Greetings from Chile
Alex

I guess you could say my “position” on a lot of things is that they are complicated and nuanced, and most people who pick a “side” seem to be acting less than rationally.

I would ask you in response, have you thought about why it matters to you where I come down on your issues? I have. Isn’t it interesting how we almost frantically need to find out whether someone shares our “positions” (underlying subtext: biases and conclusions) before we feel comfortable with them? Our minds are hard-wired to take this shortcut because it saves a lot of processing power.

I chose “born again” because for most of my life I did not know anything about critical thinking, cognitive biases, logical fallacies, etc. After learning how to think properly, I feel liberated, clear, and nothing will ever be the same. If that’s not a good use of “born again” then I don’t know what is.

Ok, I really like your essays. But I am a bit confused. I cannot find an ‘about’ page, or other clarification of your position on issues (like, in the most general and broad way).

In fact, you seem to avoid taking too many risky positions, despite an obvious ability to deconstruct positions.

So what exactly do you mean by “born again”???? Is that sarcasm, or are you serious about that?

I think the term ‘science’ can reasonably be applied to any field of rational collective human endeavor, where an effort is made to find, test, improve (and discard) theories about how things work. In some fields this is reasonably straightforward, but in others there are confounding challenges. Psychology and the study of cognition have come a long way in recent decades. Because this science deals with phenomenally complex systems, its conclusions aren’t always cut and dried. The more we work at it, the more it will grow into the role of rigorous, respected science.

If your theory is invalidated by observations, then you have to come up with a better one. But you are asking, how does science determine what “better” means? Generally given Occam’s razor, parsimonious and straightforward explanations are preferable to convoluted ones. But sometimes our intuitions or notions of simplicity or elegance are not sufficient to find the right answer. For example, the theory of relativity, or quantum physics.

Then there’s dark matter, the current favorite whipping boy of cosmology. It works better than any other theory we’ve got to explain things. But even the strongest proponents admit that they don’t know WHAT it is for sure, and admit they could have it wrong. It’s really hard to test things that are out of our reach and resist our attempts at observation. I am constantly humbled by the innovative genius and persistence that astrophysicists have, telling us so much about the universe using such limited means.

Oh sweet, since all those things are in the bible, it must not be a product of “linear fallacy”;)

Noted for future reference.

Keep up the great work. I’ve got you set up on my RSS reader now.

Your friend,
Hugh