Freewill for Dummies: Pinker, Dawkins, & homosexuality.

Freewill for Dummies: Pinker, Dawkins, & homosexuality explained.

Too many people seemed to be misconstruing Steven Pinker's video on freewill. Dawkins used terminology that took away the implication of his statements. So I put together a video to help clear up some of the confusion that Pinker and Dawkins apparently are creating.

Thanks to MediaWiseVideos I was able to clarify Pinker and Dawkins with a couple of short takes from their video titled, Brain Power.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f8NdC9Amhg

For more on the free will versus psychological causation issue, visit http://www.naturalism.org/

Also for free ebooks on various subjects, visit http://www.facts4u/free/ (links to audio books too)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• social
• science
• homosexuality
• naturalism
• freewill
• causality
• Dawkins
• Pinker
• Psychology
• Culture
• Science
• Gays

[cre599]

Wait a minute... did this guy just compared neurons and how they work with ping pongs falling off in the Grand Canyon? FTW? XD Yup... that was enough to close the window. 2 minutes of my life wasted.

[unseenstrings]

@cre599 you are making such a crazy joke by twisting what was said. He, which is me, BTW, said that just because we cannot determine what the trajectory and movement of a ping-pong ball will be when it is falling into the Grand Canyon does not mean the movement and trajectory were not determined. Likewise, just because we cannot determine all there is to know about the brain does not mean that the brain is magically free from the laws that govern falling balls and everything else in the universe

[pawsoned]

Mr Pinker is just another modern day sophist and his pseudo-explanations are a whole lot of hooey that befuddle other people by constructing false data and presenting them as a scientific fact that is seemingly irrefutable. Who is he really? Not a philosopher or a scientist but only a linguistic maven who uses rhetorical gimmicks to dismiss ideas that he does not like.

[unseenstrings]

Actually Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and pop-icon. And yes it seems to me too that he is a "linguistic maven who uses rhetorical gimmicks to dismiss ideas that he does not like." That is what make him a pop star. Crowds love eloquent rhetorical dismissals of ideas that they themselves do not understand. Certain politicians are popular for the same reason. Pinker's only contribution to "real" science has been in linguistics general theory

[pawsoned]

@unseenstrings Yeah, Pinker's not that bad. That comment was terrible. I'm at peace with Pinker now. I think it was my ego and the need to show off on the You Tube aka trolling. But still he's not my idol and I dislike his writings peppered with anti-theistic bias. Atheism is not a scientific position because it deals with metaphysical existence of a purported higher being. i understand that new-atheists try to fight the creationists with their methods. But imo that's an ideological clash

[unseenstrings]

@pawsoned, I suspect some of the anti-atheist biases atheists experience at the hands of theists have something to do with them expressing anti-theistic sentiments. Otherwise, the atheist could care less what the other person believes. And some of the anti-atheist biases expressed by theists are the result of fear of atheism or what they suppose belief in atheism will lead to. The "Jesus Camp" DVD and the present problems with Muslims has some atheists feeling a similar fear in regard to theists

[unseenstrings]

But as you say "atheism is not a scientific position." However naturalism is. Methodological naturalism is another term for the scientific method. Phenomena are assumed to be the result of natural laws instead of supernatural laws because that is what has been found to work best for dissolving illusions and getting to the gist of the matter. Besides, supernatural causes and effects would be undetectable by definition

Evolution is called by some theists as "God's Plan." Evolution is scientific

[amiyaiitkgp]

No need to give example of million ping pongs...we already have real life problems equivalent to that. Weather - Trillions of particles interacting with each other, with sun's energy and what not. Each particle still behaves according to Newton's laws of motion and in every sense pre-determined. But even supercomputers can't solve the equations for this big a system so we can only make guesses and there is no real way of knowing even when weather is predetermined.

[Artifactorfiction]

Just because some neurons can be rewired doesn't mean all can be re-wired

[unseenstrings]

I have my suspicions. You see, when sexuality is suppressed, the deprived individual starts suffering discontent. This is like lighting a fire under his ass. He does everything possible to ease the pangs of the ongoing discontent. These striving can then be directed by those who are aware of some of the factors involved. A sexually satisfied woman may not feel the compulsion to shop till she drops. The sexually satisfied Muslim may not feel compelled to spread the word of Islam.

Any thoughts?