Criticial Thinking

QualiaSoup never cease to amaze me with his wonderfully made videos. This time it's about critical thinking.

Naturalism

I have always claimed to be a naturalist except I never actually read about it in detail. All I had in mind was the general idea that it is a "worldview in which reality is such that there is nothing but the natural things, forces, and causes of the kind that the natural sciences study" and that it "rejects the objective existence of any supernatural thing, force or cause" as they "are ultimately explainable purely in terms of natural things."

And just a while ago, I just realized how close I was to naturalism. I was describing it all the long in one of my articles back in June.

I was, in effect, talking about metaphysical naturalism (ontological naturalism) and naturalized epistemology.

I am a naturalist.

Why Science?

It's a fundraiser video by the Richard Dawkins Foundation but it says much more than that.

Substance Dualism

Yet another wonderful video by QualiaSoup.

Astrological bullshit

Oh for the love of all things true, why in the world do we still have astrology columns in our newspapers and magazines?

I cringe everytime I see one, if not two, sometimes even three, freaking pages dedicated to this pseudoscience.

And DON'T tell me it is harmless crap. This harmless crap allows charlatans to make shit loads of money and enjoy fame that they otherwise are incapable of enjoying.

Not forgetting the fact that it is still false. At the very least, we're saving paper when we stop printing these lies.

Damn it, even Wikipedia has a section about the blatant bullshit that it is - need I explain myself?

The Default Position

When asked to examine a claim (more often than not, about supernatural events/entities), rationalists sometimes speak of the "default position". What about it?

Faced with any claim, the default position is disbelief until belief is warranted (by weight of sufficient evidence).

That simply means "I do not believe X exist until sufficient evidence is brought forth to demonstrate X's existence." That is very different from "I believe X do not exist." While it is tempting to equate the two statements, they are, in fact, two very different positions.

To illustrate the different positions, I'll use the court of law as an example.

Say we have a murder case and it's time for the judge to make their vote. He/she may judge that the accused is
[1] - Guilty
[2] - Not guilty

If the judge is convinced by the prosecutor that the accused is indeed the murderer, he would judge guilty. However, when the judge judges the accused to be not guilty, he/she may be holding one of two positions.

If the judge thinks that the accused is innocent, he/she judges the accused to be not guilty. If the judge thinks that the evidence is insufficient to make the case, he/she also judges the accused to be not guilty. Belief that the accused is innocent is not the same as being unconvinced to the contrary.

The same scenarios apply for claims of existence. While existence is absolute (either it exist of it does not), our state of belief can be one of the following:
[1] - I believe X exist
[2] - I believe X does not exist (Assertion)
[3] - I don't believe X exist (Negation)

One may ask, where is the fourth option that "I don't believe X does not exist". Using the court of law analogy, this option's equivalent would be "Guilty - I am not convinced of the accused's innocence."

Why is this option eliminated? Simple. It is same reason for the phrase "innocent until proven guilty". The fourth option presents the situation where it is "guilty until proven innocent". To avoid punishing an innocent mistakenly, this must be the case.

As for claims of existence, the equivalent reason has been said before - Non-existence until existence is demonstrated (That's the practical way of saying disbelief in existence of X until its existence has been demonstrated).

The elimination of the fourth option follows the same principles. If we took the position "belief existence until disproven", we would have to believe in an infinity of possible entities until they are disproven. That is not only impractical but just plain stupid and irrational.

2012

Yes, darn it, the world is NOT going to end in 2012. I don't understand why people even entertain such a retarded idea let alone actually believing it.

Here's Neil DeGrasse Tyson on CNN answering to this ludicrous belief.