Science vs. scientism

This excellent post is why I read Bob Carroll more than P.Z. Myers. To my skeptical friends — if you're not following the Skeptic's Dictionary, you're missing a lot.

New indications of what drives consciousness

A theory known as "global workspace" seems to be getting some tentative empirical confirmation, including that "the researchers found a 300 ms delay between presenting the stimuli and witnessing this explosion of neural activity," which may be analogous to the famous half-second delay between starting what turns out to be a conscious action and actually consciously willing to do it.

That said, per David Chalmers, this study seems to answer an "easy question" about consciousness, or a couple, more than any "hard questions."

Talk deeply, be happy

Hey, fellow history, philosophy or political science geeks! Don't be afraid to talk about what you love; it's probably making you happier than just talking about weather or sports.

The creation of hell and the problem of evil

If, as many Christians claim, hell was created for Satan et al, and not human beings, this still does nothing to alleviate the problem of evil.

God, if the omniscient one of Christian tradition, knew what Satan et al would do, and yet did not create him in a way so as not to do that.

Looking at religion pages every week currently provokes my thought.

The "age of accountability" and ensoulment

Baptists and similar strains in Protestant Christianity talk about an "age of accountability," with the implication that "not so good" behavior committed before that age isn't fully "sinful."

Well, let's take this idea a bit further.

Does that mean a child before the age of accountability isn't fully "ensouled" either? (Presuming, just for this line of argument, that such a thing as a "soul" exists.)

And, what, then, does that say about a developing fetus, one, say, before viability? Is it not "ensouled" at all?

Hmmm....

Pop Ev Psych goes off the rails on depression

The idea that clinical depression was evolutionarily selected for is why many real evolutionary biologists laugh at something like this as a classical "Just So Story."

It's caveated, has little real explanatory power, doesn't allow for alternative explanations, doesn't well explain away counterexamples and is generally weak.

Beyond that, Andy Thomson and Paul Andrews undercut their own theory, and at a grade-school level.

In response to criticism, they admit that, in essence, "We don't know what depression is."

Well, if you don't know what a trait is, how can you even claim it's selected for, in the first place? You've just said you don't know what it is, so you don't know what is being selected for.

Duh.

And, of course, given the present (but growing) state of cognitive science and neuroscience, this is the case about ev psych, or rather, Pop Ev Psych, claims about just about any mental or emotional state.

Meanwhile, on his blog, Jonah Lerner, the author of the NYT Mag story, actually defends the general line of thinking of Thomson/Andrews, though in the story, he was good enough to marshal plenty of opponents of their claims.

Cultural neuroscience - a new frontier

When the addition is still in basic arithmetic, Chinese speakers use a different part of their brain than do Westerners.

Things like this are part of the purview of cultural neuroscience.