You obviously have no knowledge and/or comprehension of metaphysics and its history.
If you don’t want to debate that’s fine. But making sweeping statements about what knowledge I have or don’t have is not debating-- it’s hiding behind a personal attack. Good luck with your thread.
And what is it called when some old logical fallacies, like poisoned well and non sequitur, are thrown together to sound like criticisms of the OP?
Fear not, there are several here who are qualified to debate. Good day.
Well, I’m not sure it’s all that sophisticated really, but in any case that’s again not my reading of what he said: the origin of cognition as an evolutionary process similar to other processes is quite different to souls waiting to be born, IMO so different that I struggle to see their compatibility.
Neither is a flat Earth.
OK, let’s say it’s a configuration of a field (what kind of field isn’t really relevant), like a photon, quark or electron.
Pattern of what. I say of the field. You say of … nothing? Something? What? You say it’s an “equation balancer”, but that makes as little sense as saying a neutrino is a sequence of letters n-e-u-t-r-i-n-o.
Yes, the hypothesis had physically detectable consequences. That’s what “stuff” means in physics.
Nonsense. The electromagnetic field is just as much a thing as an atom or a rock - it is detectable. Your “patterns are elementary” position is sounding more and more like plain old idealism. Disappear up that canal if you wish, but I likely won’t debate you further since I consider it more alimentary than elementary.
Of what? Understand that the only thing I’d dare to call myself an actual authority on is vibration, so I wish to explore these “vibrations near the ceiling” with you thoroughly.
Great, just direct me to the relevant peer-reviewed paper and I’ll toast their Nobel Prize (ie. cite, please). If there is no evidence of such a calibre whatsoever, then I’ll politely suggest you might as well be talking about seeing mommy kissing Santa Claus in terms of photons actually reflecting off their physical bodies.
And one’s preferred wardrobe, no doubt.
Excellent: can we stop talking about souls and stick exclusively with minds, then? The former makes it difficult not to speak at cross purposes.
I’ll do no such thing, any more than I slap theists here. His view is logically valid as other theists or deists (assuming they don’t posit premises involving physical interaction of these goddy entities), and “provisional deism” is IMO a concise and to-the-point phrase .
Prove the IMO in my sentence? Even if you’ve never heard that ‘absurdity’, I would hope you’d agree that some age old problems come directly and trivially from language itself.
Oh, you mean the fine tuning of the universe?. Yes, of course cosmology and Higgs field dynamics seeks to explain those numbers. But that’s what explanation is - replacing the arbitrariness of the description with a mechanism which yields that description.
I can imagine 2+2=5. It just doesn’t follow logically from axioms like the identity theorem and the like. But I could toss out those axioms if I liked. They are only “absolute” if you accept the premise “They’re absolute”.
OK, so long as you don’t complain about such ‘slight’ hyperbole from others characterising you.
If you seek to provide a “purpose” to evolution go right ahead, but you’ll find the same reaction as mine elsewhere.
In that case, can you tell me something that is not? Again, it sounds like you wish to contort the word “natural” beyond even the most generously elastic of limits, such that it’s not worth using it at all.
I’m doing so because I don’t think the quotes Aeschines picks on are at all objectionable. It seems that any old yahoo can submit an article on some philosophical subject or other, but the moment a reputed scientist from some field or other has a go they are taken to task with overwhelming pedantry.
My point really was that Wilson should be given the opportunity to refute criticism. If he can than our defense isn’t needed, if he can’t then our defense is useless.
Fighting ignorance is about educating those who are ignorant of this or that or whatever. The OP claims that Wilson’s interview displayed a certain degree of ignorance in some areas. Then Wilson should be the one who is made aware of what the OP thinks is correct in those areas.
How will he ever learn if he isn’t informed of his mistakes? 
Well, OK, let’s wait for Edward O. Wilson to turn up here …
[weeks of silence punctuated only by the escapement mechanism of an antique clock]
On second thoughts, if there’s a debate to be had here (and I think some of the OP’s criticisms really ought to be addressed by someone) we might be better having it ourselves.
Frankly, what I’d like to see a scientist discuss philosophically is the philosophy of science. Why should I care about Edward O. Wilson’s opinions on Genesis anymore than I care about Billy Graham’s opinions on abiogenesis? If Wilson wants to opine, let him opine about Stove’s criticisms of Popper. To me, that would be interesting.
To be fair, Wilson wasn’t actively seeking to put this information out there. He was interviewed, and the interview injected those questions for an obvious reason-- more people are going to read about the supposed conflict between religion and science than would read a dry interview with Wilson about his scientific thoughts on evolution. Seems to me your issue, to the extent you have one, is with the interviewer, not with Wilson.
Having said that, an evolutionary biologist like Wilson is going to have a legitimate interest in religious belief, as a human behavior. I can’t see how equating that interest with a televangilist’s interest in the scientific aspects of abiogenisis is meaningful in any serious way.
That would indeed be my issue if I knew that the interviewer were choke-holding Wilson and demanding that he speak. Otherwise, he was free to ask for the next question.
That makes no sense. You’re simply condeding the unwillingness or inability to consider an opposing view. Why should Graham be more precluded from having an interest in the scientific aspects of abiogenesis than Wilson from having an interest in the philosophical aspects of religion?
In as much as you are expressing your own personal opion, then of course you are right. But so what? You don’t have an interest in Wilson’s thoughts on religion. Lots of other people do.
Yeah, poor wording on my part. Why should you care about Wilson’s opinion? I can’t answer that. Why should anyone? Because he studies behavior and religioius belief is a behavior. He’s not commenting so much on Genesis, but on religious behavior in general. AFAIK, Graham has never studied abiogenesis. If he has, then you are correct in that his views on the subject might be of interest. Has he?
And those that do are free to criticize those thoughts, are they not?
Like I said, I would be interested in his opinion of Stove, or Popper, or Kuhn, or Feyerabend. These were philosophers in whom he ought to take an interest. They, after all, formulated what he does.
Incidentally, I don’t know about the “religioius belief is a behavior” argument. He studies the behaviors of bugs, doesn’t he?
Primarily, yes, but not exclusively. In fact, one of his Pulitzer prize winning books is On Human Nature. I found it to be an excellent book, although it might be a little dated at this point considering the many scientific advances since it’s publication in 1978. IIRC, I read it about 20 years ago.
That’s fair. After all, preachers (ICR, AIG, etc.) have written lots of books about evolution.
Liberal, is your position here that only priests, ministers, and other clerical folk are allowed to have or state an opinion of religious matters? I’m not sure where you’re going with your line of reasoning.
My position is that it is as silly to consider Wilson an expert on theology as it is to consider Graham an expert on biology. I’m bucking against the notion that what Wilson has said is profoundly true simply because Wilson has said it, there are no discernable flaws in what he has said or opposing opinions worth a damn, and that questioning what he has said is tantamount to intellectual suicide.
Has anyone here put forth that notion? What I saw **SM **doing was questioning the specific criticism that the OP was making, not stating that no criticism was valid. I think you are bucking against a strawman.
John, I wouldn’t presume to buck SentientMeat. I consider him to be an intellectual giant. Even when I disagree with him, I respect him. I don’t even have to know what he said to know that it was insightful, pertinent, and strongly argued. Notice that I have not addressed one post in here to him. My beef was with you, and your dismissal of the OP as mumbo-jumbo and mysticism. I haven’t read Sentient’s posts in here because frankly, the topic doesn’t really interest me that much. But your post caught my eye because it seemed completely out of left field. (You still haven’t shown that anything had been said about agnosticism.) My hope had been that Wilson was discussing a philosopher of science. It was disappointing to find yet another ill-conceived rant about religion from a man who lumps together 100,000 philosophical takes on metaphysics together as one continuous ideal. It would be like condemning science because of alchemy.