Are we ever going to tire of claiming that science will never solve this or that problem?

Eric Reitan, a professor of philosophy at Oklahoma U, fairly recently penned an article about Sam Harris' comments on Obama's pick of Francis Collons to head the NIH. I was sleepily reading the piece, which essentially pushes the same old tired argument that atheists are just as fundamental as the fundamentalists, but was stirred from my apathetic daze when I got to a section on neurophilosophy's much talked about hard problem as it relates to consciousness. However, I was quite dismayed to discover that even a professor of philosophy doesn't seem capable of keeping his stupid religious beliefs from influencing his depiction of the current state of scientific knowledge. A simple google search netted me his email address and I quickly shot him the following response. We'll see if he responds.


Mr. Reitan,

I was interested to read your article on Sam Harris' statements about Obama's pick for the NIH. I was even more interested upon seeing your discussion of the 'hard problem' as it (tenuously) relates to Mr. Harris' comments. However, I was remarkably disappointed to see such a misleading treatment of the subject of consciousness and neuroscience in your article. One can hardly say that the hard problem "remains entirely unsolved." As a professor of philosophy, I find it hard to believe that you are unaware of the widespread acceptance that the hard problem is not a problem at all, either because it doesn't exist in the first place or because we can already explain the essential subjective features of consciousness with current neuroscientific paradigms that are only likely to improve with time. I understand that you're trying to push a point in a short article, but your treatment of this issue was regrettably unfair and misleading to those who have no background on this issue.

Sincerely,

Dan Eisenhauer