I'm sorry...I'm really not ignoring you. Well, actually I am, but I don't mean to be rude and it's only temporary. I will be on vacation for the next few days. If you happen to post a comment to my blog in the meantime and don't see it appear, please be patient. The website admin is officially off duty until next Tuesday, so your comments may not be approved beforehand. The timing of this vacation is a little unfortunate, given the recent flurry of activity in the comments from last month's post, my open letter to Jerry Coyne. There have been some interesting comments, particularly one by Dr. Leblanc, that merit further consideration in respectful discourse. Alas, the grandchildren have been promised a quick trip to Florida that was planned well in advance. Grandpa must not disappoint. Perhaps in the interim, Dr. Coyne will find the time to grade his compatibilism quiz that I took yesterday. Some very interesting conversation may be about to happen, possibly as soon as next week. If Dr. Coyne chooses not to participate, Dr. Leblanc seems a more than capable substitute, and he is willing to engage in serious dialog. Stay tuned! I don't think you'll want to miss it. … [Read more...]
Jerry Coyne’s compatibilism quiz
While I’ve been waiting and hoping for Dr. Coyne to respond to my questions about speciation theory, I’ve periodically scanned his blog Why Evolution is True to see if the opportunity has arisen for him to answer my questions. I'm sure that Dr. Coyne is a very busy man, and he just hasn’t had time to respond thus far. Of course, he had to travel and give a lecture at Appalachian State, take pictures to show off his spiffy new ostrich boots, make several gratuitous attacks on creationism and religion with cheesy cartoons, and time to post lots of cat pictures on his blog. But no time for me yet. I’m sure he’ll get around to my questions, eventually. Apparently, he does respond to email. In the meantime, in one of the sixty-plus blogs posted since my letter, Dr. Coyne published a pop quiz on compatibilism. I love a good challenge, so I’ve taken his quiz. Perhaps he'll even grade my answers. Thank goodness that Dr. Coyne helpfully defined compatibilism as “free will that accepts material determinism.” I must confess that I didn't know the definition, and the closest dictionary didn't offer me one. Because I accept genetics, DNA, and the power of heredity, I can also accept the concept of material determinism, at least up to a point. However, I must reject the proposal that people can’t be held morally responsible for their actions. In fact, I find that suggestion both appalling and absurd. Is Ariel Castro, recently arrested in Cleveland for kidnapping three women and holding them captive for a decade, only guilty of committing egregious evil … [Read more...]
An open letter to Dr. Jerry Coyne
Dear Dr. Coyne, I’ll do my best to get right to the point. Your reputation as one of the world’s foremost experts on speciation theory precedes you. You are a well respected scientist and educator. I am but a student of those fields in science necessary for any attempt to answer my existential questions. Although I’ve been called a teacher, my background is not in education. By profession, I’m an author, certainly not a scientist. My strong preference is for writing detective novels. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should divulge that my most recent book, published this past Easter Sunday, has the title Counterargument for God. I should probably also mention that your advocacy of naturalistic evolution is one of the arguments that I endeavored to counter and defeat in my book. I meant no disrespect. It just happens that I have very good reasons for believing that you're wrong to assume that supernatural intelligence played no role in your existence or mine. Now, I’ve read Why Evolution is True, but I cheerfully admit that I don’t yet quite understand the biological processes allegedly at work. I still have a few questions about your specific field of expertise, if you’ll be good enough to answer them. Your USA Today article written not too long ago asserting that you can be good without God gives me some hope that you will cooperate, even though I suspect David Berlinski may have doubts. If I never ask my questions, you won't have the opportunity to respond if you so choose. True, you have expressed some disdain for creationists in … [Read more...]
Kermit Gosnell’s House of Horrors
Life imitates art. After writing Secondhand Sight, I worried about the extreme nature of the violence in the plot of my second novel. I wondered if some of the most gruesome passages in the book might alienate fans of Coastal Empire. It never occurred to me that the evening news might actually suppress a far more sinister story than I could ever imagine being able to tell. Of course, the media could tell this disturbing story if they only reported the truth, the sordid details in the trial of abortion specialist Dr. Kermit Gosnell. The details are so bad that I'm tempted to suggest if you're squeamish to stop reading, but I think this is important information that everyone should know. The benefit mitigates the cost. But let me get right to the point. If these charges are true, Hannibal Lecter had nothing on this guy. The contents of Dr. Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic make Jaime Gumb’s torture chamber in Silence of the Lambs sound relatively tame, almost pleasant in comparison. Kirsten Powers wrote horrific tales in USA Today, of barbarous beheadings and baby feet kept in jars, like macabre souvenirs collected by a deranged serial killer. Most troubling is the fact that her story isn’t fiction. This butcher called a doctor apparently did all these things, and much, much worse. According to reports of court testimony, this was a man who casually joked that one baby he’d just murdered was so big he could “walk me to the bus stop.” Words can’t begin to describe the nausea and revulsion I felt after reading what this miserable excuse for … [Read more...]
