Bill Vanderburgh

Philosopher, photographer, sailor, poker player.
Substack: Philosophy for Good.
Book: David Hume on Miracles, Evidence & Probability.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

You are invited! Learn about how philosophy can help defend democracy.

https://t.co/EzOlOyjser

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@PAHoyeck I don’t need to eat chocolate, but needless to say I like eating it, nearly as much as I like saying, “needless to say.”

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@PAHoyeck This reassures me a bit that my sci fi meter is not broken after all. I couldn’t get through even the first half of it.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@oliverburdick The idea that newer denominations with less tradition or institutional structure and less sophisticated theology are somehow closer to the truth about the divine… is possible, I guess? Isn’t it more likely that a bunch of people just making stuff up are less likely to be right?

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@GodlyAction That’s a silly claim. And one you don’t need to make.

https://t.co/dnvNZfahiw

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@BetOnDrew borealis1601

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@DmitryRybin1 Have you ever played Connections? I don't think anyone could figure out what this is supposed to mean without some context. There are just too many possible interpretations.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@fermatslibrary FWIW Newton didn't "postulate" it, he made precisely agreeing *measurements* that gravity was inverse square using a variety of phenomena--falling bodies, the Moon's orbit, the planets' orbits, Jovian moons, etc. Then he generalized it to all cases via the 4th Rule of Reasoning.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@fermatslibrary What about MOND and its relativistic variants? Gravity isn't inverse square in those theories. If this simplistic explanation were right, you'd think the peer reviewers of MOND papers would have rejected them on those grounds.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@scarchin @jennfrey @DouthatNYT Philosophy majors have the highest average midcareer salaries.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@SidKhurana3607 So, mostly small counties with big universities?

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@PAHoyeck I think most people are using “performative” performatively.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@NathanNobis Something, something, the wisdom of crowds

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@PAHoyeck Me!

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

I hate it when I reach the part of the semester where past me thought it would be no problem for me now to write a new lecture on a topic I hadn’t then read much about but surely by now would have.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@NathanJRobinson @NathanNobis Good! RD is a truly bad reasoner on this topic.

[Nathan J Robinson @NathanJRobinson]

A philosopher utterly wrecks Ross Douthat's terrible arguments for God in his book about why "everyone should be religious": https://t.co/VYPEYJye9q

[Anand Sanwal @asanwal]

Wharton researchers gave nearly 1,000 high school math students access to ChatGPT during practice problems

Result: chatGPT is the perfect trap.

Look at the red bars.

Students with ChatGPT crushed their practice sessions.

The basic ChatGPT group solved more problems and those on the "tutor" version did even more.

Now look at the gray bars. That's the exam.

No AI allowed.

The ChatGPT group scored 17% worse than kids who practiced with zero technology.

And the fancy tutor version?
No better than working alone.

The researchers called AI a "crutch."

When they analyzed what students actually typed into ChatGPT, most of them just wrote - “What’s the answer?”

The kicker: students who used ChatGPT believed it hadn't hurt their learning.

They were confidently wrong.

This is the AI trap in education.

Outsourcing your thinking.

Of course, lots of half-baked AI literacy curricula being rolled out in schools now

Let’s of course ignore that basic literacy (the ability to read) is possible for <50% of 8th graders

Source: Bastani et al. (2025), "Generative AI Can Harm Learning," PNAS

[Stuzi 🐝🐝 @stuzi_pants]

This is the Heritage Foundation who authored Trump’s Project 2025

No women in sport or academia
No votes for American women
No voice in politics or societal issues
Do them dishes and desist basically

153 million women to be disenfranchised by morons

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@DrDavidAEvans @PAHoyeck I suggest reading Hume first: He argues we don’t have access to the info needed to answer metaphysical questions like that, so it is wasting time to try.

[Bill Vanderburgh @VanderburghBill]

@PAHoyeck Hume’s conclusions convince “the wise and learned.” So, if someone is not convinced by Hume, they are neither wise nor learned. Unfortunately, even in our field, there are lots of people who haven’t seen Hume’s light.