Can science be the source of human values? The only source? That’s the idea behind Secular Scientific Humanism. SSH is…
HELP! MY SELF-DRIVING CAR IS A ZOMBIE!
This is the time of year to talk about monsters, and Sean Carroll does not miss the opportunity. A few…
Consciousness: An Object Lesson
Riccardo Manzotti and Tim Parks have been having an entertaining series of conversations in the on-line section of the New…
The Greatest Story Ever Told
Richard Dawkins thinks the greatest story ever told is the story of evolution. He’s got a point. It…
A Strange Uncouth Monster
Does philosophy—its study or practice—make us happy? Should it? The word is from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally “love of wisdom”.…
The Materialist Who Means It
Dan Dennett is a materialist. Dualists think that there are two kinds of things in the world—mind and body. Dennett…
Imaginative Understanding of Murder
In criminal trials, juries are often asked to figure out what kind of thought process was going on in the…
What Is It Like to Be a Dog?
“Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless.” —Tom Nagel One of…
Carroll on Color
In The Big Picture, Sean Carroll is anxious to reject religious ideas of the immortal soul, and this makes him…
Materialists who don’t mean it: the Dualism of Crick and Koch
Francis Crick opened his book The Astonishing Hypothesis with this salvo: Q: What is the soul? A: The soul is…