I hope I will be forgiven for abusing the term “skepticism” here — for what I have in mind is not a perfectly innocuous “claims require evidence” epistemic prudence, but rather Cartesian skepticism.

According to the Cartesian skeptic, one can be perfectly certain about one’s own mental contents and yet also be in total doubt about what really corresponds to those mental contents. Hence she needs an argument that will justify her belief that there is any external reality at all, and that at least some of her mental contents can correspond to it.

There are many responses to Cartesian skepticism, and here I want to pick up on one strand in the pragmatist tradition that, on my view, cuts deepest into what is wrong with Cartesian skepticism.

I think that one cannot talk, in any intelligible sense, about justification in the first place without also committing oneself to a belief in other minds with whom one shares a world. (Not that I like that way of putting it — “a belief in other minds” is a much too intellectualistic interpretation of the myriad ways in which we experience the sentience of nonhuman animals and the sentience-and-sapience of other human animals.)

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There has been much discussion, here and elsewhere, on ‘epigenetics’, broadly understood as the control of gene expression. People who cling to ‘classical’ models are portrayed, by revolutionaries and their cheerleaders, as dinosaurs standing in the way of progress.

I could perhaps explain, to any interested bystander, my own rationale for my position, since I’ve requested that of others. Continue reading →

Any sufficiently convoluted explanation for biological phenomena is indistinguishable from epigenetics.

The Imprinter of All Maladies

Use of the word “epigenetics” over time

A Facebook friend of mine is a conspiracy nut. She was tagged in a post by a friend of hers, so up in my ‘news’ feed comes a post offering incontrovertible evidence that persistent contrails are in fact chemical spraying of the populace or the planet for nefarious purposes. I was dimly aware of this notion but was taken aback when encountering such people in the (virtual) flesh. Continue reading →

From the Center for Skeptical Inquiry:

The Foundation for Thought and Ethics, the non-profit which once published the internationally controversial textbook Of Pandas and People, has quietly closed its doors. The financially-struggling organization was completely dissolved some time in early 2016, and its titles have been absorbed by the notorious Intelligent Design group, The Discovery Institute.

More details and commentary on Pandas at the above link.

http://www.nature.com/news/evolution-of-darwin-s-finches-tracked-at-genetic-level-1.19795

“But their still Finches! Checkmate Evolutionists!”

Or some similar comment. But whatever. Still a very cool study.

Charles Darwin in his book the Descent of Man (chap12) insisted that womewn were clearly biologically intellectually inferior to men. He said if you compare the accomplishments of men verses women the women not only lose but show the common average must be very inferior of women relative to men.

He said this was not from society but from biology.

In fact he used this case as a typical case in the evidences he listed in his book to show how mankind etc had acquired the traits we have. Not from god but merely steps along the way while evolving .

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