Comment by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on May 13, 2012 at 5:57am

Thanks Nelson as ever my coffee takes longer to drink on Sunday. I wonder if Judge Michael Urbanski in the Ten Commandments case in Virginia is a secret admirer of Hitchens ?

Comment by Gary Bergeron on May 13, 2012 at 11:57am

Greta Christina's interview with SCA's new director, Edwina Rogers, was indeed, very spooky. Rogers skirted around the questions in strained political hoop jumping, saying much, but defining little. After reading the entire interview, I still wonder where her loyalty lies...

I love this quote from Phil Plait:" I get chills every single time I think about this stuff. It wasn’t that long ago when the entire human race couldn’t be bothered to look beyond the tip of its collective nose. Now we can look into the fires of the Universe’s birth, into that forge itself, and tease out the secrets of how we came to be.

That’s why astronomy is cool".

That's why I love science! :)

As always, thanks Nelson for your efforts!

Happy Weekend, everybody! :)

Comment by Ed on May 13, 2012 at 12:06pm

The Court of Appeals in Colorado has renewed my faith in the judicial system of our country. Their decision to support and find for the claim made by the FFRF is wonderful news. A national Day of Reason now makes even more sense.

The Hasidic Jewish leadership of Brooklyn New York should consult with their Roman Catholic counterparts to determine the most effective ways to ensure the long term health of pedophilia in their closed community.  It really does boggle the mind.

Comment by Scott Wood on May 13, 2012 at 12:07pm

Nelson, are we supposed to accept Churchland's opinion uncritically instead? She engages in some name-calling and our opinion of Harris' book is supposed to crumble? I respect her enormously, but the only thing I've ever heard from her on Harris is, at best, extremely vague critical statements.

Comment by Nelson on May 13, 2012 at 12:13pm

@Scott: No. Of course not. What you're supposed to do is say to yourself "Shit. I had just accepted what Harris says about morality without looking into what others have said about his case. That Churchland says what she says makes me think that I should look into it a little deeper. [LATER...] Oh... Oh my, it appears as if when his book came out it was panned and demolished as a failure by almost every single person that reviewed it, and for good reason."

Comment by Scott Wood on May 13, 2012 at 12:23pm

But that wouldn't be true.  It did receive some positive reviews.  Granted many, perhaps most were negative, but then they rarely engaged his arguments, which makes them hard to take seriously.  Take Churchland in the Baggini interview.  She says that "people have fundamentally different ideas about what constitutes well-being."  Well, so what?  Harris says this himself in his book, and even allows that there may more than one way to maximize well-being.  As criticism, this observation doesn't even get off the ground.

Comment by Nelson on May 13, 2012 at 1:09pm

"[B]y almost every single person that reviewed it"........... I didn't say it didn't receive any positive reviews. It surely did. People are people. Gigli got a handful of good reviews so did Battlefield Earth. As you say though, most WERE negative. Anyway, it's hard to engage with his arguments when it's not even clear what in the world Harris thinks his case is. Luke Muehlhauser's review of the book is representative of the book's fundamental problem. If Harris's argument is A, it's circular. If it's B, it's false. Don't get me wrong, the book is a joy to read. Harris is a writer of books that are compelling to read. Doesn't mean that the case made within them is true. And the consensus is that it isn't.

Comment by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on May 13, 2012 at 3:59pm

I read something about a woman who refused to vaccinate her children complaining of "persecution" because her neighbors with young children would not let any of their kids play with her children. Her whining is unjustified IMO. I takes a while for a young child to recieve all their vaccines and during that time it is extremely dangerous to expose them to potentially infected un-vaccinated children. She's not being persecuted! Her neighbors are showing common sense and protecting their children. If I had an anti-vaccinationist in my neighborhood, I would not let any children of mine play with hers if I had a single child in the house who was not finished with his/ her vaccination regimen. If one of the vaccinated children comes into a house with a baby in it carrying whooping cough germs... they could infect and kill the baby.

That woman annoyed me. It's one thing to put her own children in danger but to insist that her neighbors put theirs in danger is unconscionable!

Comment by Scott Wood on May 13, 2012 at 7:34pm

You have a gift for analogy, but I still don't see why I should be concerned about the reviews being mostly negative when so many of them seem to lack a familiarity with the relevant philosophy and/or the book itself.  I'm baffled as to why Muelhauser would think the dichotomy you reference would be a plausible one to impose on the book. Certainly those are not the only two options on the table and only a severely uncharitable reading would lead us to believe Harris would possibly endorse either.  Moreover, the second half of his review is premised on faulting Harris for not being able to define well-being, something Harris explicitly says he (and we) cannot now do.  When so many of the book's reviews are both uncomprehending and negative, I think the more accurate characterization is that the reviewers are being uncritical, rather than the books supporters. 

Comment by Greg Gorey on May 14, 2012 at 9:29am

Scott, it isn't uncharitable at all. If Harris can not define well-being then how could it be a moral standard? All of the meta-ethics of the traditional systems like utilitarianism, deontology (in the Kantian sense), Virtue ethics, and contractarianism define exactly what they mean and how these standards work.

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