Ethan Siegel, there is physics, and there is Earth. Medium.com

Also published at Medium.com.  Come on down for some discussion.

Earthrise  (wiki)

On May 21st, Ethan Siegel published an article titled with a question, a challenge. “Does physics truly have anything to say about consciousness?”

I want to offer a qualified loud and clear no!

Physics is about physics. Physics operates under exacting natural laws, that we can track via mathematics.

Where is there any need for a choice when puzzling over a differential equation? It’s all about following rules and where they take us.

Beyond physics?

What could be beyond physics you ask?

Think about it, … there is physics and there is Earth !

What’s so special about Earth? Stop to ponder your response.

Here’s mine,

Behold Earth, where: Chemistry + geology + harnessing electricity + deep time = biology > Life > creatures > complex creatures > self-reflecting minds.

Zoom image will be displayed

Mother Earth

Religious Thinking v. Scientific Thinking

When looking up Cambrian Period information you'll get flooded with Creationist Intelligent Design propaganda.  Stuff that freely misrepresents the facts and their "opponents," instead coming up with disconnected just so stories in complete disregard of the full spectrum of available understanding - so beware. 

That is why I'm sharing this comment that I originally penned for a discussion over at Center For Inquiry's Forum.  It belongs here since a better understanding of the difference between religious thinking and serious scientific thinking is worth trying to push into the public consciousness! 

The challenge is clarifying the key difference between Religious Thinking and Scientific Thinking.  Both of which are products of our Human Mindscape.

It starts with acknowledging that all we see and experience, is through our senses and then processed by our brains to the best of our individual learning & abilities. 

The "Mindscape" is just that, our mind, the product of our body, nerves, brain and all we sense along with our emotions and thoughts.

Religions are all about our “Mindscape" itself, with it's constant dialogue and self-story telling and fears, emotions and needs.  Its freedom to poetically tie together whatever it wants.  It is the realm of the metaphysical thoughts and daydreaming and story telling. 

5/7 Taking umbrage at the abuse of our Free Speech Rights. The Jim Steele files.

The Situation:

The disconnected-from-physical-reality GOP attacks on climate science (a.i.) have reached horrifying levels with the Trump Administration.  Yet science loving rationalists, pluralists, progressives, liberals, Democrats still haven’t developed effective messaging for directly confronting the most childish of Republican arguments.  Why?  Seems to me, mainly because rationalists rather sidestep that Me First driven willful ignorance.  This acquiescence to nonsense has been a fatal error for the national dialogue.

Always remember the onlookers, and appreciate by making the effort to explain some of the science, you’re doing homework that invigorates your own understanding.  (continued at ...) 

In this segment I share the summary of my couple years of actively dogging Jim Steele and his game of deception and crazy-making which I wrote up for my Four Corners Free Press column.  Steele never could engage in an upfront constructive debate, still won't.  Yet, he's first to demand that serious scientists debate with rhetorical clowns.  Why do we keep letting them get away with such nonsense?

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(Sd7) Abuse of Our Free Speech Rights (LandscapesAndCycles - Jim Steele) (FCFP)

https://confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com/2018/08/abuse-free-speech-rights-steele.html

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Abuse of Our Free Speech Rights (LandscapesandCycles-Steele)

August 2018, Four Corners Free Press, Cortez, Colorado 

    

   

Back in January, my Four Corner Free Press column was built around a talk by climate scientist Dr. Trenberth, an authority on our planet’s global heat and moisture distribution engine. In March there was a Letter to the FCFP Editor offering an alternative. 

The writer offhandedly dismissed the scientific “consensus” as though it were just another opinion, while lamenting the politicization of science (Apparently oblivious to the reality that his letter was nothing but a gross politicization). 

Ironically to underscore his legitimacy the writer encouraged us to read Jim Steele’s “LandscapesAndCycles” collection for a second opinion. As it happens, I’ll bet there are few who have studied Steels’s collection more than I have and I welcome this challenge to write about it.

You see, from my first introduction it seemed to me that what Steele was doing was a perfect example of “malicious abuse of our free speech rights,” though I didn’t have the words for it then. 

That started me on his trail.  I did a detailed review of Steele’s 2014 talk to the International Electrical and Electronic Engineers, I also transcribed his January 27, 2015 interview with Heartland’s Sterling Burnett in order to dissect his method. That one required fourteen topic-specific posts to do his torrent of misinformation justice. 

All told, I have some fifty posts unraveling Jim Steele’s deceitfulness over at my ConfrontingScienceContrarians.blogspot. 

In a nutshell, Jim Steele proposes that landscapes and natural cycles are more powerful drivers of global warming than our insulating atmosphere. 

(Sd7) Abuse of Our Free Speech Rights (LandscapesandCycles-Steele)

August 2018, Four Corners Free Press, Cortez, Colorado 

    

   

Back in January, my Four Corner Free Press column was built around a talk by climate scientist Dr. Trenberth, an authority on our planet’s global heat and moisture distribution engine. In March there was a Letter to the FCFP Editor offering an alternative. 

The writer offhandedly dismissed the scientific “consensus” as though it were just another opinion, while lamenting the politicization of science (Apparently oblivious to the reality that his letter was nothing but a gross politicization). 

Ironically to underscore his legitimacy the writer encouraged us to read Jim Steele’s “LandscapesAndCycles” collection for a second opinion. As it happens, I’ll bet there are few who have studied Steels’s collection more than I have and I welcome this challenge to write about it.

You see, from my first introduction it seemed to me that what Steele was doing was a perfect example of “malicious abuse of our free speech rights,” though I didn’t have the words for it then. 

That started me on his trail.  I did a detailed review of Steele’s 2014 talk to the International Electrical and Electronic Engineers, I also transcribed his January 27, 2015 interview with Heartland’s Sterling Burnett in order to dissect his method. That one required fourteen topic-specific posts to do his torrent of misinformation justice.