The fight against bacteria and virus: a self-destructing war by Maximo Sandin

Zetetic Chick (or ZC), a good friend from Spain, asked me to publish the English translation of biologist Maximo Sandin's recent paper on bacteria and virus. I've read some of Sandin's material in English (see for example this paper and this one).

Even though I disagree with some of Sandin's views (see below), I think his neo-Lamarckian theory of evolution is as far more consistent, coherent and scientifically justified than the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. Also, his neo-Lamarckian theory is neutral regarding metaphysical and philosophical questions (like the debate between atheism and theism, or the intelligent design). In particular, his theory seems to account for the recent evidence and data on biological sciences about the origin of life.

This scientifically well-documented and up-to-date article is very important to reflect on the role of microbes in biology, and how the mainstream darwinian concepts and interpretations tend to cause a serious distortion of the actual function of microbes in Nature.

My disagreement with Sandin's views is not scientific but philosophical. Sandin thinks that current Darwinian paradigm (Darwinian theory of evolution) is hegemonic because it favors capitalism and the free market, and therefore, it favors the powerful elite that controls the world. According this view, the Darwinian theory fits well in the mentality of our current capitalist-oriented world (even the vocabulary used on mainstream biology is similar to the one used in the capistalist-based economics, like "competence" or "costs-benefits"). So the actual roots of the Darwinian hegemony would be explainable in terms of political-sociological-economical factors.

My own opinion is that Darwinian theory of evolution is hegemonic because it supports the materialistic-atheistic worldview and it's useful as a rhetorical weapon and propaganda device to reject and stigmatize as "unscientific" topics like religion, dualism, the afterlife, God and, by extension, spirituality in general. It's the most important "scientific" theory underlying and supporting contemporary atheistic materialism and metaphysical naturalism. So, in my view, the origin of the Darwinian hegemony is essentially philosophical (and only secondarily, political and economical)

But again, this disagreement is not about Sandin's scientific theory, but about the roots of the hegemony of the Darwinian paradigm.

Enjoy.

The fight against bacteria and virus: A self-destructing war

Máximo Sandín

The permanent war against biological entities that build, regulate and keep life in our Planet is the most serious symptom, of an insane civilization so far removed from reality that it is heading towards its own self destruction.

The two primary works that constitute the theoretical-philosophical basis of the contemporary occidental way of thinking, of reality, society and life conception, that have been decisive in human relationships, both with each other and with Nature are “The Wealth of Nations” from Adam Smith and Charles Darwin’s “On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life”. The conception of nature and society as a battlefield in which abstract strengths, natural selection and the market’s invisible hand rule “competitors” destiny, has resulted in the degradation of not only human relationships, but also in those that humans hold with nature, with no precedents in our history that is placing humanity on the brink of ruin. The rift between countries which have been colonized and those European countries which have colonized them is increasing, the dozens of permanent wars (which are always a result of shady economic interests), the unstoppable destruction of the sea and earth environment…can only drive Humanity to a dead end.

The great pharmaceutical industry can be considered, taking this destructive process into consideration, a clear exponent of the application of these principles and their disastrous consequences. The human organism and health are seen as a marketplace, a business objective. This factor, alongside the reductionist and competitive view of the natural phenomenon has resulted in a distortion of the function which is, supposedly, proper to it, and that could constitute an additional means of triggering the catastrophe. A dramatically instructive example of the dangers of this conception is the alarming increase of bacteria resistance to antibiotics, that could become a serious threat for worldwide population, leaving it defenseless to infections (Alekshun M. N. y Levy S. B., 2007). The origin of this problem can be found in the aforementioned concepts, illustrated by the abusive antibiotics which are used to fight the slightest of symptoms, as well as their massive use in commercial activities, such as the fattening up of cattle, and their evident commercial profit motive, but overall, by the consideration of bacteria as pathogens, “competitors” that must be eliminated.

This conception could have been justified by the way in which bacteria were discovered, inexistent before. The fact that their scene entrance was due to their pathogenic aspect, linked to the Darwinist conception of nature according to which, competence is the bridge that joins the gap between all its components, branded the microorganisms producers of diseases that, heretofore, had to be eliminated. However, recent discoveries about their real character and their fundamental functions in our planet’s life have radically transformed the ancient ideas. Bacteria were fundamental to the appearance of live on Earth, creating a suitable atmosphere for life as it is nowadays known by the photosynthesis process (Margulis y Sagan, 1995). They were also responsible for life itself: cells which compose every organism were formed by different kinds of bacteria fusions from which genetic sequences can be identified in actual organisms (Gupta, 2000). Nowadays, they are the main sea, earth and air food chain elements (Howard et al., 2006) and are still essential in life support: “They purify water, detoxify harmful substances and recycle waste products. They restore carbon dioxide to the air and make the atmosphere's nitrogen available to plants. Without them, continents would be deserts — home to little more than lichen, and not much of that”.(Gewin, 2006), even inside and outside organisms (in humans their number is ten times higher than their component cells). Most of them are still unknown and their total bio-mass has been calculated to be bigger than vegetal earth bio-mass. This data show evidence of their minority pathogenic character, that is actually due to alterations in their natural running caused by some kind of environmental aggression to which they react interchanging what is known as “Pathogenicity islands” ( Brzuszkiewicz et al., 2006), a reaction that, is actually an intensive reproduction to face environmental aggression. In fact, it has been proved that antibiotics are not really antibacterial “weapons” but communication signals that, in natural conditions, are used, among other things, to control their population ”What researchers know about antibiotic-producing microbes comes mainly from studying them in high numbers as pure cultures in the lab—artificial conditions compared with the numbers and diversity found in soil”.(Mlot, 2009). Despite all that real data it can be proved how pharmaceutical industry keeps searching for “new weapons” to combat bacteria (Pearson, 2006).

Viruses have followed, though somewhat delayed, the same path as bacteria, because of their late discovery due to their small size. Discovered by Stanley in the “tobacco mosaic disease”, they were, logically, with a competitive vision of nature, included in the “enemies to eliminate” list. It is obvious that some of them cause diseases, some of them terrible, but, won’t the origin of them be due to some process similar to that which actually seems certain in bacteria?. Let’s see the most recent data concerning that aspect: The estimated number of viruses on Earth is twenty five times higher than bacteria. Their appearance on Earth was simultaneous to bacteria (Woese, 2002) and the part of the eukaryotic cell characteristics not present in bacteria (messenger RNA, lineal chromosomes and the separation of transcription and translation) has been identified to have viral origin (Bell, 2001). The activity of virus in marine and earth environments (Williamson, K. E., Wommack, K. E. y Radosevich, M., 2003; Suttle, C. A., 2005), are, like bacteria’s, essential. In the ground, they work as communication elements between bacteria by horizontal genetic transference (Ben Jacob, E., et al, 2005). In the sea they have really noteworthy activities such as these: In the surface of the sea water there are about 10.000 million (average) virus kinds per liter. Their density depends on the richness in water nutrients and in the deepness, but they are still in huge quantities in abyssal waters. Their ecologic role consists of an equilibrium maintenance between the different species that compose marine plankton (and as a consequence, the rest of the food chain’s) and the different kinds of bacteria, destroying them when their number is excessive. As virus are lifeless, and they spread passively, when their specific “hosts” are too plentiful, they (virus) are more susceptible to infect them. Thus they avoid bacteria and algae excesses, whose huge reproductive capacity could cause serious ecologic imbalances, managing to cover great marine surfaces. In the same hand, organic material freed after their hosts destruction, provides nutrients enrichment to water. Their biogeochemical role is that, the sulfurous derivates produced by their activity, contribute… to cloud nucleation! In the same hand, virus are controlled by sun light (mostly by ultraviolet rays) which spoil them, and whose intensity depends on the water depth and the surface organic material density, so all the system is self-regulated. (Fuhrman, 1999). Up to the 80% of virus and bacteria genetic sequences are unknown in any animal or vegetal organism. (Villareal, 2004). According to their activity in organisms, the data which are being obtained make them become the life construction essential elements. Besides the eukaryotic cell characteristics absent in bacteria which have been identified as original from virus, it is more significant the fact that the great majority of animal and vegetal genomes are constituted by endogenous virus which are expressed as constitutive part of them (Britten, R.J., 2004) and mobile elements and repeated sequences, both derived from virus, which have been wrongly considered as “dust DNA” thanks to the “scientist contribution” from Richard Dawkins with his pernicious book “The Selfish Gene” (Sandín, M., 2001; Von Sternberg, R., 2002). Within those contributions, the fundamental homeotic genes, responsible from embryo development, whose disposition in chromosomes as tandem repeated sequences reveals a certain origin in retrotransposons (able to amplify themselves with the genome help), in turn derived from retrovirus (Wagner, G.P. et al., 2003; García-Fernández, J., 2005). One of the most striking functions is the developed by endogenous virus W, whose task consists of the placenta formation, the “syncytio-trophoblast” fusion and the maternal immunosupression during the pregnancy (Venables et al., 1998; Harris, 1998; Mi et al., 2000; Muir et al., 2004). But the amount, not just of genes but of essential proteins from eukaryotic organisms (specially multi cellular) absent in bacteria and acquired from virus could be endless (Adams y Cory, 1998; Barry y McFadden, 1999; Markine-Goriaynoff et al., 2004; Gabus et al., 2001; Medstrand y Mag, 1998; Jamain et al., 2001), although, occasionally, the same discoverers, following the Darwinist interpretation consider them as “enigmatically emerged” (“randomly”) in eukaryotic and acquired from virus (Hughes & Friedman, 2003). These are accused of kidnapping, sabotage or imitators (Markine-Goriaynoff et al., 2004) without taking into consideration that virus in the free state are completely lifeless, and that it is the cell which uses and activates virus components (Cohen, 2008). Because of this, the accusations used to hear, about virus which mutate to evade the host’s defenses, turn out to be ridiculous. Mutations are produced during the integration processes in DNA because viral retrotranscriptase is not able to correct “the errors in copying”.

To sum up, and independently from the incapability of comprehending the important functions of virus in the evolution and life processes, encouraged by the reductionist and competitive oppressive conception of the dominant ideas in Biology, data are available in already sequenced genomes. Between 90.000 and 300.000 sequences derived from virus have been identified in the human genome. The variability of the numbers is due to its dependence on that, complete virus or partial sequences derived from virus are whether considered or not. That is to say, they are inside us too, and they carry out indispensable functions for life. But it is also known that endogenous virus can be activated and malignized due to environmental aggressions (Ter-gri gorov, et al., 1997; Gaunt, Ch. y Tracy, S., 1995).

So, despite of the dominant conception of nature, which seems to be wished to be imposed by those who fight against it, describes a sordid battle field swarming with “competitors” which must be eliminated, reality shows a truly complicate nature in which all its components are interconnected and are essential for life maintenance. These are the natural conditions breaking-offs, many of them caused by this reductionist and competitive vision of life phenomenon, which are leading to turn the unbalanced nature into a certain battle field in which we have everything to lose.

The dangerous advance from bacteria resistance to antibiotics can be considered the most clear evidence from competence and market irruption in nature, but there is another consequence from this attitude that could enlighten a clue for how far it could be reached if this way was followed: From 1992 until 1999, the journalist Edward Hooper followed the AIDS appearance trail up to a laboratory in Stanleyville, El Congo, Belgian by that time, in which a scientist team directed by DR. Hilary Koprowski, produced a vaccine against Polio disease using chimpanzee and macaque kidneys as substrate. The test of the active vaccine took place between 1957 and 1960, through a very common method “in those days”: the vaccination of more than one million children in several colonies on the area. Children whose life conditions (and so, health conditions) were not the most suitable. In a debate where the journalist exposed his data, Hooper was publically slated by a scientist commission that rejected outright such relationship, although any vaccine samples could be found. It seems understandable that scientists do not even want to imagine that possibility. Since then, rigorous studies have been published relating AIDS origin to African markets in which monkey “meat” was currently sold, or, more recently, “delaying” the appearance date until the XIX century by a supposed “molecular clock” based on virus genetic sequences comparison. Neither Hooper nor Koprowsky did know that all mammals contain endogenous virus that are expressed in lymphocytes and that they are responsible for the maternal immunosupression during the pregnancy. Nowadays, Koprowsky is one of the scientists who owns more patents within his name.

The barriers between species are a natural obstacle to evade the virus jump from one species to another. Some extreme environmental stress conditions are needed for this to happen. All this takes to the inquiring of many concepts amply assumed, that, as professionally away from the medicine field, I just dare to raise with the experts in question means so that it is them who consider their relevance.

If it is considered that the genetic sequences from endogenous virus and their derivates are involved in embryo development processes (Prabhakar et al., 2008), if they are expressed in all tissues and in many metabolic processes (Sen y Steiner, 2004), immunologic processes (Medstrand y Mag, 1998), Which is the real relationship between viruses and cancer or with “autoimmune” diseases? Are they the cause or the consequence? That is, are there any cancer or arthritis epidemic or are the affected tissues those which emit viral particles instead (Seifarth et al., 1995)?

If we consider that immunity is a natural phenomenon which has its own processes to guaranty the equilibrium with the environment microorganisms (outside and inside the organism), the artificial introduction of attenuated microorganisms (or parts of them) in the circulatory system jumping the first immunitary barrier, could not it produce a natural mechanisms distortion including a possible immune system weakening which could favor the later susceptibility to different diseases?

And, finally, if we consider that the existence in nature of “recombinant viruses” from two different species is so strange that it is possibly inexistent due to the extremely virus specificity, where do those strange viruses with sequences coming from pig, birds and humans come from?
In the hypothetic case that pharmaceutical industry real interests were economic benefits, illness would become a business, but vaccines would be, without any doubt, the best business. In this dissertation it has been shown how far the two main industries, which with pharmaceutical, constitute the markets which “generate” more money in the world: the petroleum and weapon/arms industries. It would be a hard crash for citizens (convinced that they are “under good hands”) to find out that the health industry, which apparently intends to look after the health of citizen, it is actually just another sinister money storage machine able to take part in the shady plots of their ranking mates such as, for example, controlling captivating international organizations to smile just on their own interests.

The Nature conception based on the economic and social patterns with random as variation source (opportunities) and competence as changing engine (progress) imposes the necessity of “competitors” (imaginary or created by us) and it is seriously damaging the natural equilibrium which connects all living entities. But Nature has its own rules where everything, including the smallest microorganism and the last molecule, are involved in the maintenance and regulation of life over the Earth and has a wide recovery capacity towards the worst environmental catastrophes. The permanent attack to the essential elements in this regulation, the assault to the “life net”, could have consequences that, sorry to say, we will only be able to validate when Nature recovers its equilibrium.

TRANSLATION: Laura Medialdea Marcos

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Links of interest:

-Sandin's website in Spanish

-ZC's blog on noetic sciences

Crispin Wright on the moral, semantic and psychological implications of naturalism and ontological materialism

I've mentioned that many, perhaps most, metaphysical naturalists and materialists don't like to make explicit the full logical implications of their worldview, because in such case it becomes obvious that their ideology is irrational and self-defeating. They get nervous when you press them to draw the exact implications of their position, and carefully avoid making any explicit predictions (on concrete metaphysical topics entailed) by their ideology.

When exceptionally, they make some prediction entailed by their worldview, and you refute it or question it, they assert that naturalism doesn't entail any such predicition (what refutes the previous position) or appeal to other naturalists who think otherwise about such prediction (without realizing that naturalism, if it's true, cannot entail logically inconsistent implications. This is a clear example of how a monumental faith in naturalism can overpower rationality and critical thinking).

Morever, some metaphysical naturalists and materialistic pseudo-skeptics are professional propagandists for atheism and, therefore, act like lawyers in a court of law in defense of materialism, naturalism and (its ethical corollary) "secular humanism". They don't have the intellectual, emotional and professional equanimity to search the truth; rather, their purpose is to defend their ideology against any possible objection.

As their main existential and emotional motivation is atheism (they want atheism to be true), they try to leave all the possibilities open to naturalism, even is such possibilities are logically inconsistent with each other or (more importantly) with naturalism itself.

Fortunately, there are a few honest metaphysical naturalists out there. They're truth seekers who are not interested in propaganda for atheism or materialism, but in a true inquiry into naturalism itself, and in its metaphysical implications. They're not afraid of critially examining their own position (see for example the book Naturalism in Question as an example of this. And read philosopher David MacArthur's paper on the skeptical implications of naturalism)

One of these naturalist philosophers is Crispin Wright. In his contribution to the book Conceivability and Possibility, Wright writes:

"A central dilemma in contemporary metaphysics is to find a place for certain anthropocentric subject-matters—for instance, semantic, moral, and psychological—in a world as conceived by modern naturalism: a stance which inflates the concepts and categories deployed by (finished) physical science into a metaphysics of the kind of thing the real world essentially and exhaustively is. On one horn, if we embrace this naturalism, it seems we are committed either to reductionism: that is, to a construal of the reference of, for example, semantic, moral and psychological vocabulary as somehow being within the physical domain—or to disputing that the discourses in question involve reference to what is real at all. On the other horn, if we reject this naturalism, then we accept that there is more to the world than can be embraced within a physicalist ontology—and so take on a commitment, it can seem, to a kind of eerie supernaturalism". (p. 401. Emphasis in blue added)

Let's to comment this in detail.

1-As a consistent naturalist (and an honest truth seeker and philosopher, not an ideologue or propagandist), note that Wright doesn't believe that naturalism is neutral regarding metaphysical questions about semantics, moral and psychological matters. He fully realizes that naturalism, as a metaphysical position, HAS actual implications for all of these questions.

2-Based on point 1, Wright realizes that contemporary metaphysics faces a dilemma, caused in part because naturalism is the widely accepted metaphysical position and, at the same time, there is not an obvious or clear place for certain phenomena and properties (that Wright calls anthropocentric subject-matters: semantic, moral and psychological properties) in a purely physicalist world (a world where purely physical and material causes are operative) entailed by naturalism.

Note that it's not a sort of argument from ignorance. The argument is not that we ignore or don't know or lack evidence on how to place moral and similar properties in a physicalist ontology and thereby naturalism is false. Rather, the argument is that if naturalism is true, then a physicalist ontology has to be true; and a physicalist ontology by definition EXCLUDES non-physical entities or phenomena. Therefore, if moral or psychological properties are non-physical (=not fully reducible to physical processes or entities), naturalism is false.

3-As consequence, Wright realizes that, if naturalism is true, then reductionism to the physical follows. Moral, psychological and semantic properties are, somehow, "physical", because non-physical entities and properties cannot have a place in purely physicalist ontology. This is entailed logically by naturalism.

Note that this is exactly the same conclusion of another naturalist philosopher Alex Rosenberg. Regarding morality, Rosenberg writes: "If there is no purpose to life in general, biological or human for that matter, the question arises whether there is meaning in our individual lives, and if it is not there already, whether we can put it there. One source of meaning on which many have relied is the intrinsic value, in particular the moral value, of human life. People have also sought moral rules, codes, principles which are supposed to distinguish us from merely biological critters whose lives lack (as much) meaning or value (as ours). Besides morality as a source of meaning, value, or purpose, people have looked to consciousness, introspection, self-knowledge as a source of insight into what makes us more than the merely physical facts about us. Scientism must reject all of these straws that people have grasped, and it’s not hard to show why. Science has to be nihilistic about ethics and morality. There is no room in a world where all the facts are fixed by physical facts for a set of free floating independently existing norms or values (or facts about them) that humans are uniquely equipped to discern and act upon" (emphasis in blue added)

Regarding psychological properties and consciousness "Nevertheless, if the mind is the brain (and scientism can’t allow that it is anything else), we have to stop taking consciousness seriously as a source of knowledge or understanding about the mind, or the behavior the brain produces. And we have to stop taking our selves seriously too. We have to realize that there is no self, soul or enduring agent, no subject of the first-person pronoun, tracking its interior life while it also tracks much of what is going on around us. This self cannot be the whole body, or its brain, and there is no part of either that qualifies for being the self by way of numerical-identity over time. There seems to be only oneway we make sense of the person whose identity endures over time and over bodily change. This way is by positing a concrete but non-spatial entity with a point of view somewhere behind the eyes and between the ears in the middle of our heads. Since physics has excluded the existence of anything concrete but nonspatial, and since physics fixes all the facts, we have to give up this last illusion consciousness foists on us. But of course Scientism can explain away the illusion of an enduring self as one that natural selection imposed on our introspections, along with an accompanying penchant for stories. After all it is pretty clear that they solve a couple of major design problems for anything that has to hang around long enough to leave copies of its genes and protect them while they are growing up" (emphasis in blue added)

Regarding semantic properties and beliefs: " It is of course obvious that introspection strongly suggests that the brain does store information propositionally, and that therefore it has beliefs and desire with “aboutness” or intentionality. A thoroughgoing naturalism must deny this, I allege. If beliefs are anything they are brain states—physical configurations of matter. But one configuration of matter cannot, in virtue just of its structure, composition, location, or causal relation, be “about” another configuration of matter in the way original intentionality requires (because it cant pass the referential opacity test). So, there are no beliefs"(emphasis in blue added)

Like Rosenberg, Wright fully recognizes that naturalism, being a picture of the entire world (a worldview) is not and cannot be neutral regarding metaphysical problems about moral, psychological and semantic matters. Naturalism has to have implications for all of these fields; implications that if are proved false, would falsify naturalism.

I suspect that the latter point is what naturalist propagandists are afraid of. As they're true believers and they WISH that naturalism and atheism be true, they carefully and smartly avoid making explicit the implications of naturalism for concrete areas of inquiry. With this strategy, they avoid that the implications of naturalism be fully and rigurously known and examined.

This is why they prefer to write debunking articles about creationism, God, afterlife or parapsychology, instead of critically and objectively working out the full implications of their actual position and testing the implications with the relevant evidence and philosophical arguments.

They don't want to know the truth, except it if confirms naturalism. They are not intellectually nor emotionally prepared to reject naturalism if the evidence or philosophical arguments force them to do it. It's a sophisticated method of self-delusion and a silly way to avoid cognitive dissonance.

4-Wright concedes that the acceptation of non-physical properties or entities would imply the denial of naturalism and, therefore, provide evidence for "supernaturalism" (he calls it "eerie supernaturalism")

Note that Wright is not talking about a specific religion or God, but simply about a worldview which is incompatible with the implications of naturalism, and therefore can be called "supernaturalism" (beyond the limits of nature). If such supernaturalism entails a specific form of theism, is another (important) question, but it is not the point relevant for Wright's argument.

His point is that naturalism has clear implications that need to be true if naturalism is right. But if the implications are false, then naturalism is false, and some kind of "supernaturalism" has to be right.

If naturalism were false...

What you would expect if naturalism is false? I submit that IF naturalism were false, then we would expect:

1-That consciousness cannot be explained by materialism (because consciousness is not material). And for the time being, everybody agrees that there is not (materialistic) explanation at all of consciousness.

2-That consciousness, intention and mental states are causally efficacious (as seen in placebo effect, biofeedback and psychokinesis). And this is what we found both in our daily life and in some psi experiments:





3-That consciousness, not being reducible to the brain, survives after death (as suggested by some cases of near-death experiences and afterlife literature in general).

4-That believing in materialism (which is false) only can be done by faith or, at least, by partially irrational factors And this is why materialist William Lycan has expressed: "Being a philosopher, of course I would like to think that my stance is rational, held not just instinctively and scientistically and in the mainstream but because the arguments do indeed favor materialism over dualism. But I do not think that, though I used to. My position may be rational, broadly speaking, but not because the arguments favor it: Though the arguments for dualism do (indeed) fail, so do the arguments for materialism. And the standard objections to dualism are not very convincing; if one really manages to be a dualist in the first place, one should not be much impressed by them. My purpose in this paper is to hold my own feet to the fire and admit that I do not proportion my belief to the evidence." (emphasis in blue added)

If arguments for materialism and dualism both fail, then a neutral or agnostic position would be the rational choice. But believing in materialism when the arguments for it don't work, and rejecting dualism when the objections to it fail, it's irrational. (We survivalist, including dualists and others accept psi phenomena and afterlife evidence that warrant our rational choice in favor of some kind of metaphysical dualism, even if we concede, for the argument's sake, Lycan's point that the traditional or standard philosophical arguments for dualism do fail)

The next point (a complement of this) could explain why materialists accept materialism, even if it is not the rational choice.

5-That naturalism and materialism, being false, only can be believed and motivated at the bottom by irrational factors (fears, double standards, prejudices or even obsessions and delusions). And this is what naturalist philosophers like Thomas Nagel has realized: "I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life... My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world"

If you change "religion" by "supernaturalism", you'll see that Nagel is referring to the same topic than Wright. Nagel is not referring to religion as an social instituion or dogma, but to the existence of supernatural (nonphysical) phenomena.

6-That empirical evidence for phenomena prima facie incompatible with naturalism and materialism would exist. And this is why we find, for example:

7-That the evidence for such phenomena be rejected, by rhetoric and irrational arguments, by materialists and professional debunkers (and this is exactly what we found).

8-That true believers in materialism and naturalism will defend many other obviously absurd and false beliefs, without realizing it. (In fact, if they are not able to see the fallacies and incoherences of the materialistic position, it's perhaps because their minds don't function properly. So it's not surprising that they also will believe in and defend many other ridiculously false, irrational and self-destructing beliefs) And this is exactly what we found, for example:

I could mention another 10 or 20 facts, phenomena, evidence or arguments that exist and we'd expect to exist if naturalism were false. But this post is already too long and I think I made my point clear.

Vinstonas Wu: Why James Randi, Michael Shermer and the CSICOPers are not Real Skeptics

This is a interesting recent article by Vinstonas Wu on pseudo-skeptics.

Why Randi, Shermer and the CSICOPers are not Real Skeptics

Randi, Shermer and the CSICOPers are highly selective with their skepticism. Not only do they not question their own beliefs, but they never challenge or apply skepticism to the status quo. Instead, they have a fanatical allegiance to it, evidenced by their behavior. A true skeptic examines all sides, including his own. But pseudoskeptics only point their skepticism at what they don't believe in, which everyone else does too. So what makes them different than anyone else then? Only one thing: The SIDE they're on. In this case, they are on the side of authority, orthodoxy and materialism. That is why their skepticism and critical examination is ONLY directed at anything and anyone that challenges the status quo, but NEVER at the status quo itself. In essence, that makes them "establishment defenders" (or establishment whores), not real skeptics.

That is why you will never see James Randi, Michael Shermer or the CSICOP crowd apply any skepticism, criticism or condemnation toward orthodoxy or establishment. They hold that side to be blameless and infallible, not overtly, but by their selective skepticism. And they take on faith anything that the establishment says as true, without the need for evidence or critical inquiry. You can see this in ALL their publications, writings, interviews and speeches. Thus they are the farthest thing from objectivity, logic, freethinking, unbiased mindsets, or true skepticism, for they hold the programmed mentality that "authority = truth".

Now, is that the mark of a freethinker, truth seeker, or true skeptic? I don't think so.

This is why not only are they against all validity of the paranormal, but also against all claims of conspiracy as well, which are not even paranormal in nature. In their view, anyone that challenges the system or the agenda of the elite, is automatically discredited, regardless of whether their claims are true, credible or backed by evidence. And this includes former high ranking government officials as well.

For those of you who have followed the work of Randi, Shermer or CSICOP, ask yourself this: Have you ever seen them criticize anything of the establishment, including crimes, murders, lies, conspiracies, evil plots, etc?

I'll bet not.

Consider the following documented facts and let me ask you:

Do they ever speak out against the senseless killings in the Iraq War for power and profit?

Nope.

Do they ever admit that the US Navy was wrong to fake the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964 (which has now been exposed) which resulted in the deaths of 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese, making the war and their deaths a FRAUD?

Nope.

Are they outraged with the fact that the CIA has been involved in drug trafficking for many years, which even some in the mainstream media have reported? Or the CIA assassinations of foreign leaders who refused to abide by US policy?

Nope.

Are they outraged that the EPA lied after 9/11 that the air was safe to breathe, which caused thousands of First Responders to develop cancer from the toxic air and slowly die?

Nope.

Are they outraged that upper levels of government have concocted secret plots to sacrifice innocent lives to stage terrorist activities and blame it on others to start wars, such as Operation Northwoods and Operation Dirty Trick? (Google them for more info)

Nope.

Do they speak out against the thousands of people that die from pharmaceutical drugs every year?

Nope.

But will they go ballistic if ONE person allegedly dies from alternative treatment such as homeopathy?

You betcha!

So, what does it say about them then if they have no problem with lies and evil plots that result in the death of millions, yet have a big problem with the death of a few if alternative medicine is involved?

It tells you that they are one sided with an axe to grind, rather than fair, honest or objective. They are fanatical defenders of establishment and orthodoxy, holding that side to be blameless. As such they are totally blind to the faults of authority, or deliberately ignore them at least. Their critical thinking and skepticism can ONLY be directed at anything AGAINST the establishment, and NEVER at anything FROM the establishment.

Tell that to the pseudoskeptics. And when they deny it, challenge them to produce a publication from a media skeptic or skeptic organization that openly condemns or criticizes the above crimes of the establishment (elite or shadow government, whatever you want to call it). When they come up empty handed, then you've got them. From that point, it does not matter if they continue in their denial, for the facts speak for themselves.

Now, is that true skepticism to you? Is that objectivity, logic and science? Is that the mark of a freethinker independent of authority or bias? Or is that fanaticism from a programmed mind who has given up his intellect to become an intellectual slave of authority?

You tell me.

A REAL skeptic is able to apply skepticism to ALL SIDES, including their own. They do not hold one side to be blameless and the other to be always wrong, like the Randis, Shermers and CSICOPers do. Fanatics are always one-sided, independent free thinkers aren't.

The ability to independently assess all sides, including your own, is the mark of a true freethinking at a higher level of consciousness. These folks clearly do not fit the bill.

You gotta remember that "actions speak louder than words". Anyone can claim to be a skeptic or critical freethinker. But if their ACTIONS do not show the hallmark of one, then they aren't. And by their actions, the Randis, Shermers and CSICOPers aren't.

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Jime's comment: In general, pseudo-skeptics are ideologues and propagandists for the mainstream orthodoxy, because current orthodoxy is materialistic and, therefore, support the pseudo-skeptics' ideology and the atheistic faith. What motivates pseudo-skeptics is a monumental uncritical faith in materialism and naturalism (and a hatred and hostility to everything related to God, religion or spirituality in general), and they hold to that faith even in the few cases where orthodoxy is contrary to it (for example, the big bang is accepted by mainstream science as the best supported theory about the universe' origin. But many pseudo-skeptics, specially the propagandists for atheism, realizing that an absolute beginning of the universe suggest a possible non-physical and trascendental cause of it (and therefore, makes plausible the idea of God), have intented to reject the absolute beginning of the universe and speculate, without any evidence at all, about multiverses. They WANT to believe in multiverses, even if such theory has not empirical support at all. This is more evidence of the ideological nature of pseudo-skepticism and materialistic atheism and specially of the evident self-delusion of these individuals who see themselves as rational, free-thinkers and "brights".

Richard Carrier on Alex Rosenberg article The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality (Part 4)

Let's to examine another of atheist Richard Carrier's objections to Alex Rosenberg's essay on the actual and consistent implications of the naturalistic worldview.

Carrier's objection 6 is this:

(Objection 6) Alex does this again when concluding that because folk notions of belief and sensation and desires are incorrect (which is a fact), therefore our brain “doesn’t operate on beliefs and wants, thoughts and hopes, fears and expectations” (which is a non sequitur). Once you define those terms with the correct cognitive science, the conclusion becomes false. I say a great deal more about this in my Critique of Victor Reppert’s Argument from Reason, particularly in respect to the Churchlands and Eliminativism (I recommend skipping directly to the latter). But the bottom line is, Alex is like someone who discovers the moon is actually made of iron instead of rock, and then runs around insisting that therefore the moon doesn’t exist. Just because beliefs and desires are in actual physical fact different things than some folk conceptions imagine them, doesn’t warrant the conclusion that they don’t exist. They obviously do. We just have to understand them correctly..

Let's to examine Carrier's objection in detail:

1-Carrier crudely misrepresents Rosenberg's point when he asserts that Rosenberg's conclusion is that our brain "doesn’t operate on beliefs and wants, thoughts and hopes, fears and expectations" based on the premise that " folk notions of belief and sensation and desires are incorrect".

But it is not what Rosenberg's is arguing. His argument is NOT that given that folks notions of beliefs are incorrect, therefore our brain doesn't operate on beliefs.

Let's to quote Rosenberg to correct Carrier's straw man: "Whatever the brain does, it doesn’t operate on beliefs and wants, thoughts and hopes, fears and expectations, insofar as these are supposed to be states that “contain” sentences, and are “about” things, facts, events that are outside of the mind. That the brain no more has original intentionality than anything else does is the hardest illusion to give up, and we probably won’t be able completely to do so till neuroscience really understands the brain." (emphasis in blue added)

Note that Rosemberg's actual conclusion is that our brain cannot operate on beliefs in virtue of the latter propositional and intentional content (because such propositional and intentional content actually doesn't exist IF naturalism is true; therefore, it cannot be efficacious on the brain)

It's comical how Carrier omitted all the line of reasoning that followed the word "insofar" in the above Rosenberg's quote. But that omission was rhetorically necessary and useful to misrepresent Rosenberg's argument and say that his conclusion is a non-sequitur.

2-Carrier follows with this point: "But the bottom line is, Alex is like someone who discovers the moon is actually made of iron instead of rock, and then runs around insisting that therefore the moon doesn’t exist."

But note that if the moon is defined and understood as the Earth's natural satellite composed of rock, then discovering that such satellite is not made of rock but of iron refutes the existence of the moon according to the previous definition. Such "natural satellite composed of rock" would not exist at all.

But in any case, Carrier is using a false analogy, because essential to the epistemic notion of beliefs is that they're true or false in virtue of their intentionality and propositional content (not in virtue of being a brain phenomenon or physical fact). Therefore, if intentionally doesn't exist, and beliefs don't refer to anything outside of the mind, then it's impossible that the brain operates on beliefs (that is, in virtue of beliefs having an intentional content).

For example, let's take the belief "As a rule, pseudo-skeptics are materialistic ideologues who don't want to and won't accept positive evidence for psi or afterlife". This belief is true or false in virtue of their content and meaning, and the correspondence and match of that meaning with a reality outside our mind.

The belief refers to something beyond itself, that is, to an actual state of affairs in the actual world. It's "about" something.

Once you understand the meaning of that proposition, and know that in general pseudo-skeptics are materialistic atheists, and that they belong to debunking organizations (or secular humanists organizations), and in addition you have evidence that the origin of organized pseudo-skepticism was inspired by ideological-marxist motivations, then you know that the actual state of affairs match or correspond to the belief in question. Therefore the belief is demostrably true and you're rationally forced to accept it if you know the evidence.

More facts of the external world will serve you as evidence that will give more support to your belief (let's to say, atheist Richard Dawkins' dishonest addressing of Rupert Sheldrake's research on telepathy; or professional skeptic Richard Wiseman's rejection of remote viewing in spite of the latter being admittedly proven by the accepted rigurous standards of science).

The true of such belief will enable to you to make testable predictions; for example, the prediction that if more positive evidence in favor of psi (or afterlife, like the AWARE study in NDEs) is attained or accumulated, the new evidence and research ALSO will be misrepresented, undermined, rationalized and distortioned by pseudo-skeptics to avoid falsification of their materialistic ideology (this prediction is testable: if new positive evidence is found, and pseudo-skeptics accept it, then the prediction is false, and the original belief would be refuted or seriously undermined).

Precisely, this property of beliefs as being "about" something, and therefore true or false in virtue of the correspondence with such "something", it's essential to the epistemic evaluation of beliefs as beliefs (and not as psychological or neurophysiolocal phenomena alone).

This is why Carrier had to intentionally to disregard Rosenberg's line of reasoning following the word "insofar".

3-Carrier ends his objection with a summarized version of his straw man: "Just because beliefs and desires are in actual physical fact different things than some folk conceptions imagine them, doesn’t warrant the conclusion that they don’t exist. They obviously do. We just have to understand them correctly.."

What Carrier doesn't understand is that Rosenberg's argument doesn't rest on simply asserting that beliefs are different than folk conceptions imagine; his point is that beliefs, as implied by naturalism (which doesn't accept intentionality as an ontological reality), don't have any actual existence, and if it's the case, then a essential epistemological element and property of beliefs (their "aboutness") is eliminated, and therefore beliefs wouldn't exist anymore as beliefs (maybe they would exist as an electro-chemical phenomenon in the brain, or as a physical fact; but not as a belief in the epismetological sense).

As Rosenberg argues explicitly in reply to his critics: "It is of course obvious that introspection strongly suggests that the brain does store information propositionally, and that therefore it has beliefs and desire with “aboutness” or intentionality. A thoroughgoing naturalism must deny this, I allege. If beliefs are anything they are brain states—physical configurations of matter. But one configuration of matter cannot, in virtue just of its structure, composition, location, or causal relation, be “about” another configuration of matter in the way original intentionality requires (because it cant pass the referential opacity test). So, there are no beliefs." (emphasis in blue added)

This simple and easy-to-understand point seems to be beyond Carrier's ability for understanding (or perhaps, beyond his ability to resist cognitive dissonance when evidence or logically consistent philosophical arguments cast doubts on the logical coherence and rationality of his worldview)

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part 1 of this series here.

Part 2 of this series here.

Part 3 of this series here.

Rupert Sheldrake: What if Telepathy Really Happens?

Alan Crossley on the physical mediumship of Helen Duncan and Alec Harris.

Alan Crossley talks about his experiences of materialisation seances with Helen Duncan and Alec Harris.

Intelligent design: Is it viable? Debate bewteen William Lane Craig vs. Francisco Ayala

Intelligent Design: Is It Viable? - Opening Arguments from Campus Crusade for Christ at IU on Vimeo.

Intelligent Design: Is It Viable? - Rebuttal Arguments from Campus Crusade for Christ at IU on Vimeo.

Intelligent Design: Is It Viable? - Closing Arguments from Campus Crusade for Christ at IU on Vimeo.

Intelligent Design: Is It Viable? - Question and Answer Session from Campus Crusade for Christ at IU on Vimeo.