Tag: What is human?

Easter eggs and slavery

Easter’s coming soon, and if you live in the west as I do, you’ll probably be eating your share of easter eggs. But what if the eggs came from cocoa grown using child labour, that is effectively slave labour?

Jerry Coyne and free will

A week or two back I posted on scientist Jerry Coyne’s discussion of free will (Jerry Coyne: why we don’t have free will) I have just come across a discussion of Coyne’s views on former academic philosopher Bill Vallicella’s blog, Maverick Philosopher. It’s pretty strongly critical, but worth reading.

Jerry Coyne: why we don’t have free will

Jerry Coyne is a Professor of biology at the University of Chicago, probably best known for his book Why evolution is true. In a recent column in USA Today, he presents the case for the unpalatable reality that our apparent ability to freely make choices is in fact an illusion. The column raises some interesting […]

Peter Singer and infanticide

Steven and I have been discussing the Richard Dawkins vs William Lane Craig fracas on his blog Think That Through. At one point we referenced the ethical views of Peter Singer, and Steven suggested I do a critique of Peter Singer’s views on infanticide. This is not something I have studied a great deal, but […]

Sam Harris on consciousness

I have twice before blogged about high-profile atheist Sam Harris, none too favourably – in Sam Harris – man of reason? and Sam Harris on faith – sensible or silly?. So it is pleasing to report some of Sam’s thinking that I can resonate with. It came in a post, The mystery of consciousness, on […]

the exploits and adventures of david sloan wilson

David Sloan Wilson is an eminent evolutionary biologist at Binghamton University in New York. He is an atheist “but a nice atheist”, he assures us, and he is interested in the study of religion from an evolutionary viewpoint and the use of evolutionary principles to develop community development programs. I believe we can all learn […]

Is it natural to believe in God?

We all like to think we make good choices for good reasons. Those who believe in God like to think they are right in their belief, whereas atheists think believers are mistaken, sometimes even ‘delusional’. Some atheists would like to see all God-belief eliminated because they believe it does so much harm. Yet new scientific […]