a tippling philosopher

Showing Tag: "evolution" (Show all posts)

The Philosophy of Evolution

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, May 2, 2012, In : Philosophy 

I was worried recently when I read the phrase “goal-directed evolution” in some philosophy writing. This annoys me since it shows what I consider to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution is and does, and philosophers should know better,


People often think, incorrectly, that genes, or chromosomes, or animals, or evolution as a whole are invested with purpose, with agency. This is patently false. There is no agency in the chemical make-up of genetic material and evolution, ...


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Dogs can't give birth to non-dogs. Oh dear.

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, April 18, 2012, In : Science 
Here is a response I made to Steve, a christian posting on DC, to a popular myth about evolution spread by the likes of Kent Hovind.

OK, Steve has used the :


We all know that dogs give birth to dogs, not zebras, and ants lay eggs that hatch into ants, not Canada Geese.


approach, which is straight from the book of Hovind.


Firstly, let me remind you of a post I made here at DC about a year ago about there being no such thing as a species (objectively) - http://atipplingphilosopher.yolas...


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I get frustrated when people deny evolution.

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, February 3, 2012, In : Science 
I was over on Debunking Christianity getting involved with a thread with a Christian who denies evolution. It pisses me off. Do people not read books? Do they not talk to experts in the field?

 From my book Unholy Questions:


It is worth looking at evolution in light of what is necessary for humanity, or any living organism, to exist. First of all, there must be a cycle to life. We must reproduce. Any life form that simply existed as a finite number would have to be impervious to danger, immorta...


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Why Christianity is not 'responsible for science' (Part 2)

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, January 29, 2012, In : Religion 

Epistemologically speaking, truth was often seen as being the product of revelation, whether from God or the Pope. Therefore, empiricism was frowned upon as a method to arrive at truth and certainly could not trump revelation.

 

What was also frowned upon was scientific progress. This value was seen as poor in comparison to the value of the Gospels and spreading the good word, and the resulting relationship with God. These value positions were not antithetical to God, but they likewise did ...


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Irreducible Complexity? Hmmm.

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, November 18, 2011, In : Youtube 

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Evolution - nuff said.

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, November 9, 2011, In : Science 

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Intelligent Design? Not If You're Over 50

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, November 3, 2011, In : Humour 
A great article from John Blumenthal at the Huffington Post :

 Thanks to Michele Bachmann, the tired concept of Intelligent Design has once again become a topic of conversation among Creationists, most of whom, ironically, often sound like Neanderthals. In case you don't know, this boneheaded theory claims that the human body is simply too remarkable to have come into being through millions of years of haphazard evolution, and that some super-intelligent deity must have been the engineering wi...
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Evolution, Natural Selection, True Beliefs, Stephen Law and Plantinga's EANN

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, October 20, 2011, In : Science 
In a YouTube conversation that I am having, I have been discussing Stephen Law's chat with Alvin Plantinga on Premier Christian Radio's Unbelievable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyQ5cFIoKts

The poster stated this: "To return to the frog example. Why should natural selection care about the frog's beliefs? If you design a robot to catch flies, it can do so beautifully without having true beliefs - or false beliefs - or any beliefs. So why should natural selection bring beliefs into the equ...
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Species - is there such a thing?

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, March 14, 2011, In : Science 

Recently, I have been thinking about evolution. Not unusual for me. Many apologists attack evolution, and attack the notion that species can evolve into new species, and that there is no transitional fossil evidence for X,Y and Z. However, what they do not realise is that there is no such thing as a species. Objectively, such an idea does not exist.

'Species' is a label that we humans have attached to groups of organisms that we see common characteristics between. We also tend to attach arbit...


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