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....
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....
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,...
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...
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...
Today I will be reviewing a book by, about, and for men. It was written by Robert A. Glover, a real psychotherapist—presumably; his bio attests a PhD in family and marriage therapy and years of clinical practice, although I found no appreciable research...
Sometime toward the end of this month the military will release a report on UFOs; unless an extension is granted, but even if one is—I’m sure it’s time-consuming work—I expect the report will be delivered before end of year. Some of it, I...
I’ve been asked to assess a bizarre argument for God published recently in Metaphysica (“Proving God without Dualism: Improving the Swinburne-Moreland Argument from Consciousness,” by Ward Blondé and Ludger Jansen, March 2021). I have already rather...
Dawkins is spewing irrational, uninformed bigotry-fuel on Twitter again. I don’t think deliberately; he’s just a clueless fool. But the effect is the same. He even unknowingly chose the tired old bigot’s tactic of Just Asking Questions, in precisely...
I’ve written on biogenesis before (and before that). It’s even one of the subjects in philosophy in which I’ve had peer reviewed research published. And I have a whole section on it in Sense and Goodness without God, my survey of naturalism as a...
Years ago I sat for a day of interviews for a film by Marco Bazzi about a geologist obsessed with the alleged earthquake at the time of Christ’s death. The resulting movie is now available (you can find it in most of the usual places, including Amazon Prime or...
Everyone rags on Aristotle for totally phoning in his theory of gravity. But in perspective, (a) Aristotle was a biologist, not a physicist, so his not being the best at physics should not be held to any more account than when a modern biologist goofs some esoteric...
I’ve written before about the importance and methodology of thought experiments, and how they are often screwed up even by professional philosophers (see On Hosing Thought Experiments). Today I’m going to pull a page out of the history of science to...
Based on Richard Carrier’s Columbia University dissertation and now published as a book, this course will astound you with what ancient scientists thought and accomplished and how they laid the groundwork for modern science, to be recovered and built upon only after a...
People denying racism is a systemic problem in American policing repeatedly cite as “proof” a study published by Roland Fryer, which they particularly love citing because Fryer is black. The thing is though, Fryer’s study proved systemic racism in...
A few years ago The Washington Post published a ridiculous propaganda piece by anti-porn activist (and feminist sociology professor) Gail Dines, “Is Porn Immoral? That Doesn’t Matter: It’s a Public Health Crisis,” tagline, “The science is now beyond...
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.