19AR24-32

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AR 24:32 - How "evolution hid the truth from our eyes"

In this issue:

ABORTION - 'put up or shut up' dare, backfires

GENDER - a logical fallacy at its core

ISLAM - western protest strategy beguiles Shia opponents of Saudi-controlled Hajj pilgrimage

PHILOSOPHY - just when we thought "it" was real

Apologia Report 24:32 (1,440)

August 8, 2019

ABORTION

"Author Asks Pro-Lifers what They've Done to Help Lower Income Single Mothers, Gets Flood of Remarkable Answers" by James Barrett (DailyWire, May 16 '19) -- this came about when pro-life opponents of Alabama's "heartbeat bill" where challenged to explain "what have you *personally* done to support lower income single mothers?"

The excerpts suggest to us that Bible believers may be more likely to behave consistently with what they claim is true than their critics. <www.bit.ly/2OtYMzu>

(Special thanks to Alan Scholes for bringing this issue's DailyWire items to our attention.)

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GENDER

"The Simple Preschool-Level Question that No Leftist Can Answer" by DailyWire (May 16 '19) spokesman Matt Walsh -- responds to the discovery that asking "What is a woman?" puts the politically correct camp on notice.

Walsh begins by pointing out the historical importance of a woman's identity to the Left - from women's rights to the priority of electing a female president: "They also say that biological males can be women. They say transwomen are women. They say that someone can start out life as a male and transition into a woman. They make many other claims in this vein.

"But how can I understand any of these claims and declarations if I do not know what they mean by the word woman? And how can they make any meaningful statements about women if they themselves do not know what they mean by it?"

Walsh agrees with your dictionary "that woman means 'an adult female person.' I agree not only with the dictionary but with the whole history of human civilization, which, collectively, has always understood woman in this way."

However, now that the Left has rejected biology as a criteria for gender distinction, they are stuck. "It does not seem possible to formulate a definition of woman that eschews biology while still allowing women to be an objective, unique, and discernible category." (Be careful what you wish for.) <www.bit.ly/2JZzWDk>

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ISLAM

"Mohammed bin Salman Is Making Muslims Boycott Mecca: The Saudi crown prince's regional aggression and disdain for human rights have prompted religious scholars and pious pilgrims to refuse to go on the hajj" by Ahmed Twaij -- at the core of this conflict: "The rising death toll of civilians killed by Saudi bombs in Yemen, the horrific slaughter of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, and Riyadh's aggressive approach to the Iran crisis have led some of Saudi Arabia's Sunni allies to reconsider their unwavering support for the kingdom." Foreign Policy, Jul 2 '19 <www.bit.ly/2Oq1NAY>

Via the GetReligion blog (Jul 11 '19), Richard Ostling calls attention to this "nearly unimaginable break with [Shia] tradition" and the "anti-Saudi analysis" by Twaij. Ostling also notes the growing crowd control issues invoking the two-million-plus Hajj participants. <www.bit.ly/2ZoZeQQ>

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PHILOSOPHY

The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes, by Donald D. Hoffman <www.bit.ly/2ZMoQY4> [1] -- the publisher says this book challenges "leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality." Further, "cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. ... The real-world implications for this discovery are huge. From examining why fashion designers create clothes that give the illusion of a more 'attractive' body shape to studying how companies use color to elicit specific emotions in consumers, and even dismantling the very notion that spacetime is objective reality."

Publishers Weekly (May 27 '19) isn't so sure. "Hoffman, a UC-Irvine cognitive science professor, devotes his intriguing but overreaching treatise to unveiling a series of interconnected, provocative hypotheses about how humans perceive the world around them. His argument rests on his Fitness-Beats-Truth (FBT) Theorem, which states that natural selection has shaped the perceptive capabilities of organisms to discern aspects of the environment that positively impact fitness: the ability to survive and reproduce. FBT, unlike previous ideas about the relation between perception and evolution, asserts that perception solely maximizes fitness, not truth. Hoffman recognizes FBT 'is counterintuitive. How can my perceptions be useful if they aren't true?' He attempts to reconcile this conundrum with the Interface Theory of Perception (ITP): organisms interact with their environment the same way humans do with computer screens through icons that are helpful but mask the computer's inner workings. Hoffman proposes the concept of conscious realism, which 'denies that physical objects exist when unperceived,' and asserts that conscious agents create the universe simply via their perceptions. If this sounds confusing, it's because it is. Hoffman also dips into his own research on visual perception to describe how humans are fooled by optical illusions. His ideas are complex and fascinating, but if they're to be fully understood, they deserve more space than he's accorded them in this disappointing study."

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes, Donald D. Hoffman (Norton & Co, 2019, hardcover, 272 pages) <www.amzn.to/2Gz2TUI>

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