Monthly Archives: March 2009

No Wonder We’re All So Confused

Amazingly, it was a philosopher, Charles Hermes, who said this about certain moral standards included in Christian colleges’ statements of faith: “to avoid offending those Christians who love their neighbors, and who leave the judging for God, I will hereafter refer to statements like these as statements of discrimination instead of statements of faith.” [Link: …

March 18, 2009 – 3:50 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Life and Choices | Tagged | Comments Off

Mary Midgley: Evolutionary Origins of Genuine Humanness?

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Mary Midgley and Ethics

Reading Mary Midgley has produced rather a shock to my system. My prior exposure to non-theistic thinking on evolution, ethics, human freedom, and meaning has been dominated by reductionists like Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. Midgley’s approach, by comparison, is practically heretical among evolutionists who do not believe in God: she actually takes humans seriously …

March 17, 2009 – 10:25 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Ethics, Origins and Science | Tagged , | Comments (6)

“Is It Time to Retrain Business Schools?”

NY TImes: Is It Time to Retrain Business Schools? Still, there have been signs that all is not well in business education. A study of cheating among graduate students, published in 2006 in the journal Academy of Management Learning & Education, found that 56 percent of all M.B.A. students cheated regularly — more than in …

March 14, 2009 – 9:23 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Ethics | Tagged , | Comments (1)

“Peking Man” Unable to Think, L.A. Times Reports

An evolutionary puzzled has been resolved: what kind of mental capacity did Homo erectus have? Virtually none, apparently. The L.A. Times puts it this way: “‘Peking man’ older than thought” There you have it.

March 13, 2009 – 9:49 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Just For Fun, Origins and Science | Comments (2)

David S. Oderberg on Bioethics Today

David S. Oderberg, Professor of Philosophy, University of Reading, and author of a marvelously clear paper on what’s wrong with embryonic stem cell research, has a problem with the whole bioethics industry. A big problem Oh, and did I say “industry”? Oderberg sees a whole lot of being careers being built here, but not much …

March 13, 2009 – 7:45 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Ethics, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

The Scientific-Moral Case for Embryonic Stem Cell Research?

From a comment thread, something I want to bring out more into the open: Mike Haubrich wrote this, expressing a common argument for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR): By some definitions it is not a person until it has implanted. By other religious definitions, a fetus is not a person until it is viable outside …

March 13, 2009 – 6:00 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science | Tagged , | Comments Off

5,000 Years of Religion in 90 Seconds

March 12, 2009 – 8:33 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Tagged , | Comments (3)