psychology - A Tippling Philosopher (Page 5)

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psychology

A collection of 116 posts

Instinctive thinkers more likely to believe in a personal god – and less likely to be atheists

Tomas Rees runs a really interesting blog called [epiphenom] the science of belief and non-belief. Well worth visiting. This article reminded me of an earlier article of mine linking autistic people with a lack of belief. If you are an instinctive thinker, it seems, you are more likely to believe i

Dr Caleb Lack's books available on my imprint!

If you are interested in psychology, then you might be interested in getting hold of a couple of introductory texts by fellow SINner Dr Caleb Lack (Great Plains Skeptic) who has written: Mood Disorders: An Introduction and Anxiety Disorders: An Introduction Please help support us here at SIN by clicking

Philosophy, nationalism, in-group / out-group and the British Lions rugby team....

The longer I have been pursuing philosophy, the more liberal I have become and the less nationalistic. By this i/ mean that I have recognised that my nationality if a mixture of several components over which I have no control:

Sun, music and hysterical euphoria - Glastonbury replaces the 'Alleluia!' feeling

The best music festival in the world, Glastonbury, is on and the sun is shining. The BBC are showing highlights, and their website is well geared to showing the best of what the festival has to offer. Perhaps overseas viewers may not be able to see it due to licensing laws, I don't know.

Political Libertarianism, Science Denialism, Philosophy and the likes of James Delingpole

I am going to look at political libertarianism in this post in the context of morality, ethics and philosophy. This has been brought on by the Any Questions live radio programme on BBC Radio 4 the other day from the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, Wales which featured right-wing Co

Islamic 'inspired' stabbing; government approves 25 faith schools; exclusivist policies abound

So a British soldier was stabbed to death in public, the atrocity being caught and shared on social media. They stayed around to be arrested, not afraid of the consequences, and this is the scary thing. Now there is a widespread Muslim backlash. To make matters worse, the government has admitted tha

The problem with when you are born - age standardisation

I researched about this for my first book, Free Will? As a teacher I am acutely aware of this, but it seems like nothing is ever done. However, the stats have consistently supported the fact that there is a problem with achievement and self-confidence. Let me explain. In the Uk, for example, chil

Muslims, Christians and No True Scotsmen

The No True Scotsman fallacy is a well-used fallacy in debates about religion with religionists. As wiki defines: No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim, rather than denying the counter

cognitive biases

A Tippling Philosopher Interviews Dr Caleb Lack

So Dr Caleb Lack, a fellow SINner, and I had a chat a few weeks back. It is due to go out as a Skepticule Extra podcast, but since there have been a few delays, I am putting it out here first. It was a really enjoyable chat / interview, covering cognitive biases, atheism and god. We had a great time

Demographics of Religion

Intelligence and Religiosity Explored

My fellow SINner, blogger and clinical psychologist, Dr Caleb Lack of the Great Plains Skeptic blog has been producing a series analysing data and theories concerning correlations between intelligence and religiosity in people. There have been a number of studies, and many people have highlighted an

New Studies Link Gene to Selfish Behavior in Kids, Find Other Children Natural Givers

Can't believe I missed this one. Interesting, and something I will bring up in my talk tonight on free will at Southampton University to the Atheist Society. Research into prosocial (kind) behaviour is always interesting, and something I have documented here, here and here. there is a mix of genetic

Philosophical Argument Against God

Autism and belief - autistic people are less likely to believe in God, again (and the mentalizing deficits in men, too)

Recently, I wrote a post which concluded that God was unfair due to not having a level playing field with regard to people having the same access to his love by point of fact that autistic people are less likely to be able to believe in a personal God, as well as men, compared to women, and so on.

cognitive dissonance

Paedophilia and Cognitive Dissonance

In the UK at the moment there is a scandal rocking the entertainment and broadcasting industry. It actually started several years back when glam rock star Gary Glitter was found with child pornography in the 90s and was found guilty in Vietnam in 2006 for obscene acts with minors.

Evolutionary Psychology, Clint, Watson, PZ Myers and going about things properly

I am writing this piece in response to a recent exchange that has come to involve a growing number of people in some particular corners of the blogosphere. Most of you who will be reading this will not need me to go into great detail as you will probably have already read the exchanges. This is how,

Why do normal people believe ridiculous things?

cognitive dissonance

Why do normal people believe ridiculous things?

Why, indeed, do normal people believe ridiculous things? We have heard much from John Loftus about the OTF – the Outsider Test for Faith – which essentially illustrates that religion is a (geographical) accident of birth. It claims that if believers used the same critical powers they use to assess,

Free Will Is Un-Natural

As you've probably guessed, I am interested in all things free will. Recently, I was reading a chapter from "Are We Free?" entitled Free Will Is Un-Natural by John A. Bargh. Bargh sets out the obvious issues: The psychological issue of whether free will exists thus