I would like to know why, after rigorous scientific training in objective observation and reflection, some scientists are very resistant to laying down their preconceptions. One area which springs to mind is the breath-taking complexity of life on earth. This points so clearly to a creator of some kind (hence the ID debate), yet many scientists dismiss this possibility a priori, regarding it as a childish myth. Why this unwillingness to be truly 'scientific' and examine the facts from several possible points of view, rather than one rather dogmatic one?

Dear Philosophers, Can suicide be seen as pointless if in fact there is no afterlife/conciousness after death? If one ends one's life due to excrutiating pain, would it not be better to "live" with the pain than to not live at all? It seems paradoxical that if one commits suicide to escape something that one's death would not end anything because one cannot "reap the benefits" of no longer living. So would it not be greater to live poorly than to have not lived at all?

Is it logical to believe that a proof of God's existence or some other sort of "intelligent protector" is the fact that our society exists, in spite of the ever increasing possibility that it very well should have been destroyed due to galactic tragedies such as supernovas exploding near us or gamma rays? Over the billions of years in which we have been evolving, probability says that we should have been destroyed many times.

Why is it that even a three-year-old child knows the answer to some major philosophical questions while philosophers sometimes spend their whole lives searching for an answer?

This may be a silly question displaying only my ignorance on the subject. My question has to do with point-particles and spatiality. Physicists say that point particles have causal powers, i.e. photons striking someone’s eyes at certain wavelengths cause them to see. Perhaps photons are only contributory causes to one’s seeing. Physicists also say point particles are objects that are both concrete and physical. That is, they can be located in space which entails they are spatial objects too. However, by definition a point-particle lacks width, length, and depth, the three spatial dimensions. My question is how can this be? Is this a conceptual incoherence, or am I missing something? Does spatiality entail physicality or conversely, does physicality entail spatiality? Alternatively, is it that these two concepts have no intimate connection? Please explain. Thanks.

Ethics: I write people's life stories for a living. I've been working with a man for two years, great guy, 78, who wanted to add a joke section to his book. My books are not commercially published, just for families. I was enthusiastic until he started telling the jokes, many of which are racist and one includes the N word in the punchline. I once told him that I was having trouble with some of his jokes, saying, "Let's just say I was raised by two civil rights activists." He said, "You have to be professional about it. This is my story, not yours." That's true. Very true. But typically my name goes on the book under the title, "as told to____" One option is to leave my name off. This is my livelihood, I'm a single parent and he's a big client, so I have to think this over carefully. Very very difficult for me to think of typing those jokes but I don't want to sell out my own values. On the other hand, I'm not going to change him, don't want to change him--I'm the witness of his life, not the judge. The...

Why is it that there is often so much discussion in regard to what a particular philosopher meant to say (as opposed to the strength of his argument)? It seems unsurprising and yet kind of strange that we could be so unclear as to what philosophers' arguments are. People seem to find ample disagreement in their interpretation of even such philosophers as Hume who are widely regarded as extremely capable writers. I don't get it! This is not literature or fiction -- presumably most philosophers aren't interested in sowing ambiguity or couching their arguments in metaphors, so why the confusion?

Does racism need to be legitimately harmful in order to be considered morally objectionable? Suppose that black men incite an admittedly irrational fear in me, so that whenever I see a black man in public I cross the street -- should I feel compelled to correct this phobia? Or how about this: I find black men unattractive, so I don't date them.

Do the panel members believe that a student should be "talented" or in some way unique in order to seriously consider a career in philosophy? Philosophy graduate programs seem insanely exclusive, nevermind the less-than-scintillating job prospects which await after graduation; professional schools are difficult in their own way too, of course, and yet sometimes I get the impression that, whereas a "mediocre" doctor or lawyer will almost certainly find work, a "mediocre" philosopher will almost certainly be homeless. Would you ever counsel an undergraduate NOT to pursue her interest in philosophy, despite an ardent passion for the stuff?

In my country, and for at least dozens of years, many people evade taxes, especially in some professional groups. Tax evasion is recognized as a common behavior, even if accepted only in private (or at least not too public) conversations. There are some rough calculations about how big tax evasion is. This has had many consequences: a) Tax rates are a bit higher than they would be if there were no evasion; b) Unions agree on salaries knowing that their members will have to pay for these hight tax rates or, on the contrary, that they will be able to evade taxes; c) Professionals charge for their services knowing that they will be able to evade taxes; d) Some professionals and corporations evade taxes because, if they wouldn't, they wouldn't be able to compete with low prices; e) People who do not evade taxes, although they could, know that many other people do, and they do not evade either because they think that is the right thing to do, or because they are affraid that they are caught. Do you think...