A fine choice for the House Committee for Science, Space, and Technology

[Goofball]

You have to be crapping me. Not only does this mental-case have such overwhelming voter support in his riding that the dems don't even bother fielding a candidate in opposition, but he manages to get himself appointed to a committee that he believes represents nothing but Satan's lies. What the hell is happening, Americans?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...l-8202896.html

[Vladimir]

You have to be crapping me. Not only does this mental-case have such overwhelming voter support in his riding that the dems don't even bother fielding a candidate in opposition, but he manages to get himself appointed to a committee that he believes represents nothing but Satan's lies. What the hell is happening, Americans?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...l-8202896.html

Meh. Show me a country without crazy politicians, or worse, soulless ones who pander to their constituency.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I don't even understand why there is a Committee for science, space and technology when the majority of politicians are lawyers who have no idea what the experts tell them. If they don't already shut themselves in their bible to begin with.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

In my experience the people who really care about religious non-evolutionists etc are those who don't realize how dumb most "pro-science" politicians are. Between "skeptic" and credulous/utopian I'll take "skeptic".

[Strike For The South]

In my experience the people who really care about religious non-evolutionists etc are those who don't realize how dumb most "pro-science" politicians are. Between "skeptic" and credulous/utopian I'll take "skeptic".

See: New Atheism

I am a big fan of Goulds NOMA, even if I am irreligious. People who tend to use science as the be all end all are generally 20 year old white suburbanites who use the words science and belief interchangeably/

[Sasaki Kojiro]

See: New Atheism

I am a big fan of Goulds NOMA, even if I am irreligious. People who tend to use science as the be all end all are generally 20 year old white suburbanites who use the words science and belief interchangeably/

Or worse

[Goofball]

In my experience the people who really care about religious non-evolutionists etc are those who don't realize how dumb most "pro-science" politicians are. Between "skeptic" and credulous/utopian I'll take "skeptic".

I find it amusing that you call a guy who, when it comes to explaining the mysteries of the cosmos, has chosen to wholeheartedly believe in a bunch of stories written by guys who would have had heart attacks if they had ever seen an electric train set a "skeptic."

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I find it amusing that you call a guy who, when it comes to explaining the mysteries of the cosmos, has chosen to wholeheartedly believe in a bunch of stories written by guys who would have had heart attacks if they had ever seen an electric train set a "skeptic."

I didn't call him a skeptic.

[a completely inoffensive name]

In my experience the people who really care about religious non-evolutionists etc are those who don't realize how dumb most "pro-science" politicians are. Between "skeptic" and credulous/utopian I'll take "skeptic".

Which is why I don't understand why there is a committee at all. Politicians with a background in law in general shouldn't be making decisions about science and engineering.

[Kralizec]

In my experience the people who really care about religious non-evolutionists etc are those who don't realize how dumb most "pro-science" politicians are. Between "skeptic" and credulous/utopian I'll take "skeptic".

If it were a non-science post, I would prefer a politician who is smart and denies evolution over a dumb politician who toes the line.

This guy occupies a science related post and speaks at an event with (presumably) a large amount of people where he denounces the prevailing scientific view as "lies from hell". Big surprise, it leaks to the public. From the looks of it he's an idiot, so he's doubly handicapped for his position.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

If it were a non-science post, I would prefer a politician who is smart and denies evolution over a dumb politician who toes the line.

This guy occupies a science related post and speaks at an event with (presumably) a large amount of people where he denounces the prevailing scientific view as "lies from hell". Big surprise, it leaks to the public. From the looks of it he's an idiot, so he's doubly handicapped for his position.

Obviously we'd all prefer smart politicians but we have to work with humanity here. What kind of politicians would be good at this post? Who knows. But I think the worst are the credulous ones who are overly pro-science. Creationists are mostly harmless. They would only be terrible if they were holding us back from these amazing scientific breakthroughs we could be making if only we funded such and such that would change the world, or something utopian like that. Scientists have been pulling the wool over the eyes of other people to get funding and support for ages.

It's a mistake to think that believing in evolution makes a politician significantly more competent at judging science stuff than this guy is. There are many ways in which people are dumb about science that have nothing to do with religion.

[Furunculus]

In my experience the people who really care about religious non-evolutionists etc are those who don't realize how dumb most "pro-science" politicians are. Between "skeptic" and credulous/utopian I'll take "skeptic".

I am a big fan of Goulds NOMA, even if I am irreligious. People who tend to use science as the be all end all are generally 20 year old white suburbanites who use the words science and belief interchangeably/

100% brothers!

[rvg]

What the hell is happening, Americans?

It's Georgia. That's one mitigating circumstance. If a congressman from say, New Hampshire publicly said something like that, he's probably lose the re-election. People in the South have a much higher tolerance for nonsense compared to us yankees.

[a completely inoffensive name]

So you are basically saying that for many pro-science individuals, aggregate data has become their god, and the new commandments are whatever interpretation they can find of the data that makes them feel comfortable. And this is dangerous because data and science in general has an authority that religion no longer holds in modern society. People think it is obvious that there is no true reading of the bible, only competing opinions but mathematical tools are somehow impartial and foolproof in showing us the truth. Thus the pro-science people are more dangerous?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Chronology is complex. History is about simplifying chronology into a comprehensible narrative. I notice you picked a very simplistic and discredited narrative, anyway.

Believed for many years, still widespread, still argued for by some people. Simplistic narratives can be discredited but not replaced by a good narrative.

Anyway, history is about much more than even the attempts at creating a comprehensible narrative.

Then it is simply prejudice against science which you proselytize. Religion in America very clearly has an ideological upper hand.

Disagree.

For how much longer?

Perhaps you relate to the moral conclusions of the greats, I don't know. I think that's silly, but we'll leave it aside. How can you see their non-moral philosophy, on the other hand, as having any worth at all? At least, I hope you don't.

Most of non moral philosophy never had any worth to begin with.

Some things like parts of political philosophy change with time because we have a different situation now then we did then.

This is crucial. It is impossible to misuse religion; it is possible to misuse a particular fixed doctrine, but religion is whatever one wants it to be.

No it isn't...

But you aren't referring to the misuse of science - you are referring to the derivation of inappropriate - as you see it - conclusions from scientific data.

Not really. It's about considering things as scientific data that aren't as well, and about whole areas where science shouldn't be considered relevant.

The whole concept of science vs religion is bizarre in that regard--the implication that science is more than a minor method that is mostly about being useful.

You don't believe your moral compass is rational and logically coherent or consistent? I've never heard that one before. Unusual. Does that explain your strange beliefs?

eh...your moral beliefs are rational and consistent? That's not good.

You would have to simplify, distort, twist, overreach, and place too much stock in principles for that to be the case. And how do you decide on the premises you take as true anyway?

They presumably try to investigate particular aspects of the courtship ritual. What's wrong with that? Ethology can be applied to humans just as well as to chimps...

Yes...yes indeed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbrGgiJCt5c

[Montmorency]

No it isn't...

I'll clarify: I mentioned doctrine, which is basically most organized religion. It can be misused in both senses of the word: misapplied and mispurposed. Science - the scientific method - can be both misapplied and mispurposed as well. Personal religion, or spirituality, however, can not be misapplied - it is too nebulous and idiosyncratic.

Not really. It's about considering things as scientific data that aren't as well, and about whole areas where science shouldn't be considered relevant.

The whole concept of science vs religion is bizarre in that regard--the implication that science is more than a minor method that is mostly about being useful.

Why should religion be granted more prestige or authority?

I find it strange that you so easily ignore all the great ethical dilemmas generated by the fruits of science.

eh...your moral beliefs are rational and consistent? That's not good.

Your moral beliefs are not consistent? They seem consistent to me. You seem to be applying rational principles, or what is usually deemed rational: "This is harmful, so I should attempt to mitigate its expression."

I think you have everything backwards from the usual manner.

too much stock in principles for that to be the case.

'Presidential debates are not about facts, they're about principles'. You evidently hold many principles. What are you on about?

You would have to simplify, distort, twist, overreach

Can you give an example?

And how do you decide on the premises you take as true anyway?

How do you? You're the biggest moralist in the forum!

[Sasaki Kojiro]

That's a nice one. Science and logic are not anywhere close to replace the real thing, but it'll help to filter out wich one of the tips you picked up from media, family and friends that's actually useful (and that's not counting that those tips are science in a broader way, since it's data gatering). There's thousands of situations that you might experience or not, where science can be a helpful starting point. There's also many situations were you'll have to pick the girl without dating them first, so to speak. How does Sasaki do it then?

Science is good because it helps you filter out all the bad science? That's an argument for understanding science and statistics and how psychological studies are done, sure. But not an argument in favor of the studies themselves.

Because coming up with the idea 200 years ago, that a 2000-year old book should be taken as the literal truth (except when it doesn't), sounds reasonable? And the main difference is yet this: According to the principles of science, the college kid is doing it wrong if he's taking the latest scientific study as gospel. According to the principles of "science" based from fundamentalism, the college kid is doing it perfectly correct if he's taking creationism as gospel.

This is great for, say, chemistry. But if you are going the "big questions", it is no longer significant praise of the principles of science to say that according to them the college kid is doing it wrong if he's taking the latest study as gospel. Because in that case, according to the principles of science, we should limit our beliefs in accordance with the scientific evidence--and therefore, if we lack scientific evidence that something is good or bad we should not venture too far in saying it is. This mindset often leads straight to naturalism--"people naturally do x, so what we say about it is that it's not really bad".

In other words, the only reason the principles of science are so inherently undogmatic is because science should rightfully be limited to a small area.

Needless to say, scientists and religious people have similar attitudes towards people who accept as gospel certain moral principles that they think are true and important.

Anyway:
Tradition: ...Right, the big questions, we solved those ages ago, the answer was... Look a big wizard in the sky! "Runs away."
Religion: We've been thinking about this a lot and the answer is... The big wizard in the sky did it, using diamonds!
Science: The big wizard in the sky holds all the answers? Amazing! Do we have any real, useful data on him? No? Booring! Wake me up when you do.
Scientists: It would be really cool to know all the answers that the big wizard in the sky is supposed to know. Let's try! Even if we fail we might learn something.
"Moral" philosopher: The big wizard doesn't exist so we can make up what we want.
Moral philosopher: Let's try to generalize the best ideas the big wizard is supposed to have, mix it and see if we can get a better standard.

???

I think it's really hard to summarize these things and not be goofy but can't we do better than that?

Tradition: old people have had more time on this earth, they have seen and experienced more...I remember being dumb when I was younger, I know better about stuff now, I expect to mature as I get older, so I expect some old people to be smarter than me...things that generation after generation have supported have some truth in them

Religion: I feel this strongly by intuition, I had an epiphany, the world is a beautiful place/the sun god will kill us all oh ****, I feel physical disgust when people are dishonest/eat random innocuous foods sometimes even though no harm comes to it, some people are more like animals and that's bad, some people seem somehow pure and more divine, we should emulate them and respect them/build giant statues made of gold in their honor

Scientists: this herb does seem to help cure this disease, but there is nothing in it that has that effect, it is peoples belief in the herb that cures them. Therefore irrational beliefs can be good. But perhaps if we experiment with other herbs we will find one that works better

Good moral philosopher: After much experience of life and thinking and learning from others I have come to understand some things, which I will try to express in a way that will hopefully be helpful to others, perhaps by writing them down in the form of letters to my nephew

Rationalist moral philosopher: When asked whether they would divert a trolley that was on track to kill 5 people on to a track that would only kill one person, most people said that they would divert the trolley, thus showing that they have at least some support for utilitarianism. However, they refuse to consider chucking a fat guy in front of the trolley to divert it. The masses (unlike we moral philosophers) are inconsistent and confused in their moral thinking

"Continental" moral philosopher: This other philosophy is too boring, I don't want to be a boring person, so I will express things in an exciting way with lots of flourishes and work real hard to make it kind of obscure so that people can't figure out exactly what I'm saying and then see how wacky it is

There are no clear answers on the big questions, that's part of why they're big. And any tool is flawed. But more information is always helpful and in sometimes it can even give an almost full answer

Sometimes in psychology the randomly select a group of people and do something experimental and analyze the results.

Other times they do case studies and just try to understand people...similar to how we do things in our regular lives. If you don't respect the first, but respect the second which you still think of as science then we don't disagree in this regard...

I'll clarify: I mentioned doctrine, which is basically most organized religion. It can be misused in both senses of the word: misapplied and mispurposed. Science - the scientific method - can be both misapplied and mispurposed as well. Personal religion, or spirituality, however, can not be misapplied - it is too nebulous and idiosyncratic.

Ok, I agree, and I think I talked about this in my 2nd bit above to ironside.

But I also think that people have personal religions that we can see will not lost given other realities about the world and their personality.

Why should religion be granted more prestige or authority?

It shouldn't. But we should understand that we cannot take passion and emotion out of our thinking about moral questions. When we understand that, religion is changed from something to be scorned to something that is interesting.

I find it strange that you so easily ignore all the great ethical dilemmas generated by the fruits of science.

I said that some new philosophy is needed as the world changes. But I'm curious what you mean here. Gattaca type stuff?

Your moral beliefs are not consistent? They seem consistent to me. You seem to be applying rational principles, or what is usually deemed rational: "This is harmful, so I should attempt to mitigate its expression."

They aren't consistent.

This is like saying my social beliefs are consistent because I generally interact with people the same way and thinking I must be applying rational principles therefore. But if I actually tried to state any rational social principles I had I would come up with something that wasn't true or that was trivially true.

I think you have everything backwards from the usual manner.

backwards is forwards as we would know if we didn't bow down before the dogmatic authority of linguists

'Presidential debates are not about facts, they're about principles'. You evidently hold many principles. What are you on about?

Well, let's say Mitt Romney has a principle that "america shouldn't apologize for her values". The debate would be about that more than about specifics. But my pointing that out doesn't mean I have much respect for taking that principle as a starting point.

I don't object entirely to attempts to take a stab at explaining something by stating a principle. But principles are usually considered to be more than that-- "I'm a principled person" etc.

Can you give an example?

Lying and honesty...but I'm not sure what to say if you can't see how complicated moral judgments are in that regard. What's the definition of lying? Many people disagree. How do you judge how bad it is that someone said something untrue? There's a lot going on.

Philosophical debates on the subject are usually either simplistic and wrong or absurdly laborious.

How do you? You're the biggest moralist in the forum!

I don't decide on premises. I'm influenced by what I see, read, hear, etc and my thoughts about it and my attempts to express it. Then when I come into contact with a situation I react to it in a way that relates to my previous experiences/thoughts/feelings. So does everyone by the way, it's just that some people have intuitions but also notice that the situation matches up to a principle they heard of, and go by that principle.

Which is not necessarily bad--in fact the real point of having cut and dry moral principles like that is to counter weakness and vice that will otherwise have much more wriggle room. But that's another issue.

If I'm the biggest moralist it's because I treat a disgusted reaction I have to something as morally significant, and say something, instead of asking myself whether "the harm principle" is involved or whatever...


****************

Anyway, going back the OP and the different reactions people have to creationists.

Let's say that you were someone who believed in a fairly moderate view of abortion. First trimester, or something. And it was clear to you that there was no way that first trimester abortion was going to be made illegal in your country. But, there was a strong movement in favor of "until birth", and the arguments and mindset of the people arguing for it gave you no reason to believe that these people wouldn't extend their support to infanticide. And lets say these people often avoided making a decent and comprehensive case for their own belief and mocked the position of the "life begins at conception" religious believers instead. Wouldn't you be put off by them doing that?

That doesn't describe me in the case of abortion, but you understand if its expanded to a general disagreement, yes?

[Montmorency]

backwards is forwards as we would know if we didn't bow down before the dogmatic authority of linguists

Pass the bong, Jimmy.

Gattaca type stuff?

Think back to the neuroscience crypticism. I believe we covered Gattaca in another thread.

as the world changes

Evolution, auto-evolution, etc. It's not just the world that is changing.

They aren't consistent.

This is like saying my social beliefs are consistent because I generally interact with people the same way and thinking I must be applying rational principles therefore. But if I actually tried to state any rational social principles I had I would come up with something that wasn't true or that was trivially true.

I don't decide on premises. I'm influenced by what I see, read, hear, etc and my thoughts about it and my attempts to express it. Then when I come into contact with a situation I react to it in a way that relates to my previous experiences/thoughts/feelings. So does everyone by the way, it's just that some people have intuitions but also notice that the situation matches up to a principle they heard of, and go by that principle.

Well, that technically is a principle. Not a moral principle, perhaps, but a behavioral one. It's certainly a broadly consistent behavioral pattern.

But, there was a strong movement in favor of "until birth", and the arguments and mindset of the people arguing for it gave you no reason to believe that these people wouldn't extend their support to infanticide. And lets say these people often avoided making a decent and comprehensive case for their own belief and mocked the position of the "life begins at conception" religious believers instead. Wouldn't you be put off by them doing that?

The opposite is fairly common. But the "extend their support to infanticide" bit is redundant, as 3rd-trimester abortion would already be infanticide to such an individual.

[Ironside]

Science is good because it helps you filter out all the bad science? That's an argument for understanding science and statistics and how psychological studies are done, sure. But not an argument in favor of the studies themselves.

Nah, alternatives are making theories by yourself (hardwired popular, but leads often wrong), go only on your own experience (insufficient), or going by "common sense", which can be summarized as all the experience you've picked up. So it's usually the best by those options, but since you have media with its false data and insufficient data from friends and family, you'll need something more as well.

Ever done a good psychology test (there's planty of bad ones though)? It'll go something like this on the points: Lol totally wrong. Wrong, but I can see how you got there. Correctish. So true. Man, I would never have come up with it, but everyone agrees it's an excellent fit, including me in retrospect. The last part is really hard to get otherwise.

This is great for, say, chemistry. But if you are going the "big questions", it is no longer significant praise of the principles of science to say that according to them the college kid is doing it wrong if he's taking the latest study as gospel. Because in that case, according to the principles of science, we should limit our beliefs in accordance with the scientific evidence--and therefore, if we lack scientific evidence that something is good or bad we should not venture too far in saying it is. This mindset often leads straight to naturalism--"people naturally do x, so what we say about it is that it's not really bad".

In other words, the only reason the principles of science are so inherently undogmatic is because science should rightfully be limited to a small area.

Needless to say, scientists and religious people have similar attitudes towards people who accept as gospel certain moral principles that they think are true and important.

You're not familiar with advanced chemistry and biochemistry I take it? Those got areas worse than social science when it comes to vagueness. Statistics are the only thing that works, maybe.

I'm going to put it this way. Have some of the big questions changed because of science? Yes, well rather thanks of the knowledge gathered by science. If that's the case, what does rejecting science tells us?

???

I think it's really hard to summarize these things and not be goofy but can't we do better than that?

It was probably a bit missed when I went on with the goofy list, but the original point was that traditions don't really have an answer to the big questions, they rather fumbled together something and since it's traditions, that's how it works.

Religion are dealing with the big questions, but often falls back to that the gods did it. And since the gods did it according to my interpretation, I'm really right on the matter.

So no method is really equiped for it, partially because some depends on your values and people will have different values.
Will that authority searching person change with any system? No, so why bother picking him up as science is bad? He would be as bad in the other systems as well.

Sometimes in psychology the randomly select a group of people and do something experimental and analyze the results.

Other times they do case studies and just try to understand people...similar to how we do things in our regular lives. If you don't respect the first, but respect the second which you still think of as science then we don't disagree in this regard...

Both are useful. The first is good for extreme situations and to understand single or a few factors, the second one provides interactions and context. Take neurology for example, without shutting down braincenters, you'll never understand how they work and are linked together, yet on a normal person they're all (somewhat) functional. This have a massive influence in understanding human psychology.

Let's say that you were someone who believed in a fairly moderate view of abortion. First trimester, or something. And it was clear to you that there was no way that first trimester abortion was going to be made illegal in your country. But, there was a strong movement in favor of "until birth", and the arguments and mindset of the people arguing for it gave you no reason to believe that these people wouldn't extend their support to infanticide. And lets say these people often avoided making a decent and comprehensive case for their own belief and mocked the position of the "life begins at conception" religious believers instead. Wouldn't you be put off by them doing that?

In your example, you're allying yourself with the "abortion after conception is murder and deserves the death penalty"-crowd. Pick your battles.

Pape, while I agree that literacy and communication certainly have helped, it's a multitude of factors behind the lesser violence.