New in the Kiosk: Psychology is Not a Science—But Fear Not (2022) by Justin Ykema
In this article, Justin Ykema argues that psychology fails to meet the criteria necessary to qualify as an empirical science. Particularly problematic is how psychology could ever fulfill those criteria centered around the concepts of testability and reproducibility. However, this controversial conclusion should not be taken to imply that psychology has nothing to offer that is worthy of study. On the contrary, Ykema argues, psychology can thrive as a discipline centered on the statistical analysis of the data collected by psychologists, but as more of a mathematical pursuit than a scientific one.
Added the fifty-fifth Freethinker Podcast YouTube third interview with Jason Thibodeau on Biblical Determinism (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web.
Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this over one-hour interview with Cypress College philosophy professor Jason Thibodeau as they deconstruct John Kearney’s defense of Adam’s accountability for the first sin (rather than God’s). Kearney’s defense centers around the idea that although Adam was not born with an ingrained disposition to sin, he nevertheless developed such a disposition when tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. For according to Kearney, God was under no obligation to create creatures for which committing sin was impossible, and indeed it would be better for them to have to earn moral righteousness by being tempted to sin and not succumb to that temptation. Kearney provides little in the way of an actual argument for this claim, and regardless, the interlocutors show that this maneuver would entail that God had actually created Adam with a positive inclination to sin, bringing us back to the question of why in the world a morally perfect God would ever do that. Check out this in-depth analysis of another failed attempt to resolve an irresolvable theological contradiction!