Comments by Robert Maynard

If we looked at how our conception of space and time were formed, what would this tell us about space and time?

It would certainly articulate what difficulties we would need to overcome to transcend the limits of our perceptual and conceptual apparatus. For example, today we frequently need to construct dimensional models that reduce greater numbers of dimensions into being expressed as three or four, as we are aware that we are incapable of conceiving more than four dimensions, but more than four just so happen to exist.

What we "know" also has something, at least something, to do with the way the world is. There's a lot of scientists on this thread that would consider your comments fighting talk.

You are misconstruing my comments if you're suggesting that I said brains develop in isolation from the world. I can't imagine how one even begins to speak of psychology without referring specifically to the interactions between cognitive apparatus and a presumed objective world that they are attempting to represent.

However, if your comment about "the way the world is" was implying that anything we know about the world (misrepresentations included) is not somehow the result of sensory observation, biologically hardwired tendencies, or the active interaction of the two, but instead something innate to our knowledge, the floor is yours to demonstrate it.

152. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72471 by Robert Maynard on September 21, 2007 at 7:44 am

revcort, #72453,

By the biblical narrative and the actions of Adam and Eve, human beings have knowledge of good and evil of a standard consistent with God (Genesis 2:17, Genesis 3:5). This is precisely the Bible's justification for our self-determinate role in our own fates. We are told that the laws of God are "written on our hearts", and as such we must all be judged by the standards of God, since we are all capable of distinguishing sin from virtue.

Therefore you have no consistent scriptural basis for your claim that our standards of justice can misidentify the Just as the Unjust, particularly when the agent in question is God.

If what the Bible says is true, then God is behaving in a manner so self-serving, abusive and hypocritical, that our God-given (apparently) sense of morality can and must identify him as evil. Again, according to the Bible our understanding of 'evil' is explicitly in alignment with his own.

Now, since as you say, this isn't about justice for human beings, but rather about God orchestrating a scenario in which to feel "glorified", perhaps the principles at hand don't matter. Perhaps you are making a wise decision in identifying that the Universe is administered by the most horrifyingly overpowered tyrant conceivable, and while his actions and standards are visibly unfair, you feel it would be foolish to do anything but cowl to his demands for praise and superficially profess sympathy with his desire to appear benevolent. That when you pronounce every judgment and action of God to be "perfectly just", you do so as a means of forced and terrified flattery.

But if you've already agreed that God is not fair to humans, is single-mindedly concerned with his own "glory", and that it is his will, not his regret, that the apparent majority of mankind will be tortured forever.. I'm just not sure where to go from here.

Might I suggest that you should welcome, more than just about anyone else here, the reality that this celestial dictator does not exist?
I mean, most Christians justify their uncritical faith by stressing the appeal of a God. What's your excuse?

153. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72426 by Robert Maynard on September 21, 2007 at 3:18 am

You're right, revcort, I did not like Paul's answer.
It seems to me that Romans 1:20 (and 10:8-11) explicitly contradicts Romans 9:13-22, and lays bare the incongruity between choice and design.

Let's run through some propositions, which I hope will outline the problem. Assuming you are entirely in agreement with the Bible, I'll answer these propositions for you with Bible quotes.

Did God create the universe?
The Bible says: Yes. (Genesis 1:1)

Did God, in doing so, possess full and complete knowledge of every outcome of his Creation process, for all time?
The Bible says: Yes. (Revelation 1:8, Isaiah 46:10)

Did God, in creating the angel Lucifer, therefore not only know of his intention to rebel, but necessarily engineered him to do so?
The Bible says: Yes. (Revelations 4:11, Romans 9:22)

Was God therefore not only capable of predicting the sinful "Fall" of man, but also knowingly designed and created every agent (including man himself) that made it so?
The Bible says: Yes. (Isaiah 46:10, Job 42:2)

Was it within God's power to create a universe in which nothing would ever go wrong?
The Bible says: Yes. (Psalm 115:3, Jeremiah 32:27)

So is the Universe, as it exists, complete with the full spectrum of sin and suffering, precisely as God designed and willed it to be?
The Bible says: Yes. (1 Peter 1:20, Isaiah 46:10)

Is God, therefore, responsible for the individual choices, beliefs, and actions of every human being who has ever, or will ever exist, for the entire duration of the Universe?
The Bible says: Yes. (Romans 9:15-16)

Is God then meting out approval or punishment, to be subjectively experienced by humans for eternity, on the basis of decisions he has made for them?
The Bible says: Yes. (Matthew 25:46, Romans 9:21)

Contrast this with the following propositions

Is God benevolent?
The Bible says: Yes. (John 4:16)

Is salvation equally available to all?
The Bible says: Yes. (John 3:16, Romans 1:16)

I've yet to come across a Christian who can satisfyingly reconcile these conflicting lines of reasoning. Paul's unsatisfying attempt to address it in Romans 9 (boiling down to "Who are you to question God?") is suggestive that this nagging contradiction was intuitive to skeptics even as early as the first century of Christian ministry.

154. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #72140 by Robert Maynard on September 20, 2007 at 12:29 pm

revcort said:

18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.1 Corinthians 1:18

That's an amazingly insightful quote, revcort. It's so versatile too, especially when one realises they can freely redefine the state of 'perishing' to mean whatever makes the statement true. Thus 'perishing' conveniently comes to represent 'anyone who disagrees with this statement, which is in itself words spoken in testimony of the word of the cross'
Irrefutable! ..and circular to boot!

I wonder though, if the Gospel is therefore unintelligible to certain people, in what sense can they be considered accountable for their non-saved status?

155. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72120 by Robert Maynard on September 20, 2007 at 11:41 am

Religious moderation - the position of being simultaneously forced into a corner and let loose in a field of meaningless ambiguity.

At the end of the day it's still a more benign position than fundamentalism.

156. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #72049 by Robert Maynard on September 20, 2007 at 8:07 am

Downunder,
I think it's naive to suppose that the threat of physical debilitation can reconfigure the literal structure of a pedophiles brain. However they should not be exempt from compensatory measures, ranging from registration as a sex offender to incarceration. Even the most minimal of these measures does a great deal of preventative work (which is always better than cure - particularly when we can't "cure" pedophilia with "humane surgery"). The argument that we cannot punish these people if their actions are not a result of 'free will' is a false one, because by the same measures none of our actions are the result of free will. [Good] legal systems punish people over outcomes, measured by who is harmed, by how much, and by how conscious their aggressors were of their actions.
The situation with psychological problems is one where we must respect these people as fellow human beings, despite their deep flaws, but recognise that they do not conceive of reality in a manner which is safe for others, and take steps to prevent them from harming other humans (or sometimes animals).

The only entity or office unfit to judge or punish a psychopath or a pedophile is a creative deity, as for these people to even exist as a causal possibility they necessarily existed in the deity's total foreknowledge of the outcomes of its creation, pre-creation. Not surprisingly, this is a case where the connection between creator and creation is often played down.

157. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71979 by Robert Maynard on September 20, 2007 at 4:03 am

I wouldn't prevent or discourage anyone from being an atheist - I should've stressed that earlier. We aren't a club that grows by invitation only. :P
My point was that in political terms we will be better served by smarter people of all beliefs than simply by more atheists; and we should not attempt to make atheism attractive simply for political purposes. "We" don't need people who are vulnerable to relapse to prop up a (currently minority) demographic which is naturally expanding in step with average intelligence. (Having said that I eagerly await the results of national censuses in the wake of The God Delusion and others)

But, to take your question - I think it would be mistaken to label the cognition of a mentally disabled person with any particular belief set. To make the point clearer, doctors often express the severity of mental handicaps by comparing their intelligence to the development of childrens minds at various ages, and just as it is inaccurate to label such children with philosophies they can't earnestly appreciate, the mentally handicapped should be spared in the same way.
Besides that, I certainly encourage the work of teaching programs designed to assist the mentally handicapped make what sense they can out of their world, in spite of their unfortunate circumstances. Then again I also support systematically detecting and aborting them.
..that's who you were talking about, right?

158. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71972 by Robert Maynard on September 20, 2007 at 3:33 am

pewkatchoo said:

You certainly would not get this level of debate in a religious group.

I think that's a telling example of what we should want to avoid. :)

we are IMNSHO too busy analysing each other and jumping down each others throats at the drop of a metaphor.

William Blake once wrote "opposition is true friendship." I try to stay consistent with my belief that it's disrespectful to avoid pursuing a disagreement with someone, whether a religious person, a fellow atheist, or a close friend.

I don't think Kathy Griffin is a good person to admire, but I don't think I could pursue it much further than that. It's just an opinion. She hasn't done anything I find reprehensible, she's just grating and shallow. Why it's a bad idea to want dumb atheists? Well, I've got arguments for that.

159. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71954 by Robert Maynard on September 20, 2007 at 2:05 am

pewkatchoo said:

Lighten up. Yorker clearly had his tongue very firmly in his cheek there. Not everything is so finely nuanced!

Forgive me for taking the man at his word. :P
I suppose all those who enthusiastically agreed with his flatulent populism were being playfully sarcastic as well.
Yorker consistently displays a weird anti-intellectualism in his comments, a notable example that comes to mind is his recent exchange with commenter Spinoza, who proudly spoke of his intellectual elitism, much to Yorker's irritation. Spinoza's arguments were couched in ugly terminology, but I think they were essentially correct. We don't need more jaded college atheists, with brittle foundations of mere apathy or opposition, the Alister McGraths, the Francis Collins'. Atheists don't need to recruit for recruitments sake.

160. God Talk on 'The View'

Comment #71900 by Robert Maynard on September 19, 2007 at 11:13 pm

It's not much worse than Rosie O'Donnell bringing up her idiotic 9/11 fantasies on the same show, but it's still definitely bad.

161. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #71874 by Robert Maynard on September 19, 2007 at 8:20 pm

Thanks for the summary, Paul - I disagree with your analysis of evolved morality, but you're already entangled here with plenty of others on case by case arguments, so I'll just point out that you didn't answer my question.

Do you think a pedophile knows that what they are doing is wrong (without getting into how you or I know it's wrong), even as they are doing it?
Or do you accept that there is a science called psychology which consistently reports that our conception of right and wrong is explicitly formed by our brains, that individual brains form differently, and that brains are subject to various forms of functional compromise?

162. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71867 by Robert Maynard on September 19, 2007 at 8:01 pm

Yorker said:

WE NEED MORE ATHEISTS OF AVERAGE OR EVEN BELOW AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE; WE HAVE ENOUGH CLEVER PEOPLE ALREADY!

Consider: why exactly do we 'need' larger atheist demographics?

- to raise awareness and improve the public image of atheism as a respectable worldview, which will in turn improve considerations for non-belief in public policy?
- to counter the influence of religion on public policy?
(if you have any other reasons which don't include issues of intelligence, feel free to note them)

If your all-caps call for widespread atheism is indeed one of political self-interest, and you reason that the future of atheism requires the recruitment of a zombie army of unlettered nonbelievers to improve our representation, I think that in itself smacks of a different kind of cynical elitism.
It's patronising to not encourage your fellow humans to improve their minds, independent of demographics and beliefs, and its unethical to treat atheists as a means to an end, rather then ends in themselves.

Beliefs derive from reasons, and if you're only concerned with the widespread acceptance of a particular conclusion, you're adopting a kind of 'teach the test' policy, which will result in large scale demographics of atheists who lack good reasons for their non-belief (and the beliefs they hold alongside that non-belief), who will easily crumple with pressure. The long term result will be future generations compromised by a much higher incidence of the insidious "I used to be an atheist, but.." believer. If I knew someone who was sliding into atheism as a result of sheer apathy, I wouldn't be content to leave it at that, because I wouldn't want to see that unguarded stance exploited and lured back, more deeply than before, into credulity.

Furthermore, if I had to choose between an across-the-board rise in average intelligence, and a full-scale conversion to atheism, I would without a doubt choose the former. We don't need more atheists irrespective of intelligence, we need more smart people, in general. We need more smart Christians, Muslims and Jews too, because moderation (and skepticism) flows easily from a detailed and nuanced worldview.

It's shocking to read anyone say something as intensely stupid as "WE HAVE ENOUGH CLEVER PEOPLE ALREADY!", and it's even more surprising to see other human beings agree (I have to repeat it for effect), "WE HAVE ENOUGH CLEVER PEOPLE ALREADY!"
Really, truly, honestly:

No.
We.
Don't.

163. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71377 by Robert Maynard on September 18, 2007 at 3:29 pm

URGH.
What an annoying person.

164. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #71070 by Robert Maynard on September 17, 2007 at 6:26 pm

(Jesus, this is a long thread.. what better time to jump right in without reading the story so far?)

Paul, would you contend that people 'so made' as to be child molesters also know that it's wrong, and are willfully rebelling?
Or is your thinking at least in-this-century enough that you'd concede that what we "know" is entirely a product of our brains development, and that child molesters have real, psychological problems in that area?

165. The Nonbelievers

Comment #71065 by Robert Maynard on September 17, 2007 at 6:01 pm

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with this. Good for him, actually.

It is the kind of thing you get the feeling you should keep an eye on though. There could be no outcome more tragically ridiculous than denominational atheism, forged by sectarian philosophies.
I'm lookin' at you, Onfray.

166. A Table for One

Comment #70896 by Robert Maynard on September 17, 2007 at 7:34 am

I love Stewart and Colbert, but in the end their religious beliefs (if any) don't make much of a difference on what I think of them, because who are they?
I can't pretend to be capable of separating, let alone correctly classifying, my knowledge of the character and the person, and I can't pretend to know when what I'm seeing is the real Colbert or his lovably crazy creation. The ambiguity lets him maintain a private personality (or another character?), the details of whom is really none of our business.
Colbert's affability comes from the fact that his affiliations and antagonisms all exist in this unreal, unknown state. eg. Catholics couldn't exactly use him as a posterboy, because of how often he professes belief in young-earth creationism (which the Vatican is officially against) and makes fun of the Pope.
It would be kind of difficult (and ridiculous) to feel alienated from him, or angry/disappointed with him, because of how fictional and uncertain his persona is.

167. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #70531 by Robert Maynard on September 15, 2007 at 11:27 pm

veggieguy,
I'm not sure if you were referring to me as one of the 'right-wing' posters - I'm not sure anybody here that has criticised Herman in defense of Hitchens, or even defended the invasion of Iraq, is necessarily right-wing (maybe Dreamer's Dilemma?). For what it's worth, I consider myself a liberal, but I do so in the understanding that my politics do not determine my character in dichotomies as simplistic as intelligent/unintelligent, humane/inhumane, compassionate/callous, or vice versa.

Your understanding of intelligence and humanist traits as distributed by political affiliation is childishly shallow and unsurprisingly bereft of foundation.

Maybe you should.. like ..eat some meat.

168. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #70418 by Robert Maynard on September 15, 2007 at 11:49 am

Henri,

Yep, a lot of morals are memes. As I said, these systems are transmitted across generations through communication and observation, rather than through sexual reproduction. Memes are an independent system of replicators which have evolved in tandem with our intricate patterns of communication, and in that sense we could describe them as abstract foreign agents which we rely on (and could be 'controlled' by), but which also rely on us to evolve and survive.

However, I still don't see why you would say they 'control' natural tendencies, if they are entirely naturally evolved entities. Memes replicate independently, but they didn't arrive from space like thetans to arrest our minds with their alien concerns. They are a direct result of our evolved capacities for communication, they are born of and reflect our evolutionary character. What I'm saying is that behavioural patterns enforced by memes are natural behaviours, regardless of their outcome, in the same way that chimpanzee hunting tactics, which are taught ideas and exist independently and alongside chimpanzee evolution, are natural behaviours, as are (in birds) songs, nest designs, and complicated dances. The natural behaviour of birds and chimpanzees isn't 'controlled' by these learned ideas, they become part of their natural behaviour.

So, once we're thinking of some morals as memes, we can see the situation in an evolutionary light: moral systems can be seen as independently evolving lineages of ideas, propagated by humans, whose survival rate is not determined by their beneficial nature, but by their ability to propagate themselves. Necessarily, these lineages are not equally useful or valuable to humans, and as you've noted, some (I would venture 'most') are outright detrimental to our survival concerns.

The most interesting question of all: What makes a system of behaviour preferable? By what standards can we comparitively judge moral systems, scientifically speaking? In less neurologically complex organisms, this can really only be addressed in terms of evolutionary fitness. But when it comes to humans, and similarly cognisant creatures, the path between stimulus and response is quite a bit longer, with many intervening steps of recollection, foreplanning, and self-review along the way. The perceptual and conceptual cognitive apparatus of the brain are essentially standardised features of human beings, and as such conform to general rules of processing that are true for all members of our species.
So for humans, it is sensible to view the efficacy of a behaviour in two ways: that which is most conducive to the evolutionary fitness of the species, and that which is most favoured by their experiential paradigm. Simply put, that which fosters survival, or that which our phenomenology inclines us towards.

Would you agree that these two approaches are the only means with which to scientifically judge the quality of a moral system?

169. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #70347 by Robert Maynard on September 15, 2007 at 2:40 am

windweaver I (and the *comments* page in general, really) didn't need the Chomsky lecture, I'm familiar with his stuff.

Herman's claims regarding Hitchens (you know, the ones you quoted) were "emotionally charged", "non-disprovable" and "meaningless". It's important to note that these are not separate descriptions. They are meaningless BECAUSE they are non-disprovable. They're non disprovable BECAUSE they're emotionally charged pejoratives.

I never claimed I wasn't guilty of the same kind of pejorative statements - but rightly so, as a result you're not liable to trust me. Likewise, I don't trust what Herman says, least of all at face value.

170. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #70336 by Robert Maynard on September 15, 2007 at 1:32 am

windweaver, aren't you being kind of manipulative by suggesting we should take what Ed Herman says seriously? :P
This is a man who is (with good cause) suspicious of all mainstream media as corporate saddled dispensers of flavoured information. But this skepticism isn't just a rule of thumb, it's a doctrine. Anyone who interacts with this tainted system must fit somewhere into the 'propaganda model', and is automatically part of the problem.
How do we square that circle with independent journalists like Hitchens? Use pithy qualitative descriptions like "feeble intellectual defenses", "facile writer" "vigorous assertion", "reactionary politics", "apologetics for imperial wars".

How does he imagine the mainstream media will change (for the better), if he's unwilling to consider it as a dynamic system? How is he to imagine it becoming more objective, if he himself is so stained-blue he can't even pretend that someone he disagrees with might be right, and he wrong? He can't. You could not present him with an example of good mainstream media (should you find one) that he couldn't spin as a lie-spewing factory of corporate bias. His emotionally charged claims are non-disprovable, and they are meaningless.

171. Good News: Both our Foundations are now Officially Recognized as Charities

Comment #70328 by Robert Maynard on September 15, 2007 at 12:54 am

Faaaantastic.

172. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #70174 by Robert Maynard on September 14, 2007 at 8:46 am

*ringring*
"Great review, Stanford. Here's an advance, would you be interested in expanding that five paragraph review into a book, taking on those atheist buggers? New content? God, no! Research? Don't make me laugh. I would recommend just making shit up as you go along. HEY, hows this for an idea - write it from the perspective, of.. say.. Jesus! No no, hear me out! Write it from the perspective of Jesus, in agony on the cross, saying things like "Oh, religion is child abuse, eh Dawkins? Religion causes suffering? I'd be inclined to agree with you - BECAUSE I'M SUFFERING UNCEASING AGONY FOR YOUR SINS."
Trust me, that'd be great. Okay? Great. Can I expect a draft on my desk in eight weeks?"

173. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69853 by Robert Maynard on September 13, 2007 at 2:12 am

Is there some wisdom in these cults of human sacrifice that we should now honor? Must we take care not to throw out the baby with the bathwater? Or might we want to eat that baby instead?

Solid gold black humour. :D

174. Censoring Sir David

Comment #69783 by Robert Maynard on September 12, 2007 at 7:02 pm

This is the kind of censorship which is important, when it's altering relevant information. There's nothing bizarre about trimming the fat of a program for time, but these are targeted omissions, and they are not fatty.

175. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69638 by Robert Maynard on September 12, 2007 at 2:27 am

Well, it's nice to have a level of agreement. For the record, though, the above is putting a bit of spin on what I said.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was counting you among my company, if that's how it came off.
It was just simpler to acknowledge and make reference to arguments made earlier. :)

176. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69604 by Robert Maynard on September 11, 2007 at 9:03 pm

there's not enough [jokes] on this humouristically-challenged site!

I'm glad we have comedy gems like "suck it Jesus" to help fill that void.. such courage! Such piercing wit! Standing ovation!

I agree with Blackford that the only thing important about this is her right to blurt unfunny nonsense, and curbing the pathetic criticisms from Old Man Donahue and the Catholic League. The editing of the telecast isn't particularly shocking, and its false to cast the decision as religious bullying. It's business as usual, they can do what they want with their four hours of footage, consider demographics, yadda yadda yadda. It's E!, folks. They'd cut a legitimately profound acceptance speech if they could.

What is especially unimportant and unspectacular are the remarks following her (honest, progressive, non-joke) opening, and I hope the solution to this "clear-thinking oasis" being "humouristically challenged" is not to become a sycophantic crowd straight out of Oprah's studios whenever someone of minor celebrity makes a dismissive remark about a character/person not present, not even alive, but addressed as though they could hear it and be dismayed. (I hear she's also made some clever observations about how men and women are different)

I hope the solution (if there's even a problem) is more articles like that hilarious review of The Fascism Delusion.

177. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69585 by Robert Maynard on September 11, 2007 at 7:22 pm

Celestial Teapot

..just a waste of time and just plain stupid.

Your description nails Kathy Griffin, her insipid reality show, AND the Emmy's.

178. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #69469 by Robert Maynard on September 11, 2007 at 11:30 am

#143, Yorker,

Does this mean your initial remark in #138 was intended as a kind of challenge?

Well, no, that's why I said it isn't a throwdown/callout, and that you needn't have worried about what I would think of you if you didn't show up at the flagpole after school, because I wouldn't actually be waiting for you, because it wasn't a challenge. :P
I'm just attempting to frame the morality discussion in a different way at the moment. Establishing some premises, that kind of thing.

I changed the word rather than remove the section altogether because I wasn't changing the content of the sentence, just the phrasing.
I was worried 'callout' wouldn't have been as easily understood as 'throwdown', and both can refer to laying down the gauntlet, so to speak, so the switch seemed justified. I could change the word to 'challenge' to be crystal clear, if you like. I have a habit of thoroughly editing my posts after I submit them - but it is always for clarity.
...There we go.

179. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #69428 by Robert Maynard on September 11, 2007 at 8:14 am

#140, Henri

Much natural behaviour is stifled by civilisation. We are controlled into not acting immediately on our instincts. Religion often imposes these controls.

Stifled, or substituted? The former description seems burdened with human drama. Would you really assert that human 'civil' behaviour, or things like the doctrines of religions, are not themselves evolved behaviour patterns, heritable (through observation and communication) strategies for interacting with other humans? If not, where did they come from? ..Revelation? :P

I do not think that 'elitist power structures' are akin to naturally dominant animals. The latter act instinctively, physically to retain their dominance. The former usually act consciously..

I didn't mean to imply their particulars or execution were comparable, but that they are both naturally evolved methods of exerting control (after all the latter animals do not act "consciously" in any sense, so I couldn't try to make comparisons of 'intent' and formulation accurately).

#141, Yorker
No worries, this isn't exactly a ~~callout~~ ~~throwdown~~ challenge, I just noticed you were making the same kind of argument.
I experienced the same server-side problem shortly after posting.

180. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #69308 by Robert Maynard on September 10, 2007 at 1:09 pm

Just probing here Henri (and perhaps Yorker?), this was briefly touched on before.
You've talked about natural morality (better termed as "behaviour") in culture as relativistic and fluid, evolved human configurations of interaction, and contrast this with prescriptive morality, artificial elitist power structures which impose on the individual. Because morality in practice can take so many forms, it is necessarily impossible to rationally render morality in universal terms without treading into prescriptive territory, so it doesn't actually exist, and all we're left with are varieties of behaviour patterns. Right so far?

I was mainly wondering how far you'd be willing to agree that evolution has the capacity to enforce complex natural dimensions of value, which are not necessarily one-dimensional or absolutist notions of 'good' and 'bad' (or 'evil') but do involve various kinds of generally positive and negative experience. For example, if there were a selective pressure to adapt to external threats, the organisms which were equipped to act as though their death would be a bad thing, a negative thing, something to avoid, would have an advantage over organisms not so self-preservative.
Further down this path, would you agree that populations of replicating organisms acting on algorithm (no need to think of humans yet) would reach similar conclusions about what would be a "negative" experience, and in that sense have a valid, empirically-based (raw-experience-based), and shared concept of what was (at least) "bad"? I'm obviously not saying they'd be consciously affirming a system of right and wrong, but I am suggesting that their patterns of interaction would be tempered by natural selection to try and reject patterns with negative outcomes, with positive patterns enjoying better heritability. I don't want to take those lines any further until you agree or disagree. :P

Moving a bit further ahead on this path, would you agree that because human cultures are simply complex evolved patterns and protocols of interaction, shifting multi-idea organisms in a social meme pool, that they are not equally "fit" or well adapted?

Finally, I was wondering whether you would agree with the notion that prescriptive "elitist power structures" are products of evolution of the same variety as the patterns of human culture mentioned above, virulent strands of sophisticated social dominance patterns similar to the sexually selective behaviours found in social animals like, say, lions or elephant seals.

181. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #69208 by Robert Maynard on September 10, 2007 at 2:25 am

Aw, come on Quine..
Point of Inquiry isn't about pinning people down and making them uncomfortable. Dude's just trying to have a inquisitive conversation, help the guest introduce or explain his- or herself to the listener.
The best time for discussions and arguments and generally rolling up your sleeves always begins post-interview, when you can separate the guest from the ideas, and dissect the ideas without making the guest uncomfortable.
Point of Inquiry couldn't maintain such a quality, well-connected podcast if it came to be recognised as some bully-pit run by a confrontational, under-qualified assface.

182. Review of Richard Dawkins' new book 'The Fascism Delusion'

Comment #69203 by Robert Maynard on September 10, 2007 at 2:11 am

I lol'd.
That was some seriously great stuff. :D

183. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #68841 by Robert Maynard on September 8, 2007 at 11:04 pm

I thought it was a really really weak explanation, actually, especially coming from the former head of the Human Genome Project.
The argument begins by accepting the individual evolutionary advantage of behaving altruistically based on genetic proximity. Then it moves on to argue that species-level genetic similarity is too hazy to explain altruism. The argument completely avoids discussing how organisms recognise one another in the first place, and pretends that we have perfect, evolved apparatus for precisely measuring our genetic similarity to strangers. This is false. There is no magical "genetic sense", we have nothing to base our appraisals of genetic proximity on but our evolved perceptual equipment ("in the wild" at least).
It is not the case that your sense organs can exactingly discriminate genetic similarity. We can discriminate between humans and non-humans, and even sorta-almost-humans (like primates), but it doesn't seem to get much more precise beyond that. We can probably be genetically biased towards certain traits, but this must be pretty generalised.
For example, if a mother meets a daughter she gave up for adoption at birth as a stranger in the street, she will not recognise her as close kin without the aid of circumstance and records, and she has no more reason for acting altruistically to her then anyone else.

EDIT: and of course, as Ramirez pointed out, the genetic component of civil altruism doesn't hold a candle to the taming power of social contract theories. I think perhaps Collins would've been served better by reading something like Hobbes' Leviathan instead of Mere Christianity..

184. The Fleas Are Multiplying!

Comment #68657 by Robert Maynard on September 8, 2007 at 2:48 am

Good grief!
I knew Vox Day was involved with writing, but I'd only heard about him when Pharyngula linked to critical eviscerations of the arguments in his blog posts; I had no idea he could actually get books published.

That's kind of.. dangerous. :|

185. Bible Belter

Comment #68214 by Robert Maynard on September 6, 2007 at 11:21 am

Giskard: Actually, in Latin that would be:
Nullius pueri anus praetermissus

I had assumed he was referring to Latin grammar. Didn't it have a thing about putting the subject first and the action or description or what have you second? Something like that? I don't know much about latin.. :|

186. Christopher Hitchens on BookTV

Comment #68002 by Robert Maynard on September 5, 2007 at 2:40 pm

I don't think Gore has any political aspirations left, beyond pop statesman, the president-that-would've-been-a-whole-lot-better. His pronouncements are not for politics anymore than, say, Geldof's apparent belief that money and awareness is all we need to fix Africa.
Gore does sincerely believe in anthropogenic global warming, and the consensus as to its nature (which is obviously not to say that faith is any better than cynical politics).

As a citizen of "the other country that didn't ratify Kyoto" I can more or less sympathise with some doubts about that protocol, but its goals were pretty modest. Suppose the case for AGW becomes more solid in the future, and the so-called "deadline" doesn't change by very much - the longer it takes to start acting, the steeper and more ruinous the requirements will become with each successive protocol, once Kyoto terminates in 2012. Again, I think it's better to start moving decisively up now, because it may seem steep now, but it can only get steeper with time if AGW is correct (which I am fairly certain it is). :P

I wouldn't be surprised if most countries failed to meet their Kyoto goals by 2012, but then there'll be a new protocol, and things had better start happening then.

187. Christopher Hitchens on BookTV

Comment #67956 by Robert Maynard on September 5, 2007 at 11:18 am

Scooter,
I think ultimately our differences are not dramatic. I would hasten to join you in encouraging due skepticism of Al Gore's politicised declarations and rock concerts (regardless of how sincere I do believe he is), but I would not be so quick to stand up to, say, the IPCC, whose conclusions are very similar, simply because I know that I'm nowhere near qualified enough to begin commenting on their conclusions, let alone considering myself familiar and comfortable with the work of its critics, whichever payroll they happen to occupy.

Besides my status as an amateur enthusiast, I've avoided talking about the actual science because your initial beef was a mostly philosophical one. When you did bring in the science though, it seemed as though you would move from acknowledging evidence for AGW (however subtle), to reflecting on the implications that only a subtle, uncertain effect has for the reliability of the 'hockey graph', and then proceed to denial of AGW altogether, and comparisons to cults.

This three step progression was perfectly encapsulated in a single sentence you wrote,

Although there has been claims to such data as showing that anthropogenic global warming exists, it cannot say how much man is contributing, if at all.

It's like "It does seem as though there is evidence for it, but we don't know how much evidence there is for it, or even if there is any evidence for it. Wait.. what did I say at the beginning?"
From that kind of wandering, I think you may be behaving just a tad contrarian about the issue.

Al Gore is not nearly as deep green as some: he does stress the importance of global warming activism as an economically competitive movement, rather than a "You can't like, own money, man" quasi-socialist dismantling and revolution of "the way things are now".

The whole "trillions of dollars" thing is another thing I don't get. I mean, the investigation and implementation of alternative energies are the exact policies Gore et al recommend as a solution to their arguments about AGW. But you've said you support these policies. It's not like he's also advocating a return to hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Where is the disconnect, if the outcomes of your differing opinions ultimately end up in the same place? Exactly which of those trillions would be spent in ways you haven't already agreed are good? Are there plans for a giant gold Gore statue I don't know about?

188. Christopher Hitchens on BookTV

Comment #67896 by Robert Maynard on September 5, 2007 at 4:53 am

True, hungarianelephant, but I thought everyone understood that deep greens (at least the ones as "deep" as you're referring to) are unrealistic hippies. When someone can't understand that change is going to take place over years, decades, rather than months, they're not arguing for progress, they're arguing for standstill, for freezing in the headlights.

Everyone's got a different take, but besides improving and researching alternative energies I'm a big fan of pushing for nuclear power as a transitional alternative energy, while solar cells improve and we use biofuels to try and wean ourselves off petrochemicals.
Now, it'd be seriously great if everyone dropped everything and started building nuclear power plants now, but those things take over a decade to build, and deep greens seem to be even less fond of stardust-based uranium than corpse-based oil.

Ultimately I think we'll just move forward gradually and deal with the consequences of our policies as they come. We are after all the smartest things around, so if any non-bacterial organism has a chance of surviving a poisonous, irreversible (on geological scales) climate shift, its us. :P

Besides, if the earth is naturally warming you still couldn't argue that emitting less greenhouse gas would make things worse, and you still couldn't argue that shaking off our reliance on finite resources is a bad idea. With issues like peak oil riding alongside, easing into new forms of energy around now would be a good idea even if the Earth wasn't also heating up.

189. Christopher Hitchens on BookTV

Comment #67820 by Robert Maynard on September 5, 2007 at 12:16 am

scotternyc: "Playing it safe" is no different than "act as though god does exist just in case".

So you have decided to equate all notions of self-preservation in the face of a speculative threat with intellectual cowardice. Fantastic.

To re-iterate, I already addressed this attempt at equivocation in my initial response, because Pascal's wager does not "account for the true range of outcomes", and is therefore not comparable to, shall we say, Gore's Wager, just to be cheeky. :P
I say again, the contemptible nature of Pascal's wager does not lie in its endorsement of playing it safe. Playing it safe is, in general, a really smart idea, which is what makes Pascal's wager so seductive to anyone who becomes impressed by it. The problem lies in the false analysis of the 'game' (there is more than one god to be wrong about, so belief in Pascal's Christian God is as far from safety as atheism, rendering the wager meaningless), and a bad understanding of how one can play it (people don't generally change their minds on important issues without some serious convincing).

What is more important about Gore's Wager, and its incompatibility with the threats of religious ideology, is that beliefs regarding global warming are not a matter of differential outcomes for individual policies. It is not the case that people who believe different things about global warming will come to experience different worlds as time passes. So policy regarding the issue must be considered with everyones best interests in mind, and we must devote resources to pursuing the safest options.
It is a wager, and it's the sort of wager you really wouldn't want to be wrong about.

Let me use an example we're all familiar with.
Imagine Bertrand Russel's celestial teapot. We can't see it, but we can't disprove its existence, so we have to be agnostic about it. But in a sense, there are celestial teapots out there - millions of them, the mineralised remnants of a solar ejection billions of years ago - they're quite difficult to detect if you don't know where to look, because they're non-luminous and don't reflect the suns light very well, or very much of it.
Despite this, NASA devotes a portion of its budget to developing solutions should a rather large teapot, say the size of India, someday found itself on a collision course with our planet. Why is that? Why should we spend money on a threat that may never materialise, which we aren't responsible for, and which we may not even be able to solve, when there are already so many solvable problems on Earth? Why don't we leave aside our plans for averting extinction-event teapot strikes until such a nightmare is unambiguous and imminent?
Because while we must be agnostic, it is ultimately a matter of probability. We know they're out there, even when we can't see the majority of them. And no matter how much room there is in space, in the fullness of time there is bound to be one which will otherwise randomly careen into Earth.
There are currently no meteors known to be on a collision course with Earth, but there have been several spotted which in the next few decades (if calculated correctly) will pass very close by our atmosphere. To echo your calls for skepticism over climate modeling, what if those calculations are wrong? What if, indeed? What if these exaggerated models of climate change were still not extreme enough?

Where there is uncertainty in matters like this, we should be modestly aware of our circumstances, and plan for the worst. It's smarter to play it safe when the environment is at stake, because the cost of being wrong is seven billion amazed people slapping their forehead hard enough to die. :P
The species does not move as one, and we can easily afford to pay different people to work on different problems at the same time. It is not as though pursuing policies to curb greenhouse emissions is going to stall research on AIDS, just as putting billions behind plans to counter global warming is not going to divert funds away from planning for a meteor strike or a terrorist attack.

Anyway, I've never seen your previous discussions about global warming, so I don't really know much about your positions. It's unclear whether you accept global warming but deny anthropogenic global warming, or if you just flat out deny global warming in general. I'm curious because Dreamer's quip about correlation and causation has me wondering if he doesn't even accept the greenhouse effect.

190. Christopher Hitchens on BookTV

Comment #67667 by Robert Maynard on September 4, 2007 at 8:56 am

scooternyc: Unfortunately this sounds so very much like the wager of believing in god just in case.

What it sounds like is insuring against a worst case scenario, in a physical world which is completely available to measurement.
Unlike Pascal's wager, in which one is encouraged to subscribe to a religious "philosophy" based on a threat assessment pertaining to a scenario which cannot be investigated, and supported by "lobbyists" with no evidence - the particulars of climate change are completely observable (though its predictive power has understandably large error bars at the moment), and the threat assessments are entirely derived from that data.
Also unlike Pascal, the outcomes of this wager will verifiably take place in an actual world, one way or the other.

The infamous wager isn't unsound because it's a bad idea to "play it safe", it's unsound because it doesn't account for the true range of outcomes, which if included would ultimately produce no wiser option than not gambling in the first place.

On the other hand, making a transition to low-carbon, renewable energies would be a good idea even if the Earth didn't seem to be dangerously heating up as a result of us burning the billions of litres of plankton and plant remains we found in the ground.

191. Christopher Hitchens on BookTV

Comment #67589 by Robert Maynard on September 4, 2007 at 12:34 am

Thanks, Zzyx1170

192. What do these atheists understand of religion?

Comment #67363 by Robert Maynard on September 3, 2007 at 6:02 am

Good Gravy - what a pile of puke..

"There are no experiments and tests to explain love, empathy, longing, the agony and ecstasy of the heart, the wild and wonderful creativity of the brain, that thing that happens to you when a full moon appears above the sea and is reflected in it. Sorry, but knowing the science of why the moon shines is irrelevant to the experience."

I should try to resist mean-spirited jabs at fellow site-posters, particularly when such insightful explorations of incoherence are being penned by notable authors, but it sounds like sirs Bonzai and stag would get along swell with Mrs Alibhai Brown.

193. Cartoons from Evolution: a journal of nature 1927-1938

Comment #67355 by Robert Maynard on September 3, 2007 at 5:41 am

#5, hcholm

Well, if you squint real hard, it looks like a smiling monkey, sitting in a tree.
oh wait..

I can't see anything editorial/funny either. Maybe it's some ancient biologist joke. :P

194. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #66938 by Robert Maynard on September 1, 2007 at 3:33 am

This review feels rather like a vicarious review of The God Delusion, but then again that's because it's reviewing a book which seems to be little more than an extended review of The God Delusion.

Consider that for a moment. Negative reviews of atheist literature are in demand, enough that you can sell a BOOK (like, in a BOOKSTORE) which is actually just a review of another (ACTUAL) book, of the same caliber and substance to be found in the review column of a newspaper. Then some people stuck working for newspapers will favourably review this review, because not only do they agree with it, but they might get the chance to do the same thing one day (and likely get to use all the same arguments).
These are products which offer nothing but a brief respite from the arguments in atheist books, which will last until the next time you're unlucky enough to run into an atheist patient enough to disabuse you.

It's one of those things which is sad in a way that makes you smile.

195. Teresa, Bright and Dark

Comment #66466 by Robert Maynard on August 30, 2007 at 3:54 am

Quite a few of you are pushing your fellow humans up against the wall for statements they did not, in fact, make.

A strong distaste for something is not equal to a condemnation of the practice, nor is an endorsement of careful consideration. Although it may be his actual position, BigJohn did not actually articulate any position or personal policy regarding the carrying out of abortions, let alone misogynistic overtones of body control, as accused.
LeeLeeOne and Icculus hit the nail on the head: pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion, because (and I think BigJohn would agree) the bottom line is that prevention is better than cure.
It's cheaper, it's cleaner, it's indicative of a responsible sex life (in societies where contraceptives are readily available to women, please don't confuse that statement with the situation in developing countries with draconian womens rights. And I also hope nobody is stupid enough to accuse me of calling rape victims "irresponsible")
Abortions should never be embarrassing or difficult to access, but they also shouldn't be anxiously anticipated as a quasi- rite of passage.

BigJohn merely conveyed the opinion "Honestly, killing babies kinda sucks."
Critically, he did not equivocate any particular stage of pregancy with human agency or the nebulous notion of "personhood", another thing he was accused of doing.

Regarding the whole ballooning of this pitiful digression, why the fuck should you care what Hitchens thinks about abortion, or anything?
"Oh, don't worry folks, I'm sure he didn't mean it!" "No, no, see, Hitchie's still cool!"

It is a bad idea to try and think of Dawkins, Hitchens et al as "representatives" of atheism. You will find that you are not of entirely the same mind, and if you're not a goddamn child, you'll realise it's okay to disagree with people you admire, and still admire them.
For an example off the top of my head, I recall reading an anecdote where Dawkins, innocently making conversation with a journo, outlined a scenario where you had to choose between killing the last surviving elephant or letting it trample a human baby, and arguing that the former choice was narrow-minded specieism, and I remember thinking "Well, that was a dumb thing to say. In that situation it's unlikely you'd act on a reasoned decision, and more likely act on instinct to protect the baby, as the result of adaptations for proximal gene altruism you outlined in your first damn book, and if it's the last elephant, saving it would just be prolonging the inevitable. Must try harder. C" :P

They are atheists, and they're great examples of atheists, but they do not claim to represent anyone besides themselves, just as you are very likely your best representative.
And if you do disagree with them it would certainly be likely to make conversation more interesting, should you speak to them one day. :P

Hitchen's opinions are not some coupon deal, a packaged philosophy which you must subscribe to entirely to comfortably count yourself a fan.
Ideas have no owners, and you can claim allegiances a la carte, by all means.

"Gimme a Build Up That Wall combo, hold the penchant for alcohol and cigarettes."

196. Enemies of Reason

Comment #66091 by Robert Maynard on August 28, 2007 at 2:36 pm

A fun documentary which should reach a wide audience. I updated my userpic to celebrate one of the one-liners in it.
It also featured many echoes of the chapter "Hoodwink'd By Faery Fancy" in one of Dawkins' older books, Unweaving the Rainbow. Because of this, I'm relieved he didn't try to articulate the petwhac in spoken words, even though it's a fun discussion about coincidence. :P

197. Fallen Pastor Seeks Aid to Pursue Studies

Comment #66089 by Robert Maynard on August 28, 2007 at 2:22 pm

To put it bluntly Mr Haggard, you don't deserve a red cent, you leering, two-faced sheister.

198. Open letter to Michael Shermer in response to his letter...

Comment #64933 by Robert Maynard on August 22, 2007 at 12:37 pm

Corylus: If you want to persuade people it is a good idea not to talk down to half your audience.

And what if she is, in fact, a totally cool chick? :P
I don't want to turn this into a debate about feminism, and I don't find myself using the term much, but I don't think "chick" is particularly sexist. I think the implicit meaning has drifted safely away from its roots as a variant on "bird", or whatever.
It seems on the same level as describing someone as a cool dude. *shrug*

In any case, Shermer is a cool dude, and so is Sapient.
I like to imagine folks like Sapient becoming what you might call "second-generation" "New Atheists", easy-going non-scientist super-arguers milked on the literature of their forebears, who'll be in the front line against the next generation of creationists, people like.. for example, Bizarro Dawkins.
I'm about 7 years behind Sapient, but I also like to imagine I'll be able to contribute something solid to this conversation someday too. :P

Atheism looks like it will have an exciting future. All we have to do is stay media-savvy, and our battle is half-won. To that effect, the RRS has been doing a fine job so far.

/rambling

199. Scientists should unite against threat from religion

Comment #64928 by Robert Maynard on August 22, 2007 at 12:13 pm

"There are bridges and there are gangplanks, and it is the business of journals such as Nature to know the difference."

Bickety-bam.
Tssss, ya burn'd!
etc..

Nice to hear from Sam again, even if only in letters to editors.

200. In Google Earth, a Service for Scanning the Heavens

Comment #64898 by Robert Maynard on August 22, 2007 at 8:40 am

I just tried Google Sky and downloaded Celestia. I think I prefer Google Sky for actually looking at things, only because I felt a bit better as a grounded observer. The simulation abilities of Celestia are really great though, especially (I imagine) for kids, and teaching. And by great, I mean "Holy cow, I can go anywhere and model planetary movement and mess with time and I wish I had this when I was a kid because it would have blown my little mind."