Goodbye to Yesterday...

Your grades are now posted. Enjoy your winter break!

I'll leave you with a little rant on that favorite topic of mine: intellectual honesty. A simple goal of this class was to get us all to recognize what counts as good evidence and what counts as bad evidence for a claim. I think we did get better at that. But this doesn't guarantee that we'll care about the difference once we figure it out.

Getting us to care was the real goal of this class. We should care about good evidence. We should care about evidence and arguments because they get us closer to the truth. When we judge an argument to be overall good, THE POWER OF LOGIC COMPELS US to believe the conclusion. If we are presented with decent evidence for some claim, but still stubbornly disagree with this claim, we are just being irrational. Worse, we're effectively saying that the truth doesn't matter to us.

Instead, we should be open-minded. We should be willing to challenge ourselves, and let new evidence change our current beliefs. We should be open to the possibility that we've currently gotten something wrong. This is how comedian Todd Glass puts it:


Here are the first two paragraphs of a great article I read last year on this:

Last week, I jokingly asked a health club acquaintance whether he would change his mind about his choice for president if presented with sufficient facts that contradicted his present beliefs. He responded with utter confidence. "Absolutely not," he said. "No new facts will change my mind because I know that these facts are correct."

I was floored. In his brief rebuttal, he blindly demonstrated overconfidence in his own ideas and the inability to consider how new facts might alter a presently cherished opinion. Worse, he seemed unaware of how irrational his response might appear to others. It's clear, I thought, that carefully constructed arguments and presentation of irrefutable evidence will not change this man's mind.

Ironically, having extreme confidence in oneself is often a sign of ignorance. In many cases, such stubborn certainty is unwarranted.

If any of this sounds cool to you, consider joining the "Owning Our Ignorance" club I run. (We even have a Facebook group!)

It Pays to Believe?

So we didn't wind up studying this in class, but in case you're interested here are some links on Pascal's Wager:

• Links to several articles on the argument.
• Here's an audio interview on the argument and Pascal's entire work Pensées.
  
• NOTHING TO LOSE? Is there really not much to lose in this wager? This cartoon thinks otherwise.
• WHICH GOD? With so many religions out there, which God should we believe in? This cartoon dinosaur has the most practical solution.
• More on decision theory, the branch of math Pascal uses to argue that belief in God is a good bet.
  
• Some related entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: evidentialism vs. nonevidentialism, religious versions of nonevidentialism (or fideism), other pragmatic arguments for believing in god, and Pascal's other contributions to philosophy.

Hear No Evil

If you like to get philosophical on the treadmill, try downloading and listening to these podcasts on the problem of evil:

• Well-known contemporary philosopher (and ordained priest) Marilyn McCord Adams offers some insights into the problem of evil in this audio interview. (Download)
  
• The NPR program Fresh Air has an audio interview with Bart Ehrman on the problem of suffering. (Download)
  
• Here's even more audio from a few philosophers on the problem of suffering. (Download)
  
  

Suffer-iness

Here's Stephen Colbert's take on evil:

Bad Things to Good People

Here are some links on the problem of evil.

• There is a collection of resources all about the problem of evil, including criticisms of several different responses to the problem. I mean, wow.
• I'd like to highlight one article in particular: a discussion of the "God works in mysterious ways" response: do we have enough evidence to believe that there is a reason for all the suffering in the world, but humans aren't smart enough to understand what that reason is?
• Thoughts on everyday evil and the Holocaust.
  
• Does everything happen for a reason? This cartoon dinosaur has an interesting take on that question. (T-Rex also occasionally wonders why bad things happen to nice people, and whether we're in the worst possible world.)

More With the Creepy Guy

Here are some recommended videos on the design argument from Closer to Truth:

• Philosopher Richard Swinburne likes the design argument. (Part 2 of his interview is here.)
  
• Philosopher Bede Rundle is less convinced.
• Philosopher Colin McGinn tackles the issue of fine-tuning.

Her Stroke of Insight

This is indirectly related to what we're discussing in class. It shows the degree to which our mind actively constructs our understanding of reality around us. Here's neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk on her experience of having a stroke:


Bolte Taylor wrote a whole book on her experience. It's available in most book stores. Here's a more detailed audio interview with her.

I love TED talks. Here are some of my other favorites:

• The Story Bias by Tyler Cowen
• The Psychological Roots of Political Positions by Jonathan Haidt
  
• We Don't Know What Makes Us Happy by Dan Gilbert

Design in the Mind's Eye

Here's an interesting approach to explaining the seeming complexity, order, and functionality of the universe: maybe it's all in our mind.

Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that we see intentional design and patterns too much... including in things that are actually random. So things that seem so fine-tuned and unlikely from our perspective might not actually be. Here's a video dialogue on this topic:


Bloom has two great books (Descartes' Baby and How Children Learn the Meaning of Words) on how our minds develop from early childhood on.

Like a Watch, Only More So...

Here are some links on the design argument for God's existence.

• Here is a nice explanation of the design argument, along with an explanation of another wacky arg for god's existence.
  
• Here is an audio interview on Hume's criticisms of the design arg.
  
• One philosophers' take on the debate between evolution and intelligent design.
• Is our universe fine-tuned for life? Maybe not.
• Wait, can science even judge religious claims, or are they talking about different things? Maybe an inference to the best explanation can help us...
  
• What about all the "design flaws" in nature? Are they evidence against a supreme designer?
  
• Well, recent research might show the appendix serves a purpose, and so wouldn't count as a design flaw.
  

The Universe Began, Again

Still wondering whether the universe has a beginning or regresses infinitely? Here's an entire episode of Closer to Truth devoted to the question "Did the Universe Have a Beginning?" If you can get past the weird host, there are some nice explanations of the science of the origins of the universe by current cosmologists.

Wacka Wacka

When a philosopher announced that the title of his talk was “Why is there Something rather than Nothing?” Sydney Morgenbesser said to the man sitting next to him, “If there was Nothing he would still complain.”

-from Gerald Dworkin's list of philosophy quips

Why Is Anything Anything?

The website Closer to Truth has a ton of short interviews with modern-day philosophers (and other smart people) on their thoughts about god. For instance, there's a whole section on the cosmological argument titled "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" Here are some videos from that section:

• Theist John Leslie says God best explains why there is something.
  
• Theist Peter van Inwagen believes in God, but doesn't like this arg.
  
• Atheist Colin McGinn thinks it's a meaningless question.
• Physicist Steven Weisberg says we should wait for science's answer.
  

And here's a video on the relationship between philosophy and religion:

• Does Philosophy Illuminate Religion?

God Stuff

If you've read a good article on god stuff, recommend it to us by emailing me or posting the link in the comments section of this post. In the meantime, I have something for you.

The National Public Radio show Fresh Air ran a pair of interviews with two scientists talking about whether God exists. (Since they're not trained philosophers, some of their arguments aren't the best. Try to spot their mistakes!) The conversations touch on a lot of things we'll be discussing in class.

• Richard Dawkins pushing atheism
  
• Francis Collins pushing theism
  

Hey, where's the interview with an agnostic? The media are so biased toward those with opinions.

Innate Ideas? I've Had a Few

Here are two articles by psychologist Steven Pinker that offer some psychological insights on the innate ideas debate we've been discussing in class:

The Brain’s Versatile Toolbox (1997)

Grammar Puss (1994)

But again, why read when you can watch a video? With that in mind, here's Pinker's appearance on The Colbert Report:


Pinker has a few books on this stuff, and a lot of other interesting articles, too. Not everyone agrees with Pinker, though. Here's an article about a South American tribe that might be a counterexample to the claim that there are innate aspects of language development.

The Interpreter
(The linguist researching the tribe explains his case more here. Steven Pinker and others respond to him here.)

One more link. Here's an advanced survey article on the rationalism/empiricism debate from my favorite free online philosophy encyclopedia:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Rationalism vs. Empiricism

Yes, there is more than one free online philosophy encyclopedia.

The Philosophical Baby

Psychologist Alison Gopnik just wrote a new book called The Philosophical Baby. It's loaded with cool insights on the rationalism-empiricism debate. Here's an interview with Gopnik about the book, and here's a review. Below is her appearance on The Colbert Report.

I'm Certain I'm Doubting

Here are some links related to our discussion of knowledge from class.

• What are the philosophical implications of the movie The Matrix?
  
• Can we be abolutely certain of math truths like 2 + 3 = 5? This cartoon dinosaur says we can't!
• Here's an audio interview about Rene Descartes's famous argument that he's certain he exists.
  
• Most people don't take skepticism seriously because skeptical scenarios seem so unlikely. They're crazy, right? But Nick Bostrom argues that the probability we're living in the Matrix may be a lot higher than we think.
• (Here's a more advanced version of Bostrom's article, along with a dinosaur comic on it.)
• Here's my favorite argument for widespread skepticism. (pdf)
• The search for truth is tough. Let's get the FBI on the case!
  
• Optical illusion time! Here is a pair of collections of Julian Beever's sidewalk art that looks three-dimensional when viewed from a certain angle. Here's one of his creations:

By the way, if you have any links you think I or others in class might find interesting, let me know. And feel free to comment on any of these posts.