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Homo sapiens has enjoyed singular success at tweaking the environment because of the unique psycho-social wiring of the human mind ( Pagel ). Hearkening back to the nature-nurture debate, the human mind is a multi-dimensional intellectual construct that emerges from …

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Humanity used to believe in God, but now they believe in Darwin. This is a bit of an extreme statement, since most people still believe in God, but the sentiment is accurate. Darwin’s theories of the MECHANISMS of evolution has had a major impact on the social, emotional, and even spiritual fabric of this planet. There is a problem though. In a lot of ways Darwin’s theories seem more like canon, or ideology, than good science. This article explores early awareness of the ideological nature of Darwinian theory, and provides some suggestions on how scientists can break free of dogma that has more to do with religion than with good science.

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“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”—Albert Einstein The Defense Advanced Research Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced an extraordinary new project, the 100 Year Starship …

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For reasons that anthropologists have not yet fully uncovered, Homo sapiens evolved a pronounced aesthetic sensibility (Schellekens and Goldie, 2011): not only has Homo sapiens developed more sophisticated tools and weapons than any other species, Homo sapiens has also cultivated …

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Are we all but hapless pawns of Fate, or can humans exert some measure of creative control over the course of their lives? Beginning with Laplace, hard determinists have claimed that they can literally explain every event that has ever …

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I tend to agree with Karl Popper far more than I disagree. Nevertheless, I diverge from Popper over his under-specification of truth (BTW: I work out the particulars of this argument in much greater detail in a forthcoming book, Good …

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On June 2, 2011, Mark Guarino reported in the Christian Science Monitor that the Louisiana Science Education Act managed to survive a recent legal challenge in the Louisiana legislature. Sadly, that does not bode well for science education in Louisiana, …

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“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”—Albert Einstein As we assess the current state of global affairs, it is easy to become disheartened. Problems that have …

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A surprising number of people believe that the universe is deterministic (Hawking, 2007; Kurzweil, 2005; Skinner, 1971—among many others). Determinists believe that humans don’t have any control over their lives, or the world around them. Further, determinists reject the idea that humans …

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Truth and Science After The Sokal Hoax It’s easy to beat up on postmodernists these days. Ever since the Sokal Hoax, the postmodernists’ Waterloo, the science wars have been a rout. Once it became clear that postmodernism was incapable of distinguishing …

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