…and this is a 
Sam Harris seems to have triggered some kind of reflex, because there is discussion going on all over the place.
Jerry Coyne has a long piece up that chews over that awful talk Collins gave at Berkeley. He has the full recording of the whole talk — it was titled "The Language of God: Intellectual Reflections of a Christian Geneticist", and I'm pretty sure the fifth word slipped in there entirely by mistake — and it is a genuinely appalling load of rubbish. It's two hours long, but I could only make it through the first half hour before having to give up. I thought I had a strong stomach from years of wading through the creationist literature, but I guess I have limits.
I ran away in exasperation at the point where he starts babbling about the fine-tuning argument, claiming that there are only two possible choices: either there is a multiverse with an infinite number of possibilities to explore, or the cosmic constants were chosen by his god. What about chance? There's nothing impossible about the fact that our universe was the product of a chance event: after all, I am the product of a chance event, a randomized mixture of the genes of two people equally the product of chance. You can't simply rule out the importance of chance events in the history of individuals or the universe, but Collins does. And what about necessity? It may be that a universe can only exist if it possesses an interlocked set of constants…that, in fact, all the parameters of the universe are co-contingent and co-dependent.
Anyway, I've read his book, but I hadn't experienced the full force of his looniness until I'd seen that presentation. The man is a flaming idjit.
US New and World Report weighs in, too, and asks a couple of reasonable questions that I have to answer in the negative.
But isn't it possible that Collins's faith might be valuable for NIH beyond its PR power?
From spending some time with him, it appears that Collins's scientific curiosity is at least partially motivated by a faith-based desire to understand what he believes is God's universe. Isn't that a net positive, given that it helped him lead the team that decoded the human genome?
And might not his faith lend guidance on inevitable questions he'll face around scientific ethics? Don't those ethics have to be rooted in some moral or religious system that transcends pure science?
Curiosity is a fine thing and I have to encourage any wellspring for it. However, the defining feature of Collins' faith, and that part of it that makes it objectionable, is that he uses it to wall off parts of the human world from curiosity. The human genome project was a technological exercise, a sustained, disciplined effort to apply developing tools to a specific, narrow problem. It opens up new avenues for science, but in itself was not a demonstration of scientific competence. His administrative ability led the work to a conclusion, not his scientific skill set.
And what has he done with it afterwards? Declared the genome a divine artifact, decreed that certain domains, such as human behavior and morality, are exempt from scientific scrutiny, and proposed a succession of freakish Christian dogmas as substitutes for reasoned analysis. At this point, where the real science takes over, his faith only gets in the way.
And please, don't ever equate faith with ethics. They have nothing to do with each other, except, perhaps, that faith is a commonly used escape clause to get away from the requirements of human morality. Science itself is a tool, as amoral as a hammer, and it certainly can be misused, but don't go crawling to the priests for guidance. Let's hear from philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and lawyers long, long before we consult with theologians—I can't imagine a worse fate for scientific ethics than for it to fall under the sway of a dogmatic Christian.
Russell Blackford takes a pragmatic approach: we're stuck with Collins, there isn't much we can do to oppose his appointment, and we can't even make the argument that he's a crummy bureaucrat — he'll do a competent job in the office. I agree completely. There really are no plans for the godless horde to march on Washington, there will be no effigies burnt, we aren't going to even throw rotten tomatoes at the NIH building. We will sigh and go on.
However, we will continue to make quiet complaint, and we will be scrutinizing his actions carefully.
The situation is this: the White House has picked for high office a well-known scientist with a good track record in management who wears clown shoes. Worse, this scientist likes to stroll about with his clown shoes going squeak-squeak-squeak, pointing them out to everyone, and bragging about how red and shiny and gosh-darned big his shoes are, and tut-tutting at the apparent lack of fine fashion sense exhibited by his peers who wear rather less flamboyant footwear.
I would rather Obama had appointed someone who wore practical shoes, and didn't make much of a fuss about them, anyway. And excuse me, but I don't want American science to be represented by a clown.
Politics
Comments
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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July 27, 2009 12:24 PM
Cross-posted from Coyne's blog:
Posted by: Travis | July 27, 2009 12:25 PM
And I was so happy after he appointed Steven Chu. I do agree with Blackford, we have to be pragmatic, but of course being pragmatic and accepting he has been picked does not stop anyone from complaining and being a critic.
It will be interesting to see how things go and if he makes and weird and crazy moves.
Posted by: Giford | July 27, 2009 12:26 PM
On the plus side... this is another stick to beat the 'atheist conspiracy' theorists with. Collins' career has plainly *not* been sabotaged by a mass conspiracy of evilutionists.
Gif
Posted by: Cody | July 27, 2009 12:29 PM
Maybe we should march.
Posted by: MC | July 27, 2009 12:31 PM
If you're getting annoyed by the prominent theistic world-views of Collins and his ilk, you might enjoy this short story, which explores what intelligent design might look like if it actually occurred:
http://originalfiction.dreamwidth.org/2743.html
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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July 27, 2009 12:32 PM
Perhaps I should post a teary "Leave Francis alone!" video on YouTube.
Nah.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 27, 2009 12:32 PM
Couldn't we just sit down and grumble a bit ?
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 27, 2009 12:35 PM
Ah, yes, the fine-tuning argument. "If the basic constants of fundamental physical laws were even slightly different, lesbian sex could not exist. Ergo, God exists, and He is a bro who likes to watch women get it on."
The multiverse is actually a prediction of certain, rather well-founded models of cosmology. We can tell that the universe went through an epoch of rapid inflation; in modelling the inflationary process, we found that the forces apparently at work would lead not to one universe, but to many disconnected patches of spacetime, each looking like a separate universe from inside.
As Alan Guth wrote, "In the cosmic shopping mall, an infinity of pocket universes can be purchased for the price of one" (The Inflationary Universe, 1997).
Obscurantists like to paint the multiverse hypothesis as a desperate dodge invented by atheistical scientists to avoid the idea of a Great Designer behind the sky. But it ain't so. Given gravity, quantum field theory and our astronomical observations, the multiverse is something you might very well expect to happen.
Posted by: Iris | July 27, 2009 12:40 PM
Is it just me, or does "The Language of God: Intellectual Reflections of a Christian Geneticist" just sound so pompous and self-important? It reads to me like, "I, Francis Collins, am so extraordinarily gifted that I can personally decode for all of you what the creator of the universe is saying to us humans - and guess what he's saying! That we are very, very special (especially me.)"
And I thought we were supposed to be the smug ones.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 27, 2009 12:43 PM
Iris (#9),
It's not just you.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 12:45 PM
"What about chance? There's nothing impossible about the fact that our universe was the product of a chance event"
Then we are really, really, really, really, really, really, really lucky.
A God would be statistically more likely.
Posted by: David | July 27, 2009 12:47 PM
will Collins be able to sign off on studies that might upset some Christians? Say, studies of the psychological effects of abortion vs carrying an unwanted fetus to term, how prostitution behaviors influence the HIV epidemic, or the efficacy of abstinence only vs explicit sex ed?
Posted by: Gruesome Rob | July 27, 2009 12:48 PM
*headdesk*
Ok, which is more likely? 1 in 1 trillion or 1 in infinity?
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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July 27, 2009 12:48 PM
The grade is "F" unless you can show your work--oh, and it has to be epistemically sound.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Doug
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July 27, 2009 12:49 PM
Is Sam Harris anything more than a one trick pony?
Posted by: IceFarmer | July 27, 2009 12:51 PM
#9, it's not just you.
I hate to say it as I'm sure it's been said before but this is where accomodationism gets you. Obama wants to elevate science and satisfy Christians. So he opts to satisfy the latter first and gives the Christian electorate a nice big gift and by default endorses their views that the US is a Christian nation by giving them Frank. This is going to be interesting.
Posted by: Sigmund | July 27, 2009 12:53 PM
I'm amazed that Collins managed to survive all those years working alongside those atheistic scientists. With their lack of a moral base I guess it was only the fact that they were too busy with the baby eating, chicken marrying and whatnot evil doing to get around to crucifying poor Francis.
Posted by: CalGeorge | July 27, 2009 12:55 PM
Francis Collins, after visiting the Cascades: isn't nature wonderful, there must be a god who made it all.
Francis Collins, after switching from genetics to medicine: isn't human disease and suffering awful, there must be a god who will save us from all of this awful awfulness.
Francis Collins, post conversion: isn't it wonderful that all kinds of specious arguments can be given to justify my stupid belief in God.
Collins may understand medicine and genetics but he doesn't understand himself at all.
I find it very disturbing that the NIH could be headed by a man who is trying very hard to keep ignorance and superstition alive and is using his influence to make the idiocy of organized religion a bigger part of people's lives.
Posted by: Darby | July 27, 2009 12:59 PM
A peripheral pet peeve of mine embedded in this is the widely-accepted precept, even in those who don't use it to rationalize a god - creator, that only the current mixture of physical constants will give you a universe with life in it, as if we are close to understanding the interactions and permutations of all the different possible setting combinations. We certainly don't understand enough to make that assertion.
Posted by: IceFarmer | July 27, 2009 1:00 PM
Andyet, "A God would be statistically more likely?" You douche. Then what would the statistical probability of a God coming into existence? He'd have to be waaaaaaaaay more lucky than us and using your logic waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less likely. Dumbass. Please read up on logic and don't come back until you are ready to come up with stuff you just pulled out of your butt without thinking.
P.S. My use of the word way is heavily understated but I don't want to type all day.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 1:00 PM
Collins is a sentient puddle remarking that the the hole he's in fits him so well that it must have been designed for him.
#11:
And if we weren't that lucky, we wouldn't be here to remark on it.
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 1:00 PM
This implies a corresponding statistical likelihood of no God. What kind of a weak-ass Supreme Being allows for a statistical likelihood of its own non-existence? This is making the Baby Descartes cry.Posted by: Sigmund | July 27, 2009 1:00 PM
Even that nice Carl Zimmer has asked a pointed question over on the Discovery blog site.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/07/27/good-bad-and-government-funding/
Posted by: Fatboy | July 27, 2009 1:01 PM
I'd always liked Douglas Adams' puddle argument for fine tuning, but I think I now like Blake Stacey's better.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 27, 2009 1:05 PM
tsg writes:
Collins is a sentient puddle remarking that the the hole he's in fits him so well that it must have been designed for him.
Awesome!
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 1:06 PM
@25:
It's Douglas Adams', not mine.
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 27, 2009 1:11 PM
OK, who brought this idiot andyet into my blog?
Look: you simply can't look at an event after the fact and deny that it didn't happen because the probability of it having occured was really low.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 27, 2009 1:16 PM
Then you should be able to provide physical evidence for one. Until you do, your god is a delusion only in your mind, and the holy babble is a work of fiction. After all, without dog, it can't be anything else. Time to put up or shut up.Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 1:18 PM
I honestly believe that Collins is smart enough to recognize a false dichotomy argument when he hears one, let alone when he speaks one... yet he continually asserts them... this totally false "either / or" argument is the second in as many posts where PZ quotes him today. It's infuriating.
So here's my dichotomy on Collins: either I'm wrong and Collins is simply a full-on moron with a savant-like gift for genetics who truly can't see a false dichotomy when he sees one, or he's being willfully deceitful knowing full well that much of his audience doesn't recognize it when they see it, and will simply accept his word as an argument from authority.
But if he is being willfully deceitful... why? Is it really as simple as a complete inability to accept that "goddidit" has zero place in the naturalistic world?
Posted by: eNeMeE | July 27, 2009 1:22 PM
either there is a multiverse with an infinite number of possibilities to explore, or the cosmic constants were chosen by his god. What about chance?
Or what about the possiblity raised in that nice paper Biologos quote-mines? I'm beginning to suspect he actually put that one there his own self. Good thing he has God backing his ethical system, or I'd be worried what he was doing was unethical!
...I'm beginning to feel like a one-trick pony about this but it pisses me off so damned much and they don't accept negative comments over there.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | July 27, 2009 1:22 PM
I'm always amazed (though I should know better by now) when someone with a Ph.D in science turns out to be....let's be polite and say "less well informed"...than I, a humble EE and code monkey. In this case, Collins should really go read some Frans DeWaal: the elements of moral intuition and behaviour -- cooperation, compassion, sense of fairness, rejection of cheaters, etc. -- can be seen in many of our primate relatives, and in other animals too. What is uniquely human is to construct ethical systems, and try to justify our moral intuitions in abstract terms (gods, utilitarianism, whatever).
Posted by: charley
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July 27, 2009 1:35 PM
I don't understand this. Do you mean claim that it didn't happen?
Posted by: Eric W. | July 27, 2009 1:36 PM
Francis Collins (and others) at a forum at Mayo Clinic is September. I hope we can organize a presence there.
http://www.veritas.org/mayo/schedule
Posted by: Holbach
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July 27, 2009 1:38 PM
Hey god, protect me from this bullshit ridicule! Are you there? This is your creation, Francis Collins, and that smart ass Holbach is dragging me through the gutter and telling everyone what a phony halfwit I am. Strike him down lord, and show him what's what! Do it now! Er, maybe later? Hello, Janus calling the lord! Are you listening you....?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 1:40 PM
I love this part:
I get sooooo sick of that argument.
If that source of motivation compels one to accept pre-defined answers that are completely invented and totally unverifiable, then no... it's a big fucking net loss, as it will at some point taint one's ability to rationally accept evidence on its face and force one to wrap that evidence around magical sources... it's loony to think otherwise.
And PZ already refuted the "ethics" question, so no need to do that... but I will point out how easy it still is to trot out that old "you need religion for ethics and morality" canard despite all the horrific behavior displayed by some of the world's most populous and influential religions (e.g. the catholic "boarding schools" in Ireland and the ex-communicated family of the 9-year old girl who had the abortion).
I really get frustrated sometimes because we have sooo many examples that contradict the religion = morality theme, and yet most people still simply accept it as fact... it makes me wonder exactly how that's ever going to change if it hasn't by now.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 1:45 PM
"Look: you simply can't look at an event after the fact and deny that it didn't happen because the probability of it having occured was really low."
Your reliance on dumb luck echoes the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) basicly says "We are here because we are here." It's a tautology which solves nothing and provides no answers. If I am facing a firing squad and all 21 guns misfire (against astronomical odds) I have every right to wonder why. My amazement at being alive would be justified. To *not* wonder at my good fortune would show a lack of curiosity bordering on the bovine. Which violates at least the *spirit* of scientific inquirery.
"OK, who brought this idiot andyet into my blog?"
Why you did of course, with your venomous vitriol and near psychotic hatred and bigotry of all things concerning faith.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 1:47 PM
He means, "you can't claim that, because the probability was so low, it couldn't happen by chance and therefore something else was responsible."
The best way I've heard this explained is the probability of an honest card player being dealt a straight flush is 1 in 72,192. That doesn't mean that, having been dealt a straight flush, the probability of the card player being honest is also 1 in 72,192.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 1:51 PM
But you didn't just say it would be an amazing coincidence. You said god was more likely. On what basis do you make that claim?
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 1:54 PM
Granted. But unless you can detect it, it ain’t science. And by the way:
“Given classical E&M’s extremely accurate prediction of electromagnetic waves and their cause, the electron radiating energy and spiraling into the nucleus is something you might very well expect to happen.”
One difference: we can detect that matter is, in fact, stable. Thus the predictions of classical E&M, right or wrong, are in the realm of science. Call me when you have proposed an experiment to a funding agency that can detect the presence of another universe.
Posted by: Chayanov | July 27, 2009 1:55 PM
And which god is more likely: Xenu, Allah, or Odin? Is Zeus more or less likely than Vishnu? What are the statistical probabilities for every possible god?
Posted by: genecutter | July 27, 2009 1:58 PM
Interesting how the general sentiment about Collins' appointment has turned more critical as his bizarre thinking about god has become more widely known. He has always been a clown masquerading in a lab coat, PZ, but now his big red shoes are becoming more noticeable.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 1:58 PM
And "goddidit" is a more likely answer that provides better answers? Boy, are you in the wrong place...
Ok... I'll play along... please demonstrate which god did it... and please demonstrate how it is more likely that your version if "god" is more likely than Odin, Allah, Anu, Xwycau, Tarhunt, Cthulhu or the FSM.
Posted by: Jeff Schmidt | July 27, 2009 1:58 PM
@andyet
In order for your misfiring guns example to work, you'd have to leap straight to "a god did it", ignoring other routes of inquiry like:
- the ammunition was poorly manufactured
- the guns were sabotaged
Must be a strange and frightening world you inhabit when anything you think is out of place is the direct result of invisible creatures.
Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 27, 2009 1:58 PM
And might not his faith lend guidance on inevitable questions he'll face around scientific ethics? Don't those ethics have to be rooted in some moral or religious system that transcends pure science?
If you mean to equate "moral" with "religious," then...no, they don't have to be. I'm much more inclined to trust someone who keeps his reasoning where I can see it.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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July 27, 2009 1:59 PM
So does saying "goddidit" the moment you hit an unanswered question.
You have as much evidence that science is lacking curiosity regarding these questions as you have for god--none. You're just flailing about--and whining about actually being confronted--because you were asked for any basis for your claim. You have none, but you sure know how to use baseless ad hominems against anyone who dares to ask why you lack a reason for your statements and why you lack real curiosity about the universe.
We do wonder, we don't just gawp and throw god in as "explanation" without any reason for doing so. We leave open questions open, and try to use science to come up with meaningful answers if these become reachable.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Holbach
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July 27, 2009 1:59 PM
andyet (andno) @ 11
Your imaginary god would be statistically more likely is analagous to two people beginning a walk to the Andromeda Galaxy. Statistically, one of them should reach Andromeda, for after all, one of them has to be really, really lucky.
Come on, get the religious crap out of your brain and face reality like a chance happenstance. The Andromeda Galaxy is real, you are real; your imaginary god is not, even with a chance.
Posted by: Patricia, OM
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July 27, 2009 2:03 PM
Well heck, since we have a genius for god here, perhaps he can tell us all where god came from? What is god made of? Where did god get the materials to make the universe and everything in it?
I have lots of questions for you andyet, care to answer them?
Posted by: Geoff | July 27, 2009 2:11 PM
Pasta. Duh!
Posted by: Holbach
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July 27, 2009 2:12 PM
Patricia, OM @ 47
Me, me, let me answer those questions before andyet andno slathers us with all kind of insane crap!
god came from shit. Shit again. from the human brain that started as shit and is still shit.
There need be no further answer.
Posted by: NewEnglandBob
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July 27, 2009 2:14 PM
I love the clown shoes description.
Posted by: Sili
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July 27, 2009 2:14 PM
Of course I'm subcumbing to tu quoque here, but what hell: I know you are, but what am I?Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 2:15 PM
And what makes you all think I was making a falsifiable/testable claim instead of a faith claim?
But then the statement "we just got lucky" is also a nonfalsifiable/untestable faith claim, so I understand your confusion.
We are both making unscientific claims, and I freely admit to mine. Dr. Myers OTOH is trying to palm off his claim that we are "just lucky" as somehow meeting the standards for scientific inquiry.
I find that intellectually dishonest.
Posted by: Patricia, OM
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July 27, 2009 2:16 PM
Pasta & shit - yuck!
Posted by: David Wiener
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July 27, 2009 2:16 PM
#11
Why???
God does nothing more than take all of the questions we cannot yet answer and dump them in another bucket. It explains nothing and simply adds to the complexity. How is that a more likely scenario?
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 2:22 PM
Sorry to be particularly dense this morning, but I fail to understand how god can make everything from nothing.
Posted by: Geoff | July 27, 2009 2:22 PM
Have you read the Star Trek technical guide? Do you know how those food replicators actually work?
No. No. You don't want to know.
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 2:23 PM
They're both yours.
Tell us again about intellectual dishonesty.
Posted by: Holbach
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July 27, 2009 2:24 PM
andyet @ 52
Whether you make a testable claim or a faith claim, your imaginary god still does not exist.
Posted by: noodles | July 27, 2009 2:27 PM
God is an extraterrestrial pan-dimensional creature composed of pure energy. At this time we do not have the instruments to measure this creature or to determine the mechanisms it uses to cause floods, plagues, and earthquakes. However, science is advancing.
Step one is to identify the type of energy it uses to cause catastrophic events and locate the source of that energy so we can determine where the creature physically resides when manifesting in our dimension. Step two is to devise a weapon; perhaps something that disrupts the pan-dimensional rift or re-directs its own earthquake-flood energy weapon back on itself. The goal of course, is to kill or disable this meddlesome creature once and for all.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 2:27 PM
Geoff - Never read the technical guide, but I watched the original series as a kid - and some of the newer stuff. Stil suits water reclamation in Dune is as far as I want to go reading that sort of stuff. Again - yuck!
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 2:28 PM
They're both yours. - dinkum (#57)
What about chance? There's nothing impossible about the fact that our universe was the product of a chance event: after all, I am the product of a chance event, a randomized mixture of the genes of two people equally the product of chance. You can't simply rule out the importance of chance events in the history of individuals or the universe, but Collins does. - PZ Myers (original post)
You were saying?
Posted by: Janus | July 27, 2009 2:28 PM
God, as an answer to the fine-tuning problem, is just a label for chance. What are the odds that the 'fundamental' or 'necessary' origin of the rest of reality is an intelligent mind with the will to create a universe exactly like ours, after all? It could have been a non-sentient universe-generator, or a Godel machine, or just about anything else. If you refuse to accept the multiverse as an answer, the simplest (and therefore most likely to be true) belief is that the universe we know of is fundamental and necessary.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 2:29 PM
What's the difference?
Strawman. The argument is not simply "we just got lucky". The argument is that Collins et al is saying "we couldn't get that lucky" and we're saying "yes, we could". For clarity, not that it did happen, that it could have happened.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 2:30 PM
"your imaginary god still does not exist."
That too is a faith claim.
And it is intellectually dishonest of you to try to pass it off as established fact.
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 2:32 PM
Actually, you were saying, "we just got lucky." I hope, for your sake, that you do not truly claim a congruence between your vacuous oversimplification and what you quoted from PZ.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 2:35 PM
Then show us god. If we are all made in his image we can recognize him.
Posted by: heliobates | July 27, 2009 2:36 PM
No possibility of:
* sabotage,
* this was a form of protest by the soldiers in the firing squad
* a ginormous mistake by an inexperienced Master-at-arms
* all 21 bullets were of defective manufacture and loaded from the same lot
...
Yep, go right to "goddidit". How deliciously evolved-primate of you.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 2:38 PM
"The argument is that Collins et al is saying "we couldn't get that lucky" and we're saying "yes, we could". For clarity, not that it did happen, that it could have happened."
And the next time I play craps if I keep rolling winning numbers continuously for days on end - it might just be chance.
However, I could reasonably assume that someone had loaded the dice. Common sense and street smarts would lead me to that conclusion and make me think that this is a far more likely reason for my winning.
Posted by: don Kane | July 27, 2009 2:39 PM
I really get tired of seeing "Collins has decoded the human genome." He hasn't decoded a thing, he has only written it down, a modern day monk. Decoding will be going on for a great many decades, and what with his preconceived idea of the universe, I don't think Collins will be playing a major part in that undertaking, other than hopefully giving $$ to minds that think a little more clearly than his.
Did I say "hopefully" in there, good.
Posted by: Randy | July 27, 2009 2:41 PM
I got a little chucke out of andyets unintended irony when he said 'lack of curiosity bordering on the bovine'. What is more bovinish the the crowd at any fundamentalist function... no need to think or question or reason. The invisible shepard and his all too real sheep. If I had 21 guns pointed at me and none of them went off, I would think.. hmmm.. thats odd, and they they would get new guns and shoot my ass anyway. The big guy was just punking me the first time I guess...
Posted by: Holbach
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July 27, 2009 2:42 PM
andyet @ 64
Did you overlook the word "imaginary"? How does one pass off nothing as an established fact? Nothing is a faith claim? I tried to interject two negatives in that statement, both as ridicule and abject nonsense, and yet (hey, that works!) you mash it into a statement of being intellectually dishonest under the guise of an established fact. Has religion totally rendered your mind to a state of catatonic unreality?
Posted by: Ray Ingles | July 27, 2009 2:42 PM
And what has he done with it afterwards? Declared the genome a divine artifact, decreed that certain domains, such as human behavior and morality, are exempt from scientific scrutiny, and proposed a succession of freakish Christian dogmas as substitutes for reasoned analysis.
Hey, anyone remember when I said that "When a scientist gives up trying to understand something, they call it 'supernatural'"?
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 2:43 PM
Yes, but we already know that loaded dice exist without having to infer the idea from your lucky streak, as opposed to inferring a god from the perceived unlikelihood of the universe.
Posted by: heliobates | July 27, 2009 2:44 PM
Catastrophic failure of analogy.
Whether the dice are loaded or not is a question that can be settled empirically.
Posted by: noodles | July 27, 2009 2:45 PM
There is absolutely no evidence that god/gods or magic leprechauns exist. No physical evidence, no scientific evidence, no test or measurement that confirms the existence of god/gods or magic leprechauns. Simple put, there is no evidence whatsoever that god/gods or magic leprechauns are real. On the other hand, an analysis of world religions, historical mythologies, ancient and primitive belief systems, as well as modern physiology and modern psychology leads to the obvious conclusion that god/gods and magic leprechauns (etc.) are make-believe.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 2:45 PM
"Then show us god. If we are all made in his image we can recognize him."
Do you have any idea how pathetically sophomoric you sound?
Atheists are mean and nasty, they're just immature.
Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 27, 2009 2:46 PM
@Patricia #55:
Because, obviously, consciousness (read: OUR way of making stuff) is uniquely powerful over unconscious forces (read: not our way of making stuff). That's why the Great Skydaddy created us in His image; otherwise, how could OUR type of mind be responsible for creating all the universe? I mean, duh.
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 2:50 PM
Incredible projection. Have you considered a career in thumping stumps?
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 2:52 PM
andyet you are dodging my questions. How did god make everything out of nothing?
In the beginning god created the heaven and the earth. Gen. 1:1
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 2:55 PM
Your reliance on dumb luck echoes the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) basicly says "We are here because we are here." - andyet
Add the WAP to the list of subjects about which andyet knows fuck-all but is nonetheless willing to pontificate. The originator of the WAP, Brandon Carter, used it to explain why we appear to be at a "privileged" position in time (when certain numerical relations hold between some physical quantities including the age of the universe), in contradiction to the so-called Copernican Principle, that there should be nothing special about our spatio-temporal location. According to Carter, the era when these numerical relations hold corresponds roughly to that in which main sequence stars exist - and he presumed these are essential to the existence of observers.
I should add that I am neither endorsing nor opposing Carter's view.
As far as the "Strong Anthropic Principle" is concerned:
1) We don't know what combinations of values of fundamental constants would permit the appearance of life.
2) Even if we did, we could not assign a probability to the universe having a combination that did permit it, without knowing the set of all possible combinations, and how to assign probabilities over that whole set.
3) Even if we did, and it turned out the probability of a combination allowing life was very low, all we could conclude is that we live in a very unlikely universe. So what?
So far as multiple universes are concerned, they are certainly not the only alternative to an intelligent creator. However, even if not detected, they could be the logical consequence of a well-tested theory of future rational enquiry. So could an intelligent creator. If the digits of pi, or even a dimensionless physical constant, turn out to generate a long passage from - say - Genesis, or the Bhagavad Gita, in some reasonably simple fashion, I will accept that as very strong evidence of the latter.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 2:55 PM
"I hope, for your sake, that you do not truly claim a congruence between your vacuous oversimplification and what you quoted from PZ."
Of course I am. PZM is proposing luck as an explanation for the fine tuning problem.
I am proposing God.
We are both making unscientific faith claims.
Unless of course you know a way to falsifiy/test the claim that luck is responsible for the universe's fine tuning.
Posted by: cadra | July 27, 2009 2:56 PM
It depends. There is obviously some kind of order in Universe as well as in evolution and in living organisms.
People of all era distinguished higher and lower organisms. So did morphology. Morphologists like Wilhelm Troll or Ruppert Riedl acknowledged this simple fact, that is more intuitive than scientific.
Only darwininists do not see that differences. But no wonder. Evolution in their opinion is blind chance trimmed by some kind of metaphysical force called "natural selection".
Of course darwinists fail to explain many phenomena using their hypotheisis. Either they pretend that serious problems do not exist or blame you that it is you who is actually a "philosopher" or a "metaphysician".
http://cadra.wordpress.com/
Posted by: Chayanov | July 27, 2009 2:57 PM
What's intellectually dishonest is to talk about statistical probabilities, then equivocate and say you're just making a faith claim when called on it.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 2:58 PM
I see, it is pathetically sophomoric, mean, nasty and immature to ask you andyet, the same questions I get asked by christians every Saturday when they come to my market stall to troll me. Nice try. Are you going to answer?
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 2:58 PM
"Whether the dice are loaded or not is a question that can be settled empirically."
It's not a question of the dice being loaded.
It's a question of WHO loaded the dice.
Posted by: heliobates | July 27, 2009 3:00 PM
No. You still haven't established that the dice are loaded. Presupposition != demonstration.
See knockgoats' #80, above.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 3:01 PM
Yes, but we already know dice loaders exist without inferring them from your lucky streak, as opposed to inferring god from the unlikelihood of the universe.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 3:02 PM
"Yes, but we already know that loaded dice exist without having to infer the idea from your lucky streak, as opposed to inferring a god from the perceived unlikelihood of the universe."
Again, you all miss the point.
It ain't the loading, its the Loader.
Posted by: heliobates | July 27, 2009 3:03 PM
BTW, "WHO" loaded the dice in your analogy is also a question that can be settled empirically, but cannot even be coherently framed as a question for the object of your analogy.
Posted by: Lars | July 27, 2009 3:05 PM
Hehe, so your hustling Hero loaded the dice which may or may not be loaded? Nice logic there, praise the Loader.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 3:05 PM
"Yes, but we already know dice loaders exist without inferring them from your lucky streak, as opposed to inferring god from the unlikelihood of the universe."
You're really having trouble with the whole concept of an "analogy" aren't you Captain Literal?
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 3:05 PM
No, Einstein. As has been pointed out, that is a strawman.
Do you have any idea how "failed freshman" you sound?
Posted by: Fellow Traveller | July 27, 2009 3:06 PM
The human genome and the Bible both created of God?
Each contains a huge amount of gibberish no one can understand so it must be true.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 3:09 PM
This is the same load of crap we get every day.
Better trolls please!
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 3:10 PM
"However, even if not detected, they could be the logical consequence of a well-tested theory of future rational enquiry."
Which is what Horgan would refer to as "ironic science" no different than speculating on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. And just as untestable, unfalsifiable and unscientific.
The "we are here because we are here" was merely to illustrate the tautological nature of the WAP.
Posted by: MartinDH | July 27, 2009 3:12 PM
I don't know why godbotherers think that the anthropic argument is such hot shit. To a very great degree of accuracy 100% of this universe is inimical to earth-type life...to claim that the whole ball of wax was created with humans as a telelogical goal just boggles my mind with its hubris.
There are, of course, other important details:
1) What makes them think that the universal constants are variable (just because humanity's current theories cannot predict values may just mean that those theories need work)?
2) If the constants are variable, maybe many combinations make intelligent life possible...who knows?
The big kicker is that an accepted statement of "a god did it" (and it's always the god of the godbotherer) puts a roadblock up against any future query and the questions of "How?", "When?", "Where?" and "What?" become forbidden and "Why?" is always answered with "(my) god's will" or "(my) god moves in mysterious ways".
Useless crap.
--
Martin
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 3:12 PM
I'm afraid it is you that miss the point. We know that loaded dice, and the people who load them, exist independently of your hypothetical lucky streak. We can test whether the dice are loaded and, if so, try to find out who loaded them.
If they are not loaded, however, it is pointless to pontificate on who the loader could be. And once we rule out, by test and investigation, every conceivable reason why your lucky streak occurred, we still have the possibility of it being random chance.
Posted by: Holbach
|
July 27, 2009 3:13 PM
andyet @ 76
Atheists are mean and nasty, they're just immature?
A pathetic statement made by a pathetic cretin to ward off the onslaught of rationality he obviously can not handle. I myself am very kind and civil to those that deserve such regard. Atheists are very mature, as they show it in the most basic manner possible, and that is not irrationally believing in nonsense that does not exist. Maturity stems from this and accepting that which we have no control over, whether it be from a cataclysmic event from outer space that will pulverize Earth ( gee, where was your god?) or accepting the vagaries of evolution and nature to equally do us in, all without the interception of an imaginary god. You are not a child anymore, blindly believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and all manner of childish stories that were useful for stimulating further ideas such as religion, but have no need or usefulness in the real world. Atheism is about reality; your world is about nonsense and the immature mannner to give it substance. You damn religionists can not stomach people who have sloughed off all manner of nonsense, live sensible lives, and still have the unmitigated gall to ridicule those morons who will not do likewise for any number of demented reasons. Atheists are immature? Your distaste for us only enhances your deranged immaturity.
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 3:14 PM
Knockgoats -
My condolences on your recent well-constructed waste of effort.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 3:15 PM
By pointing out where your analogy fails? I think not, Mr. Ad Hominem.
Posted by: Lynna | July 27, 2009 3:15 PM
Fellow Traveller @93
LOL. I'm stealing that for future use. Well said.
BTW, there are parts of the Book of Mormon where God is supposedly speaking directly. Joseph Smith had a hard time maintaining a consistent style throughout his "translation" of the golden plates anyway, but when he came to being God's sock puppet he had even more of a problem on his hands. How could he possibly sound as grand and wise as God? The solution: introduce lots of random gibberish, make it impossible for anyone to parse the stuff. No one could understand it, so it must have been the real God. God is beyond understanding.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 3:15 PM
Taking your advice, PZ, let us consult a philosopher about moral matters:
An excerpt from William James' The Will to Believe.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 3:16 PM
"No, Einstein. As has been pointed out, that is a strawman."
Well let's go back to his actual quote again shall we:
What about chance? There's nothing impossible about the fact that our universe was the product of a chance event: after all, I am the product of a chance event, a randomized mixture of the genes of two people equally the product of chance. You can't simply rule out the importance of chance events in the history of individuals or the universe, but Collins does. - PZ Myers (original post)
Gee, I read that as PZM throwing out luck as a possible explanation for the fine tuning problem. But then I have reasonably good reading comprehension skills.
Why don't you just 'fess up and admit you didn't see PZM's quote before you wrote your first post. An honest mistake, no big deal.
Posted by: co | July 27, 2009 3:16 PM
That was a bit of wry bread of particular tastiness. Thank you, dinkum.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 3:22 PM
Atheism is about reality; your world is about nonsense and the immature mannner to give it substance.
Atheism is about nihilism; my world is about meaning and purpose that give it value.
Posted by: xebecs | July 27, 2009 3:24 PM
An odd thing:
I keep expecting PZ to grow less and less patient with Foghorn Leghorn-lookalikes who drop in to impress us with their fine rhetoric. I keep expecting the banhammer to come down BOOM! on people like andgit... and then it doesn't happen.
PZ -- let's see some of that intolerance they keep accusing you of. The smart people here are wasted in swatting gitflies all day long.
Posted by: Iris | July 27, 2009 3:25 PM
cadra @82:
LMAO.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 3:25 PM
"Atheists are mean and nasty, they're just immature?"
Yes, I couldn't help noticing that PZM is none of those in his dealings with believers or any of his writings.
Puhlease. do you people read your own posts?
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 3:26 PM
Moving the goalposts.
Your words:
"Reliance on dumb luck" now becomes "possible explanation". Do make up your mind.
The evidence suggests otherwise.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 3:29 PM
We can test whether the dice are loaded and, if so, try to find out who loaded them.
Well no, the loading of the dice is just a metaphor - not something that can be tested.
Analogies really aren't your strong point here are they?
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 3:33 PM
Your repeated use of the phrase "fine tuning problem" belies that claim.
tsg said it well:
But then, with your reasonably good reading comprehension skills, you couldn't have missed that the first time.
Posted by: Gruesome Rob | July 27, 2009 3:34 PM
No, it's not, it's about the non-existence of deities.
It's not our fault that your imagination is so limited you can only derive purpose if it's forced upon you from high.
Posted by: co | July 27, 2009 3:35 PM
Given that more than half of this thread is people trying to get andyet to do some reasoning---really, any bit should do---if PZ dropped the banhammer we'd quickly lose all semblance of order.
In other words, the *absence* of a hand from above is what's keeping us controlled.
I, for one, welcome the benevolent noninterference of our Squid Overlord.
Posted by: heliobates | July 27, 2009 3:35 PM
You're not exactly leading by example.
Posted by: Jim Cadwell | July 27, 2009 3:36 PM
#110
Analogies work better when they're, you know, analogous.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 3:38 PM
I see we have another 1st year philosophy student trolling the threads. Wondrous.
Andyet, what you have is either a major reading comprehension problem, or an innate need to create strawmen for your weak arguments.
PZ did not, in any of his quote, infer that chance was the only explanation... he was saying, to paraphrase, "don't feed me the bullshit that there are only two possible choices in explaining the "fine tuning" argument... there are certainly others to consider... chance for example.
Your reading comprehension problem is just that... YOUR problem.
Posted by: heliobates | July 27, 2009 3:41 PM
That's an insult to the 1st year philosophy student community, you insensitive clod.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 3:41 PM
That is precisely where your analogy fails, because the loading of the dice can be tested.
That must be it. Here I am under the impression that an analogy is a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects.
Posted by: heliobates | July 27, 2009 3:43 PM
Unless they're "metaphorical analogies" in which case they mean whatever andyet says they mean and is the opposite of the point you're trying to make.
Posted by: JD | July 27, 2009 3:46 PM
Samuel L. Jackson? LOL first time I've ever seen a theist actually use the scenario portrayed in the film "Pulp Fiction" as an argument.
Jules and Vincent meet the kid hiding in the kitchen (fast-forward to the 8 min mark).
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 3:47 PM
PZ - You're starting to slide down hill. The Yarn Harlot has over 3000 comments caused by ONE troll. Can we offer andyet as bait for that one? :p
Posted by: pdferguson
|
July 27, 2009 3:50 PM
andyet blathered:
No, you (like Collins) are not proposing God, you're proposing Bronze Age mythology. And of course, that mythology does make claims about the world we live in, and so it is subject to scientific critique.
Moreover, your Bronze Age mythology says nothing about the "fine tuning problem" (as you call it), that's just New Age woo dressed up in sandals and a crown of thorns. It has nothing to do with your beloved savior on a stick, as much as you Christards wish it did. You're not talking about god, not even close. You and Collins are talking about religion. Do you even understand the difference?
Religion, whether Christian or Islam or Scientology, has no place in informing our understanding of the universe. It only clouds the intellect. It really is that simple, child.
Posted by: Ray Ingles | July 27, 2009 3:54 PM
Hey, andyet - Other people have made these points (e.g MartinDH @96), but I'll try rephrasing them.
1. It's not at all clear that the 'physical constants' we see could be different. As Einstein put it, "Did God have any choice in creating the universe?"
2. Even if they could vary, it's not at all clear that 'life would be impossible'. See, for example, here, where calculations varying three physical parameters produce stars or starlike objects in at least 40% of the combinations studied.
So, your point boils down to, "If physical constants could have been different, and if only a very narrow range allows life to be possible, then it seems likely some kind of tuning would have to have been done to produce us."
Okay, fine. Now... get back to us when you've actually done some work on evaluating those conditionals. Until then, all you've got is the plot for a science fiction story.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 3:59 PM
PZ did not, in any of his quote, infer that chance was the only explanation
I never said he did.
I said he proposed it as AN explanation.
As they used to say folks, reading is fundamental.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 27, 2009 4:00 PM
They aren't yours either, and neither is logic. For example, you are positing dog. The burden of evidence is upon you to prove dog, not for us to disprove dog. Ergo, dog doesn't exist until your show convincing physical evidence for dog. Evidence you have made no attempt to present. Ergo, you have nothing, and you know you have nothing. Period, end of story. Just your uninformed opinion. We have your number as a liar and bullshitter. Welcome to science. Time to put up or shut up.Posted by: Iris | July 27, 2009 4:02 PM
(Sorry if a repost, refreshed twice...)
Atheism is about non-belief in gods. Are liberal/progressive atheists nihilists?
And what value do you think you have? What meaning and purpose do you have that somehow eludes the rest of us? Let me guess: you, like Francis Collins, are very, very special.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 4:03 PM
What part of "reliance on dumb luck" (your words) do you not understand?
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:04 PM
"It's not our fault that your imagination is so limited you can only derive purpose if it's forced upon you from high."
Not limited, just disciplined by logic.
First, one must distinguish between existential nihilism and moral nihilism. As for atheism inevtibaly resulting in nihilism the argument is in four parts:
Without a God, existence is but a meaningless (if fortunate) accident. Accidents by definition can have no meaning or purpose, they just happen. Only a deliberate act of Creation done with forethought and with an ultimate aim in mind can give Existence an inherent meaning or purpose. Lacking such a Creator, Existence is pointless.
Without a soul, consciousness and the Self are merely illusions incapable of the free will (which is also an illusion) or volition necessary to create meaning. Therefore it is impossible to really create meaning as even the most sophisticated of us are merely products of our brain chemistry and genetic programming.
Furthermore, all actions in an inherently meaningless universe, no matter how devoted or passionate, are themselves meaningless gestures in a cold indifferent universe.
Atheism provides no basis for universal, inherent human dignity and is indeed corrosive of the very concept. Where in Selfish Gene theory is the mandate for me to treat a Black man as my equal? Where does materialism require me to accept all men as my brothers? Or treat them better than convenience and self interest would require?
Morally, existentially and individually atheism is inherently and inescapably nihilistic.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 27, 2009 4:04 PM
"Higher" and "lower" are misleading terms which do not actually represent the real relationships among species. It is possible that, if species A and B derive from a common ancestor C, species A more closely resembles that ancestor than does B, but that does not make A "lower" than B.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha ha ah. . .
Wait, you were serious?
Let me laugh some more.
Posted by: AlanWCan | July 27, 2009 4:07 PM
I hate all this crap about Francis Collins "leading the team that decoded the human genome". It's just not bloody true; he took over pretty late in the game after James Watson and John Sulston had done all the heavy lifting.
Why not appoint James Watson to head NIH? Oh, that's right he has loony racist ideas right? So let's appoint someone with loony religious ideas instead.
[rhetorical question]
Don't you have any non-loony scientists that would be better for the job?
[/rhetorical question]
Let's get Sam Harris in to head the Evangelical Alliance or something...
Posted by: pdferguson
|
July 27, 2009 4:08 PM
As is punctuation...
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 4:12 PM
Also, bacon.
Posted by: Alexander | July 27, 2009 4:13 PM
"Science itself is a tool, as amoral as a hammer"
well said, PZ
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 4:14 PM
It is, as always, amusing to see the argument that perhaps the constants “can’t be different.” (#93, 126) That makes the fine-tuning problem worse, not better.
Multiverse explanations for the fine-tuning ought to be a big clue. They rely on the fact that the constants can be different—and that the constants are essentially a random draw—and argue that we are only apparently fine-tuned because of a large sample space of universes, most of which are sterile—so in most there are no people contemplating fine tuning.
If the constants cannot be different—you effectively neuter the multiverse explanation and strengthen the theist position—because the theist can hope for no better scenario than a) habitability is sensitive to the values of the constants and b) the values are inevitable. That’s the theist’s dream universe.
Weird that both ID types and anti-ID types imagine that the strength of the theist hope is in low-probability—when exactly the opposite is true. (There some notable exceptions, some who get it right, such as the atheist Susskind—he clearly understands that the constants had better be allowed to take different values.)
Posted by: Adriana | July 27, 2009 4:15 PM
Even though I think Collins may not be a bad choice from an administrative point of view, it is very bad because it will continue the constant confusion in the public that scientific principles and religion are compatible. They are not. Supernatural explanations have no place in science. Obama sopke about "evidence-based medicine" a few days ago, what happened to "evidence" in this choice? Collins thinks he can sideskirt evidence when it comes to humans because god somehow saw fit to intervene during evolutionand make us different from animals, with a soul, morality, free will and other goodies. I cannot understand the man.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 27, 2009 4:18 PM
Only in your delusional mind. You have nothing concrete to offer until you show physical evidence for dog. Why are you waiting to do so? Unless you know you have nothing...Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 4:19 PM
This kid is starting to remind me of facillis.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 4:21 PM
andyet
Oh really?
#36 you said:
#52 you said
#81 you did say
but then you followed it up by clearly stating:
If you really understood that PZ was simply offering one other possible alternative where Collins only sees 2 choices, would you not have phrased that last statement "to falsify/test the claim that luck might be responsible?
So not only do you have reading comprehension issues, you also have honesty issues. Why am I not surprised?
Posted by: Holbach
|
July 27, 2009 4:23 PM
andyet @ 105
Are you retarded or just dense to the point of incomprehensability? Your world is about meaning and purpose that give it value? Are you conscious of what you wrote or are you really strickened with religious dementia? Your world is about imaginary things made up by your delusional mind that have as much value as a cow turd with an image of your created god. So if all religious people suddenly gave up that insane nonsense and the earth went inexorably on it's course through space, and you were still able to defecate and brush your teeth and perform a host of other daily chores, all without catastrophic events as a divine result of revenge, you would lose that meaning and purpose you so derangely cling to, even in the face of blatant reality? Are you insane, or has your world morphed into one of abject and irretrievable madness? Only religion can produce such lasting and pernicious mental breakdown, and you are a prime example of irrationality run amuck. You are entertaining though, in a morbid way that defies incredulity.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:23 PM
"It is, as always, amusing to see the argument that perhaps the constants “can’t be different.” (#93, 126) That makes the fine-tuning problem worse, not better."
Furthermore, multiple universes cannot in themselves provide an explanation for the fine tuning of the forces (Martin Rees' "Six Numbers") that make life in this universe possible. When the universe splits with each "quantum decision" made by an elementary particle both new universes are virtually identical to each other except for this single quantum difference that caused the split, all other attributes would be the same. As such, they would share the same physical laws, constants, etc. The quantum multiplication of universes would not result in changes in physical properties.
Posted by: Lynna | July 27, 2009 4:24 PM
Alan @130: Excellent points, all of 'em.
I like the nomination of Sam Harris to head the Evangelical Alliance.
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 4:26 PM
For those playing along, #140 is the "micro/macro evolution" square on your bingo cards.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:27 PM
would you not have phrased that last statement "to falsify/test the claim that luck might be responsible?
Gee if I wasn't already bald I could give you some more insignificant hairs to split.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:30 PM
My dear Holbach #139 you should read my follow up post #128.
I will ask however that if you respond that you bring an actual argument with you instead of just a string of slurs and ad hominems.
But if that is all you are intellectually capable of....
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 27, 2009 4:30 PM
Andyet is retarded. Still no evidence for his delusion, his dog. And he will never present any physical evidence since he knows there is none. But he still trolls on. Just like any con man who has to mask his inability to demonstrate he isn't lying.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 4:32 PM
the clearly brain-washed poor andyet blathers:
Now THAT is pure comedy GOLD!
Have you actually read the bible, kid? Racism and destruction of those that refuse the word of god are RAMPANT. I've read that thing... and I can tell you, accepting all men as our brother is only condoned as long as they believe what you believe.
Didn't you even read my earlier post about religion having little moral ground to stand on, especially lately?
Don't peddle your fucking religion = morality bullshit around here, dude... nothing will get you smacked around faster... this place is ripe with intelligent, thoughtful people who contribute daily to the progress of humanity and have as much if not more moral fiber than any religious person you can find, and do so without the guidance of a vengeful, hateful, incompetent magic sky fairy for whom there is no evidence.
And yeah, that was mean AND nasty. And most importantly true. Deal with it.
You've become tiresome and now preachy, andyet. Fuck off.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:34 PM
"Still no evidence for his delusion"
Existence itself is a delusion?
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 4:36 PM
Scientific principles apply in the laboratory when doing research and experimentation on narrowly prescribed phenomena. If one were to hold to the strictest of scientific skepticism in every day life, they would be quite paralyzed, as most of our practical decisions must be made before all the evidence can be weighed. Indeed, many moral decisions have little to do with empirical measurement, anyway. They are matters of the human heart, as is religious faith.
Until Collins gives us reason to believe he will conflate his personal beliefs with his scientific work, all of the criticism of him here is unwarranted, and in fact, bigoted.
PZ writes (in his earlier blog):
This misconstues what Collins actually said in his slide, which was:
Collins is saying that reducing morality to the result of chance and necessity effectively annuls morality. He does not think human society can continue to function if natural selection is assumed to be the only reason for our ethical sense. He isn't saying the godless cannot be trusted, he is saying that even the strongest of atheists do not, in practice, live in a world where human behavior is determined by genetic inheritance.
Posted by: pdferguson
|
July 27, 2009 4:36 PM
Disciplined by logic? More like disciplined by Sunday school gibberish. Your so-called "four part argument" isn't worthy of a ten year old. Believe me when I say we've heard your ridonculous line of reasoning (and I use the term loosely) countless times before.
Atheism is corrosive to the concept of human dignity? Here's a concept: go fuck yourself. (Oh, no's! You're going to say that my comment isn't "dignified"! Oh, the horror...)
If you want to engage in debate here, you'd better do a little reading outside of your little god-soaked hate tracts, because if you really believe atheism is corrosive to human dignity, you have done nothing but announce yourself as a hater and a bigot
As much as we like tweaking sanctimonious fools like you, it's just for entertainment, and quite frankly, we grow tired of playing your little reindeer games rather quickly.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:36 PM
"Still no evidence for his delusion"
Existence itself is a delusion?
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 4:36 PM
My dear andyet,
How did god make everything out of nothing?
Inquiring minds still want to know. Your Nobel prize awaits.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 4:37 PM
Yeah... the last thing I should expect from a godbother with no real argument is accuracy in his arguments.
Don't hide your dishonesty behind semantics... just makes you look more dishonest.
Posted by: Lars | July 27, 2009 4:41 PM
So Andyet thinks his own rantings are honest inquiries into other people's intellectual dishonesty, while other people's questions at himself are mere hair splitting.
I wonder if Andyet ever read Matthew 7:3... "And why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, and not notice the beam which is in your own eye?"
(Trying to reach out in a language even Andyet might understand... but I'm not too optimistic about it.)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 27, 2009 4:43 PM
That is being perversely stupid. You dog is only a delusion in your mind. Until you can demonstrate conclusive physical evidence for your dog. And existence doesn't count, as we have an explanation (you might not like it, but we do). So the burden of evidence is upon you. We are waiting...Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:44 PM
How did god make everything out of nothing?
My dear Patricia, the same can be asked of the Big Bang. We know from the big bang theory that the universe had a definitive moment of creation (we can even use measurements of background radiation to determine with a high degree of accuracy when this event occured).
Which is why astonomer Fred Hoyle hated and opposed the theory (sarcastically referring to it as the "Big Bang" and the name stuck) - because the act of Creation implied the existence of a Creator. As an atheist, he preferred the Steady State theory for this reason.
The Catholic Church OTOH eagerly embraced the Big Bang, equating it with "let there be light!"
But someone more worthy than my poor self will have to explain how the Big Bang created everything out of nothing.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:46 PM
And existence doesn't count, as we have an explanation
Really, you've answered the question "why is there something instead of nothing"? Well knock me over with a feather.
Posted by: Gruesome Rob | July 27, 2009 4:48 PM
I think everyone here will posit existence (I don't think there's any die hard solipsists here)
You still have yet to explain how this goes back anything more than your god being a delusion.
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 27, 2009 4:48 PM
Could you possibly get a little more condescending?
So far, you've been repetitive, obtuse, and obsessive, Mr andyet. I see the warning signs for yet another kook who may soon need banning.
Posted by: dinkum | July 27, 2009 4:49 PM
Has the Insipidity Threshold been crossed yet? Comfort's being channelled here...
Posted by: tsg | July 27, 2009 4:52 PM
*headdesk*
Posted by: Robocop | July 27, 2009 4:52 PM
138: "If you really understood that PZ was simply offering one other possible alternative where Collins only sees 2 choices, would you not have phrased that last statement "to falsify/test the claim that luck might be responsible?"
PZ has offered a third choice. Your post implies that there are more. What are they?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 4:52 PM
OK... but the point is to not equate the two at all... moral decisions do not require a faith or religious element. They are, boiled down in simplest terms, requirements of a functioning social construct... a necessity for a society that hopes to survive over the long term. Using morality as an argument for or against religion is as misplaced is using it as an argument for science. Quite simply, despite what is commonly thought or believed, history shows that the two (religion and morality) have, in fact, little or nothing to do with each other.
.I'm sorry, Matthew, but i don't think PZ made that statemkent bosed on that quote from that slide alone.... but either way, having read Collins' statement several times and putting it together with some of the other quotes attributed to him, I think it is YOU that is mis-construing his point.... I'm still more inclined to accept PZ's re-phrasing as closer to accurate.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 4:54 PM
Sorry everyone with a mouthful of beverage.
We knew the #155 answer was coming. :p
No andyet, bait and switch does not get you off the hook to answer. Explain how god did it. Go ahead, say it's a mystery to great for mans mind (made in the image of gods) to comprehend. It'll make our day.
Posted by: Iris | July 27, 2009 4:58 PM
Andyet, I tried to parse 128, but I still see no answer to my question: What meaning and purpose do you have that somehow eludes the rest of us? I see a lot of unsubtantiated blather about what can and cannot yield meaning. What meaning? That is, beyond feeding your narcissism.
There, fixed.
Posted by: Happy | July 27, 2009 4:59 PM
"And which god is more likely: Xenu, Allah, or Odin? Is Zeus more or less likely than Vishnu? What are the statistical probabilities for every possible god?"
Just got off the phone with Vegas.
Xenu 1,000:1
Allah 550:1
Odin 300:1
Zeus 150:1
YHWH 75:1
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 4:59 PM
PZM #158
Kindly go back and read the preceding post from patricia #151 where she starts with:
"My dear andyet,"
Yet you don't consider her to be condescending?
Bit of a double standard don't you think?
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 5:02 PM
Perhaps I am confused, but I don't remember using morality as an argument for religion. I was only trying to stand up for Collins, who has given non-believers no reason to doubt his ability to run the NIH with the utmost competence. You are entitled to disagree with his personal beliefs, but unless you have evidence that those beliefs have lead him to fudge his numbers, your criticisms are just prejudice. Whether or not the scientific method and a spiritual worldview are compatible is a personal, and not an empirical question (at least when the spiritual are not making scientifically relevant claims).
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 5:03 PM
"Where in the bible is the mandate to treat a Black man as my equal? Where does Christianity require me to accept all men as my brothers? Or treat them better than convenience and self interest would require [but not the women, of course]?"
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 5:04 PM
No, my post implies that PZ doesn't make the singular claim that his third choice is the only alternative to the false dichotomy presented by Collins...
But to answer your actual question... it wasn't my intent to imply other alternatives... just to point out that PZ didn't state it was the only... just one other.
Frankly I don't think the question merits an answer, because the "dilemma" of a "fine tuned universe" is wholly invented bullshit to begin with.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 27, 2009 5:04 PM
Still no evidence from andyet the troll. Until that evidence is shown, he has nothing. Just another delusional idjit without coherent thoughts.
Posted by: Mr T | July 27, 2009 5:08 PM
andyet:
The way I see it, there isn't really a double standard, because you're such a stupid troll making such pointless arguments.
Posted by: natural cynic | July 27, 2009 5:14 PM
And where did you get the idea that the Selfish Gene has anything to do with racism or morality.
Oh, your reading comprehension about reading titles instead of ideas within the book. Back to the library, dumbass. It's not ad hominem if its demonstrated to be true.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 5:14 PM
andyet - I am old enough to my dear almost anyone here, old school enough to actually talk that way - and obviously you impertinent twerp, you aren't. You are a blatherskite flinging bucket loads of codswallop from one end of the place to the other. If you aren't capable of answering straightforward questions, then leave.
Posted by: Robocop | July 27, 2009 5:15 PM
169: "But to answer your actual question... it wasn't my intent to imply other alternatives... just to point out that PZ didn't state it was the only... just one other."
That's one possible reading. But if it's correct, it should be easy to identify some other options. Can you?
Posted by: Lynna | July 27, 2009 5:15 PM
Patricia uses "my dear" with conscious irony. Mr. andyet uses "my dear" as an insult. Still, you must know, Mr. andyet, that PZ didn't bring up the question of banning based on that phrase alone.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 5:16 PM
Matthew Segall at #167
Well, maybe I am confused... I responded to you as I did because you took PZ's statement:
and responded with a diatribe about practical decisions being made without having all the information, and moral decisions having little to do with empirical measurement... which made me think "that has fuck-all to with anything PZ said... he is saying that his scientific principles and religious world-view are incompatible, period, and that could lead to decisions made for the wrong reasons (i.e., for their religious implications and not because of the scientific considerations)... but it seemed to me that perhaps you were making an argument that his faith would help him here as a foundation of his morality in decision making. Hence my reply.
If I misunderstood your point, I apologize.
Posted by: Robocop | July 27, 2009 5:24 PM
"Christianity provides no basis for universal, inherent human dignity and and is indeed corrosive of the very concept [particularly for female humans]. Where in the bible is the mandate to treat a Black man as my equal? Where does Christianity require me to accept all men as my brothers? Or treat them better than convenience and self interest would require [but not the women, of course]?"
Re racial equality, ever heard of the Good Samaritan? With respect to women, you might want to look at The Rise of Christianity, which makes a persuasive case that the early Church prospered because of its progressive treatment of women.
Posted by: natural cynic | July 27, 2009 5:31 PM
andyet #168
Congratulations, you scored your first point!!
Posted by: Iris | July 27, 2009 5:32 PM
Oh, right right right. After death, of course. Very convenient.
Are you denying that heartless bigot Jesus had to be begged to help a sick gentile child, likening them to dogs? "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."-Matthew 15:24-26.
Posted by: No Bs | July 27, 2009 5:33 PM
I beieve in the Florida Lottery. There is more statistical probability for winning than there is for an invisible sky fairy. And the rewards much more tangible. And the delusion only costs me a dollar a pop.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 5:40 PM
Sure... 42. I told you you wren't gonna like it.
Or, if you prefer, haven't you ever seen "The Matrix"?
Look... as much as I'm loathe to even address your obvious "gotcha" inquiry, I assure you I can come up with plenty of goofy shit that has as much plausibility as conjuring "goddidit" as an explanation for the universe.
Posted by: Happy | July 27, 2009 5:42 PM
Jesus Fucking Christ! Who let the god-idiots in today!? When you guys use crappy anthropic principle arguments, that's bad enough. But if you start getting into morality, you're in deep shit. The bible you use for morality was totally cool with slavery and the ten commandments you so adore speak only to men. Commandment #10: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's *wife*. Guess God didn't think it was worth His time to speak to women. Seriously, the bible is one of the most immoral, brutally violent, horrifying book ever foisted upon humanity. Some friendly advice: Stick to the lame anthropic principle arguments.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 5:42 PM
Celtic_Evolution,
That was not PZ's, but Adriana's statement @ 135. I think my response has much to do with what she said, as doing honest science in the laboratory and being spiritually-informed in one's personal life need not be contradictory. Asserting they are incompatible is an example of the same absolutist ideology all we reasonable people should be trying to squelch. You seem worried that Collins' beliefs will lead him to make decisions for the wrong reasons, but again, unless you have evidence that this has occurred in his past scientific work, you're just being prejudice.
I don't necessarily think his faith will help him make any decisions in his role as director.
Posted by: Happy | July 27, 2009 5:47 PM
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Someone should have told that to all those wonderful Christians during the Crusades.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 5:48 PM
Matthew Segall
An assertion that his beliefs will lead him to make bad decisions for the wrong reasons would be prejudiced. A concern that they could is, in my experience, well-founded.
Fair enough.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 27, 2009 5:49 PM
I think my response has much to do with what she said, as doing honest science in the laboratory and being spiritually-informed in one's personal life need not be contradictory.
honest science - wtf does this mean
spiritually informed - wtf does this mean
contradictory?
Black doesn't contradict white if we define each as gray.
for every one example you can find of someone who apparently can properly compartmentalize religious woo and science, we can find a hundred who couldn't.
what does that tell you practically about contradiction?
Posted by: noodles | July 27, 2009 5:49 PM
The argument is that without God providing a rulebook there is no external grounding for morals or ethics. Without God's rulebook, right/wrong and good/bad are simply societal conventions differing from one culture to the next and changing across time. If God provided a rulebook, it would provide universal rules that never changed.
But there is no such rulebook. Values and ethics do change from society to society and do change across time. The "Rules of God" in every society simply mimics the existing values and ethics of that society.
American Evangelicals do not argue that God demands the penalty for rape be 50-shekels and a shotgun wedding; that imprisoning rapists is immoral, excessive, and unjust. Rather, American Evangelicals mimic rural conservative social values and also oddly seem to mimic the Republican Party political platform including the silliness or Libertarian Utopianism.
Alternatively, a biological assertion for values would be that we have a sense of right/wrong based on our condition as animals in a social group setting. In fact, there are clearly norms of behavior in various animal social groups.
Posted by: Robocop | July 27, 2009 5:52 PM
181: "Look... as much as I'm loathe to even address your obvious "gotcha" inquiry, I assure you I can come up with plenty of goofy shit that has as much plausibility as conjuring "goddidit" as an explanation for the universe."
My inquiry is a serious one as I can only those three alternatives. Our living in "The Matrix" wouldn't add to those possibilities -- our perception of current reality doesn't add another plausible beginning of the universe explanation. Since you assure me that you can offer "plenty" of others, please do so.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 27, 2009 5:56 PM
How did god make everything out of nothing?
My dear Patricia, the same can be asked of the Big Bang.
I'm comfortable saying "I don't know" and don't feel the need to just make something up. Maybe someday someone will figure it out. Maybe not. But until then, I don't know and you don't either.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 27, 2009 5:57 PM
An assertion that his beliefs will lead him to make bad decisions for the wrong reasons would be prejudiced. A concern that they could is, in my experience, well-founded.
Indeed, being the head of NIH is NOTHING like being head of the human genome project.
I really don't understand why Collins' supporters won't bother to take the 30 minutes required to track down what the responsibilities are of the two positions, and see just how different they really are.
Moreoever, they seem to gloss over all the glaring errors Collins DID make as head of the human genome project.
As to whether those specific errors had anything to do with his religion? doubt it, however it isn't even the issue here, the primary concern here is one of personal ideology and funding directions, frankly.
If Collins supporters think ideology doesn't influence funding for scientific research, they might try NOT forgetting about the whole Stem Cell research funding fiasco of the last ten years.
that's just the most public one. This shit has been going on for hundreds of years, of course. Within evolutionary biology, even WD Hamilton faced it when first trying to fund research on the idea of kin selection.
Ideologically unpopular ideas rarely get funded. that's simple observation.
what happens when someone in charge of funding basic research thinks there are entire areas of basic research that really belong to the realm of "goddidit"?
If Collins supporters could fucking pound that into their thick skulls, they *might* begin to finally comprehend the legitimate concerns many of us have, that have really fuck all to do with whether he is or is not religious in the main, but rather HOW he expresses it as affecting the pursuit of science itself.
It's quite sad to me that otherwise rational people can read something like "The Language of God" or his Biologos site, and simply be unable to comprehend where the problem lies.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 5:58 PM
Ichthyic,
It means not fudging the numbers for ideological reasons.
It means one recognizes that many of the things that really matter in life are invisible (love, friendship, justice, wisdom, etc.).
Posted by: TigerRepellingRock | July 27, 2009 5:59 PM
Oh this looks like a fun game, can anyone join in?
The second silliest thing about the fine tuning argument is that it suggests that god is inordinately fond of physicists.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 27, 2009 6:01 PM
And tell me how any of those are spiritual?
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 27, 2009 6:03 PM
It means not fudging the numbers for ideological reasons.
so people who fudge numbers are incompatible with being able grasp and utilize the concepts of love and friendship?
In short, liars are incompatible with emotion and bonding behavior?
Think you could formulate that as some kind of dogma for us?
I'm quite amused.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 6:04 PM
Why not?
Sure it does... if we have some limitation that prevents us from perceiving the universe as it really is (some have proposed this), it would certainly affect our ability to reason out a plausible explanation as to its beginning, don't you think?
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 6:04 PM
I really must congratulate you on your ability to crowd so much evidence of your stupidity and ignorance into so few words. I chose my words carefully. I was indeed assuming that other universes are undetectable; and whether some class of undetectable entities exist is of course untestable and unfalsifiable. Nonetheless, their existence could indeed be the logical consequence of a testable, falsifiable, scientific theory. Falsifying such a theory, of course, would not prove that such undetectable universes do not exist; but the success of such a theory, in explaining a wide range of empirical observations no other theory could be found to explain, and passing all the empirical tests we could think of, would indeed give us rational grounds for believing in their existence. Similarly, the existence of an intelligent creator is not falsifiable - but certain discoveries could give us rational grounds for believing one to exist.
Horgan's garbage about "ironic science" came out just before the most important empirical discovery in cosmology for many years: the apparent acceleration of cosmic expansion. He inadvertently demonstrated the foolishness of setting limits to what rational enquiry may discover.
I must thank you once again: I've been waiting for an opportunity to note that the medieval dispute about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin was actually by no means absurd as is generally thought: the question was whether the number was finite or infinite - and hence, whether space is infinitely divisible - a topic that is still of considerable scientific interest.
The "we are here because we are here" was merely to illustrate the tautological nature of the WAP. - andyet
Liar. As I showed, the WAP is not tautological. You just didn't have a clue how it was originally formulated or used.
Furthermore, multiple universes cannot in themselves provide an explanation for the fine tuning of the forces (Martin Rees' "Six Numbers") that make life in this universe possible. When the universe splits with each "quantum decision" made by an elementary particle both new universes are virtually identical to each other except for this single quantum difference that caused the split, all other attributes would be the same. - andyet
Oh dear. Add multiple universes to the tally of subjects andyet will gladly pontificate on, but knows fuck-all about. The multiple universe ideas proposed by physicists such as alan Guth and Lee Smolin have no connection with the multiple-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics; and explicitly are proposed to generate universes with different physical constants.
Atheism provides no basis for universal, inherent human dignity and is indeed corrosive of the very concept. Where in Selfish Gene theory is the mandate for me to treat a Black man as my equal? Where does materialism require me to accept all men as my brothers? Or treat them better than convenience and self interest would require? - andyet
What a moron. Of course neither disbelief in deities nor scientific theories lead logically to moral principles - because no moral principle can be logically derived from any factual claim - including the claim that a creator exists and commands us to observe them. Look up Euthyphro's dilemma. Similarly, in answer to another of your fuckwitted observations, whether there is such a creator or not, we have to decide for ourselves whether our lives have meaning. However, I know you theists find it hard to grow up and take responsibility for your own lives.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 6:04 PM
Ichthyic,
Collins argued rather extensively in his book that stem cell research should be done.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 6:07 PM
Ichthyic,
And I am quite confused... no idea what you're talking about.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 27, 2009 6:09 PM
The originator of the WAP, Brandon Carter, used it to explain why we appear to be at a "privileged" position in time
Am I completely lost here, or has the term "anthropic principle" been reinterpreted as something vastly different from its original formulation? I thought it was Hoyle(?was it?) referred to it as the "anthropic principle" when he reasoned that there had to be a nuclear reaction in suns that got us from helium to carbon; scientists up until then being concerned about where all the larger molecules came from. And the "anthropic principle" was "since I'm here and I'm made of a lot of carbon, there must be processes in suns that make carbon." From that, he reasoned backwards and was able to figure out the reaction that would have to happen.
How did that nifty bit of reasoning get taken over by woo-woos?
Posted by: Stu
|
July 27, 2009 6:10 PM
It means one recognizes that many of the things that really matter in life are invisible (love, friendship, justice, wisdom, etc.).
That does not make them "spiritual". Nor does it take them out of science's reach, or even out of materialism's reach.
Cf. Gravity.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 6:10 PM
Rev. BigDumbChimp,
Because one could search the external world of matter in motion for all eternity and find absolutely no evidence of them.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 6:12 PM
all we reasonable people - Matthew Segall
ROTFLMAO
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 6:12 PM
Stu,
Get back to me when science discovers the real cause of gravity. If they ever get the LHC working, perhaps you can help me put my foot in my mouth.
Posted by: Robocop | July 27, 2009 6:13 PM
195: "Sure it does... if we have some limitation that prevents us from perceiving the universe as it really is (some have proposed this), it would certainly affect our ability to reason out a plausible explanation as to its beginning, don't you think?"
It may be true that we mere mortals are prohibited by some limitation from figuring out other plausible alternatives. Perhaps the universe does work in mysterious ways. But that's not the same as there being other plausible alternatives.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 6:16 PM
With respect to women, you might want to look at The Rise of Christianity, which makes a persuasive case that the early Church prospered because of its progressive treatment of women. - Robocop
Now that's really funny. Tell it to Paul of Tarsus.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 27, 2009 6:16 PM
Why don't you get back to us when you intuit the cause of gravity. Until then, Bye-bye.Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 6:19 PM
Knockgoats,
I agree. It would be perfectly rational to believe in multiple universes given the success of theories that predict them.
However, it would not provide scientific grounds. Science always requires experimental verification. Nothing gets a free pass. Nothing.
There was a time when it would have been perfectly rational to believe that Newton and Maxwell were going to, given time, explain everything. There was a time when it was rational to believe that classical mechanics would explain the motion of Mercury's perihelion.
Posted by: Stu
|
July 27, 2009 6:20 PM
Get back to me when science discovers the real cause of gravity.
So it is God keeping my ass in this chair then?
Because one could search the external world of matter in motion for all eternity and find absolutely no evidence of them.
Actually, for starters, the brain chemistry of "love" is being better understood every day.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 27, 2009 6:21 PM
Science always requires experimental verification.
I guess we'll have to wait until we can create our own parallel universe then.
Oh, wait, you're already done that for yourself, haven't you?
Nothing gets a free pass. Nothing.
ROFLMAO hearing YOU say that.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 6:21 PM
Because one could search the external world of matter in motion for all eternity and find absolutely no evidence of them [love, friendship, justice, wisdom, etc.]. Matthew Segall
All evidence that they do exist comes, of course, precisely from this external world, via the senses.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 6:22 PM
Nothing gets a free pass... except your god.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 6:24 PM
Sigh... you're so close...
Correct... but it also doesn't hold that there must therefor be only 2. Or 3. Or 20, because one cannot conceive of other possibilities. Ability to conceive of other alternatives is not a limiting factor.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 6:25 PM
Stu,
Perhaps it is a comfortable chair. Otherwise, I have no idea.
That's true, but the experience and meaning of love itself will never be found in neurochemicals.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 27, 2009 6:27 PM
Collins argued rather extensively in his book that stem cell research should be done.
*WHOOSH*
that was the sound of the point rushing WAY over your head.
as to the other, nothing you said originally made any sense, so it's not unexpected that when it is parroted back at you using different words, it makes no sense.
even to you.
you simply don't get to redefine the world to make it fit your inane preconceptions.
that would tend to make us think you're simply insane.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 6:28 PM
Knockgoats,
Do tell! Where have you seen, heard, tasted, smelt, or touched the concept of justice?
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 6:28 PM
However, it would not provide scientific grounds. - heddle
A matter of definition, and so not really important. Where we choose to draw the line around science is of no significance so long as we make our meaning clear (strange that Popper didn't see this, given his views on definitions). However, the odd epistemological status of such unobservables is the reason I said "rational enquiry" not "science" in my original comment, and "rational" not "scientific" in the one you quote.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 27, 2009 6:30 PM
That's true, but the experience and meaning of love itself will never be found in neurochemicals.
irrelevant to your point though, that religion and science are compatible.
again, if you redefine black and white...
senseless.
your conceptualizations of both science and religion are senseless.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 6:31 PM
Matthew,
Do tell, where have you seen, heard, tasted, smelt, or touched the concept of matter?
Have you ever come across the phrase:
"Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done"?
Posted by: Iris | July 27, 2009 6:31 PM
Robocop @177:
The Christian bible has been used for centuries to justify slavery, with nary a peep about good samaritans until relatively recently. For every lonely quote you can mine to construe (or misconstrue) some basis for universal brotherly love, there are many multiples more that implicitly and explicitly justify and support the inherently evil institution of slavery.
And a persuasive case can also be made that the church has prospered by institutionalizing the treatment of women as property, domestic slaves, and breeding sows. Or perhaps because of its progressive use of fire, weapons, and instruments of torture? (Hell, just reading this thread, I think I can make a persuasive case that the church prospered because it feeds insecure egomaniacs by assuring them that they're special, and their lives have "meaning" and "value.")
Whatever the early church did or did not do to wipe pagans off the face of the earth does not mitigate its historic (and contemporary) view of women in the least.
The bible is utterly contemptuous of women from Eve forward.
Posted by: bilbo | July 27, 2009 6:31 PM
"I don't want American science to be represented by a clown."
Funny. I was about to say the same thing about a blog dealing more with religion than science being on ScienceBlogs.
Oh well.
Posted by: Stu
|
July 27, 2009 6:32 PM
That's true, but the experience and meaning of love itself will never be found in neurochemicals.
Define "experience".
Define "meaning". Or why there would be any.
Where have you seen, heard, tasted, smelt, or touched the concept of justice?
Oh knock it off. The concept of justice is abstract, because we made it up. It's whatever we damned well want it to be. Intentional category errors are really, really transparent.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 27, 2009 6:34 PM
The experience and meaning of love itself will never be found in neurochemicals. Perhaps you're looking in the wrong place. I've found lots of love in alcohol. :p
Posted by: Robocop | July 27, 2009 6:36 PM
212: It's always (trivially) true that there may be other alternatives that we haven't thought of. But unless and until you describe what those alternatives are, we're left with the three we have rather than the many others you assured us existed.
205: "Now that's really funny. Tell it to Paul of Tarsus."
Your ignorance of history and historical context seems astounding. But perhaps I'm mistaken. How do you suggest that the thesis of the book (once pretty controversial but now utterly mainstream) is in error? Do you even understand what the thesis of the book is?
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 6:37 PM
Knockgoats,
I have, and in this context, "seen" is a metaphor for "understood." The losing party is entitled to have the reasons for the verdict explained to them, so that they can "see" them.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 6:38 PM
Matthew
You should have picked tougher one... even chimps have an identifiable system of justice, one that is quite visible. It's been suggested already in the thread, but you should read DeWaal.
Posted by: xebecs | July 27, 2009 6:39 PM
Bobbly bubbly boobly blither blather blimp.
Look at me, I'm a god botherer! Am I not adorable?
Oops. Sorry andyet, I didn't mean to use up all of your remaining rhetorical devices.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 27, 2009 6:41 PM
The Christian bible has been used for centuries to justify slavery, with nary a peep about good samaritans until relatively recently
And the irony of the "good Samaritan" is that the Samaritan isn't a jew. He's some nasty nonbeliever who doesn't believe in yahweh, but still somehow manages to show compassion for his fellow man. I don't even know what they believed in in Samaria (?) at that time but for all intents and purposes the "good Samaritan" might have been an (ugh!) atheist. The bible never explains how a non-jew non-believer still managed to be "good" and even today christians appear to still be struggling with that complex problem.
Posted by: Stu
|
July 27, 2009 6:43 PM
Robocop, 1 Timothy 2:11-12 says hello.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 6:45 PM
Since you've conveniently managed to contradict yourself within the space of two sentences, you've saved me the trouble. Thanks.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 6:47 PM
heddle,
If "Another universe exists" was the extent of all multiversal hypotheses, this analogy would hold. But it's not; the existence of a multiverse is only one prediction made by various theories, theories which also make scientifically accessible predictions. These theories are analogous to classical E&M, which also makes both testable and untestable predictions. All large-scale scientific hypotheses do.
We don't favor quantum mechanics over classical E&M because either of them makes predictions that are always testable; they don't. We favor quantum because, among that set of each theory's predictions which are testable, quantum's predictions consistently pan out while some of classical's predictions fail.
Scientific hypotheses which imply a multiverse will stand or fall on the same principle.
On the contrary, that's everybody's dream universe, and it would neuter both multiversal and theistic explanations. If the values are truly inevitable, we're done; there would be no need to hypothesize gods or multiverses or anything else to explain them. A logically necessary fact doesn't need to be explained, nor can it lend weight to one explanation over another, since it is a consequence of all possible explanations.
If, on the other hand, the values are merely "contingently inevitable"--that is, we have some sort of theory which explains why they are what they are, but that theory itself is not logically necessary--then you've merely pushed the question back to why the universe is described by that particular theory. In which case, gods, multiverses, chance, further hypotheses of necessity, and and everything else are back on the table.
Well, you're welcome to make a case for the latter claim. Is there an argument you can point to online--yours, or someone else's=--which does so?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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July 27, 2009 6:49 PM
To quote Sir William S. Gilbert:
Posted by: Iris | July 27, 2009 6:51 PM
bilbo @220:
Yes. Everyone must always stay in the neat little box where you put them, so as not to confuse you. "It says ScienceBlogs in the URL, therefore no one should discuss anything but what I, personally, think is related to science."
If you had bothered to read the post at the top of this page, you might understand why religion is relevant to discussions of science. Butt given the intellectual capacity of the trolls here today, it doesn't surprise me in the least that you don't get it.
Posted by: Ray Ingles | July 27, 2009 6:52 PM
andyet: Regarding meaning, you need to read this.
Posted by: amphiox | July 27, 2009 6:52 PM
I just can't resist getting on the andyet smackdown bandwagon here.
1. Chance is an absolutely valid possible explanation for any, ANY, event that needs to only happen once. We can subsequently invalidate chance as an explanation only if we understand the constraints on chance. For example abiogenesis, the constraints on chance would be time - the lifespan of the universe or the planet and the rate of chemical reactions relative to this span. For the origin of the universe we don't know what the constraints are, and so chance is not ruled out.
2. No matter how unlikely the spontaneous creation of this particular universe is, the likelihood of a supernatural creator making it so is ALWAYS less. Because you turn a one step process into a two step process, and the creator must be at least as complex as the creation, and therefore at least as unlikely to arise spontaneously. Probabilities are always 1 or less, and always multiplied, never added.
3. No negative claim is ever, EVER a faith claim. Only positive claims can be faith claims. Negative claims are either a) wrong, because positive evidence exists, or b) the valid null hypothesis in the absence of positive evidence. It is fundamental methodology, and faith does not enter into it.
4. There is nothing that prohibits another spacetime in a multiverse from affecting any or all of the others in a detectable way. Nothing. And it is a vapid and meaningless argument to say that this means they would actually be part of the one spacetime instead of different spacetimes. This is just a semantic, arbitrary definition. If they exist, they exist no matter what we call them, and their fundamental constants will be what they are, no matter how we may try to measure them, and if their existence can be detected, they will be detectable, whether we know how to do so or not.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 6:54 PM
Celtic_Evolution,
We can distinguish just from unjust actions only because we understand the concept of justice. The fact that chimps also seem to have a basic understanding of it is not that surprising.
Posted by: Ray Ingles | July 27, 2009 6:55 PM
heddle, if the physical constants couldn't be different, it's very far from a theist's dream universe. Then there's no room for design at all, any more than God "designed" math so that 2+2=4.
Well, okay, there's a story about someone advancing something like that argument. But it's not apparently true.
Posted by: Robocop | July 27, 2009 6:55 PM
219/228: Historical context says "Hi!" straight backatcha.
227: It's even more ironic than you think. Samaritans were deemed unclean and couldn't even be touched. Yet another reason why what Jesus taught was so radical. "Who is my neighbor?" was extended to everyone -- enemies, the unclean, women, etc.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 6:55 PM
You know what... I can do better than that...
Which was my initial point in the first place... so thanks for agreeing...
1. No, you're left with those three because as of yet you can't conceive of others, although as you already stated, there may be others.
2. I gave you examples that you saw fit to dismiss because they did not fit your pre-conceived definition of an "explanation". Eh.
3. I didn't start out this whole fucking inquest by trying to make any claims about by superior knowledge of the other alternatives. You implied it with your questions and insistence that to take the position you just proclaimed was true (that there may be other explanations), I must be easily able to identify some. As I said before, I was loathe to even respond because I knew the tactic you were using, and I wasn't about to let you redefine the discussion. But alas, I engaged it anyhow, and the discussion was in fact redefined, by you... so let me just go back to my point once more: The assertion that there are only two possible explanations for the universe in its current state is false. There is at least one other (random chance), and there could very well be more.
Since you have affirmed those points already, I'm done playing this little game.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 7:00 PM
You need to take this out further, Matthew... why can we distinguish just from unjust actions? How do we know which actions are just and unjust?
Hint: it's the same reasons the chimps can do it, and it has zero to do with religion.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 7:05 PM
heddle,
"The success of theories that predict them" is experimental verification. How else would you verify something?
Take conservation of momentum. Can you verify it directly, at every place and time at which we believe it to hold? Of course not. But it's part of some very successful theories, so--provisionally, of course--we accept it.
Yes, sometimes rational beliefs are wrong. So?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 27, 2009 7:10 PM
Until Matthew can let go of the woo factor, he will get nowhere. Once he understands he must loose all the woo, then he can get back to reality and get somewhere.Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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July 27, 2009 7:11 PM
Robocop,
Considering the misogynistic writings of Paul, the treatment of women by the Catholic and Mormon Churches, and the Biblical scorn of women, it's fair to say that your pet religion is anti-women.
I won't bother to go into the Muslim treatment of women, which is even worse.
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 7:11 PM
Anton Mates (and to a lesser degree Ray Ingles)
Only those predictions that can be tested. Every single prediction they make about this universe could be confirmed to high precision, and it says nothing about multiverses. It may give us a warm and fuzzy, but the prediction of multiverses must stand on its own and face an experimental test. Unless you redefine science. All of the successful predictions of a theory do not mean we should accept its untested predictions. In addition to violating what is meant by science—the landscape (no pun intended) is littered with examples of where that would have failed.
You must remember that fine-tuning, or apparent fine-tuning, really has nothing to do with improbability. It has to do with the fact that habitability appears to be sensitive to the values of the constants. This is a consensus opinion in physics. While there is violent disagreement about the explanation—there is general (not universal—but consensus) agreement that the sensitivity to the constants begs for an explanation.
So as a thought experiment, let’s assume habitability is very sensitive to constant C. Consider two scenarios:
1) Low probability. C appears to be random.
2) High probability. C comes from a fundamental theory.
Scenario 1 is the prediction of the multiverse. It also, at least at the moment, appears to be reality.
Scenario 2 is not the prediction of the multiverse. Scenario 2 says that value of C, upon which (by assumption for purposes of this argument) habitability is very sensitive, is of unit probability.
As a theist I can live with 1. But I love 2. It means that the conditions for habitability are built into the fabric of spacetime and are not the result of a large sample of universes. As a theist I see 2) as a much stronger case for design than 1).
That is why I am confused by the IDists who argue low probability. They argue for the case predicted by the multiverse.
Amphiox,
Posted by: Stu
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July 27, 2009 7:12 PM
Wait, Robocop... do you mean the Bible was progressive for the time it was written in?
Posted by: Tulse | July 27, 2009 7:12 PM
Someone is going to have to explain to me how trillions of cubic light years of emptiness at 3K sprinkled with blob of matter at 5000K and above constitutes a universe "fine-tuned" for life. If a creator really wanted to make the universe friendly to life like us, the entire universe would a warm and sunny meadow and have fountains of single-malt scotch. To say this universe is somehow "fine-tuned" for us is profound hubris, and makes as much sense as an ant floating on a leaf in the Pacific Ocean thinking that that body of water is fine-tuned for it. In almost every location the Universe is lethal to us, so forgive me if I'm not seeing the "fine-tuned" bit.
But hey, if you want to go with argument that something extremely unlikely must exist for a reason, then clearly you haven't taken the fine tuning argument far enough. Because if it is true that the current physical constants of the universe are highly unlikely, then it is even more true that my existence, which is predicated not only on those constants but on all of history, is even more unlikely. In other words, however fine tuned the universe is for life, it is even more finely tuned to produce me. Therefore, forget the Anthropic Principle, and instead embrace the Tulseopic Principle, which clearly demonstrates that I am the end-goal of creation.
Why would you want to be bound by the purpose someone else forces on you? Slaves have a purpose in exactly the way you describe, but somehow I doubt that gives them much comfort. If your parents said you had to be a doctor when you grew up, would you feel bound to do so -- after all, they made you, right?
And what is so terrible about the universe having no meaning? If existence is meaningless, then that fact itself is without meaning (a point made ably by Thomas Nagel). A meaningless universe is only abhorrent to those who subjectively abhor it -- without objective meaning, there is no objective problem with it. In any case, this is reasoning from the desired outcome -- even if you find the notion of a purposeless universe terrifying, that has no impact on whether the universe actually has meaning or not.
Posted by: andyet | July 27, 2009 7:19 PM
Patricia #173 - andyet - I am old enough to my dear almost anyone here, old school enough to actually talk that way - and obviously you impertinent twerp, you aren't.
Actually I'm in my 50s, how old are you? BTW what kind of shop/booth do you run that prompts people to question you about your atheism. I've never heard of "unbeleivers-R-Us", must be something new at the mall.
"You are a blatherskite flinging bucket loads of codswallop from one end of the place to the other."
Wow, is this yet another example of the superior intellect and debating skills you atheists are so rightfully proud of? And here I though all of the "fuck yous" were more than sufficient to prove the superior brains and maturity of the atheists here. Stay classy guys.
"If you aren't capable of answering straightforward questions, then leave."
Well I did at #155, don't you remember? Here now, let me repeat it for you in case you missed it:
My dear Patricia, the same can be asked of the Big Bang. We know from the big bang theory that the universe had a definitive moment of creation (we can even use measurements of background radiation to determine with a high degree of accuracy when this event occured).
Which is why astonomer Fred Hoyle hated and opposed the theory (sarcastically referring to it as the "Big Bang" and the name stuck) - because the act of Creation implied the existence of a Creator. As an atheist, he preferred the Steady State theory for this reason.
The Catholic Church OTOH eagerly embraced the Big Bang, equating it with "let there be light!"
Now you are frree to counter my argument, assuming you are capable of doing so.
Lynna #175 - Patricia uses "my dear" with conscious irony. Mr. andyet uses "my dear" as an insult.
Really? I didn't think mind reading was possible. You did note, the my posting was in response to her posting?
A god forbid anyone should hurl insults at another poster because of their views. People who do that should be banned.
Or at least someone should explain to me why holbach (#139) is still allowed here. Oh that's right, it's not an insult if an atheists says it. How sily of me not to realize that.
You bloody fucking bunch of hypocirites.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 7:19 PM
No, it isn't. It is meant quite literally: trials must take place in public, so that all can hear the evidence. In any case, even if you were right, the losing party would have to either read or hear the reasoning justifying the outcome - so as I said, the evidence for justice comes from the external world.
I'm still waiting to read where you've seen/heard/felt the concept of matter.
Posted by: pdferguson
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July 27, 2009 7:20 PM
andyet blathered on:
For those of you playing Christian Bullshit Bingo at home, this is square D 7, square D... 7...
Of course they did, because they saw it as a way to justify their continued existence. And like most religionists, the words "We don't know" just won't come out of their mouths. There has to be an answer to every question, and when science can't explain something, well then, the answer is always goddidit...
Are ya beginning to understand why no one respects religionists around here, little fella? Hmmm?
Posted by: Iris | July 27, 2009 7:23 PM
Robocop: "Historical context" is a bullshit dodge. Slavery was not morally acceptable 2,000 years ago. It was evil then, and guess what? It's still evil now. You'd think the benevolent creator of the universe would have spoken up and condemned it at some point in his insufferably long book.
Are you denying that heartless bigot Jesus had to be begged to help a sick gentile child, likening the woman and her daughter to dogs?
Andyet ignored this question (as well as the one about what, exactly, is this "meaning" and "value" he is privy to that somehow escapes the rest of us), so I guess I'll take that as no from him. You?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 7:23 PM
Perhaps... I'm just hoping he can reason it out for himself without attaching a god to it. Although it will probably end up working out like it did with the recent debate between thunderf00t and Ray Comfort where thunderf00t keeps trying to explain to Ray how morality and abstract concepts like love and justice are social constructs with an evolutionary benefit to human survival and Ray keeps saying "no, god".
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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July 27, 2009 7:25 PM
Hoyle didn't like the Big Bang for philosophical reasons. Unfortunately for Freddy, the evidence points in a completely different direction. That's the problem with philosophy, the real world triumphs over bullshit every time. This is also true when we consider goddism versus science. Science has evidence, goddism has bullshit and only bullshit.
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 7:31 PM
Tulse,
I would suggest Susskind's book. He makes some of the clearest arguments for fine-tuning that I ever read.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 7:34 PM
andyet keeps digging:
Well, I've read it over three times now and can;t find a fucking argument you are actually making in that little speech? Where's the argument exactly? All I see is you answering a question with another question (typical religious dodge), and then making a point that the RCC knows when to re-write its rules when the evidence so clearly contradicts its own dogma... again, typical religious behavior (see Galileo).
So where, exactly, is the argument you are making? Please enlighten us.
Oh... and just to remind yourself and the rest of us... what was Patricia'a question that you so thoughtfully answered there?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 27, 2009 7:36 PM
No, in order to be a real hypocrite requires being a godbot like yourself. Your lies and evasions makes you a prime hypocrite. Atheists tend to very honest compared to godbots. It has to do with being honest about there being no god. It carries over to other things. And scientists tend to be very honest since it is required professionally.Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 27, 2009 7:37 PM
Iris writes: (regarding slavery)
It was evil then, and guess what? It's still evil now.
But, as we try to come up with a set of morals that are not based on fideism or assertion, which are grounded in evolutionary reality, or social constructs with a survival value, that seems like a rather bold assertion.
Consider, for example, that 2,000 years ago there were no prison camps. The winner of a conflict had to either convince the losers to submit and stop fighting, or - what? I'm sure our histories are spotty, but we see that sometimes the defeated would accept new rule and become a new satrapy of the conquered. But on other occasions, depending on the attitude of the conquered or the conqueror, that wasn't considered an option. The remaining options were pretty thin - slavery, or slaughter. How does it work, then? Can it be slavery was preferable to death? Does that make it the lesser of two evils?
We've already established that war is not immoral, because it is a social construct and has evolutionary value. Killing the males of a defeated tribe and enslaving the women (and you know what that means: propagating the victor's genes) is also a social construct with evolutionary value. And, yes, it was thought to be pretty reasonable at the time - given the alternative. Of course, it was the winning slave-holders that wrote history.
Posted by: Matthew Segall | July 27, 2009 7:49 PM
Celtic_Evolution,
I imagine you are looking for me to say, "because evolutiondunit." I do think morality developed as animals became more social; I do not think the idea of justice was implanted in us from the realm of eternal forms. Nonetheless, justice is not something observed through any of the five senses. I say it is "spiritual" only because it is a supersensible concept.
Knockgoats,
If one did not speak his/her language, there mere sound of the words coming out of the judge's mouth would be entirely meaningless. One cannot understand justice empirically (based on sensation alone).
Matter is a rather empty term. In one sense, it is all I've ever seen/heard/touched (bodily feeling isn't, strictly speaking, empirical). In another sense, I've never seen/heard/touched it at all, because the real world is full of particular things with their own unique properties. Saying they are all material is true, but adds nothing.
Posted by: TigerRepellingRock | July 27, 2009 7:51 PM
@heddle
Not that I'm a huge multiverse fan (such a dull solution) but:
Phys.Rev.D79:123514,2009
If the nucleation rate is high enough, doable by the Planck telescope. So not just proposed, but currently being done.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 27, 2009 7:53 PM
Woo-woo-woo. Or null content.Posted by: pdferguson
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July 27, 2009 7:57 PM
andyet ranted:
You bloody fucking bunch of hypocirites.
Oh that's right, it's not an insult if a religionist accuses us all of being "corrosive to the very concept of human dignity". How silly of me not to realize that.
You bloody fucking bigot.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 8:00 PM
Heddle,
Then you're simply rejecting science in its entirety. You're effectively saying that formulating and testing scientific theories is great, but we're never allowed to actually use them for anything.
Does conservation of energy hold on Europa? Who knows? We've never actually tested that claim. It's a prediction of all modern theories of physics, and those theories have made thousands of successful predictions...but we haven't tested this prediction, so we can't accept it.
Was the 2nd law of thermodynamics violated in my closet two weeks ago at midnight? Who knows? Never tested it, can't accept it.
Will the next airplane I ride on spontaneously lose lift and fall out of the sky? Who knows? The laws of aerodynamics argue against it, but I haven't tested their predictions for that airplane at that time.
See where this is going? Making untested predictions is what science is for; declare them unacceptable, and you've redefined science to the point of uselessness.
Sure. And that's when we discover that our previous theory is unsatisfactory and needs a replacement. How else could science progress, but by making predictions and finding that they fail?
Incorrect; Scenario 2 says that C is of unit conditional probability, given the fundamental theory in question. What that means for C's unconditional probability depends on the fundamental theory. How likely is that theory to obtain for a given universe?
Yes, I know you do; you've said so many times before. But you haven't said why.
Again, we have to examine this hypothetical "fundamental theory" to draw any conclusions. Is it logically necessary? Then there exists no case for design, or for anything else--the theory holds because it must. No explanation can draw support from this fact.
Is it contingent? Then we can ask why this fundamental theory holds and not another--in other words, why our spacetime is the sort of spacetime with habitability built into its fabric. In that case, the explanation could be divine design. But it could also be a multiverse--perhaps different fundamental theories hold for different realities. Or it could be chance. Or a subtler logical necessity we haven't yet recognized. In fact, we have exactly the same sorts of available explanations that we had before.
Moreover, it's certainly not the case that a design hypothesis argues against Scenario 1. An omnipotent deity could certainly create a set of laws of nature under which a life-bearing universe is highly unlikely, then cause such a universe to come into existence anyway. In fact, that would be the very definition of a miracle.
I understand that Scenario 2 "feels" better to you as a theist, but I'm still not seeing an actual argument as to why it does support theism.
There is nothing that prohibits another spacetime in a multiverse from affecting any or all of the others in a detectable way. NothingYes there is. It’s called General Relativity. Perhaps you know a way around it?
Come now, you've just said we can't accept the "untested predictions" of any given theory. Are you really going to suggest that "No isolated spacetime can influence another" is tested? Built any pocket universes lately?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
July 27, 2009 8:01 PM
Both the Romans and the Western Han Dynasty had POW camps some 2000 years ago.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 8:03 PM
Robocop@223,
I suppose it's possible early Christianity treated women better than Roman paganism - it is, indeed, religion in general and not just Christianity that mistreats women; but Rodney Stark claims most of the early converts were Jews, which would seem to undermine this point, and himself compares the exponential growth of early Christianity with that of Mormonism - where the "progressive treatment of women" could hardly be a factor. What evidence do you have that his view is now mainstream? I note also that Stark shows himself either a fool or a liar when he fulminates against an invented "Darwinian crusade" in the article "Facts, Fable and Darwin" (2004).
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 8:03 PM
Whoops, I screwed up the blockquotes at the end of my #260. Reposting that bit:
Come now, you've just said we can't accept the "untested predictions" of any given theory. Are you really going to suggest that "No isolated spacetime can influence another" is tested? Built any pocket universes lately?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 8:07 PM
Matthew
Really? How does one recognize justice?
So... close....
Dammit. This is where you go wrong... One understands it, with or without language, through observation of the outward actions that are disctated by that culture's definition of "justice". The person may not recognize the language or words of the judge... but they damn well feel the lash of the whip! And the people observing it can damn well see it. The only way anyone understands the concept of "justice" is as because of the resultant action that can either be experienced or observed.
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 8:08 PM
Anton Mates,
I welcome (sincerely) your design of an experiment that can avoid the restrictions/constraints of GR and detect another universe.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 8:11 PM
If one did not speak his/her language, there mere sound of the words coming out of the judge's mouth would be entirely meaningless. One cannot understand justice empirically (based on sensation alone). - Matthew Segall
First, you're evading the point: that we can only know justice (and love, etc.) exists through experience of the external world. Second, how do you think a child learns to understand language, Matthew? Yes, that's right - from observing the external world, including other people.
BTW, are you really unable to distinguish between "matter" and "the concept of matter"? I thought you were so philosophically sophisticated!
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 8:14 PM
By the way, apparently I've been chosen to stand in for Rev. BigDumbChimp as "Master of all things incorrectly typed".
Damn... and the preview function is working again so I really have no excuse. Oh well.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 27, 2009 8:14 PM
Iris @ 249:
Stu @ 221:
+++
Celtic_Evolution @ 146:
pdferguson @ 149:
+++
PZ Myers:
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 27, 2009 8:17 PM
'Tis Himself writes:
Both the Romans and the Western Han Dynasty had POW camps some 2000 years ago.
I thought those were either labor or temporary holding camps for Roman soldiers in the rare blue-on-blue engagements. I dunno about the Han.
But, if you wanted to subtract all the Romans and all the Han from the situation, it still comes out the same. How often was the choice between submission, slavery, or death?
More to the point, if slavery was "Evil" then, as Iris claims, why was it practiced so widely? It sounds to me like, since "morality" appears to be a social phenomenon, it was "moral" at the time. Not "Evil" except by today's social standards.
(This "morality" stuff is very squishy. I'm glad I'm amoral so I don't have to try to make sense of it; it sounds about as poorly thought-out as religion)
Posted by: John Morales | July 27, 2009 8:17 PM
Matthew:
Category error.
Magnetism, for example, is also inapprehensible through the physical senses, yet it's concrete, not an abstraction. Is magnetism spiritual?
Justice is an abstraction; of course one doesn't apprehend abstractions through the physical senses, but this doesn't make abstractions 'spiritual' unless you so define the term.
You seem to be saying that 'ideas' is a sub-category of 'spiritual'. If so, I say you have it backwards.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 27, 2009 8:18 PM
Piltdown Man@268 has discovered that atheists disagree about things. Duh. Pilty, how many times have we told you that atheism is just a lack of belief in gods?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 8:22 PM
Awww... pilty's trying to be clever and all ironical.
I don't see what your first two quoted items have to do with each other, pilty (context matters)... and might actually be woirth possibly pointing out as a contradiction if they were made by the same person, dillweed.
And your next ironical quote: "this place is ripe with intelligent, thoughtful people who contribute daily to the progress of humanity"... yup... so you chose a single quote from a single person on a single thread and you think this contradicts that sentiment. Well... it might if you were intentionally trying to be an ass. (Check!)
Look... did you have anything to actually add to this discussion or are you just trying to be cute?
Posted by: co | July 27, 2009 8:23 PM
Careful. Someone who wanted to challenge that---not me, of course---would ask whether Platonic solids are spiritual, or X-rays, or good chicken from KFC. Those are supersensible, too, apparently.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 8:23 PM
Heddle,
Look up-thread.
In the meantime, though, I'm not sure how you answered my last question. Why do you even believe in the restrictions and constraints of GR, given that we can't remotely test those on a universal scale?
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 27, 2009 8:30 PM
Piltdown Man and heddle on the one thread?
Damn! In terms of performers whose skills lies in artfully choreographed tapdancing to distract the watcher away from the lack of substance of their arguments for the existence of either of their gods it might end up being like those few instances where both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly appeared onscreen together.
I'm only sad that, since I don't know the names of two equally skilled exponents of handwaving and three-card-monty, I can't extend my analogy even further.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 8:31 PM
Don't know about Han... but AFAIK most archaeologists concur that sites around Hadrian's Wall from around 200 AD were POW camps for captured Britons during the multiple uprisings between 209 and 280 AD.
Agreed... I feel that morality is another one of those social, culturally self-defined constructs like "justice"... which is why I try and be careful not to equate behavior that is possibly socially and/or evolutionarily advantageous at a given point in time with "morality"... if I've conflated the two, it was not intentionally.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | July 27, 2009 8:32 PM
Re: clown shoes.
Funny. I was about to say the same thing about a blog dealing more with religion than science being on ScienceBlogs.
Altruistic and morally aware spiritual scientists should always let the unverifiable ill posed speculative religious claims which are not backed up by any discernible evidence stand without challenge. Why can't we all just be friends!
I suppose you thought we were going to let your retarded confession stand without challenge as well, right.
And of course, we all discover and download scientific papers from within our scientific specialty from blogs.
Posted by: tmaxPA | July 27, 2009 8:33 PM
Just to put in my 2 cents on andy:
That is rhetorical slight of hand; you've confused yourself. PZ was pointing out that once the event has occurred, regardless of how likely it is, the chance of it having happened are 100%. It isn't related to the WAP, and it isn't a tautology.
It may indeed be phenomenally unlikely that the universe would 'just happen' to have the constants it does and that they 'just happen' to result in us. To say 'we're really lucky' is to have a deranged perspective, however. The universe was here before we were, and if it hadn't resulted in us, we'd have never known it.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 8:34 PM
Shit... did I just say 209 and 280 "AD"... I meant "CE" of course.
Posted by: Tulse | July 27, 2009 8:36 PM
heddle:
That completely misses the point that from an anthropic perspective the universe isn't "fine-tuned" for our existence -- literally all of it except for the tiniest fraction is deadly to us. Trillions of cubic light years of nothing at 3K -- how is that "fine tuned" for us? You're reasoning backward from the outcome, rather than looking at how inimical that outcome actually is for life.
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 8:38 PM
Anton Mates,
Sorry I missed the link. I know that paper. It is highly speculative (to say the least), and not a direct experimental contact with another universe. It is still a test involving measurements on out universe.As I said, call me when a an proposal for an experiment to detect another universe is submitted to a funding agency. Otherwise you are sort of in the realm of String theory "predictions."
I believe the restrictions of GR because GR has passed, with flying colors, test after test. Again, nothing is stopping you from proposing a test that violates GR--in fact that would be spectacular.
Posted by: Wedge | July 27, 2009 8:43 PM
The thing that always gets me about the fine tuning argument is...why would God have to fine tune the universe (well, planet, kind of) for humans as we are? Were humans already invented and totally unalterable? Couldn't God have made a life form that would fit whatever type of universe he wanted to?
It'd be a whole lot more impressive for the supernatural designer side of things if we were methane breathers living in oxygen or something like that.
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 8:45 PM
Tulse,
Yes but there is a tiny fraction that is habitable. And that tiny fraction depends on the formation of stars and nuclear synthesis and stellar life cycles. And that is where the fine tuning comes in.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 8:45 PM
heddle -
whay can you say this:
with regards to the multiverse theory, yet confidently make this statement:
Are these not contradictory stands? Can you not assign your first statement to GR? I'm not attacking, here... only asking for clarification.
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 8:49 PM
Wedge,
That's requires exactlythe same fine tuning. The fine tuning is almost entirely, if not entirely, about having a universe that produces metals. So methane breathers living in oxygen would be having exactly the same kind of fine tuning discussions that we are. Maybe you mean a universe of creatures made of only Hydrogen and Helium
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 8:56 PM
Celtic_Evolution,
No. What would be the same is: "I believe this positive prediction of GR is correct, and gets a free pass, even though it cannot be tested, because GR is so successful."
You can say "how do you know a theory won't fail" about any theory including evolution. But no theory, not even GR, can make untestable predictions and still claim to be in the realm of science.
That is, there is a world of difference between saying: "I have confidence that GR will pass any test" (which doesn't mean that you shouldn't test it at every opportunity) and saying "Since GR was correct about A, B, C, and D we can assume it is correct about E, even though there is no test for E."
Posted by: Tulse | July 27, 2009 8:59 PM
Yes, I understand the point, and my response still stand -- the universe as a whole isn't "fine-tuned" for life if life can't exist in it except for the tiniest fraction. Honestly, you can't imagine a universe more welcoming to life? Out of literally infinite possibilities, you consider trillions of cubic light years of 3K emptiness to be "finely tuned"? Only the most Panglossian of thinkers would consider our universe "fine tuned".
Posted by: Wedge | July 27, 2009 8:59 PM
No heddle, you missed my point.
The fine tuning argument points to the fact that we are alive on a planet that supports our form of life as if that is too astonishing to happen without God.
If we were alive on a planet that did not support life, THAT would be astonishing.
Why would God have to fine tune a universe to support life that he created? Any universe and any creation could be made to work by the omnipotent god posited.
Posted by: heddle | July 27, 2009 9:08 PM
Tulse,
What do you mean by imagine? As in science fiction? Given the laws of physics, I cannot imagine a more hospitable universe. The universe on a whole is fine tuned; it had to be in order to make small, isolated regions habitable.
Wedge,
Fine tuning has nothing to do with our planet. That is a privileged planet argument, which is very different. As for this comment:
I have no response.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 9:10 PM
heddle,
Well, sure. Nobody's saying the existence of a multiverse has been scientifically demonstrated already, just that it could be, at least for certain classes of multiversal theories.
Of course. The whole point of this class of theory is that other universes do interact with our own. That doesn't contradict GR, as I understand it, because these universes are not actually completely isolated from one another. (And we know that GR breaks down near the Big Bang anyway.)
All scientific tests are conducted by taking measurements from equipment on our own planet...measurements which are interpreted by sensory organs in our own bodies. Does that mean that we can't really detect anything outside the Earth, or outside our own selves? Not at all.
I don't see a problem with that. String theory is falsifiable, after all, and therefore is at least theoretically accessible to science in a way intelligent design is not.
Hey, so do I. But surely you see that this directly contradicts your previous statement: "All of the successful predictions of a theory do not mean we should accept its untested predictions."
If the many successes of GR justify accepting its implication that causal influences can't propagate between separated spacetimes, then if a theory with many successful predictions also implied the existence of a multiverse, it would be justifiable to accept the multiverse as well.
Posted by: Ray Ingles | July 27, 2009 9:12 PM
Marcus Ranum - More to the point, if slavery was "Evil" then, as Iris claims, why was it practiced so widely?
Because nobody had figured out better ways of doing things. Slavery was less evil than genocide, but still not "good".
Lots of things hadn't been figured out then. Steel, for example. The germ theory of disease. Clocks that could keep time on a pitching ship. Universal suffrage. Trial by a jury of one's peers. Habeas corpus. And so on.
Engineering proceeds by a quasi-evolutionary process as new ideas are developed and tried and either approved or rejected. Moral engineering - figuring out the best codes for people to live by - proceeds the same way. (As I quoted elsewhere, "[D]emocracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churhill. So-called Enlightenment values seem - to me, at lest - to be the worst except for all the others, too.)
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 9:20 PM
heddle,
Sure. The trouble is that you're making a claim of the second sort, where E is "causal influences cannot pass between separated spacetimes." By your own arguments against the testability of multiverse theories, E cannot be tested.
Posted by: Wedge | July 27, 2009 9:24 PM
heddle,
My point is, people who believe that the universe is fine-tuned for life seem to believe, at the same time, that life for some reason HAD to be exactly the way it is.
It's as if they think someone handed God the human design and said, "OK, now make a habitat for it." And God wasted a bunch of space and finally came up with Earth. Almost got it too close to the sun, though. Whew! Good thing he caught that.
It doesn't matter if your idea of fine tuning is about metals, or the constants of the universe, or the planet. You're talking about fine tuning as if life, our kind of life, was pre-designed or pre-existant and therefore a creator must have made the universe to fit it. Very bizarre.
I said that life existing on a planet that didn't have the necessary conditions to support life would be astonishing because that would be clearly supernatural. It would be magic, a miracle.
Instead, we have clear, natural means for life to develop and exist--and you seem to think that somehow this shows that it couldn't exist without supernatural help.
Which is what I find so funny.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 27, 2009 9:29 PM
Celtic_Evolution @ 272:
Just trying to be cute. Carry on.
No wait -- could you clarify what you meant @ 276? -
I don't understand what you're saying here.
Surely systems of morality and justice - and indeed the very concepts of morality and justice - can be socially and/or evolutionarily advantageous regardless of whether they are purely social constructs or are derived from a divine source?
Do you think it is desirable that a social construct be evolutionarily advantageous?
What would your criteria be for determining whether it was or not? How can you be sure that widespread atheism won't be disastrous in Darwinian terms for the human race?
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 27, 2009 9:30 PM
I just came across an alomst identical argument by Ken Miller in Only A Theory. I've got to say I find this argument really frustrating. Firstly, what is wrong with saying "I don't know"? I really don't know how the laws of physics came to be what they were, and as far as I'm aware no-one knows how (if this is not the case, please steer me in the right direction. I am eager to learn.)Secondly, why does it have to be a gambit between a multiverse and a causal agent who has humanity in mind? Surely the size and scope of the universe negate the notion that humanity has a somewhat special place in the universe. Yes, we are a possibility of the universe, but so are birds, bees, algae, viruses, meteors, black holes, etc.
Thirdly, the traits we are ascribing to said causal agent are traits that took us billions of years to evolve. How is it such a being that encompasses us just happens to be exist and be reality itself? See, this I find really hard to buy.
Finally, why is it an equal amount of faith to believe in the multiverse as it is in the Judeo-Christian construct of God? From what I have read on the matter, the multiverse is actually a prediction of physics. Surely this means that supporting a multiverse theory is not as much a faith gambit as there is for believing in an all-knowing, all-powerful being that encompasses reality by which we share his qualities.
Maybe I'm reading the argument wrong, and I really would like to give Miller the benefit of the doubt because otherwise the book (so far) is fantastic. Maybe it's my lack of knowledge of astrophysics that is letting me down,and if that is the case someone please point me in the right direction.
But to me, I draw a parallel to how life came to be. Imagine we've gone back in time just a couple of hundred years, back before Darwin's theory. And the theological argument of the day is Paley's watchmaker argument. Lamarkian evolution has just come about, so in the absence of natural selection the choice it between a special creator and Lamarkian evolution. Coming from the future means I know better, that the answer is neither Lamarkian or as described in Genesis, but that there's a mechanism at play that hadn't been thought of yet: Darwinian evolution.
And on this note, such dictohomies as the one above seem absurd. It's framing what we don't know with just two options: a magic option and one prevailing from the science of the day. Given that this gambit has been made all throughout history (the laws of physics explain the motion of planets, but only a creator can put them in orbit to begin with) and each time the notion of a creator has lost out. Why would it be any different when it comes to laws of nature?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 27, 2009 9:33 PM
Nothing could be as bad as your religion...Posted by: TigerRepellingRock | July 27, 2009 9:41 PM
@heddle
RE:Phys.Rev.D79:123514,2009
Its certainly at the bleeding edge. Nonetheless it does meet your challenge - it proposes other universes that have measureable consequences. Its directly testable.
I disagree. Whats proposed are collisions between our "bubble universe" and others, leaving clear signatures that this has occured. Are you really suggesting that this doen't constitute direct experimental contact?
My point here is that your suggestion that any proposed multiverse must be beyond direct testing is demonstrably incorrect.
Posted by: Rorschach | July 27, 2009 9:48 PM
We can't.But we don't have to be,what we certainly can say is that religion didnt work very well for the human race, and opposing religionists might still tear the planet apart.
But my impression is that atheism will be a logical progression for homo sapiens, and represent a significant step forward in its development, away from superstition and mystical/magical thinking.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 9:49 PM
OK... what the hell does that have to do with what I said?
I made the point that socially/evolutionarily advantageous != moral, necessarily. Where in any of that do I argue that such constructs would be less advantageous if they were divinely derived? You;ll have to check your strawman at the door, pilty.
But to address your point... no... being socially or evolutionary advantageous does not preclude a behavior or social construct from being divinely inspired... however that's never been my argument. My argument would be the opposite... that while it is certainly within the realm of possibility that morality could be divinely inspired, it is not required, and can easily be explained without divine inspiration.
Do I think it's desirable for a trait to be desirable in evolutionary terms? Um... duh.
Wow... is that how you think evolution works? That it has a built in desired state and then chooses, sentiently, traits that will bring it to that state? Yikes.
No, pilty... a society will fail if it adapts traits that are not desirable to succeed (like murder, for example).
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 9:49 PM
heddle,
But why are you taking "the laws of physics"--which of course is merely a set of descriptions for how things seem to work in our observable neighborhood--as a given? Both multiverse theories and intelligent design imply that the observable laws of physics are contingent.
An all-powerful deity (or a "designer" of unspecified powers, which is effectively the same thing) could have created a latticework of trillions of Earths spaced a million miles apart, each with its own orbiting mini-sun, if he'd wanted to. Science-fictional possibilities seem as good as any when you're dealing with omnipotence.
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 27, 2009 9:57 PM
Sweden is up to 85% atheist and it gets on just fine...Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 27, 2009 10:07 PM
Well, I can't. But if I had to predict, I guess all I could do is look at the indicators... let's see... number of human tragedies, disasters, genocides and conflicts attributed to religion vs. same items attributed to atheism...
*crunching numbers*
Yup... I feel pretty confident that it would turn out pretty ok by comparison...
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 27, 2009 10:40 PM
One of the great disadvantages of being Aspergers is that threads like this can confuse the heck out of you. So let me take on two of the side topics:
On Pi: If we used a base 8 number system how long would PI be in octimal notation?
On gravity: Space-time resists change. There's more to it, but it would take a bit of verbiage to explain.
Posted by: Hypatia's Daughter | July 27, 2009 10:44 PM
#189 Marcus Ranum
Marcus, you have it all in a nutshell.
Science doesn't know. It may never know. But it seeks to push knowledge closer & closer to knowing. It asks the questions. It has the only successful methodology to seek the answers.
Religion says "Don't bother searching. Goddit."
The Catch-22 of having a religious person say "Maybe someday someone will figure it out." while spewing insults (like, anti-God, immoral, atheist, nihilist) at those who actually trying to figure it out, makes scientists terribly cranky (and occasionally rude.)
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 27, 2009 10:52 PM
Marcus Ranum, #227
The Samaritans are heretics according to the Jews. In the early 1st century AD relations were especially bitter, what with all the messianic agitation going around. Today Samaritans deny rabbinical authority. Back then they denied the authority of the priests at Jerusalem, holding that their own temple was as valid a place to give sacrifice to God as the temple at Jerusalem. As I understand it, Samaritan scriptures differ from the Jewish where the Jerusalem temple is concerned.
In short, it was an in-house religious conflict, and those get nasty.
Posted by: TwinIonEngines | July 27, 2009 11:03 PM
Alan Kellogg, #303
Pi is irrational, meaning that it is inexpressible as the ratio of integer quantities. It will therefore be approximated by an infinite, non-repeating string of digits under any base notation.
Posted by: Sastra
|
July 27, 2009 11:04 PM
Wedge #288 wrote:
Right. Since God and the angels are presumably moral intelligences which can exist in any environment, the universe obviously does not need to be 'fine-tuned' in order for moral intelligences to exist. They can exist in any environment that God can exist in. As you said, the Fine Tuning Argument works backwards, as if God is making an environment fit for the beings who are destined to be. This destiny is outside of God's control -- hence the fact that we are supposed to marvel at his marksmanship.
And why does God have such narrow parameters to work in, in the first place? Why was God hampered by the constraints on what sort of universe is possible, what sort of life is possible? Was God lucky that the narrow window of opportunity existed, so that He could hit it? Who set the target up, that the marksman has to be so impressive? Was God making it hard on Himself to show off?
FTA is just taking out what's put in. Pick something you find amazing. Look at all the hypothetical ways it might not have been. Conclude therefore that someone must have PICKED that something you find amazing. Yes. Someone did do that: it was you.
If we start out with the assumption that there's nothing particularly important or significant about life, the argument can't take off. We have to fine tune it in the right direction.
If things had been different, then they would have been different. Collins must be absolutely floored that it "just happened" to take one year for the earth to go around the sun. What were the odds of that?
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 27, 2009 11:09 PM
TwinIonEngines, #306
Is PI universally irrational, or is the irrationality limited to base ten, and then only when using decimal notation. Is there truly a universal value for Pi, or is the value of Pi situation dependent. That is, dependent upon the physical dimensions of the circle being measured? Can Pi be expressed as an ideal?
Posted by: TwinIonEngines | July 27, 2009 11:10 PM
Re: #306
"under any _rational_ base notation", sorry.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 27, 2009 11:32 PM
Alan Kellogg,
Irrationality just means that a number isn't a quotient of two integers. It is not base-dependent; the base merely determines the representation of the number. You could come up with an irrational base under which the representation of pi is finite--in fact, you could use base pi, and pi would then be written as "1"! But it would still be irrational.
No; if you measure the circumference/diameter ratio of various real-world circles you'll get different numbers, but that's not pi. That's just a quick & dirty method of approximating pi.
It can only be expressed that way. You can't point to pi in nature; even if we had infinitely precise measurement systems, spacetime is non-Euclidean. Real-world geometrical relationships are never exactly what they "ought" to be in Euclidean geometry.
Posted by: co | July 27, 2009 11:40 PM
It's dependent upon the topology of the space in which the circle is embedded. In a locally Euclidean space, pi = the usual 3.142 ...; in a positive-curvature space, pi 3.142; in a space in which curvatures are mixed, one can get any of the previous. When Gauss made the legendary measurement of the interior angles of a triangle with its points on three well-separated mountains, it was in an attempt to measure the local curvature of Earth (it was flat, to within measurement error).
Posted by: No Bs | July 27, 2009 11:50 PM
andyet ;
"It means one recognizes that many of the things that really matter in life are invisible (love, friendship, justice, wisdom, etc.)."
Love, friendship, justice and wisdom are not "invisible".
They are driven and created by visible actions of living beings.
As are humility, compassion, and empathy.
Only tangible action gives those concepts any value.
Signed,
Someone older than you are.
Posted by: Kagehi | July 28, 2009 12:12 AM
Funny thing.. Steven Hawkins is supposed to be coming out of hiding and one of his planned avenues of examination is how **our** universes laws are in fact a derived consequence, or emergent property, or some such, of string theory. Why? Because, according to him, the reason string theory gets flaky, complicated, and hard to pin down, is that it describes "possible" configurations, not "our" configuration. I.e., the particular set of specific factors that produce our universe may be a result of a *specific set* of characteristics of string theory, but, any number of other configurations are *possible*, they just don't necessarily match ours. The equations may turn out to be right for it, just... too general. Like.. trying to determine the two ends of a tangled mess of yarn, when it turns out your looking at a 50 foot wide ball, containing 5,000 ends, not just two of them. At best, you can find the intersection between our universe and the equations. *OR* the starting conditions that allowed a specific set of characteristics to "produce" the result we see. Which is probably more likely, since it would account for the formation of a singularity as a first step in a process that *produced* the current physical laws, as we see them.
Mind, he could be wrong, but then he could be wrong about black holes too, and its going to be sooner than 2012 (when the latest idiocy end of the world movie is set) before we know that or not. lol
So.. Option 4: The precise set of parameters that gave rise to the universe may, or may not, have been random (in a multiverse version, they would all derive each other, so having A, B, C and D all be like V, W, X, and Y, would **require** our universe E to have characteristics Z), but the result would have been an inevitable result of those preconditions.
None of which means much, since, as has been pointed out *multiple* times, the universe isn't fine tuned for life as we know it, and any life it may be fine tuned for, given what most of it is like, would be *nothing* like us.
Posted by: Tulse | July 28, 2009 12:31 AM
Anton:
Exactly. Or he could have not bothered to create all that emptiness, and literally put the Earth at the centre of a human-scaled universe. Or he could have created a universe that was an infinitely large meadow, with gumdrop trees and streams of milk and honey. Any of those possibilities would be vastly more "fine tuned" for our existence than the actual universe. If we are postulating a designer who set up the physical laws, we're not at all constrained to just variations on the physical laws we actually have -- the designer presumably could have produced literally anything. And yet the universe is essentially vast cold emptiness. How is that "fine tuning"?
I don't know why this is such a hard concept to grasp.
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | July 28, 2009 1:00 AM
Sastra @ 307:
Let's play w/that a bit - the theist could conceivably hypothesize that 'gawd' set everything up that way, so that when humanity got to a certain point, all indicators would point to the Big Kahuna.
Of course, this is a sub-optimal scenario. It would've been better that the knowledge would be inherent - intaglio'd onto the grey matter, or whatnot.
The whole idea is amusing: these are the people who attribute Einstein w/the 'doesn't play dice' quote, & turn around & bellow "Hey, what are the odds!"
(Thanks for the book recommendation BTW - it's good reading, mm-hmm!)
Posted by: Dan W | July 28, 2009 1:13 AM
I have to say, I think Francis Collins is a bad choice for head of NIH. I'd rather it be someone whose head isn't filled with religious woo, which often conflicts with science. Someone more skeptical of all the woo would be a better choice.
Posted by: Snoof | July 28, 2009 1:39 AM
And if you ignore all the parts which aren't, all the stuff that's left is essentially stupidly hot.And if you cut out all _that_ stuff, you get fairly dense hydrogen/helium gas mixes.
And if you cut out all _that_ stuff, you get rock, in various phases.
We're walking on a tiny, fragile layer of gaseous nitrogen and oxygen which is precariously perched on the cooled skin of a ball of molten iron. And we're supposed to believe the universe is _habitable_?
Posted by: mikedean | July 28, 2009 2:01 AM
"Only a deliberate act of Creation done with forethought and with an ultimate aim in mind can give Existence an inherent meaning or purpose. Lacking such a Creator, Existence is pointless."
so, why can we humans not deliberately and with forethought create meaning and purpose for ourselves. Outside of that, the existence is indeed meaningless, too bad.
"Without a soul, consciousness and the Self are merely illusions incapable of the free will (which is also an illusion) or volition necessary to create meaning. Therefore it is impossible to really create meaning as even the most sophisticated of us are merely products of our brain chemistry and genetic programming.
Furthermore, all actions in an inherently meaningless universe, no matter how devoted or passionate, are themselves meaningless gestures in a cold indifferent universe."
First: what is a soul? and, what is the relationship between this 'soul' and a creator'? second: Why does the absence of a soul mean free will is an illusion? free will seems to me to be a fact, I can get up and dance around right now, or i can throw myself out the window, I don't do so, but I could do these things. My understanding is that our brain chemistry and genetic programming are not sufficiently deterministic to limit our capacity for free will entirely, although they certainly seem to limit it in certain ways. Why such a conclusion is nihilistic is beyond me. Again, our actions are meaningless for the universe, this does not mean that they are meaningless to other humans. Humans are the only people who create meaning for the universe.
"Atheism provides no basis for universal, inherent human dignity and is indeed corrosive of the very concept. Where in Selfish Gene theory is the mandate for me to treat a Black man as my equal? Where does materialism require me to accept all men as my brothers? Or treat them better than convenience and self interest would require?"
As others have noted, god has not proven particularly effective at this either. Nothing in particular requires you to accept all men as your brothers, nor to treat black men as your equals - btw, how very magnanimous of you. It is simply that over time some among us humans have determined that recognizing 'universal, inherent human dignity' makes for a more pleasant society, not to mention that people formerly not included in this universal dignity have insisted on their inclusion, and have fought for it. Sadly, despite the infinite powers of your creator, many people do not recognize universal human dignity. And forgive us for pointing this out, but religious folks often seems the least able to perform this act of recognition.
In the end, the universe is cold and uncaring, there is no ultimate purpose to life outside of those we create for ourselves. As far as the universe is concerned, Hitler was just as nice as Gandhi. As Atheists have repeatedly pointed out: this does not mean that we humans must feel the same way.
Posted by: Gorogh | July 28, 2009 3:13 AM
@andyet,
While I followed the thread only through post 100 or so, I might remind you of some open but crucial questions you did not care to answer:
How is supposing an additional factor - for which no evidence nor necessity whatsoever exists - for how the universe came to exist contributing to an answer to selfsame fact?
Granted god does exist, how did god come to exist? How did god cause the universe to exist? How do you know? How is to abandon parsimony and postulating an entity which actually raises the demand for explanation contributing anything meaningful to the discussion? Why is it so difficult to see that while we do not KNOW what caused the universe to exist - or why it appears so fine-tuned, notwithstanding this misleading adjective -, chance is a more plausible explanation than goddidit, and sufficient, too?
What can your object of faith possibly contribute which is not already covered by chance?
Or is it that you just cannot get over the most likely conclusion that we are not more special than any particular combination or series in a dice roll?
Posted by: Gorogh | July 28, 2009 3:18 AM
Ah and one more thing: How do you fail to see how self-centered and anthropomorphic any of these traditional faith-based goddidits are?
While chance might not appear to be the most satisfying explanation for anything, it is often the best explanation, because all others are much less plausible.
Posted by: Gorogh | July 28, 2009 3:32 AM
@mikedean #318,
I guess to name Gandhi as some kind of antithesis to Hitler might make little Baby Hitchens cry ;)
Anyway, I agree with most of your points and, as always when it comes to free will, refer to Dennett's "benign user illusion"-concept. I can live with the assumption that there is no free will, I am only experiencing life "as if" I had it. Pragmatically, this does not make one bit of a difference, my main objectives as a human being remain the same. Only the perspective regarding responsibility of action changes - if one is not responsible for one's actions, crime and punishment get more of an ethical (how do we achieve a mode of fair play, how do we best organize our living together?) implication, making a primitive moral point of view (did I personally do something right/good or wrong/evil?) obsolete.
We do not need "free will" to explain anything.
Posted by: ivo | July 28, 2009 5:16 AM
MartinDH #96
My feelings precisely. The (weak) anthropic principle, if not taken as a mere tautological statement of fact ("we are here, so this universe allows for us to exist"), implicitely assumes some extraordinary claims:
1. our vanishingly detectable presence in this incomprehensibly huge universe somehow has something very important to say about it all.
2. our way of life (so to speak) somehow is representative of "life", i.e., (intelligent) life is conflated with our own carbon-based liquid-water one specimen.
3. the fundamental physical constants are really variable, just like switches in some pre-universal divine control room.
4. if you change any constant by a tiny little wee bit, then life isn't possible at all. (As far as I understand it, the only conclusion claimed by physicists is that life *as we know it* wouldn't be possible, because planets' orbits wouldn't be stable, atoms wouldn't form as we know, etc etc. But what do we know about other physical universes??? See point 2.)
Back to point one: it may be that in the mind of godbotherers, "the universe" really refers to this earth, with Man at its metaphysical center, while the rest of it all is just some star-dusted vault revolving around us. You know, the pre-Copernican pre-Darwinian world.
Posted by: Alan | July 28, 2009 5:16 AM
Anton Mates, #310
So Pi, strictly speaking, doesn't exist. Pi is an attempt to make a range of situation dependent values fit somebody's notion of what should be. So Pi is irrational according to the traditional meaning of the word.
Which means we have two versions of Pi; ideal Pi and real world Pi. Ideal Pi is an irrational number that has no resolution. Real world Pi is a value dependent upon conditions, and the expression of which can only rarely, if ever, be expressed as a decimal.
An atheist doesn't believe in God, I don't believe in the ideal. The ideal cannot be applied to the real world for the real world cannot ever be perfect. So long as we dwell in this imperfect universe we can never achieve perfection. Ideal Pi, as an ideal, cannot be accurately applied to real world conditions. The use of ideal Pi to determine the circumference of a circle from its radius will always introduce error, because Pi is an imprecise tool under real world conditions. The error may be very small, but it is still there, and as we've seen with unmanned space missions, very small errors can mean the difference between success or failure.
In short, Pi is a labor saving device that has no real value; the only reliable way to determine the circumference of a circle is to directly measure it. In other words, no cheating.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 28, 2009 5:24 AM
Mikedean - very well put, except that I think it's a mistake to say the universe is "cold and uncaring", as this suggests it is an agent, but not a nice one. We wouldn't say a rock or a sheet of paper is "cold and uncaring" - like the universe, they lack the capacity to be either cold and uncaring, or warm and caring.
I guess to name Gandhi as some kind of antithesis to Hitler might make little Baby Hitchens cry ;) Gorogh
Nice. I haven't read Hitchens on Gandhi, but can guess what line he takes, and would probably agree with most of it - among other idiocies, Gandhi called for the British to let Hitler invade, and resist him non-violently. This reminds me of a wonderful sketch in a '60s UK comedy show Not Only But Also, written by and starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, in which Gandhi and Hitler captained the teams in a "Good vs Evil" cricket match (the multi-armed goddess of destruction Kali, I recall, was wicket-keeper for Evil). The match ended with a sit-down protest on the wicket by Gandhi, in answer to which Hitler called for the heavy roller (the captain of either side can ask for the wicket to be flattened using a huge metal cylinder), and Gandhi was reduced to paper-thinness.
On free will, read Dennett's Freedom Evolves - he shows that the varieties of free will "worth having" are perfectly compatible with a materialist universe.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 28, 2009 5:29 AM
On the Universe
The universe is space-time and nothing but space-time. Everything else arises from fundamental properties inherent to space-time. For our purposes the most important is that space-time resists change. It is this resistance that causes space-time to curve, the most basic curvature producing the phenomenon we know as gravity. The strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and electro-magnetism are also expressions of space-time curvature, curvature of a more complex nature than that which we know as gravity.
Posted by: ivo | July 28, 2009 5:38 AM
Alan #323:
Yeah, Pi is an abstract concept, not a concrete object. It only lives in our minds, and it only has those properties that derive logically from its formal definition.
Weeeell... what!?
Then the whole of mathematics would be "irrational". Clearly many abstract concepts are irrational, in the sense that their use presupposes a remarkable absence of rationality in the mind involved, but so are many supposedly concrete notions (gods, faeries, New Age energies...).
I would advise against confusing "concrete" with "rational".
Posted by: ivo | July 28, 2009 5:46 AM
I second Knockgoats' suggestion. Freedom Evolves is a very clear and insightful little book, which IMHO definitely resolves the old determinism vs free will conundrum.
Posted by: ivo | July 28, 2009 5:48 AM
I second Knockgoats' suggestion. Freedom Evolves is a very clear and insightful little book, which IMHO definitely resolves the old determinism vs free will conundrum.
Posted by: Marko | July 28, 2009 5:50 AM
Much has been written about fine tuning, but particle physicist Victor Stenger and his MonkeyGod program wasn't even mentioned, which is a shame I'd like to alleviate.
One argument from Supernaturalists to which I had to concede for the longest time was fine tuning and similar arguments involving the anthropic principle. But since Stenger had shown that our universe isn't finely tuned at all, this last argument holds no water anymore.
In the PDF, Stenger comes up with a set of constants that would make possible a universe with stars that generate heavier elements that lead to atoms the size of oranges.
On arXiv, you can also find Fred Adams' article showing that 25 per cent of all sets of fundamental constants allow for stars to undergo fusion; and Harnik shows that it might even work without the weak force. Links to both papers are on Wikipedia.
Modern cosmology allowed us to formulate the fine-tuning argument in the first place. It would be intellectually dishonest to cherry-pick and deny further findings.
Posted by: ivo | July 28, 2009 5:50 AM
damn, double post. sorry...
Posted by: Carlie | July 28, 2009 6:01 AM
Back to Collins, this just showed up on the latest Carnival of the Godless:
My first grant application to the Collins NIH. Funny!
Posted by: Gorogh | July 28, 2009 6:01 AM
@Knockgoats #324, I shall read Freedom Evolves. Thank you for the recommendation - although I presume it might be a shame I have not read it already, granted that I find the topic, and especially its implications, highly interesting.
As to Gandhi, I know but little beyond what Hitchens states in God Is Not Great, but what I know serves to remind me that even those presumed "saintly" (well, whatever that actually means) rarely are, cf. another Hitchens, The Missionary Position.
Seems to be a bit off topic, though.
Posted by: Peter McKellar | July 28, 2009 6:10 AM
andyet #155
someone more worthy than andyet is a very long list. One person on that list is particle physicist Victor J Stenger:
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 28, 2009 6:46 AM
Thanks to Carlie, Peter McKellar and Marko for the links! I really did LOL reading Carlie's.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 6:48 AM
Amazingly in base 16 there is a simple formula for obtaining the nth decimal of pi. It was discovered fairly recently.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 28, 2009 6:51 AM
Alan,
Y'know, I thought I should qualify my "you can't point to pi in nature" statement. No, pi certainly does exist; it just can't be found in a real-world circle. It's an artifact of human thought, and human thought is a collection of processes in human brains, and human brains are known (I hope you agree) to exist. So pi exists. No, pi is a value which pops out of a model (the Euclidean circle) which is useful for describing a variety of real-world objects. There's nothing irrational about it--nobody is claiming that this model describes those objects perfectly. I don't know what "an irrational number that has no resolution" means. And pi pops out of an infinite number of mathematical relationships--the circumference/diameter ratio of a circle, the square root of area/radius ratio of a circle, the area under the curve 1/(1+x^2), and so forth. There are an infinite number of "real world pi"s you could define accordingly. What do you mean? Any value can be expressed as a decimal. And unless space is quantized in some weird way that messes this up, almost any "real-world pi" will be irrational. Ideals are generated and expressed by real-world brains, so I have no problem believing in them, as long as they are understood to be ideal. As we've also seen with every successful space mission ever, very small errors can also make no difference at all. Even if we had a Theory of Everything, it would be computationally impossible to actually use it for a human-scale endeavor without making approximations. Most people value an opportunity to save labor. Why would you consider that reliable? Any measurement system involves abstractions and ideals of the sort you say you're rejecting. How could you possibly measure the circumference of a real circle with zero error?Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 6:53 AM
OT, but funny:
Fox News graphics department has shaky grasp of Mideast geography
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 28, 2009 7:09 AM
Knockgoats,
I wasn't too satisfied with that aspect of Freedom Evolves. I don't think Dennett demonstrated that his version of free will was one which most people would consider "worth having," or would even recognize as free will.
I don't actually disagree with much of anything in his description of human decision-making, mind you. And I think people have widely varying conceptions of free will, most of which are hazy at best and self-contradictory at worst. But "worth having" is a value judgment, and Dennett didn't make much of a case for why everyone should give up their conceptions for his.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 7:18 AM
I'm not sure how you approximate with an infinite, non-repeating string of digits.
I think it's better to think of it as the limit of a sequence of rational numbers e.g, 3, 3.1, 3.14, 3.141, 3.1415,.... There are other ways to form a sequence but as long as the difference between the two sequences approaches zero they are said to be equivalent. There's nothing special about Pi in this respect. This is how the real numbers are constructed.
Posted by: Rorschach | July 28, 2009 7:19 AM
Carlie @ 331,
I LOL'd when I checked that link ...:-)
Say what??
And hey Feyny, keep your math porn to yourself, will ya....base 16, nth decimal of Pi, who do you think you are,Richard fucking Feynman or what??
:P
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 7:28 AM
Awww, one more type of porn people ask me to keep to myself....
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 28, 2009 7:31 AM
Just don't stop sharing your physics porn, or I might have to find someone else to nominate for the Molly awards each month...Posted by: Rorschach | July 28, 2009 7:35 AM
You have to tell me more about that sometime !
The only math I know much about these days is the math of Blackjack strategy.
Well,I'm off to break some probability laws at the local Casino,wish me luck....
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 7:36 AM
Fine, I'll just talk about bad math:
O'Reilly says higher Canadian life expectancy is "to be expected" because "we have 10 times as many people"
Posted by: Gruesome Rob | July 28, 2009 8:11 AM
Just think about that statement, will you?
Labor is how you create value. If you're saving labor, then it has value.
Posted by: Kemist | July 28, 2009 8:15 AM
oooo...kay.
Burkina Faso, then, with it's 15 million inhabitants, should have a higher life expectancy than Canada. Somehow... it... doesn't. One wonders why.
So it's canadian-health-care-bashing time in the US then. Hey, you can find canadians willing to bash it for you.
Just look for a few worried well waiting for an MRI scan that is probably completely useless to them, but urgent for a brain cancer patient - whom is higher than them on the priority list.
It's not that there are no real problems here, but from what I've heard the exact same problems tend to exist south of us.
Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 8:39 AM
The people of the Pitcairn Islands (all 50 of them) must be fucking immortal!Posted by: co | July 28, 2009 8:50 AM
Pi as a "labor saving device"?!? If that's the way you look at it, so are the trig functions; after all, they're just infinite series of polynomials -- why not just use the polynomials? (of course, that's what calculators do when they figure out your sin). Hell, all multiplications are just a series of additions, so it's a good thing that multiplication is just a labor-saving device. Oh, and additions are simply countings, so we're pretty much back to doing countings and rescalings.
Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 8:51 AM
Ah, the good old healthcare debate. As much as I hate to quote Ann Coulter with approval on this particular site (since she's about as popular in these parts as fried-cockroach-flavour ice cream) - and despite the fact that she's said many bizarre, contemptible and borderline insane things in the past - her column this week is actually rather good.
She points out the obvious truths that people often miss. Firstly, the problems with US healthcare are primarily caused by government intervention: specifically, federal and state regulation of the insurance market. Secondly, compare healthcare with other industries. Do we want a health system which operates like the DMV (DVLA in the UK) and the Postal Service? Or do we want a health system which operates like, say, the grocery industry, or the hairdressing industry, or the computer industry?
In the end, government-run industries always lead to inefficiency, bureaucracy and waste. While a free market isn't perfect - we don't live in a perfect world - just think of what consumer capitalism has delivered to us. Shops where we can buy food from all around the world, all year round, at affordable prices; a TV and a fridge and a computer in even the humblest households; instantaneous worldwide communications. Yet when it comes to healthcare, we still have (in the UK, and in many other countries) waiting lists, rationing and red tape - just as we would have in the food industry, had we retained food rationing. In the end, no government bureau can replicate the efficiency of the market - and so all we need is to get government out of the healthcare industry. As Coulter suggests, we could have "health stamps" for the poor and medically uninsurable, and let everyone else provide for their own healthcare needs through a free market.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 9:05 AM
How about a healthcare system that works as well as the banking system ?
Actually, maybe not.
Posted by: dinkum | July 28, 2009 9:08 AM
Oh, yeah. Complete deregulation of an already bloodthirsty and piratical health insurance industry.
Good idea. Just fucking aces.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
|
July 28, 2009 9:14 AM
Walton,
What you and other libertarians ignore is that demand for healthcare is inelastic, and neither we nor our doctors consider price when we're on the operating table or in the emergency room. Here's an idea: go actually talk to some people. Ask folks in the UK or Canada or any other civilized country whether they'd change health-care systems with the US. Don't drone on about delays and inconvenience or poor service. Ask them if they'd switch.
In the US, we spend more on healthcare per capita than any other country--and with worse outcomes. The system as it is practiced here is nothing more than a conduit for transferring the wealth of US citizens into the pockets of Health-care CEOS. In other words: theft, pure and simple.
Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 9:17 AM
Or maybe a health system which works like the national health care systems of Canada, Britain, France, etc, etc. (i.e., a healthcare system which works)Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 9:17 AM
Just like how the "bloodthirsty and piratical" food industry has led to us all waiting in lines for hours at the grocery store to get our ration of boiled turnips?
Or how the "bloodthirsty and piratical" computer industry forces me to type this on a typewriter and communicate it to you using semaphore flags?
Or how the "bloodthirsty and piratical" hairdressing industry requires you to go on an 18-month waiting list to get a short back and sides?
Such a contrast to those lovely, warm, fuzzy government agencies. Why, isn't it such a joyous experience applying for a driving licence or a passport?
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 9:19 AM
Walton,
Sigh, again your arguments completely lack empirical data. Let me provide some for you. The US spends more per capita on health care than any country in the world. And what does it get? 50 million people uninsured. 33rd in the world in infant mortality rate. 45th in life expectancy. Ranked 37th by overall performance and 72nd in overall health by WHO.
The problem is the insurance companies. When profit is your main goal the system will have this kind of waste and immorality. Many will be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions. Of course, business is all you care about, but even many there don't like the system. It's cheaper for car companies to make cars across the border in Windsor, Canada than in Detroit because they don't have to spend money on health costs. It ends up saying them about $1000 per car!
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 9:21 AM
"Just like how the "bloodthirsty and piratical" food industry has led to us all waiting in lines for hours at the grocery store to get our ration of boiled turnips?
Or how the "bloodthirsty and piratical" computer industry forces me to type this on a typewriter and communicate it to you using semaphore flags?
Or how the "bloodthirsty and piratical" hairdressing industry requires you to go on an 18-month waiting list to get a short back and sides?
Such a contrast to those lovely, warm, fuzzy government agencies. Why, isn't it such a joyous experience applying for a driving licence or a passport?"
Walton,
You are aware of health insurers going through people's medical records to find the slighest excuse to refuse to pay out ? Like a woman with breast cancer who had her operation cancelled becuase her insurer found out she had been treated for acne as a teenager and had failed to disclose that when she applied for insurance.
If you want healthcare run by people who put profit ahead of people, feel free to put yourself in the hands of such an insurer. Just do not insist the rest of us follow you.
Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 9:22 AM
Partly because - as Coulter, for all her faults, correctly points out - federal and state regulation force US insurance companies to cover a huge variety of different treatments; restrict competition across state lines; drive up prices; and make the insurance market too expensive for smaller companies to compete, meaning that the largest corporations monopolise the market.
Before the advent of the NHS and welfare state in the UK, we had "friendly societies" - non-profit bodies where workers would pool their resources and assist members who were too ill to work or needed medical treatment. Sadly, in the modern world, government regulation makes such things economically impossible.
Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 9:26 AM
So voluntary exchange of money for services is considered "theft" in your world? Interesting, if rather unorthodox, perspective on criminal law.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 9:30 AM
Guess what Walton?
Maybe the government won't run the health care system like the postal service. Maybe a hysterectomy is more important than delivering mail and a hospital will require different organizing principles.
Also, if the government is so inefficient and so bad why are the insurance companies shaking in their boots that they are going to enter the market?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 9:30 AM
Walton,
You are a student, and I doubt you earn enough to pay taxes.
Do you make use of the NHS ? I would hope you are principled enough not to. If you do not pay towards it you cannot expect to get anything from it can you ?
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
|
July 28, 2009 9:32 AM
Uh, Walton, exactly what is voluntary about being brought in unconscious to the emergency room, or being told that you will die without this or that expensive treatment? What is voluntary about larcenous prices charged for drugs by drug companies that spend more on marketing than on R&D? Maybe if you ever cared to venture outside your little libertarian fantasy camp you might learn something. Here's a hint: reality trumps ideology.
Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 9:32 AM
This isn't a hypothetical. The British NHS does run rather like the postal service. Except instead of 18-minute queues, you have 18-month waiting lists for critical surgery.
But hey, why not try it one more time? For that matter, why not go the whole way? I mean, socialism only killed 100 million people the first time round... it has to be worth trying again.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 28, 2009 9:32 AM
Walton, you cited no literature, just a thoroughly discredited RW mouthpiece, so what you say means nothing. The problem, from one is on-site in the US, is the profits to be made in the health care industry, and the lack of coverage for a large percent of the population. These uninsured people have to be treated if they show up at the emergency room. The rest of up pick up their costs along with some profits for the health care suppliers. You should really stop talking about that which you only understand on a theoretically basis. Besides you are under national health care where you live, so you don't have to worry about paying money you don't have if you need medical treatment.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 9:33 AM
"This isn't a hypothetical. The British NHS does run rather like the postal service. Except instead of 18-minute queues, you have 18-month waiting lists for critical surgery."
Care to support that claim with evidence ?
Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 9:37 AM
Complete and utter bull-shit. And with that, you've revealed yourself as the troll you are.Fuck back off to wanking over photos of Maggie Thatcher.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
|
July 28, 2009 9:38 AM
Surprisingly, they didn't label Iran as "Democrat".
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 9:41 AM
Also, countries with government run health care like France, Italy, Spain, and UK finished 1,2,7 and 18 (respectively) on the WHO health system ranking in 2000. The US, as I mentioned, finished 37th.
Now your sounding like a fucking creationist. Listen you litte twerp, there is a difference between totalitarian communism (if that is what you are referring to) and democratic socialism.
By all means, keep ignoring the empirical data I have provided you and continue with your ideological rants devoid of evidence.
Posted by: dinkum | July 28, 2009 9:42 AM
Have you worked in the legal department of a major American health insurer? Have you gone bankrupt from medical bills due to rightful insurance claims being denied and tied up in litigation?
If not, then please go fuck yourself with a handful of your "health stamps", as you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 9:47 AM
While on the subject here's Glenn Beck going even crazier than normal while talking about health care. Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, great minds on your side there Walton.
Posted by: dinkum | July 28, 2009 9:48 AM
And who the fuck do you think lobbied and bribed to get those regulations passed?Posted by: Rey Fox | July 28, 2009 9:53 AM
"Do we want a health system which operates like the DMV (DVLA in the UK) and the Postal Service? Or do we want a health system which operates like, say, the grocery industry, or the hairdressing industry, or the computer industry?"
I'm not usually one to pile on Walton, but geez what a load of simplistic bollocks.
Posted by: Happy | July 28, 2009 9:58 AM
@pdferguson (#122)
andyet blathered:
Of course I am. PZM is proposing luck as an explanation for the fine tuning problem.
I am proposing God.
We are both making unscientific faith claims.
No, you (like Collins) are not proposing God, you're proposing Bronze Age mythology.
Well said! People like andyet and the US News article mentioned above by PZ try their damndest to blur this line. Its total, utter bullshit. Collins claims that he saw a waterfall and the majesty of it made him believe in God. Really? So you saw a waterfall and then you believed that some dude was born of a virgin and rose from the dead 2,000 years ago? Holy shit! I have GOT to see this waterfall!
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
|
July 28, 2009 10:02 AM
Just curious, Walton. If a government-run health system is so bad, then why are private insurers spending 10s of millions here in the US to keep the government from offering a public insurance option? Why do they claim that such an OPTION would put them out of business?
And if the private sector could provide better health care more economically, why haven't the democracies of Europe, Asia, North America (US excluded)--hell every civilized country on Earth but the US--gone that route.
Eighteen month waits for an operation? Hell, dude, I've been waiting 6 months just to get into a dermatologist to get some skin cancers, and earlier this year I damn near lost my eyesight because I couldn't get in to an opthamologist for over a month!
Reality, dude, try it.
Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 10:14 AM
And what would happen if you needed medical treatment and weren't part of one of the "friendly societies"? You would die. It's odd that you seem to like the idea of "friendly societies", but you don't like national health schemes, which are really just an extrapolation of the same concept.Posted by: Robocop | July 28, 2009 10:15 AM
242: "Considering the misogynistic writings of Paul, the treatment of women by the Catholic and Mormon Churches, and the Biblical scorn of women, it's fair to say that your pet religion is anti-women."
So you disagree with Stark's analysis how, exactly?
249: "Robocop: 'Historical context' is a bullshit dodge. Slavery was not morally acceptable 2,000 years ago. It was evil then, and guess what? It's still evil now."
So Lincoln and Darwin were horrendous racists, then?
"Are you denying that heartless bigot Jesus had to be begged to help a sick gentile child, likening the woman and her daughter to dogs?"
Yup. Despite His culture's view of Gentiles as dogs, He called attention to that fact, made a nice word-play, and healed the child. Nice story which fits Matthew's focus (his gospel has a Jewish emphasis) very well.
262: "I suppose it's possible early Christianity treated women better than Roman paganism - it is, indeed, religion in general and not just Christianity that mistreats women; but Rodney Stark claims most of the early converts were Jews, which would seem to undermine this point, and himself compares the exponential growth of early Christianity with that of Mormonism - where the 'progressive treatment of women' could hardly be a factor. What evidence do you have that his view is now mainstream?"
That the Dodgers and the Angels have both increased attendance doesn't mean they have done so in the same ways. With respect to being mainstream:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/starksociology.html
304: "Religion says 'Don't bother searching. Goddit.'"
Why then have so many scientists (historically speaking) been priests or otherwise devout believers looking to understand what "God hath wrought"? That's largely how science in the West got started.
318: "Why does the absence of a soul mean free will is an illusion?"
That's easy -- because the law of cause and effect is relentless.
327: "Freedom Evolves is a very clear and insightful little book, which IMHO definitely resolves the old determinism vs free will conundrum."
I thought Elbow Room was much better, but the conundrum is only resolved by DD is you decide to call determinism freedom. It's a formulation Calvin would have loved.
Posted by: Peter McKellar | July 28, 2009 10:20 AM
Collins (vs Venter) and The Human Genome Project
- a chronicle of abject failure as an adminstrator
(or how to turn billions of dollars in millions)
1984 - Venter joins NIH
1984 - Collins publishes paper detailing what came to be known as "positional cloning"
1989 - Collins' team discovers gene for cyctic fibrosis
1990 - July, Collins' team announces discovery of the gene for neurofibromatosis type 1
1991 - Venter leaves NIH to perform "controversial" sequencing techniques
- shotgun sequencing and high speed computation
1995 - Venter publishes first complete genome (the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae)
1992 - Collins appointed Director of Human Genome Project (budget $3 billion)
- goal: map location and function of all genes in the human genome by 2005
1993 - Collins' team discovers gene for Huntington’s disease/chorea
1998 - Venter leaves HGP, sets up Celera and predicts mapping of genome by 2001
- budget $300 million
1999 - by mid-year Venter's progress is acknowledged as way ahead of HGP
1999 - late in year attempts made to bring Venter and Collins together to collaborate
2000 - March, USA President Clinton and UK's PM Blair declare Human Genome
must be public domain. Venter's Celera stock price plummets.
Colleagues broker a deal between Venter and Collins
2000 - June 26, Venter and Collins jointly announce that the 3.1m genes of the genome
had been deciphered
2001 - Venter publishes the first complete human genome - (mostly) his own
2002 - Venter leaves Celera
2003 - April, Collins' HGP team publish full analysis of the human genome
2003 - J. Craig Venter institute established. Goals are to create first synthetic organism
built from human DNA. Sails world in Sorcerer II to collect and catalogue all
genes on earth
2003 - JCVI announces first synthesis of a gene (5,300 base pairs long)
- bacteriophage ΦX174 (PhiX)
2005 - Venter co-founds Synthetic Genomics - goals include replacing fossil fuels
including liquid fuels with sustainable bio-replacements
2006 - Collins discloses he has gone batshit insane following a bizarre case of
pareidolia when he determines that god is an omnipotent icicle
2007 - June, Venter performs first successful "genome transplantation"
changes Mycoplasma capricolum into Mycoplasma mycoides
(effectively "booting up" an introduced genome)
2007 - (circa) Venter claims in an interview with Richard Dawkins that he has now catalogued
all 20 million mammalian genes, including the 10 million genes in humans. Also
that it cost $100,000 million to decode the human genome (for total budget see
1998 above)
2008 - J. Craig Venter Institute announces first artificially manufactured genome,
Mycoplasma genitalium - 582,970 base pairs long
2009 - June 11, PZ discovers cat fur in ice cubes. Does not go batshit insane or
claim that god is a feline. Asserts dominion over cats and uses phase changed
water with scotch to determine true meaning of life. Research ongoing.
WTF has Collins done since 1992 that wasn't a complete and utter FUCKING epic FAIL?
The research above has far too many links to put down here, google "venter+collins" and wade through the stuff for hours. Any dates, spelling and formatting errors etc are mine. This should in no way be interpreted as under-rating the fine work done by scientists working on the HGP, its the failed decisions of Collins that is clear and has wasted 10s of billions of dollars.
Expect similar squandering of taxpayer money if he is appointed Director of NIH. Expect solid research to be replaced by "Public Health" advertising and touchy-feely programs run by church based "charities", whole branches of biomedical research to be ignored and the whole germ theory (ie the "contagion" model) to be dumped for sin prevention programs (the "corruption" model).
Whilst researching the above I kept running across quotes from Collins that convince me this guy has totally lost it.
When will people stop thinking that Collins running of the HGP counts as a positive???? This should be a clear warning that he is NOT the person for the job.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 28, 2009 10:23 AM
You guys all misunderstand poor Walton. He's not talking about the NHS as it actually is (with all its faults, most of them due to ideologically-motivated attempts to introduce markets and competition into it), but the NHS as it appears in propaganda for private health care providers - so your request for evidence is just unfair. Similarly, in talking about market-based health care systems, he's not referring to any actually or potentially existing systems, but about the libertarian fantasy version, where big firms never try to exclude the competition, providers never concentrate on what is profitable rather than what patients need, and insurers never try to evade their obligations.
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 28, 2009 10:29 AM
It's amazing the extent to which he'll protect his "free market" beliefs.I was listening to an interview with Michael Shermer recently on libertarian economics, and even he thinks the Northern Europe model for healthcare can work just as good as any private model, if not better.
Health to me is one of those basics that every society should have, that along with education should be well funded and available to every member of society regardless of socio-economic status. Keep a population well education and well looked after and you have the basics of a cohesive society.
At the moment in Australia, the federal government is looking to bring the health system under one roof - to take the power away from the states. I'm actually opposed to this because it centralises power, and the last thing I want to see is when the fucking libs get back in that they work towards privatising the system just like the last time they were in power. A first-rate healthcare system should be available for everyone!
Posted by: pdferguson
|
July 28, 2009 10:42 AM
Who is this "we" you speak of? Will you just stop with this inanity? There is no "we". This is an American issue, and you clearly have no experience with or understanding of the American medical business. All you have is a perversely warped impression from following fringe right wing hate mongers like Coulter. As long as you reside in Britain and remain so ill-informed, THERE IS NO WE, YOU DOUCHEBAG!
Sheesh...
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 28, 2009 10:50 AM
That the Dodgers and the Angels have both increased attendance doesn't mean they have done so in the same ways. With respect to being mainstream:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/starksociology.html
I don't yet have access to Stark's book, so I'm going on extracts and reviews, but it appears that he uses parallels with the growth of the LDS to support his analysis (e.g. that no mass conversions were necessary); and I was noting that this can't work for the hypothesised role for a "progressive" treatment of women. I'm not clear what evidence he produces for the latter. I'll borrow the book and check it out.
I'm not clear how a link to an extract from his work establishes that it, and more specifically, his view of the role of a "progressive" treatment of women, are mainstream.
On free will, you need to give a coherent account of how positing a "soul" gives you any kind of freedom that you can't have without it - and show how the "soul" can interact with the body, which is what actually carries out decisions. Maybe you think it's done through the pineal gland? The extra magic ingredient has to be distinct from simple indeterminism - after all, why would it be "freer" to have your decisions made by chance than deterministically? Nothing in Freedom Evolves depends on determinism - rather, it shows that whether the universe is at bottom deterministic is simply irrelevant to the existence of free will.
Posted by: Robocop | July 28, 2009 10:50 AM
355: "It's cheaper for car companies to make cars across the border in Windsor, Canada than in Detroit because they don't have to spend money on health costs. It ends up saying them about $1000 per car!"
I thought we were committed to evidence-based thinking?
Per CBO director Doug Elmendorf: "Although U.S. employers may appear to pay most of the costs of their workers’ health insurance, economists generally agree that workers ultimately bear those costs. That is, when firms provide health insurance, wages and other forms of compensation are lower (by a corresponding amount) than they otherwise would be. As a result, the costs of providing health insurance to their workers are not a competitive disadvantage for U.S.-based firms."
http://finance.senate.gov/hearings/testimony/2009test/022509detest.pdf
Posted by: Peter McKellar | July 28, 2009 10:52 AM
Kel, OM
I'm with u on that. I worked for Medibank/Medibank Mark II/Medicare and all the various incarnations for 8 years from the start. The damage the Libs did was tragic and it speaks well for those that stuck with it and managed to keep it functional despite the wounds inflicted.
Rees and the string before him have botched things (imo) but without Labor govts in the states under Howard's axemen he would have destroyed any hope in healthcare or anywhere else.
Whatever happens, Conroy will be my last vote, incl family first.
OT - ur up late, another insomniac?
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 28, 2009 10:53 AM
Sorry, last comment addessed to Robocop.
Posted by: Stu
|
July 28, 2009 10:55 AM
So Robocop, are you saying that all the bits about slavery in the Bible aren't the inerrant word of God?
Posted by: Robocop | July 28, 2009 10:59 AM
"I don't yet have access to Stark's book, so I'm going on extracts and reviews, but it appears that he uses parallels with the growth of the LDS to support his analysis (e.g. that no mass conversions were necessary); and I was noting that this can't work for the hypothesised role for a 'progressive' treatment of women. I'm not clear what evidence he produces for the latter. I'll borrow the book and check it out."
Please do. The LDS Church didn't grow because of its treatment of women, but similar growth rates are possible. Stark's point was that terrific growth was very possible -- no miracles required. Most half-way decent libraries have the book now so it should be pretty easy to get. I linked the book being used as the basis for a PBS documentary on early Christianity. That's about as "mainstream" as you can get.
Posted by: Robocop | July 28, 2009 11:03 AM
"So Robocop, are you saying that all the bits about slavery in the Bible aren't the inerrant word of God?"
These are two separate issues:
1. Slavery in the 1st C. was dramatically different from slavery as we tend to conceive of it today and as it existed in the USA.
2. I make no inerrancy claim.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 28, 2009 11:04 AM
mikedean writes:
free will seems to me to be a fact
Perhaps you don't have any choice but to feel that way.
Posted by: Stu
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July 28, 2009 11:11 AM
Nice dodge. In your opinion, was and/or is slavery, in either form, condoned by God?
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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July 28, 2009 11:12 AM
You mean efficient, inexpensive, and with few errors? Yeah, I'd love that. I've spent vastly more time waiting for doctors and insurance companies than I have waiting at the DMV or the Post Office, and I don't even make appointments at the DMV.
Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 28, 2009 12:07 PM
Unlike Walton, I've actually had experience of both the NHS and the American "system". Here in the UK, I pay my taxes, and if I need to see a doctor, I get to see a doctor within a few days at most, I have no copay, and on the one occasion I needed hospital followup (endoscopy to check for possible ulcer) I got an appointment within weeks, again no copay.
In Arizona, I had to pay a private company (which means I funded their advertising, their inefficient bureaucracy, their profits, and their overpaid CEO). Then when I needed to see a doctor, I didn't get one any faster than in the UK, and I had to pay cash before they'd see me. Then, to keep me on their books they demanded I have a physical each year, for which they charged me more money. If the doctor suggested a treatment, they had to go phone the company to find out if they would cover it, which in my book means the company is practising medicine without a licence.
When last I ran the numbers, American health care cost me more than what I pay in taxes for the NHS, and it sucked.
Posted by: Ben | July 28, 2009 12:34 PM
Does it seem that answering the trolls has become an exercise in futility? They all seem to be parrots, charging in with the same tired canards that are repeatedly proposed by christian apologists year after year and just as repeatedly debunked by sweeping away the underlying errors in their reasoning. All they do is re-propose the same failed arguments over and over. I really think their target audience is not us non-theists with a science background, but the segment of the population that they believe might read to those canards uncritically and accept them without question. It's the old strategy of "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit." And if we know ANYTHING about christianity, we know there's no shortage of bullshit in that world view.
Posted by: Aj | July 28, 2009 12:51 PM
#357
Walton, you might want to tell these guys that they’re economically impossible, because of government regulations.
http://www.afs.org.uk/
Or you could stop lying.
Posted by: Paul | July 28, 2009 1:27 PM
Looks like after Vacation Bible School or whatever it was he went off to, Walton has gone full wingnut. Perhaps people can just completely ignore him now? He's been given a lot of time to do more than listen to right wing talking points, it appears he hasn't taken advantage of it.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 1:31 PM
He went playing soldiers for a fortnight.
Posted by: tmaxPA | July 28, 2009 1:31 PM
I have my own theories about free will which I'll bore you with some other time. But I think it is obvious that whatever "type" of 'free will' (as described by Dennett) we end up actually using, it will not be considered worth having. All conceptions of 'free will' (including "faith based" ones) are fuzzy and self-contradicting.
This is because the very concept of free will, and most particularly the particular aspects considered "worth having", exist only to protect our dignity. It is the psychological state of having a psychological state which makes us deny we have psychological states and posit that we have instead "free will".
IOW, it's turtles all the way down.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 28, 2009 1:53 PM
Robocop,
Stark's point was that terrific growth was very possible -- no miracles required.
Well from an atheist point of view, of course it was possible without miracles, since it happened (Constantine wouldn't have established Christianity as the state religion if it had not already spread far through the elite), and miracles don't. Moreover, it's obvious Christianity must have had some attractions, or conversions to it wouldn't have happened before it became the state religion. The old Graeco-Roman religion was clearly pretty moribund, or neither emperor-worship nor the eastern cults of Isis, Mithras, etc., would have taken hold. There was a "niche" for a new religion, and the historically interesting questions (which Gibbon was already examining in the late 18th century) are who got converted to Christianity when, and what features of Christianity enabled it to outcompete its rivals (or was it just luck, which seems unlikely). The question is whether the specific convert groups and features Stark identifies, including its treatment of women (the point originally at issue here), are the right ones.
I linked the book being used as the basis for a PBS documentary on early Christianity. That's about as "mainstream" as you can get.
What "mainstream" usually means is that a large proportion of relevant experts accept it. As a non-American, I don't know whether its use as a source in a PBS documentary implies that this is so.
Posted by: Robocop | July 28, 2009 3:23 PM
396: "The question is whether the specific convert groups and features Stark identifies, including its treatment of women (the point originally at issue here), are the right ones."
Of course.
The book was fairly controversial at the time it was written. I mentioned miracles because Stark got a bit of flack for undercutting the idea that the explosive growth of Christianity was somehow "miraculous" or even unusual. I learned about the book, shortly after the paperback edition came out, on an atheist forum from an atheist attacking precisely such a claim (fortunately, not my claim). Stark also attacked the consensus view that Christianity was essentially a lower class religion.
"What 'mainstream' usually means is that a large proportion of relevant experts accept it. As a non-American, I don't know whether its use as a source in a PBS documentary implies that this is so."
I think it does. Plus, the book was published by the Princeton University Press, has sold a ton of copies and remains in print after more than a decade (lots of student purchases for a class). Add that to the anecdotal comments of various experts and I'm comfortable putting it entirely within the "mainstream."
392: "Or you could stop lying."
Maybe you have enough past history with the poster to make this claim confidently, but I think the charge is thrown around all too often. Mistakes or lack of knowledge aren't lies. For example, Feynmaniac wasn't lying in #355 (see my response in #381). He was simply in error.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 28, 2009 6:08 PM
Robocop wrote:
>[quoting earlier poster]304: "Religion says 'Don't bother searching. Goddit.'"
>[Robocop]Why then have so many scientists (historically speaking) been priests or otherwise devout believers looking to understand what "God hath wrought"? That's largely how science in the West got started.
Isn’t that obvious?
The Argument from Design actually made sense before Darwin.
It no longer does.
Isn't that why the famed Larson-Witham study a decade ago found that less than 10 percent of NAS members believed in God?
We no longer need the hypothesis of God.
We have, quite sensibly, dumped God into the trashbin of history.
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 28, 2009 8:16 PM
Celtic_Evolution:
OK, let's see if I've got this straight.
1.) Systems of morality are culturally conditioned social constructs, nothing more. ('I feel that morality is another one of those social, culturally self-defined constructs like "justice"')
2.) There is no necessary congruence between systems of morality and the evolutionary imperative. Any given code of morals might be evolutionarily advantageous or it might not. ('... I try and be careful not to equate behavior that is possibly socially and/or evolutionarily advantageous at a given point in time with "morality"')
3.) It is self-evidently desirable that something be evolutionary advantageous. (Do I think it's desirable for a trait to be desirable in evolutionary terms? Um... duh.)
4.) We should try to ensure that our codes of morality conform as far as possible to the evolutionary imperative. (You don't actually say that but it would seem to follow from 3.).)
5.) As far as we can judge, secular systems of morality are more in accord with the evolutionary imperative than their religious rivals, which claim divine sanction. ('How can you be sure that widespread atheism won't be disastrous in Darwinian terms for the human race?' 'Well, I can't. But if I had to predict, I guess all I could do is look at the indicators... let's see... number of human tragedies, disasters, genocides and conflicts attributed to religion vs. same items attributed to atheism...').
A problem arises when we try to determine what is desirable in evolutionary terms. (And no, that expression doesn't mean that I think evolution 'has a built in desired state and then chooses, sentiently, traits that will bring it to that state').
Some posters seem to think "evolutionarily advantageous" = "whatever is conducive to peaceable coexistence between members of the human species" -- hence their denunciations of religions for "tearing the planet apart", as Rorschach put it. (Never mind that the most destructive conflicts of the past couple of centuries had nothing to do with religion.)
But as Knockgoats has pointed out, atheists often disagree. Others might think the sweetness and light that allegedly prevails in Scandinavia flies in the face of the evolutionary imperative by artificially preserving the weak and unfit.
Myers and Dawkins do, in fact, seem to think this is the harsh lesson evolution teaches -- or why else would they urge us to reject that lesson, evoking the is/ought distinction to claim that we have a moral duty to resist and overcome our genetic programming?
This of course leaves them squirming on the horns of a dilemma. For where does the "ought" come from that tells us to reject the "is" of the selfish gene? Not from God, obviously. It can only be the end-product, or by-product, of the evolutionary process itself, like all purely human psychological structures.
And even if Myers, Dawkins et al can explain how the evolutionary process managed to give rise to two such warring impulses, they can provide no good reason to prefer one over the other. That's what comes of trying to fight fire with fire.
Posted by: Kemist | July 28, 2009 8:19 PM
Good old pre-existing conditions.
I presently work for an insurance company, one that insures canadians going abroad (such as the US) for emergency healthcare (nobody I know would step beyond that border without some sort of health insurance).
But we don't insure pre-existing conditions either.
What that means is that if for example you've consulted a doctor six months ago for a bellyache where nothing wrong was found and then an hemorrhage due to bowel cancer shows itself up during your trip, you're not covered.
That, I've been told, is a totally standard interpretation of a pre-existing conditions clause in an insurance contract.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 28, 2009 8:21 PM
Alan Kellogg @ 325:
Why does space-time resist change? Why does this resistance cause it to curve? How does this curvature produce the effect we call gravity?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 28, 2009 8:36 PM
Pilty, you have no answers, just inane questions. What else is new? You can't prove your deity, the morality of your church is lower than a cesspool. You have nothing going. Why not come over the rational side? Just renounce your god and become sane.
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 28, 2009 8:44 PM
Piltdown Man asked:
Well, I have it on good authority that it's pixies, but I'm not 100% sure on what kind of hats they wear. The holy books aren't clear so there are several schools of thought. But the one thing they do all agree on is that, one day a week, we should do a special dance to thank them for their efforts.
What's that, Pilty - you don't believe me? Why not? Please, feel free to explain how what I've just written is in any way less plausible than what you as a Christian believe.
Posted by: John Morales | July 28, 2009 9:11 PM
Pixies wear hats, and fairies wear boots.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 9:19 PM
Pilty,
The standard analogy is to imagine a trampoline. If you roll a marble the path will be straight. Now place a bowling ball in the center. If you flick a marble across the trampoline the path will be curved. The heavier the bowling ball the greater the distortion. Instead of in 2 dimensional trampoline gravity does this in 4 dimensional space-time. If the field is weak it looks like Newton's law of gravity in flat space.
And since you love quotes from other languages:
"Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là."
I'm not sure what Alan means by "space-time resists change" or "resistance that causes space-time to curve" so I'll let him explain that. As for "the strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and electro-magnetism are also expressions of space-time curvature" that's not really the current view, which has these forces being interactions mediated by bosons.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 28, 2009 10:09 PM
Anton, #336
Fixed it for you. :D
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 28, 2009 10:36 PM
Since Pilty asked...
Consider the universe. The universe is a an expanding sphere approximately 30 billion light years in diameter, according to our best guess. The universe is a solid object consisting entirely, completely, and solely of a medium we know of as space-time. Partially compressed space-time.
Space-time comes in two states, a rest state we'll call "flat", and a higher energy state we'll call "folded". The natural state of space-time is the rest state; that is, flat. But when compressed or partially compressed volumes of space-time are folded. When the universe is completely compressed then all of space-time is folded, and the universe is exceedingly small. Since space-time's normal state is flat, it expands so it can flatten out.
But now the matter of inertia comes into play. In short, space-time stays in one state until conditions force a change to the other state. From folded to flat as the universe expands and the degree of compression declines. Or as a fold, as a property of space-time propagates through the universe. That is, as a fold travels. The obverse, from flat to fold, also applies as folds speed through the universe.
Keep in mind that we are talking here of a property, not an object. A fold in motion is really a string of points of space-time becoming folded, then unfolded. This is where space-time inertia, the resistance of space-time to change comes into effect.
Changing space-time from folded to flat takes effort. The faster the change the greater the effort. You can think of this like pushing a ball up a hill, the steeper the hill, the greater the effort required. This effort we know of as space-time curvature, and at the level of the fold this curvature is the simple sort we refer to as gravity.
There's more to it, but I think I'll stop there.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 1:48 AM
Robocop wrote:
>[quoting an earlier poster]304: "Religion says 'Don't bother searching. Goddit.'"
>[Robocop]Why then have so many scientists (historically speaking) been priests or otherwise devout believers looking to understand what "God hath wrought"? That's largely how science in the West got started.
Isn’t that obvious?
The Argument from Design actually made sense before Darwin.
It no longer does.
Isn't that why the famed Larson-Witham study a decade ago found that less than 10 percent of NAS members believed in God?
We no longer need the hypothesis of God.
We have, quite sensibly, dumped God into the trashbin of history.
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 2:12 AM
Alan Kellogg wrote:
> Space-time comes in two states, a rest state we'll call "flat", and a higher energy state we'll call "folded". The natural state of space-time is the rest state; that is, flat. But when compressed or partially compressed volumes of space-time are folded. When the universe is completely compressed then all of space-time is folded, and the universe is exceedingly small. Since space-time's normal state is flat, it expands so it can flatten out.
> But now the matter of inertia comes into play. In short, space-time stays in one state until conditions force a change to the other state. From folded to flat as the universe expands and the degree of compression declines
Uh, let me guess: this is, like, a practical joke, right?
You know, we physicists sort of like things to be described precisely in those nice little things called “equations.”
Care to offer any?
And, did you happen to hear that almost a century ago there was this dude called Einstein who actually suggested some equations for all this stuff that seem to be looking pretty good?
Come on, Alan, you’re just pulling our leg, right?
You don’t happen to be a Christian, do you?
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: Kagato
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July 29, 2009 2:48 AM
Piltdown Man:
Agreed, except for that last bit; social constructs that are built on top of biological imperatives ("instincts", though that particular word seems to be defined to exclude humans. If someone's got a more correct term, let me know.)
Sounds reasonable enough. Though it could better formulated as: some things that could be considered evolutionarily advantageous might not be considered moral.
I don't really know what you meant by this, so I don't know what Celtic_Evolution meant by his reply either.
But anyway, disagree (I think). If we can formulate a system of morality that does not necessarily equate to evolutionary advantage, then not all evolutionary advantages could be described as desirable. (To the degree that moral/immoral correspond to desirable/undesirable, anyway.)
NO. WRONG. This is where your logic falls apart.
The "evolutionary imperative", such as it is, is little more than "survive long enough to pass on your genes to the next generation". There are plenty of ways of doing that, as can be found in other species in nature, that would be considered far from moral if enacted by rational, intelligent humans.
Only so far as a rephrasing of the statement: as far as we can judge, rationally-determined secular systems of morality are less likely to have negative impacts on the long-term survivability of the species than multiple, conflicting religious moral codes which claim divine sanction.
Secular morality is not based on, or derived from, evolutionary principles.
All your reasoning that follows is fallacious.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 29, 2009 3:15 AM
Alan at #406,
Not really. I said that pi was an artifact of human thought; those who believe in God don't generally consider him/her/it to fall into that category.
Now if by "God" you meant "the concept of God," that would work.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 3:22 AM
PhysicistDave, #408
Unfortunately, I don't have the math. What I'm presenting is an idea, a proposition. Not even an informal hypothesis.
It grew out of the fact strings vibrate. Super strings that is. The most basic, there aint nuttin' more fundamental, objects in the universe. Supposedly indivisible things that vibrate. That don't make sense.
One of the fundamentals of our universe is, while something may be counter to our intuition, it still makes sense. Our universe makes sense, the things that make up the universe make sense, super strings -as we presently now them- don't make sense.
So I asked myself, "What are superstrings made of?" Folds are my proposed answer. Would you like to know more?
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 3:34 AM
Anton, #411
In so far as God is an artifact of human imagination, even though people believe in him, He applies as an analog to Pi. Pi is an artifact of the human imagination, people believe in Pi as a real thing; ergo, Pi is equivalent to God as we imagine Him.
Basic Concept
The universe is imperfect. Everything in the universe is imperfect. Pi, as an ideal, is an attempt to apply the perfect to an imperfect world. Because it is used by imperfect creatures in an imperfect world its implementation must therefor be imperfect.
To sum up, Pi is an attempt to apply the ideal to reality, an enterprise doomed to failure because applying the ideal to the real is to apply the imaginary to the actual. To render the actual as it should be instead of as it is.
In case you're wondering, I'm not a big fan of Plato and his ideal forms woo.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 3:39 AM
It is self-evidently desirable that something be evolutionary advantageous. - Pilty
No. "Evolutionarily advantageous" would usually be applied to an inherited property of individuals. Such properties could be desirable, undesirable or neutral in terms of promoting human fulfilment.
Others might think the sweetness and light that allegedly prevails in Scandinavia flies in the face of the evolutionary imperative by artificially preserving the weak and unfit.
This was a belief of the social darwinists (and some of your fellow extreme right-wingers still hold it), but is not a valid deduction from the fact that evolution by natural selection has occurred. There is no such thing as "the evolutionary imperative", any more than there is a "gravitational imperative". That you cannot derive an "ought" from an "is" is a simple matter of logic.
By the way, your "allegedly" here is simply a piece of dishonesty: that Scandinavian countries have low levels of poverty, violence, crime, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, etc. is copiously documented. Of course you find it difficult to accept such facts, but I understood that your religion deprecates "bearing false witness".
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 3:42 AM
Alan Kellogg,
It occurs to me that those here who are not physicists may want to know why it is obvious that your musings on spacetime curvature are nonsense.
So, consider for example, your claim:
> The natural state of space-time is the rest state; that is, flat.
Well, according to Einstein, spacetime around the sun is *not* flat: we can and have measured this and confirmed his point.
And, yet, the space-time around the sun has stayed non-flat (“the rest state,” if you like) for billions of years, contrary to your claim that the “rest state” is flat.
So, “the rest state” does not necessarily seem to always be flat, now does it?
You also wrote:
>> But now the matter of inertia comes into play. In short, space-time stays in one state until conditions force a change to the other state.
Well… “inertia” usually refers to the tendency of an object to maintain its state of motion through space; sometimes “inertia” is used to refer to the momentum something has as it moves through space. Since spacetime can hardly move through space, that does not quite work here.
Of course, in some sense, I suppose it is trivially true that “space-time stays in one state until conditions force a change to the other state,” if that means anything at all (which I rather doubt): in any case, that is certainly not informative.
The correct statement is that a thing called the Ricci tensor, which is formed from the curvature tensor, is zero in the absence of pressure-stress-mass-energy (the Ricci tensor's being zero most assuredly does *not* require the curvature to be zero). In the presence of pressure-stress-mass-energy, the Ricci tensor is proportional to the mass-energy plus the pressure in each of three orthogonal directions added together (i.e., thrice the pressure if it is isotropic).
If that sounds mysterious… the Rici tensor simply measures the tendency for a little ball of dust to change its volume due to tidal forces.
This is explained nicely in the “Feynman Lectures on Physics” (vol. 2, I believe).
For more details, see, e.g., Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, “Gravitation.”
Now, Alan, dear boy, you were just pulling everyone’s leg?
Dave
Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 3:54 AM
Alan K:
Is it? How so?
Pi is a descriptive term for a concept, no more, and it crops up in all sorts of math. Everything you've said about π applies to a circle, for example.
It is nothing like the concept of God.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 3:57 AM
Alan Kellogg wrote to me:
>Unfortunately, I don't have the math. What I'm presenting is an idea, a proposition.
No, it is not an idea or a proposition, Alan. It is just empty words, rather like those the well-known “post-modern” generator produces, words without meaning.
You also wrote:
>So I asked myself, "What are superstrings made of?" Folds are my proposed answer. Would you like to know more?
I do think you know any scientifically educated person’s answer to that final question.
You are just making stuff up, or, to put it more accurately, you are just tossing words together without trying to give them any real, definite meaning.
Oh, and I have not quoted in detail your comments on superstrings because those comments too are more of the same: words just thrown together by someone too lazy to learn how those words are being used by some very smart people who actually know that one has to work hard to understand nature.
If you want to have an actual opinion on any of this, I suggest you actually start by learning freshman physics.
Work very hard for a decade or so, and you may actually be able to have an opinion on all of this.
You wouldn't expect to do a guest stint with a major symphony after practicing violin for a month or two.
Why on earth do you think that science is easier than the violin?
Dave
Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 29, 2009 4:37 AM
Oh, before I forget, those in the US health care debate who're whining that public health care will drive private health care out of business might want to chat to these guys:
http://www.bupa.co.uk/
since they certainly seem to exist, persistently, despite the UK having public health care for sixty years already.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 29, 2009 5:17 AM
Alan,
And there's the problem. If we're speaking precisely, God--as defined by almost all believers--is not an artifact of human imagination. Either God is an entity which exists independently of humans and their imagination, or God is nonexistent. The concept of God is an artifact of human imagination, but the concept of God is not God.
Analogously, the concept of Narnia exists, as demonstrated by the existence of people who read the books and watch the movies, but Narnia does not exist. The concept of France also exists, and France does exist, but the concept and the real country are not the same thing.
On the other hand, for those who are not mathematical Platonists--and there are a lot of us--pi is a concept, and statements about pi are statements about how minds work with that concept.
Again, this is only true for mathematical Platonists. It is not true for intuitionists, constructionists, fictionalists, embodied-mind realists, and most formalists--they do not believe in pi as a "real thing" outside the human mind. You're welcome to argue against Platonism, but it's simply false to say that everyone who uses math to describe the physical world is a Platonist.
"Perfect" is a value judgment. What system of values are you using to determine that pi is perfect but nothing in the universe is?
This isn't true for, well, anyone in math or science--even mathematical Platonists. Platonists may believe in a preexisting ideal pi, but they don't believe it is found in physical nature, any more than Plato thought his forms existed in the physical world. Platonists aren't stupid.
Mathematicians and scientists simply believe that if a physical object is pretty close to a mathematical ideal, then you can use facts about the ideal to get a pretty good description of the physical object. The entire history of human civilization indicates that they're right. How far do you think our space program would have gotten if we didn't use numbers?
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 29, 2009 5:55 AM
Kagato @ 410:
Well it wasn't my logic; it was Celtic_Evolution's logic, as I understood it.
Now then, you make the following statements:
So far so good -- the position you outline here seems to correspond to the Myers/Dawkins stance as I characterised it @ 399: "we have a moral duty to resist and overcome our genetic programming"
The difficulty is that you also say:
As I said @ 399: "... where does the "ought" come from that tells us to reject the "is" of the selfish gene? Not from God, obviously. It can only be the end-product, or by-product, of the evolutionary process itself, like all purely human psychological structures."
So we now have the evolutionary drive for ruthless self-preservation and propagation set in opposition to whatever alleged instinct lies behind the social constructs of secular morality that you find desirable, an instinct which in turn must somehow derive from the process of natural selection (where else could it come from?).
Doesn't that strike you as problematic?
Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 6:05 AM
Piltdown:
What strikes me as problematic is your caricature of evolutionary imperatives.
Have you heard of biological altruism, for example?
Also problematic is how you attribute ruthlessness to non-sapient beings.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | July 29, 2009 6:08 AM
Dear Brother Pilty!
Snap! I think you have the filthy atheists on the run. Reconciling evolutionary drives and underlying instincts sounds almost like the working of a rational mind. I'm very impressed! Just as long as they don't factor in the moderating factors of human culture, society and community we'll be able to keep this completely on the level of the law of the jungle red-in-tooth-n-claw.
Our Christian explanation that the big guy in the sky reads all our thoughts and knows our every desire and cares about whether we get a car park or not is so much more plausible.
Why can't they see it....?
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 6:14 AM
So we now have the evolutionary drive for ruthless self-preservation and propagation set in opposition to whatever alleged instinct lies behind the social constructs of secular morality that you find desirable, an instinct which in turn must somehow derive from the process of natural selection (where else could it come from?). Doesn't that strike you as problematic? - Pilty
No. There is no reason whatever to expect natural selection to produce organisms with consistent motivations. Rather, one might expect competing motivations, varying in strength with circumstances. Another example, shown by all social animals: the desire to take something (a food item, a potential mate, status) from a rival often conflicts with fear of that rival.
Why a benevolent deity should have created individuals capable of the kind of cruelty shown by (say) the Inquisition, is, however, utterly inexplicable.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 29, 2009 6:16 AM
Knockgoats @ 414:
Different people have very different ideas of what constitutes "human fulfilment".
No-one who holds such a disgusting belief is a "fellow" of mine. I don't know why people insist on calling fanatical Randroids and fascist neopagans "right-wingers" just because they happen to share the right's rejection of certain liberal notions of human equality. To say that humans are unequal, and therefore should be treated unequally, is not the same thing as saying the strong have the right to crush the weak under their boots.
So where do you derive it from? Apart from "is", what else is there?
They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, `Peace, peace,' when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown," says the LORD.
- Jeremiah 6: 14-15
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 6:21 AM
PhysicistDave, #415
You said...
Wrong!
Space-time is curved near the Sun because of the Sun. Because, more precisely, of the Sun's mass. Without an outside influence space-time is flat. It takes effort -that is, work- to make space-time take a configuration other than flat.
Space-time has been curved in the vicinity of the Sun for billions of year because the Sun has been in the vicinity for billions of years. No Sun, no curvature of space-time.
Simply because a causative agent is non-sentient doesn't mean it can't be a causative agent.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 6:27 AM
Physicist Dave, #415
You said...
Inertia can also be seen as resistance to change. Halting a moving object is change, one which is resisted. As is impelling a stationary object into motion. That is the type of inertia I'm referring to.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 6:33 AM
PhysicistDave, 415
What I've proposed is not supposed to take the place of what we've figured out, but to underlie what we've figured out. What I'm talking about are the fundamentals, from which our universe arises. I'm not talking about derived properties, but about the fundamental property.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 6:38 AM
John, #416
Fixed it for you. :)
BTW, were the universe perfect it would be unchanging. Our universe changes. Even worse, mistakes keep getting made. Thus we can see that the universe is imperfect.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 6:39 AM
I don't know why people insist on calling fanatical Randroids and fascist neopagans "right-wingers" just because they happen to share the right's rejection of certain liberal notions of human equality. - Pilty
Because rejection of liberal notions of human equality (which do not imply that everyone is equally strong, beautiful or talented) has been the hallmark of the right ever since the left/right distinction was first used.
So where do you derive it from? Apart from "is", what else is there?
Goals or desires. To give an example remote from morality:if you want to win at chess, you ought to consider your moves carefully. Moral "oughts" derive from unselfish desires: that the needs of others should be met, and that their lives should be happy, free and fulfilled.
Quoting your silly book does not acquit you of lying.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 6:48 AM
PhysicistDave, #417
What do you think a proposition is? It's a proposal, a what if. A proposition is an idea where the proposer presents a suggestion regarding a subject. My folds proposal is an attempt to propose a solution to the question of what constitutes the very basis of the phenomena we call the universe. All else is derivative of the motion of folds through space-time, and of how they move. Keeping in mind that folds are a property of space-time, and their apparent motion is the result of changes in space-time in the path of motion. Things such as mass and Ricci Energy arise from the motion of folds, and objects which arise from folds and their motion.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 29, 2009 6:58 AM
Piltdown
Why would it? Evolution simply favors traits which tend to increase an organism's differential reproductive success in a given environment. That doesn't mean that those traits always increase their owners' reproductive success in that environment, nor that they must tend to increase it in any other environment.
Many animals have evolved to crave sugar, fat or salt, because those nutrients tended to be scarce in their environment. If they happen to end up in an environment where those nutrients are very common--like captivity--then that dietary preference no longer improves their reproductive success. But they don't suddenly stop wanting to eat those things--they don't actually care about their reproductive success.
Likewise, the instincts which drive the development of morality in a human may or may not be evolutionarily beneficial in our modern environment--but why should the human care about that? We still have our morality.
Evolution does not, in general, produce organisms which consciously want to win the struggle for existence. There's nothing problematic about that; there's no reason to think it would produce such creatures.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 29, 2009 7:03 AM
Alan,
No, it's not.
Why? Why couldn't it change between multiple states of perfection? Again, what criteria are you using to judge perfection in the first place?
Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 7:06 AM
Alan K,
Only in the trivial sense that any word is such.
My point was that, ontologically speaking, God is purported to be a concrete entity, whilst π is acknowledged as an abstract entity.
So, in your view, perfection is static? Clearly you follow the Lords of Law, rather than of Chaos. :)
Seriously, as Anton said @419, ""Perfect" is a value judgment.", and thus subjective, in the sense you're using the term.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 7:16 AM
Alan Kellogg,
Just to give one more example of how goofy your whole take on physics is, you wrote:
>It grew out of the fact strings vibrate. Super strings that is. The most basic, there aint nuttin' more fundamental, objects in the universe. Supposedly indivisible things that vibrate. That don't make sense.
If by “indivisible” you mean that superstrings cannot be split in two, sorry, but you miss again.
The way that superstrings are supposed to interact is precisely by one string splitting into two new strings, by two strings splcing themselves together to make one string, etc.
Not “indivisible” at all, I fear.
Where are the scissors and the paste that cause these splittings and splicings?
Basically, quantum theory.
If something can happen, it will happen, randomly, according to quantum mechanics.
(Now, properly speaking, this should really all be done is superstring field theory, which involves functionals over all possible strings lying in all possible positions in spacetime, but I think we can leave that for another day.)
In short, you really do not know what you are talking about: somehow you have gotten a picture of physics that is widely at variance with reality.
Dave
Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 7:20 AM
Alan K @430, you're throwing around some terms the concepts behind which require fairly advanced math to understand, never mind the physics of it.
Perhaps you should leave such uninformed pontifications to the Matthew Segalls of this world...
--
PS regarding 'proposition', in an argument this refers to a statement that either affirms or denies something and is either true or false.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 7:33 AM
Alan Kellogg,
Well, again, I try to be nice and what does it get me?
Okay, let me put this bluntly:
You are a blithering idiot who has no idea what he is talking about.
Surely, your idiocy about superstrings being “indivisible” proves that to any person here of normal intelligence.
I could also have gone into your idiocy about “indivisible” objects not being able to vibrate: of course, they could, but they are *not* “indivisible” anyway.
You’re just a dishonest con artist, pretending to know something about a subject in which you are worse than ignorant, hoping that you can fool others who are ignorant of that subject even though you could never fool anyone who actually knows the subject.
And your idea of how science is done – making crack-pot “proposals” that have no actual semantic content – truly proves your utterly moronic level of intelligence.
You must have picked up your crack-pot nonsense from some poorly done popularization, or from a decent popularization that you are too stupid to understand.
It is abundantly clear that you did not get these bizarrely false ideas from any actual physics book.
Does that make clear how you and your goofball “ideas” appear to any actual scientist?
Go to your local mental hospital and peddle your insanity there: you will never get any real scientist to take your “ideas” seriously.
And see, I did not even have to use the F-word once!
And, Alan, are you a Christian?
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 7:49 AM
Kel wrote:
>Secondly, why does it have to be a gambit between a multiverse and a causal agent who has humanity in mind? Surely the size and scope of the universe negate the notion that humanity has a somewhat special place in the universe. Yes, we are a possibility of the universe, but so are birds, bees, algae, viruses, meteors, black holes, etc.
Indeed.
Let’s be honest – most of the debate going on, certainly as it involves Francis Collins, is not about God-in-general but about the Christian God.
I doubt that God-in-general exists, largely because She does not seem to have shown herself: why would the Management always stay hidden?
But the idea of God-in-general is so vague and unclear, that it is hard to know for sure that She does not exist.
I don’t know what happened before the Big Bang – though I do have a suspicion: Alan Guth’s inflationary super-universe (I’m a physicist who knew Alan when he was at Stanford developing the theory: I actually know why the theory is not simply vague speculation).
But the real debate is about the Christian God.
And, we know beyond sane doubt that he does not exist.
Take the Virgin Birth: who is the source of information on that?
Did Mary tell her son that, though he was conceived out of wedlock, it was not what he thinks – no, it was a Virgin Birth?
Would the kid have believed it?
Would you if your parents told you that?
And, if he had believed it and tried to palm this story off to Peter, Andrew, et al. would they have swallowed it?
These were working-class guys: how would any working-class guys any of us know react if their best bud told them he was a bastard, but, wait!, not really because it was a Virgin Birth?
The whole thing, the whole possible chain of testimony, does not pass the laugh test!
What does easily make sense is that some poor Gentile goofball took the honorific “son of God” too literally, mixed it with the Greek (but not Jewish) idea of Zeus impregnating numerous fair maidens, and started the Virgin Birth myth.
This fits the fact that our earliest sources, the Pauline epistles and the Gospel of Mark, do not mention the Virgin Birth, and that it only shows up in the two later Gospels of Luke and Matthew.
Even if one forgets about the little scientific issue of where Jesus got his Y chromosome from, on the face of it, the Virgin Birth is quite obviously a myth.
That so many Christians believe this myth does casts real doubt on their intelligence, their judgment, and their sanity.
A similar point can be made about the Resurrection, etc.
I doubt the deist argument via fine tuning, etc. for a variety of reasons, but those arguments are not utterly insane.
Belief in traditional Christianity? Yeah, that is utterly insane.
And, Francis Collins apparently believes in traditional Christianity.
Dave
Posted by: Walton | July 29, 2009 8:13 AM
The left-right distinction is, IMO, so simplistic as to be utterly useless. "Right-wing" is a term that seems to be used indiscriminately to include a huge array of groups which have virtually nothing in common, other than opposition to socialism.
I am not a "right-winger", I'm a classical liberal. I believe in individual freedom, limited government, civil liberties, and a free market economy. I have very little, if anything, in common with most of the other groups and movements classified arbitrarily as "right-wing".
The term "right-wing" is used most often as a smear by socialists and social-democrats to attack those they dislike, and to try and imply - wrongly - that believers in individual freedom belong in the same category as neo-Nazis, loony theocrats and other authoritarian wingnuts. It's time to stop using it, IMO.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 8:28 AM
Walton, the fact that right/left does not exhaust political differences does not make it useless. Within current "mainstream" politics (you, Pilty and I all fall outside this area), almost no-one doubts its utility. You oppose action to increase socio-economic equality, so you're a right-winger. I don't hide from the fact that many groups with utterly loathsome beliefs and records are, like me, left-wingers, because they advocate socio-economic equality. I disagree with them on how to move toward it.
The term "right-wing" is used most often as a smear by socialists and social-democrats to attack those they dislike, and to try and imply - wrongly - that believers in individual freedom belong in the same category as neo-Nazis, loony theocrats and other authoritarian wingnuts.
Says the hypocritical arsehole who is given to pretending that anyone opposing his stupidities is a Stalinist.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 8:37 AM
Walton,
You ignore the fact that most "libertarians" and free-marketeers are quite happy to accept the label "right-wing"; their favoured tactic is to pretend that everyone they disagree with is left-wing, e.g. Goldberg's "liberal fascism" garbage.
Posted by: Robocop | July 29, 2009 9:08 AM
"Isn't that why the famed Larson-Witham study a decade ago found that less than 10 percent of NAS members believed in God?"
I tend to doubt it, but don't know. That group is also disproportionately (to a very large degree) male and white. Do you really want to keep on with this "we're better" argument?
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 9:15 AM
Do you really want to keep on with this "we're better" argument? - Robocop
No, in the sense of nicer, cleverer, prettier etc.
Yes, in the sense that knowledge and rationality are better than ignorance and irrationality. The plain fact is that more educated people, and in particular high-achieving scientists, are more likely to be atheists.
Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 9:17 AM
Robocop:
So is the clergy.
Your point?
Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 29, 2009 9:23 AM
Walton, you're opposed to collective actions for the common good, you want free markets for everything, and you go play soldiers at regular intervals because you enjoy the discipline and the parading and the weapons. You are a right-winger. This epiphany brought to you by the real world.
Posted by: Walton | July 29, 2009 9:38 AM
I'm not a big fan of Liberal Fascism personally (I haven't read the book myself, but know many people who have, and am familiar with its central thesis). I think classifying fascism and Nazism as "left-wing" ideologies is equally as simplistic and one-dimensional as classifying them as "right-wing" ideologies. It doesn't solve the basic problem with the left-right distinction. The Nazi and fascist regimes had some characteristics which are traditionally seen as "right-wing" (militarism, attachment to "traditional values", hostility to immigration), and others which are traditionally seen as "left-wing" (statist economic policies, undertaking public works in order to increase employment). Likewise, the modern British National Party is far more "left-wing" than New Labour on economic policy (they are pro-NHS, pro-welfare state and anti-free trade), while also holding views traditionally seen as "right-wing" (law-and-order obsession, hostility to immigration, anti-Europeanism). Fascism, in short, is just one of the many ideologies that cannot be adequately classified on the simplistic left-right spectrum.
But mainly, the ugliest characteristics of such movements (totalitarianism, violence, pseudoscientific racism, brutal suppression of dissent) are abhorred by decent people on both the right and left. What is shameful is the way many people of both persuasions use "fascist" as a blanket insult for all those with whom they disagree. To do so debases the real historical meaning of the word, and is, IMO, an insult to the victims of real fascist regimes.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 9:58 AM
Walton,
A few populist lollipops don't stop the BNP being far-right, any more than they did the Nazis: they want votes, and will tell any lies to get them. There were some fools in the NSDAP who believed the "socialist" rhetoric. They quickly ended up dead or in exile, while large-scale capitalists (unless Jewish or openly anti-Nazi) profited mightily until Germany started losing the war. Once again: left/right is a perfectly usable distinction in practice; no-one except a few wing-nuts has a problem with it. You just don't like it because it groups you with people you detest. So what? Being a socialist groups me with Stalin, and being an atheist classes me with our absent f
riend africangenesis and even, if I've followed your changing views correctly, you.I agree that "fascist" should not be used as an indiscriminate insult, and I never do use it that way. I apply it to fascists.
Posted by: Walton | July 29, 2009 11:10 AM
No. I dislike it because it groups me with people with whom I have nothing in common.
I am perfectly willing to admit that my political views, while less extreme, exist on the same spectrum as the ideas of radical anarchocapitalist revolutionaries. Such people might be willing to blow up buildings and murder innocent civilians in order to avoid paying taxes; I would not, and I find such an idea abhorrent. But I do not seek to deny that anarchocapitalist terrorists spring from the same ideological base as myself. They simply take it too far, both in the degree of liberty which they desire and in the degree to which they are willing to override individual interests and common humanity in order to achieve it. In the same way, I assume you would not deny that Marxist-Leninists spring from the same ideological base that you do; they simply take the same ideas in a different direction, and advocate more extreme methods than you would countenance.
I do not, on the other hand, have anything in common with fascists. I say this not because they are evil - evil exists in many forms, not just fascism - but because their particular brand of evil has nothing in common with my ideology. They advocate economic nationalism and protectionism; I advocate free global trade. They advocate immigration bans and "racial purity"; I advocate free movement across borders. They advocate a strong centralised state and the abolition of civil liberties; I advocate government so small you could drown it in a bathtub. Fascists are not "more extreme versions" of me; they come from a completely different ideological base. And any taxonomy which groups me in the same category as fascists, however broad the category, is an intellectually bankrupt taxonomy.
Posted by: Robocop | July 29, 2009 11:21 AM
442: "The plain fact is that more educated people, and in particular high-achieving scientists, are more likely to be atheists."
This correlation is pointed out 'round these parts often, but everybody neglects to show causation.
443: "So is the clergy."
You know nothing about black churches?
Posted by: Lynna | July 29, 2009 11:32 AM
PhysicistDave @437: FTW of all the internets where physics and virgins intersect.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 1:15 PM
PhysicistDave, #434
Since strings can divide and merge and stuff like that there, what are they made of?
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 1:29 PM
PhysicistDavid, #434,
For your information, o font of emotional equanimity, I am Christian in only the most superficial manner. Christian in that my moral behavior is based on core Christian morality, without all the son of god and god hisself malarky. In so far as Christian morality is a crib from Jewish morality, if following Christian morality makes me a Christian, then the fact Christian morality is Jewish morality with the serial numbers filed off would make me a Jew.
Now show me where my putative religion or my mental health has any impact upon my idea. I'm presenting a what if, a proposal. I'm not saying that science is wrong about cosmology, I'm saying that science is incomplete about cosmology. I'm saying that string theory is not a complete explanation of how the universe as we know it came about, and presenting an addendum of sorts. That is all folds are, a possible mechanism for explaining superstrings, mass, and other stuff.
Yes, my education and training is incomplete. Yes, my idea is unusual. But I'd hardly call it non-sensical.
Why can strings act as they do? Folds are my look at that why.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 1:54 PM
Since PhysicistDave has decided I'm not worth listening too, I shall inform you, good thread reader, that I never said that superstrings are indivisible. What I said regarding superstrings is that it is my understanding that fundamental building blocks of the universe are perforce indivisible. Because, if they were divisible they wouldn't be the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
We have learned that superstrings can vibrate. They can also divide and merge. How? How can the fundamental building block of the universe do this? Unless, that is, superstrings are made up of something even more basic.
Now superstring may be made up directly of folds, but there are too many complications between folds and strings. So as a place keeper I inserted two intermediary objects. We'll start with fibers.
First thing to keep in mind is that a fold in motion curves space-time. In addition, two folds cannot occupy the same point in space-time at the same time. What happens is that the two folds avoid each other. If their respective trajectories are just right they come to orbit a common center of mass -the space-time curvature I've been talking about, forming the object we'll call a fiber.
Why "fiber" I hear you ask? Because strings are made up of fibers of course. Though I do add an intermediate object between fibers and strings. (For PD: Why do you thing strings are called strings? Because they tie the universe together.)
Now keep in mind that because of the nature of the interaction between folds and space-time one fold cannot orbit another. The degree of space-time curvature -that is, its mass- is dependent on the fold's velocity, and the greater the velocity the greater the mass. A fold at absolute rest does not curve space-time, and so cannot alter the trajectory of a moving fold. Since an orbiting fold would at times be moving faster than the fold being orbited, that means the orbiting fold would necessarily have greater mass than the orbited fold, and a more massive object cannot orbit a less massive object unless there was a counterbalancing force available.
In any case, whether you have two, three, or more folds orbiting a common center of mass what results is the object known as a fiber.
A fiber is an object made up of two or more folds. The mass of a fiber -that is, how much it curves space-time- depends on the mass of the folds it is composed of. In addition, the velocity of a fiber as an object deepens the curvature. Which is to say, makes the object more massive.
This means that a fold can orbit a fiber because a fold is less massive than a fiber, unless that fold is traveling at such a velocity as to produce a greater degree of curvature than the fiber is. This fiber-fold combination is the most basic of the next level of complexity, the thread. Which we will have a look at next time.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 2:06 PM
442: "The plain fact is that more educated people, and in particular high-achieving scientists, are more likely to be atheists."
This correlation is pointed out 'round these parts often, but everybody neglects to show causation. - Robocop
Well if we exclude chance - and given the consistency in direction and enormous scale of the differences as you go from general public to those with college degrees to those with science PhDs to members of the NAS, I think we can - there are three basic possibilities (combinations of the three are possible):
1) Atheists are more likely to value education and science.
2) Getting educated, particularly in science, tends to lead to atheism.
3) Some third factor tends to lead to both atheism, and becoming scientifically educated - and indeed, becoming a successful scientist.
I would guess that all three are involved, with intelligence a likely factor (but probably not the only one). But whatever the causal explanation, why on earth shouldn't atheists draw attention to the fact? Does it make the baby Jesus cry?
Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 29, 2009 2:42 PM
@Alan: the worst math is no math. You aren't doing any physics here.
Posted by: Buzz | July 29, 2009 3:21 PM
Wow, I detect a very big case of penis envy here.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 5:19 PM
Alan Kellogg the insanely pathological liar wrote:
>I shall inform you, good thread reader, that I never said that superstrings are indivisible. What I said regarding superstrings is that it is my understanding that fundamental building blocks of the universe are perforce indivisible.
Nasty, thuggish, little pathological liar!
You did in fact write: (post 412):
>It grew out of the fact strings vibrate. Super strings that is. The most basic, there aint nuttin' more fundamental, objects in the universe. Supposedly indivisible things that vibrate. That don't make sense.
They are not “supposedly indivisible.”
You just made that up out of your utter and intentional ignorance of physics.
But you did post it – unless you want to claim that post 412 was posted by someone else pretending to be you.
You are one psychotic dude, Alan.
But at least you could take responsibility for your own words.
I have had it with your lying and word games, Alan, and I suspect any other intelligent person here has too.
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 5:36 PM
Alan Kellogg the insanely pathological liar wrote to me:
> (For PD: Why do you thing strings are called strings? Because they tie the universe together.)
Oh, Great Darwin!
Alan, you ignorant fool, they are called strings because they are extended one-dimensional objects – like, you know, strings.
I’ve known well a number of the leaders in the field – John Schwarz, Polchinski, Susskind.
I actually know about this stuff, you poor psychotic fool.
Dave
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 29, 2009 5:56 PM
Wowbagger @ 403:
My questions weren't meant to be facetious, although your pixie hypothesis strikes me as far more elegant and parsimonious than Mr Kellogg's obscure exposition.
Feynmaniac @ 405:
But the trampoline is only curved in the first place because of gravity (the weight of the bowling ball). To explain how a curvature can produce the phenomenon of gravity, the analogy requires a pre-existing gravitational force, does it not?
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 5:59 PM
Walton wrote:
>But I do not seek to deny that anarchocapitalist terrorists spring from the same ideological base as myself.
Hey, what’s this about anarchocapitalist *terrorists*???
I’m an “anarchocapitalist,” although I’d prefer to call myself a “Thoreauist.”
“Anarchocapitalist” has a ring that causes lots of people to think that I sympathize with the big banks, the big insurance companies (just watch, everyone – the insurance companies will do very, very nicely indeed out of “Obamacare”!), etc., which is the exact opposite of the case.
“Thoreauist” makes quite clear that my basic views are in sync with “The Essay on Civil Disobedience”: like Thoreau, I may not have the power singlehandedly to end the mass murder by the US government in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., I may not be able to end the looting by the banks and the other fascist institutions, but at least I can withdraw my own support and loyalty from the system, as he did. (Admittedly, I am a bit more eager to avoid jail than Thoreau was – but then Concord jail was a bit more civilized place than our current prison system is!)
But “terrorist”?????
The chief terrorist in the world today is the government of the United States of America, responsible for far more innocent deaths in the last sixty years than al Qaeda could ever possibly cause.
And if we “anarchocapitalists” are “terrorists”, why do I have no desire to blow up any buildings, drop any bombs, kidnap anyone?
Sure, I would love to see the leaders of the USA go before an international tribunal and be given an appropriate jail term, but I do not even wish to see them receive capital punishment.
Really, Walton, don’t you think you should be more careful in your use of the language?
And, going back to the original sentence I quoted from you, maybe we “anarchocapitlalists” really do not spring from the same “ideological base” as you? Would you consider your “ideological base” to be Thoreau’s “Essay on Civil Disobedience”?
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 6:11 PM
No. I dislike it because it groups me with people with whom I have nothing in common. - Walton
That's simply false: you oppose attempts to reduce socio-economic inequality, and indeed consider it beneficial, as do fascists, theocrats and conventional conservatives. And that's what the left/right distinction is about.
PhysicistDave,
Whatever your intentions, anarchocapitalism would simply be the rule of the strongest and most ruthless - which would probably be those big companies able to hire the most effective thugs. Even in Thoreau's time his individualist anarchism was a naive dream; far more so now.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 29, 2009 6:20 PM
No, the thin rubber membrane/bowling ball metaphor is just a means of explaining the concept of general relativity to non-physicists. It is not the way things are, only a visualization. Science is still working on gravity. I am searching for gravity waves via Einstein at home. In any case, your imaginary deity is not needed for anything.Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 6:20 PM
Piltdown,
No.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 29, 2009 6:41 PM
Knockgoats @ 429:
True, but it doesn't follow that every ideology that rejects egalitarianism is therefore right-wing.
I believe the expression "rightist" was coined at the time of the French Revolution to designate the royalist defenders of the Ancien Régime. This tradition, articulated by counter-revolutionary thinkers like de Bonald and de Maistre, supported the old alliance between Throne and Altar and has little in common with either the evangelical democratic capitalism of the New Right and neoconservatives or the anti-Christian traditionalism of the Nouvelle Droite.
As for the fascist mutation, Mussolini and Gentile stated their position plainly in their Doctrine of Fascism:
Moreover, Fascism's totalitarian idolatry of the state ("The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value") clearly violates the traditional Catholic social principle of subsidiarity. In this respect Fascism can be seen as a direct descendant of the French Revolution's insistence on unité, indivisibilité de la République. (Interestingly, the fasces featured prominentl in Jacobin iconography.)
The true Right.
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 29, 2009 6:58 PM
But everything Catholic, like everything pertaining to any religion, is subject to interpretation. As we're all well aware a slippery enough sophist can make nearly any bible verse or papal doctrine mean just about anything they want it to.
You choose to exploit loopholes in meaning to suit your arguments; you can't possibly expect that others aren't going to do the same for theirs.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 8:15 PM
Knockgoats wrote to me:
>Whatever your intentions, anarchocapitalism would simply be the rule of the strongest and most ruthless - which would probably be those big companies able to hire the most effective thugs.
And that differs from the system we have now?
Yeah, I suppose it does: now, each of us pays ourselves out of each paycheck for those “most effective thugs” (Army, Air Force, DEA, CIA, FBI, etc.) who carry out the will of the power elite, so the big companies don’t have to pay out of their own pockets!
I admit that I have no magic Grand Plan to Save the World; there is no Grand Thoreauist Creed to which I subscribe; I have no brilliant revolutionary Plan of Action to bring down the power elite.
I’ve noticed that people who do have such grand plans usually wreak great evil.
I’ll concede that you may well be right that if we eliminate the state the world will be much the same as it is today.
In any case, I have no power by myself to eliminate the state or bring the system crashing down, anyway.
All I can do, as Thoreau pointed out, is refuse to give my loyalty or my voluntary support to the regime.
I will not vote for or pretend to respect any of these thugs who initiated or perpetuate the war in Iraq (that now includes Obama since he has declined to end it after six months in office). I will not play silly games such as the Pledge of Allegiance (if there is a God, he must be pretty nauseated at that “under God” phrase!). I will not pretend that the government “represents me” when it lies and steals to bail-out the crooks in the financial industry, the auto industry, etc.
History will move on as it will, and there is not much one person can do to stop the juggernaut.
All I can do is throw a few grains of sand into the gears as chance permits.
Of course, if everyone did the same, we could indeed bring the whole evil system of lies crashing down.
This system of lies will not last forever: personally, I suspect the system only has a few decades left.
Dave
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 29, 2009 8:17 PM
John Morales @ 421:
Smoggy Batzrubble @ 422:
Knockgoats @ 423:
Anton Mates @ 431:
It's obvious conflicting instincts exist and I daresay evolutionary theorists would have no difficulty explaining how natural selection gave rise to each of them and to what extent they remain evolutionarily useful.
What I find problematical is the bland assumption that we can easily discern which of these competing instincts we ought to follow, through the exercise of unaided human reason. People here would presumably privilege those instincts that favour the basic liberal decencies which make their social lives bearable. As Knockgoats puts it @ 429: "Moral "oughts" derive from unselfish desires: that the needs of others should be met, and that their lives should be happy, free and fulfilled."
Well it's true that "if you want to win at chess, you ought to consider your moves carefully", but is it equally self-evident that if you want human society to flourish, you ought to look after the weak and unfit? An old-school social darwinist would dismiss that as special pleading by the weak and unfit, and who is to say it isn't?
Those who stubbornly believe reality has a liberal bias might find it far-fetched that such a merciless worldview could ever command social acceptance, but it's not difficult to discern the eugenic assumptions underlying much abortion and euthanasia propaganda.
+++
Knockgoats @ 429:
As for Scandinavia, it's a question of how one defines human fulfillment and social wellbeing. You talk @ 424 of "low levels of poverty, violence, crime, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy" and maybe you're right. But all that is just a diabolical simulacrum of peace as long as (for example) sexual immorality and abortion are rampant.
Time will tell, as usual.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 29, 2009 8:37 PM
Pilty,
Sigh, what Nerd said in #461. I could have written Einstein's field equations and the geodesic equation, but I doubt that would have been very illuminating to a layman.
John A. Wheeler summed up the situation nicely: "Matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move."
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 8:42 PM
Robocop wrote to me:
>>[DHM]"Isn't that why the famed Larson-Witham study a decade ago found that less than 10 percent of NAS members believed in God?"
>.[Robo]I tend to doubt it, but don't know. That group is also disproportionately (to a very large degree) male and white. Do you really want to keep on with this "we're better" argument?
Oh, yesh, I really do – because it actually is true, you know.
The fact that I mentioned a group that is disproportionately “male and white,” does not faze me in the teeniest.
You see, I do not suffer from the famed “liberal guilt.” Tryin’ that just won’t work on me.
Not a liberal, politically-correct bone in my body.
I have a suspicion that PZ is not as true-blue a liberal as he claims, either. A true-blue liberal would have felt true guilt over the deep personal pain his little wafer endeavour caused all those Christians.
But, like me, PZ just recognized that the whole grand escapade was really super, super cool.
PZ has an anarchist’s heart.
I do feel deep regret over the innocent people being killed by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
But, no, Robocop, I feel no regret at all for pointing out that those white males in the NAS are intellectually superior to you and to Christians in general.
After all, they are.
Dave
Posted by: Kagato
|
July 29, 2009 8:57 PM
I'm willing to wager your understanding was flawed then.
Point 2 stated that morality and evolutionary advantage are not congruous.
Point 3 appears to state that evolutionary advantages are desirable (and presumably therefore moral), which would contradict 2.
(I suspect C_E may have read your poorly-phrased initial statement as akin to "desireable things are desirable"; hence a reply of "duh".)
Point 4 then ignores point 2 altogether an extrapolates unnecessarily from your interpretation of point 3.
Correct. I don't see any difficulty here.
We have clear "instinctual" drives that are not rational (we do not "choose" who we find attractive, for example), but we are also intelligent beings who can make rational decisions and plan beyond our short term urges (such as choosing not to start a relationship with an attractive person for more pragmatic reasons).
Likewise, our instinctive responses to "right" and "wrong" (such as the tendency to retaliate with disproportionate force in a conflict) can be tempered by the rational analysis of the effects of such responses. So our social contracts (an intellectual exercise) are built upon, but sometimes override or contradict our base instinctual/emotional drives.
Yeah. So?
"Is" is how the things work. "Ought" is how we think things should work. Having evolved the capacity to make decisions, we can plan beyond the way things are and choose the sort of society we collectively want to live in.
There is no such "evolutionary drive". It is just a natural consequence of reproducing entities -- those that reproduce survive. This will tend to evolve traits that tend toward self-preservation, but it's not fundamentally inherent in evolution (it's not some magical force), nor in life itself. Maybe a nitpick, but still.
"Whatever alleged instinct"? I already said instinct may not be the best word, but how about "emotions", for starters? Every rational decision we make is coloured by our emotions. Sometimes they inform our decision in the first place, and sometimes we have to step back and override our emotions to prevent further harm.
Of course. Our instincts/emotions/"base drives" are evolved. So is our intelligence. In some cases, they come into conflict. That's kind of what a moral code is for.
Problematic to resolve the conflicts between emotion and reason? Yeah, sometimes. Welcome to the human condition.
Problematic from an evolutionary viewpoint?
Not in the slightest.
Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 9:24 PM
Piltdown:
Instincts are part of ourselves; however, we humans, being sapient, have the ability to override our instincts as may be appropriate.
That is to say: Instincts are innate heuristics, but they should inform—rather than compel—our ethics.
Living instinctually is appropriate for non-sapient animals, but hardly so for civilised humans.
(For example, I presume I too have the instinct to procreate, yet I (and my wife) long-ago made the decision to not do so. That doesn't mean we consider procreation to be bad.)
Posted by: E.V. | July 29, 2009 9:40 PM
Why bother to engage Pilty, when you can reduce his arguments to the dogma of moralism and sexual repression all avenged by a prude,wrathful god? Oh, you're tired of hitting balls against the garage door... nevermind.
Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 9:41 PM
Piltdown:
Alas, "sexual immorality" data are hard to come by*, but abortion rates aren't.
Netherlands:US :: 8.6:19.4 (2005)
All available data contradict your contention.
--
* and are purely subjective, as opposed to abortion rates.
Posted by: Kagato
|
July 29, 2009 9:53 PM
See, that's where another of those underlying "instincts" comes in: empathy -- Our ability to understand and share the emotional state of another person.
While it is possible to make a purely intellectual argument that society may be better off if we allow the sick, unproductive members just die off, most of us would find the idea so fundamentally abhorrent at a base level that we could not tolerate living in such a society.
And as a society filled with people repulsed by its core principles is hardly going to function well, it would indicate the initial argument wasn't so sound after all.
Darn, and you'd actually been discussing things tolerably well up until this point. Now look what you've done, you made me break out the Comic Sans again!
The abortion and euthanasia debates have no "underlying eugenic assumptions". These are not decisions to be handed down from some Ministry for the Betterment of the Human Species! These are both personal issues that directly relate to individual people.
And in the case of euthanasia, it is the person who will die requesting the death take place! They're not exactly improving society from their point of view by taking themselves out of it, are they? Euthanasia is an early end to suffering, ahead of an imminent death anyway. We treat pets with enough dignity to release them from pain, so why not the terminally ill when they explicitly desire it?
"Eugenics". Jesus.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 29, 2009 10:10 PM
PhysicistDave, #456
You quoted me as saying...
.Tell me, what sort of fundamental particle is divisible? If strings are divisible, then strings cannot be the most basic thing there is. Basic means you can't break it down any further. What you are talking about act like derived objects, derived from more basic items. I propose a possible basic item. One which, by its very nature, cannot be broken down any further.
And now you've descended to blatant, and blatantly irrelevant, ad hominems. Tell me, how does my state of mental health have anything to do with my idea? Does being schizophrenic negate the value of a mathematician's work? You have decided you don't like my idea, and you don't like me. How do your feelings prove or disprove that idea? How does your animosity refute my thinking?
Who let the crows poop in your oatmeal?
Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 10:12 PM
Kagato,
It's preferable even from a pragmatic, amoral and selfish viewpoint, because since any of us could through no fault of our own become sick and unproductive, it'd be preferable if such were looked after (i.e., it'd be akin to an insurance policy).
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 29, 2009 10:15 PM
Piltdown,
1) What does this have to do with evolution? If evolutionary theory was false, we would still have those competing desires, and we would still have no a priori reason to follow one over another. No facts about their origin could tell us which one we should follow.
2) You should distinguish between desires/drives/preferences/values in general, and "instincts." Pretty much everyone here has tried to stress that morality is not itself an instinct, although its acquisition and formation may be heavily shaped by instinct. The same is true of many of our values and desires.
3) Nonbelievers don't generally say that ethics is easy. The question is whether anything other than the "exercise of unaided human reason" would help to make it easier. I don't see how it could, personally.
4) That said, I'm a moral subjectivist, so I would say that your question is very easily answered—I ought to follow my moral desires. That's what "ought" means, to me. Whether I will follow them depends on how strong they are relative to my other desires, but that doesn't change the "ought" of the matter.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 29, 2009 10:28 PM
Piltdown,
Why do you think that all moral desires reduce to "wanting human society to flourish?" I want people to be looked after; when people who could easily be taken care of are left to sicken and die, I feel bad. Therefore, we ought to look after the weak and unfit. (There are, of course, non-moral reasons to do so as well--I would find a society which neglects the weak to be pragmatically and aesthetically unpleasant.)
If you happen to lack compassion and empathy, it may not be self-evident to you that we should look after the weak and unfit. This is an unfortunate fact of life; we have not had a great deal of success arguing sociopaths into becoming moral people. But the existence of sociopaths doesn't nullify my moral desires.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 29, 2009 11:46 PM
Alan Kellogg the pathological liar wrote:
> Tell me, what sort of fundamental particle is divisible? If strings are divisible, then strings cannot be the most basic thing there is. Basic means you can't break it down any further. What you are talking about act like derived objects, derived from more basic items.
Oh, Alan, wrong again, little boy! That will be another F on your report card.
In superstring theory, the superstrings are basic, they are divisible, and that’s just life. The strings just divide into strings: it is like supercool. “Turtles all the way down!” Learn some math and you might even get it.
You can’t grok it?
Good, I don’t want you to.
I wouldn’t teach you science if you paid me.
I want people like you to walk around making utter fools of yourself, so that every time you open your mouth, people will say, “Wow! that sure proves Gould’s point that evolution is not necessarily progressive!”
Dave
Posted by: John Morales | July 30, 2009 12:11 AM
PhysicistDave, in Alan Kellogg's defense, I consider* he seems more informed and rational about other topics.
(In fact, I'm a little surprised and disappointed that he's taken this ignorant and obstinately confrontational tack with you.)
--
* I've seen quite a number of his comments and posts on his own blog, so this is opinion based on a significant evidentiary basis.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 30, 2009 4:14 AM
John Morales wrote to me:
> PhysicistDave, in Alan Kellogg's defense, I consider* he seems more informed and rational about other topics.
>(In fact, I'm a little surprised and disappointed that he's taken this ignorant and obstinately confrontational tack with you.)
Well, I think this little experiment here may really have revealed a lot about Alan, frankly, but, more importantly shed new light on the grand PZ vs. M&K debate.
Alan has, of course, admitted that he lacks the math to understand any of this.
I actually do have a Ph.D. in elementary-particle physics from Stanford and have, at one point or another over the years, known some of the leaders in superstring theory.
On the face of it, even a not very bright person would assume that what Alan says about superstirngs has a not very good chance of being correct and that there is a decent chance that I am correct.
That does not mean he should blindly accept what I say, of course. Initially, I did seriously hope Alan would bother to look in books, etc. and learn for himself (I now no longer believe he has the baseline mental ability to do that).
But it does mean, as a first approximation, that it would have been wise for him to suppose that *maybe* I was right, that *maybe* he needed to check this out further, etc. And, at the very least, it might have been nice if he had bothered to be polite to someone who has spent many, many years studying this stuff and thanked me for spending my time answering some questions from a guy who obviously, by his own admission, knows very little.
This really is central to the grand PZ vs. M & K debate. Neither I nor PZ (nor Dawkins, Harris, etc.) want or expect the yahoos to blindly believe what we say: we want them to actually think and learn for themselves.
But when the yahoos take the attitude that it is *our* responsibility to consider carefully every crack-pot idea they propose and to prove to *their* satisfaction that we are right, etc…
Well, given the years and years that PZ, Dawkins, I, and other scientists have spent studying science, it would seem, prima facie, sensible for the yahoos to quietly listen to us, for the yahoos to pursue the learning resources we suggest, and, above all, for the yahoos to be polite to us when we inform them that they are wrong.
This is never what happens, of course.
On the contrary, for decades now, it has been the yahoos who are aggressively and loudly certain in dealing with us real scientists, and most scientists have just put up politely with this abuse, or more often, simply cut off contact with members of the public on matters of science – this is really probably the biggest reason so few scientists try to communicate science to the general public.
I think that Alan Kellogg’s obviously behaving exactly the same way with me, even though I take it he is not a creationist and even though our discussion does not involve biology, shows how deeply rooted these attitudes are in our society.
(Incidentally, Alan behaved similarly in asserting that Jewish and Christian ethics are essentially the same, which is utter nonsense to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Old and New Testaments.)
I have had this happen again and again to me personally in the strangest situations: once, for example, some kid on the Web asked for help on a homework assignment on relativity. I sketched out for him how to approach the problem, and some other guy, who knew nothing about the subject, started accusing me of being some kind of fraud! This is not unusual: this is what I have seen to be the norm for non-scientists dealing with scientists in our society, often in cases where I had no direct involvement.
To put it bluntly, in my experience, John Kwok is a normal American (what a scary thought!).
What M&K are missing (and they cannot be this dumb – there has to be a psychopathological explanation!) is the overwhelming prevalence of behavior such as we have seen with Matthew Segall and with Alan and of course with John Kwok, Anthony McCarthy, ad nauseum.
We all know such behavior amongJohn Morales wrote to me:
> PhysicistDave, in Alan Kellogg's defense, I consider* he seems more informed and rational about other topics.
>(In fact, I'm a little surprised and disappointed that he's taken this ignorant and obstinately confrontational tack with you.)
Well, I think this little experiment here may really have revealed a lot about Alan, frankly.
After all, he has admitted that he lacks the math to understand any of this.
I actually do have a Ph.D. in elementary-particle physics from Stanford and have, at one point or another over the years, known some of the leaders in superstring theory.
On the face of it, even a not very bright person would assume that what Alan says about superstirngs has a not very good chance of being correct and that there is a decent chance that I am correct.
That does not mean he should blindly accept what I say, of course. Initially, I did seriously hope Alan would bother to look in books, etc. and learn for himself (I now no longer believe he has the baseline mental ability to do that).
But it does mean, as a first apporximation, that it would have been wise for him to suppose that *maybe* i was right, that *maybe* he needed to check this out further, etc. And, at the very least, it might have been nice if he had bothered to be polite to someone who has spent many, many years studying this stuff and thanked me for spending my time answering some questions from a guy who obviously, by his own admission, knows very little.
This really is central to the grand PZ vs. M & K debate. Neither I nor PZ (nor Dawkins, Harris, etc.) want or expect the yahoos to blindly believe what we say: we want them to actually think and learn for themselves.
But when the yahoos take the attitude that it is *our* repsonsibility to consider carefully every crack-pot idea they propose and to prove to *their* satisfaction that we are right, etc….
Well, given the years and years that PZ, Dawkins, I, and other scientists have spent studying science, it would seem, prima facie, sensible for the yahoos to quietly listen to us, for the yahoos to pursue the learning resources we suggest, and, above all, for the yahoos to be polite to us when we inform them that they are wrong.
This is never what happens, of course.
On the contrary, for decades now, it has been the yahoos who are aggressively and loudly certain in dealing with us real scientists, and most scientists have just put up politely with this abuse, or more often, simply cut off contact with members of the public on matters of science – this is really probably the biggest reason so few scientists try to communicate science to the general public.
I think that Alan Kellogg’s behaving exactly the same way with me, even though I take it he is not a creationist and even though our discussion does not involve biology, shows how deeply rooted these attitudes are in our society.
(Incidentally, Alan behaved similarly in asserting that Jewish and Christian ethics are essentially the same, which is utter nonsense to anyone with even a passing familairity with the Old and New Testaments.)
I have had this happen again and again to me personally in the strangest situations: once, for example, some kid on the Web asked for help on a homework assignment on relativity. I sketched out for him how to approach the problem, and some other guy, who knew nothing about the subject, started accusing me of being some kind of fraud! This is not unusual: this is what I have seen to be the norm for non-scientists dealing with scientists in our society, often in cases where I had no direct involvement.
To put it bluntly, in my experience, John Kwok is a normal American (what a scary thought!).
What M&K are missing (and they cannot be this dumb – there has to be a psychopathological explanation!) is the overwhelming prevalence of behavior such as we have seen with Matthew Segall and with Alan and of course with John Kwok, Tony McCarthy, ad nauseum.
We all know such behavior with the Creationists. Alan and Matthew show how widespread it is also among non-fundies and non-Creationists.
There is a prevailing attitude of “never-admit-the-scientists-know-something” that is very widespread in our society and goes back decades, long before the New Atheists. That M&K and other “accomodationists”/”faitheists” will not admit this, and cannot see that the New Atheists are not a cause of this situation (chronologically, the timing does not work out for that theory) but are rather a rational way of dealing with it…
Well… I honestly do not think this is an innocent mistake on the “accomodationists”/”faitheists” part: the story I have just laid out is far too obvious and far too well-known. They must have some ulterior motive.
At any rate, we can surely thank Alan for proving so nicely that it is not only the fundies who behave this way.
Dave
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 30, 2009 5:00 AM
PD, #480
I fear for you.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 30, 2009 5:16 AM
PD, #478
You said...
So it's turtles all the way down.
To what? Are you saying that superstrings are made up of superstrings, which are made up of superstrings made up of superstings? Where does it end? All I've proposed is a beginning, a foundation for the whole dang thing. A fancy, a notion, and that is all. I raise the possibility there is a foundation, and what that foundation may consist of. You got all bent out of shape over it.
I was taught a long time ago that personal attacks have no place in science, unless the other person's personality and beliefs impacts his work. I am Aspergers, near as I can tell. I am a depressive. I have been and done things, but I'm not about to insist I've been persecuted like Galileo and that may thinking is going to overthrow physics (or any other part of science) as we know it. I'm not doing this to supplant the current physics, but to see if I can get people to think on the question of why superstrings behave as they do.
What does the turtle stand on?
Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 30, 2009 5:18 AM
Thoreau sent his laundry home to his mother.
http://americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_littleknown_henry_david_thoreau_revealed
Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 30, 2009 5:27 AM
Alan, you haven't made any useful or coherent proposition regarding anything in physics. You have repeated, ad nauseam, that you don't like the idea of a superstring existing and not being made from anything else, but this is no reason to suppose that your witterings have any relevance to superstring theory, because your psychological need to say that X is made of Y doesn't make Y real.
If you'd dropped it at an earlier stage I think Dave wouldn't be so pissed off with you. If you kept insisting that music is made of Lego, musicians would start getting snippy with you too.
Keep your opinions under skull arrest, please, until they're ready to play outside.
Posted by: John Morales | July 30, 2009 6:15 AM
Alan, there was a time when atoms were considered the basic constituents of matter. Then, around the turn of the 20th century, it was realised that atoms were themselves composed of more basic constituents when the electron was discovered.
By the time I entered high school, in 1974, quantum mechanics was an established theory and there was an ever growing 'particle zoo' of subatomic particles, and it was all very confusing.
Around this time, quantum chromodynamics came along and the 'standard model' was developed, where the basic constituents were bosons and fermions.
More recently, string theory hypothesises that the most basic constituents are 'strings' — 1-dimensional vibrating "somethings", rather than 0-dimensional static "somethings" (such as electrons).
At every stage there has been an ultimate constitutent, strings are merely the latest (and, potentially, the last) such.
Which is why your question asking what strings are made of is meaningless.
Posted by: John Morales | July 30, 2009 6:22 AM
Dave,
Sigh. You make a good case.
So far as Nisbet and M&K go, I'm rather cynical about their purblindness; I think they've found a profitable niche which they will milk for all it's worth.
See this recent post by Ophelia Benson.
Indeed. Strangely, I suspect these same people would likely accept the expertise of, say, a plumber or an electrician more readily than that of a scientist — because it's relevant to their immediate needs.
Leaving creationists aside, I think it's a primarily a matter of ego, and secondarily that they don't know enough to realise how much they don't know*. Those who haven't studied something tend to acquire opinions by a nebulous process of 'osmosis', from half-remembered popular science pieces, media pundits, acquaintances and vague school-days memory; they 'know what they know', but can't justify their perceived knowledge. Most people's first reaction, when challenged on their beliefs, is to take offense, stand their ground and produce ad-hoc rationalisations**.
--
* Alas, I have some awareness of how much I don't know; this induces a modicum of humility.
** I too feel this impulse, but being aware of it helps.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 30, 2009 6:22 AM
Alan Kellogg @ 482:
An unmoved First Mover of course.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 30, 2009 6:29 AM
Pilty,
What I find problematical is the bland assumption that we can easily discern which of these competing instincts we ought to follow, through the exercise of unaided human reason.
Who said it was easy? You're the one who claims an infallible way of deciding all moral questions. I say there isn't one, as you'd know if you were capable of reading for comprehension.
People here would presumably privilege those instincts that favour the basic liberal decencies which make their social lives bearable. As Knockgoats puts it @ 429: "Moral "oughts" derive from unselfish desires: that the needs of others should be met, and that their lives should be happy, free and fulfilled."
Well it's true that "if you want to win at chess, you ought to consider your moves carefully", but is it equally self-evident that if you want human society to flourish, you ought to look after the weak and unfit? An old-school social darwinist would dismiss that as special pleading by the weak and unfit, and who is to say it isn't?
You can't even read the words, can you? I said, specifically: "the needs of others should be met, and that their lives should be happy, free and fulfilled." That certainly, in the long term, requires human society to flourish, but that's a secondary, derivative goal. No, there's no way I can prove that my moral system is the right one, because there's no authority that can determine this - and this would be true even if God existed (Euthyphro's dilemma). So what? I follow my moral system as far as my faults allow, I try to persuade others to follow parts of it by arguing that doing so will serve goals they and I share, and I'm ready to change parts of it if they are shown to be inconsistent or to have bad effects. It's a work in progress and will be as long as I live, not a finished set of rules.
Those who stubbornly believe reality has a liberal bias might find it far-fetched that such a merciless worldview could ever command social acceptance, but it's not difficult to discern the eugenic assumptions underlying much abortion and euthanasia propaganda.
Well if you're a paranoid, misogynistic, homophobic, freedom-hating "traditionalist" Catholic, I'm sure it is.
As for Scandinavia, it's a question of how one defines human fulfillment and social wellbeing. You talk @ 424 of "low levels of poverty, violence, crime, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy" and maybe you're right. But all that is just a diabolical simulacrum of peace as long as (for example) sexual immorality and abortion are rampant.
No it isn't. Peace has a commonly-agreed meaning, which you dishonestly distort.
Time will tell, as usual.
The phrase that allows you to dismiss any and all evidence against your views about the social effects of declining religious belief. But how long do you require? After all, much of Europe abandoned Catholicism centuries ago - and surely societies dominated by diabolical heresies ought to have become clearly very much worse than those following the true faith?
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 30, 2009 6:31 AM
Alan Kellogg wrote to me:
>You have decided you don't like my idea, and you don't like me. How do your feelings prove or disprove that idea?
You don’t actually have an idea, Alan.
You have a bunch of meaningless words strung together that might well fool someone who knows no math, no physics, etc.
They do not fool me.
You also do not have any idea of how superstring theory works, as you have embarrassingly demonstrated again and again.
I may be the only one here who does have professional knowledge of this stuff, but I really do.
If you had a modicum of common sense, or any kind of personal character, you would have had the good sense to suppose that just possibly the guy with a Ph.D. in elementary-particle physics from Stanford knew a bit more about this than you do.
You admitted you do not “have the math.”
Well, I do “have the math,” and in physics, that makes all the difference.
Yes, the only thing left to talk about concerning you is indeed “ad hominem” – i.e., about why you are behaving this way, simply because you have no real ideas to talk about. Your “theory” does not even rise to the level of an interesting speculation: it sounds more like the incoherent description of a bad acid trip.
Frankly, you should thank me for saving you from greater public embarrassment.
But since you won’t, and since your “work” is obviously not receiving the hearing from me that you anticipated, why not really go public?
Write up your “theory” in detail, say a 400-page manuscript, get it actually published in hardcover book form (there are online outfits that will do this very cheap now), and FedEx it to each member of the physics faculty at the top 100 universities in the country (USNews has a list of the top 100 schools).
If your “theory” is as good as think, surely, at least one professor somewhere will recognize your brilliance, and you will be on your way to the Nobel Prize.
Personally, I am sure that not a competent physicist in the country will really take your theory seriously and actually promote it among their colleagues, but prove me wrong!
Go for it, Alan!
Show us all that you are not really a con artist and you really believe in yourself.
Spend a modest sum to get your ideas some publicity and thereby win that Nobel Prize!
Or at least find out the truth about the value of your “ideas.”
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: Rorschach | July 30, 2009 6:42 AM
Dave @ 489,
a nice and thorough pwning that, may I however suggest that providing your name and location on the internet,and especially when dealing with mentally unstable people who sometimes frequent this place( note that I dont mean Alan K here) might not be the best thing to do.
I liked this bit, well said:
Posted by: John Morales | July 30, 2009 6:47 AM
Dave, I don't disbelieve you*, but you should realise arguments from authority are discouraged here, especially when that authority is not established.
Not that it's necessarily inappropriate, but just saying.
(It's a standard tactic by many poseurs to claim qualifications or expertise, and on the internet you could be anyone.)
--
* My sniffer doesn't sniff any fishiness about you, and I've found it pretty reliable in the past :)
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 30, 2009 6:47 AM
PhysicistDave,
May be worth mentioning that Alan Kellogg has himself said he has Asperger's syndrome. Whether this accounts for the nonsense he has produced in arguing with you I don't know, but similar weird obsessions have surfaced before (e.g. a conviction that Bigfoot is real, IIRC).
Posted by: Rorschach | July 30, 2009 6:56 AM
I got the same vibe, therefore didnt mention the slight tendency to argue from authority here...:-)
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 30, 2009 7:02 AM
Alan Kellogg wrote to me:
>I was taught a long time ago that personal attacks have no place in science, unless the other person's personality and beliefs impacts his work.
Absolutely, completely, outrageously false.
When, in matters of science, a scientist lies – and you did most assuredly lie – there is an affirmative obligation to inform others of the lying.
You are not a member of the scientific community, so I do not have an obligation to inform other scientists of your lying. But it is completely appropriate as a scientist for me to point it out.
Furthermore, it is routine, and again an affirmative obligation, for a scientist to inform others when someone pretends to be a scientist who in fact suffers from some bizarre mental disability that causes him to be delusional: I have seen this before.
You are a textbook case.
The “ad hominem” fallacy is to claim that your being a bad person logically proves your ideas are wrong. I did not do that: I pointed out that your ideas were wrong first. After that was out of the way, then I moved on to your severe character and mental disabilities.
You also wrote:
>I am Aspergers, near as I can tell. I am a depressive.
And, in all honesty, you have a great deal to be depressed about!
You also wrote:
>I'm not doing this to supplant the current physics, but to see if I can get people to think on the question of why superstrings behave as they do.
No, that is not true: you insisted that your crack-pot ideas were *true*, even after I pointed out how nonsensical they are. You were not trying to get people to think about “why superstrings behave as they do” – indeed, most of the people on this thread could not think constructively about superstring theory anyway: like you, most of them lack the minimally required knowledge of the subject. You knew that.
No, you are not trying to get people to think about why superstrings behave as they do: as you have admitted and proved again and again, you know far too little about superstring theory to even raise any intelligible questions.
There are *real* issues in superstring theory: you have indicated not a shred of knowledge about any of them.
You’re a fake, a pompous delusional fool, who thought you could make yourself look important by claiming to have the answers in an important area of physics, even though you do not even know what the questions in that field are.
But there happened to be a real physicist around.
I’d bet you do this all the time – except that usually someone who really knows the stuff happens not to be around to point out that you are just lying.
No, in this thread, you have simply been claiming to have knowledge that you know you do not have.
You have just been lying, trying to peddle your incoherent, disorganized fantasies as scientific truth.
Oh, yes, you have much to be depressed about.
If you had any sense of right and wrong, you’d be ashamed. But you aren’t.
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 30, 2009 7:25 AM
John Morales wrote to me:
>Strangely, I suspect these same people would likely accept the expertise of, say, a plumber or an electrician more readily than that of a scientist — because it's relevant to their immediate needs.
I don’t think that is the primary reason.
Suppose John Kwok treated the average plumber the way he treated PZ: I think there is a good chance that John would find himself lying on the floor with a crescent wrench buried in his forehead!
Neither PZ nor I nor most scientists would do that, but I think the fact that we will not do that is part of what incites the John Kwok/ Anthony McCarthy/ Alan Kellogg behavior.
To be blunt, they assume that we scientists are wimps.
Which again connects with the M&K vs. PZ debate: for scientists to be nice sweet folks who all-so-quietly put up with the abuse only feeds the sense of the yahoos that we are wimps and they can keep it up.
You see a lot of this come through when the yahoos, after vicious ad hominem attacks against us, inform us that it is our duty as scientists not to engage in personal rejoinders.
They really do think we are wimps.
I think that our pal Matthew Segall has also, in his own inimitable way, explained another main motivation.
These guys are really, really frightened.
Not long ago, the novelist Tom Wolfe published an essay in which he warned that progress in neuroscience in coming years will bring disaster: he predicted that science would disporve all of our “common-sense” views of personal responsibility.
He considered this horrifying (though at least he was honest enough not to try to evade it).
You and I may not be afraid of what will happen to our concept of “free will” (I have never had much of a concept of free will – I’ve never been clear on what is supposed to be), but we are unusual.
Most of our fellow citizens still live mentally in an imaginary world much like Matthew Segall’s, but an awful lot of them have a sense that that world cannot last.
We scientists are the ones destroying that world, and they are, rightly I think, very, very afraid.
Plumbers do not threaten people’s sense of sanity, or, worse, prove that they have in fact long been insane. Science does.
Dave
Posted by: olle | July 30, 2009 7:53 AM
PP Myers: "And excuse me, but I don't want American science to be represented by a clown."
Well, then it's a good thing you're not the face of it.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 30, 2009 7:55 AM
Poor Olle, can't even get PZ's initials right. What a loser, which makes his opinion only for losers...
Posted by: John Morales | July 30, 2009 7:58 AM
Dave @495,
Hm, that seems a very plausible point.
Also, you scientists are absent-minded but rational and emotionless, and you wear lab-coats and glasses.
I seen it in many a movie :)
(Seriously, yeah, you're stereotyped — but what profession isn't?)
Insightful, and it's something I've considered — but that's been going on since at least Darwin's time, and one should not underestimate the human capacity for denial and for wishful thinking.
--
PS Hey, if you're in Sacramento, it's nearly 5am... Shouldn't you be getting some z's?
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 30, 2009 8:05 AM
That's a really insightful way of putting it. Don't know why that thought didn't occur to me before.Posted by: Walton | July 30, 2009 8:16 AM
PhysicistDave: I apologise for the fact that I wasn't clear. I certainly did not mean to associate anarchocapitalism in general with terrorism. Indeed, there are many anarchocapitalist and individualist-anarchist thinkers - from Thoreau to Murray Rothbard - whose ideas are interesting and worth considering, and who certainly do belong on the same ideological spectrum as my own positions.
That said, why I am not an anarchocapitalist: I simply don't believe that a genuinely free market, based on voluntary exchange and individual property rights, can truly exist without some sort of (minimal) State infrastructure. In my view, Rothbard's analysis of property rights was rather naive and unrealistic, as is the notion of "natural rights" of any sort. In reality, without a system of law and adjudication - backed ultimately by coercive force - the strong will be able to confiscate the property of the weak. Business and trade as we know it will no longer be able to flourish, because there will be no guaranteed security of property. Just look at global trade today: nations where there is no effective government, or where the government is too weak to effectively secure property rights and the enforcement of contracts, have difficulty attracting international investment, because no businessman wants to plunge his money into an enterprise where it may be looted and stolen.
Instead, I follow the more moderate ideas of Friedman and Hayek. I strongly agree with you that a large, powerful state is capable of working great evil, and I believe that individual freedom is preferable to uniformity and centralised control. Thus, I advocate small government, a free market, free trade and individual property rights.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 30, 2009 8:24 AM
Thoreau sent his laundry home to his mother. - Stephen Wells
How similar to the home life of our own dear Walton ;-)
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 30, 2009 8:36 AM
Yes, it does, in degree; see Somalia.
In states with some degree of democracy, we collectively have some choice over who hires the thugs, and how they use them. You want to chuck that away; I want to extend it.
In effect, if not in intention, you side with the strongest and most ruthless; they'd be quite happy if the rest of us became naive "anarchocapitalists" like you.
Posted by: windy | July 30, 2009 10:43 AM
Wow! Diabolical simulacrum of peace you say? You make it sound much more... exciting than it actually is. Maybe I should have tried the abortions.
Now their diabolical simulacra of furniture, on the other hand...
Posted by: Robocop | July 30, 2009 11:11 AM
453: "I would guess that all three are involved, with intelligence a likely factor (but probably not the only one). But whatever the causal explanation, why on earth shouldn't atheists draw attention to the fact? Does it make the baby Jesus cry?"
Becuase without any basis to claim causation, all you've got is a correlation, perhaps interesting and perhaps meaningful. We also know that atheists are considerably less charitable than their religious counterparts (even to secular charities) and that officially atheist governments have a nearly perfect record of murdering their citizens in huge numbers. I suspect you'll trumpet the NAS connection much more readily than these others, however.
468: "But, no, Robocop, I feel no regret at all for pointing out that those white males in the NAS are intellectually superior to you and to Christians in general.
"After all, they are."
It's fascinating to me that one particular brand of acheivement and one particular brand of belief (or nonbelief) leads you to a general conclusion about intellectual superiority. It's also pretty dangerous (and I said some of this on another thread) because dogmatic certainty is so dangerous. Such certainty leads to repression and all kinds of evil to prop up "the cause" because, well, "We're right!" The flip side of seeing oneself as so clearly and obviously right is that those who see things differently aren't just wrong, they're inferior somehow. Otherwise, those who see things differently wouldn't, after all. And, indeed, you're right up front about your claimed superiority. When those you oppose are deemed inferior, it's that much easier to abuse them, lie to them, cheat them, or de-humanize them in all kinds of ways. History is repleat with it.
But I'm curious, does your claimed superiority extend to accomplished scientists who disagree with you about God? Are you intellectually superior to, say, Bill Phillips or Steve Barr?
480: "Well, given the years and years that PZ, Dawkins, I, and other scientists have spent studying science, it would seem, prima facie, sensible for the yahoos to quietly listen to us, for the yahoos to pursue the learning resources we suggest, and, above all, for the yahoos to be polite to us when we inform them that they are wrong."
If you're referring to science you have a point. The problem, typical of smart people generally in my experience, is that they extrapolate expertise in one area to overall expertise and insist on overreaching. I'm perfectly willing to defer to you and the science brigade on matters of science (my terminal degree isn't in science). Unfortunately, that same brigade seems all too anxious to lecture and hector me on all manner of other things they're monumentally ignorant about.
Posted by: Anri | July 30, 2009 2:40 PM
Robocop sez:
"Becuase without any basis to claim causation, all you've got is a correlation, perhaps interesting and perhaps meaningful."
Right. Presumably, then, anyone who brings up correlation without noting causation shouldn't be taken too seriously.
"We also know that atheists are considerably less charitable than their religious counterparts (even to secular charities)..."
Oops, correlation w/out causation. Heck.
"... and that officially atheist governments have a nearly perfect record of murdering their citizens in huge numbers."
Which is why I personally, (and please ask around to see if other atheists agree) support the concept of an agnostic government - one that does not rule, or carry any opinion on, the existence of any god or gods, and makes no decisions based on such a belief.
Posted by: Robocop | July 30, 2009 3:24 PM
505: "Oops, correlation w/out causation. Heck."
Which was my point.
"Which is why I personally, (and please ask around to see if other atheists agree) support the concept of an agnostic government - one that does not rule, or carry any opinion on, the existence of any god or gods, and makes no decisions based on such a belief."
As do I. Government established certainty of any type or stripe is really dangerous. On the other hand, two great side benefits to the Reformation were (1) the idea that people could read the core texts on their own and thus be trusted to figure things out for themselves; and (2) with so many divergent views about truth, it's a good idea to allow freedom for all because I might be in the distinct minority in some times and in some places. Unfortunately, Christians (including Protestants) haven't always (often?) remembered and heeded these ideas. A great side benefit of the scientific method is that test results trump ideology. Unfortunately, outside the lab, I haven't seen much evidence that scientists do a significantly better job than the general public at putting this idea into practice.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 30, 2009 10:55 PM
Walton wrote to me:
>I apologise for the fact that I wasn't clear. I certainly did not mean to associate anarchocapitalism in general with terrorism. Indeed, there are many anarchocapitalist and individualist-anarchist thinkers - from Thoreau to Murray Rothbard - whose ideas are interesting and worth considering, and who certainly do belong on the same ideological spectrum as my own positions.
I did realize that the words I quoted from you were simply chosen a bit carelessly and that your actual views were probably a bit more, well, nuanced.
I do think though that you and I do nonetheless have a significant and fundamental difference – though not one that is likely to lead to a fistfight, much less to any buildings’ being blown up!
My Thoreauist perspective simply focuses on personally not lying for ideological purposes, personally not being part of that gigantic system of idol worship known euphemistically as “nationalism,” personally not supporting that system of mass murder euphemistically called “war,” etc.
I’m of course not averse to working with others in organizations or associations to help avoid war, nationalism, ideological terrorism, etc., but my first emphasis is on the principle that the end does not justify the means: even for the noble ends of spreading freedom, justice, truth or whatever, it is not justified to intentionally kill innocent people, etc.
That was Thoreau’s main point: Thoreau was no hermit – Walden Pond was basically just a thinly settled part of town, and he only lived there for a short while anyway. Thoreau was not opposed to social interaction and cooperation.
I knew Rothbard personally, by the way, and Murray accepted Thoreau’s point as I do.
Friedman and Hayek were willing to endorse actions carried out by a collective, if needed for the greater good, which would be wrong at an individual level: for example, taxation and conscription (which would simply be theft and kidnapping if carried out by an individual without governmental authority).
It’s not that they loved such things: Friedman was instrumental in ending the draft under Nixon, for instance, and he was very proud of that (I heard him in a debate at Stanford express his pride for his role in ending the draft).
But it is still a dramatic difference in principle. You know the old joke:
Guy: Would you go to bed with me for a million dollars?
Girl, thoughtfully: Well… for a million, I guess so.
Guy: How about fifty bucks?
Girl, outraged: What kind of girl do you think I am?
Guy: We’ve already settled that – now we’re just haggling over the price.
It seems to me quite clear that in basic principles, Friedman and Hayek agree with Marx and Lenin: they are only haggling over different understandings of economics which caused Freidman and Hayek to believe that a free market will commonly work better than government controls.
The Thoreauist view is radically different: we are not just “haggling over the price.”
We reject conscription, mass murder, taxation, and all the rest, whether or not we can claim to offer a more efficient “social system.” Friedman and Hayek generally claim that they reject conscription, war, taxation, etc. when, and only when, they claim they can show a more “efficient” way to achieve the desired ends.
I know Friedman’s son David – a Ph.D. physicist turned professor of economics, curiously – and if he were here, he would doubtless point out that, in private, his dad’s sentiments were not that far from mine.
Indeed. But for Friedman pere, the Thoreauist view was simply an attractive ideal, not a means of actually living day by day.
Thoreau and I disagree.
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 30, 2009 11:17 PM
Knockgoats wrote to me:
> In states with some degree of democracy, we collectively have some choice over who hires the thugs, and how they use them. You want to chuck that away; I want to extend it.
> In effect, if not in intention, you side with the strongest and most ruthless; they'd be quite happy if the rest of us became naive "anarchocapitalists" like you.
Well. of course, I see it the other way around.
I think that democracy is an obvious and pathetic charade in which the people are offered two choices which hardly differ from each other at all and both of whom are guaranteed to serve the needs of the ruling class.
Now that Barack has been in power for over half a year and the financial bailouts of the ruling elite have continued and even escalated, Gitmo has not yet been closed, the wars continue in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc., I note that some Barack supporters are ruefully coming to see that point.
“Anarchy” in Somalia was far from perfect, but the so-called “Islamic Courts Union” did provide some tranquility, until of course the US government encouraged its surrogates to intervene and plunge the country back into war.
There is of course a problem with the Somali pirates, but, at least, Somalia did not send its boys half-way around the world to “bravely” drop bombs from high-flying aircraft that incinerated thousands of innocent women and children.
I made clear in my earlier post that I offer no magical “system” for human society, not “anarchocapitalism” nor anything else. I have no utopian blueprint for human society.
But I do think that the “democratic” government of the United States of America is a much more dangerous rogue state, a much greater threat to world peace, than “anarchic” Somalia could ever have been.
To paraphrase your own closing statement, I am quite certain that:
> In effect, if not in intention, you side with the strongest and most ruthless; they're quite happy that most people are naive "democrats" like you.
Fortunately, I think democracy will be delegitimized in the next few decades as the USA implodes and that the human race will move beyond that uniquely evil system.
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 30, 2009 11:55 PM
Robocop wrote:
>Which is why I personally, (and please ask around to see if other atheists agree) support the concept of an agnostic government - one that does not rule, or carry any opinion on, the existence of any god or gods, and makes no decisions based on such a belief.
I certainly agree – I know few atheists who would disagree.
And when some dumb local government official does discriminate against Christians (as does happen from time to time – always seems to be some poor well-intentioned moron), I take the side of the Christians.
I in fact often agree with Christians on various social or political issues, probably about as often as I agree with th e majority of atheists.
I do not define a human being solely by his or her religious opinions.
Which is not to deny that I do think that traditional (Nicene) Christianity is absolutely bonkers, and that adhering to it does reflect badly on a person, but, still, it is not the whole person.
Dave
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 31, 2009 12:08 AM
The problem, typical of smart people generally in my experience, is that they extrapolate expertise in one area to overall expertise and insist on overreaching.
Do you know what the "Courtier's Reply" refers to?
you should look up the thread with that in the title here on Pharyngula sometime.
Unfortunately, outside the lab, I haven't seen much evidence that scientists do a significantly better job than the general public at putting this idea into practice.
science science is often done outside of a lab, this tells me you haven't actually seen enough to warrant a conclusion yourself.
after you get done looking up what Courtier's reply refers to, you might look up what the psychological term "projection" means.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 1:29 AM
Robocop wrote to me:
>But I'm curious, does your claimed superiority extend to accomplished scientists who disagree with you about God? Are you intellectually superior to, say, Bill Phillips or Steve Barr?
Actually, never heard of ‘em. Not physicists, I suppose? You’ll have to tell me more.
In all seriousness, in over fifty years, I have never met a human being (and I have looked) who was honest, intelligent, and well-educated who believed in traditional (Nicene) Christianity.
I don’t think any such person exists, for much the same reason that I doubt that there is an intelligent, well-educated person who seriously believes that 2+2=5 or that the earth is flat.
But perhaps a “black swan” will turn up some day.
I do not hold the same view of deism: I suspect that it is not true, but I concede that it might be true.
Some deists strike me as intelligent; many do not.
You also wrote:
>It's fascinating to me that one particular brand of acheivement and one particular brand of belief (or nonbelief) leads you to a general conclusion about intellectual superiority. It's also pretty dangerous (and I said some of this on another thread) because dogmatic certainty is so dangerous. Such certainty leads to repression and all kinds of evil to prop up "the cause" because, well, "We're right!"
As opposed to all the god-mongers who never exhibit such certainty, I suppose?
As others have pointed out here, the personal and social consequences of a belief are not relevant to the truth of a belief.
I really do not care if the personal and social consequences of holding a belief are negative, if the belief is true.
Not at all.
You also wrote:
>If you're referring to science you have a point. The problem, typical of smart people generally in my experience, is that they extrapolate expertise in one area to overall expertise and insist on overreaching. I'm perfectly willing to defer to you and the science brigade on matters of science (my terminal degree isn't in science). Unfortunately, that same brigade seems all too anxious to lecture and hector me on all manner of other things they're monumentally ignorant about.
Incidentally, like you, I do of course defer to people who have real knowledge in fields where I do not: I defer to PZ (and my biologist wife, for that matter) on biology, for example.
However, I do not think there is any knowledge outside of science broadly conceived. History, for example, is obviously not science in the narrow sense, but good historians do employ the scientific method in the broader sense: formulate hypotheses, look for contrary evidence, etc.
For me to say more than that, you’d have to let me know where you think knowledge exists that is not the result of the scientific method, broadly conceived.
I suspect that I may disagree with you as to whether your “knowledge” is really knowledge.
I’ll wait and see.
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 1:40 AM
Piltdown Man wrote:
> How can you be sure that widespread atheism won't be disastrous in Darwinian terms for the human race?
Well, *I* am really hoping it will be "disastrous in Darwinian terms” for much of the human race.
Remember: natural selection is about differential reproduction.
While there is of course not really a “God gene,” nonetheless, inclination towards religious belief and a need for “spirutality” (i.e., a universe with fake “meaning,” “purpose,” etc.) probably is at least somewhat influenced by one’s genes, as pretty much everything is.
So, in the coming age of atheism, those who truly do have a deep need for the “spiritual” realm should be deeply disheartened, demoralized, etc.
Hopefully, they will be less likely to reproduce, and their dysfunctional genes will tend to get weeded out of the gene pool.
On the other hand, those of us who hate the idea of an icky, gooey, messy “spiritual” universe will go on reproducing as usual, and our genes will tend to spread (my atheism has not kept me from having kids).
I’ve heard a lot of believers claim they just could not survive without the lies of religion: observation suggests this is not really true for most of them but is just a dishonest rhetorical ploy.
Hopefully, we will have legalized suicide, and those who truly cannot stand to live in a society that does not feed their need for lies about the universe will always have a way to end their misery: again, the gene pool will be improved as a result.
A Darwinian catastrophe? Only for their genes, not for mine.
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 2:34 AM
John Morales wrote to me:
>Dave, I don't disbelieve you*, but you should realise arguments from authority are discouraged here, especially when that authority is not established.
>Not that it's necessarily inappropriate…
One of the real problems in American society, a problem that I think will, in the end, help destroy the USA, is an inability to distinguish between when “an argument from authority” is valid and when not.
No one can seriously avoid an argument from authority: e.g., none of us has, as an individual, done all of the experiments that are the groundwork for modern physics, biology, etc.
The real point is that we can, if we are determined, check up on the claim of authority in the case of any individual experiment: e.g., do the experiment ourselves, find out who did the experiment and how they did it, check with scientists, to see if it has been replicated, etc.
What makes theology a fake subject is that if you try to check up on the nonsense, you only get referred to other theologians, to "revealed" holy books, or to internal subjective experience, none of which serves to check out the bizarre claims being made by theologians.
In my little discussion with Alan, he did not indicate significant doubt, as I recall, that I do have a Ph.D. in physics. Perhaps that is because he or anyone could indeed easily check it out: my Ph.D. thesis is listed in the online Stanford catalog, Stanford would confirm that I got the Ph.D., etc.
Similarly, anyone who wanted to could look at numerous books on string theory, if they cared, and check out that what I claimed about strings was correct (of course, this might take a while – this is not an easy subject!).
None of this was really necessary, though, because once Alan stated that he did not really “have the math,” it should have been obvious to anyone that he was just a guy who was just fantasizing.
There is also a broader point here: I was honestly not trying to debate Alan. I adhere to the Dawkins position that debating the crazies only raises their status.
After all, almost none of the crazies ever tries to *seriously* debate us scientists: they just throw out nonsense and see what sticks.
I have come to the conclusion that the only sensible response is to throw out the truth, without feeling an obligation to prove it is true, and see what sticks.
It is not my job, and I do not have the time, to write an online textbook in response to every throwaway line some kook hurls out on the ‘Net.
I know that the “’Net culture,” basically designed, I fear, by bright but uneducated sixteen-year-olds, claims that one should not say anything unless one can justify it, in a way understandable by those uneducated sixteen-year-olds, in 250 words or less (some blogs actually have a 250 word limit on comments).
Of course, that guarantees supremacy to the crazies: it is easy to give a superficially plausible (to uneducated sixteen-year-olds!), although false, argument for almost any position in 250 words or less that will take much more than 250 words to refute.
And, to explain most things in math or science takes far more than 250 words: indeed, to offer solid proof may well take millions of words.
So, in dealing with the kooks, I myself simply teject the “Net culture designed by and for sixteen-year-olds: if I have scientific information that someone may be interested in, I toss it out for their consideration. If they want to follow it up, fine: I might even suggest where they can pursue it in more detail if they cannot find it for themselves.
But I have no intention of seriously debating them. To do that seriously on almost any issue of math or physics would require at least tens of thousands of words, and often much more.
No one would read those words anyway, and the crazies would not understand them if they read them.
So, please don’t assume that any of my posts are trying to prove what I state.
Only delusional people do that on the Web: the medium is not designed to make that possible. I doubt that any sensible person thinks that PZ has offered an ironclad proof that M&K are wrong or vice versa: all PZ can do is throw out his thoughts for our consideration as to why M&K are wrong. It’s our job to do the follow-up. Personally, I have concluded that PZ is right, but he did not prove it to me: he just helped get me thinking.
Each of us has to do the real mental work for himself or herself.
The best any honest person can do is throw out views and information they possess and help someone find places to follow up in more detail if they are interested.
I know some guys have published detailed textbooks on the Web, which is wonderful: but no one could possibly write a new, detailed textbook in response to every thread that he wished to comment in. And even textbooks are not self-contained: e.g., texts on supersting theory presuppose that the reader already has a huge amount of knowledge of quantum mechanics, relativity, math through complex analysis, etc.
That I think is one of the key ideas that we need to constantly hammer on with the crazies: they will not learn evolutionary biology (or superstring theory or complex analysis, etc.) by reading PZ’s blog or even a number of blogs. They need to read books, real books. More importantly, they need to seek out books for themselves, try hard to analyze the information presented, etc.
You might get some interesting ideas worth pursuing on your own from a blog or Web debate, but you cannot acquire serious knowledge of any significant subject simply from blogs, Web debates, etc.
Anyone who claims to have done so is delusional.
Dave
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 31, 2009 3:33 AM
I think that democracy is an obvious and pathetic charade in which the people are offered two choices which hardly differ from each other at all and both of whom are guaranteed to serve the needs of the ruling class. - Dave
The USA is unusual in the degree to which this is true; and with regard to US foreign policy I almost entirely agree with you: Obama, unlike Bush, has a functioning brain so is less likely to make crass errors (like trying to fight two wars at once while cutting taxes), but US foreign policy will continue to serve US elite interests. In countries with fairer electoral systems there are generally more than two choices, and some at least offer an alternative to the ruling class. The latter, throughout the rich world, has over the last three decades reclaimed much of the ground it lost in the period 1940-1980 (when economic inequality within the rich world fell sharply, educational opportunities expanded greatly, etc.). your "nothing makes a difference" stance is sheer intellectual and moral laziness.
“Anarchy” in Somalia was far from perfect, but the so-called “Islamic Courts Union” did provide some tranquility
That's because it was an incipient (though brutal and tyrannical) government, which showed the potential to suppress the warlords.
I do think that the “democratic” government of the United States of America is a much more dangerous rogue state, a much greater threat to world peace, than “anarchic” Somalia could ever have been.
That's because the USA has much greater power - and that results from its economic and technological development.
In effect, if not in intention, you side with the strongest and most ruthless; they're quite happy that most people are naive "democrats" like you.
You don't know what my political views are. I advocate direct, global democracy, with the consequent abolition of any ruling class; you want to remove the only (partially) effective constraint on such a class ever devised. In terms of political analysis, my views are quite close both to those of Chomsky, and of world-system theorists, notably Christopher Chase-Dunn.
Fortunately, I think democracy will be delegitimized in the next few decades as the USA implodes and that the human race will move beyond that uniquely evil system.
Uniquely evil? Worse than Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism, theocray? I'm afraid you appear as naive and ignorant in terms of history and social science as you rightly note Alan Kellogg is in physics. As is also shown by your assumption that if the USA implodes (which it won't, unless nuclear war or environmental catastrophe supervenes), everyone else would conclude that democracy can't work, and other states would follow suit. I diagnose a case of OWHITUSAC syndrome.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 31, 2009 3:43 AM
Grrr... I leave the thread and fail to notice pilty's pithy reply to me some 24 hours or so later, where he totally mis-represents my retort to him in an attempt to make himself sound reasonable, and makes arguments against positions I never put forth except in his own muddled mind. Regurgitating someone's words into something that was never said nor intended is just another form of lying, pilty. It's dishonest... not a new trick for you though, really.
Thanks to knockgoats and others for handling him on those points. Well done... I wouldn't disagree with anything you've said in your follow up comments to pilty.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 31, 2009 3:50 AM
A point went missing in my #514:
should be:
Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 31, 2009 4:23 AM
Dave, please stop talking about a crisis of _democracy_ when you mean that you're unhappy with the US political system. It's like saying that the entire concept of the car has been discredited because you got a flat tyre.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 31, 2009 4:26 AM
One of the real problems in American society, a problem that I think will, in the end, help destroy the USA, is an inability to distinguish between when "an argument from authority" is valid and when not.
Dave, read this paper published in Science a couple years back:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5827/996
short version?
yup.
Posted by: windy | July 31, 2009 4:43 AM
That's just a diabolical simulacrum of democracy ;)
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 6:31 AM
Knockgoats wrote to me:
>Uniquely evil? Worse than Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism, theocray? I'm afraid you appear as naive and ignorant in terms of history and social science as you rightly note Alan Kellogg is in physics.
No, I actually meant literally what I said: evil in a unique way. The word “unique” does not mean “maximal.”
Most governments maintain the lie of legitimacy by some pretty weird lies – divine right, for example.
But to lie by claiming that you really represent the people, that you were really chosen by the people is indeed a *unique* kind of lie.
I think it is evil, hence “uniquely evil.”
In fact, Nazism, Stalinism, and Maoism did use democratic rhetoric: I am sure you know this as well as I.
The “People’s” Republic of China. “Ein Volk.” The “Democratic Republic of ________.”
Were they all lying through their teeth?
Of course they were!
But so is the US government.
In their foreign policy, Stalin and Mao were dramatically more restrained than the US has been. In their domestic policy, Stalin and Mao of course murdered tens of millions of their own people, which the US has never done.
So who’s worse?
Yeah, on balance, I do agree that the fake democracy of Stalin, Mao, and Hitler was worse than the fake democracy of the USA.
But they are all gone.
The USA is not.
You also wrote:
>You don't know what my political views are. I advocate direct, global democracy, with the consequent abolition of any ruling class; you want to remove the only (partially) effective constraint on such a class ever devised.
Well, I said your views were “democratic”: clearly, I was right.
“Direct, global democracy” would in fact be a façade for the Western ruling elites to strengthen their hold on the whole world, an even greater tyranny than now exists. Considering the difficulty of organizing people around a whole planet to resist the elites, those who controlled the pinnacles of communication – the Western elites – could easily manipulate the whole system.
Fortunately, the Chinese and Russian elites can see this as clearly as I. They will see to it that your vision is still-born. (No, I am not an admirer of the Chinese and Russian elites, but better competing elites, none of which control the whole planet, than one single hegemonic elite straddling the globe.)
You also wrote:
> In countries with fairer electoral systems there are generally more than two choices, and some at least offer an alternative to the ruling class.
Yeah, I prefer multi-party parliamentary systems too, but largely for aesthetic reasons. The ruling class seems to rule, regardless.
You also wrote:
>As is also shown by your assumption that if the USA implodes (which it won't, unless nuclear war or environmental catastrophe supervenes), everyone else would conclude that democracy can't work, and other states would follow suit. I diagnose a case of OWHITUSAC syndrome.
I suspect that one of our main differences is that you may approve of a lot of the anthill institutions that still survive from the twentieth century: public schools (I’m using US nomenclature: i.e., government schools), mandatory retirement programs, etc. Or are you with me in admiring Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society"?
I am very pleased that those programs are in deep trouble: I hope and expect that the collapse of Social Security, of the public school system, etc. will be part of what will destroy the system in the USA. Foreign policy disasters will probably also play a role. You know Theda Skocpol's thesis that a concurrence of foreign-policy disasters and domestic fiscal crises tend to be what causes regime collapse?
I suspect I also may put more emphasis on Asia than you: I don’t think China will ever become democratic, and I think it is fair to say that democracy is in a very fragile state in India and Russia.
So, I think it is realistic to hope for a global collapse of democracy in our, or our children’s lifetimes. Perhaps democracy will hang on in Sweden or the Netherlands.
Remember: in 1900 most of the major powers were monarchies of one sort or another.
Things can change very rapidly.
So, my testable prediction (at least our kids or grandkids can test it) is that democracy will be dead in the USA, Russia, India, and (obviously) China before 2100.
I do not expect a Thoreauist utopia by 2100 (I don’t really ever expect a utopian “end of history”), but the collapse of democracy is at least a move in the right direction.
It will illuminate the fact that is obscured by the fraud of democracy: as Bob Heinlein put it, government does not exist for the good of the people.
All the best,
Dave
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 31, 2009 7:02 AM
No, I actually meant literally what I said: evil in a unique way. - Physicist
Then you were culpably unclear.
Nazism, Stalinism, and Maoism did use democratic rhetoric: I am sure you know this as well as I.
The “People’s” Republic of China. “Ein Volk.” The “Democratic Republic of ________.”
Were they all lying through their teeth?
Actually, Nazism didn't use democratic rhetoric (which is distinct from pretending to look after the interests of "die Volk"), and Hitler frequently and explicitly denounced democracy. For Stalin and Mao, yes, of course they were lying. They used the rhetoric, but did not have free elections, freedom of the press, independent courts, independent trades unions, etc. Besides, unless you are actually counting Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Maoist China as democracies, you just contradicted your own claim that democracy is "uniquely evil" because it uses democratic rhetoric. If you are claiming that Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Maoist China were democracies, you have a responsibility to make your meaning clear, as you are deviating radically from the common understanding of the term. In fact your comment indicates that you are incapable of using the term in a consistent way: you first refer to the USA, Nazi Germany, Stalinsit Russia and Maoist China all as "fake democracies", then later "democracy is in a very fragile state in India and Russia". If it's in a "very fragile state" in Russia and India, then these must be real democracies, not fake ones - but you make no attempt to justify this.
I suspect that one of our main differences is that you may approve of a lot of the anthill institutions
Adolescent rhetoric does not impress. Find me an anthill with a school system or social security system.
“Direct, global democracy” would in fact be a façade for the Western ruling elites to strengthen their hold on the whole world, an even greater tyranny than now exists. Considering the difficulty of organizing people around a whole planet to resist the elites, those who controlled the pinnacles of communication – the Western elites – could easily manipulate the whole system.
Odd, then, that democracy at national level has generally been accompanied by considerable decreases in both absolute poverty and socio-economic inequality, improvements in the status of women, and greater security from arbitrary imprisonment, torture, etc., even in the absence of communication tools such as the internet, which offer far greater possibilities for many-to-many communication and bottom-up political organisation than have previously existed.
I do not expect a Thoreauist utopia by 2100 (I don’t really ever expect a utopian “end of history”), but the collapse of democracy is at least a move in the right direction. It will illuminate the fact that is obscured by the fraud of democracy: as Bob Heinlein put it, government does not exist for the good of the people.
So, the collapse of democracy, with the result either of Somalia-type warlordism or dictatorship (probably the first followed by the second), would be a "move in the right direction"? You really don't give a shit about the immense increase in human suffering that would ensue, do you?
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 7:12 AM
Stephen Wells wrote to me:
>Dave, please stop talking about a crisis of _democracy_ when you mean that you're unhappy with the US political system. It's like saying that the entire concept of the car has been discredited because you got a flat tyre.
Oh, no.
I actually have hated the very idea of democracy, not just its American version, ever since I learned about it in grade school half a century ago.
The idea of the majority making decisions for the minority has always been just as deeply offensive to me as the reverse.
And it seems to me substantially more fraudulent.
And I don’t really think of it as a peculiar “crisis” of democracy.
I just think of it as abandoning a very strange and very bizarre fad that for a very tiny fraction of history happened to attract people in one part of the world.
The end of democracy = a return to normalcy.
Democracy is really weird.
Dave
Posted by: Rorschach | July 31, 2009 7:14 AM
If this goes to the problems scientists in the US have of getting a message across, or being accepted as authority in their field, or of having to put up with interference and criticism from people who have no clue about the particular topic, then I would have to agree and say you are 100% right.
By the way, my observation is that a lot of people who think they have knowledge of logic and argumentation, tend to confuse an informal logical fallacy like the argument from authority, which is not by default and inherently wrong, just potentially weak, with a formal one where there is no room for argumentation.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 31, 2009 7:19 AM
The idea of the majority making decisions for the minority has always been just as deeply offensive to me as the reverse. - PhysicistDave
So if, say, an individual decides they want to try to produce a new, super-virulent human disease organism - not necessarily intending to release it, but just for the buzz, you know - you're cool with that? After all, it would be dreadful for the majority to make decisions for this minority of one, wouldn't it?
Posted by: Rorschach | July 31, 2009 7:30 AM
Dave the String theorist theorized:
I would be curious to learn of what alternative to democracy you envision for mankind.
Posted by: windy | July 31, 2009 7:31 AM
So, yay, serfdom?
Um, Sweden and Netherlands ARE "monarchies of one sort or another". So that does not, contrary to what you appear to be implying here (although you seem to be skipping from one definition to another), exclude a form of democracy. It didn't even in 1900.
Knockgoats' assessment in #514 seems about right.
Posted by: Walton | July 31, 2009 8:20 AM
PhysicistDave:
Yes, I think you're right about the difference between us - your Rothbardian brand of libertarianism stems from absolute moral principles, while mine comes from a more pragmatic perspective. If I understand you correctly, you believe in a free market and voluntary exchange because you view this as the only moral form of socioeconomic organisation, and you view coercion as absolutely immoral; hence warfare and taxation are simply murder and theft respectively, and are never morally permissible.
I, by contrast, would argue that while war, taxation, and other forms of state coercion are indeed prima facie immoral, they may sometimes be necessary in order to prevent a greater evil. I believe in a society in which individual freedom is maximised, and each individual is free to pursue happiness in his or her own way; but, paradoxically, I don't think this is possible without some form of state infrastructure. And yes, even the ultimate state-inflicted evil - warfare - is occasionally necessary, in order to prevent an aggressive and imperialist state from stealing the land of its neighbours. Ultimately, I don't think your absolutist moral stances can work in the real world. Individuals need to defend themselves, and their property, from those who would deprive them of life and liberty; and since not every individual has the means to defend him- or herself, a government and legal system are necessary in order to protect individual rights.
I also disagree with you about the record of the United States. While its history is certainly far from unblemished, I would argue that America has, on balance, done more good in the world than harm; and to place it in the same category as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union is simply hyperbole. Yes, if we were rewriting the US Constitution today, there are many things we could do better; for instance, the President should not have power to deploy troops overseas on his own authority, and there should be much stronger constitutional protection for private property rights (Kelo v New London was a disgraceful ruling). But it is still miles better than fascism, authoritarian socialism, or any other political system which has thus far been instituted.
I've met David Friedman on one occasion; he gave a talk in Oxford last year. The first half was excellent - he talked about public goods and market failure, and explored the reasons why, contrary to received wisdom, democratic governments are not able to resolve the problems of market failure. But the second part of the talk, where he advocated the abolition of the state and its replacement by "rights enforcement" businesses, seemed to me absurdly unrealistic. In the end, the quality of life for ordinary people, and the opportunities for business and economic growth, are demonstrably far greater in a country with a democratic-capitalist system - like the United States - than in a country with no effective government, like Somalia. A principled moral stand against coercion is all very well, but I would argue that providing the conditions for practical freedom and prosperity is more important.
In principle, I share your distaste for democracy. I certainly don't think that the majority has any moral entitlement to repeal the rights of the minority, as they did, for instance, in California last year. Hence why I advocate a much stronger constitutional entrenchment of rights and liberties, including the right to private property, freedom of movement and trade, and sexual freedom. But I don't think we can eliminate democracy entirely; because, for the reasons I've outlined above, I think a state is necessary for the existence of a genuinely free market, and I cannot envision any known means of governing a state which would produce better results than democracy.
Posted by: Cosmic Teapot | July 31, 2009 8:32 AM
Walton to PhysicistDave
Comedy gold, right there.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 31, 2009 8:37 AM
Cosmic Teapot@528,
I see your point, but I actually think Walton has discovered someone whose political views are further removed from any connection with the real world than his own! What a happy, happy day for him.
Posted by: Robocop | July 31, 2009 10:25 AM
510: "science science is often done outside of a lab, this tells me you haven't actually seen enough to warrant a conclusion yourself."
Good grief, Ichthyic, it's a m-e-t-a-p-h-o-r. Since you seem so literally minded as to be literarily challenged, I'll try again in the numbingly simplistic language you seem to need: Unfortunately, outside their specific areas of expertise, I haven't seen much evidence that scientists do a significantly better job than the general public at putting this idea into practice. PhysicistDave on political theory is a good example.
511: "Actually, never heard of ‘em [Bill Phillips and Steve Barr]. Not physicists, I suppose? You’ll have to tell me more."
Bill Phillips is a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. Steve Barr (Princeton PhD) is a physicist at the Bartol Research Institute. Both are traditional Christians.
"In all seriousness, in over fifty years, I have never met a human being (and I have looked) who was honest, intelligent, and well-educated who believed in traditional (Nicene) Christianity."
Either you haven't looked very hard or start with the pre-conceived notion that such a person can't exist.
"But perhaps a 'black swan' will turn up some day."
It's interesting that you use that phrase in this context because Taleb is apracticing Christian too.
"As opposed to all the god-mongers who never exhibit such certainty, I suppose?"
No, religionists do it too (and far, far too often).
"I really do not care if the personal and social consequences of holding a belief are negative, if the belief is true."
I think that's rather naive.
"However, I do not think there is any knowledge outside of science broadly conceived. History, for example, is obviously not science in the narrow sense, but good historians do employ the scientific method in the broader sense: formulate hypotheses, look for contrary evidence, etc."
I generally agree.
Posted by: Knockgoats | July 31, 2009 2:38 PM
"I really do not care if the personal and social consequences of holding a belief are negative, if the belief is true."
I think that's rather naive. - Robocop
So, are you saying that if the consequences of holding a true belief are bad, we should try to convince ourselves and others it's false? If not, what are you saying?
Posted by: Robocop | July 31, 2009 3:24 PM
"So, are you saying that if the consequences of holding a true belief are bad, we should try to convince ourselves and others it's false? If not, what are you saying?"
Ideas have consequences. Perhaps I misread PD, but a simple "damn the torpedoes" approach is, at best, reckless and naive. Firstly, if the consequences are truly bad, we ought to go the extra mile to make absobloominlutely sure that what we think is correct is indeed correct. Secondly, even if we're really, really sure, we ought to be exceptionally careful about how we -- dare I say it -- frame the truth (an idea I'm pretty sure PD rejects) in such a way as to mitigate the unfortunate consequences. I'm thinking, for example, of research like that of Jonathan Schooler, which shows (in very oversimplified generalization) that encouraging a belief in determinism increases cheating pretty dramatically.
http://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 31, 2009 5:57 PM
Feynmaniac @ 467:
Wow -- and to think it's all made up of 1-dimensional vibrating "somethings"!
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 31, 2009 6:01 PM
Kagato @ 473:
Anton Mates @ 477:
No one disputes empathic instincts exist but it seems naive to assume they will naturally prevail over competing instincts, a few sociopaths excepted. Apart from anything else, even at its strongest, empathy is by no means all-embracing -- tribal and familial loyalties invariably overrule solicitude for less immediate groups like "humanity". Why else should a liberal commentator like Andrew Marr feel the need to demand punitive legislation to extirpate the mortal sin of racism ("the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress ... Stamp hard on certain 'natural' beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off")
John Morales @ 470:
Kagato @ 469:
Certainly reason can override instinct but there's no reason to believe reason is capable of demonstrating the superiority of altruism beyond reasonable doubt.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 31, 2009 6:04 PM
Kagato@ 473:
Individuals who seek to procure abortions or commit assisted suicide may not be motivated b eugenic considerations but the same cannot be said of the ideologues who seek to normalize such practices. What is this if not a form of soft eugenics?
Sit nomen domini benedictum.
+++
Knockgoats @ 488:
To me the word freedom has not the value of a starting-point, but of an actual goal to be striven for. The word order designates the starting-point. It is only on order that freedom can be based. Without order as a foundation the cry for freedom is nothing more than the endeavour of some party or other for an end it has in view. When actually carried out in practice, that cry for freedom will inevitably express itself in tyranny. At all times and in all situations I was a man of order, yet my endeavour was always for true and not for pretended liberty. -- Metternich
The phrase that allows you to dismiss any and all evidence against your views about the social effects of declining religious belief. But how long do you require? After all, much of Europe abandoned Catholicism centuries ago - and surely societies dominated by diabolical heresies ought to have become clearly very much worse than those following the true faith?
A couple of centuries is just the blink of an eye. Sooner or later Christ the KIng will deal with utopia.
+++
windy @ 503:
The fact that you treat the subject of abortion with such flippancy proves my case.
Of course Ikea's ethos and aesthetic are diabolical. In this respect, modern furniture is akin to modern art or modern furniture or most aspects of modern "design".
It's an elementary error to suppose diabolical activity must always be dramatic or scarily impressive ("exciting"). The devil is in the details.
@ 519:
Actually democracy is intrinsically diabolical. A political system whereby people choose their leaders by vote may be unsatisfactory but it is not incompatible with Christianity. But modern democracy on the USAn model goes much further -- it has the temerity to declare that supreme sovereignty resides with "the People" rather than with Him before Whom every knee shall bow.
This is nothing else than a political incarnation of Lucifer's primordial non serviam and it's no surprise that the grossest vices have been legalized under its aegis.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 31, 2009 6:06 PM
PhysicistDave @ 512:
It's interesting to see a supposedly hard-nosed scientist using such millenarian language. You remind me of a Transhumanist loon I encountered on the RDF who was hunkered down waiting for the Singularity ("a phase shift/state-change in paradigm").
Anyway I wouldn't be too confident that scientific atheism is unstoppable, particularly if the democratic governments of the West collapse as you anticipate. History is littered with the shipwrecks of those who thought they're going with the current of history.
The religious will be demoralized by what? Reason and science? Those who believe their faith is true will be confident that truth cannot contradict truth, despite all appearances to the contrary. On the other hand, if religion is false it is surely irrational -- and those who cling to something out of irrational reasons are not going to be persuaded otherwise by force of reason.
In any case, religion has some overwhelming evolutionary advantages in the struggle for survival. It fosters a powerful sense of group identity, provides consolation in times of adversity and encourages the virtue of fearless self-sacrifice, all packaged in aesthetically satisfying ritual. It's an unbeatable meme.
It's true that atheism exerts a strong emotional attraction for a certain type of individual. Your terminology here leads me to suspect you see yourself in a quasi-Nietzschean light ... the austere atheist striding manfully among the icy peaks of the intellect, exultantly inhaling the chilling air of godless reality and gazing unflinchingly into the abysses.
However appealing this heroic vision might be, it is absurd to imagine it could ever provide a common cultural basis for civilization. (How is Nietzsche remembered nowadays? A joke moustache, descent into coprophagous dementia and as an idol for generations of black-clad adolescents who fancy themselves as supermen.)
True believers might take heed of their Church's ban on suicide. "Liberal" Christians will doubtless take advantage of legalized euthanasia, just as they are happy to contracept and abort. Well, let them condemn themselves to demographic oblivion and leave a leaner, fitter body of believers behind. Cut away the dead wood.
Meanwhile the rest of us will keep on keeping on, breeding like rabbits and quietly inheriting the Earth.
You're in for a sombre disappointment if you think religion is a lifeless relic. It's far more likely that atheism with dwindle into insignificance. But look on the bright side -- at least it will reinforce your self-satisfying sense of splendid isolation, Zarathustra alone on his mountain-top.
+++
PD @ 494:
Complete twat.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 31, 2009 6:06 PM
Pilty, until you get your mind out of the gutter of inane religious belief, there is no hope for you to learn anything. At the moment, you try to lead everything back to your imaginary deity. Without that deity, you must look for real reasons from the real world. That is why science is successful at explaining the world, your religion is falling further and further behind.Posted by: Piltdown Man | July 31, 2009 7:01 PM
Me @ 535:
Whoops, that should have read " ... modern art or modern architecture ... ".
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 31, 2009 7:09 PM
History is littered with the shipwrecks of those who thought they're going with the current of history.
Yourself excepted, clownboy?
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 31, 2009 7:17 PM
Good grief, Ichthyic, it's a m-e-t-a-p-h-o-r.
now that you looked up how to spell it, you need to look up what a methaphor actually is.
Unfortunately, outside their specific areas of expertise, I haven't seen much evidence that scientists do a significantly better job than the general public at putting this idea into practice.
based on YOUR level of knowledge apparent in this thread, again I say to you: look up what "projection" means.
PhysicistDave on political theory is a good example.
why? because he disagrees with you? Funny, but he's provided a lot more support for his thinking than you have.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 7:55 PM
Knockgoats,
I forget to add the point that ties our discussion in to the subject of this blog: this is, after all, supposed to be a “science” blog, not a “politics” blog!
I simply think that the “disenchanting” function of science which so frightens our fundie and New Age friends will tend to slip over into politics also.
After all, democracy does rest on certain beliefs about the nature of reality: that human beings are equal, that humans can be represented in a political context by other people, that humans can be lumped together in some rational manner into a homogeneous lump to determine the area over which a particular democracy rules and also the constituents represented by a particular “representative”, etc.
Perhaps, your “global” democracy will avoid some of these assumptions: I do not see how you can avoid all of them.
Take equality. Humans are not equal in any measurable sense: physical, intellectual, moral, behavioral, etc.
Now, of course, I know of all the various attempts from Rousseau to Rawls to somehow get around this obvious fact that humans are not equal: those attempts are all about as plausible and mythical as the Virgin Birth.
Some Christians do, after all, have a point when they point out that liberalism is simply a secularized version of Christianity: the liberal views on equality, charity, etc. do seem akin to Christian views both logically and historically.
So, another prediction: I predict that the rise of science and the collapse of religion will spill over into politics and destroy the social and political myths that make society as we know it possible.
I think that is actually the hope that Thoreau may have had in mind when he stated:
> I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
When humans “are prepared for it” could mean many things, but at least one of them is surely abandoning the lies of democracy.
While I do not see how the myths of democracy, long-term, can survive the disenchantment of reality brought about by science, I do not of course know if and when the result will be to turn most human beings into Thoreauists.
Of course, there is also a natural symmetry between atheism and (Thoreauist) anarchism. Just as we atheists have to keep reminding our theistic friends that we do not believe in some positive doctrine called “atheism,” so also I have had to point out that I am an anarchist only in the sense that I do n to believe in government, not in the sense that I do believe in some mythical positive doctrine of “anarchism.”
Neither atheism nor Thoreauist anarchism are positive beliefs but rather are simply the results of the disenchantment of reality brought about by science.
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 8:02 PM
That was of course a typo in my nest to last sentence which should have read:
Just as we atheists have to keep reminding our theistic friends that we do not believe in some positive doctrine called “atheism,” so also I have had to point out that I am an anarchist only in the sense that I do not believe in government, not in the sense that I do believe in some mythical positive doctrine of “anarchism.”
Sorry.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 31, 2009 8:09 PM
Piltdown,
Who's assuming that? It's clear to any observer that empathic/moral desires do not in general prevail over competing desires. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. No human is perfectly good. What does this have to do with evolution, theism vs. atheism, or, really, any subject under discussion?
And you're still speaking of "instincts," when we've repeatedly pointed out that neither empathy nor morality are purely instinctual. Are you just ignoring that point?
This is obviously false. Lots of people donate to international charities, and support environmental and economic policies that require their tribes and families to suffer so that "humanity" can benefit. Empathy for one's family and neighbors may generally be stronger than empathy for distant strangers, but it's not infinitely so.
There's no reason to believe anything can demonstrate the superiority of altruism beyond reasonable doubt; to my knowledge, a "reasonable" and 100% consistently altruistic person has never existed in human history. So what's your point?
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 8:12 PM
Stephen Wells wrote to me:
>Dave, please stop talking about a crisis of _democracy_ when you mean that you're unhappy with the US political system. It's like saying that the entire concept of the car has been discredited because you got a flat tyre.
Oh, no.
I actually have hated the very idea of democracy, not just its American version, ever since I learned about it in grade school half a century ago. (Indeed, like most Americans, I actually have a bit of a sentimental attachment to the “American way of life” -- the flag, the national anthem, etc. -- even though intellectually I think it is rather a fraud. And I am also a bit of a “political junkie”: I enjoy following politics as many guys enjoy following football.)
Quite simply, the idea of the majority making decisions for the minority has always been just as deeply offensive to me as the reverse.
And it seems to me substantially more fraudulent.
And I don’t really think of it as a peculiar “crisis” of democracy.
I just think of it as abandoning a very strange and very bizarre fad that for a very tiny fraction of history happened to attract people in one part of the world.
The end of democracy = a return to normalcy.
Democracy is really weird.
Dave
Posted by: John Morales | July 31, 2009 8:16 PM
Dave, note democracy has serious flaws, but it's the form of government that best taps into group intelligence.
Note also government exists not to determine truths, but to sustain societies by formalising and enforcing laws and regulations.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
July 31, 2009 8:30 PM
Oligarchies are great if you're at the top, not so good if you're not. There were a whole series of wars fought in the 17th and 18th Centuries because some oligarch wanted what another oligarch had. It wasn't the oligarchs who suffered during these wars.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 8:34 PM
Ichthyic wrote to me:
>Dave, read this paper published in Science a couple years back:
>http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5827/996
Interesting abstract: I don’t have access to the full paper from this computer.
I am coming to think that all of us pay too little attention to psychology. Just as an empirical matter, putting aside all value judgments, how and why do PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins think differently than Francis Collins (or to take the other subthread here, why did G. W. Bush’s brain function in such a different manner than H. D. Thoreau’s)?
I know that psychology is so “fuzzy” compared to physics or biology that a lot of us tend to instincitvely avoid it.
That may be a mistake.
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 31, 2009 8:46 PM
Robocop wrote to me:
>>[Dave]"I really do not care if the personal and social consequences of holding a belief are negative, if the belief is true."
>[Robo] I think that's rather naive.
Hmmm… perhaps. In that case, I suppose that you and I may simply differ as to whether or not “naïve” is a good thing or a bad thing.
Sometimes “naïve” is simply used as a weasel word to mean “wrong.” Sometimes, “naïve” means “you don’t share my views.”
It’s not a terribly illuminating word!
Of course, it is useful in denigrating someone else’s views without explaining why his views are wrong.
You also wrote:
>>[Dave] "However, I do not think there is any knowledge outside of science broadly conceived. History, for example, is obviously not science in the narrow sense, but good historians do employ the scientific method in the broader sense: formulate hypotheses, look for contrary evidence, etc."
>[Robo]I generally agree.
In that case, perhaps we agree on the most significant point. I do not, of course, suffer from the delusion that historians, anthropologists, etc. would do much better work if only they were better versed in differential equations, or used oscilloscopes, or whatever. Nor do I think that I know history or anthropology better than good historians or anthropologists (although I have known quite a few folks with degrees in history whose knowledge of their own field was stunningly bad, including some Ph.D.s, there are nonetheless some historians who are truly brilliant). Of course, I do not think that everyone outside of the natural sciences is a moron.
Even in the “softest” of the humanities (e.g., philosophy, Biblical studies), I know there are scholars who do their very best to utilize a method that is, in their fields, equivalent to the scientific method. They have my respect and appreciation for their efforts in what are, after all, quite difficult fields.
If you and I agree on that, we may not have that big of a disagreement.
As my own mentor in physics, Richard Feynman, liked to say, the scientific method is our way of trying hard not to fool ourselves. If everyone seriously pursued that goal, not just in other scholarly fields but also in life in general, I think the world would be a nicer place.
Alas, quite a few people really want to fool themselves.
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | August 1, 2009 1:59 AM
John Morales wrote to me,
>Dave, note democracy has serious flaws, but it's the form of government that best taps into group intelligence.
John, there is a huge literature going back many decades on the “paradox of voting.”
The basic problem is that, since your own individual vote will almost certainly not decide the outcome of the election, you have essentially zero rational incentive to research the issues carefully and make an informed voting decision.
Accordingly, almost no one spends as much time deciding who to vote for as President as they do deciding which house to buy. While the question of who becomes President is of enormously greater import overall than which house you as an individual buy, your vote will not determine the election.
But your choice of which house to buy does indeed determine which house you will live in.
So, rationally, almost everyone devotes far more thought and effort to the latter decision than the former.
The real question in the literature has been why anyone gives any attention at all to political decisions: my own favored answer is that it is just entertainment. In fact, research shows that those people who follow politics most closely tend to be the most highly partisan, those who have already made up their minds: they are not so much carefully deciding whom to vote for (in the general election, that is), as simply rooting for their own team.
Conversely, the swing voters, those who really do keep an “open mind” about which party to vote for, tend to be those who are least informed about the issues.
I can post more info on all this if you like, but Google and any university library should provide you more than you really want.
In any case, if you know anything about rational-choice analysis or economics, the basic point should be obvious if you think about it for a moment.
There is also a huge literature, going back over fifty years to Downs’ “An Economic Theory of Democracy,” explaining why the supposed “choices” offered by the major political parties are rarely much of a choice at all. This gives the average citizen even less reason to inform himself politically.
When I was a physics grad student at Stanford, I was friends with a bunch of grad students in the “engineering and economic systems” department and got interested in all this stuff. A group of us put together a one-quarter course on the subject that we co-taught. I taught some of the stuff I have mentioned above, as well as, for example, Arrow’s impossibility theorem.
No doubt I should have spent more time on physics!
Curiously, even most college grads are blissfully ignorant of all this research that explains why democracy should be expected to work very badly indeed.
The reason democracy does not work quite as badly as the theoretical work suggests seems to be simply that things are in fact basically run by the elite: elections are, more or less, just ritual occasions that allow the masses to feel that they are part of the system. One of the strange things about American democracy is that it is common to hear people on both right and left grumblingly make the same point, but, come general election time, they both pretend that the future of the world hinges on which party wins!
That's part of why I find democracy highly entertaining.
An introductory poli sci text that pursues this last point in detail is Dye and Ziegler’s classic “The Irony of Democracy”: in essence, democracy is not a complete disaster simply because it is really just another form of oligarchy. (I’m personally against oligarchy, too; I’m just reporting on the research in the field.)
Incidentally, this is one of the few areas in social science where both the theoretical and the empirical work, and the interchanges between them, come anywhere close to the standards of the natural sciences. I actually considered majoring in econ, and in fact had an offer to do a pots-doc in Britain in econ after finishing my Ph.D. in physics. (A switch like that from physics to econ/finance is more common than most folks realize.)
Had I pursued that course, I could have been one of the million-dollar-baby "quants" that helped wreck the US financial system!
Dave
Posted by: PhysicistDave | August 1, 2009 4:38 AM
‘Tis Himself wrote to me:
>Oligarchies are great if you're at the top, not so good if you're not. There were a whole series of wars fought in the 17th and 18th Centuries because some oligarch wanted what another oligarch had. It wasn't the oligarchs who suffered during these wars.
I take it you’re not too interested in military history?
I’m no fan of the “ancien regime,” but, in fact, way back then, a decent number of aristocrats were indeed foolish enough to pursue fame and glory by going out and getting themselves killed. The most obvious example is the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, who got himself killed in the Thirty Years War in 1632 leading a charge on the battlefield.
If you want an example closer to home, Washington was rather fond of putting himself in positions where he could be killed (this does not reflect well on his judgment, in my opinion).
Of course, the ordinary soldiers were generally relatively poor, but I’m not certain their casualty rate was higher. Perhaps someone knows figures on this?
Most importantly, in the century-plus between the Thirty Years War and the French Revolutionary Wars, there was a code of military conduct that forbade direct, intentional targeting of civilians. That code was often broken, but surprisingly often it was followed. In the war that most interests me, the American Revolutionary War, I know of few cases where the British military directly targeted non-combatants and no cases where Washington purposefully targeted non-combatants (Washington did many things wrong, in my judgment, but not this).
The twentieth-century “democratic” wars were of course horrifically worse. The US and Britain did in fact openly and intentionally target civilians even when there was no military target involved: the nuclear incinerations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are obvious examples.
Veale’s “Advance to Barbarism” is the classic discussion of this, written not long after the war.
Even historians who favor the bombing of civilians acknowledge this.
For example, Robert Newman’s “Truman and the Hiroshima Cult” is a book the purpose of which is to defend the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Harry S Truman. This is the most fervently pro-bombing book by a professional historian that I have been able to find.
Yet, Newman concedes in the book that “The Fourth Hague Convention (1907), which was adopted by most Western nations, forbids any bombardment of undefended towns..." Accordingly, as Newman goes on to explain, "At the beginning of World War II, both Churchill and Roosevelt endorsed the principle of noncombatant immunity, and for a while Allied bombers attempted precision bombing of military and industrial targets…" But, after a while, he explains, this became militarily inconvenient, so the Allies forgot about the laws of civilized warfare and started purposefully targeting civilians.
Newman defends the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by arguing, quite convincingly, that this was merely the logical culmination of the policy adopted by the US and Britain early in the war.
In pointing out the murderous action of the Allies, I am not of course condoning the actions of the Axis.
I am merely pointing out that the behavior of the Western militaries in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are not nearly as bad as the behavior of the “democracies” (not to mention the populist dictatorships) in the twentieth century.
I don’t know how many others here are old enough to remember Vietnam: let’s just say that the slogan “We had to destroy the village in order to save it” was unfortunately not a joke.
Unfortunately, a good case can be made that this twentieth-century barbarism was pioneered by the US in its brutal war at the beginning of the century in the Philippines (see Stuart Creighton Miller’s “Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903”) and of course by British policy during the Boer War.
If democracy has brought progress (and of course you can find some minor areas where it has), this is not one of them.
Again, I am a fan of neither the “ancien regime” nor of democracy. I am merely puzzled at those who ignore history in claiming that democracy has proven preferable to the “ancien regime” in areas where it has clearly been worse.
Dave
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 1, 2009 6:09 AM
PhysicistDave,
Your claim @550 is highly selective in considering the record of the ancien regime. You omit the entire record of European imperialism, from the conquest of the Americas through the slave trade and the expansion of European empires in Asia and Africa. In summary, from the 16th century onward, most of the mass killing perpetrated by Europeans took place outside Europe. You also choose your period pretty carefully: around 1/3 of the population of Germany is estimated to have died as a result of the 30 Years' War. Looking outside European and European-colonial history, mass-killing of civilians has been historically quite common - consider for example the Mongol conquests, the campaigns of Tamerlane, and the T'ai Ping rebellion.
In any case, if you know anything about rational-choice analysis or economics, the basic point should be obvious if you think about it for a moment.
And if you know anything about psychology or behavioural economics, it's obvious rational choice analysis and neoclassical economics are fatally flawed as an attempt to explain how people behave, and how political and economic systems function. Arrow's Theorem, for example, is of zero practical importance.
To a considerable degree, you're right that representative democracy is oligarchic. Its big advantage is in imposing constraints on elite behaviour, because competing sub-elites have to take account of broader interests if they want to get themselves or their allies elected. These constraints operate much less well on foreign affairs, short of wars involving conscription or serious economic damage; but they do operate - it was public pressure at home, not military defeat, that forced US withdrawal from Vietnam.
Direct democracy could be designed to largely avoid the problem of insufficient incentive to learn about issues. Briefly, give everyone the same total amount of voting power, which they can divide as they like across issues.
Just as we atheists have to keep reminding our theistic friends that we do not believe in some positive doctrine called “atheism,” so also I have had to point out that I am an anarchist only in the sense that I do not believe in government
The phrase "believe in" means two different things here (it's amazing that someone as obviously bright as you can make such an elementary error): atheists do not believe gods exist, while anarchists do not believe governments are desirable - but they, and specifically you, would have to be literally insane to deny that they exist. Most anarchists, of course, do have positive ideas about how society should be organised. This is completely missing from your viewpoint - as you acknowledge - but you are clearly not indifferent to social forms - you welcome the destruction of democracy you believe is coming. So far as I can tell, you want the disappearance not only of the state, but of all social institutions beyond barter between individuals. That might work if we lived in a world of abundance, where none of our actions had detrimental effects on others, and there were no power-hungry individuals and groups eager to subordinate others. Newsflash: we don't.
After all, democracy does rest on certain beliefs about the nature of reality: that human beings are equal
No, it doesn't. Can you actually produce an argument for this assertion?
BTW, I'm still interested in your reply to the following question I posed @524:
"So if, say, an individual decides they want to try to produce a new, super-virulent human disease organism - not necessarily intending to release it, but just for the buzz, you know - you're cool with that? After all, it would be dreadful for the majority to make decisions for this minority of one, wouldn't it?"
Finally, I am most amused to see PhysicistDave and Piltdown Man agree so wholeheartedly on the evils of democracy.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 1, 2009 6:19 AM
So, it's clear that no evidence whatever will ever change your mind, and that therefore you are not, and never have been, arguing in good faith. I just wanted you to put that on record, as you have now done.
Posted by: Rorschach | August 1, 2009 6:51 AM
Im a bit astonished that a guy who clearly is bright and pwned the lesser demons here effortlessly on his topic of interest, can hold such muddled views regarding political theory.
Posted by: Walton | August 1, 2009 7:05 AM
This thread would make for a rather interesting panel discussion: a Catholic conservative (Piltdown), an anarchocapitalist (PhysicistDave), a classical liberal (me) and a socialist (Knockgoats). I literally can't think of any point on which all four of us agree.
Posted by: Rorschach | August 1, 2009 7:11 AM
No it wouldn't, not here.
Go meet at a pub somewhere instead.
Posted by: Kel, OM | August 1, 2009 7:30 AM
You are?Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 1, 2009 7:35 AM
Pilty is and never has been arguing in good faith.
Posted by: Rorschach | August 1, 2009 7:37 AM
Kel @ 556,
Walton seems to be making the mistake of thinking every educated knowledgeable person has to automatically be a socialist,LOL
Well,he might be, I wouldnt know, didnt think so though.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 1, 2009 7:42 AM
No, you are an extremist loony tunes libertarian. PZ is a classical liberal.Posted by: JeffreyD | August 1, 2009 7:56 AM
Notices Walton is back...reads Walton...reads replies...shakes head and sighs the deep and troubled sigh of a heavy heart seeing a potential first class mind still floundering in the nonsense end of the pool.
Jayzuz Walton me boy, what did you do on summer break, attend an Ayn Rand bootcamp? Will be back to the UK in mid September and will check out Oxford so I can test the water for mind altering drugs.
Apropos of nothing exactly, please see http://xkcd.com/610/ and make sure to hover the mouse over the pic for the punchline.
Ciao y'all
Posted by: blf | August 1, 2009 7:59 AM
You wear togas and argue that slaves are obviously inferior and deserve to be slaves?
Posted by: Walton | August 1, 2009 8:00 AM
Knockgoats is a professed socialist. He applies the term to himself; I wasn't ascribing to him any beliefs which he doesn't hold.
Other left-leaning posters here, such as 'Tis Himself, have not described themselves as socialists, and so I don't label them as such. Bear in mind that the term "socialist" has much more extremist connotations in the US than in the UK (from where Knockgoats and myself hail).
Posted by: Cosmic Teapot | August 1, 2009 8:05 AM
Walton
Yesterday you said you were pragmatic, now you say you a are classical liberal!
And I thought you didn't have a sense of humour.
Posted by: SC (Salty Current, of the blog), OM | August 1, 2009 8:19 AM
Ah, nothing like a good laugh to start the day!
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 1, 2009 8:25 AM
PhysicistDave #550
I take it that you jump to conclusions. As it happens, I do know something about military history.
In my original comment I was referring to the European dynastic wars. While an argument could be made that the Thirty Years War was a dynastic war, or possibly a proto-dynastic war, most historians consider it to be the last of the religious wars. So rather than Gustavus Adolphus, a better example for your argument would have been another Swedish king, Charles XII.
Regardless, very few oligarchs suffered during the dynastic war. After Charles was killed at the siege of Fredriksten, the retreating Swedish army lost 5,000 men in a blizzard. One king, five thousand soldiers, which group suffered more casualties during Charles' invasion of Norway?
I'm off to run errands. I'll continue this discussion later.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 1, 2009 8:33 AM
Rorshach@535,
Not sure what you're getting at - much of Europe having abandoned Catholicism is compatible with much of it not having done so. BTW, yes I am a socialist, as Walton says.
I literally can't think of any point on which all four of us [Walton, Pilty, PhysDave, me] agree. - Walton
I can: we all agree all theistic belief systems other than Catholicism are false. (Three of us of course agree that Catholicism is as well.)
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | August 1, 2009 8:59 AM
Piltdown Man wrote:
We've been over this before, Pilty. You keep on making this claim and yet cannot back it up with any evidence to support it.
We, on the other hand, have plenty of evidence - as illustrated upthread in the form of favourable statistics for strongly secular countries - to say that a non-religious society can do quite well once it has rid itself of the bloated, poisonous tick that is religion.
Posted by: Matt Heath | August 1, 2009 9:29 AM
FWIW, I think "Classical liberal" is a perfectly reasonable label for Walton. It does after all mean "One who believes in nineteenth-century, Manchester-style, free-market liberalism in the face of massive historical evidence that it produces dreadful suffering". Basically they are the tankies of the Irish famine,
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 1, 2009 10:08 AM
Classical liberalism died after William Gladstone resigned as Prime Minister in 1894. Certain looneytarians claim to be "classical liberals" in hopes that association with a reputable, if defunct, political movement will give their debased coterie some pretense to respectability.
Posted by: Walton | August 1, 2009 10:33 AM
Actually, I went on annual camp with my OTC unit and learned some military skills.
And I would have thought that I appear quite moderate on this particular thread, in comparison to PhysicistDave.
Posted by: JeffreyD | August 1, 2009 10:38 AM
Walton, hope you had a good time at OTC. Where was the training this year?
Oh, and I never said you were not moderate in this thread. You have been quite temperate insofar as I can see. However, this does not mean you are correct. A soft voice can still give tongue to a monstrous fallacy.
Ciao Walton
Posted by: Walton | August 1, 2009 11:04 AM
Otterburn Camp, in Northumberland (near the Scottish border).
I meant moderate in terms of my substantive views, not my style of presentation. Unlike PhysicistDave, who is an anarchocapitalist, I believe that a government - along with military and police forces, courts, a basic welfare safety net, and a few other public services - is necessary; and I am sceptical of the idea that a genuine free market, with well-defined property rights and enforcement of contracts, can ever exist without some kind of government. This was the discussion in which I was engaging earlier on this thread.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 1, 2009 11:22 AM
Returning to PhysicistDave's remarks in #550
Do you know how most armies supported themselves in the field during this period? They ransacked and looted peasants and villagers. Sometimes, if a peasant was lucky, he'd get a receipt for the food and other goods taken. If the peasant was really fortunate, the army's commissariat would honor the receipt. And if this fortunate peasant was incredibly fortuitous, he might get paid actual money (usually at a reduced amount). But even then, the adage in armies was "pillage, then burn."
It was true that during this period armies started cracking down on soldiers raping and randomly killing the peasantry. This crackdown didn't come about because officers were concerned about the effects on the peasants, but rather because that sort of thing was considered prejudicial to good order and discipline. If a soldier thought nothing of killing a peasant, he might take the same attitude towards an unpleasant officer.
I didn't know that the WW2 Germans, Soviets and Japanese were "democratic." But you're right, during WW2 the US, Britain and other allies did target civilians. This had to do with the Clauswitzian concept of total war. This pitted entire societies against one another. All an enemy's territory, property, and citizens were potential targets. Indeed, the more ruthless, merciless and complete an army's tactics, the more likely their victory to be.
Clausewitz's popularity in military circles fluctuates with contemporary military fashions. During the Cold War it seemed that total war was self-defeating. There is no possible positive political outcome of a major nuclear exchange. However, Clausewitz's argument that defensive warfare, where the goal is simply to resist an enemy long enough for him to tire, is militarily and politically easier to implement seemed particularly applicable during Vietnam.
John Keegan, in his seminal work A History of Warfare, objects to idea that war is extension of politics, that war is just one more step in a continuum. The objects of war, the means employed, the type of leadership qualities required are fundamentally different from political objects, political means and political leadership. Much of the debate centers around the question of whether Clausewitz's observation was a lamented statement of the way things are or an expression of preference.
There's the further point that technology made mass killing possible. Tamerlane (or Timur, if you prefer) and his army killed 10,000 in the sack of Delhi in 1397, but it took two months for them to do so. Ten times that number were killed in a day at Hiroshima just from one bomb.
Oh, you're an anarchist. Are you a left wing anarchist, believing when comes the Revolution everything will be peaches and cream because everyone will be happy because there are no bosses or government? Or are you a right wing anarchist who believes that everything will be peaches and cream because the invisible hand of the free market will make everyone happy?
Posted by: SC "Read My Blog!" OM | August 1, 2009 11:38 AM
That isn't what we believe, 'Tis. FFS.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 1, 2009 6:50 PM
I know that's not what intelligent anarchists believe, SC. However, since I suspect that PhysicistDave is a looneytarian, I decided to throw a couple of caricatures at him.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 4:45 AM
Robocop@532,
Thanks for the reference. It's actually far from obvious the experimenters had altered the subjects "belief in free will" rather than their beliefs about the experimenters' attitudes to personal responsibility, and/or the perceived availability of plausible excuses for cheating; and hence the possible consequences (in terms of embarrassment) of being caught cheating. Your general point about considering the consequences of proclaiming what are believed to be truths is reasonable, but one also has to consider possible undesirable consequences of self-censorship: specifically, people tend to notice these things, with a resulting loss of trust. (For information, I'm a compatibilist - as are almost all deniers of free will in everyday life, as opposed to when they have their philosophical hats on: actually talking and acting as if sane adults have no responsibility for what they do is psychologically almost impossible.)
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 5:21 AM
I think "Classical liberal" is a perfectly reasonable label for Walton. It does after all mean "One who believes in nineteenth-century, Manchester-style, free-market liberalism in the face of massive historical evidence that it produces dreadful suffering".
Basically they are the tankies of the Irish famine- Matt HeathI'll be stealing the bolded phrase! However, I wonder if either Walton or most Americans will be familiar with the term "tankies". In case not: members of the Communist Party who remained in the party after 1956, and supported the sending of Soviet tanks into Hungary in that year.
Do you know how most armies supported themselves in the field during this period? They ransacked and looted peasants and villagers. Sometimes, if a peasant was lucky, he'd get a receipt for the food and other goods taken. - 'Tis Himself
Interesting historical footnote: potatoes, rather than changes in military codes, may well have been responsible for a fall in civilian deaths in European wars in the 17th to 19th centuries. Cereal crops have to be harvested once a year, then stored them in a form that can readily be "requisitioned", or burned (before or after harvest) to deny them to the enemy. If you have potatoes, in time of war you can leave them in the ground until you want to eat them, and they can't be stolen in significant amounts without the troops spending days digging them up.
Posted by: JeffreyD | August 2, 2009 8:03 AM
Knockgoats @ 577, interesting point about the potatoes and I have seen some work done on the subject. The humble tuber has done much to change the world as we know it and still needs a good "biographer". Would love to see Mark Kurlansky do a book on the subject ala "Salt", "Cod", or "Oyster".
BTW, will be back in the UK about mid-September for the fall semester. Any chance of you being in London or other points of the south or west? Still thinking about a cheap flight to Aberdeen and a chance to raise a pint of Scotch with you.
Ciao
Posted by: SC (Salty Current), OM | August 2, 2009 8:09 AM
*waves to JeffreyD*
I have Cod in my book recs on my blog. :)
Posted by: JeffreyD | August 2, 2009 8:17 AM
Walton at #572, thank you for the reply re your training.
I understand you thought you were moderate in terms of your substantive views, but appreciate the clarification. I always have trouble with labels for political thought as I find them constrictive and think they pretty much interfere with discussion rather than further it. The arguments about what labels and terms are acceptable for a person's political/social views are tends to dissolve into something like the Judean Peoples Front versus the Popular Front for Judea skit from "The Life of Brian". I guess labels are useful for a start, but try not to accept one for myself. I do not have a monolithic thought pattern and try not to view any subject through a prism of being Liberal or Conservative. I know the people on here do not either as most of them are smarter than that. Just something that bugs me - a personal pet peeve which I try to keep on a strict diet.
Ciao
Posted by: JeffreyD | August 2, 2009 8:23 AM
SC (Salty Current), OM @ #579, waving back to the beautiful brained SC.
Cod is a wonderful book, as are the other two I mentioned. I often recommend them to friends and offer to refund their money if they do not like them, no takers yet. (smile)
And how is SC? Ready to make it down to Charleston before I head back overseas in the fall? I have been gorging on shrimp and other fruits of the sea since I got back in July.
Ciao, bella
Posted by: JeffreyD | August 2, 2009 8:29 AM
Oh, SC, nice blog. I have added it to my daily reading routine.
OK, off for the pool for a bit, not up for beach today, decisions, decisions.
Ciao y'all
Posted by: SC (of the Blogger SCs), OM | August 2, 2009 8:56 AM
Poor. :(
I wish I could afford to travel. Glad to hear you're doing well, though.
Aw - thanks. I have yours on my blog list there, but I'll remove it if you wish.
Pool sounds nice. Hope to get to the beach for a walk at least, if the weather cooperates...
Enjoy your day, love!
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 9:32 AM
BTW, will be back in the UK about mid-September for the fall semester. Any chance of you being in London or other points of the south or west? - Guildford
As it happens, yes: I'll be in Guildford (40 minutes from London by train) for a conference 14-18 Sept: could probably meet up on the way down, or pop up to London for an evening - send me an email.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 9:34 AM
@577 - the struck-out phrase was supposed to be bolded.
Posted by: Walton | August 2, 2009 10:06 AM
I do have a habit of changing my mind about everything on an impulse, which is why my political stance probably seems incoherent and self-contradictory at times.
When it comes to healthcare, I would be the first to admit that I don't have a wonderful magic answer. If the brightest economists in the world can't come up with a healthcare system that works, it's rather unlikely that a 20-year-old student is going to do better. It is very easy to poke holes in all existing systems, but much harder to come up with anything that would be a major improvement.
I would merely suggest that free-market capitalism seems to have served us rather well, in areas where it has been allowed to operate. I can go to my local supermarket right now and buy virtually anything I want, from Florida strawberries to South African grapefruit to Chinese DVD players, at a reasonable price. Why can't healthcare work like that? (On the other hand, I do recognise that there are a variety of special economic factors which apply to the healthcare market.)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 2, 2009 10:10 AM
Walton, for the umpteenth time, health care is not groceries. You don't look intelligent trying to say so. Health care, like free speech, should be a right for all civilized people. Which really requires a single payer system.
Posted by: Walton | August 2, 2009 10:24 AM
Nerd:
Health care is not groceries, true. But it certainly has more in common with groceries than it does with free speech.
Free speech is a negative liberty. When we say that I have a right to free speech, what this means is that no one is entitled to use force against me to prevent me expressing my views; nothing more and nothing less. My right to free speech does not require anyone to expend resources for my benefit. It does not require anyone else to take any positive action of any kind. The same is true of other basic civil liberties: freedom from torture, freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, freedom of religion.
By contrast, healthcare is not a liberty, but a service. If I have a "right to healthcare", this means that, if I cannot afford healthcare, someone else must provide it to me. This costs money - which means that someone else must be taxed to provide me with healthcare. This does not, of course, mean that there cannot be a right to healthcare; but it means that you cannot place it in the same category as the right to free speech. And simply asserting that healthcare "should be a right for all civilized people" is not an argument; you need to explain why such a right should exist, and why it is more important than those rights with which it conflicts (such as the right to private property).
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 2, 2009 10:30 AM
Yes, that is exactly what it means. Except the government should provide for all, so it doesn't really come out of your pocket except in general taxes. That is what any sane and proper government should do for their people. And all the first world except the US. Nobody should not have health care. Period. End of story.Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 10:37 AM
Walton,
Don't you ever get tired of boring the arse off everyone by repeating the same stupid, callous garbage for the hundredth time?
Just askin'.
Posted by: Walton | August 2, 2009 10:38 AM
Erm... those "general taxes" do come out of the pockets of everyone who works and earns a salary, as well as the pockets of productive businesses. There's no such thing as "free" healthcare. The money has to come from somewhere. Here in the UK, the NHS cost £104 billion in 2007, more by far than any other government service. In your own country, Medicare and Medicaid combined cost $682 billion in 2008 - more than was spent on defense ($613bn) or social security ($612bn). And the cost is growing far faster than most governments can handle.
Why?
Posted by: Wlaton | August 2, 2009 10:48 AM
No. Because this is the way I learn; to make polemical statements and engage in a discussion is something I find both enjoyable and enlightening. Bear in mind that debate on this site was the final catalyst which caused me to abandon religion; so it ought to be clear to you by now that I do listen to people here and take note of what they say (though I certainly don't always accept it). Debate is good.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 2, 2009 10:57 AM
Health care is a basic human right. Your saying it isn't says you aren't humane. Which is what we have been telling your ages, and why liberturdism is morally bankrupt. It is inhumane. What part of this aren't you understanding? Correct. But irrelevant compared to providing a right to your populace. I have been paying for health care insurance for years through my employers. But, if I lost my job tomorrow due to the plant closing, I would not have health insurance. And the likelihood of finding another job that would have health insurance isn't that great since I am almost 60 (ageism doesn't exist-sure). Medicare doesn't start until I'm 65. If there was a single payer system I wouldn't have to worry about paying for health care. By the way, paying for health care is the single biggest cause of bankruptcy in the US.Posted by: blf | August 2, 2009 11:21 AM
No: In practice, you need people to keep an eye on what government, corporations, loonies, and so on are doing—all of them love non-transparency, misleading or outright lying, and suppressing (as one example, by suing) people who disagree or “blow the whistle”. Maintaining a liberty is hard work, and can be quite expensive (using the example, lawyers aren't cheap; as another, my daily newspaper costs me 3€).
Also, you say healthcare is a service. Others say it is (or should be) a right. There ia a massive difference there: Services are optional, and generally voluntary, rights are not. Rights always apply.† That alone makes any user-pays-all scheme illiberal, since a user who cannot pay doesn't enjoy her\his rights.
(And please don't use the absurd claim that crime- and fire-fighting are services. Yes, they are often(?) called “services”, but they are not. Can you see why?)
† I'll ignore here that certain rights, perhaps those better called liberties, can be proscribed in certain circumstances; e.g., some rights/libertries are heavily controlled in jails and prisons. That is not germane to teaching you basic facts about how the world operates, since health care is not such a proscribable rigbt.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 11:38 AM
No. Because this is the way I learn - Walton
But Walton, you're making us pay for your education;-)
Look, if you have something new to say, even if it is looneytarian, OK, say it. Just lay off saying the same thing again and again and again and again and again and again and
again and again and again and again and again and again and
again and again and again and again and again and again and
again and again and again and again and again and again and
again.
Posted by: blf | August 2, 2009 11:45 AM
And again and again. And again.
Except that the posts do differ slightly in content (and on rare occasions, sense), one might think Walton also does not read the mis-named (and currently rarely happening) “Submission Error” page.
Posted by: Walton | August 2, 2009 11:45 AM
You've still failed to establish, beyond mere assertion, that there can ever be such a thing as a positive right - i.e. a right to be provided with something at the expense of others.
And I don't know why you're using such a restrictive definition of "service". I was using the term in the economic context of "goods and services" - a service being the non-material equivalent of a good. So healthcare, policing and firefighting are indeed services, just like hairdressing and windowcleaning. In the same way, food and water are goods. The fact that they are essential to life does not place them outside the normal economic definition of "goods and services". Nor is there any contradiction, in normal parlance, between saying that X is a service and saying that X is a right (if one accepts the concept of positive rights, that is). I don't understand why you feel the need to redefine the word "service".
Posted by: blf | August 2, 2009 12:06 PM
A service (first definition in the dictionary, b.t.w.) is “work done by one person or group that benefits another.”
I said that “services are optional and generally voluntary.” I suppose you are confused by my use of the word “voluntary”: I don't mean charity exclusively, but that the provider has agreed to provide (and a possible reason, one of many, for agreement is profit). The “optional” should be obvious: I, the user, choose whether or not I want to locate or use the offered service.
Back to a main point: Insisting that all services must be paid for by the user, and that if the user cannot pay, they (and possibly others) die, is no definition of service I want any part of. Medical care is not a service, it is (or should be) a non-proscribable right, regardless of ability to pay.
Posted by: Walton | August 2, 2009 12:22 PM
I didn't insist that, nor is it a part of the definition of "service".
You and others keep asserting this, but you still haven't explained why.
"Rights" are not matters of empirical fact, nor are they ethereal dictates from the heavens. Rather, "rights" are social and political constructs. Thus in some jurisdictions and societies there is a "right" to healthcare; in others there is not.
If you are arguing that there should be a universal right to healthcare, then you need to explain why such a right ought to exist.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 12:37 PM
If you are arguing that there should be a universal right to healthcare, then you need to explain why such a right ought to exist. - Walton
Because where it doesn't (and could), there will be a great deal of unnecessary suffering and premature death. This happened before the advent of this right in the UK (many people could not afford to go to the doctor), it's happening now in the UK in relation to dentistry, which has become increasingly expensive, and it's happening on a large scale in the USA - despite the latter spending far more on healthcare per capita than any other country. No-one except callous ideologues like you disputes this.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 2, 2009 12:55 PM
Walton, when you appear to be an inhumane monster, like at the moment, the rule of holes apply. When in over your head, stop digging. You need to stop appearing inhumane. So, stop posting on the subject.
Posted by: Walton | August 2, 2009 1:01 PM
Fine, but - if we look at this on a completely pragmatic, non-ideological level - this has to be balanced against other considerations. Firstly, the US remains the undisputed world leader in medical research and development - producing new treatments and cures which benefit the rest of the world. If single-payer health care were introduced, it is highly likely that this would be vastly reduced. Another issue is cost. The NHS is very expensive to the British taxpayer - hence why non-essential services, such as dentistry, are no longer widely available for free. Healthcare costs go up and up and up. And if government responds to this by raising taxes, the economy will be stifled and business will move overseas.
Of course, Obama's plan isn't single-payer; he just wants to create a federal public insurance option that will compete alongside private alternatives. Which is fine, and perfectly in line with libertarian principles of non-coercion. But I don't see how it will avoid the current problem with Medicare and Medicaid - namely, the problem that payouts are currently rising at a much higher rate than revenues. Healthier and richer people will stay with private insurers, while the poor and ill gravitate to the federal programme - leading to an imbalance of revenues and costs, and, further down the line, to higher taxes.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 2, 2009 1:18 PM
Walton, you continue to show yourself to be an unthinking ideologue. Which you need to quit doing. You have your head in the clouds of the free market and liberturdian ideology, and fail to understand the street realities. Innovation will continue, since most of the innovation comes from academia. As long as the research is funded, innovation will occur. If you think innovation isn't happening in Europe with socialized medicine, you are sadly mistaken. At the moment, you are as dense as Alan Clarke was on creationism.
And Walton, what the US does in health care reform is irrelevant to you. You already have good health care. So you should quit worrying about the US since it doesn't directly effect you. So keep your inane opinions to yourself.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 1:47 PM
Firstly, the US remains the undisputed world leader in medical research and development - producing new treatments and cures which benefit the rest of the world.
Not all that much: 90% of the research effort goes into 10% of the global health burden according to a recent study. I don't have the reference handy, but you can see why it could be so: private companies will invest where the potential for profit is greatest, not where medical need is. By and large, we know what to do to improve health, and most of it is about prevention, which isn't by and large very profitable at all. Increasing income equality would itself be a powerful promoter of health as (again) Richardson and Pickett show.
If single-payer health care were introduced, it is highly likely that this would be vastly reduced.
Why? The pharmaceutical companies and the health-care providers are not in general the same.
Another issue is cost. The NHS is very expensive to the British taxpayer
It runs at about half the per capita cost of the US system, for approximately the same health outcomes; other single-payer systems, which spend somewhat more than the UK but still far less than the US, have significantly better outcomes. Of course those at the top might have to pay more under a single-payer system, and so they should. All the rest pay far more under the US system, increasing inequality - which is of course what you want.
And if government responds to this by raising taxes, the economy will be stifled and business will move overseas.
As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, during the high tax (and high regulation) era 1945-75, economic growth - and more important, improvement of living standards - were at their fastest ever. (You have claimed that this was just a rebound from WW2 - so compare with what happened after WW1, when your stupid nostrums were applied.)
It's true big business tries to force a "race to the bottom" in taxation - as well as in health and safety, union rights, environmental protection, etc. So what you're saying is that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into obeying these greedy scumbags. I say you have to stand up to bullies - if possible by formulating international agreements to control capital movements; if necessary by saying that if they are leaving, the cost of their doing so will come out of any assets they hold in the country; and they won't be allowed to take out profits from future sales here.
Posted by: JeffreyD | August 2, 2009 2:52 PM
Knockgoats at #584: Good, hope we can meet this time. I will be back in the UK on/about 12 September, as planned for the nonce, so an evening is probably best. I am in the West Country, but run back and forth to London often. Drinks are on me since I missed the first meeting opportunity.
I assume you are flying back to Aberdeen vice train on the 18th, yes? Will email once I know my schedule a tad better.
Ciao
Posted by: JeffreyD | August 2, 2009 3:03 PM
Dear SC at #583, sorry to hear you are poor darling, nice to see the value people place on academics, yes? (wry grin) Still, you are always welcome if you make it down this way.
No problem with my blog on your blog list. You are too, too kind to my rambling scribbles, but thanks for the compliment.
Pool and beach were a weather wash. I do not mind swimming in the rain, don't have enough sense to come in out of it, but I do draw the line at lightning strikes. I know, I know, I am a wuss.
Ciao bella darling.
Posted by: SC, OM, Safety Girl | August 2, 2009 3:25 PM
JeffreyD, you're very sweet.
Noooooooooooo! I'm just about to leave for the beach, but you hit a nerve with that. A wuss??? I know I drive my family and friends crazy with this, but people need to take lightning very, very seriously.
Everyone, please read this:
http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/overview.htm
I had a scary encounter with lightning a few years ago, but even before that I was struck :) by how nonchalant people were about it. There's nothing wimpy about not going in water when there's lightning! Don't ever do it! Please keep drawing the line where you are. Don't make me come down there. (This goes for the rest of you, too.)
As the NWS says: "When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!"
/maternal
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 2, 2009 4:18 PM
JeffreyD,
Yes, I need to get back on 18th - my wife leaves for a conference the same day and my son's not quite ready yet to be alone overnight. I'll check the conference schedule - there'll be a dinner one night - and we'll find an evening we can both make. I think I may have lost your email address, as several hundred messages vanished into the ether recently.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 2, 2009 4:46 PM
To second what SC posted about lightning, according to the US National Weather Service, approximately 62 people are killed and about 300 injured every year by lightning.
As many of you know, I'm an avid sailor. I've been known to go sailing in sub-freezing weather. However, if there is any threat of thunderstorms, I won't go out. I've been in a sailboat that was struck by lightning. Two people were seriously injured out of six of us, plus the boat was demasted. Fortunately we were able to rig an antenna and had spare fuses for the radio to call the Coast Guard to rescue the two casualties, or else they might have died.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 2, 2009 5:10 PM
As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, during the high tax (and high regulation) era 1945-75, economic growth - and more important, improvement of living standards - were at their fastest ever. (You have claimed that this was just a rebound from WW2 - so compare with what happened after WW1, when your stupid nostrums were applied.)I've already posted about the Laffer Curve, so I won't repeat that now. Federal taxes are at the lowest point since the 1930s. There just might be some slack in the Laffer Curve that taxes could possibly be increased without catastrophic consequences.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 2, 2009 5:24 PM
There's a blockquote failure in my post #610. The second paragraph was from Knockgoats' post #604.
Posted by: Kagato | August 2, 2009 9:21 PM
Excuse the gap, I don't get to read Pharyngula much on weekends.
Piltdown Man:
"May not be"? Seriously? Do you know some unusually long-lived Spartans or something? Show a bit of intellectual honesty please.
I see. So when an individual seeks to do these things, you understand there are personal motivations... but if someone tries to overturn laws put in place to prevent people from taking these deeply personal actions, they must only be motivated by a clinical desire to steer the destiny of the human genome.
And not, say, compassion for those in need, or anything like that.
The study referenced in the article is described as 'controversial', not just for its topic but also for its methodology & results; but I don't have time to go digging, so for the sake of argument let's grant it's premise.
The basic claim is that children of women denied abortions are more likely to need psychiatric and welfare services, and more likely to engage in criminal behaviour.
On its face, this doesn't seem that controversial to me: should a pregnancy be unwanted to the point of seeking an abortion, in at least some minority of cases, forcing the mother to go ahead with having the child would result in a less-than-loving family situation. Children raised in such environments are probably more likely to have problems.
I think the description should be reversed -- forcing women to have unwanted children may increase the crime rate.
It is not a call for "more abortions", or recommending "abortions among a particular demographic", either of which could potentially be considered eugenics advocacy. I read it as a statement that denying women abortions may have additional consequences.
Sigh. Were you fishing for some sort of reaction with this?
It's just a word, dude.
Oh, and screw you, TypeKey.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 2, 2009 9:27 PM
And, of course, Pilty is total idiot who ignores evidence if it contradicts his insane and morally repugnant religion. Poor Pilty, he will never understand the clarity that comes from atheism.
Posted by: windy | August 2, 2009 11:20 PM
Walton:
So your "completely pragmatic, non-ideological" argument is that the US is altruistically paying for the whole world's medical R&D, and it would be bad if they stopped doing that. *facepalm* How pragmatic!
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | August 3, 2009 12:02 AM
if I was still reading Walton's shit, both my face and my palm would be practically flayed by now
Posted by: SC "So Not the Wall Drug of Bloggers" OM | August 3, 2009 12:22 AM
I skim. Few or no signs of progress.
Posted by: Walton | August 3, 2009 5:40 AM
Knockgoats,
Business people, unlike politicians (and unlike political theorists like you and me), have to live in the real world, and deal with reality on a day-to-day basis. Unlike politicians, who can simply print more money or raise taxes, businesses have to work within a budget, provide goods or services which people actually want, and show a profit. Which is why an increase in state control and regulation of the economy, meaning that the economy is run by politicians and bureaucrats rather than business people, is an inherently bad idea. You seem to be advocating restrictions on the international movement of capital, goods and services, which would have precisely that effect. Do we want to go back to the miserable era of the 1950s, when an Englishman couldn't go on holiday to Europe or the US, nor buy goods from those places, because of currency controls, tariffs and rationing? I would far rather live in the modern world, when I can easily exchange my currency for another, jump on a plane, and travel to or buy goods from anywhere in the world.
This, however, is somewhat off-track from the question of state-funded healthcare. I don't have any principled objection to Obama's plan to offer a public health insurance option, as long as people are allowed to opt out of it and go for private health insurance instead. But I don't see how, with this in place, the public option will be able to avoid haemorrhaging vast amounts of money, just as Medicare and Medicaid are currently doing. Hopefully Obama has some sort of a solution to this, and I will be impressed if he can make it work.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 3, 2009 8:33 AM
Business people, unlike politicians (and unlike political theorists like you and me), have to live in the real world, and deal with reality on a day-to-day basis.
That's classic rightist-soundbite-speak. We all live in the real world - commercial business is no more (and no less) real than anything else. But you might note that almost no senior businesspeople appear to be "libertarians" - because they know all the guff about "free markets" bears absolutely no resemblance to the real economy, and never has.
Which is why an increase in state control and regulation of the economy, meaning that the economy is run by politicians and bureaucrats rather than business people, is an inherently bad idea. - Walton
Walton, it's absolutely no use you saying it's an "inherently bad idea" when real world experience shows that it does not have the dire effects your ideology predicts. As I have noted numerous times (and as you always ignore), the crash of 2008 followed three decades of deregulation. You really have absolutely no interest in empirical evidence or real people, do you?
Do we want to go back to the miserable era of the 1950s, when an Englishman couldn't go on holiday to Europe or the US, nor buy goods from those places, because of currency controls, tariffs and rationing?
Ah, you mean that miserable era when living conditions were improving faster than at any time in history, poor people could for the first time access proper medical treatment, vast slum-clearance and social housing programmes were underway, university education was becoming a real prospect for bright working-class children... The specific points you mention applied to the UK because of the enormous debts the country was forced to run up while fighting WW2 and was trying to repay - and have nothing to do with placing restrictions on the way big business moves vast sums around.
Posted by: Walton | August 3, 2009 9:06 AM
Well, of course they were. British urban dwellers had endured the Great Depression, followed by massive bombing and food shortages in WWII. Compared to that, having a house to live in and enough food to eat was a significant improvement. That doesn't mean that living conditions in the 1950s were objectively good. By any measure, our living conditions today are substantially better.
I would also point out that the recovery of the 1950s - and the expensive social programmes you so admire - were largely funded by loans from those oh-so-terrible American capitalists, via the Marshall Plan. And the improvement in living standards, towards the end of the 50s, came in part from the increasing availability of cheap, mass-produced American consumer goods that working-class people could afford - produced in those oh-so-terrible capitalist factories.
I don't deny that some of the post-war government programmes did contribute greatly to the strong economy we enjoy today. In particular, the advent of grammar schools allowed more people from poorer families to access an academic education, and, as you point out, gave them a chance of going to university, creating a much wider pool of university graduates. This is why, as I've repeatedly made clear, I don't oppose state education (though I do argue that children of exceptional talent should receive state funding to attend independent schools).
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 3, 2009 10:12 AM
I would also point out that the recovery of the 1950s - and the expensive social programmes you so admire - were largely funded by loans from those oh-so-terrible American capitalists, via the Marshall Plan.
And as I've pointed out before, the Marshall Plan was perhaps the biggest example of government intervention in the economy ever. It was of course not an initiative by capitalists themselves, although many were sensible enough to support it, but was devised by the US State Department. If idiot ideologues like you had been in charge, we'd have had another slump-boom-slump such as followed WW1.
By the way, your reference to "oh-so-terrible" capitalists, as if I blamed individual capitalists for the way the capitalist system works, don't really work as irony. Individual capitalists can be nice or nasty, clever or stupid - although they could certainly be expected to be more interested in money and power, and cleverer, than average; and they are affected by the temper of the times like anyone else. In 1945 American capitalists, like everyone else in the "Anglosphere", had just been through an experience where prolonged collective effort had achieved eventual spectacular success: they were thus psychologically preadapted to go along with a piece of enlightened self-interest such as the Marshall Plan.
As I've said before on this blog, although I'm a socialist I recognise that a serious case can be made for a regulated capitalism; the biggest problem with it is its failure to recognise environmental limits, and this seems to be very deep-rooted - although I hope to be proved wrong: AGW alone is such a serious and urgent matter that we can't risk waiting to tackle it properly for the decades (at least) required to build a democratic socialist world-order. No serious case at all can be made for your "libertarian" fantasies; and indeed, you never try to make one. Most of your posts consist either of the umpteenth restatement of those fantasies, silly slogans and soundbites, or caricatures of opposing positions. Supporting evidence is simply absent.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 3, 2009 10:26 AM
Yawn, Walton, you are getting very boring repeating the same nonsense over and over. Yes, you do have strong opinions on economics and politics. Yes, those opinions are not grounded in reality. Which is why we take you to task over them. So, what you need to do is to let them percolate for a while. Most of the radicals I went to college with are now republicans. You are as boring and ill-informed as they were in college. You will also change as your mature your thinking.
Posted by: Paul | August 3, 2009 12:01 PM
I love that the one person here that lives in their mother's basement without needing to pay taxes is the only one taking the position that they shouldn't be forced to have money taken from general earnings through taxes to help those less fortunate. The ones actually playing a useful role in society aren't the ones complaining that their money might possibly go to a cause that doesn't directly benefit them. Feeding the troll in this case is just ridiculous.
Posted by: Walton | August 3, 2009 1:10 PM
True. It was a necessary evil for its time, just as WWII itself - which was, of course, also an example of concerted state action on an unprecedented scale - was a necessary evil in order to defeat the greater evil of Nazism. But that doesn't mean it's a good thing, or a model we should emulate.
Fundamentally, what do you dislike so much about our existing socio-economic organisation? As I keep pointing out, ordinary people in Britain today, despite the recession, have a far, far more secure and prosperous existence than even the richest of our forebears. And countries such as China, India and Brazil, which have opened their markets to world trade, are becoming more and more prosperous; many people whose ancestors were peasants, living at subsistence level, now have access to consumer goods and economic opportunity for the first time. Do you deny the truth of this?
That said, your point about environmental damage is certainly a legitimate one. A free global market is very good at raising living standards and providing cheap consumer goods, but it will do so at the expense of the environment, as we saw in Europe during the Industrial Revolution and are now seeing with industrialisation in mainland China and parts of India. For that reason, the environment is one of the areas where I think there is a legitimate regulatory role for the state - but I don't think it's particularly fair to deny people in China, India and other developing countries the opportunity to work their way out of poverty, simply in order to reduce carbon emissions. Fundamentally, I doubt that there's much we can do to affect climate change; our priority, IMO, should be encouraging global trade and tackling poverty in the developing world, an aim which is manifestly in direct conflict with the goal of reducing carbon emissions.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 3, 2009 2:05 PM
Walton,
In part you answer your own question: I dislike (more, I greatly fear) the environmental destruction capitalism has wreaked and is wreaking. If not halted, this will almost certainly lead to the destruction of our civilisation, if not human extinction. My other main complaint is the vast inequalities of wealth and power capitalism maintains, and particularly the injustice of some being born to wealth and power, others to poverty and oppression. Even if capitalism allows the abolition of absolute poverty (an unproven claim), steep gradients of inequality are bad for people, as Richardson and Pickett show quite conclusively.
Fundamentally, I doubt that there's much we can do to affect climate change
Within the constraints of capitalism, you may be right: it inculcates and rewards a short-termism we simply cannot afford any more, and has so far depended on ever-increasing input of raw materials and production of waste. In a finite system, this cannot continue indefinitely, and we seem to be approaching (if not already past) the sustainable limit. If capitalism cannot be either replaced, or reformed to remove this deep-seated feature, we're done for. You have shown your abysmal ignorance about the science of climate change here before; if you do nothing else, take the time to read the executive summaries of the 2007 IPCC reports, and the conference in Copenhagen earlier this year.
Climate change, if not halted, will itself make it impossible for the poor to "work their way out of poverty", by destroying their environment. It is always the poor who suffer first and most from environmental destruction, but specifically in this case, the melting of Himalayan and Andean glaciers will destroy the livelihoods of billions of people. It's simply ignorance or hypocrisy to talk about "tackling poverty in the developing world" and not make the reduction of carbon emissions a priority.
It won't end with poor countries, though: quite apart from the sea-level rise, if global temperatures rise more than about 3 degrees, other regions will be increasingly affected as climatic zones shift. Above about 5 degrees - quite likely by the end of the century if "business as usual" continues - true global disaster threatens: aside from the instability that almost invariably happens when a complex system is pushed beyond its accustomed boundaries, which could make agriculture almost impossible, the slowing of ocean currents caused by reduced polar-equatorial temperature gradient could make much of the deep ocean anoxic, resulting in the multiplication of anaerobic bacteria and the production of vast quantities of highly toxic hydrogen sulphide. That's without even taking into account the possibility of desperate governments resorting to nuclear war as their populations face starvation. (Incidentally, while the most serious, AGW is far from the only environmental threat we face: others include overpopulation, resource shortages, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, overfishing, ocean acidification; and they are likely to have synergistic effects.)
To allow the populations of India, China and other poor countries to develop while cutting carbon emissions and tackling these other problems is possible, but simple-minded nostrums such as "free trade" won't do it: you have to stop thinking of the natural world as an infinite grab-bag from which more can always be extracted. Deep cuts in rich-country emissions and use of limited resources, and rapid technology development and transfer, along with fair trade, are what is required. There is no way "free markets" will deliver these.
Posted by: Walton | August 3, 2009 2:45 PM
Yes, this is in principle unfair. But it's a universal fact of life. No socialist system has succeeded in eliminating either poverty or oppression, nor can any other socio-economic system be envisioned which might do so.
Even if all inequalities of wealth and status were completely levelled, some people would still get a better start in life than others - if nothing else, because of disparities in upbringing. Studies show that children whose parents encourage their intellectual development from an early age - often, by something so simple as reading books to them - generally grow up to do better in school and to achieve more in life. Likewise, children from a stable family background are likely to have more stable lives as adults. Not to mention the inherent advantage, in any society, of being born to parents who are successful and well-connected, as in the old maxim "it's not what you know, it's who you know" - even in socialist systems, the children of Party and government officials have usually tended to do better for themselves than the average citizen. So unless you propose to take all children away from their parents and raise them in communal creches (which, IIRC, was proposed by Alexandra Kollontai, a member of Lenin's cabinet), I don't see how disparities based on birth can ever be completely eliminated.
On its own, it probably doesn't. A society with a completely free economy would likely have substantial extremes of wealth and poverty; I don't pretend (and neither do any of capitalism's defenders) that a free market magically makes everyone rich. But what is true is that all effective means of tackling poverty - both government welfare and private charity - rely on the wealth generated by capitalism. And if you squeeze productive taxpayers too hard, that source of wealth will dry up.
And what capitalism does do is allow poorer countries to enrich themselves. At first, the proceeds are concentrated in the hands of a few entrepreneurs, as we saw in Britain during the Industrial Revolution and in India and China today. But over time, the benefits of growth spread throughout the society - and where a country has a strong economy based on international trade and exports, it has the wealth with which to fund roads, schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, enhancing everyone's quality of life. By contrast, a country with a closed, tariff-ridden economy, without the capacity to attract international investment, will have little economic growth and will leave millions in poverty.
True, I find it very hard to understand climate science (and even harder to know who to believe). I don't pretend to have an informed or useful opinion about the scientific side of things. So I will certainly admit to that particular deficiency.
Indeed, some of those are arguably more serious than AGW. Soil erosion in parts of China has reached epic proportions, leading to the destruction of agriculture in some areas. Likewise, poor air quality in large Chinese and Indian cities is reportedly a serious, and growing, threat to health. And, of course, there is the elephant in the room - the danger of running out of oil, the vital resource on which our civilisation rests. So I don't deny that these are very substantial concerns.
I don't pretend to have perfect answers to the world's problems. I'm a 20-year-old student, not a Nobel Prize winner or a head of state. But it seems to me that a capitalist world economy based on international trade - albeit coupled with environmental regulation, humanitarian aid, education, and a welfare safety net for the poorest and most vulnerable - is the best hope for a more prosperous future.
Posted by: really? | August 3, 2009 3:02 PM
When one side has climatologists publishing peer reviewed scientific papers and the other side has a bunch of random scientists signing a petition (oh, they also have Ann Coulter and the right wing media), it's kind of pathetic to play the "hard to know who to believe so I'll just act like it's not an issue" card.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 3, 2009 4:33 PM
I would also point out that the recovery of the 1950s - and the expensive social programmes you so admire - were largely funded by loans from those oh-so-terrible American capitalists, via the Marshall Plan.
when pointed out this was a US GOVERNMENT program, not having anything to do with market capitalists, walton correctly, finally, answers this is true, then goes on to move the goalposts...
this is why it's no fun to debate kids like yourself, Walton.
You constantly burden shift, toss out red herrings, and move goalposts.
You'll never get far arguing like that.
well, unless you want to create some kind of religious ministry, anyway.
Ever thought about becoming an Anglican Priest? They can create ministries and still be atheists, you know.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 3, 2009 5:01 PM
You do realize that Britain's post-WW2 currency controls and rationing were due to having to recover from near bankruptcy after paying for the war. Estimates of the cost vary, but they generally indicate that roughly one quarter of the national wealth (some £7 billion) was lost and the national debt tripled. By the summer of 1945, Keynes estimated that Britain was living beyond its means at a rate of £2 billion a year (made possible during the war by American Lend-Lease, Canadian Mutual Aid, and Sterling Area Credits).
In response to the serious financial position, especially the shortage of dollars to finance imports, Attlee's Labour government needed to maintain substantial controls over the economy. These controls included reducing the level of imports (most advantageously by depressing consumer expenditure—rather than industrial demand for raw or unfinished materials—or by substituting home-produced goods), regulating industry, and boosting exports. In the short term, the government secured a massive US loan (US$3.75 billion at 2 per cent interest to be paid by 2001) and a very substantial Canadian loan (C$1.25 billion). Britain also benefited from the US financial assistance to Western Europe (Marshall Plan), receiving some £2.4 billion. In spite of this financial support and the government’s best economic efforts, however, in 1949 Britain was forced to devalue the pound from US$4.03 to US$2.80.
The restricting of consumer expenditure was initially severe. Food-rationing covered even more, not fewer, items after the war. In 1947 and 1948 about half of consumer expenditure on food was rationed, including meat, cheese, eggs, fats, and sugar. Bread was first rationed in July 1946 and potatoes in November 1947. The ending of food-rationing was a slow process from the second half of 1948 to 1954; coal rationing ended later still in 1958. At its height, in late 1947 and early 1948, consumer rationing covered about 30% of consumer expenditure; it had dropped to 12% by 1949.
In a period of near full employment, the Attlee government became concerned with restraining wages and prices, while maintaining free collective bargaining between employers and trade unions. In 1948 the government secured trade union support for a voluntary policy of wage restraint, with the government in return holding down prices and profits. Wage rates were restrained, though the policy was undermined by rising import prices after the devaluation of the pound in 1949.
Import controls remained extensive after the end of the war. In 1946 the government bought up some four fifths of imported foodstuffs and raw materials. While it relinquished purchasing raw materials, commodity by commodity, from 1946, it bought all basic foodstuffs until 1950. There was a further tightening of import controls by Churchill's Conservative government in 1951 and 1952, but thereafter controls were diminished until they lapsed in 1957.
Such controls were valuable in the post-war world of outright shortages. Once the world supply of goods became plentiful, the controls were ended. The Attlee government’s efforts were made in the context of the start of a massive and sustained boom in world trade. In 1939 world trade had not been much greater than in 1913, but by 1950 it had increased by roughly 50 per cent from 1913.
The post-war economic controls not only helped to manage scarce resources but also assisted the reconversion of a war economy to a peace economy. The absorption of some 9 million people from the armed forces and war-production sector was a major achievement. It was carried out without the serious demobilization riots that had accompanied the end of World War I.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 3, 2009 5:20 PM
I realize that my post #628 is a prime candidate for tl;dr.
Posted by: Walton | August 3, 2009 5:35 PM
No, I read it. Economics is something I find fascinating, though I'm a layman with no real background in the subject. I'll answer it in more depth tomorrow.
Posted by: Walton | August 4, 2009 5:22 AM
This seems to me to be rather immoral. In my view, it is not the role of government to ensure that everyone has a job, nor to control wages, prices or profits. These things ought to be determined by supply and demand in a free market, not by "negotiations" among a closed clique of politicians, union bosses and industrialists. I understand and accept your point that the government's policies avoided mass post-demobilisation unemployment, and allowed the British trade balance to recover. But was this enough to justify the massive restrictions that were placed on individual freedom?
In a free economy, surely what would have happened is a brief period of mass unemployment - like that which occurred after the Napoleonic Wars, WWI, and other major conflicts - followed by a period of natural economic recovery? I'm not an economist, so please feel free to correct me if I've completely misunderstood the point. But surely, if you leave people to their own devices, they will produce goods and services, trade with one another, and work their way out of poverty? Isn't that how capitalism works?
I'm not a nationalist. For me, what's important is not salvaging "the British economy" or strengthening Britain's, or any other nation's, position on the world stage. Rather, I'm an individualist; for me, the important thing is that individuals have the ability to trade freely with anyone in the world, to spend the proceeds of their labour on whatever they want, and to choose their own lifestyle without government interference.
Posted by: Kagato
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August 4, 2009 6:46 AM
Pardon me, but fucking immoral?
I try to keep out of the political discussions, but that just left me speechless.
"supply and demand in a free market" doesn't give a shit about the individual -- especially those without the resources to even participate. If it's not the role of government to ensure everyone is employed, or to provide universal healthcare, or to provide welfare, or do anything else that people could be directly paying for instead, what do the people below the poverty line do? Die in the streets? Bloody slackers.
And don't you dare say "charity". That's subject to free market effects too. Charities are usually running right to the wire as it is, and that's with government safety nets. When people just can't be bothered supporting the poor any more, the money dries up; and without government support, people will get left out. People will die.
I don't think you should be talking about what's "immoral".
Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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August 4, 2009 7:05 AM
How do you produce goods and services from scratch in a modern economy? We don't live in a barter economy, and it is very difficult to make money without having a capital investment (yours or someone else's, possibly the state's) in order to gain access to the market.
Equally, in a truly free market, the size of the market is dictated solely by demand, which always falls in times of recession or depression. If unemployment reaches critical levels, then there is no stimulus for growth in a free market, because demand collapses. The entire economy stagnates, and even those with wealth suddenly find that their assets have no value. This is exactly why free-market principles are abandoned by states during economic crises, with intervention to support the economy.
Taken to extremes, your scenario leads to revolution. If you leave the poor to fester in joblessness, then they don't simply reengage with the economy, but are forced to create their own economy. The legitimate economy becomes closed to them, because the free economy only works for people with money in a post-barter economy. The poor have a choice of either accessing wealth (or its proxies) via illegitimate means, or redistributing wealth by overthrowing the legitimate economy (and all of the mechanisms and entities which support it). Their only other option is to starve, which isn't really an option at all.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 4, 2009 7:59 AM
True, I find it very hard to understand climate science (and even harder to know who to believe). - Walton
This is utterly dishonest. The consensus of relevant scientific experts is entirely clear. How can you expect anyone here to take you seriously when you come out with shit like this?
In my view, it is not the role of government to ensure that everyone has a job, nor to control wages, prices or profits. These things ought to be determined by supply and demand in a free market, not by "negotiations" among a closed clique of politicians, union bosses and industrialists.
Why? At least politicians and union bosses are elected, and can be thrown out. To whom is the "free market" accountable?
I understand and accept your point that the government's policies avoided mass post-demobilisation unemployment, and allowed the British trade balance to recover. But was this enough to justify the massive restrictions that were placed on individual freedom?
In a free economy, surely what would have happened is a brief period of mass unemployment - like that which occurred after the Napoleonic Wars, WWI, and other major conflicts - followed by a period of natural economic recovery?
Your callousness is disgusting. Do you really think that a right to a foreign holiday is more important than a right to reasonably paid work? Do you have any idea what involuntary unemployment does to people, you slimy little turd?
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 4, 2009 8:04 AM
Repost of the end of my last message: the italicised paragraphs are Walton's, not mine:
I understand and accept your point that the government's policies avoided mass post-demobilisation unemployment, and allowed the British trade balance to recover. But was this enough to justify the massive restrictions that were placed on individual freedom?
In a free economy, surely what would have happened is a brief period of mass unemployment - like that which occurred after the Napoleonic Wars, WWI, and other major conflicts - followed by a period of natural economic recovery?
Your callousness is disgusting. Do you really think that a right to a foreign holiday is more important than a right to reasonably paid work? Do you have any idea what involuntary unemployment does to people, you slimy little turd?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 4, 2009 8:22 AM
Walton, you, and every other liberturd who posts here, always show their ideology is morally bankrupt, and their economic policies will lead to the boom and bust cycles that used to predominate the world economic markets. We can't ask for better examples of why not to do what you want.
You are so tied up in the romance of your ideology, that you can't get beyond it to the real world. Where other things work much better to reduce the boom and bust cycles, and supply a safety net for all people. Do a lot more reading on world history. You need more background on why your ideology doesn't work, and never did work.
Posted by: Walton | August 4, 2009 8:52 AM
Wouldn't it be somewhat more dishonest if I pretended that I did understand climate science? The fact is that - though I have honestly tried to read up on it - it seems to be a fruitless endeavour. Once one gets away from simplistic media propaganda and into the actual science, one is faced with pages and pages of jargon about radiation and cooling and tolerances, with plenty of numbers and Greek letters thrown in. I simply don't have a sufficient grounding in the basics of science to have a hope of understanding the material, let alone evaluating it. You might as well ask me for my opinion on the best way to perform brain surgery. Furthermore, I don't believe that most politicians and pundits have any more clue about it than I do.
Would you prefer that I pretended to know the answers? Is it "dishonest" to admit my lack of expertise?
That's a silly distortion of my argument; you're comparing two completely different definitions of the word "right". In a free society, no one has a "right" either to a foreign holiday or to "reasonably paid" work (whatever "reasonably paid" means); that is, no one is entitled to be provided with these things, via coercion, at the expense of others. But, by contrast, everyone in a free society does have the right to obtain these things, if they can do so, via voluntary negotiation with other free individuals.
Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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August 4, 2009 9:14 AM
The social contract between the state and its citizens hardly constitutes coercion, does it? (Unless you choose to use the word in its broadest sense to describe the fact that society compels all of its citizens to take part, even those who would like to opt out of their social responsibilities.)
Great, in that fairytale eutopia where hard work necessarily brings success, but it isn't necessarily the case in the real world.
In the real world, workers will be exploited by unscrupulous employers, and that is assuming that they even manage to access the labour market in the first place. Access to the modern jobs market is almost impossible without capital investment, and that investment may be as simple as being able to afford accomodation (a fixed address) or basic tools of the trade.
Protection for the employed (rights to minimum pay and conditions) and unemployed (rights to a minimum level of social support) ultimately yield a healthier and happier society.
Posted by: NBeale | August 4, 2009 3:56 PM
Come off it. Pretty well all serious cosmologists accept the idea that the practical choices, based on currently understood science, are multiverse or a very specific creation. Martin Rees, for example, who is President of the Royal Society. Do you think he is an "idiot" or a "clown"?
If you don't understand physics or cosmology you should avoid making idiotic pronouncements about it.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 5, 2009 4:30 PM
Sorry about not replying sooner. For some reason I couldn't access this thread earlier.
Would you agree that it is the role of government to, as the US Constitution puts it, "ensure domestic tranquility"? Do you have a fucking clue about what happened in Britain after World War I or the Napoleonic War? Of course not. There was massive unemployment with discharged soldiers begging in the streets, there was famine (literally, people were starving), there was social unrest. But you don't care about that. It was plebs and other untermensch starving and rioting. The upper and middle classes were much less effected.
The Atlee government and even the postwar Churchill government, who did have a clue about what history told them, had the idea that people starving and rioting was doubleplus ungood. I realize that you don't give a fuck about starvation and riots, but normal people (i.e., non-looneytarians) do.
There's the further point that the negotiations between unions, employers and the government held in the late 1940s were not kept secret from the public. People knew what was being decided and, more importantly, why the negotiations were taking place.
However, since the mean ol' gummint was involved in trying to keep people employed and keeping the economy from collapsing (which it did in 1919), you've decided it was immoral. Well, fuck you and the ideology you rode in on. I'm getting sick of your disdain and callous disregard for anyone who isn't you or your political masters. Grow the fuck up, boy. Start thinking about what matters in the real world, not whether something passes your ideological filter or not.
Posted by: Kagato
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August 5, 2009 8:25 PM
My good man, you seem to have fallen down a well! How unfortunate for you.
What? No, sorry, we're not in the business of rescuing people from wells up here. No, it doesn't make any difference if you fell, were pushed, or dug the well yourself, I'm afraid. Getting rescued is what well insurance is for. I don't suppose... of course not. Nobody does expect to fall down a well, do they? (Besides, if it was a pre-existing well, you probably wouldn't have been covered anyway.)
Not to worry, I'm sure you'll see yourself out of your predicament. That's what people do, isn't it? Yes, I agree it's quite deep, and the sides are very smooth...
There seems to be a few branches and sticks down there; perhaps you can fashion a rudimentary ladder. Here's a pocket-knife. Do you know basic tongue-and-groove joinery? Ah. Well, I suppose I could find someone to teach you; but you're not really in a position to pay... No doubt you'll figure it out for yourself.
Hmm, you're right, there probably isn't enough wood down there to reach the top. There's plenty lying around up here though. Don't worry, if you call out I'm sure there are enough generous souls about who can throw down a stick or two. Given enough time and you should have plenty of wood for your ladder. Mind you, you'll have to shout pretty loud; there are an awful lot of people stuck down wells these days, competing for attention. What? Rope? Good lord man, no. Rope is a luxury item.
Oh, one last thing. It gets cold out here at night. Very cold. You'll need to stay warm; here's a box of matches for you. Hey, at least you've got a small supply of wood down there...
Now now, settle down! What are you getting angry at me for? After all, I just gave you a knife, some matches and my valuable advice for free, out of the goodness of my heart! What more help could you possibly expect?
Well -- if you're going to be like that, I bid you good day sir!
Ungrateful bastard.
Posted by: Walton | August 6, 2009 11:50 AM
'Tis, I don't see that there's much to be gained from arguing about events which are long gone, and which, hopefully, will never happen again (a Third World War doesn't seem likely any time soon). In the modern world, the free market - allowing innovation, competition and entrepreneurship - serves us much better than corporatism, with its monopolistic control by Big Unions, Big Industry and Big Government, ever did.
As far as I can see, our world is a better place to live than it has ever been at any other time in history. Living standards for ordinary people are higher than ever before, and getting higher all the time. That wouldn't have happened without capitalism.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 6, 2009 12:11 PM
In the modern world, the free market - allowing innovation, competition and entrepreneurship - serves us much better than corporatism, with its monopolistic control by Big Unions, Big Industry and Big Government, ever did. -Walton
Once again the bald, contrary-to-fact assertion. As I've pointed out numerous times - and as you've never produced any evidence against:
1) Capitalism has never been about "the free-market". Right from the start it has involved a complex web of connections between markets, states and other social institutions; and has involved monopolies, tariff barriers, capitalists using their wealth to get the laws they want, etc. I know you are ignorant of history, as of so much else, but do you not see that this makes your grandiose pronouncements just plain silly?
2) Over the past 30 years, there has indeed been a movement away from market regulation. This has coincided with a slowdown in economic growth, and ended with the crash of 2008. The previous "corporatist" period, by contrast, saw the greatest advance in living standards ever.
Living standards for ordinary people are higher than ever before, and getting higher all the time. That wouldn't have happened without capitalism.
It certainly wouldn't have happened without technical advance, but that has a more-or-less continuous history of acceleration going back many thousands of years, under a wide variety of socio-economic systems. Now if you can actually produce an argument that this would have ground to a halt without capitalism, I'd be interested (and nothing in my politics would prevent me accepting it, as I think Marx did). But first, you'd have to gain some knowledge of the history of capitalism and of technology, which you so evidently lack.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 6, 2009 12:17 PM
'Tis, I don't see that there's much to be gained from arguing about events which are long gone - Walton
...and which prove that you are talking out of your arse. Your whole claim has been "government interference makes things worse". The history 'Tis has brought up, and which I've raised before, proves that this is not, in general, the case. Really, you are no different from Wendy Wright and company - historical evidence that does not suit your quasi-religious commitments is simply dismissed.
Posted by: Walton | August 6, 2009 2:13 PM
Technical advance doesn't grind to a halt without capitalism; but it is directed to different purposes, because the money and resources are channelled in different directions.
There was plenty of technical advancement in the Soviet Union, but it was channelled into military technology and the space race, rather than the production of consumer goods. In any socialist system, the money goes where the State wants it to, not where ordinary consumers want it to. (Don't misunderstand me; I realise that you don't advocate Soviet-style communism. But the problem is the same in any system where government, rather than the free market, allocates resources.)
By contrast, in a capitalist system, technical advance is transformed into profit by producing goods which consumers want to buy. Therefore, money and resources are directed at producing consumer goods, rather than grandiose government projects. Hence why ordinary consumers now have a vastly higher standard of living than did their forebears - an achievement which the Soviet Union, despite its many great scientists and engineers, never even approached.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | August 8, 2009 6:21 PM
Knockgoats @ 552:
What evidence would ever change your opinion that war and inequality can be abolished?
Walton @ 554:
Minor quibble: I'm a traditionalist Catholic, not a conservative Catholic. Politically speaking, conservative Catholics typically support some form of democratic capitalism, ranging from libertarianism to social democracy. Traditionalists favour feudal monarchy or, faute de mieux, the kind of authoritarian rule that is sometimes unhelpfully termed "clerico-fascism" -- eg the regimes of Garcia Moreno, Salazar, Franco, Dollfuß, Pétain, Ngo Dinh Diem, etc.
Kagato @ 612:
It's not just a word, dude - it's The Word.
Posted by: JeffreyD | August 8, 2009 6:41 PM
Piltdown Man - What evidence would ever change your opinion that religion is nonsense and can be abolished?
You support feudal monarchy? I find that both fascinating and repulsive. Since I seldom read your comments in detail I was not aware that you were stuck that far into the past. Colour me surprised (well, not terribly surprised).
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 8, 2009 6:45 PM
You support feudal monarchy? I find that both fascinating and repulsive.
actually, based on conversations I've had with dozens of fundies like Pilty, they appear to think that life would be just grand if they could all live like serfs.
Without consciously(?) realizing it, I think they would all prefer the US become a feudal state.
Embrace the dark ages, indeed!
why, life would be just so much simpler if someone else did all their thinking for them, took on all of the "tough" decisions...
hint to Pilty:
If you ever get around to reading Orwell's 1984 do try and recall it was written with the intention of being a WARNING, not an instruction manual.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 8, 2009 6:48 PM
Really, you are no different from Wendy Wright and company - historical evidence that does not suit your quasi-religious commitments is simply dismissed.
Indeed, willful ignorance or deliberate cherry picking of history is the only thing that maintains the libertarian ideology.
and, yes, the mindset is very similar to that of holocaust denier, global warming deniers, creationists, etc.
In fact, IIRC there are at least a couple of posts I've read on Pharyngula over the last several years documenting the similarities.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 8, 2009 7:36 PM
This is one of my major complaints about looneytarians. They pass everything, including facts, through an ideological filter. If facts don't pass, then the fact just doesn't exist.
The Attlee government (and even its predecessor, the Churchill government) knew what economic conditions were like after the end of the last two big wars Britain had been in, the Napoleonic War and World War I. There were massive economic collapses and resultant social unrest which lasted for years. The Attlee government didn't want replays of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre and the 1926 General Strike. Plus there was the fact that in late 1945 Britain was skint. So steps were taken as outlined in my previous posts.
This was a real life situation. Walton doesn't like real life situations, they're too messy, they show his pet economic theories as being too simplistic. So Walton airily dismisses the the rationale for the British government actions. He even describes these actions as "immoral."
Are we likely to have a Third World War? Hopefully not. However we're in a major economic crunch right now. The Attlee government's actions in their own major economic crunch are worth considering for one simple reason, they were successful in bringing Britain out of near bankruptcy.
That's the major difference between Walton's economic fantasies and real life. Fantasies are based on "wouldn't it be nice" and "I really, really, really want this to be true." Real life shows what works, what doesn't, and what the consequences of success and failure are.
Posted by: Piltdown Man | August 8, 2009 8:01 PM
Ichthyic:
The only difference between a medieval serf and a modern "wage slave" is that the former had a master without having to ask for one, while the latter has to beg for the privilege of being a slave. Oh, and the medieval peasant had about 80 public holidays a year.
(From How to be Free, by Tom Hodgkinson.)
Imagine.
Society organised on an agrarian rather than an industrial basis, divided into three broad classes - laboratores (peasants and artisans), bellatores (aristocratic warrior caste) and oratores (a literate clergy).
In place of the current system of wage-slavery, families (large extended families) would live on freeholdings, providing a measure of self-sufficiency.
Labour relations would be radically overhauled. Capitalism fosters unnecessary class warfare by creating a "boss" class whose unbridled rapacity in turn gives rise to a militant, unionized proletariat. Instead, each recognised profession would be represented by means of a guild system, with both masters and apprentices belonging to the same guild.
Needless to say, the whole modern usurious banking system would have to go. The charging of interest would be prohibited.
Church and State would enjoy relative autonomy in their respective spheres of competence, although the spiritual power would of course be able to overrule the temporal power in matters pertaining to religion and morals -- no mad scientists conducting diabolical Faustian research.
All in the context of a resurrected Christendom comprising a federation of independent Catholic nations, each founded on an alliance of Throne and Altar under a sacral monarch.
You know it makes sense.
The simple business of day-to-day living is more than enough to occupy most people's minds and hands. Why add to their burden by hectoring them to take an active interest or role in politics? Get rid of the parasitical political class created by democracy, let the leaders lead and let the common folk get on with their lives in peace.
Um, you do realize 1984 was a warning against totalitarian dictatorship, not monarchy?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 8, 2009 8:05 PM
Ah Pilty, still no evidence for your imaginary deity, holy babble, and church dogma being anything other than fiction. Minor details of lying about those things that infest your posts, and make you far outside of reality. Anything you say must be filtered through your lies.
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | August 8, 2009 8:14 PM
Well, Piltdown, all you need do to ensure this new Popetopia (for want of a better word) you've described for us in #651 is have your god confirm for us he exists and tell us that he wants us to live that way.
Maybe you should pray for it to happen. Do let us know how that turns out, won't you?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 8, 2009 8:19 PM
The state should be able to arrest priests who rape children and the prelates who support and protect the rapists. Or is this one of those "morals" things where the church has the final say?
Is there a difference between a dictatorship and a monarchy? There certainly doesn't seem to be any difference in North Korea, where son seceded father. Louis XIV of France and Charles I of England were absolute rulers of their kingdoms. Charles didn't call Parliament into session for almost 15 years. Napoleon had a fully functional secret police helping to keep him on the throne.
Posted by: windy | August 8, 2009 9:31 PM
"Proles and animals are free."
And a catholic complaining about creating a parasitical class? That's rich.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 8, 2009 9:44 PM
In a feudal society the "parasitical political class" are called the "aristocracy."
Anyway, how are these "leaders" selected? "Great-great-granddad was the biggest bully around and coerced everyone into obeying him, that's why I'm lord of this area" was the system used in both Europe and Japan during their feudal periods.
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | August 8, 2009 10:00 PM
From what I understand of history it's the one whose army of expendable peasants is still standing at the end of the day - which they assume means they have an mandate from their god.
That, or poison.
Posted by: windy | August 8, 2009 10:02 PM
Why not do like Scandinavia then - ditch the Catholicism, keep the holidays, add health care and worker rights legislation. Oh and serfdom was never even established in Sweden, Norway or Finland.
Isn't that a rather unusual thing for you to be praising?
Posted by: windy | August 8, 2009 11:13 PM
Wowbagger, there are historical examples of much more sophisticated methods of selecting a leader:
"The remaining six make some ground rules about the privileges of the King; they also agree that whoever's horse neighs first in the morning, that one of them will be King (84). Darius' groom Oebares prepares a trick: he mates Darius' horse with a mare that night, and on the next day leads the men past that spot. The horse remembers his night of passion and neighs, and as Zeus confirms the outcome with a flash from a cloudless sky, Darius becomes King (85-6). An alternate version says the groom rubbed his arm all over the mare's genitals, then held it under the nose of Darius' horse, causing him to neigh"
Posted by: Walton | August 9, 2009 8:07 AM
Piltdown, you're a lunatic. A very articulate and well-read lunatic, but a lunatic nonetheless.
You are wrong about capitalism. Capitalism is immeasurably better than feudalism and serfdom. In a capitalist economy, a free person has the right to enter a voluntary contract of employment, to leave his employment, and to work his way out of poverty. The social mobility engendered by capitalism gives people a chance to achieve wealth and success, whereas under feudalism they would be stuck in the station to which they were born. Quite apart from the moral dimension, do you really think it's efficient to waste the talents of very able people merely because they happened to be born into the peasant/worker caste?
I can't believe that in the twenty-first century I'm actually having to argue against bringing back feudalism. (Then again, as Hayek and Friedman highlighted, the ultimate outcome of socialist policies is not that dissimilar from serfdom; so I guess this is really the same argument I've been having with everyone else.)
Consumer capitalism is the greatest force for good in world history. I have a far more prosperous and comfortable lifestyle than any of my ancestors, thanks to capitalism.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 9, 2009 4:06 PM
It's the First of May, outdoor fucking starts today.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 9, 2009 4:45 PM
Walton #660
You were doing fine until you brought Hayek and Friedman into the picture. I know you think the sun shone out of Milton Friedman's ass, but when he was talking about politics and, particularly sociology, he was talking nonsense. Hayek, like most 1930s ultra-conservatives, had a fear (and yes, fear is the right word) of socialism.
I've already discussed Friedman with you so let's consider Friedrich Hayek, particularly his The Road to Serfdom. Although the Labour Party program he opposed was implemented after World War II and the central elements remained in place for decades thereafter, Britain did not in fact move towards dictatorship. The lack of a formation of a totalitarian state apparatus throughout the 1950s and 60s demonstrated that state planning does not lead towards the constraint of social and political freedom. Socialist economist Karl Polanyi made a case diametrically opposed to Hayek, arguing that unfettered markets had undermined social order and that economic breakdown had paved the way for the emergence of dictatorships in the 1920s and 1930s.
Hayek argued that central planning must of necessity be (or become) tightly coupled, but others dispute this premise. Paul Sweezy joked that Hayek would have you believe that if there was an over-production of baby carriages, the central planners would then order the population to have more babies instead of simply warehousing the temporary excess of carriages and decreasing production for next year. Personally, I agree with Stafford Beer that intelligent adaptive planning can increase freedom (but I won't derail this discussion with a digression into cybernetic management).
Gordon Tullock noted that Hayek predicted totalitarian governments in much of Europe in the late 20th century. Tullock used Sweden, in which the government at that time controlled over 60% of GNP, as an example to support his argument that the basic problem with The Road to Serfdom is "that it offered predictions which turned out to be false. The steady advance of government in places such as Sweden has not led to any loss of non-economic freedoms."
Incidentally, Walton, you should know that some libertarian economists don't like Hayek. Walter Block noted that while Hayek made a strong case against centrally-planned economies, he was only lukewarm in his support of pure free markets. Hayek said "probably nothing has done so much harm to the [neo-]liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez-faire capitalism".
Hayek did notable work on the theory of money and economic fluctuations. He was not as good when he wrote about socialism and central planning.
Posted by: Walton | August 9, 2009 5:08 PM
Yes, I was well aware of this. Hayek, like me, was perfectly willing to support a basic welfare safety net and some provision of state services. His case for a capitalist economy, like that of Friedman, was essentially pragmatic; they argued not that capitalism is freedom, but merely that freedom is not possible without capitalism.
By contrast, there are some libertarians - notably the followers of Rand and of Rothbard (though the two groups shouldn't be conflated)* - whose support of laissez-faire capitalism is based not on economics but on moral philosophy. They believe that any state coercion beyond the bare minimum (or, for the anarchocapitalists, any state coercion at all) is inherently immoral, deriving this conclusion from principles of ethics.
I am firmly in the Friedman and Hayek camp. I believe in free markets because, as the empirical evidence shows, they demonstrably produce more individual freedom and prosperity than any other form of socio-economic organisation. This is a pragmatic stance based on history and economics, not an absolutist stance based on abstract moral philosophy.
*(And, of course, Rand refused to use the term "libertarian" of herself, and passionately hated the then-nascent Libertarian Party of her day. You know what they say... trying to organise (or categorise) libertarians is like herding cats...)
Posted by: Walton | August 9, 2009 5:20 PM
This is just foolish. Considering that one of Hayek's works is entitled Why I Am Not A Conservative, I hardly think you can call him an "ultra-conservative" without providing some justification.
Yes, later conservative leaders such as Margaret Thatcher adopted Hayek's ideas. But he certainly wasn't a fan of the conservatives of his own era.
As to having an irrational fear of socialism: while I can't speak to whether Hayek had such a fear, I do think it's worth noting that Friedman, despite his strong personal opposition to Marxism, publicly and vocally opposed the McCarthy witch-hunts. Indeed, Capitalism and Freedom is full of denunciations of the sillier paranoia of that era (in condemning professional licensure laws, he points out that many US states at the time required not only their public officials to take anti-Communist oaths, but also prospective lawyers, doctors, dentists, morticians, and anyone else requiring a licence from the state). So while the mid-twentieth century was an era in which fear of "the Reds" was widespread, I hardly think the libertarians of the time were particularly guilty of succumbing to paranoia.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 9, 2009 6:50 PM
Walton, unlike you I've read Hayek. His essay "Why I Am Not A Conservative" was an explanation about why he was a libertarian (or what he called a "classical liberal"). Since you don't like the term "right winger" because it's too broad, I used the term "conservative" instead. He wasn't a fascist, but he was quite right wing. One of his complaints about Tories was they weren't conservative enough. His essay actually was "Why I am not a Tory."
Friedman, like many Americans of his age, recognized that Joseph McCarthy was a demagogue. McCarthy was an anti-communist because it was fashionable to be one. He'd been a quite undistinguished senator who stood a good chance of being defeated in the next election. That's why McCarthy started his anti-communist witch hunts. Friedman, whose anti-communist credentials were impeccable, recognized what McCarthy was up to and why. Also Friedman was concerned that McCarthy's antics would cause problems with genuine anti-communist activities.
Incidentally, McCarthy was from Appleton, Wisconsin, about ten miles from Oshkosh where I was born.