Home

There is a major distinction between the 'lawyer' and the 'philosopher.' The lawyer participates in an argument: takes a side and fights for it. A philosopher, however, should attempt to undermine the debate itself; to show where both sides are wrong.

An article in the March 2008 issue of Aufklärung und Kritik1 described four "new atheists" in the USA (Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens); the present article describes some earlier prominent American freethinkers.

I have heard some people claim that the notion of intelligent design is merely an attempt to repackage Christian creationism in a respectable way. But, this is clearly false. It’s a Hindu notion as well.

Fundamentally, all things are composed of matter and all phenomena are the result of material interactions; therefore, matter is the only substance.

The Florida Board of Education officially upheld evolution yesterday.
The board didn't quite mean to do that, of course. In a 4-3 vote, the Board accepted a proposed curriculum that replaced all references to evolution with the phrase "the scientific theory of evolution."

Is Darwin due for an upgrade? There are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists for just such a revision, although they differ about what form this might take. But those calls could also be exaggerated. There is nothing scientists enjoy more than the prospect of a good paradigm shift.

SCIENCE, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term “doubting Thomas” well illustrates the difference. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.

The approach to science in the era before the scientific method, much like the approach of atheists and Darwinists today, was to apply a priori philosophical constraints to the study of natural phenomena.