http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/02/maine-teenagers-deny-animal-cruelty-charges-alleging-put-kitten-in-running/

A few months ago we had a discussion of whether non-human animals can be the subject of morality.

Over on UD, Mung opined that animals are meat robots, incapable of suffering.

EDIT: Wrong UD poster. Mapou, not Mung. Apologies.

The Myth of the Continuum of Creatures: A Reply to John Jeremiah Sullivan (Part Two)

Apparently the Bible neglects to mention the possibility that animals can be the subject of morality, or that torturing animals can be a sin. But some IDists have declared that torturing babies is self-evidently wrong.

So is microwaving kittens self-evidently wrong? Or self-evidently okay, because it isn’t forbidden by scripture? What Would William Do? Or Mung? Apparently we have secular laws against this. Why?

I’d like to ask this at UD, but I can’t.

For those interested in creationism and the culture wars, I bring to your attention the forthcoming A Matter of Faith (trailer here).  [And could someone explain to me how to post the trailer directly in my post?]

Several things fascinate me about this development, among which are:

(a) comments on the YouTube video are disabled, so there can be no debate about a movie which centers on a debate;

(b) this movie is produced and endorses by Answers In Genesis, which explicitly refused to endorse “God’s Not Dead” in their review of it (which comes through, in their terms, in the conflict between “evidential” and “presuppositional” apologetics);

(c) the same aesthetics as “God’s Not Dead” (on which, see here for a brilliant and nuanced assessment of how these kinds of films work);

(d) the culmination of the “teach the controversy” strategy.  I found out earlier today that the pedagogy of “teach the controversy” was developed for dealing with conflicting interpretations of literary texts (source here).  It fell to Paul Johnson to appropriate a pedagogical strategy perfectly suited for the humanities — “teach the controversy” — into the sciences. This leads to what strikes me as the right-wing version of Rorty’s collapse of the humanities/sciences distinction. This is the epistemic apocalypse — there is no knowledge, it’s all just “faith”. Which is kind of a bad thing for a culture with a knowledge-driven economy . . .

We’ve been discussing souls and such as if humans are exceptional — not part of a continuum.

For the purposes of this debate, “truth” = “models purported to be actual conditions of reality”.

Science is a method of collecting independently reproducible, empirical data, interpreting the data, categorizing it and developing useful and predictive models from that data – useful in the sense that it predicts future data of the same sort, hereafter referred to as IRdata. One can consider “science” to be, entirely, the collection and development of a kind of IRdatabase, the purpose of which is to take IRdata and develop it into useful IRmodels. Continue reading →

I’m working on a book that includes a chapter on Dr. Dembski, and I’m curious about a couple of assumptions I’m making.

First, has Dembski worked through a specified complexity/CSI calculation for anything other than the 4 subjects Dr. Elsberry identified in this post? That’s the Caputo incident, the flagellum, the WEASEL program and the SETI data. I haven’t seen any other significant instances of him actually working through a case, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.

Second, is anyone aware of any incident in which the intelligent design community, particularly the credentialed experts but including any prominent member, has scrutinized and rejected an ID idea? Dembski’s temporary rejection of his own explanatory filter would be an example, had he not walked it back a week or so later. Again, I can’t think of any good examples, but want to make sure I’m not missing anything.

It’s time to start a continuation thread for Split-brain patients and the dire implications for the soul, because the original thread is being affected by a software bug. Only the final page of comments is affected. Continue reading →

Barry’s latest post at UD has the title Biology Students Score Below Religion and Classics Students on Test of Critical Thinking.  Unsurprisingly, it’s Barry who actually flunks the critical thinking test.

(Click graph for a bigger version)

Continue reading →

There are a number of professed atheists in this forum. I was curious as to what sort of moral imperative atheists are beholden to when presumably no one is looking.  Speaking as a theist, I am constantly cognizant that there is a God who considers what I do and is aware of what I do, even though that awareness on my part may not always result in the moral behavior which I aspire to.  But let’s take a fairly mundane example — say theft.  We’re talking about blatant theft in a context where one could plausibly or even likely get away with it.  I affirm to you that as a Christian, or more relevantly possibly, as a theist, I would never do that.  Possibly it has just as much to do with my consideration for the feelings and rights of  some other individual, who has “legal” possession of said items, as it has to do with my awareness of an omniscient creator who is aware of what I’m doing and who would presumably not bless me if I violated his laws.  I mean,  I care about the rights of other people.  And, considering other moral tableaus, those of a sexual nature for example — I would personally never consider going to a prostitute for example, in that I feel empathy for that person, and how they are degrading themselves in the sight of God, and how I would not want to contribute to their degradation, so that my own human lust would never result in me victimizing another human being in that way.  So in summary,  there are all sorts of constraints on my personal behavior that stem directly from my belief in God,  and I am honestly curious about the inner life of professed atheists in such matters.  In other words, do atheists for example, in such junctures of moral decision, only consider whether they can get away with it, i.e escape the detection of human authorities?  I am just honestly curious about the inner life of atheists in such matters.

Philosophy graduate and English teacher (based in Japan) Vincent J Torley is currently a contributor of articles to Barry Arrington’s blog “Uncommon Descent”. Vincent has a tendency to verbosity but his posts sometimes are an enjoyable read as he tends to put a little more effort into their content. Continue reading →