The Evolution of Religion”

I highly recommend a review article by Scott Atran and Joseph Heinrich, “The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate Deep Commitments to Prosocial Religions.” It’s a great summary of current thinking about scientific explanations of religion. (Thanks to Konrad Talmont-Kaminski) Sample quotation: In sum, religion, as an “The Evolution of Religion”

Voas paper

I just got back from Belgium, where I was on the PhD defense committee of Maarten Boudry, a philosopher interested in science and pseudoscience and science and religion issues. He’s already done some really good work and he put together an excellent thesis. I hope those of us interested in such matters will be hearing Voas paper

Guessoum interview

Stuart Elliot pointed me to an interesting interview with Nidhal Guessoum online, concerning Islam and science. I met Guessoum last month at the AAAS meeting. Interestingly, I was responding to a question after my talk, and I gave Guessoum as an example. He turned out to be in the audience. (I had not met him Guessoum interview

Swinburne’s Case for God – Part 9

Let’s take a brief break from conditional probabilities and probability calculations involving Bayes’ theorem. Much of Chapter 7 of The Existence of God (EOG) consists of general points, objections, and replies to objections, along the lines that one would expect in a more traditional philosophical discussion about cosmological arguments. I’m not clear on how some Swinburne’s Case for God – Part 9

The Brutal Facts!!!!

I just got notice about this: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/01/brutal-facts-about-keith-parsons.html The BRUTAL FACTS about Keith Parsons (Gasp! Shudder!). Woo. I must have really gotten to this guy. If he is gainfully employed his boss should really find some more work for him. Clearly, he has waaaaaay too much time on his hands. Your name Your email Subject Your The Brutal Facts!!!!