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Post by haplotype on Aug 5, 2009 2:56:42 GMT -5
Your attacks on Science are highly unjust and very defensive. Science is constantly under scrutiny and criticism by Science themselves, which improves the quality, reasoning and (potential) discoveries of Science. In probability theory, there is the concept of the forest walk. The lost hiker will keep moving forward in the belief that he is getting closer to his destination -- but ends up where he started. So it is with scientific inquiry, moving forward on the belief that they are gaining new knowledge. Existing theories are replaced with new ones, which turn out to be wrong, and may be replaced by old ones yet again. In particular, medical and social sciences have made many such circular motions before. Empirical knowledge is, almost without exception, described by statistics. Statistics only describe an association; they cannot describe causation. We use the normal "bell curve" distribution without knowing any better, though they are often inappropriate. Scientists misuse the Central Limit Theorem to say that the normal distribution is good enough; it is most certainly not. We have no reason to believe that anything is normally distributed; it is just a mathematical fantasy. Throughout the sciences, they use these statistics as if it described causation. The standard of living in "advanced" countries have been declining. Life spans have shrunk, children have become shorter, families are having fewer children, divorce has become the norm of family life. Science has not found a cure for the common cold, obesity, diabetes, schizophrenia, AIDS, or any number of other illnesses which together debilitate the majority of the world's population. Nor has it been able to achieve commercial nuclear fusion, commercial colonization of space, or any number of other improvements it promised. The culture of scientific secularism has bred a world where people are obsessed with "individual freedom", which amounts to an obsession with sexual and material gratification. In the end, they are just slaves to their desires and are not truly free. Being a scientific insider, I can assure you there is a great deal of arrogant rejection going on. They are not necessarily equivalent, though there is a close association. That cliche? The Nazis used Nietzsche's "ubermensch" concept as an inspiration for their fascism, though that "scientific" society didn't work out.
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Post by haplotype on Aug 5, 2009 3:17:07 GMT -5
Haplotype, you're criticising the scientific process of constant review and alteration in the search for a better idea of how the world works. This is opposed to a major religion (say Christianity because most of us know more about it than other religions) which takes an outdated view of looking at the world and then continues to drum the same belief into followers as dictated by scripture (which is written by man). In effect, science makes a religion out of the latest fashion in knowledge -- which may be no more accurate than the scriptures. Is the current state of scientific knowledge truly broadening? Or is it a narrowing view, a random compilation of fashionable theories, describing people as so many carbon molecules driven by animal instincts? So instead, scientists want us to believe in imaginary dark particles, superstring theory, "10-dimensional branes", or whatever is the latest excuse for their physics that spectacularly fails to explain 90% of the universe. Fascists believed that their revolutionary new scientific society was the answer, and it killed millions. Communists believed that their revolutionary new scientific society was the answer, and killed even more. The systematic extermination of ethnic groups, gays, retarded people, people who wear glasses, etc. was done with the approval of scientists -- but we don't want to talk about that anymore. However, it has been over 30 years since we put a man on the moon, since there turned out to be no point to it. Commercial flying technology has stepped backwards, as supersonic flights are no longer available. The fastest military airplanes were built in the 1960s, and fighter jets have become slower since. We continue to use space shuttles that were originally devised by a Nazi scientist, built in the 1970s out of styrofoam coatings, and have blown up twice because a single piece of plastic on it broke, showering pieces of roasted astronauts all over the world. No new major advances have occurred in aviation technology for a generation, despite annual hype. Life expectancies are shrinking in "advanced" countries. Just as successful civilizations of the past had obesity epidemics. Science hasn't found a cure for obesity.
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Post by hapatite on Aug 5, 2009 4:54:40 GMT -5
In effect, science makes a religion out of the latest fashion in knowledge -- which may be no more accurate than the scriptures. Science is as accurate as the scriptures? We would never have thought of humans - or anything - as a collection of molecules before, so it is broadening. Isn't this getting into politics? 2 + 2 will make 5 but there is no systematic road map to what makes a successful society. A lot of these issues arose from human abuse and mistreatment; in times of financial crisis people turn to extreme forms of government. That goes for the Nazis too, it is not fair to blame Nietzsche because Hitler took his ideas and warped them, using science as a 'credible' screen to back up his ideals. It is sad that scientific knowledge was gained through the inhumane experimentation by the Nazis. It doesn't mean the science was wrong, people took the conclusions and ran with them. Again, I'd put this down to human apathy, lack of funding and drive, etc. The US might have owned 10 times as many nuclear weapons 20 years ago, just because they're not used doesn't mean science has regressed. The technology that put men into space has been used to make satellite communication more advanced. I also thought there was a new space race between the US and Asia beckoning with putting mines on the moon, turns out that stuff makes a useful fuel. Yet again, I would put this down to human behaviour. Sure, our lives are filled with chemicals as a result of science but is it up to science to make a magical pill to make you slim? Or is it the responsibility of humans to exercise and eat healthily? Just saying it's not fair to claim science is all a big fallacy, and no more credible than religion.
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Post by D.A on Aug 5, 2009 8:22:48 GMT -5
@ Haplotype
haha, I'm not even going to bother wasting my effort in a pointless argument. Not only have you taken things out of context, but to pick out single words to bring in irrelevant arguments to the actual context is fruitless and degenerating of any substantial or informative debate.
To claim absolute skepticism will provide no set basis or fundamentals on which we can agree on and work with, so it's not even worth responding, I'll let you stick with your absolute skepticism.
The fact that your first post is highly irrelevant to the actual context of this thread (did you even read and answer the questions?) is a true sign of close-minded arrogance at the single mention of the word Atheism...
Good luck with the rest of the argument with hapatite, I'll let him do all the hard yards for me haha...
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Post by betahat on Aug 5, 2009 13:14:19 GMT -5
DA- I agree. Any argument that glibly discounts the development of insulin and anti-retrovirals (just because scientists haven't found a cure) is barely worth rebutting. Never mind the half-truths about life expectancy (which on average has increased but has declined for certain groups due to different behaviors, not science or technology - blame capitalism and marketing if you must). Not to mention the average of one straw man per paragraph and the constant moving of the goalposts (well, if science promises a chicken in every pot but only delivers half a chicken it must be an abject failure). Of course Haplo is absolutely right about the limits of science, the arrogance of many scientists, the abuse of science by Nazis and Soviets, the haphazard advance of scientific knowledge, the unverifiability of certain scientific claims, the misuse of statistics, etc. but no one was claiming otherwise.
However, this IS interesting and worth discussing:
"The culture of scientific secularism has bred a world where people are obsessed with "individual freedom", which amounts to an obsession with sexual and material gratification. In the end, they are just slaves to their desires and are not truly free."
I'm happy to take Haplo's alternative into consideration - perhaps it would make this discussion more productive than continuing on a path of destruction where we try to score points. So what will it be Haplo? If not fast computers, big televisions, nice restaurants, cheap air travel, modern medicine, lots of sex and terrabytes of internet porn, then what? I'm fundamentally a materialist but I also beleive in friendship, love, good personal relationships, curiosity, intellectual endeavours, and bringing about progressive political changes and social justice. Are these things necessarily at odds?
Tell me about how great [insert deity here] is and how following the teaching of [insert religious text] will make me more satisfied in my life and also advance our little monkey brained race towards whatever utopia (or neartopia) you have in mind. Try to be as clear as possible. I promise to read your response in full, think about it seriously, and refrain from cheap shots.
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Post by haplotype on Aug 5, 2009 16:20:49 GMT -5
Science is as accurate as the scriptures? Well let's see, the bible says there was mud, then light, then oceans, then land, then plants, then animals, then people. According to current scientific theory, there was a really bright flash, then dust, then mud, then oceans, then land, then plants, then animals, then people. A rather minor difference of order. Scientists say this took about 14 billion years, the bible says this took 6 epochs, where epoch could refer to any time period. Scientists ask us to believe in a much more literal interpretation. And a vocal minority of scientists question whether there was a Big Bang at all; it may just be a mathematical artifact of extrapolation based on 20th century science. Science asks us to assume that physical laws were exactly the same billions of years ago as they are today, although there were "curvatures in the time-space continuum" that could have created "the appearance" of differing physical laws. A huge leap of faith, which scientists are in fact questioning by building their huge particle accelerators. As for what happened beyond the formation of oceans, we are asked to believe scientists based on the fossils they dug up, and the isotope ratios as expressed by machines that spit out squiggly graphs. Maybe next year, scientists will discover some entirely new method of aging fossils which prove that isotope dating is completely unreliable, and the history of the universe will be turned upside down. In the end, is science (as taught in classrooms) any less dogmatic, any more reliable? Scripture has, in various forms, described humans as flesh motivated by animal instincts -- but they can improve upon this animal nature. Science has, overall, taken a more cavalier attitude and says we should just enjoy these base instincts. Psychologists of the 20th century said that wanton sex, divorce is good for us, and we should do it at the drop of the hat -- though they have since backtracked from these notions. Science is but one belief system invented by humans, along with religion. A given system of belief can correctly predict things a lot of the time; religions have done a fine job of predicting human nature over the ages. Any belief system has its faults that lead to absurd conclusions that do not withstand the test of reality.
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Post by haplotype on Aug 5, 2009 17:04:07 GMT -5
I'm happy to take Haplo's alternative into consideration - perhaps it would make this discussion more productive than continuing on a path of destruction where we try to score points. So what will it be Haplo? If not fast computers, big televisions, nice restaurants, cheap air travel, modern medicine, lots of sex and terrabytes of internet porn, then what? I'm fundamentally a materialist but I also beleive in friendship, love, good personal relationships, curiosity, intellectual endeavours, and bringing about progressive political changes and social justice. Are these things necessarily at odds? Tell me about how great [insert deity here] is and how following the teaching of [insert religious text] will make me more satisfied in my life and also advance our little monkey brained race towards whatever utopia (or neartopia) you have in mind. Try to be as clear as possible. I promise to read your response in full, think about it seriously, and refrain from cheap shots. Some religions strive to build a utopia on Earth. Others take a more pragmatic approach that life will be a continuing struggle, and there is no guarantee of a better world through conversion. "God" could be defined as any number of things -- the outcomes of random events, the repercussions of choices we make. Every human culture has its symbolic rituals of showing respect, be they mealtime prayers, whatever. I've made a conscious choice to abide by these traditions to promote goodwill. I don't believe in abiding traditions to the point that they make anyone unhappy.
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Post by betahat on Aug 5, 2009 18:55:08 GMT -5
^I've made a conscious choice to abide by these traditions to promote goodwill
Which traditions, if I may ask? [You're in Alabama so I already have a guess] I enjoy my inherited religious traditions too (basically reciprocal gift exchange, feasting and family time) but they don't alter my outlook on the world. How else does your religious beliefs affect yours?
I would take some issue with your defense of the biblical origins story. I don't think it's fair to compare the scientific theory of human origins with the one in the Bible - many aspects of the Bible can be made to fit the current scientific consensus (by being flexible on the meaning of "epoch" or "day," having the different epochs vary in length, etc. basically playing with words, ignoring the distinction between single celled organisms, plants, and animals) but as such it doesn't really have a lot of testable empirical content. At some point (like Eve coming from Adam's rib) you just have to accept that it is an allegory and you cannot interpret it literally by changing the translation of a few words.
Things obviously get very shaky when it comes to the origin of the universe, and here I agree completely about the limits of scientific knowledge (and human knowledge in general). It's such a mind-blowing thing, and theoretical physics is so full of untestable theories, that all I can do is step back and say wow, without reaching any conclusions about the forces at work. The evolution of life on earth is a little bit easier for me to accept as an object of scientific analysis, even though we have a lot to learn there too.
^Scripture has, in various forms, described humans as flesh motivated by animal instincts -- but they can improve upon this animal nature. Science has, overall, taken a more cavalier attitude and says we should just enjoy these base instincts. Psychologists of the 20th century said that wanton sex, divorce is good for us, and we should do it at the drop of the hat -- though they have since backtracked from these notions.
That clarifies your objection to secular humanism as a moral philosophy. I don't think you should conflate sociobiology with secular humanist philosophy and morality in general. [In defense of sociobiologists, they would also suggest that our better instincts are the result of an evolutionary process and "animal instinct." I'm not sure their job is to "excuse" things so much as it is to explain them, but I admit my distaste for the field, which is something of a dirty word in many secular circles.]
As for 20th century psychology, it has come a long way but humans remain the most difficult subject of scientific inquiry, and I'm thankful that we have a rich secular social science and humanities tradition to draw upon to characterize and describe the richness of human experience, societies, and history, rather than relying solely on a reductionist sociobiology and psychology that wants to treat humans like molecules or Pavlovian dogs. My own field of economics sometimes treats people like pleasure-seeking maximizing mathematical functions too, but most of us are aware that these are partial models and simplifications of an incredibly complex reality.
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Post by hapatite on Aug 5, 2009 20:14:53 GMT -5
Science offers an explanation of how Earth came to be, which pleases some people. Big bang happens (or not), gases condense, planets and stars form... you know the rest. Evidence leads us to make an observation, which is reviewed and perhaps edited.
Scripture says: *Pow* and God makes it so. In ways you won't understand. This is a leap of faith; this is how it's different to science. Why did God do it? Because he loves you. Which is fine, some people find religion gives them meaning and science just explains stuff, so I guess that's a way that some people accept both.
I find that religion just changes the way scripture is interpreted to try and fit with new, infallible knowledge. Where people interpreted 6 days as literally 6 days, oh no, that's more like 6 aeons which could be any amount of time! You say that science wavers between popular schools of thought as time goes on but look at the Church. How many denominations of Christianity are there? Look at the different variations of creationism there are; Young Earth creationism, Modern geocentrism, Omphalos hypothesis, Creation science, Old Earth creationism, Gap creationism, Day-age creationism, Progressive creationism, Neo-Creationism, Intelligent design. Maybe next year some group will make charts and diagrams that completely debunk all previous forms of creationism.
There are proven theories in science, which are taken as effectively, truths in science. Something like... osmosis, or even better, addition. So it is perfectly reasonable to teach addition in schools because it is so clearly obvious and simple that there is no choice but to accept that 1 + 1 = 2 given our number system. Religion, I think, is something people choose to accept, or they accept because of upbringing, or other personal reasons.
Well, I think science is just more accepting. I think deeply religious people have a complex that they don't want to accept we are really just animals who once resembled "lower" or "more primitive" primates who live in dirt. Religion should be taught as a point of culture, not instilled into the minds of young children. They can make the choice to believe.
People choose to obtain their morals however they wish. Where does an atheist get their morals from? Social rules and environment, learned experiences, human logic and judgement. Is the threat of eternal fire and brimstone the only thing keeping a religious person on the straight and narrow? I would hope not.
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Post by haplotype on Aug 6, 2009 10:48:44 GMT -5
Which traditions, if I may ask? [You're in Alabama so I already have a guess] I enjoy my inherited religious traditions too (basically reciprocal gift exchange, feasting and family time) but they don't alter my outlook on the world. How else does your religious beliefs affect yours? I'm an adult convert to Christianity. I do not believe in literal interpretations of the bible; I view them as moral parables. The stories in the bible may or may not have happened at all. The historical veracity does not matter to me; I view the tales as an inspiration for moral or philosophical values. Some people interpret the bible literally, I don't. Science makes a lot of literal predictions, which are often shown to be wrong in the light of new evidence. We cannot place any more belief in a given scientific theory than we can in a given bible story.
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Post by betahat on Aug 6, 2009 11:22:47 GMT -5
^I view the tales as an inspiration for moral or philosophical values.
But you must agree that some of the biblical parables are more moral than others, no? There's some unnecessarily harsh punishments in certain places. I can get behind a lot of the biblical morality but not all of it, but then I guess Christians vary a lot themselves - my general outlook is probably 99% similar to a member of a liberal Christian denomination and quite different from a fundamentalist denomination.
^We cannot place any more belief in a given scientific theory than we can in a given bible story.
Only if by "given scientific theory" you mean the particular claims of science that have the least evidence to back them up. As a statistician, you have to accept that even if many truth claims are not 100% certain, they do not all have an equal probability of being valid. Of course, there are also some biblical stories that have historical evidence to back them up - a better comparison would be biblical story versus "claim about ancient history" or "scientific theory that cannot be validated experimentally" (e.g. many of the claims in astrophysics and evolutionary biology). Here I am more sympathetic to your argument.
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Post by haplotype on Aug 6, 2009 11:23:38 GMT -5
Science offers an explanation of how Earth came to be, which pleases some people. Big bang happens (or not), gases condense, planets and stars form... you know the rest. Evidence leads us to make an observation, which is reviewed and perhaps edited. Scripture says: *Pow* and God makes it so. In ways you won't understand. This is a leap of faith; this is how it's different to science. Why did God do it? Because he loves you. Which is fine, some people find religion gives them meaning and science just explains stuff, so I guess that's a way that some people accept both. Scripture allows room for interpretation also. Science implicitly asks us to believe that we can comprehend everything in the universe through rational reasoning, but this is a faith. The advanced forms of rational reasoning, which scientists do not necessarily comprehend, often appear irrational. What is rationality in the end? Is it reasoning that can be understood by the social consensus of scientists? Then it cannot be considered rational. It will be prone to the prejudices, limitations, political agendas of scientists. To use my specialty as an example, there is no reason to believe that traits such as height, weight, blood pressure, IQ, etc. are normally distributed. There is well-established evidence that log-normal distributions follow the data more closely. Yet, the vast majority of scientific papers in biological, medical, social sciences continue to use normal distributions, because scientists are unwilling to deal with the complexities of log-normal distributions. Even the log-normal distribution is merely a better approximation of data; there is no inherent reason why biological traits should follow any distribution at all. We merely impose distributions that happen to have elegant mathematical properties, which fit the data reasonably well. In the interests of mathematical purity, perhaps we should impose nonparametric distributions, but this will have much lower statistical power; as a consequence, it will discredit a vast number of accepted scientific theories. Scientists do not want to live in a world that says e.g. "there is no statistical evidence that smoking causes cancer". As does science. In science, theories are not "proven"; there is merely evidence to support a theory. Mathematics has theorems that are "proven", but in reality, new theorems are accepted as "proven" through a consensus of mathematicians at conferences. Such conferences can and do retract their "proofs" when other experts find errors in the consensus reasoning. Addition, multiplication, and numbers make for a nice idealization of the world. In reality, numbers often fail to capture the complexity of physical phenomena. The numbers can be spun to tell whatever story scientists want, but there is a larger grey area of how these numbers were acquired. Was the sampling biased? Was the instrument accurate? Was the methodology sound? How do we know the instrument really measured the phenomena we wanted to examine? Even in relatively basic mathematics, there remains controversy over how to define numbers such as 0/0, or 0 raised to the 0th power. This may seem like a prosaic point, but it makes a big difference in more advanced mathematics, which are at the foundation for the statistical models used in other sciences. Mathematics, like any other scientific endeavour, is under threat of revolutionary new discoveries that could completely overturn our understanding of it, and children may have to learn a completely new mathematical system that is nothing like the old. Osmosis says that concentrated solutions want to diffuse into less concentrated states. This is an adequate explanation for e.g. a simple solution of table salt in tap water. Osmosis theory breaks down when there is a complex mixture of many ingredients, as often happens in real life. Or when taken to extremes, a solution of very pure NaCl in very pure water may have properties that differ considerably from the properties predicted by standard theory. Scientists are working on these issues, which will eventually require a massive overhaul of physics and chemistry as taught in basic courses. So far, atheists such as Stalin, Mao Zedong, or Pol Pot have not set convincing examples of moral behavior. Combined with my personal experiences, I do not believe that atheists have better morals than religious people. The atheists I have come across seemed overly obsessed with seeking pleasure, or with the crude sensationalism of shocking others through rebellious acts.
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Post by haplotype on Aug 6, 2009 12:34:43 GMT -5
But you must agree that some of the biblical parables are more moral than others, no? There's some unnecessarily harsh punishments in certain places. The tales illustrate changing perceptions of morals over time. Offenses that seem minor to contemporary sensibilities meant a lot in other historical circumstances. Offenses deemed serious crimes today, e.g. having sex with a teenager or fishing a whale, may seem silly to cultures of the past or future. Today, we have professionally trained policemen who do the dirty work of catching criminals. In the past, where there were no professional policemen, criminals terrorized communities for much longer until people were willing to rise up in anger and inflict severe punishments upon the perpetrators. Last month in South Africa, there was a village far from police stations that had long been plagued by a band of thieves who stole food from farmers. One night, farmers finally captured one of the bandits who had stolen a can of tuna and a loaf of bread. The villagers tied him to a tree, put wires through his hands, and poured boiling water on him until he died. If food is scarce and it was constantly being stolen by bandits, then the anger is understandable. To people in such circumstances, biblical tales make perfect sense.
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Post by betahat on Aug 6, 2009 14:59:51 GMT -5
^The tales illustrate changing perceptions of morals over time. Offenses that seem minor to contemporary sensibilities meant a lot in other historical circumstances. Offenses deemed serious crimes today, e.g. having sex with a teenager or fishing a whale, may seem silly to cultures of the past or future.
Of course. My point is that some of them have held up better over time. If many of the tales simply illustrate the moral perceptions of the time, they are hardly a foundation or basis for morality today. Part of what makes Christianity (and religious texts in general) so interesting is the way people pick and choose whatever they want of value from the text, sometimes as a rationale for their prejudices, and come to vastly different conclusions (for example, in debates over slavery). It does raise interesting questions for those who do believe in religious texts/divine revelation as the main source of morals though - how do you decide what precepts to follow? I imagine many people accept the interpretation of whatever denomination they grew up in and whichever preacher they had, but that doesn't sound like your experience.
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Post by haplotype on Aug 6, 2009 16:14:16 GMT -5
^ Yes, religion is full of inconsistencies and selective readings. But then, science is guilty of the same. The different branches of science have reached inconsistent conclusions, based on their selective knowledge of other specialties.
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