Curriculum Vitae DANIEL C. DENNETT
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Development, Evolution, and Adaptation Author(S): Kim Sterelny Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol
Philosophy of Science Association Development, Evolution, and Adaptation Author(s): Kim Sterelny Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 67, Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers (Sep., 2000), pp. S369-S387 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/188681 Accessed: 03/03/2010 17:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Philosophy of Science Association and The University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophy of Science. -
Philosophical Perspectives on Evolutionary Theory
Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 92: 461–464, 2009 Philosophical perspectives on Evolutionary Theory A Tapper Centre for Applied Ethics & Philosophy, Curtin University of Technology, Bentley, WA [email protected] Manuscript received December 2009; accepted February 2010 Abstract Discussion of Darwinian evolutionary theory by philosophers has gone through a number of historical phases, from indifference (in the first hundred years), to criticism (in the 1960s and 70s), to enthusiasm and expansionism (since about 1980). This paper documents these phases and speculates about what, philosophically speaking, underlies them. It concludes with some comments on the present state of the evolutionary debate, where rapid and important changes within evolutionary theory may be passing by unnoticed by philosophers. Keywords: Darwinism, evolutionary theory, philosophy of biology; evolution. Introduction author. Biologists such as Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Steve Jones and Simon Conway Morris are Darwin once said that he had no aptitude for prominent. So also are historians of science, such as Peter philosophy: “My power to follow a long and purely Bowler, Janet Browne, Adrian Desmond and James R. abstract train of thought is very limited; I should, Moore. Equally likely, however, one might be introduced moreover, never have succeeded with metaphysics or to evolutionary theory by a philosopher of biology, for mathematics” (Darwin 1958). This was not false modesty; example Michael Ruse, David Hull or Kim Sterelny. (For -
The Enf Ield 'Poltergeist' This Morning's Revisit of the Classic Case Provokes Further Thoughts
The Enf ield 'Poltergeist' This Morning's revisit of the classic case provokes further thoughts AT THE BEGINNING OF FEBRUARY, I appeared on This Morning to talk highly resistant to disbelieving witnesses. Playfair himself wrote that"... about the Enfield 'poltergeist' with Guy Lyon Playfair (writer of This paranormal events only took place in the presence of people who House is Haunted) and Janet Winter. The producers were very pleased believed them to be possible"3 In fact, it's hard to avoid wondering that they had an appearance by the woman who had been the eleven- whether the agents of the peculiar occurrences at Enfield were simply year-old at the centre of the events in the late 70s, but were extremely refusing to play to tough crowds. concerned about her resilience and sought an assurance from me that In her piece, Ms. Barrington makes the point that "Janet has consis- I could keep it generalised and unconfrontational, which I was happy to tently resisted the fame and fortune that would certainly come her way do. When I met Janet in the Green Room, I have to say I found her if she were now to claim that she had faked all her phenomena." While extremely likeable and every bit as nervous as I had been warned. She true, that carries the implicit assumption that fame and fortune are the has previously been quite publicity-averse and, fair enough, most peo- objects of Janet's desire. Having been a witness to her demeanour at a ple would find going on the telly very nerve-wracking indeed. -
The Onlife Manifesto Luciano Floridi Editor
The Onlife Manifesto Luciano Floridi Editor The Onlife Manifesto Being Human in a Hyperconnected Era Editor Luciano Floridi Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford Oxford, Oxfordshire United Kingdom Image made from models used to track debris in Earth orbit. Of the approximately 19,000 man-made objects larger than 10 centimetres in Earth orbit as of July 2009, most orbit close to the Earth. Source: NASA Earth Observatory / Orbital Debris Program Office: http://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_Debris_Low_Earth_Orbit.png original publication date 12 September 2009. ISBN 978-3-319-04092-9 ISBN 978-3-319-04093-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-04093-6 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948552 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and the Author(s) 2015. The book is published with open access at SpringerLink.com Open Access This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncom- mercial License, which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. This work is subject to copyright. All commercial rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publica- tion does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. -
CFI-Annual-Report-2018.Pdf
Message from the President and CEO Last year was another banner year for the Center the interests of people who embrace reason, for Inquiry. We worked our secular magic in a science, and humanism—the principles of the vast variety of ways: from saving lives of secular Enlightenment. activists around the world who are threatened It is no secret that these powerful ideas like with violence and persecution to taking the no others have advanced humankind by nation’s largest drugstore chain, CVS, to court unlocking human potential, promoting goodness, for marketing homeopathic snake oil as if it’s real and exposing the true nature of reality. If you medicine. are looking for humanity’s true salvation, CFI stands up for reason and science in a way no look no further. other organization in the country does, because This past year we sought to export those ideas to we promote secular and humanist values as well places where they have yet to penetrate. as scientific skepticism and critical thinking. The Translations Project has taken the influential But you likely already know that if you are reading evolutionary biology and atheism books of this report, as it is designed with our supporters in Richard Dawkins and translated them into four mind. We want you not only to be informed about languages dominant in the Muslim world: Arabic, where your investment is going; we want you to Urdu, Indonesian, and Farsi. They are available for take pride in what we have achieved together. free download on a special website. It is just one When I meet people who are not familiar with CFI, of many such projects aimed at educating people they often ask what it is we do. -
The Experience of Doing’
Phenomenology and the Feeling of Doing: 1 Wegner on the Conscious Will Tim Bayne, Macquarie University [email protected] February 24, 2005 To appear in S. Pockett, W. P. Banks & S. Gallagher (eds) Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? An Investigation of the Nature of Volition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Abstract In this paper I examine Daniel Wegner’s claim that the conscious will is an illusion. I begin by asking what Wegner might mean by “the conscious will”, and what he might mean by calling it an illusion. I then explore Wegner’s arguments for the claim that the conscious will is an illusion. I conclude that these arguments fail, and that although there is much we do not yet know about the structure of the phenomenology of agency, it is unlikely that the phenomenology of agency is illusory. 1. Introduction Given its ubiquitous presence in everyday experience, it is surprising that the phenomenology of doing—the experience of being an agent—has received such scant attention in the consciousness literature. But things are starting to change, and a small but growing literature on the content and causes of the phenomenology of first-person agency is beginning to emerge.2 One of the most influential and stimulating figures in this literature is Daniel Wegner. In a series of papers and his book The Illusion of Conscious Will (ICW) Wegner has developed an account of what he calls “the experience of conscious will”. In this paper I assess Wegner’s model of the conscious will and the claims that he makes on the basis of it. -
WILDLIFE APOCALYPSE How Myths and Superstitions Drive Animal Extinction
CBS Paranormal Segment | Changelings | UFO Conspiracies | Balles Award | ‘Flying Friar’ | Fake News Vol. 42 No. 4 | July/August 2018 the Magazine for Science and Reason WILDLIFE APOCALYPSE How Myths and Superstitions Drive Animal Extinction Skepticism Reloaded Cell Phones, Cancer, and Chance Lotus Birth Fad Speed Reading: Fact or Fiction? Skepticism and Literature Published by the Center for Inquiry with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Response to Flood Creationists Committee for Skeptical Inquiry www.csicop.orgwww.csicop.org Robyn E. Blumner, President and CEO Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow Benjamin Radford, Research Fellow Bar ry Karr, Ex ec u tive Di rect or Massimo Polidoro, Research Fellow Richard Wiseman, Research Fellow Fellows James E. Al cock,* psy chol o gist, York Univ., Kevin Folta, molecular biologist, professor and Law rence Kusche, sci ence writer Mas si mo Pol id oro, sci ence writer; au thor; Tor on to chair of Horticultural Sciences Department, Le on Le der man, emer i tus di rect or, Fer mi lab; ex ec u tive di rect or of CI CAP, It a ly Mar cia An gell, MD, former ed i tor-in-chief, University of Florida. No bel lau re ate in phys ics James L. Powell, geochemist, author, ex- New Eng land Jour nal of Med i cine Barbara Forrest, professor of philosophy, SE Stephan Lewandowsky, psychologist, School ecutive director, National Physical Science Kimball Atwood IV, MD, physician; author; Louisiana Univ. of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Insti- Consortium Newton, MA An drew Fra knoi, astronomer, University of tute, Univ. of Bristol, UK Anthony R. -
The Sense of Conscious Will
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2004) 27, 649–692 Printed in the United States of America Précis of The illusion of conscious will Daniel M. Wegner Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. [email protected] http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/ Abstract: The experience of conscious will is the feeling that we are doing things. This feeling occurs for many things we do, conveying to us again and again the sense that we consciously cause our actions. But the feeling may not be a true reading of what is happening in our minds, brains, and bodies as our actions are produced. The feeling of conscious will can be fooled. This happens in clinical disorders such as alien hand syndrome, dissociative identity disorder, and schizophrenic auditory hallucinations. And in people without disorders, phenomena such as hypnosis, automatic writing, Ouija board spelling, water dowsing, facilitated communication, speaking in tongues, spirit possession, and trance channeling also illustrate anomalies of will – cases when actions occur without will or will occurs without action. This book brings these cases together with research evidence from laboratories in psychology to explore a theory of apparent mental causation. According to this theory, when a thought appears in consciousness just prior to an action, is consistent with the action, and appears exclusive of salient alternative causes of the action, we experience conscious will and ascribe authorship to ourselves for the action. Experiences of conscious will thus arise from processes whereby the mind interprets itself – not from processes whereby mind creates action. Conscious will, in this view, is an indication that we think we have caused an action, not a revelation of the causal sequence by which the action was produced. -
It's Time for the UN to Admit Palestine
It’s Time for the U.N. To Admit Palestine Who won the Intelligence Squared debate, and how. Posted Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, at 5:02 PM ET After an hour and a half of trying to soften an increasingly furious—and personal— debate over Palestinian membership in the United Nations on Tuesday, moderator John Donvan gave up and wearily asked his panelists for closing statements. Aaron David Miller started off. “I realize in the last 90 minutes that perhaps one of the most astute things I’ve done, the best decisions I’ve made, was to leave the Arab-Israeli negotiating table,” he quipped. The audience laughed. Onstage, the rest of the panelists looked pained. Miller, a former adviser to various secretaries of state on the Middle East State Department and Dore Gold, who formerly represented Israel at the United Nations, argued against the motion, “The U.N. Should Admit Palestine as a Full Member State,” at Tuesday’s Slate/Intelligence Squared U.S. debate at NYU’s Skirball Center. Defending the motion were Daniel Levy, an Israeli citizen who had drafted key language for the 2003 Geneva Accord, and Mustafa Barghouthi, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, a third-party movement in Ramallah devoted to nonviolent activism. The audience was polled on the motion both before and after the debate. Initially 37 percent supported U.N. admission for an autonomous Palestine, 30 percent were opposed to admission, and 33 percent were undecided. When the audience was polled again after the debate, Barghouthi and Levy had coaxed another 18 percent to their cause, earning a total of 55 percent of the votes. -
The Psychology of Gullibility
What is is FABBS? FABBS? The Foundation for the Advancement of Behavioral and Brain Sci- ences (FABBS) is an educational non-profit organization established to promote and enhance understanding of the behavioral, psychologi- cal, and brain sciences. cal, and brain sciences. The mission of the foundation is education directed to two important Theaudiences: mission the of publicthe foundation and researchers. is education Our directedfirst goal, to totwo enhance important the S C I E N C E C A F É audiences:public’s understanding the public and of scientific researchers. research, Our first is accomplished goal, to enhance through the educational programming and publications designed for non- public’s understanding of scientific research, is accomplished through scientists. Our second goal, to facilitate the engagement of scientists ineducational productive programming dialogue that willand improvepublications and expeditedesigned activities for non- re- Will People latedscientists. to research, Our second is met goal, through to facilitate the organization the engagement of conferences of scientists and seminarsin productive geared dialogue towards that communication will improve and and expedite interaction activities between re- Believe Anything? thoselated toinvolved research, in theis met research through process. the organization of conferences and The Psychology of Gullibility Theseminars end products geared towardsof the successful communication fulfillment and of interactionour efforts includebetween a societythose involved that is inbetter the researchequipped process. to understand the complex, scientific issues that are becoming a daily part of modern life, and a well- informedThe end products research of community the successful that fulfillmentis prepared of to our advance efforts their include field a October 10, 2008 societybeyond thatcurrent is better expectations equipped and to capabilities. -
Daniel Wegner, the Illusion of Conscious Will (Cambridge MA: the MIT Press, 2002), Pp
Daniel Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will (Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 2002), pp. xi + 405. Anyone who retains the Cartesian faith that we know what we are doing should read this book. Wegner assembles a huge amount of evidence to show our widespread ignorance of when and how we are acting. Our failures are of two kinds. First there are cases in which we are acting but do not realize that we are. Examples include ouija board manipulation and other varieties of Victorian spiritualism; facilitated communication; water divination; and hypnotism, to which Wegner devotes a long chapter that would serve as an excellent introduction to the topic. Second come cases in which we are not acting, but think that we are. Wegner describes an experiment of his own (the ‘I-Spy’ study) in which subjects are induced to believe that they have selected a figure on a computer screen (when they haven’t) by the expedient of getting them to think about that figure a few seconds before. Perhaps such cases are unusual; more common are cases in which we are indeed acting, but in which we think that our actions are achieving far more than they in fact are. We habitually overestimate the effect that we have on objects and people around us. Indeed there is good evidence from many studies that it is a sign of mental health to overestimate one’s control over the world. If this weren’t bad enough, it also appears that, even if we do accurately understand our actions at the time, we are very likely to likely to forget or confabulate later. -
Sex and Death: an Introduction to Philosophy of Biology Pdf Free
SEX AND DEATH: AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Kim Sterelny,Paul Griffiths | 416 pages | 15 Jun 1999 | The University of Chicago Press | 9780226773049 | English | Chicago, IL, United States Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology PDF Book Beyond the Modular Emotions Harriet S. The Nature of Species 9. Reduction by Degrees? Griffiths present both the science and the philosophical context necessary for a critical understanding of the most exciting debates shaping biology today. Overall I wouldn't say it is a bad book, and certainly gives tons of information about philosophy of biology, but I think I tried to bite off more than I can chew. Enlightenment, Compassion and Bioscientific Phenomena 4. Replicators and Interactors 3. How can I wanted to dig deeper into evolutionary biology, but I had two problems. There are few things I got from it. Privacy Policy Terms of Use. Other editions. Is the history of life a series of accidents or a drama scripted by selfish genes? However, for technical advancements to make real impacts both on patient health and genuine scientific understanding, quite a number of lingering challenges facing the entire spectrum from protein biology all the way to randomized controlled trials should start to be overcome. Oceanography and Marine Biology. Crandall , Norman C. Reduction in General Philosophy of Science. Images Additional images. Informed answers to questions like these, critical to our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, require both a knowledge o Is the history of life a series of accidents or a drama scripted by selfish genes? The Balance of Nature In this accessible introduction to philosophy of biology, Kim Sterelny and Paul E.