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Randal Rauser

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reductionism

Is Love Just a Chemical Reaction? My Valentine’s Day Soliloquy

February 14, 2020 by Randal

I just read an incredibly dumb headline on my @CNN app: “What we call love is actually a chemical process in our brains.” (And on Valentine’s Day, no less! Is nothing sacred?) Needless to say, this is a ridiculous example of reductionism. Love is most surely not the same thing as a chemical reaction in […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: love, reductionism

Love comes from lousy neurons

April 27, 2018 by Randal

Wow, this guy is a real charmer. Here is a great example of why scientists (Linden is a professor of neuroscience) tend to make terrible poets, philosophers, and greeting card writers. Donald McKay, a wise Christian and scientist, used to warn of the naive “nothing buttery” of those who assume that demonstrating a physical, chemical, or […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: love, naturalism, reductionism

What is wrong with this Ancestry DNA ad?

September 17, 2017 by Randal

I’ve seen this irritating ad on TV multiple times. And while there are several things wrong with it, let’s focus on one. “Lyn” discovers she is “26% Nigerian.” Apparently a genetic plurality in one’s DNA profile is sufficient to claim any cultural expressions historically associated with that genetic identity as one’s own. Since Nigerian DNA […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: commercial, DNA, genetics, reductionism

I intended to write this article. So much the worse for reductionism.

July 3, 2017 by Randal

I just had a rather long exchange on Twitter with Truth  (T) and The Thinker (TT) on the topic of mind, dualism, and reductionism. In the exchange I focused on making a simple but important point: when one types a tweet one brings about an event in the material world (i.e. the tweet’s existence via the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: dualism, intentionality, mental events, philosophy of mind, reductionism

Mystics, Skeptics, and Nothing Buttery

August 5, 2016 by Randal

In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Oliver Sacks offers an interesting neurological account of the visions of the great mystic Hildegard of Bingen. Sacks recounts one of Hildegard’s writings titled “The Fall of the Angels” where she describes witnessing the fall of Satan and his minions: “I saw a great star most […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Donald MacKay, idealism, mysticism, nothing buttery, Oliver Sacks, reductionism, science, skepticism

God of the Gaps and Mind of the Gaps

July 13, 2016 by Randal

Dan Barker says: “Many of these [theistic] arguments are reduced to a ‘god of the gaps’ strategy. At most, the theists might prove the existence of a current gap in human knowledge, but this does not justify filling the gap with their god. After all, what happens when the gap closes someday? The gaps are […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, Dan Barker, God of the gaps, reductionism

Reductionism Propaganda? On the wily ways of the open-minded dogmatist

June 15, 2015 by Randal

One of my readers, Mark, forwarded this short video “What is life? Is death real?” and asked for my comment. It’s well worth your time to invest the five minutes to watch it: This is a slickly produced video with a lot of good information. But it is not simply a neutral recounting of the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, materialism, propaganda, reductionism, worldview

Two anecdotes suggestive of telepathy

July 11, 2012 by Randal

In the last week Jonathan and NW have had a rather involved discussion on the so-called paranormal. With that conversation as a backdrop I’d like to share two anecdotes suggestive of telepathy from the last couple days, one which occurred to me and the other to a friend of my wife (let’s call her Jane). […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: mind, naturalism, quantum information, reductionism, telepathy

Petitionary prayer and the final hours of a Skoal hockey puck

May 14, 2011 by Randal

Robert offered the following response to my delightful expostulation on a Bible being so inspired you can’t tell it’s inspired: “And intercessory prayer is so effective it’s effectiveness can’t be tested to have a measurable effect on our world.” Robert then added an explanatory notation for his statement. That qualification is helpful. But I’m going […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: evidence, inference to the best explanation, intercessory prayer, justification, naturalism, petitionary prayer, rationality, reductionism

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