Consciencebound

Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

Excellent Podcast episode of For Good Reason. Cognitive Dissonance is extremely interesting and scary at the same time. We are all so prone to only accepting and believing things that agree with what we already believe and listening to this really makes you consider your reasons for what you believe.

You can listen to this episode here

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Gotta love Tim Minchin. He has quickly become my favorite comedian

I came across this site some time ago and just stumbled on it again as I was going through my bookmarks. What a great program. The site is called Closer to Truch and is a collection of very well made videos that are made for TV and cover topics on God, Cosmos and Consciousness. This particular program is about 30 minutes long and covers the vastness of the universe.

The host of the show paints himself as a seeker of truth who is humbled by the sheer size of the universe. I identify greatly with him in many of his shows on this site. I love nature and the more I learn, the more interested I am to learn more about it through science. I am humbled myself at not just the size of the universe itself but also the enormity of the amount of knowledge that there is to be discovered about it and just how small I am in relationship to it all. I look back over my adult life and see how much I have learned over the years and see that I am really no closer to having a “full knowledge” of the world then I was 20 years ago. With Socrates, I can say, Read the rest of this entry »

Here is an 8 part youtube video series of a debate on evolution and intelligent design. I was pleasantly surprised by the exchange for the most part even though it is dated. The debate was in 1997 and so there has been a lot of development in this discussion since that time but it was still good and it makes you think. This is a 5 on 4 debate with 9 relevant and highly educated and very well prepared speakers. On the ID side you have William F. Buckley Jr, William Demski, Michael Behe, Phillip Johnson and David Berlinksi and on the evolution side you have Ken Miller, Bary Lynn, Eugenie C. Scott and Michael Ruse. In my opinion, the star of the debate is clearly Ken Miller but there was still many good contributions to the discussion on both sides.

Great article on the distinction between what we know and what we don’t know about evolution. There is a good quote from Stephen J Gould in this article talking about this as well. Many people point out that there are differing theories about HOW evolution happened and so it is therefore all up for grabs and only a theory that is very debatable. What this article points out is that that question is not IF evolution happened, but HOW.

Evolution is a Fact and a Theory
by Laurence Moran

I saw this in Skeptic.com today. Good video by Michael Shermer on some basic principles for discerning between true and false claims.

I have been going through old archives of one of my favorite podcasts, Reasonable Doubts and came aross Episode 21, Miracles with Guest Joe Nickell. The guest Joe Nickell is a paranormal investigator and the hosts discuss with Joe his approach to dealing with claims of the miraculous. They talk about visions, weeking statues, Speaking in tongues and other phenomenon which are said to be the miraculous work of the supernatural.

Miraculous claims abound today just like they did in the ancient world. We want to believe in the supernatural and in miraculous claims. It’s mysterious and exciting and it gives us hope that this natural world is not all that there is. For many, miracles are a proof for their faith, be it in God, Jesus, Astrology, UFO’s, Ghosts or whatever else. The interesting thing is that each group who believes that a miracle is a testament to the truth of their faith or beliefs looks with skepticism on other groups claims of the same thing. And if miracles are to be a proof of anything, it would seem that they are a proof of nothing since so many conflicting belief systems seem to be derived from them.

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I have four great kids and would like to think that I know a thing or two about raising children. But the truth is… I DON”T KNOW JACK! I am always looking for pointers and advice on raising kids and learning new ways to effectively communicate with them and to help them to become good, responsible people. Often I feel that I am making no progress at all and so it is good to read what other people have found to be effective.

I ran across this blog called called Half Full through a Point of Inquiry podcast and I have found tons of great stuff on there. The Half Full name comes from teaching kids to have a positive “glass is half full” outlook on life and does so by drawing on the vast amount of research that has been done over the last 50 years in psychology, sociology, and neuroscience.

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Here is a cool video that I came across explaining evolution.

This last weeks podcast on Point of Inquiry was concerning the brain and it’s development. Although the human brain is an amazing thing which separates us from other animals, it’s development is surprisingly haphazard and accidental. The more neuroscience understands about the brain the better we are able to deal with and overcome it’s problems and weaknesses. in fact, that is one of the amazing things about the brain, it’s capacity for self consciousness which allows us to explore self improvement. As always, Point of Inquiry delivers a very interesting and thought provocative program.

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