The secret of happiness: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.
The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially...
There is a species of primate in South America more gregarious than most other mammals, with a curious behavior.The members of this species often gather in groups, large and small, and in the course o...
I should emphasize this, to keep well-meaning but misguided multiculturalists at bay: the theoretical entities in which these tribal people frankly believe — the gods and other spirits — don't exist....
But recently I have learned from discussions with a variety of scientists and other non-philosophers (e.g., the scientists participating with me in the workshop on the future of naturalism) that they...
In the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure.
In fact, if you are faced with the prospect of running across an open field in which lightning bolts are going to be a problem, you are much better off if their timing and location are determined by s...
I'm the guy who reputedly denies that people experience colors or pains, and thinks that thermostats think — just ask my critics.
Words are memes that can be pronounced.
Words exist. What are they made of? Air under pressure? Ink? Some instances of the word cat are made of ink, and some are made of bursts of acoustic energy in the atmosphere, and some are made of patt...
Some people would much prefer the infinite regress of mysteries, apparently, but in this day and age the cost is prohibitive: you have to get yourself deceived. You can either deceive yourself or let...
If I know better than you know what I am up to, it is only because I spend more time with myself than you do.
Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control, and self-definition is not spinning webs or building dams, but telling stories, and more particularly connecting and controlling the story we t...
Problems in science are sometimes made easier by adding complications.
To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant—inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out...
This 'web of discourses' as Robyn called it...is as much a biological product as any of the other constructions to be found in the animal world. (Clothes too, are part of the extended phenotype of Hom...
Don’t be afraid of a little metaphor; it won’t bite you, but you should always make sure you know how to cash it in for unvarnished fact when you feel the urge.
[T]he idea of treating Mind as an effect rather than as a First Cause is too revolutionary for some–an awful stretcher that their own minds cannot acommodate comfortably. This is as true today as it w...
Is this Tree of Life a God one could worship? Pray to? Fear? Probably not. But it did make the ivy twine and the sky so blue, so perhaps the song I love tells a truth after all. The Tree of Life is ne...
I find that some philosophers think that my whole approach to qualia is not playing fair. I don’t respect the standard rules of philosophical thought experiments. But Dan, your view is so counterintui...
Showing 1 to 20 of 113 results