551. The atheist delusion

Comment #144731 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 4:53 pm

Yes geoff, but the desired result could be the way society is run at the moment. "the greatest good for those in power" Namely corporate capitalism.

552. The atheist delusion

Comment #144720 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 4:37 pm

SPS
Oh I see. Sorry.

553. The atheist delusion

Comment #144716 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 4:34 pm

The scientific method is the only known way so that we can approach an understanding of reality. We have no way to know whether this is happening, whether we have the capacity to understand reality etc, that is as a consequence of applying the scientific method, that we are biological organisms with limitations.

Ask the question. What's the best way to organise society? You cannot apply the scientific method to this question because the desired result is a value judgement.

The scientific method has limits to its application, so would always be part of society but cannot be applied to every question that is raised in that society. The information we use can only be acquired by the scientific method. As Russell puts it best:

While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.
- Religion and Science (1935)

554. The atheist delusion

Comment #144695 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 3:54 pm

SPS

Crediting ideas or mandates to religion/unquestionable dogma is almost on par with crediting it to divine influence.

They do the crediting. Systems of thought proffer ideas. When we critique those systems we don't necessarily attribute the idea as originating with the system, just that it professes it.

Don't you think so?

555. The atheist delusion

Comment #144691 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 3:35 pm

Yes. But science is only one facet of a society. How we decide on the other parts? The scientific method does not provide an 'answer' to those questions.

556. The atheist delusion

Comment #144666 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 2:42 pm

Dr BenwayScience is a-everything. It can only be used as a method for discovering facts. How best to organise societies, live your life etc cannot be interrogated scientifically, because the desired result is a value judgement.

557. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144663 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Steve Zara I would have cited CFCs in support of my argument.

Problems with CFCs were reported in 74. The Montreal Protocol wasn't enforced until 89.

Proves my point no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_protocol#History

In 1973 Chemists Frank Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, then at the University of California, Irvine, began studying the impacts of CFCs in the earth's atmosphere. They discovered that CFC molecules were stable enough to remain in the atmosphere until they got up into the middle of the stratosphere where they would finally (after an average of 50-100 years for two common CFCs) be broken down by ultraviolet radiation releasing a chlorine atom. Rowland and Molina then proposed that these chlorine atoms might be expected to cause the breakdown of large amounts of ozone (O3) in the stratosphere. Their argument was based upon an analogy to contemporary work by Paul J. Crutzen and Harold Johnston, which had shown that nitric oxide (NO) could catalyze the destruction of ozone. (Several other scientists, including Ralph Cicerone, Richard Stolarski, Michael McElroy, and Steven Wofsy had independently proposed that chlorine could catalyze ozone loss, but none had realized that CFCs were a potentially large source of chlorine.) Crutzen, Molina and Rowland were awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work on this problem.

The environmental consequence of this discovery was that, since stratospheric ozone absorbs most of the ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation reaching the surface of the planet, depletion of the ozone layer by CFCs would lead to an in increase in UV-B radiation at the surface, resulting in an increase in skin cancer and other impacts such as damage to crops and to marine phytoplankton.

But the Rowland-Molina hypothesis was strongly disputed by representatives of the aerosol and halocarbon industries. The Chair of the Board of DuPont was quoted as saying that ozone depletion theory is "a science fiction tale...a load of rubbish...utter nonsense". Robert Abplanalp, the President of Precision Valve Corporation (and inventor of the first practical aerosol spray can valve), wrote to the Chancellor of UC Irvine to complain about Rowland's public statements (Roan, p 56.)

After publishing their pivotal paper in June 1974, Rowland and Molina testified at a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives in December, 1974. As a result significant funding was made available to study various aspects of the problem and to confirm the initial findings. In 1976 the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a report that confirmed the scientific credibility of the ozone depletion hypothesis. NAS continued to publish assessments of related science for the next decade.

Then, in 1985, British Antarctic Survey scientists Farman, Gardiner and Shanklin shocked the scientific community when they published results of a study showing an ozone "hole" in the journal Nature �" showing a decline in polar ozone far larger than anyone had anticipated.

That same year, 20 nations, including most of the major CFC producers, signed the Vienna Convention which established a framework for negotiating international regulations on ozone-depleting substances.

But the CFC industry did not give up that easily. As late as 1986, the Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy (an association representing the CFC industry founded by DuPont) was still arguing that the science was too uncertain to justify any action. In 1987, DuPont testified before the US Congress that "we believe that there is no immediate crisis that demands unilateral regulation."

Relating to Climate Change:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=12771

"In the late 1980's the world's most powerful corporations launched their "globalization" revolution, incessantly invoking the inevitable beneficence of free trade and, in the process, relegating environmental issues to the margins and reducing the environmentalist movement to rearguard actions. Interest in climate change nevertheless continued to grow. In 1988, climate scientists and policymakers established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) to keep abreast of the matter and issue periodic reports. At a meeting in Toronto three hundred scientists and policy-makers from forty-eight countries issued a call for action on the reduction of CO2 emissions. The following year fifty oil, gas, coal, and automobile and chemical manufacturing companies and their trade associations formed the Global Change Coalition (GCC), with the help of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller. Its stated purpose was to sow doubt about scientific claims and forestall political efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The GCC gave millions of dollars In political contributions and in support of a public relations campaign warning that misguided efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through restrictions on the burning of fossil fuels would undermine the promise of globalization and cause economic ruin. GCC efforts effectively put the climate change issue on hold."

QED

558. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144622 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 12:51 pm

A model for religion is not very good if it doesn't take into account of degree of religiosity, for then "being religious" wouldn't be a particularly informative label.Though I am not a social scientist, but I do know that it is common sense in the social sciences not to attribute single cause to complex phenomenon such as religiosity. That's why, to the extent that it is feasible, techniques such as multiple regression and path analysis are used to discovered the relative strength of various factors. To attribute religion entirely to childhood upbringing (or any single cause for that matter) is a complete non starter.

Scientific, Anthropological and Historical education I assume would correlate very highly with non belief. Talk to some Christians, its either wonder at the natural world, or fear of death (more fear of loved ones deaths). Its not a coincidence that people lose their religion when they learn properly about evolution, learn properly about the history of their church and the History of human societies and culture. When they learn about the brain.

Education, specifically, if not only scientific, anthropological and historical education.

559. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144548 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 10:22 am

The answer has to be education, but I wonder if we have the time. Major decisions on issues like global warming have to be made over a timescale of years, rather than decades.

A decision to tackle global warming will be made when its profitable to do so, or necessary to make profits. You make the common fallacy of believing decisions by people in power are made for reasons other than power.

Education would help in changing peoples lifestyles, but the big changes, look to money and you'll see what decision will be made.

560. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144532 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 9:59 am

Bonzai
http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~vignaux/docs/logicalJuries.html

561. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144522 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 9:28 am

"As for religion being "a part of every observable society," if what is meant is that every society we know has sought to find some explanation for matters of deep human concern that we do not begin to understand (death, the origins of the universe, etc.), that's doubtless true. If one wants to call the constructs developed "religion," OK. I don't see what that implies, apart from the fact -- I presume it is a fact -- that people seek answers to hard questions, and where understanding reaches limits (very quickly, in most areas), they speculate, construct myths, etc. To draw conclusions about "human nature" from historical constructs of dominant societies in the past few thousand years seems to me quite a stretch." - Noam Chomsky

Something Dawkins was wrong about in my opinion. To draw conclusions about "human nature" from historical constructs of dominant societies in the past few thousand years seems to me quite a stretch. How true.

562. The atheist delusion

Comment #144515 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 16, 2008 at 9:19 am

The "yes physics and chemistry are very sciency, not so much the other stuff" line is not new. You are not the first to say this.

I'd be astonished if that wasn't true!

Well, actually, we can use methodological naturalism on just about everything.

I'm wondering what were arguing here? The rubric of this thread is Atheism as a political project, and the only point worth considering, in my opinion, in this article is this one:

The problem with the secular narrative is not that it assumes progress is inevitable (in many versions, it does not). It is the belief that the sort of advance that has been achieved in science can be reproduced in ethics and politics. In fact, while scientific knowledge increases cumulatively, nothing of the kind happens in society. Slavery was abolished in much of the world during the 19th century, but it returned on a vast scale in nazism and communism, and still exists today. Torture was prohibited in international conventions after the second world war, only to be adopted as an instrument of policy by the world's pre-eminent liberal regime at the beginning of the 21st century. Wealth has increased, but it has been repeatedly destroyed in wars and revolutions [This point is ridiculous]. People live longer and kill one another in larger numbers [True buts its implication is a fallacy] . Knowledge grows, but human beings remain much the same.

It is the belief that the sort of advance that has been achieved in science can be reproduced in ethics and politics.

That is true. Science is hard to implement on politics, namely how societies should be organised. The patently obvious fact is that atheism is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. History is sometimes lucky enough to set up experiments, and Stalinist Russia was one for atheism. Stalin was an atheist. Atheism prescribes nor predicts anything else.

I do hark on about the issue of race but it seems to perfect an example to not repeat. Scientifically discovered facts mean that racism can be justified with scientific discovery. There is not a binary answer to the question. Science does not provide binary answers to complex questions. It merely provides facts. I happen to think races don't even exist, impossible to define practically, and perhaps a symptom of the most destructive force in human history, believing that the human race is sub-divided in anyway, be it nationally, racially, by gender or any other.

Science is a-everything. It can only be used as a method for discovering facts. How best to organise societies, live your life etc cannot be interrogated scientifically, because the desired result is a value judgement.

It seems like arguing about the number of angels on the head of a pin, but I think this is of monumental importance. Its the only valid critique of the 'atheist movement'. One that seems to be ignored.

563. The atheist delusion

Comment #144379 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 15, 2008 at 9:33 pm

Beware the "hard science" verses "soft science" talkers. Beware the "science is like a religion" talkers. These ploys are used to sell a lie. That lie is this: there exists some alternate method of inquiry that provides us with reliable information about the world.

Answer the points i raise rather than categorising my position as something sinister.

But scientific fact is not the quixotic, beautifully clear thing it is often portrayed to be. In the hard sciences, but in the soft its a method that does not have the same clarity, and is open to manipulation.

If that is not self-evidently true, I can give you a case by case, thorough exposition. Sleep is calling, unfortunately.

564. The atheist delusion

Comment #144227 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 15, 2008 at 12:10 pm

O Benway yes I agree. Taking scientific facts and drawing conclusions beyond their acceptable limits. Applying Darwinian explanations too widely, to business, justifications of corporate capitalism etc.

But scientific fact is not the quixotic, beautifully clear thing it is often portrayed to be. In the hard sciences, but in the soft its a method that does not have the same clarity, and is open to manipulation.

565. The atheist delusion

Comment #144219 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 15, 2008 at 11:53 am

You're confusing two distinct problems:

1. Science as a method for separating fact from fiction.
2. Dressing up bold social agendas in lab coats and test tubes to fool people into believing dodgy claims.

#1 is the enemy of #2. You seem to see #1 and #2 as allies.

Maybe I'm not being clear. Take racism. Its an open topic. The far right are using scientifically discovered facts and putting them into propaganda. My BNP quote is taken directly from their manifesto. No appeals to hatred or ignorance, but to the appeal of scientific fact to make their views respectable. #2 is taking from #1.

You are mixing hard science and soft science, and idealising the results of using the scientific method on the kind of questions that I am implicitly talking about: Race, Gender, Sexuality, Social Structures, Law etc.

Racism is a prime example of this. Evolution suggests that race is important.

Quite the opposite, actually.

I think the evidence shows race is utterly meaningless, and its almost all a social construct. But it's an open topic.

EDIT: youmeyou Yes I agree. In physics chemistry etc, the scientific method works as it says on the tin. The hard sciences namely. In the soft sciences, its incredibly susceptible to bias.

566. The atheist delusion

Comment #144214 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 15, 2008 at 11:18 am

Dr Benway

The set of facts accepted as true by application of this method provides a description of the world. But this description prescribes nothing.

a-everything as I said yes.

But branding a fact "scientific" adds no particular meaning.

I have to disagree in the strongest terms possible. Branding a fact scientific adds an enormous meaning to a statement of 'fact'. It carries with it the respectability that science has earned. With respectability comes great efficacy.

Racism is a prime example of this. Evolution suggests that race is important. I choose to highlight the facts that make race meaningless but I could just as easily make race seem an undeniable fact that is of ultimate importance. I will again quote the British National Party:

"We do not accept the absurd superstition propagated for different though sometimes overlapping reasons by capitalists, liberals, Marxists and theologians - of human equality. ...This must not be taken to mean or imply that we believe that any particular ethnic group or race is 'superior' or 'inferior'; we simply recognise that as any biologist would be able to predict, and the new medical science of pharmacogenetics is now confirming human populations which have undergone micro-evolutionary changes while being separated for many thousands of years have developed differences in many fields of endeavour, susceptibility to health problems, behavioural tendencies and such like."
British National Party: Rebuilding British Democracy general election manifesto 2005, p. 17

Where there is room in science, on the particularly contentious issues a scientific opinion carries enormous importance for propaganda. Beyond any other branding of a fact.

Science itself is merely a method for separating fact from fiction.

Yes but this thread is about the elevation of science and reason. That it will cure all human ills. Science and reason have exactly the same foibles as religion. The soft sciences are very much about agenda, and propaganda etc.

567. The atheist delusion

Comment #144136 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 15, 2008 at 7:05 am

He gives less attention to the fact that some of the worst atrocities of modern times were committed by regimes that claimed scientific sanction for their crimes. Nazi "scientific racism"

If you read Mein Kampf yes Hitler is obsessed with race and blood purity and this allows the fervour of hatred to ferment against non-Aryans, particularly Jews. The fact that it was justified by science, stemming from Galton's eugenics, is important, I don't know why there is so much argument against this patently obvious fact.

The BNP in Britain use science to justify their bile:

"We do not accept the absurd superstition �" propagated for different though sometimes overlapping reasons by capitalists, liberals, Marxists and theologians - of human equality. ...This must not be taken to mean or imply that we believe that any particular ethnic group or race is 'superior' or 'inferior'; we simply recognise that �" as any biologist would be able to predict, and the new medical science of pharmacogenetics is now confirming �" human populations which have undergone micro-evolutionary changes while being separated for many thousands of years have developed differences in many fields of endeavour, susceptibility to health problems, behavioural tendencies and such like." British National Party: Rebuilding British Democracy general election manifesto 2005, p. 17

The BNP are Nazi's its like studying a Hunter-gatherer tribe deep in the forest to help understand how ancient humans lived. Why must we close our eyes to the fact that science, reason can be manipulated. That science and reason are amoral, a-everything and that they can be used to ferment fervour and hatred as powerfully as anything else. They can make these things acceptable.

Science and reason 'can' make all horrific kinds of things acceptable.

Science and reason are a-everything. They can be used in a multiplicity of ways to justify multiplicities of beliefs.

Humans however much we deny it, are emotional creatures, "Our frontal lobes too small, and our pituitary glands too big". Rationalisation is usually post-hoc. Just take the atheists on this site who rationalise their political beliefs with reason.

We can pretend we are logical and rational but we just aren't.

BUT - who would suggest a society that would not value science, reason and logic?

568. Fleabytes

Comment #142283 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 12, 2008 at 8:59 am

On Music



http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Your-Brain-Music-Understanding/dp/1843547155

http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0525949690

http://www.yourbrainonmusic.com/

569. Fleabytes

Comment #139781 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 6, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Evolution of Homosexuality? Any ideas. Here's the Rottweiler's explanation:

If homosexuality is genetically influenced - in the extreme case, if there is a gene or collection of genes that makes someone homosexual - what advantage is there in it? Surely the 'aim' of DNA is to be replicated as much as possible.

S. Keane

Richard Dawkins' reply to this question, and others like it, is dealt with in his letter to the Daily Telegraph: "Could a gay gene really survive?" (16th August, 1993), reproduced below.

Genes that predispose a significant minority of men to homosexuality raise a Darwinian puzzle. If homosexual men rarely father children, homosexual genes should dwindle to the low frequency expected from recurrent random mutation, a frequency below one in a million. Even if Kinsey's estimate of one in ten is high, there can be no doubt that the abundance of homosexual men is too great to have stemmed from recurrent mutation alone.

As long as the (always implausible) social science orthodoxy was maintained that homosexual inclinations were entirely made, not born, there was little problem. The recent demonstration that, not for the first time, the politically correct is factually incorrect, changes all that. Moreover, contrary to two Letters to the Editor of this newspaper, the evidence that the 'gay' gene lies on the X chromosome (which a man receives only from his mother, and cannot pass to his sons) provides no let-out. A man passes his X chromosome to all his daughters and, on average, a quarter of his grandsons. Any gene that reduces a man's daughters is subject to strong negative selection. It should, other things being equal, disappear.

When Darwinians are challenged by some seemingly un-Darwinian fact of human life, they often invoke the distortions of civilization. Why have we a taste for sugar when it rots our teeth? Because civilization blunts the cutting edge of natural selection, and in our ancestral past sugar was too scarce to do anything but good. Darwinians have framed similar theories about homosexuality: forget the ephemera of modern life, how might homosexual genes have fared during all those millennia on the African savannah?

Some of these theories note that genes have different effects in different contexts. Genes that promote homosexuality in, say, bottle-fed individuals might foster some advantageous trait in breast-fed individuals. Before the teated bottle was invented, the gene would not have surfaced as a gene 'for' homosexuality at all. It would have been a gene 'for' something quite different, perhaps resistance to a virus. Obviously I name 'bottle' and 'virus' only for the sake of argument. The general point is that the effects of a gene may depend upon context. As a special case, they may depend upon which other genes are present in the body. Homosexuality may therefore manifest itself in some individuals, as a spinoff from a gene's positive selection because of its desirable effect in other individuals. A particular version of this theory postulates a gene that causes homosexuality in males but a completely different, beneficial, effect in females.
Another theory, the 'sterile worker,' starts from the well-understood observation that worker bees, ants, wasps, termites and naked mole-rats divert their energy and time away from reproduction and towards the welfare of their young collateral relatives. Perhaps Pleistocene children, while their macho fathers were away hunting, were left under the protection of a gay uncle? The uncle's genes, including those promoting homosexuality, would have a good chance of being reproduced by the children whom he protected as surrogate father.

Incidentally the newly discovered 'gay gene', being on the X chromosome, could be shared by a maternal uncle's nephews (and nieces) but not by a paternal uncle's nephews. It is tantalising to recall the anthropological finding that, in those many societies where uncle replaces father as economic and protective guardian of a child, it is universally the mother's brother not the father's brother. Admittedly, this "mother's brother effect" already has an alternative Darwinian explanation.

In any case, the sterile worker theory doesn't explain why the uncles, in addition to refraining from normal masculine activities, should enjoy making love to men. Indeed one might think that, left in camp with the women, there is another obvious way in which they could benefit their genes, over and above caring for their nephews and nieces. This brings me to my own favourite, the 'sneaky male' theory.

In harem-based species, like some seals and deer, a minority of males monopolises the females, leaving a surplus of bachelors. Those supernumerary males that have no hope of displacing a harem-master sometimes specialise in an alternative, 'best of a bad job,' strategy: sneaking quick copulations with females while his back is turned. Genes promoting sneaking skills are passed on, in parallel with genes promoting the dominant male skill of bashing up other males.

You can tell harem species by their sexual dimorphism - males larger than females. Humans are less dimorphic than elephant seals (a dominant bull typically outweighs 14 females) but dimorphic enough to suggest at least some legacy of harem-based history. Clandestine matings with females may have provided the only route for surplus bachelors to pass on their genes. Their skills may have included lulling harem masters into a false sense of security, and now here is the point. A genuine preference for other males might well carry more conviction than a simulated indifference to females. By analogy, women frequently remark that they feel 'secure' in the company of homosexual men, and monarchs have staffed their harems with eunuchs. Incidentally, experts doubt the widely-promulgated story that the Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim was so jealous of a rumoured liaison between a eunuch and an unidentified odalisque that he drowned his entire 280-strong harem in the Bosporus. In any case homosexual men are not eunuchs and they can fertilise women. According to the sneaky male theory, their homosexual orientation gained them privileged access to women and a minority stream of homosexual genes prospered.

Explanations buried in Pleistocene history are always less convincing where reproduction, rather than survival, is at stake. Early death may have been largely abolished nowadays, but genes still vary in their ability to get themselves reproduced. If a homosexuality gene lowers its own probability of being reproduced today, and yet still abounds in the population, that is a problem for commonsense as much as for Darwin's theory of evolution. And, intriguing as several of these theories may be, I have to conclude that it remains a problem.
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/FAQs.shtml

570. Fleabytes

Comment #139660 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 6, 2008 at 11:13 am

Tolerance is rather unpleasant. Its like you think something is an aberration or unpleasant, but your just avert your gaze and 'tolerate' it.

I assume its a matter of not understanding the phrase, or its implications. Just a 'meme' picked up without much consideration.

571. Berlin gallery in Islam art row

Comment #139370 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 5, 2008 at 4:42 pm

http://www.thecanadianpress.com/english/online/OnlineFullStory.aspx?filename=w022793A&newsitemid=45411024&languageid=1

KHARTOUM, Sudan - President Omar al-Bashir vowed on Wednesday to ban Danes from Sudan and called for a Muslim boycott of Denmark before a crowd of tens of thousands denouncing the country at a government-backed protest against a cartoon satirizing the Prophet Muhammad.

572. Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot

Comment #138481 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 4, 2008 at 12:29 pm

Dawkins talked about this in the God Delusion.

EDIT: In my version, Footnote on page 52, Chapter: The God Hypothesis, sub-heading The Poverty of Agnosticism.

573. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137181 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 2, 2008 at 1:34 pm

scooternyc

"if for example someone gained control of something necessary for life, for example a water supply"

This statement implies a limit of resources.

Does one not have opportunity and freedom to seek those resources elsewhere for self and others?

Take Chomskys account of a village in Laos. The villagers had access to a local lake but a powerful individual gained control of this lake and fenced it off. The villagers had to trudge several miles to get the water essential for life.

A Visit to Laos

I take it you see no problem in principle with this kind of exercise of personal freedom?

574. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137167 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 2, 2008 at 1:12 pm

315. Comment #137136 by scooternyc on March 2, 2008 at 12:08 pm
"'personal freedom above all' cannot rule supreme"

I disagree. Do you have a specific example by which to examine this idea that you would label as such?

Lets say that a person has the right to whatever he has acquired by means that are just. You'd agree with that I take it?

If, by luck or labour or ingenuity a person acquires such-and-such, then he is entitled to keep it and dispose of it as he wills.

This has obvious implications and personal freedom would have to be negated in this case, if for example someone gained control of something necessary for life, for example a water supply. Or a power plant pumping out copious amounts of C02. Personal freedom does not trump all.

575. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137089 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 2, 2008 at 10:36 am

AtheistJon"So, yes to the amicability of disagreement settling. No, to telling people to go away or stop posting because we don't like what you're saying."

Yes absolutely. I personally disliked the banning of David Robertson, free speech is far too important.

I find disagreement thrilling. To challenge what you think each and every day is incredibly important.

"We may disagree on some things, but we can do so without being disagreeable."

I personally don't care. Honesty is far more important.

576. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136997 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 2, 2008 at 5:31 am

"ALL INTERESTS ARE PERSONAL INTERESTS"
That does not necessarily mean they are selfish interests. Have you completely missed all the discussion on the evolution of morality?

577. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136436 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 1, 2008 at 7:26 am

When statistics were brought to you that you didn't agree with you called them:
"liberal scare tactics"

"The level of gun ownership world-wide is directly related to murder and suicide rates and specifically to the level of death by gunfire."

International Correlation between gun ownership and rates of homicide and suicide.' Professor Martin Killias, May 1993.

"Homicide rates tend to be related to firearm ownership levels. Everything else being equal, a reduction in the percentage of households owning firearms should occasion a drop in the homicide rate".

Evidence to the Cullen Inquiry 1996: Thomas Gabor, Professor of Criminology - University of Ottawa

deaths per 100,000
Homicide, Suicide,Other (inc Accident)

USA (2001) 3.98, 5.92,0.36
Italy (1997) 0.81, 1.1, 0.07
Switzerland (1998) 0.50, 5.8, 0.10
Canada (2002) 0.4, 2.0, 0.04
Finland (2003) 0.35, 4.45, 0.10
Australia (2001) 0.24, 1.34, 0.10
France (2001) 0.21, 3.4, 0.49
England/Wales (2002) 0.15, 0.2, 0.03
Scotland (2002) 0.06, 0.2, 0.02
Japan (2002) 0.02, 0.04, 0

But they are just the fanatics right???

578. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136433 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 1, 2008 at 7:11 am

touché

579. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136430 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 1, 2008 at 7:08 am

scooternyc
I call you a free-market fallacy.

580. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136427 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 1, 2008 at 6:48 am

Self defence is a powerful argument. For example a someone defending themselves from rape when in normal circumstances that would not be possible. Unfortunately it is a dud because all American citizens have the right to bear arms so it seems logical that potential criminals would be more likely to commit their crimes using firearms than not.
The only way guns can be used as effective self-protection is if the aggressor is not using a gun, or is using a gun but you can somehow become in control by catching him unaware or from behind etc, or have other people to protect you.
The reason most people find the American citizens attachment to his gun so abhorrent is its implication. That force is preferable to other forms of conflict resolution. It reflects a massive difference, just as the 'American dream' and the demonising of words like socialism.
I've said I see no good argument against gun control in terms of self-defence, defence against tyranny but only because it is a catch-22 situation.
Defence against tyranny is bogus in the US as Bonzai has pointed out (guns v tanks). I hope to have shown that self-protection is a similarly bogus argument as it is only valid because of its catch-22 nature.

Interesting side note: "There was only one catch and that was Catch-22. Like the final commandment left at the end of Animal Farm, Catch-22 is an entire rule book distilled into one lunatic decree. Its very uniqueness meant that Heller had to think carefully before naming, or numbering, it. And his choice was?… Catch-18."

581. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136079 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 29, 2008 at 1:03 pm

There should be learned papers published on the decays of threads. I suspect many have already been published.

Godwin's Law?

582. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136060 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 29, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Yes the defence against tyranny is bogus thanks Bonzai, my image was far more primitive.

Al-rawandi my name has nothing to do with a toad its from the title of an essay by George Orwell: Some Thoughts on the Common Toad

The last few lines:

How many a time have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, spring is still spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.

583. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135990 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 29, 2008 at 11:57 am

My logic was merely illustrative of the problem. Once the cat is out of the bag there's not much that can be done. You have to see that this is the way 'the right to bear arms' is couched in western Europe. Its so alien, you sound like reflexive fundamentalists.
I can actually seen no good argument against the right to bear arms as a defence against tyranny and as self-defence.
Its the strange way that patriotism and the right to bear arms are worn proudly on the average Americans psyche, but in Europe its different, patriotism is ironic more than anything else.

584. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135954 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 29, 2008 at 11:25 am

The right to bear arms

All people have the right to bear arms because, well other people have guns so you need to protect yourself.

All countries need atomic bombs because, well other countries have atomic bombs so they need them to protect themselves.

No??????

585. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #135233 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 6:28 pm

Despots are commonly anti-intellectuals. Hitler murdered the Jews, wiping out a disproportionate number of professors, doctors, scientists, attorneys, etc. Stalin persecuted his intellectuals, sending thousands to the Gulag. Mao made professors scrub toilets during the Cultural Revolution. Pol Pot explicitly hunted down and murdered anyone with higher education.

Yes and with Pol Pot merely if a person looked like an intellectual. I believe glasses were a symptom of the affliction.

I'm not suggesting we pull the plug, merely noting that we do not need nor have a rational argument for keeping unproductive people alive. Most of what we do, we do because that's what we've long done, not because everybody sat down and thought things through logically.

The currency of productivity is fungible, although intelligence would always factor in no doubt.
I know you get the same pangs of conscience when contemplating such a world though (as your description of the child from Darfur shows). A free-market for existence may be the solution to over-population, resource shortage and the extinction of the species but:
Would I save someones life if I had the chance? Yes. Would I provide care for an individual who lacks productivity? Yes. To all similar questions I would answer yes. Why? Because my evolved 'morality' compels me to do so.
I can see a future where either we deal with the problems of over-population and resource shortage or they deal with us, but I still answer yes. It's a blind spot in that my justification is purely emotional and perhaps the actions based on these emotions will destroy the species (although the bi-products of this are solidarity, community etc which have allowed humans to exist up until now). I still cannot bring myself to advocate your sophisticated form of eugenics.
Lets hope genetic doping will come before nature strangles us. Still the same problems of over-population arise. Are we as a species doomed?

586. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #135175 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Are you suggesting Prof. Hawking is severely mentally retarded? That doesn't make sense.

Yes I agree that in the context of your quote it does seem strange. I was though (although I was unclear I admit) referring to your more general point that:

Consider: there are some people who have very little chance of ever pulling their own weight in society

By some measures Hawking fits this criteria; A man who is completely dependent on others for survival. I think I will retract my point though if your criterion for imbecility is intelligence. We can imagine the kind of society this would create, but I won't be as ungenerous as to suppose intelligence is your only criterion so I will allow you to elucidate further.

Let's try another moral dilemma that may be easier to picture. Suppose you are in a lifeboat that can hold 50 people of average weight before it sinks. Suppose there are 100 people drowning in the water around you. If more than 49 other people climb in the lifeboat, everybody drowns. What do you do? What is the purely rational thing to do when you lack the resources to save everybody?

Similar to Joshua D. Greene famous "Trolley Problem". You would obviously choose a utilitarian solution if you were being purely rational, and it seems instinctive also.

It's strange how that works. If one of those starving kids from Darfur was on your doorstep, you'd probably go out of your way to feed and clothe the poor child. But when the problem is a continent away, most of us rarely think about it.

I refer you to a comment I made in another thread. I completely agree.
"The insular way we humans live our lives today, divorced from the consequences of our actions allows forms of behaviour that wouldn't be dreamed of if we were connected to the consequences of our actions."

As to the method. Society should provide a place for all people of all abilities to live and prosper.
"If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered."-Adam Smith

It probably comes as no surprise that I generally don't do that. I'm far too smugly condescending to have any chance at despotism. Look at how I get flamed on this site; how many people are lining up to swear allegiance to me

I like the way you post. It's all too easy to trot out trite pith.

I don't know. Did Hitler want to cure the retarded, as I advocated in my post? Or did Hitler simply want to kill them?

I was referring to your tendency towards eugenics.

For the most part I reject Hitler's most lasting contribution to modern society: the superhighway, at least for personal use. I do, somewhat inconsistently, eat food shipped in trucks that travel on Hitler highways.

Why?

I would be surprised if I have ever had an original thought.

I would be surprised if there ever are that many original thoughts. The few who are believed to have had them are regarded as geniuses. Original in terms of the fact that no one ever thought them, but truly original? I doubt there could be many more than a few tens of people who could claim that honour.

587. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135151 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 3:28 pm

Devolution
Yeah I know and then in Texas they wanted to teach Spanish.

"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for Texas schoolchildren"

588. Fleabytes

Comment #135143 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 3:17 pm

Richard Morgan You don't get the halitosis or flatulence, but you also don't get the ability to be ironic and sarcastic and mocking with the ease, or necessary surprise required.

589. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135137 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 3:08 pm

Its so obvious with even a cursory glance at the foundation of America that it is not a Christian nation and that people who believe it are either self-deceptive,liars or ignorant.
Most are a combination of self-deception and ignorance. So even if this is presented to them it won't change their faith. That is of course the nature of faith.

590. Fleabytes

Comment #135096 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 2:17 pm

Richard Morgan
This is a relatively common sales technique called "creating the need".

You certainly love your Richard Bandler. :)

591. Fleabytes

Comment #135081 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 2:07 pm

Verylee
Yes that why I added the caveat at the end. I like the dialectic by the way.

592. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #135077 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 2:01 pm

If we looked at the numbers, we might find that society as a whole would advance faster if we were to exterminate the severely mentally retarded, and transfer the savings to fund more scientific research. That raises the question of what sort of humanitarian benefits we squander by beggaring science to feed the retarded - perhaps we are delaying scientific research that could ultimately save more lives than we are currently paying to feed.

Of course we won't consider such a thing, but why not? Not because we've thought it through on rational grounds (yes, there is the slippery slope argument, and it carries weight, but we take our chances atop many slippery slopes, such as for example by building the most destructive military machine in history and expecting politicians to keep it under control). The vast majority of people have never rationally considered the issue. If they did, some might find no purely logical reason to disagree with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. who famously opined "Three generations of imbeciles is enough" as an expression of his strict utilitarianism.

Of course we can on purely rational grounds. So you would exterminate Stephen Hawking? We cannot judge what is or isn't imbecilic.

: magnetism, ambition, intelligence, ability to inspire and manipulate others, and a sociopath's ruthlessness and freedom from empathy and guilt.

In short a psychopath.

Do I see the beginnings of a Hitler in you?

All despots thus far appear to have been men. I don't know if that means women are immune to despotic tendencies, but if they are, that indicates a simple way to eliminate the problem or at least make it far less probable: banish men from politics. The few women who have risen to positions of leadership certainly haven't made a bigger mess of things than men thus far, so this seems like a very low-cost strategy.

Desmond Morris suggests this actually. Read him you'll like him.

593. Fleabytes

Comment #135067 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 1:48 pm

I have to say I'm incredibly suspicious of PMurdock. He has come to this site, apparently very recently and seems to be uncommonly knowledgeable of Wee Flea, knows he is David Robertson and has come armed with a distortion of a quote by Dawkins. Called posters on this site "Dawkins followers" and seems to be to naive to be credible.
If he really is a guy just starting university, questioning the world after having been brought up in a strict Christian family then I'm sorry PMurdock and Hello. I have to say his choice of topics seems too suspicious for me.

594. Fleabytes

Comment #135057 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 1:40 pm

Actual Dawkins quote:
"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference."

That's actually a beautiful sentiment.

595. Dispatches: Holy Offensive

Comment #135044 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Cultural Sensitivity a liberal cause?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

"The job of a liberal state is not to stamp The True National Essence on its citizens, nor to promote "difference" for its own sake. It is to uphold the equal rights of every individual"
source: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2247,Why-multiculturalism-must-be-abandoned,Johann-Hari

596. Evolving Mistakes

Comment #135019 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 12:55 pm

3. Comment #134097 by ThoughtsonCommonToad
And a question, I assume horizontal gene transfer is a precursor to sex? The evolution of sex is interesting but I only have an amateurs knowledge. One of my favourites is that sex evolved as a sort of cannibalism.

I don't know why this thread hasn't provoked more discussion. It's one of the best I've read in a while on this site.

597. Fleabytes

Comment #134948 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 11:20 am

PMurdock

Prof. Dawkins followers a little above that?

I smell a rat.

598. Fleabytes

Comment #134830 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 28, 2008 at 8:41 am

Geoff - Actually Dawkins proves the existence of God with that clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC66oXIDGc8

599. Evolving Mistakes

Comment #134097 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 27, 2008 at 8:37 am

Fascinating. Viruses really are just bumbling along. A case where its quantity not quality. Again fascinating.

The stunning power of evolution is always summed up by this article for me. Evolving a Conscious Machine

And a question, I assume horizontal gene transfer is a precursor to sex? The evolution of sex is interesting but I only have an amateurs knowledge. One of my favourites is that sex evolved as a sort of cannibalism.

600. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133970 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 27, 2008 at 5:16 am

Styrer
In terms of performance enhancement I find it hard to see where to draw a line as the athletes job is to enhance his/hers performance.

I agreed with your point that in athletics we should as far as we can aspire to achieve equality. You pointed out that athletics should be a battle of athletic ability, rather than athletic ability plus capital, by making the point that drugs cost money.

So I suggested a universal budget to subtract capital from the athletes equation. You answered me with the very obvious point that this was a pie in the sky idea and what would I implement as practical solution against the one already employed: that being 'drugs' however one defines them, as the 'cutting-off' point.

So I suggested that scarcely available resources should be disallowed. This is to aspire to equality. It has obvious limitations. Is it expected that all athletes will live at the same altitude, in the same climate, with access to the same foods (allowing athletes who wish to keep a stricter diet than others to do so), same training facilities (allowing for athletes who wish to train more to do so) with access to the same coaching?

Well obviously this is a utopian wet dream and is not a practical solution.

Those are the two urges I'm fighting, one is that there is no line to be drawn in terms of what substances you can put in your body if the equation for each athlete is merely athletic ability plus effort. The other is that in the real world the equation is athletic ability plus capital plus effort. With capital comes access to all other sorts of resources and which enhances an athletes performance in an unfair way compared to other athletes.

So I cannot say I would make the cut-off at drugs because if we allow the some of the advantages of capital, we should allow them all. I wish to make the equation athletic ability plus effort, but unfortunately it is, and probably always will be, athletic ability plus capital plus effort.

JUST TO HELP YOU STYRER THE REST OF THE POST DOESN'T RESPOND DIRECTLY TO YOUR POINT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO CARRY ON READING AS IT IS AN OVERLY LONG POST

Note to Goldy: bloody line drawing lol.
And yes in the grand scheme of things sport is such a trivial part of existence. The gloom you hear on late night phone-ins, the anguish and despair because your local team lost 3-0 (in my case a regular occurrence). There are things to really despair about in this world and if the general population were not saturated with a facile entertainment culture the world could be a better place. It is just silly really I agree.

The fact that David Beckham gets dropped from the England team get more coverage than the suicide bombing in Pakistan and Iraq that day, more than the massacre in Darfur etc. The insular way we humans live our lives today, divorced from the consequences of our actions allows forms of behaviour that wouldn't be dreamed of if we were connected to the consequences of our actions. We wouldn't dream of dumping litter in a big hole in the ground to rot away for example. Out of sight out of mind unfortunately. We don't see the amount of carbon dioxide pumped in the atmosphere so that our television can stay on standby to save 5 minutes of our time re-inputting the settings. We don't see the animals who are treated appallingly to provide us with a meal. I'll stop I think the last paragraph is a bit of a rant but hey we're all allowed one from time to time.

TERATORNIS. You're blowing my mind. Genetic engineering on adult genomes, not just so called designer babies. Do you have any resources? I can't tell how much you've just blown my mind. "it may someday be possible to completely reconstruct a person's body down to the molecular level". Wow