The Argument to the Ontological Whatsit (and the Foolery of Frank Turek & Tricia Scribner)
Time for some traditional counter-apologetics this holiday season. Today I tackle a dumb Christian argument atheists often have a hard time even understanding (because it’s so dumb, they aren’t thinking dumbly enough to get it). Frank Turek (of I...What Does It Mean to Call Consciousness an Illusion?
A question is being asked a lot lately: how can the most prominent position held by scientists and philosophers be that consciousness doesn’t exist? Obviously consciousness exists. It’s literally the only thing you can know with absolute 100% certainty....Three Common Tactics of Cranks, Liars, and Trolls
You might have noticed a shift over the past few years in how I address apologists, propagandists, kooks, and various disinformation scoundrels, toward laying out not just that they are wrong (their facts are bogus; their logic is hosed), but the underlying...The Objective Value Cascade
In the movie Serenity, the crew of a spaceship far in humanity’s future discover the lost planet Miranda, where they discover a dark secret: that a government drug used on its population to make them docile and compliant, actually removed all desires of any...Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Carrier’s Third Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, index, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali; after that is my first response, Bali’s first reply; my second; and...Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Bali’s Second Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali; and after that is my first response, Bali’s first reply; and my second. To which...Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Carrier’s Second Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali; as well as my first response to that In Defense of the Scientific Use of Animals, and...Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Bali’s First Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali; as well as my first response to that In Defense of the Scientific Use of Animals....Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Carrier’s First Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali. I am grateful to have a professional philosopher debating this subject and I thank Dr....Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Dr. Paul Bali
Beginning today and for the next few weeks I will be engaging a formal debate here with philosopher Paul Bali on the morality of the scientific use of animals. Dr. Bali teaches philosophy at Ryerson University, in Toronto, and has taught at the University of Toronto,...Everything Is a Trolley Problem
Ah the infamous Trolley Problem. So ubiquitous, we find it meaningfully featured even in the television show The Good Place. A lot people people don’t like the Trolley Problem. Its very existence vexes them. They’d rather complain about how it supposedly...Biogenesis and the Laws of Evidence
Creationists aren’t just operating on a misunderstanding and ignorance of the science (often wilful); they are also operating on broken epistemologies. The case of biogenesis affords us an illustration. I’ve written many articles on this. For example, in...Why A Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism Is Probably True
I have written a few times on my worldview as a whole—my “philosophy of life.” To be viable I believe any worldview must consist of a complete, consilient, coherent, evidence-based account of the six foundations of knowledge: epistemology (which...Jesus and the Problem of the Fraudulent Reference Class
Several students and patrons have lately asked me a similar question. Apparently the new fad is for Christians to go around insisting Jesus is so historically unique that he cannot be subsumed under any other reference class by which to estimate any prior odds on any...Crank Bayesianism: William Lane Craig Edition
A patron asked me to evaluate a video by TMM titled “WLC Misunderstands Hume’s Rejection of Miracles,” in which the host critiques William Lane Craig’s “rebuttal” to David Hume’s argument against miracles—because...Get Dr. Carrier’s Latest!
About the Author
Richard Carrier is the author of many books and numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism and humanism, and the origins of Christianity and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He is also a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and historical methods.
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