debate, debate, debate

debate is on my mind.

1. I found an interesting journal over the weekend titled Debates in Neuroscience. It appears to be a very new journal, the article I’m halfway through (a critical look at adult neurogenesis) was accepted in Februray of this year.

The vision that led to the establishment of this journal is to provide a forum for the neuroscience community that is devoted explicitly to controversies and conflicting ideas. We are very grateful to Dr. Norman M. Weinberger who first presented the idea for this journal to us. The give and take of debate and controversy are critical to enabling conceptual advances within any field of science, but these normally take place at scientific meetings, informal discussions, or in private correspondence. Debates in Neuroscience makes the exposition of emerging debates and controversies its centerpiece.

Since the purpose of most neuroscience journals is publishing new research reports and/or review papers, and compounded by the unusual breadth of neuroscience, there is an unmet need on the part of researchers, instructors, trainees, and students to access relevant alternate viewpoints on topics of interest, especially outside their own areas of specialization. Each issue of Debates in Neuroscience will focus on a small number of controversial topics. Each topic will be addressed by two or more papers written by nominated authors. The papers will provide an in-depth exposition of an alternative theoretical or conceptual perspective. Authors will subsequently have an opportunity to respond to the rival viewpoints.

2. There was a debate on whether we are better off without religion at Westminster this past week.

Speaking for the motion, “We’d be better off without religion”, at a debate held in Westminster on March 27; Professor Richard Dawkins, Professor A.C. Grayling and Christopher Hitchens. Speaking against: Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Professor Roger Scruton and Nigel Spivey. The debate was chaired by Joan Bakewell

You can listen to a podcast of the debate by pointing your browser here.

3. I discovered I had been linked to on A Don’s Life blog for a history carnival. While I did not submit my blurb on Andrew Scull’s review of History of Madness to the carnival, I must say I was flattered to have a Professor at Cambridge read and link to the post. Nonetheless, Professor Beard’s characterization of me prematurely dancing on Foucault’s grave was a little exaggerated. I will certainly read the newly translated edition in one hand (my copy of Madness and Civilization in the other) and decide then whether or not to put on my dancing shoes. I’d rather chalk up the tone I took in my post to the excitement of taking the shoes out of the closet.

christopher hitchens on the moral necessity of atheism

Scull on Foucault

Despite his fitting name, Andrew Scull is not in neuro. He is, however, a professor in the Department of Sociology at UCSD with psychiatry on the brain. Now aside from tickling my allusion fancy, Professor Scull has written several books, of which I can say I’ve at least thumbed through one: Madhouses, Mad Doctors and Madmen: Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era. The thumbing was done for my History of Modern Medicine course which, in and of itself, was as inspiring as it was eye opening. That said, Professor Scull’s book is a favourite work of mine that comes to mind particularly as I near the end of my degree (along with Henri Ellenberger’s The Discovery of the Unconscious).

Needless to say I was happy to see Scull’s review of the newly translated edition of Michel Foucault’s History of Madness. More to the point, I was happy to see it was a scathing review. A quote:

Narrowness of this kind is not confined to footnotes. Foucault’s isolation from the world of facts and scholarship is evident throughout History of Madness. It is as though nearly a century of scholarly work had produced nothing of interest or value for Foucault’s project. What interested him, or shielded him, was selectively mined nineteenth-century sources of dubious provenance. Inevitably, this means that elaborate intellectual constructions are built on the shakiest of empirical foundations, and, not surprisingly, many turn out to be wrong.

Scull concludes his article, stating that

The back cover of History of Madness contains a series of hyperbolic hymns of praise to its virtues. Paul Rabinow calls the book “one of the major works of the twentieth century”; Ronnie Laing hails it as “intellectually rigorous”; and Nikolas Rose rejoices that “Now, at last, English-speaking readers can have access to the depth of scholarship that underpins Foucault’s analysis”. Indeed they can, and one hopes that they will read the text attentively and intelligently, and will learn some salutary lessons. One of those lessons might be amusing, if it had no effect on people’s lives: the ease with which history can be distorted, facts ignored, the claims of human reason disparaged and dismissed, by someone sufficiently cynical and shameless, and willing to trust in the ignorance and the credulity of his customers.

Oh yes, Foucault is finally fully translated into English. Me thinks it’s about time.

let’s get ready to rumble!

beyond belief

Well, it’s been some time since I’ve posted anything serious.  Now that I’m studying for exams though I naturally turn back to something distracting while hopefully being somewhat productive in this distraction.

I’ve been watching videos from the Beyond Belief conference at the Salk Institute over the past week or two.  One word:  Yes.  That yes is a fully positive endorsement of this conference and a hope for many more to come.  That said, I’ve been searching for post-BB commentary and came across an opinion piece by Sam Harris.  The wonderful exchange between Scott Atran, Sam Harris, and others on Edge not included (and highly recommended), there seems to be a general glossing over of some thoughtful commentary.  Glossing turned to spin in Harris’ piece posted as an op-ed on the Council for Secular Humanism website.  Let’s take a closer look:

Recently, I attended a three-day conference at the Salk Institute, organized by The Science Network. The conference was titled, Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason, and Survival and was conducted as a town-hall meeting before an audience of invited guests. Speakers included Steven Weinberg, Harold Kroto, Richard Dawkins, and many other scientists and philosophers who have been, and remain, energetic opponents of religious unreason. And then there were other esteemed participants and audience members who proved themselves to be eager purveyors of American-style religious bewilderment.

And the spin begins…

It was a room full of bright, scientifically literate people—molecular biologists, anthropologists, physicists, engineers—and yet, three days were insufficient to force agreement on whether or not there is any conflict between religion and science.

You mean, after hundreds of years of debate on science and religion, this three day conference didn’t solve the relationship between these two massive enterprises?  You’re kidding!

While at Salk, I witnessed scientists giving voice to some of the most unctuous religious apologies I have ever heard. It is one thing to be told that the pope is a great champion of reason and that his opposition to embryonic stem cell research has nothing to do with religious dogmatism; it is quite another to be told this by a Stanford physician who sits on the President’s Council on Bioethics.

Oh, what’s that in your pocket Sam?  Oh yes, it’s a bunch of embryonic stem cells.  You love to whip those little guys out whenever you have a chance.  Mr. Harris, your characterization of Dr. William Hurlbut’s comments (and note that you only named people on your side of the argument throughout this piece) is quite inappropriate Hurlbut’s comments did not center on stem cells.  Hurlbut’s comments were in the spirit of having an understanding of any given dogma before criticizing it.  And not just a read through with untutored eyes.  A skeptical read, but a read open to more than a literal interpretation.  This seems to me something you would want more people, believers or not, to do.  Further, for someone seemingly so familiar with Buddhist traditions, it seems rather odd that the distinction between esoteric (Vajrayana) and exoteric (Mahayana) texts and practices has not even popped up in the midst of discussion.  And what about the ideals of a Bodhisattva?  Prajna (wisdom), virya (warriors spirit), and upaya (skillful means)?  Mr. Harris’ argument certainly shows plenty of warriors spirit but seems to be lacking skillful means.

Over the course of the meeting, I had the pleasure of hearing that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were examples of secularism run amok,

No. Examples of dogmas as or more deadly than religion.

that the doctrines of martyrdom and jihad have nothing whatsoever to do with Muslim terrorism,

Just watch the back-and-forth between Sam Harris and Scott Atran to see that this is not so.

that people can never be argued out of their beliefs because we live in an irrational world,

Another hyperbolic comment!  Scott Atran’s comments were to the effect of dealing with rationality in a fundamentally irrational world, not that it is a lost cause to challenge people on contentious beliefs.

that science has made no important contributions to our ethical lives,

Stop Sam.  Stop!  Listen to yourself!  Anyone who cares enough to know what was actually said can download the entire conference.  Doing so, and particularly after watching Susan Neiman’s talk, one sees a different ethos.  One that welcomes empirical data and wishes for more empiricism in informing ethical and moral decision making but contending that this tells us what ‘is’ while the ‘ought to be’ remains impoverished by such means.  Far from being one sided, this was then challenged by the Churchlands with thoughtful criticism.  It’s a great exchange of ideas, apparently so great Mr. Harris has kindly cherry picked it from his memory and squashed it on the floor.

and that it is not the job of scientists “to take away people’s hope”—all from atheist scientists, happily trading in the most abject and paralyzing shibboleths of academic political correctness.

Heck, even Richard Dawkins said he would not challenge someone’s beliefs on their deathbed…

There were several moments during our panel discussions that brought to mind the final scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers—people who looked like scientists, had published as scientists, and would soon be returning to their labs nevertheless gave voice to the alien hiss of religious lunacy at the slightest prodding. In case anyone thought that the front lines in our culture wars could be found at the entrance to a megachurch, I am here to report that we still have considerable work to do in a nearby trench.

For all the frustration I felt at this meeting,

…receiving thoughtful criticism of your arguments, being called on repeated arguments and abuse of language…

it seemed like the perfect forum in which to resolve the centuries-old collision between reason and faith. If reputable scientists cannot be made to agree that there are important intellectual and moral differences between knowing something and pretending to know it, we are doomed.

Argumentum ad Bacculum.

Happily, the meeting at Salk will be convened again next fall. Perhaps then it will be possible to rule out the Virgin Birth of Jesus as a valid scientific hypothesis.

Sam continues, giving four questions he’d like answered.  Unfortunately I do not have the time to go through this and formulate a thoughtful response.  Biochemistry awaits…

I’ll finish off by pointing out that as much as Sam Harris argues for corrections of ‘problems of discourse’ and ‘intellectual honesty’ during the Beyond Belief conference, he seems to take these concerns off like a coat as he takes the time to write pieces like this which perpetuate the problem of discourse and veil what actually happened.  Despite this opinion piece though, Harris made some very good points at the Salk.  There is every reason to challenge beliefs that can reduce someone to resembling something like this.  And for all the heavy arguments and bruised egos, it is quite stimulating to watch or listen to the proceedings, particularly Neil de Grasse Tyson’s equally inspiring and hilarious lecture, and I would encourage anyone who has made it this far in the post to check it out.  Certainly don’t take this post as the word on the conference, and equally so, do not take Mr. Harris’ opinion as a full synopsis either.

P.S.  Has anyone found any articles by Sam Harris in a scholarly science journal or a poster at a conference?  I can’t seem to find any.

Reason

 

I was on Richard Dawkins’ blog, lavishing in his clear-thinking oasis, when I came across a critique Sam Harris wrote of Pope Benedict XVI’s now infamous speech.  Partly to keep an open mind, partly to stroke my obsessive Amazon.ca package tracking fetish, I am eagerly awaiting Sam Harris’ ‘Letter to a Christian Nation’ to arrive at my flat.  However, after reading his article my expectations were somewhat deflated.  In what follows, the pope’s remarks are in bold, Harris’ in regular text, and italicized, moi.

“The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizon….”

The pope suggests that reason should be broadened to include the empirically unverifiable. And is there any question these new “vast horizons” will include the plump dogmas of the Catholic Church? Here, the pope gets the spirit of science exactly wrong. Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable). And it does mean to exclude the gratuitously stupid.

Pope Benedict XVI does call for reason to include the empirically unverifiable.  Yes.  Any careful examination of our reason should arrive at such a conclusion.  If only empirically verifiable statements are open to reason, we will have amputated mathematics from our body of knowledge.

Analytic statements are not verifiable.  Synthetic statements are.

Sam is right in acknowledging that the scientific method not only tests what is verifiable or falsifiable right now, but is open to what may become falsifiable if the right questions are asked.  Pope Benedict XVI, however, has not gotten the spirit of science ‘exactly wrong’, he has put his finger on a dogma, on a ‘self-imposed limitation’ that does not deny questions ripe for testing, nor questions waiting to bloom.  The pope has noted that some questions cannot be addressed by the scientific method. 

“Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today….”

It is ironic that a man who has just disparaged Islam as “evil” and “inhuman” before 250,000 onlookers and the world press is now talking about a “genuine dialogue of cultures.” How much genuine dialogue can he hope for? The Koran says that anybody who believes that Jesus was divine—as all real Catholics must—will spend eternity in hell (Koran 5:71-75; 19:30-38). This appears to be a deal-breaker. The pope knows this. The Muslim world knows that he knows it. And he knows that the Muslim world knows that he knows it. This is not a good basis for interfaith dialogue.

Nor is the mischaracterization of the Abrahamic religions as nothing more than a conglomerate of fundamentalists a good basis for interfaith dialogue. 

“In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures….”

Astrologers don’t like “their most profound convictions” attacked either. Neither do people who believe that space aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle.

…Astrologers and alien enthusiasts clearly being equivalent to those who are theists…

Happily, these groups do not take to the streets and start killing people when their irrational beliefs are challenged. I suspect that the pope would be the first to admit that there are millions of people on this Earth who harbor “most profound convictions” that are neither profound nor compatible with real dialogue.

…One might even say that was a major point of his speech…

Indeed, one doesn’t even need to read between the lines of his speech to glean that he would place the entire Muslim world beyond the “universality of reason.”

Actually, yeah Sam.  You would.  You’d have to take the view that a quote is equivalent to an endorsement, take the quote out of context, and chastise a man who has written voluminously on this subject matter. 

He is surely right to be alarmed by Islam—particularly by its doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. He is right to find the treatment of Muslim women throughout the world abhorrent (if, indeed, he does find it abhorrent). He is right to be concerned that any Muslim who converts to Christianity (or to atheism) has put his life in jeopardy, as conversion away from the faith is punishable by death. These profundities are worthy objects of our derision. No apologies necessary, Your Holiness.

Weird.  Thanks for the vote of confidence though.

We might, however, note in passing that one of the pope’s “most profound convictions” is that contraception is a sin. His agents continue to preach this diabolical dogma in the developing world, and even in sub-Saharan Africa, where over 3 million people die from AIDS each year. This is unconscionable and irredeemably stupid. It is also a point on which the Church has not shown much of an intelligent capacity for dialogue. Despite their inclination to breed themselves into a state of world domination, Muslims tend to be far more reasonable on the subject of family planning. They do not consider the use of temporary forms of birth control to be a sin.

Perhaps opening up dialogue with the modern age will be cause for revision of theological arguments for or against issues such as contraception.  Why don’t we return to the point where the pope starts his conclusion, the point that Sam left out:

And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvelous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which reflects one of the basic tenets of Christianity. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application.

“Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought—to philosophy and theology….”

This may have been where Sullivan found the Holy Father to be particularly “deep and complicated” and “profound.” Granted, questions of epistemology can make one sweat, and there are many interesting and even controversial things to be said about the foundations of our knowledge. The pope has not said anything interesting or controversial here, however. He has merely insinuated that placing the God of Abraham at the back of every natural process will somehow reduce the quotient of mystery in the cosmos. It won’t. Nearly a billion Hindus place three gods—Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver) and Shiva (the Destroyer)—in the space provided. Just how intellectually illuminating should we find that?

Sam.  Buddy.  He has said something incredibly interesting and very controversial to your materialist argument.  That’s why you paid very little attention to the backlash from the Muslim community and are focussing so much attention on the arguments in his speech.  It’s OK to fess up.  C’mon.  I’ll buy you a coke.

“The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur—this is the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. “Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God”, said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor….”

Please read that first sentence again. I hope it doesn’t seem peevish to point out that the West faces several dangers even greater than those posed by an incomplete epistemology. The West is endangered, primarily, by the religious fragmentation of the human community, by religious impediments to clear thinking, and by the religious willingness of millions to sacrifice the real possibility of happiness in this world for a fantasy of a world to come. In short, misguided reason that not only includes the aforementioned examples, but the dangers of extreme relativism as well, perhaps initiated by an incomplete epistemology? 

We are living in a world where untold millions of grown men and women can rationalize the violent sacrifice of their own children by recourse to fairy tales.

See above.

We are living in world where millions of Muslims believe that there is nothing better than to be killed in defense of Islam. We are living in a world in which millions of American Christians hope to soon be raptured into the sky by Jesus so that they can safely enjoy the holy genocide that will inaugurate the end of human history. We are living in a world in which a silly old priest, by merely giving voice to his religious inanities, could conceivably start a war with 1.4 billion Muslims who take their own inanities in deadly earnest. These are real dangers. And they are not dangers for which more “Biblical faith” is a remedy.

So, from what I gather, Sam agrees with calling violence violence, and that rational discourse may be a means to suppress if not end violence, but disagrees that such rational discourse should be taken up by a Christian.  What a sad state of affairs the world would be in for if a believer of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, could not question.  Luckily that’s not fully the case.

On Extremism

“Increasingly, Americans will come to believe that the only people hard-headed enough to fight the religious lunatics of the Muslim world are the religious lunatics of the West. Indeed, it is telling that the people who speak with the greatest moral clarity about the current wars in the Middle East are members of the Christian right, whose infatuation with biblical prophecy is nearly as troubling as the ideology of our enemies. Religious dogmatism is now playing both sides of the board in a very dangerous game.

While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant. Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren’t.

The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.

To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.”

- Sam Harris

Excerpt from Monday’s LA Times

Music, like sex and food?

Origins of musicianship or music appreciation may dictate why and how our feet tap and our heads bob. But do they dictate musical taste? Why some can’t stand Tom Waits and others can’t get enough of The Velvet Underground and still others prefer Bach? Can evolution explain an ingenious composition and the significance of what that piece stands for?

From The Boston Globe:

There is suggestive research linking music and sociability. Daniel Levitin, for instance, points to the difference between two mental disorders, Williams syndrome and autism. People with Williams are mentally retarded, but at the same time, as Levitin puts it, “highly social, highly verbal, and highly musical.” Autism, on the other hand, while it also often causes mental impairment, tends to make people both less social and less musical.
To Steven Pinker, though, none of this adds up to a convincing case for music’s evolutionary purpose. Pinker is not shy about seeing the traces of evolution in modern man-in “How the Mind Works” he devoted a chapter to arguing that emotions were adaptations-but he stands by his “auditory cheesecake” description.
“They’re completely bogus explanations, because they assume what they set out to prove: that hearing plinking sounds brings the group together, or that music relieves tension,” he says.
“But they don’t explain why. They assume as big a mystery as they solve.” Music may well be innate, he argues, but that could just as easily mean it evolved as a useless byproduct of language, which he sees as an actual adaptation.
And Pinker isn’t the only skeptic. Back in April, as part of an experiment led by Levitin to compare the physiological response of performers and listeners, Boston Pops maestro Keith Lockhart conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra while he, a few musicians, and a portion of the audience were wired with monitors that tracked their heart rate, muscle tension, respiration, and other bodily signals of emotion.
Yet though Lockhart was happy to make himself Levitin’s guinea pig, he confesses to be ultimately uninterested in the origins of music.
“It’s enough for me to know that music does have a distinct emotional reaction in almost everybody that no other art form can boast of,” he says. “I’ve never particularly wanted to know why that happens.”

A Shitty Debate: Meyer vs. Ward

It seemed too good to be true. The paleontologist Peter Ward and Intelligent Design proponent Stephen Meyer having what the moderator David Postman claimed to be a friendly discussion at Town Hall in Seattle. What a dissapointment! Ward’s constant name-dropping and pointing at the audience for support from respected scientists detracted from his argument against ID, an argument pivoting on the proposition that ID will make the U.S. less economically competitive. The way Ward squirmed in his chair and dropped one-liners–’this book is trash, it’s just crap’–ought to show how ridiculous one may look when an opponent’s arguments are countered by mockery and zoo noises and should be fair warning to those who principally cite the pastafarians for their refutation of ID. Ward’s opponent, on the other hand, came off quite cool, quite collected, and actually had a substantial hunk of meat to his argument, as opposed to Ward’s argumentative style, that being something along the lines of a Chicken McNugget. Pastafarian quoters beware, Meyer isn’t dumb. He did, after all, receive schooling at Cambridge, a university with admission criteria just a tad more selective than the University of Washington’s and where, legend has it, some smart guys found something important back in the ’50s. It is unfortunate that a stronger opponent to ID was not in Ward’s seat. We may then have seen a real debate.

Examples of subject matter that could have been really interesting but turned out shitty:

- Ward questions Meyer on what he means by ‘Darwinism’, suggesting that it is a strawman argument, yet fails to convincingly follow up on this idea of a fallacy at play.

- In response to teaching the controversy, Ward hits on the notion of Intelligent Design, not as a scientific theory, but as a movement–a very interesting point. He then says ‘Hmmmmm’, followed by ‘The cat is out of the bag’ and makes hand motions to this effect. Nothing more.

- Audience request: please state your personal religious views. Meyer confesses to being a Christian, Ward confesses to being a Druid (this week).

I was just watching bits of the debate again but I can no longer. Shiver.

Watch the debate here or download the audio here

neuroscience vs. intelligent design?

A little blurb on an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education relates that the debate over ID may be spreading in subject matter. To quote:

// The supporters of intelligent design are also moving beyond evolution to other areas of research that might mesh well with their guiding philosophy of a creative entity that manifests itself in nature. As its long-term goal, the Discovery Institute has vowed to push what it calls design theory beyond biology and cosmology into such fields as psychology, ethics, philosophy, and the fine arts.

// At the AAAS meeting, James A. Murray, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Central Arkansas, reported on several signs that the neurosciences could emerge as a major battleground soon. The conflict is brewing because most scientists who study the brain are convinced the mind is produced entirely by neural activity, and that there is no metaphysical component to the mind.

// In fact, while many religious leaders see no discord between evolution and theology, Mr. Murray wonders whether the direction of neuroscience research will prove unpalatable to religious people. “There is more of a concern that with neuroscience, there may not be as much room for compatibility,” he said in an interview. “It could be considered threatening to religious beliefs for people who believe in a soul.”

While the Society for Neuroscience has issued a statement on intelligent design and evolution, it will be interesting to see if intelligent design proponents hone in on evolution as it relates to neuroscience. For starters, here’s one blurb from the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center (IDEA), an ID organization:

// Consciousness, Free Will, and Mind-Brain Studies. Is conscious will an illusion—we think that we have acted freely and deliberately toward some end, but in fact our brain acted on its own and then deceived us into thinking that we acted deliberately. This is the majority position in the cognitive neuroscience community, and a recent book makes just that claim in its title: The Illusion of Conscious Will by Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner. But there is now growing evidence that consciousness is not reducible to material processes of the brain and that free will is in fact real. Jeffrey Schwartz at UCLA along with quantum physicist Henry Stapp at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are two of the key researchers presently providing experimental and theoretical support for the irreducibility of mind to brain (see Schwartz’s book The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force).

Nothing about evolution mentioned, although irreducible complexity is invoked. (As a side note, click here for a roundtable discussion on the mind/soul debate from Science & the City). As I am continuing to distract myself from finishing this paper, I will simply leave off now with a link to papers by Henry Stapp. Again, much more on this to follow…

from toothpaste for dinner