All of which highlights a real conflict, a war within liberalism between the idea of unrestricted science in the cause of health and the principle that all men are created equal — between humanitarianism and egalitarianism.
In “Science and the Left,” his insightful article in the latest issue of the New Atlantis, Yuval Levin argues that a belief in the power of science is central to the development of liberalism — based on the assertion that objective facts and rational planning can replace tradition and religious authority in the organization of society. Levin summarizes the liberal promise this way: “The past was rooted in error and prejudice while the future would have at its disposal a new oracle of genuine truth.”
But the oracle of science is silent on certain essential topics. “Science, simply put,” says Levin, “cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal. Science measures our material and animal qualities, and it finds them to be patently unequal.”
wat a maroon
there IS a republican war on science, dude, and you are completely blind not to see it.
the soljahs are Ben Stein, Jonah Goldberg, David Berlinski, Leon Kass, the members of the odious bioluddite council(except Dr. K–he’s a mole), President George Bush, the Discovery Institute, Ramesh Ponurru, and a host of others.
“Science, simply put,†says Levin, “cannot account for human equality”
dude, that is what the LAW is for.
no man is equal under the genes (hehe), but all men are equal under the law.
this is the exact same meme Stein and Goldberg are pushing– Expelled is just the cartoon version of Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism.
Science is B..A..D. without religion to guide it.
Gerson, Levin, Stein and Goldberg.
The memetic equivalent of villagers with pitchforks and torches.
Im disgusted that you would link this Dan.
Michael Gerson is a tortured soul. Not really an impressive intellect person or really even explicable as having any prominence at all really. He’s kind of like David Brock I think.
Dan – Why must you poke the hornets nest? I am disgusted with the nishitiot being disgusted, and denounce her for it.
I kind of agree with nishi. It’s like how I don’t debate my feather duster. I don’t even dust with my feather duster. I’m not really sure why I have a feather duster really.
i think you need to read this.
Michael Gerson here really is playing with what kind of strike me as Fisher Price replicas of ideas that the big kids play with.
No, he’s not, haps. What he’s saying, in effect, is that science cannot provide the values that politics believes it ought to promote, and any politician who thinks he can derive those values out of science itself, or who wants others to believe those values are at their core scientific, is full of shit.
Dan:
Any day you can say, “I disgusted nishi” is a pretty good day.
I would like to propose nishi-disgust as the litmus test for all future posts and comments.
We could even work up some kind of “Disgusto-Scale”
…from only slightly nauseated to, let’s say, full-bore, ALL CAPS REVOLTED!!!!!
In other words, science is a wonderful servant and a terrible master.
Jesusland here we come.
And i mean that in the Thirteen sense.
God I know this sounds terrible but I just don’t think that’s very interesting or deep or insightful. It’s objectifying if not really more anthropomorphizing “science” I think. Making it stand in the corner while we have a parent teacher conference about it. Creepy.
actually Dan, i find that link obscene as well as profoundly anti-libertarian.
it is kinda like the FLDS polygamy wives.
at first i thought they were just alien….but i have decided that i absolutely loathe them…..they are an affront to my sex and my species.
Those women allowed themselves and their children to become chattel in service to their “religion”.
/spit
YFZ mormon polygamy ranch is just the extreme version of the rights war on science.
Jesus was really a pretty nice guy, so it’s not really a horrible idea to give him his own “land”. After all, Dolly Parton has one and as far as I am aware she has never walked on water.
im sure you will be very comfortable there edu guy.
there are faith based prisons, no public schools, and abortion and homosexuality are punishable by lynching.
People make faiths out of all sorts of odd things, nish, including transhumanism.
science is a wonderful servant and a terrible master.
and that is utter bullshit dan collins and you should know it.
i have a masters in science is how i know.
science is no ones master.
now religion certainly can be….like the mormon polygamy wives.
pithed by religion.
this is just more of that science is BAD..reallyreally bad….unless religion guides it.
wow..i thought you were smarter dan collins.
i was wrong.
I’d be worried nishi, if I didn’t know that you have a very loose grip on reality. The great thing about faith based prisons is that while the bars are real, you can’t see them.
Hmm, What shall I say? Other than, duh! But what most of those who hold to a non-traditional religion don’t see is that not all traditions even are equal or quite at all similar.
My tradition doesn’t look anything like ‘Jesusland’, Ms. Nishi. And at the same time, it is stronger and more encompassing than what you fear. I think it was once said, “There are more things in heaven and in the earth than are contained within your philosophy.”
“Science” is a verb (i.e. process) and it is the only reliable master. One could reasonably argue there is a lot of poor science going on. On ecould reasonably argue that cultures implicitly conduct science, using myths in place of theories, such as how the system of water goddesses in traditional Bali culture implicitly contains a science of ecology and a code to regulate water use. No doubt naive attempts to “improve” that implicit science were steps backwards, such as the so-called Green Revolution. But as Nietzsche observed, consciousness is the youngest part of the mind and most prone to error. this is not an argument against conscious thought, but to work at improving it, self-consciously.
““The past was rooted in error and prejudice while the future would have at its disposal a new oracle of genuine truth.—
Wasn’t this one of the cornerstones of the French Revolution? We’ve all read how well that turned out.
And just because some liberals have become enlightened or wise enough to recognize that science cannot be ‘master’ does not mean that it is not a widely propagated view. And honestly, there is nothing wrong with believing that science can give you completely correct answers. The real question is “to what”? In my faith, it always has been understood that something like God is incomprehensible to science. That’s fine – there are other means of such knowledge, and other tests of its certitude.
one more time, in case you didn’t get it.
“Science, simply put,†says Levin, “cannot account for human equalityâ€Â
dude, that is what the LAW is for.
no man is equal under the genes (hehe), but all men are equal under the law.
ironically, transhumanism is how we could actually make all men genetically equal.
or at least equal in potential.
/spit
sometimes i despise you for not being Jeff.
i know that isn’t fair.
but i never thought i’d despise you for being stupid, dan.
Nishi is always adorable, though. The lack of capitalization? Perhaps someone’s hands are too small to reach the shift keys?
Awwww!
*flees out of common sense and duty*
EG – Outstanding.
Nishitiot – Not so much. Get some new material.
Transhumanism would suggest that what makes humans unequal is material.
Heh.
Not even close. Though, it is part of it.
No, nishi, it’s not science ought to be guided by religion. It’s that science ought to be guided by ethics. You go find out what “liberals” are saying about McCain’s desire to turn to nuclear power, and find out why they say it shouldn’t be done, and then you come back here and tell me all about the Conservative War on Science.
Meanwhile, savor your bloody oxen.
Hey now with the despising. Gratuitously polarizing stuff is what creates niches for parasites like Gerson I think.
Should theocons be equal under the law, nishi?
Dan, the bait barely had a chance to hit the water. Hilariously done.
For some time now the hard left has waged a war on science, to the point that it is now openly conducted within the academy.
Ms. Venkatesan’s scholarly specialty is “science studies,” which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, “teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth.” She continues: “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.”.
Severing the link between reason and reality sets the stage for a new frame of reference wherein all points of view are equally valid (so long as they lead to the progressive endpoint). Up is down.
Nishi, has it ever occured to you that you are easily the most obnoxious person here?
The first to resort to name-calling and grandiosity?
The most repetitive and dull, in addition to clinging to adolescent modes of written expression?
Is there some inner boilerplate that justifies all of this? I mean some form of “i must tell teh jesuslanderzz off, cuz dey are teh suXXorzzezez!!!one!!!eleven!!!”
Do you really talk that way in your head?
I’m curious. The general consensus is that you’re a boring, bigoted, possibly stoned imbecile. I’d like to see if you can prove that wrong.
Something that does not possess a will cannot be your master, anyway. So if science – or something else is your master, who is really your master? Think about that for a moment. It’s a real simple argument.
im talking about any other bullshit attacks on science..just yours….by linking that piece of crap.
you are pithed by religion and partisan politics.
/spit
cut out the weasel wording….by “ethics” you mean judeo-xian ethics.
you suck collins
you’re a simpleton like the rest of the troglodytes here.
forty-percenter!
And while you’re at it, tell me how an Obama presidency is going to rise above the idiocies of politics? I would love to see some technocrats and people with scientific backgrounds in office, but to hear some people talk about science, you’d think that they didn’t know thing one about human societies.
Of course science doesn’t address ethics, just as missile defense completely fails to address the backpack nuke threat.
Sure, science ought to be guided by ethics. Whose ethics is a valid topic for debate. The problem here is that secular (see what I did, there?) ethicists are unwilling to take the dictates of religious ethics as authoritative, while the same is true going in the other direction. Some framework is needed, possibly.
i spit in your memetic guiness.
you are unworthy to be a celt.
Right, nish. So . . . explain to me your ethical system, based on reason. Explain how it looks in terms of policies, philosophy. Explain how we get there.
Nice heuristic, though. I don’t despise that. Still, it doesn’t, despite everything, make you better than Judeo Xians, your Dervishness.
Everyone, it is apparent, requires some sense of superiority to assuage their limitation. Oh, no! Not I!
Fuck it.
Technocrats? Wasn’t that the ‘progressives’ of the early 20th’s schtick? Like, let’s rebuild man in our image?
Try to be a human successfully before you try to rise about mere humanity, Ms. Nishi. To date there has only been one truly human person. A few others have come quite, quite close in this life. All have fallen short.
ironically, transhumanism is how we could actually make all men genetically equal.
or at least equal in potential.
Ironically, nishi doesn’t have a clue what is truly ironic about that statement.
Science is a method of study, it is a means to try to understand the physical world. What you do with that knowledge is not science.
i have a masters in science is how i know.
Ooooooh, Dan. She p3wnd you.
Whether or not nishitiot is an advcoate of genocide or a eugenics proponent is still up in the air though.
Hey now with the unworthy. Jeez.
Collins, man – let me tell you. I’m so limited that I lose a pair of sunglasses every year. And I don’t try to! I spilled a whole 2 pounds of spaghetti noodles this morning, even though I knew how to prevent it. That’s fuckin’ limited, bro.
The last time science was used to guide countries by politicians, we wound up with about 100 million dead Jews, Kulaks, Gypsies, homosexuals, counter-revolutionaries and other “undesireables”. We have abortion on demand because of proponents of the science of eugenics. Currently we have Al Gore and the church of AGW being touted by many scientists trying to alter our society in major ways, despite a profound lack of actual data.
So, nishi-Stalin, despite my agnostic religious views, I have great problems with anyone who touts science as a cure all for societal problems. Christianity actually has a better track record for positive societal developments using science than the athiest and pagan applications thereof. You present a sneering bigoted tantrum as if its an arguement, as the left has plenty of subversions of science to its credit along with a huge body count as evidence of its complete failure.
Oh and nishi, your credentialism doesn’t impress me as I know people with master desgrees that can barely function. Like you for instance.
If I were nishi’s alma mater, I’d ask for my MS back. Clearly, much failed to take.
Anyone else get Ask Dr. Science acid-flashbacks when she said that?
He has a master’s degree . . .
Science is a tool, like a hammer is a tool. A hammer can be used for good, to pound nails; it can be used for evil, like to pound skulls. Science can be used for good, and it can be used for evil. It is merely a tool.
it is kinda like the FLDS polygamy wives.
at first i thought they were just alien….but i have decided that i absolutely loathe them…..they are an affront to my sex and my species.
Those women allowed themselves and their children to become chattel in service to their “religionâ€Â.
/spit
Yeah, nothing like the muslim moms who raise their kids to be suicide bombers….
Goddamnit I love unintentional irony!
And yes, I am an engineer, I work as a engineer, I am the son of an engineer and I was raised as an engineer, so 11-ty!! 1!!
RE: Chattel wives
Ultimately the question is not ‘do you serve’ but ‘whom do you serve’. They chose poorly.
For someone with a master’s degree nishi doen’t understand alot of things like secularization, ethics, eugenics, anthropormorphism, church and state and grammer and punctuation. Yet she is determined to raise a stink at a personal level at anyone who strikes at the ascendancy of science as process and cure for the human condition, truth teller and savior of the races. Well, at least some of the races. you klnow, the smart ones on the right side of the curve.
Any inconvenient lives that get marginalized, pushed aside, stomped on or eradicated are ethical anomolies, fair sacrfices for the science. When it comes to the value of life and its place in the world, I’ll take the average Christian over the average secularist or Muslim. No offense to any individuals as this is pointed squarely at the genocitist and mystic sufi.
She wouldn’t know an ethic if it gave her a massage.
Those women allowed themselves and their children to become chattel in service to their “religionâ€Â.
KILL THE INFIDEL WHORES!!!!
STONE THEM!!!!
Hey now with the stoning of the whores.
Nishi has been very clear and consistant on one point:
“keep ur rligion OUT of my politicizd scienz!”
nishi is no feminist that’s for sure. What, no tools of the religious Patriarchy? Oppressed by the Paternal misogynous order? Perhaps these women chose to be the child bearing chattel of men who served an extreme edge of their religion.
Has anybody else noticed that, while nishi demands all kinds of favors and understandings for the jihadist elements of Islam (they’re all reading the wrong translation of the Koran, you know,) she consistantly, gleefully, ruthlessly and brutally pokes and prods every extreme element of Christianity and Mormanism in obsessive attempts to comepletely denigrate each in totol.
Unless it’s excusing again and again any connection that her beloved Obama Mama might have with certain radical black xtians.
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRACY!!
“Science” is a procedure, a set of steps that give reliable results (calling such results “true” begs the question). It isn’t even hard to reconcile it with belief in God, although religious people tend to bite all four thumbs at the notion. For instance, the Prophet (mhnbp) tells us that success, wealth, and power come only to those who follow the laws of Allah. Western countries are wealthy and powerful; Moslem ones, not so much. Just on the evidence, which of the two is more submissive to God’s will?
Science is not and cannot be a substitute for religion, because however powerful it becomes it addresses only the Universe (or the Creation, for those so inclined). A God worthy of the capital letter is outside, and greater than, the Universe/Creation; science cannot reach, touch, or analyze Him because He is outside its limits of operation.
Problems arise from several sources.
One is when religious doctrine, largely explanations of the Universe/Creation arrived at before the scientific method matured, conflicts with the results of science. My own view of that is that the Creation trumps the Book, regardless of which Book you use. The Book is, at best, the result of human brains interpreting the Word in the light of their own experience and knowledge and attempting to express it in human language. To say it is likely to be in error is to note that the Atlantic is likely to be damp. The Creation, on the other hand, is the direct expression of God’s will in concrete form. Since we humans do not have the power of Creation or miracle, we cannot corrupt it, and (in that view) science is neither more nor less than seeking the pure form of the Word with as few intermediaries as possible. It will fail, because it must fail to apprehend the Infinite within finite compass, but it is a much better approximation than any prophet can possibly give.
Another problem arises when science becomes Doctrine. This usually happens when some scientific result or theory appears to explain a lot of things; the people who learn it then become highly resistant to any modification, resulting in a situation essentially indistinguishable from the religious case. Nishi is a good example. Her theory, which has become Doctrine, is that embryonic stem cells can be used to cure many diseases. Once again, though, the Universe trumps the Book. The theory turns out to be bullshit, and in retrospect it isn’t hard to see why — the biology of critters (including human beings) depends on genetic material, and matching genetics (from adult stem cells derived from the organism being treated) works while introducing new, unrelated genetic material from another organism does not. Nishi, however, holds to the previous Doctrine with what can only be described as religious fervor while she and her compatriots search frantically for loopholes in the Laws of the Universe. It is tempting to theorize that her scathing dismissal of “Creationists” is evidence that she is aware, somewhere down in her subconscious, that she is not at all a different case, making her whole argument an extended tu quoque.
(There’s at least another 200 words of this, but I have an urgent errand to run.)
Regards,
Ric
Man, cool it, yo. Let the first righteous dude throw the first stone, dudes.
The linked article is short, simple, and unobjectionable.
But some people are offended by any reminder that Sanger was about eugenics and not about family planning.
More, the “war on science” is primarily carried out by the left every single time someone suggests that a “consensus” must not be questioned. The basis of science itself is question and skepticism. But those are the things that we’re told we *must not* do. We must not be a “skeptic” over global warming. We must not make a fuss over evolution. We must not, must not, question the application of biological science… unless we’re objecting to animal testing, then fine. Objecting to human testing, reproduction for the purpose of the destructive harvesting of cells… that’s a different story. Question testing on rats and you’re awesome. Question testing with humans and you’re part of the War On Science.
Vigorous debate, skepticism, and disagreement are now not the basis of science but part of the War On Science.
If this becomes accepted by most people then Science will be horribly wounded if not crippled until another age of skepticism and question takes its place.
Those women allowed themselves and their children to become chattel in service to their “religionâ€Â.
Really! They should have run away from home before they were forced to marry (that would be around the age of 12, right?) into a world they were afraid of … with absolutely NO money or connections. Selfish bitches, they are … allowing themselves to be like chattle.
If only they had nishi’s independent spirit. And wrote all in lowercaps.
POWER TO THE SISTERHOOD.
I guess it hasn’t occurred to her. I wonder how she gets by with a blind spot that big. Is it SCIENCE (pull forelock)?
Let’s put aside for a moment the fact ,that Gerson is a hack, who wrote liberal interventionist fantasy speeches for G.W.Bush.
I actually think that conservative views should be a positive factor in regulating sciense. I agree with what Rick said above.
Many discoveries can pose ethical and moral dilemma, that’ where the conservatism should step in.
Gerson in short:
scientist are the storm troopers of liberal fascism.
I object to the article. It’s so phony. He’s starts with the disingenuous crap what will tell a winger what he wants to hear about the war on science business and then he starts yammering about Down Syndrome like that has anything to do with anything. Meanwhile he validates this false polarity about liberals and science being these like fish what naturally school together while conservatives mostly just bumble through their day loving Jesus and retarded kids. Michael Gerson is useless in furthering a meaningful discussion I think.
Oh. *He* starts – and whatever else – I’m kinda on the phone right now.
nishi, do you wear a brown shirt, perchance?
Maybe a tiny mustache carefully drawn using your own feces?
“scientist are the storm troopers of liberal fascism.”
It must be wonderful to summarize things that you have not read. Show me exactly how the premises argued by Gerson lead to that conclusion.
Or, if that’s too much work for your iddow head, try to read what I took away from the article:
1. The accusations of a Republican “War on Science” are based on an ideologically, not an objectively, defined standard of “science.”
2. Progressive application of science has had non-egalitarian moments, which is at odds with the egalitarian traditions of liberalism.
3. This non-egalitarianism has not gone away. Normally egalitarian liberalism has not dealt with it.
Now, of the two readings of the article yours or mine, which could be considered more in keeping with what Gerson actually intended and probably thinks? I know you lefties get all cranky when the devil-word “intent” gets thrown around, but just as a philosophical exercise, go for it.
was it Gerson, who claimed that condoms prevent the evolution ?
was it Gerson, who claimed that condoms prevent the evolution ?
Would you argue otherwise.
Smirky, carefull,
this thread could lead to the Holocaust.
Ben Stein
I’ll take that as a “yours, of course, but I won’t cop to it.”
Carry on.
“the” evolution? prevent?
I must have missed that.
I’m told there is a flavor of radical materialism that says there is no mind in the brain, only electro-chemical activity of a sort that as a by-product somehow creates the illusion of consciousness — no ghost in the machine.
I’d rather be a troglodyte.
A woman on the internat talked about evolution
when it’s already passed her by.
more moronic bullshit
ESCR and ASCR are complimentary, not competitive. For example, we will NEVER be able to do disease modelling with ASCs, like we can with ESCs.
Dolt.
TaiChiWawa
i think i will be a quantum ghost, tyvm.
And how many cures for, well, anything, have been derived from ESCR?
The non-war war continues. I much prefer war simulations, like Supreme Commander, but I’m also a sucker for these dogpiles. Keep it goin’!
COD, here.
WARMONGERER!!!
“we will NEVER be able to do disease modelling with ASCs, like we can with ESCs.”
Are these the same models that are so wonderfully accurate with regard to climate?
Oh, and doesn’t “we will NEVER” smack a bit of the reasoning behind ID?
Thanks, anime LOLCat. You never disappoint.
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/7 @ 2:03 pm
No need to rediscover the anima, ma’am. Quantum stuff is fascinating, by the way, especially the instantaneous communion of certain particles. It is a reflection of the non-local locality continually present between the seen and unseen, the heavenly and earthly, etc.
Anyway, if I see you on the other side I’ll put in a good word for you. We all need it.
make you better than Judeo Xians, your Dervishness.
oh i am….and you all know it.
;)
this is why the cultural stereotype of xian==stoopid.
how seductive is this meme?
you are just as smart as those snobby scientists….you are smart where it really counts!
god-smart.
#Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/7 @ 2:17 pm #
Scratch a nishi, find a fascist.
how seductive is this meme?
you are just as smart as those snobby scientists….you are smart where it really counts!
god-smart.
She hateses the religion ‘cuz it’s a threat to her ego constructed on the soap-bubble of measurable IQ.
Holy shit.
Rivercocytus
i know you.
make you better than Judeo Xians, your Dervishness.
oh i am….and you all know it.
;)
this is why the cultural stereotype of xian==stoopid.
LOLCat, you make me laugh. The combination of your intellectual claims and the drivel such as this which you repeatedly spew like an alchie on an ippecac is simply gut-wrenchingly funny. You can’t be this stupid and think you’re smart, yet you are and you do. Awesome.
Quick, over there! Someone said a kind word about Jesus! Kill the fucker before it spreads!
nicely put, Ric.
Still not bringing the impressiveness, nishi.
Well, I can continue to hope, in the face of overwhelming hopelessness, that someday you’ll say something that has me suspect that you’re mean plus one sigma or better.
She hateses the religion ‘cuz it’s a threat to her ego
no, i hate it a-cuz it attempts to interfere with science.
prithee tell me, dan collins, false celt thou art, what shall you do with this Bad Science?
will you mandate judeoxian ethics?
outlaw stemcell research and cloning?
force us to teach IDT in secualr highschools and unis?
outlaw genetic engineering and research chimeras?
outlaw Strong AI?
i beseech thee, instruct me.
also, outlaw nanotechnology and picotechnology?
outlaw certain brands of stringtheory, and only allow the approved version?
why not just outlaw biotech altogether?
outlaw lifehacking and Kurzweil bridges?
i think you should outlaw the technological Singularity.
it might be very dangerous.
i beseech thee, instruct me.
You could start by rereading the thread and trying to get it in your head what science is.
Hint: It has nothing to do with ethics.
My neighbors keep arguing and keeping me awake at night, science has provided me with a 12 gauge shotgun that will solve the problem nicely, but my ingrained Puritanism won’t let me do it.
Stupid fucking xtianity, messing with my science like that.
The French Revolutionary government, a byproduct of the Enlightenment, renamed Notre Dame cathedral “The Temple of Reason.” And lots of folks lost their pie.
no, i hate it a-cuz it attempts to interfere with science.
And she has a Masters Degree In Science which makes her feel all shiney.
hyp.: “She hateses teh religion ‘cuz it’s a threat to her ego”
Q.E.D.
outlaw particle physics and supercolliders!
outlaw fermitech!
it might be misused by eevul godless ethicless scientists.
why not just outlaw theory of evolution and theory of relativity all together!
afer all, science just makes us into fascists and nazis.
/spit
a pox on the lot of you.
go back to the Dark Ages.
its where you belong.
a pox on the lot of you.
go back to the Dark Ages.
I will leave that to you. Good luck with your little genetic alchemy projects.
Science is objective knowledge. Technologies are instantiations of science. Not all instantiations are value-neutral to us humans. For instance, technologies that tend to erase large segments of humanity, or even all of humanity, we tend to view as “bad”. We’d like to avoid executing those technologies.
Nishi is confusing science and technology. Knowledge in and of itself isn’t dangerous, or evil. Implementations of knowledge can, however, be used for purposes that would be fairly universally regarded as evil.
Nishi somehow manages to gloss over any discussion of this nature as repression of science. It’s not. It’s care-taking in the applications. Taking some pause to consider consequences is not, as nishi implies, anti-science.
None of which is to say that no intersection of science and morality is ever done stupidly. It’s, instead, a suggestion that such intersections are not always stupid.
The singularity already exists, nishi. You just don’t have access to it.
nishi, you sure do make a lot of unwarranted leaps, for a scientist.
Allowing men of science and men of God to be equally men and therefore, suspect of all the wicky-wack the flesh is heir to, doens’t mean no space elevator. I mean, come on.
Sure, I’ve got a problem with superstitious fools who fear wizardly pub tricks. But I can allow that forces I don’t understand underpin my consciousness. Why can’t you? Because it’s irrational to think that kind of question can sockologized by any mere mortal agenda.
Oo u theoxtiancons are stoopid stoopid stoopid !eleventy!
u nominatz rincled geazer whit dude wile eye gets Bama Mmmmmmmm
bama makz mee shivrz n swet likz puppyz n heet lolz
stemzsells r teh bomz n wil modle curvz fer al diseesz lol
yoo giez jus wan jesulandz wher al sceyeuntists n jaylz n slav labr
eye fitez yoo til teh endz fer sceyeunz then rubz teh oliv oil n me thi’s n seez bama vids. OOOoooooooo baybee, baybee nowz
wunz wee kilz off them 40% lef side bel curvz peeplez nly smartz peeplz lik mee runz cuntree n yoo theoconz xtian stoopid stoopid stoopid
yoo goe toz spesial campz wit bigs fensez n all teh snakz yoo needz
OOOOoooooooo bama bama bama bama bama bama bama … stem celz rowrrrr
Don’t, Sarah. You’re interrupting nishi’s virtual spitfest.
It’d be just peachy, though, if there were just a touch of thought evidencing itself out of all that lower-case verbiage.
why not just outlaw theory of evolution and theory of relativity all together!
You don’t have to outlaw theories to make them go away, you just have to produce counter hypotheses that explain phenomena more fully. I think you love dogma, not science.
afer all, science just makes us into fascists and nazis.
No, facists use science to make us into nazis.
I don’t know whether you are all that bright, but you make me look brilliant!
little genetic alchemy projects.
more bullshit….you are wholly ignorant of what i believe.
heres some little genetic alchemy for you B Moes
nish needs to stop throwing so many underhand pitches. They make a simpleton like me look, as Gray related, like Barry Bonds.
Consciousness is an extension of the will of God. That evidence of it exists in the physical – quantum realms is not unusual. It should be expected.
Am I talking to dead air here?
sarah…ima believer…Penrose and Hamerhoff and Collins and Miller are believers.
i object vehemently to dan propagating the calumny that Science needs judeoxian “supervision”.
I thought her masters degree was in mathematics.
The quantum computations we propose link to neuronal-level activities, and are also ripples in fundamental spacetime geometry, the most basic level of the universe.
Once you get that figured out, I gotta believe lead into gold is a snap. How many angels can hip hop dance in one of them theoretical microtubules, you reckon?
For me, spirituality implies:
* Interconnectedness among living beings and the universe
* A ubiquitous reservoir of cosmic intelligence/Platonic values in touch with our conscious choices and perceptions
* Existence of consciousness after death
Can these issues be accounted for scientifically? I believe they possibly can.
Yah–The Force is generated by small organisms called ‘Midichlorians’ as Qui-Gon explained in “The Phantom Menace”. This is well-plowed ground.
May The Force Infect you.
eye suprviz meeselfz when bama speekz n teh plaesurez iz phat
eye seez teh cosmik univarz evry times eye heerz bama speekz cuz hee makz mee gasmz
xtians stoopid stoopid stoopid stoopid yoo jalz al scyuntiz n banz alz scyuntz n yoo burnz labb assitenz at steaks
eye fitez yoo fer scyuntz n bama Oooooooooooooo
“Comment by MayBee on 5/7 @ 3:05 pm #
I thought her masters degree was in mathematics.”
She gets…confused.
i object vehemently….
We got that, you might try objecting coherently for a change.
Le’s see, I don’t have to read the comments to know that nishi displays her eugenics, Rick Locke makes sense, and many are disturbed at inciting the nishitudes. AmIRight?
Assumption + suggestion = belief. In nishi’s world.
But it ain’t science anywhere anyhow.
Nishi
has come among the daffodils
shouting
that flowers and men
were created
relatively equal.
Oldfashioned knowledge is
dead under the blossoming peachtrees.
change “disturbed” to “amused” and I think you’ve got it.
it is perfectly obvious to me at this point that the comment community here is not libertarian, but reactionary.
knock yourselves out.
Nishi, I’m pretty familiar with the microtubule theory of quantum consciousness. It’s an intriguing speculation. Assume it to be provable and correct it still is not and can’t be dispositive as to the existence of creator or lack of creator. It can describe or explain how things work as far as mortal men can observe, and that’s as good as it gets.
I don’t think Dan argues religion must govern science.
And how such a premise of Dan’s or anyone else premise would have Dan et al burning supercolliders as witches is an absurd leap.
It isn’t science or knowlege that needs governance, it’s that dangerous part of science or religion ( the man part) that says, “ok, well that’s all known, and all settled, and its on my side so lets go do what I want at the expense of the life and liberty of others”
Maybe Dan can tell us all the humanities people hated him for wearing a crucifix? Dan, what part of American high ed does not hate you?
It is perfectly obvious to me that you are not only reactionary, but a warped, deluded ideologue. Go figure.
it is perfectly obvious to me at this point that the comment community here is not libertarian, but reactionary.
Says the bigot who conflates the extreme fundy brand of Christianity with ALL of Christendom, which led an enlightenment period that was the foundation of the science she touts as Supreme, all the while worshipping a form of religion that has kept it adherents in a 7th Century mindset and has retarded societal development where it has been practiced.
DO you realise just how foolish you are nishi?
People who are as open-minded as they like to claim to be, HP.
And I did not say all the humanities folks, HP, did I? I said that some of the Calvinists among the people in my seminar in Renaissance English religious iconography were a bit anti-Papist. Probably like you, really.
In other words: Get thee behind me, Fuckstick.
LOL. A couple years ago embryonic stem cells were The Universal Solution&tm;®pat.app.for. Now they’re complementary (and I know how to spell that). Pretty soon they’ll be an important supplementary data source. A little while after that the funding will dry up and people will start wandering away from the DEAD END sign with their hands in their pockets and carefully-arranged expressions of calm noninvolvement. Those goalposts have been moved so often they’ve had to put in Interstate-quality pavement.
(Cont’d from above)
The other place religion and science can conflict — although they need not — is in ethics and morality. Religion is not just a series of attempts to comprehend the All, variously silly or profound, although that’s the aspect that some, especially critics, like to emphasize; it also contains, distilled, the ethical and moral rules that form the basis of society. Separating the two can sometimes require gaseous diffusion if not mass spectrometry, but the rules are there.
Science, qua science, has no ethical or moral component, any more than a stone does. Things are, or they aren’t; the experiment works or fails. Some, like nishi, try to use that as an excuse, as a way to claim that there are no limits. That fails because the actions that must be taken to implement the procedure called “science” are the actions of people who live within a society, as subject to the ethical and moral rules of the society as ditchdiggers or accountants. Poetically stated:
“You have heard it said, love your friends and hate your enemies;
“But I say unto you, love your enemies, love them that hate you, be good to them that spitefully use you, and abuse you,
“That you may be the children of your Father in Heaven, who maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and the good alike [some witnesses add, and His rain falleth upon the just and the unjust]”.
Regards,
Ric
it is perfectly obvious to me at this point that the comment community here is not libertarian, but reactionary.
knock yourselves out.
I think you need some work on this griefer thing, nishi. I would recommend going back and practicing on Barrens chat some.
I would have figured if any thread would have brought out Nishi’s stupid side, this would have been the one. Boy, was I right. Of course in all her rants she’s skipped right over which side of the political spectrum is the one on which the real opponents of generic engineering and nuclear technology are found. And, again, she’s arguing against a strawman with her arguments about Liberal Fascism; she’s either taken Goldberg completely out of context, or more likely, plagiarized someone that took Goldberg out of context.
My brother and I both have a style of debate which relies heavily on playing devil’s advocate for otherwise indefensible positions. He’s a scientist (much more of one than Nishi) and he leans liberal, as far as I can tell. One of his favorite Swiftian positions was advocating that prisoners be used for medical experimentation. It generally caused anyone else that argued politics with him of any political persuasion to shut up and go away, which was his objective. I don’t know what would scare me more: that Nishi would sincerely agree with him or that she would disagree with him and not understand how that argument is relevant to the debate over ethics.
Confession: I’m a little bit anti-papist. With a little bit Memphis and Nashville, and a little bit Calvin in my soul.
It’s probbaly the hats.
probably.
And the not the half-dozen macarons that put me in insulin shock
The last time science was used to guide countries by politicians, we wound up with about 100 million dead Jews, Kulaks, Gypsies, homosexuals, counter-revolutionaries and other “undesireablesâ€Â.
Although Nishi does have a point with people like Sgt Ted.
I understand what you’re trying to say, but there was no science guiding Nazi Germany. You confuse the scientific excuse used to cover a lack of morality for science itself. Science is a way of understanding the natural world around us. What the Nazi’s and Communists did was not science and cannot be blamed on science. What they did was succumb to an ideal of the way the world should work, rooted in romanticism for some nonexistant past age or future state (kinda like Nishi’s romantic eschatological delusions about the singularity). This is what Jonah Goldberg argued, and Nishi can’t read, in Liberal Fascism.
Nazis, communists: Nascent science flattered or even inspired their world view. But they were doing it wrong.
” And, again, she’s arguing against a strawman with her arguments about Liberal Fascism; she’s either taken Goldberg completely out of context, or more likely, plagiarized someone that took Goldberg out of context.”
I vote for her not having a fucking Clueâ„¢ as to what she’s talking about.
Although Nishi does have a point with people like Sgt Ted.
No, she doesn’t. You assume much about me by saying such.
I understand what you’re trying to say, but there was no science guiding Nazi Germany.
I know that, which is why I wrote “The last time science was used to guide countries by politicians” blah blah about the Nazi’s and Communists.
Meanwhile, our politicians are using science to starve the poor via ethanol production in the name of “saving” the earth. Nevermind that mixing it with gasolene actually reduces MPG. But, when someone questions their science, they say to shut up and drive a smaller car. Because they are Progressives, who have always been into public policy via science too; eugenics, scientific socialism and the ordering of society to suit them. That their ideas were primarily from European Fascists is still studiously overlooked. These are generally the folks touting ESCR, too. Which should give any intelligent person reason to pause and question their assertions.
And civilis and nishi think it’s the Christians questioning thier assertions and assumptions that are out of line?
So sorry, but the planet is littered with the corpses of people who were the victims of those infatuated with science as applied to “improving” societies and mankind.
One desn’t have to be religious, much less a Christian, to recognize that fact.
Ok, I found it:
Master of Science degree in math and statistics, right nishi?
and Nishi can’t read… Stop right there. That sums it up.
By that measure, I am an artist.
Master of Science
“Her Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor nishizonoshinji, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.”
The party that is against theextraction of oil,the development of nuclear power,
the need for further vaccinations, genetically enhanced food, space exploration in large part, really should
not throw the anti-science label too thoroughly.
nishit is just bepissed because y’all do not kneel and quiver in the face of her massive intellect, er, ego. Y’all go and bedeuce in nishit’s punchbowl of /spit.
this has FUCKALL to do with gmfoods or nuclear power or anthropogenic global warming.
just this one thing.
dan linked gerson/vinson who are pushing the meme that Science Is Bad unless it is guided by JUDEOXIAN ETHICS.
just that one thing, which has NOTHING to do with me voting O or being a sufi.
which is the same thing that 40percenter neoluddite Goldberg and that gormless tool Ponnuru say.
I do think Darwinism led to Nazism, in a sense. But that’s because I see Nazism as one of many responses to modernism. And Darwin, for good and ill, represents the rise of modern science  along with Einstein and others. Nazism and Communism and Progressivism were all impossible without the industrial revolution, Darwinism, relativism, mechanized warfare, mass production, etc. They were reactionary responses to these things. Those responses amounted to an express rejection of the conservative and libertarian vision of society, which is why they were leftwing.
I think Theil, Reason mag, and i have irrefutably established that Goldberg is actually a villager with a pitchfork, and not a libertarian.
as are you all.
except feets and Jeff.
You’re gonna get me in trouble. ;-)
OK, nishi, answer the question he poses:
Does anyone really believe in a science without moral and legal limits?
Do you?
If you were not so mushheaded, I might be offended. Thankfully, I’m not bothered in the slightest. It’s sort of like Sharpton calling me a racist. Meaningless.
“I think Theil, Reason mag, and i have irrefutably established that Goldberg is actually a villager with a pitchfork, and not a libertarian.”
Riiigggghhhtttt.
That from a retarded marmoset who cant spell Judeochristian.
You have established nothing, btw.
You have established nothing because Jonah G. actually knows what he’s talking about.
Unlike you.
i suggest you let us set the parameters.
like AMA or the bar association.
/spit
Maybee
we can think, moralize and ethicize just fine….we don’t dont need the villagers with the pitchforks telling us what to do.
remember our respective positions on the bell curve.
Brain, can’t u read?
that was Goldberg in his own words.
‘darwinism’ and theory of relativity cause ppl to turn into facsists, nazis, and communists.
seems clear to me.
Expelled is just the cartoon version of Liberal Fascism…..for those who are textually challenged, or perhaps can’t read at all.
I just for real don’t have any particular judgment to make about people who don’t want to have a kid with Down syndrome. Bringing a kid into the world that for sure can’t take care of himself after you’re gone is sort of almost a guarantee that you’ll die worried and sick at heart I think. I don’t want that for anybody really, and I’ve got a vindictive streak. Sometimes anyway.
You know it is getting fun when the nishit starts in with the ALL CAPS ! The unintended irony of some of her statements is hysterical. Unfortunately for her, the humor is lost on her, as eugenecists and genocide proponents are known for the lack of a sense of humor.
Hmm, sounds like the newest cult of progress. It’s all about experimentation, maybe? Being free to experiment as you wish? That’s what the early 20th progressives wanted. I fail to see how this is, while perhaps being libertarian in general (i.e. minimal gov’t) actually in terms of results going to be any better than what preceded it.
Does not the government set parameters on religion, based on ethics (which are themselves derived from Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Greek, Christian and Judaic experience and law) and why not also on science? Is there a particular experiment you’d like to do that is… um.. illegal?
I know I’ve got a few.
do you see what feets said?
since you cant force your religion on us in the form of IDT, you feel the need to “police” us.
/spit
i don’t mind government regulations, or safety stuff like lifeboat–which is scientists setting ethical and moral and safe behavoir for ourselves.
i just don’t want your stupid judeoxian morality. i don’t share it.
I submit that I have more credentials as a scientist than nishi does. Also more credentials as someone on the upper end of the IQ distribution.
Nishi still isn’t impressing me, FWIW. She’s also a little overly emotional, in a way that reminds me of that former Dartmouth lecturer. Nevertheless, I’m going to risk litigation by pointing out that she’s still not making an argument, although for one brief comment, it almost appeared as if she spoke English.
A Master’s in math gets you nowhere, nishi. I mean, it’s certainly a respectable thing to do, but there’s no shortage of people who have done it. Maybe one day I’ll take the four courses I need to complete mine; for the nonce, I’m far too busy doing cool stuff with hardware.
Remember, nishit is a ten percenter, on the left, and now has multiple Masters degrees.
I know the nishit would never actually answer a question, but if we were to accept the premise that “they” should be allowed unfettered ability to set parameters, I wonder what boundaries, if any, the Baracky love spunk guzzler would set.
I like it when the call it maths. It just sounds friendlier. More accessible.
Oh. *They* call it maths I mean. It’s chiefly British google says. I like that too. Chiefly British. That would be a good name for a porn star I think.
Ethics and morals based on what? Exactly. When everything is morally relative then anything becomes permissible. We’ve seen what that looked like in the last century.
science was used to guide countries by politicians
Alright, Sgt. Ted, I don’t know what you’re trying to say, and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth. It looks to me as if you’re saying “Science was used to guide countries”, and specifically cited dead jews and kulacks as the result. We may be having different understandings of the phrases we are using. My knowledge of history is that saying the Nazis used science to guide their country or that politicians in the US today use science to guide their decisions regarding ethanol is like saying Cuba is a democracy because they have a rigged election every so often. The Nazis may have claimed some psuedo-science rationalization for their racism, but there was no science guiding their murderous hands.
The reason I object is because I’m a Christian, and your rationalization about science is the same logic that dogmatic atheists use to put the blame for political spats between kings on Christians because the kings involved happened to be Christian and cited their religions as a pretext for their wars, even when it was obviously a territorial or political grab.
Well, nishi, that’s really too bad. Because as long as I live here I don’t want scientists setting their own rules. In this way, you’re really just talking power politics. If that’s really the core of it, I think my religion should be the state religion – with a mandatory Orthodox president, like the Emperor in Byzantine times, but with the better American legal and governmental system.
What you’re basically saying is that you’ve set yourselves against us. You’ve purposefully taken on a position that opposes something that you know to be important to us. You’re wasting your breath here, because the result is always going to be the same.
I mean – you’ve really just come here to attack us. That’s why you haven’t really systematically defended your positions. You don’t intend to. You just intend to mock us and our outdated morality.
I don’t mean that offensively, but rather it is my observation.
Nishi: Godel, Zadeh, Hayek, Heisenberg. There are limits to the veracity of the predictions made by bivalent logic. You talk about ToE? How about Hayek and the evolutionary nature of complex orders? How about tradition as a mechanism for the communication and protection of those advantageous adaptations that have accrued to a given social order? Complex orders are stochastic. They are organic. They are decidedly not conscribed by the excluded middle.
Ethical systems that have been created by fiat, whole cloth are notoriously totalitarian. This has something to do with the nature of logic. The multivalent nature of complex systems gives pause, yes? Anyway, what are you? Do you have a metaphysical position here? Are you a positivist? Ayn Rand flake? Fundamentalist Materialist (as RAW liked to put it)?
Dan, is it really your position that it is irrational to think that every person is entitled to live his life free from the initiation of force? You don’t think that that’s a proposition based on reason? Is it just a coincidence that societies that establish governments based on the rule of law and limited government function in far superior fashion to governments that violate individual rights on whim? Or is that, what? Divine intervention?
But I don’t have a religion, and I still you’re off your rocker.
Sounds like just one to me: stats is math. But if one didn’t leave her able to communicate with anything like clarity, two or three or even seven won’t do the trick either.
Science is hope I think. Every bit as much as religion. I think there’s a definite, very human value system that underlies science that scientists aren’t always comfortable articulating. But it’s there.
*still think*
Ards: The fact that government works is, in my view, a kind of divine intervention.
You really have to look past the global warming nonsense though. I really don’t get how that’s not setting off all kinds of alarm bells.
It’s a nice utopian ideal that goes against the realistic grain of every society ever from the kindergarten playground to geopolitics.
My only conclusion, based on Nishi actually posting Goldberg’s quote, and then “translating” it into something completely different, is that Nishi is functionally illiterate. Enjoy life in the bottom 40%, Nishi!
Here’s a basic grammar lesson.
“Y is a response to X”, “X would not have happened if it were not for Y” and “X led to Y” do not mean the same thing as “X is the same as Y” or “X causes people to support Y” or “X is evil”.
Goldberg’s historical theorizing is nothing new. If you’ve ever played Civilization, look at the tech tree (I’m going from memory here). Mass Production leads to fascism. It also leads to Labor Union, which leads to Communism. Sid Meier was generalizing, but he had some insight into the way the world works. It’s not a stretch that communism, fascism, and national socialism would be impossible in an agrarian society. It required the urbanization of the industrial revolution to get a concentration of labor to the point where these sorts of political movements can arise. Saying “Fascism is a response to the Industrial Revolution” or “Mass Production led to Fascism” says nothing bad about either the Industrial Revolution or mass production, it just represents that the social changes they caused had unforseeable negative consequences as well as positive ones. Same with Darwin and Einstein. And that is precisely what Goldberg said.
Ards–
Just how did you come to that conclusion from what I actually said? I am rather a fan of autonomy, but in what exactly does such an “entitlement” consist, outside of “reason”?
Ardsgaine, libertarian social and Government theory is a tremendously useful tool, but it’s the sociopolitical equivalent of the ideal world depicted in the diagrams for a Physics 101 text. “Assume a spherical cow of 500kg mass in a frictionless pasture…” Unfortunately we must deal with distinctly non-spherical cattle, not to mention air resistance, barbed wire, and rustlers.
If a society of nonviolent libertarians existed, the first one to re-invent violence would own the place in short order. The rest follows in logical sequence.
Regards,
Ric
Nishi: Godel, Zadeh, Hayek, Heisenberg. There are limits to the veracity of the predictions made by bivalent logic.
Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem has nothing to do with the failure of logic. It is a theory about our inability to create a symbolic language for second-order logic that is free of paradoxes, or for first-order in which we can prove everything we know to be true. The failure is not in logic, though, it is in trying to capture logical reasoning with empty symbols, while ignoring the fact that real language is grounded in reality. Symbolic logic cannot deal with things like the Liar Paradox, first, because it assumes that every sentence must have some truth value, and second, because it tries to assign truth values to sentences by fiat rather than looking at their correspondence with reality.
We can easily establish the truth of a sentence like, “Snow is white.” We simply look at “snow” and see if it has the property of “white.” We can also establish the truth of a sentence like, “The sentence ‘snow is white’ is true.” It makes a claim about the truth of a sentence that in turn has an easily established truth value. For a sentence like, “This sentence is false,” however, there is no way to assign it a truth value. It goes around in a circle without ever pointing to anything in reality. How could it ever be considered either true or false? It is simply an arbitrary utterance about nothing. Those are the kind of sentences that are considered a problem for symbolic logic, but they say nothing at all about the fallibility of logic itself.
Well, it would suffice to say that translogical statements do not disprove the viability of logic. Logic’s flaw is the logician, not the law of reason.
Logic is only infallible when it speaks on matters of doctrine.
Ards–
Just how did you come to that conclusion from what I actually said? I am rather a fan of autonomy, but in what exactly does such an “entitlement†consist, outside of “reason�
Perhaps I was wrong, but you seemed to be approving of the notion that we cannot derive valid political principles from reality.
I don’t understand your second question. Could you rephrase it for me?
this has FUCKALL to do with gmfoods or nuclear power or anthropogenic global warming.
This has everything to do with GM foods and nuclear power and so forth.
Scared of anything with the word nuclear? (Look! Nuclear Magnetic Resonance! Run away!) – Bottom 40%!
Scared of anything Genetically Modified? – Bottom 40%!
Believe the US faked 9/11? – Bottom 40%!
Not willing to let that poor animal get killed to test medicine that could save millions? – Bottom 40%!
Scared of artificial pesticides? – Bottom 40%!
Believe the US Government created AIDS to kill African Americans? – Bottom 40%!
American, native English speaking yet unable to write coherently or use capitalization properly? – Sorry, low blow…
Geez, that bottom 40% is looking significantly larger than 40%, and a lot of them are… gasp! Democrats! As well as a sizable chunk of European leftists, in fact almost all of them!
On a more serious note, anything is bad unless ethics are involved, by the very definition of ethics (it’s annoyingly circular). You’re welcome to begin debating how ethics should be determined in a democratic society at any time.
you know, I’ve only read the first 50 comments and had to say something about nishi and her unquestioning adoration of unbound, unfettered by ethics science …
sixty odd years ago she would have been Mengele’s ardent assistant.
If a society of nonviolent libertarians existed, the first one to re-invent violence would own the place in short order. The rest follows in logical sequence.
You seem to be speaking of the anarchist’s utopian wet-dream. I do not advocate any such system. What I believe in is pretty much what the US started out with, minus slavery and with an amendment that would outlaw government interference in the economy.
Ards must get asked that a lot.
we can think, moralize and ethicize just fine….we don’t dont need the villagers with the..
Who is ‘we’? Anybody that calls themselves a scientist, or some other group?
i suggest you let us set the parameters.
like AMA or the bar association.
The AMA and the ABA may set the parameters, but they operate within a legal framework defined by the government. The AMA and ABA will deal with ethical violations, but the government deals with criminal violations.
“…..for those who are textually challenged, or perhaps can’t read at all.”
Like you, for example?
Becasuse once again, you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.
And go buy a dictionary, you retarded marmoset.
“Brain, can’t u read?
that was Goldberg in his own words.
‘darwinism’ and theory of relativity cause ppl to turn into facsists, nazis, and communists.
seems clear to me.”
Prove it.
Nver mind, nishi.
Here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/
“sixty odd years ago she would have been Mengele’s ardent assistant.”
Darleen,
Only for about 30 minutes (being very very generous). Then she would have become Versuchspersonzahl 12875F.
There never will be no conspiracy of happiness is what Duncan Sheik says, Civilis. Scientists are lousy conspirators I think. For real I think teachers are much more of a threat to Western Civ as we know and love it. Extraordinarily passive aggressive creatures. And don’t get me started on doctors.
#181
zactly, Maybee thnx.
the government can set the legal framework for criminal violations, but we are perfectly capable of generating our own ethical standards….as scientists.
my homeslice, John Derbyshire:
or at least policed or possibly enslaved.
The reason I object is because I’m a Christian, and your rationalization about science is the same logic that dogmatic atheists use to put the blame for political spats between kings on Christians because the kings involved happened to be Christian and cited their religions as a pretext for their wars, even when it was obviously a territorial or political grab.
The reason I say it the way I do is because there is never a shortage of scientists, who, being otherwise competent in their respective fields go right along with wrong headed or even totalitarian solutions to problems posed by science.
It isn’t an attack on science. It’s a pointed way to remind that scientists are humans too and they don’t have all the solutions, much less all the answers. I trust the intellectual history of Christianity, because, in the aggregate, it is and has been a positive good for societal advancement, in particular, the idea of the individual as sovereign.
see? Darleen is the perfect exemplar.
she percieves me as a scientist, there i must be a Nazi.
#181
zactly, Maybee thnx.
the government can set the legal framework for criminal violations, but we are perfectly capable of generating our own ethical standards….as scientists.
There is a huge area between what might be ethical and what might be legal. I doubt we’d agree on what should be what.
You still haven’t told me who is this ‘we’ you refer to.
OF course scientists need policing. Not because they are scientists, but because they are human beings.
haps: Scientists are lousy conspirators I think.
Do you really think Scientists (and people that call themselves scientists) are so different than all other humans? Subject to vanity and frailty and poor judgment in pursuit of a dream (or a goal or glory)?
I don’t.
It’s a pointed way to remind that scientists are humans too and they don’t have all the solutions, much less all the answers. I trust the intellectual history of Christianity, because, in the aggregate, it is and has been a positive good for societal advancement, in particular, the idea of the individual as sovereign.
thnx SGT Ted. you are now the captain of the thought police.
im sure Margarete Porete felt very sovereign as the xians burnt her. Bruno too.
What makes your xian mores and taboos superior to mine?
and you have no domain knowledge to apply to specific scientific fields. would it be ethical to make grey goo in nanotech or fabricate a humanzee in biotech?
would it be ethical for a group of us scientists to fabricate life in nanoscale? what about biomemes?
but Maybee, why on earth should we reguard your xian judgement as superior to ours?
yah, i mean groups of domain specific scientists…i think mores and taboos might be quite different between disciplines.
So nishit, where would you set the boundaries. With all of your fancy Masters degrees, that should be a fairly easy question to answer.
OF course scientists need policing. Not because they are scientists, but because they are human beings.
but how can xian ideology do the policing? you don’t even know what we can do.
we want to police ourselves, like doctors and lawyers.
why can’t we?
JD, that would be domain specific for each scientific discipline.
I maintain you cannot know how to police us.
You don’t know what we can do……how can you set ethical boundaries?
nishi: icxc nika, yo.
It’s, ÇÃÂιÃĀιανο I think, not “xians”. But my Greek is kind of weak.
Nishi keeps arguing power politics. It’s simply the will to power. Instead of demonstrating how her ethics would be better, she simply accuses you of thinking yours are better.
Which they are, honey. 6000 years don’t mess ’round.
/spit
I denounce and condemn myself for thinking that for even a fleeting moment that nishit might have a moment of introspection, remove her head from her rectum for a period of time, and give a straight forward answer to a simple question posed by one of the unwashed masses.
Oh. MayBee. We’re saying the same thing there, if you’re willing to throw in some stuff about nobility and kindness and wanting to feel like one’s efforts are making a contribution. Scientists are just people is what I meant, inasmuch as most people are pretty bad conspirators. Any stats out there on how many hard science PhD peeps are married to hard science PhD peeps? I’d just be curious to know. That’s not part of any point necessarily.
Teachers are for real a lot passive aggressive though. God knows mine were anyway.
the government can set the legal framework for criminal violations, but we are perfectly capable of generating our own ethical standards….as scientists.
OOoooooooh…. More unintentional irony–our legal framework is entirely the product of JudeoXian heritage and our criminal violations reflect those values.
To place scientific ethics outside of JudeoXian values inadvertantly places it outside the criminal law of a JudeoXian society. Please meet Hans Eppinger, to whom modern nephrology and anyone on dialysis owes a great, great debt:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1113546
One day he brought a patient into the lecture theatre and introduced him to the students with the following words which I still remember after 60 years: “Nephritis can be compared with a tragedy in five acts andâ€Ââ€â€pointing to the patientâ€â€Ã¢â‚¬Å“this is the final act of the tragedy.†The patient broke down in tears and was obviously distressed throughout the demonstration. We were all shocked by Eppinger’s brutal and unfeeling manner and talked about it among ourselves for some time afterwards.
Nishi, misguided child, you don’t even fucking know what science without JudeoXian values fucking looks like!
but Maybee, why on earth should we reguard your xian judgement as superior to ours?
Who is ‘ours’? What group are you including yourself in here, nishi?
I don’t expect anyone to regard my judgment to be superior, but if government sets the laws then society’s judgment will set the laws.
Without God, there is no authority, really. Paul argues that in Romans 13. So unless you believe in something transcendent (you don’t necessarily have to identify it as God) you have no real fixed standard. The question of Christian ethics ultimately resides in the Authority of God, not of men. The authority of God also is what teaches us not to put our finger on the hot stove, but it’s not limited to that.
Sorry if I’m out of line here guys (or out of whack), but I think it needs to be said.
and we do self-police…..like Woo Suk Hwang got censured for falsifying data.
You don’t even know the history of western science? That the Christians theologically guided inquiry into the nature of Gods world, to include the nature of man, eventually became modern science?
You are a very shallow thinker nishi. You don’t know your own past, thus are unequipped to deal with the present and future. You stands on the shoulders of giants only to shit in their face and sneer at their values and beleifs. Such a fool. Such a young fool.
I’m not even a Christian and I can see that.
But, I can also see that you think being a scientist makes you a superior being than me, lowly soldier, and that because of my low station, you think me unfit to opine on such.
And nishi remains clueless as to why I distrust scientists. I’m not talking about the science here.
Ah, back on topic… y’know, Darleen is partly right. nishi isn’t a Nazi — but she’d like to be; or, at any rate, she’s proceeding from the same point along the same road. Sgt. Ted is wrong, but it’s because he’s skipping some steps, not because he’s proceeding from wrong assumptions.
It’s hard for us to imagine that time, isn’t it? There were still living people who’d met Darwin and Edison, and Social Darwinism (strong form) had developed into eugenics. Science and engineering had reached a sort of critical mass, where some quite remarkable things had become possible, and they weren’t anything that would sit on a desk like personal computers. Have you ever stood next to a big railroad steam-engine? A modern stationary Diesel, hundreds of which are running at this moment pumping natural gas up pipelines to keep you warm and generate your electricity, is actually much more powerful — but it doesn’t have anything like the presence of Old No. 9, much less the Twentieth Century Limited. Stuff was getting built, and it was big stuff, stuff that loomed over an individual human being. Dams and bridges and skyscrapers, oh my. Anything seemed possible, and compared to the familiar scale of horses and human beings it looked like it was going to be Brobdignagian.
And remember that science has neither ethics nor morals. It isn’t unethical or immoral as we use the words; the concepts simply don’t apply. For a lot of people, the conclusion was that they no longer applied to anything — that if it could be done it should be done; if an experiment would, in fact, reveal more of the All to the eager experimenters it was permissible, perhaps even obligatory, that the experiment be performed.
It is also the era that gave us the cliché Mad Scientist. That’s important.
That’s where the Nazis started out. It’s irrelevant that their precepts were not, in fact, supported by “real science”; they were able to plausibly tell themselves, and later the world, that they were, and continue on that basis, firmly convinced that the fact that they were doing scientific experiments meant that they were freed from obsolete ethical and moral conventions. Social Darwinism told them that there were superiors and inferiors, and that it was Natural that the superior use the inferior in any way that might come to mind. They had only to declare themselves Superior, and the world was their oyster. Vivisection of live human beings? Sure! Invaluable knowledge could be gained that way (and was), and the experimental subjects, being inferior, were available for their use with no penalty. Their ethics told them that gaining medical data that saved lives (of the Superiors, natch) was a positive good with no offset. The disadvantage to the inferior experimental subject was irrelevant. The Lower Orders were going to be oppressed by somebody, and they might as well get useful data from it.
And the Nazis were far from the only ones; they were simply the most vocal proponents of the notion. There were plenty of people, probably the majority of the intelligentsia in fact, in the US and Britain who felt the same way. Tuskeegee, anyone?
The results of that attitude, as it worked the consequences out, were and remain horrifying, and as a result we as a society have concluded that simply citing “science” does not form an excuse for unethical actions, let alone transform the unethical into the ethical and admirable. It can be, and often is, that we have swung too far in the opposite direction — that science is being hamstrung by excess nicey-nice. Advocates of that position need to watch out, though. It is entirely too easy to slip back into full Social Darwinist mode — which nishi has done.
What truly frosts nishi’s butt is that it turns out George Bush was right — embryonic stem cells are not the way to go. From her point of view he came to that conclusion for all the wrong reasons, but science doesn’t give a damn about reasons; to briefly anthropomorphosize, it only matters/cares if the sums come out right, not what inspired the calculation. Picturing science as an orderly process of building ever taller structures using the earlier ones as foundations and scaffolds is simply wrong. Kekule’s ring and Einstein’s insights are both counterexamples, and there are many others. And anyway I’m not sure the reasons were wrong. The science fiction author John Dalmas wrote a series of stories in which he postulated that the Universe was set up so that ethical actions are much more likely to be successful than unethical ones. The situations Dalmas depicted were fantastic, but I don’t think there are anywhere near enough results in to say the principle is totally far-fetched. Certainly in this case it appears to be working.
So no, nishi, if you are allowed to formulate your own ethical principles without reference to those painfully developed by Western society over centuries it won’t be because I or people who think as I do permitted it, and shrieking in frustration because those ethical principles are part of what is encoded in “religion” simply confirms that I am right to so insist. Scientific experimentation must conform to ethical principles. And I am not at all minded to offer a pass to people who apply their self-declared principles selectively. You cannot decry Oppenheimer and excuse yourself using the same arguments.
Or, if you insist, shall we call you “Mengele” or “Beetle”? Much the same, although you may not be acquainted with the latter reference.
Regards,
Ric
lolz, im in the scientists group maybee…i guess you are in the judeoxian ethics group. ;)
Oh, I thought it was for having a ridiculous name…
That still doesn’t deal with the issue of ‘just because we can.’ So I find out that I can turn people purple and make them explode with a pill. My research is all solid and not falsified. Does that make what I’m doing RIGHT? Would that panel censure me? On what grounds?
we want to police ourselves, like doctors and lawyers.
why can’t we?
Because doctors and lawyers policing themselves hasn’t worked worth a fuck.
I wonder if nishi will ever figure out JG liked Goldbergs book, she seems to not realize that.
Scientists are just people is what I meant, inasmuch as most people are pretty bad conspirators.
I agree, although I don’t think it takes a conspiracy for people to do really awful things.
Thank you for your service Sgt. Ted.
no way am i superior to you.
im just different. i don’t see how judeoxian ethics and morals can really universally apply to nanoscale and particle physics and strong AI and biotech.
i think each domain must have its own mores and taboos.
lolz, im in the scientists group maybee
What puts you there?
What sort of science are you involved in, nishi? You keep glomming onto the “scientist” group; now it’s time to pay the freight.
There’s precious little of the scientific method taught in math class. Which is not quite the same as saying mathematicians are incapable of being scientists, just that there’s no inherent mapping.
and we do self-police…..like Woo Suk Hwang got censured for falsifying data.
Hans Eppinger was never censured by scientists for experimenting on Jews and Gypsys in the concentration camps.
In fact, his data and experiments in giving gypsis only seawater is used in the study of kidney function and dialysis today. He was a boon to science. he never falsified his data, he really killed those Jews and Gypsys and took methodical notes as they licked a freshly mopped floor for moisture….
There were prizes named after him and evan a moon-crater named after him for his contributions to medicine and science.
He was never censured by his fellow scientists because his experiments on Jews and Gypsys were invaluable, and his data was verifiable and good.
He was, however, charged at the Neuremburg Trials and killed himself with poison before being hanged.
The people who would hang him were not scientists, but many lived long enough to benefit from his discoveries….
B Moes Jeff told me once he could have written it.
i told him he will write a much better one.
;)
I trust the intellectual history of Christianity, because, in the aggregate, it is and has been a positive good for societal advancement, in particular, the idea of the individual as sovereign.
I like that idea too, but I don’t think it is Christian. It doesn’t seem to show up in Christian thought until, oh, sometime after the Renaissance.
There is a strong tradition in Christianity that salvation is individual, rather than collective, but that is not the same thing as saying that the individual is sovereign. Jesus said to render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar’s, and unto God those things which are God’s. He did not make people sovereign in the Earthly realm, he just told them that they were answerable to God in the spiritual realm. If the two conflict, they should prefer to sacrifice their life in this world rather than the next. He did not tell them to set up any sort of kingdom on Earth that would allow them to practice their faith without interference from Caesar, let alone a government that would enforce the practice of that faith.
Nonetheless, there is also a strong tradition in Christianity, supported by the Old Testament, that the judgment of God falls on men collectively. That is why Christians in the past worked so hard to control the morals of other people in their society. To allow sin in one’s midst was to court the judgment of God. That tradition could be heard in the comments of Robertson and Falwell after 9/11. How outside the mainstream they are in modern Christian thought is an open question.
There is a direct parallel between that tradition and the way that the Left operates. They point to one doomsday scenario after another as looming punishments for our sins in a constant effort to establish their secular-theocracy.
One of the things that I found most fascinating in Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism was the way he traces the genealogy of the Left straight back to Christianity. To be sure, they have secularized their movement in order to smuggle it past the wall of separation, but disguising their irrationality with a lab coat didn’t make it science.
Those Christians on the right who genuinely believe that salvation is individual, and that the individual should be sovereign over his life on Earth, should oppose both the left and the Christians conservatives who want to tear down the separation of Church and State. I understand that the expansion of government has pushed that wall out so that it crowds Christians out of places where they have a right to be. Rather than tearing the wall down, though, we need to shrink government back to its proper size. I fear that many conservatives have abandoned the quest for limited government, though, and only want to compete with the left over who is going to control our increasingly fascist state.
i think each domain must have its own mores and taboos.
Why? And “just a cuz” isn’t an answer.
Judeo Christian morals and ethics can inform your decisions in certain categories. Some are obvious, having already been worked out. When they are new, there’s going to be discussion and arguements over the controversial.
In a Representative Republic that values free inquiry and speech, your going to have friction, as these boundaries are worked out.
Those Christians on the right who genuinely believe that salvation is individual, and that the individual should be sovereign over his life on Earth, should oppose both the left and the Christians conservatives who want to tear down the separation of Church and State.
That’s my own view: God gave me Free Will as an individual. Collectives cannot be saved or damned, only individual souls.
I don’t wanna be marched off at gunpoint to Sensitivity Camp, Gene Therapy or Church.
I don’t wanna be made to pray, be nice to stupid asses of any color, or be genetically perfected so that I pray and am nice to stupid asses of any color.
I don’t wanna march anybody off at gunpoint to church, prayer, genetic therapy or to make them nice to dumbasses of any color.
see? Darleen is the perfect exemplar.
she percieves me as a scientist, there i must be a Nazi.
No, nishi. As usual, you don’t read what’s written, you read what you want to read.
I said Science SANS ethics. A human who pretends that s/he can elevate science even over other human beings is a monster. Human beings are ends, not means, but only ethics/morality holds that. The “scientist” that wishes to be freed of the consideration of others as humans is what you seem to worship.
IE Mengele, who loved his twins even as he thought of them as little more than objects to fulfill his scientific curiousity.
???? i do DSP, IP, multispectral and hyperspectral sensor fusion for a living…i do ATR, ATD, and AI systems.
in grad school i did experimental design an analysis for many thesises and dissertations in biology, chemistry, sociology–for all disciplines.
i do experimental design to test algorithms for our group.
im pretty familiar with the scientific method.
i have a minor in evolutionary biology….it is my passionate interest. i got into it when i took a course in theoretical population genetics….which is basically math.
im pretty familiar with the scientific method.
Assuming all that is true, could you at least attempt to write like an intelligent person with something important to communicate, instead of like a 14 yr old texting her friends at the mall?
Please?
???? i do DSP, IP, multispectral and hyperspectral sensor fusion for a living…i do ATR, ATD, and AI systems.
in grad school i did experimental design an analysis for many thesises and dissertations in biology, chemistry, sociology–for all disciplines.
i do experimental design to test algorithms for our group.
im pretty familiar with the scientific method.
i have a minor in evolutionary biology….it is my passionate interest. i got into it when i took a course in theoretical population genetics….which is basically math.
Damn, you’re pretty smart…. I’ll bet there are more than a few scientists who would like to carve you up and test you to see how you got that way–for the good of the 40% you are so worried about, of course…..
If their science is good enough, they won’t be censured, they will be lauded!
I have baby-shaken your pet ideas and theories on this thread like a colicky 6 month old in the ‘hood and you have no response; just brain-vomit through your keyboard.
You’re a lab rat, on this side of the glass only by chance….
B Moes…take examples then.
nanotech.
is it ethical to fabricate life?
is it ethical to make cyborgs?
biotech.
is ESCR ethical?
are research chimeras ethical?
longevity.
is it ethical to live a very long time?
is it egalitarian?
genetic engineering.
is it ethical to make designer babies, or just to fix disease or damage?
that just scratches the surface.
Hmmmm… is this where I bring up Battlestar Galactica? (the new one)
B Moes…take examples then.
nanotech.
is it ethical to fabricate life?
is it ethical to make cyborgs? blah…. blah…. blah….
This is all very well-plowed ground. Mary Shelley wrote a book a hundred-and-so years about all of this and Boris Karloff starred in the movie.
Jesus Christ, you may have a degree, but you are entirely uneducated.
Or read some HG Wells! God, you’re culturally illiterate!
ok i give up.
it is obvious from this thread that the Derb is right.
you all pretty much mistrust and dislike scientists.
you would like to impose your morals and ethics on the scientific community.
trudat?
this is exactly what gerson/levin, goldberg, stein, etc are saying.
science is naturally BAD without judeoxian morals and ethics.
i get it.
ok i give up.
it is obvious from this thread that the Derb is right.
you all pretty much mistrust and dislike scientists.
you would like to impose your morals and ethics on the scientific community.
trudat?
No. As an engineer, I work for scientists and occasionally bring their theories to life.
If you don’t apply some JudeoXian ethics on your science as a scientists, the JudeoXian-derived justice system will apply some ethics on your ass hanging from a rope.
Nobody likes flipper-babies, starving jews or thirsty gypsys, even “in the name of science”.
trudat!
nishi
in simple words you understand
Scientists are human beings, not gods. And as human beings they should be held to the same ethical standards as everyone else.
You are no more entitled to a separate set of ethics than a plumber.
oh…then judeoxian ethics are universal?
no thnx, i reject that.
you dont even know what we can do, how can you possibly tell us if its ethical or not?
no thnx, i reject that.
you dont even know what we can do
ah… the self-justification of a nascent monster.
And ‘way before Mary Shelley there were golems.
Much becomes clear, nishi. What you actually are is a computer nerd with (even more of) a testosterone deficiency who can’t get past the middle levels of WoW. The behavioral characteristics are clear, and common to the point of cliché, right down to the addiction to 1337.
The entire content of “the Republican war on science” is as follows:
–scientific experiments are subject to the ethical restrictions of society. Violating those standards will get you defunded, at minimum, and whacked where possible in extreme cases.
–no, you aren’t permitted to make up your own ethical “standards” as you go along, any more than the President of Exxon is (and for much the same reasons).
–yes, you are perfectly free to debate and/or object to the standards, and to request modification or exemption from specific provisions. Modifications and exemptions are not granted automatically upon intonation of the word “science”.
–the ethical standards in question are part, not the entirety, of the Christian religion, and are encoded in its teachings, but are by no means inseperable. The fact that you don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus does not give you permission to kill people, and trying to misdirect attention from ethics to theology makes us more, not less, suspicious of your motives.
Regards,
Ric
IF nishi is everything she claims, I bet a good percentage of her peers would be horrified at her claim to Olympian morality.
Maybe higher science should be restricted to mature adults.
nm, you’re absolutely right.
i get it
No, Nishi…. You don’t even know what you can do.
I know what you can do and many others have imagined and theorized what you can do beyond your wildest lab-rat imagination.
You can argue that there is no place for JudeoXian ethics in science until you are in a small dark cell for crimes against humanity.
On the other hand, you can be stoned for wearing sneakers that look as though they have the word “Allah” on the bottom….
If you are going to take a dollar with “In God We Trust” on it for your science, you better goddamned well follow the JudeoXian values of that country in your science!
Or find somewhere else to do ‘science’. I hear the NeoCaliphate is looking for some good nuclear scientists….
China has plenty of aborted foeti to experiment on….
Or maybe a good off-shore paid by a Multinational Genetics Corporation; the sharks will eat any genetic mistake you can build and flush….
Nobody likes flipper-babies, starving jews or thirsty gypsys, even “in the name of scienceâ€Â.
The Church used to routinely burn “witches” and heretics in the name of Christianity. The practice didn’t stop because people abandoned reason and relied more on their faith. It stopped precisely for the opposite reason. If reason has to be applied to Biblical interpretation in order to avoid interpretations that lead to atrocities, then reason must play an important role in establishing ethical principles, right? The people who were burning witches and heretics believed that they had solid textual justification for doing so, but they were in the end overruled by the people who said that God could not approve of something so irrational, and that, therefore, that interpetation of God’s word was invalid.
so, am I understanding correctly that the only ethics available are Judeoxtian? or my other choice is scientists?
If reason has to be applied to Biblical interpretation in order to avoid interpretations that lead to atrocities, then reason must play an important role in establishing ethical principles, right? The people who were burning witches and heretics believed that they had solid textual justification for doing so, but they were in the end overruled by the people who said that God could not approve of something so irrational, and that, therefore, that interpetation of God’s word was invalid.
There it is…. Well put.
“If your interpretation of This Faith leads to something so Ungodly as tearing a woman from her family and roasting her screaming, then we’re thinking you have the wrong interpretation of This Faith. We really don’t want to see that kind of thing–it just seems kinda wrong….”
That is, however, a New Testament, Protestant kinda thing. Which, come to think of it is precisely what This Nation, its laws and scientific ethics are ultimately based on.
I like that idea too, but I don’t think it is Christian. It doesn’t seem to show up in Christian thought until, oh, sometime after the Renaissance.
As someone who sees much to admire in libertarian political philosophy, probably the worst political “theory” in history is the Divine Right of Kings, something that at least self-described as Christian. The same idea, that because it’s the government makes what it does right, however, lies at the underpinning of fascist thought. It’s a problem of politics and human nature, not Christianity.
Not because they are scientists, but because they are human beings.
Sgt. Ted, this is the crux of my argument. I distrust human beings, taken as a whole. I especially distrust anyone with the will to power or control. Some of them are scientists, but a significantly greater percentage are lawyers or politicians. I don’t distrust scientists more than the average of other humans.
It’s also silly to call it a Judeo-Christian ethics anymore, as it’s evolved beyond its roots. It could be called Western European ethics, but there are differences between ethics in America and ethics in Europe. The base root is still Judeo-Christian religion and Greco-Roman law, but we’ve debated new issues as they’ve arrived and have changed, and are changing, what we think of as ethical as we go along. Not all ethics have their roots in religion, but of the major roots, only one is not religious, and any libertarian should have serious faults with ethics based on a Confucian root. If you think we currently don’t have an ethical answer to a major question, work with us to come up with one. If you think current ethical standards are wrong, persuade us otherwise. But don’t expect us to look the other way when you transgress our ethical principles. It’s like saying that only doctors or lawyers should have a say in the ethics of medicine or law or only slaveholders should have a say in the ethics of slavery.
“Your ethics say that it is ethical to torture a woman to death for science. We have ethical principles as well, and they say that we hang people that torture women to death. So, you conduct your experiment while we build our gallows…”
Thanks for responding semi-legibly. If you’re going to involve yourself in discussions, it’s absolutely essential that you make yourself understood. Otherwise, you’re wasting everyone’s time, including yours.
It sounds as if you are doing some of the same things I do, only over on the image side. I do inertial self-alignment, inertial navigation, and sensor autoboresight, and sensor calibration. I have a keen understanding of the value of the scientific method in my work, which is why it annoys me no end when you engage in Greenwald-scale broad-brushing of the commentariat here. Particularly because in doing so, you’re engaging in precisely the same kind of idiocy you claim to decry.
IOW, don’t fuck with what you don’t understand. You’re not qualified.
This is unclear. You did those things to support your theses, or to support the theses of others?
Me, too, among other things. Mostly I design algorithms and do extensive postflight validation, funneling mission data through the code.
Me, too. I think I’ve said this on a number of occasions, but you seem particularly immune to the repeatedly-made point that there are in fact at least a few of us who are at least equally familiar with the scientific method. I’ll go a bit further: your familiarity with the scientific method fails you utterly where it comes to interaction with people here in comments. When your hypotheses are contradicted by data, you continue to maintain a death-grip on them.
Stats, in other words. My mathematical aptitude is in other areas: calc, diff eq, perturbation theory, random variables, optimal estimation.
Case in point, that your aptitude with the scientific method is just not up to par, here. This is demonstrably incorrect, and in fact has been contradicted here dozens, possibly hundreds of time. You cling to your preconceptions with a kind of pseudo-religious fierceness that’s contrary to everything I know about the scientific method. Furthermore, you repeatedly use phrases like “this is what I believe” when referring to scientific theory, and you repeatedly conflate discussions of scientific ethics with repression of science, which is apples and hand grenades.
You do say some things that I tend to agree with, frex pretty much everything about the Leonard Kass, but for the most part when you say things I agree with, you’re not arguing counter to what commenters here have anything like consensus on. So it comes off as acontextual ranting.
That’s all I’m going to bother to write, unless you bother to assemble some kind of logically considered response auf Englisch. Which, considering our past exchanges, is extremely unlikely.
nishi, you did it again. Upset the Wasp Nest!
now they say they don’t care for you….everytime I look for a thread that’s hundreds of posts long…NISHI’s there. She’s part of the entertainment and PW’rs need to own up to it.
comment #1 was “spot-on”. No need to add to it. Watch Slart judiciously look for that one link to validate his claims…..maybe a more random approach is more ‘scientific’ eh, Slart?
Jonah Goldberg is a creature of nepotism, a farce. When the guy defends torture and waterboarding (on video) as being better than ‘death’ he lost my respect. Believe me some of Putin’s boys would show him a few things about wishing to die. The guy’s never suffered with his mama getting him into the Right Wing Racket.
Quisle, Quisle, Quisling!
Morning, Dave.
no.
what is the point, even?
the consensus here is that Science is BAD without judeoxian morality to guide it.
Dan buys it, you all buy it.
It is inconcievable that there might be a humanist set of ethics and morals even more primal than judeoxianity, that atheists might have ethics.
There IS a war on science conducted by the right. That is just truth. You try to say it is justified.
I disagree.
/shrug
The whole meme propagation endorsed by stein and goldberg, that unrestrained or “pure” science leads to murder, to liberalism, progressivism, fascism, communism, naziism, This is very prevelant on the right, a common theme.
I was disappointed that Dan endorses that meme, but truly, i expected nothing more from the rest of commenters here.
Villagers with pitchforks.
Again, your lack of mad scientific method skillz manifests itself. You might want to spend some time considering that you might, in actuality, absolutely suck at this science thing you claim to love. You’re doing science like you once did religion.
“consensus” means something specific, but we’ve noted your problems with meaning (not to mention syntax, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and pretty much everything else having to do with communication of ideas) before.
no.
what is the point, slart?
the consensus here is that Science is BAD without judeoxian morality to guide it.
Dan buys it, you all buy it.
It is inconcievable that there might be a humanist set of ethics and morals even more primal than judeoxianity, that atheists might have ethics.
There IS a war on science conducted by the right. That is just truth. You try to say it is justified.
I disagree.
/shrug
The whole meme propagation endorsed by stein and goldberg, that unrestrained or “pure” science leads to murder, to liberalism, progressivism, fascism, communism, naziism, This is very prevelant on the right, a common theme.
I was disappointed that Dan endorses that meme, but truly, i expected nothing more from the rest of commenters here.
Villagers with pitchforks.
Again with the faulty observations. I sincerely hope that I never have to work with you, and that you’re in fact working for one of our competitors.
But there absolutely is a war on science promoted by the right.
difficult to unnerstand why this is.
perhaps it is simple fear of technology beyond the understanding of the moral majority.
perhaps the War on Science is an attempt to generate immunomemes against unrushing secularism.
the religious right has been unsuccessful in its attempts to force IDT into highschool curriculae, so it now seeks to discredit science and scientists to form a “wedge” for entry into secular unis and colleges.
Or class warfare..the IQ-haves versus the IQ-havenots.
/shrug
“Again with the faulty observations.”
i don’t see anyone disagreeing with dan and gerson.
empirical data.
“Slartibartfast” said: “When your hypotheses are contradicted by data, you continue to maintain a death-grip on them.”
Hi. I’m an interloper from Nishville, foolishly trying to figure out what the problem here is, without wanting to dig through hundreds of pages of discussion myself. I assume that there is a real difference of opinion, or at least of sensibility, at the root of things, but its exact nature is a little obscured by the vehemence of the mutual contempt. Slart, you could really help me out here: what are these falsified hypotheses that Nishi clings to?
She is a number crunching cubicle monkey, no one with her lack of communication or cognitive skills could function higher than that. A rudimentary AI will probably take her job some day.
slarti – You attempt to kindly and rationally point out the fundamental errors that nishit make, routinely, is futile. Her set of memes is impenetrable.
nishit – The only consensus around here is that you just make a lot of shit up.
what are these falsified hypotheses that Nishi clings to?
Well, we could start with the assertion that everyone who disagrees with her is a simple-minded Christian theocrat.
nishit – You have not publicly denounced baby cannibalism. By your standards of “empirical data” that means that you are in favor of baby cannibalism.
i was science for hire in gradschool.
i did the experimental design, and all computer work to process the raw data. sentiment data from polls, wetware experiments, lab data, you name it, i could design the test and run the data.
oh gee mitch…..toujours le preax chevalier?
its hopeless.
the villagers with pitchforks have carried the day.
i was science for hire in gradschool.
i did the experimental design, and all computer work to process the raw data. sentiment data from polls, wetware experiments, lab data, you name it, i could design the test and run the data.
Copying and pasting your eHarmony profile again nishi?
Everybody loves somebody – sometime.
i think each domain must have its own mores and taboos.
Examples of the different domains isn’t an answer. Why, and how for that matter, can ethics vary from discipline to discipline?
Mitch – Assuming a sensibility on nishi’s part would be a fundamental mistake on your part.
This thread was not complete until Wedge came up.
the villagers with pitchforks have carried the day.
Add irony to the list of things to which nishi is completely oblivious.
Ya know, the more I read nishi’s almost incoherent ramblings, the more I’m convinced she’s a pocket fascist.
There is much that you don’t see, to the point where you just might be considered to be conversationally blind.
Dan hasn’t done much other than link. Gerson has a certain point that I don’t really care enough about to endorse or further argue (one small part of this is that this is a blanket-political, rather than scientific-specific kind of article), so I let it lie. You, on the other hand, take lack of active disagreement as active agreement.
So, you’re arguing with your own faulty logic, here. Again, I see serious problems with you in the future, and not just here. If you’re having trouble with logic, and you most definitely are, here, you’re also going to have problems executing in the world of science.
Mitchell:
I thought that was clear; sorry. Nishi repeatedly makes general, all-inclusive declarations about some mythical collective opinion purported to be held by people commenting here that have been thoroughly repudiated by several individuals, one of which is me.
So, if someone declares something to the effect that everyone here thinks X, and receives a chorus of responses from people who don’t actually think X, and then continues to remake that same declaration, there’s a certain systematic lack of attention to fact going on there.
This has happened repeatedly in prior threads. It could be that it’s nishi’s schtick, and that she’s having us on with this, in which case: shame on me for encouraging the mime.
Nishi wanted attention.
She got it. Can we move on?
The village that nishi would enjoy is Oradour-sur-Glane.
No pitchforks, however.
No pitchforks.
what is the point, slart?
the consensus here is that Science is BAD without judeoxian morality to guide it.
Dan buys it, you all buy it.
I wanna buy too! I know why nishi thinks it’s OK for “scientists” to police their own – because (she believes) they are smarter than everyone else. She doesn’t want her research limited by us two-digits.
It’s almost as if nishi is possessed of some Maoist need for denunciation. Sorry, homey don’t play dat.
i don’t see anyone disagreeing with dan and gerson.
*looks around*
wat a maroon
there IS a republican war on science, dude, and you are completely blind not to see it.
You’re right. At least not on any kind of intelligent level.
I just discovered something that will save time. I stopped reading Nishi posts a long time ago. They are annoying, usually ill-informed, contradictory, pompous, and lack proper punctuation. I now know that if I skip over three Nishi comments in a thread, it is a thread that has lost hope of constructive outcome.
I can move on without worry of missing something meaningful.
What I do, Geezer, is try to remember that the very first scientific experiment that every single one of these super-scientists did in their youth was to light their farts. Then I just substitute “fart lighting”, “lighting your own farts”, “anal explosion research”, for whatever religioscientific subject nishi’s on about. It’s fun:
i was science for hire in gradschool.
i did the fart lighting, and all lighting of farts to process the raw methane. flame data from farts, wetfart experiments, skid data, you name it, i could light the fart and run the data.
To put it simply, nish-wit does not understand that the scientific method is amoral, and like any tool it can be used for good or evil. She proposes that those people who use the scientific method ought not be tied down by concerns of ethics and morality, especially Judeo-Christian ethics (she has a special loathing for Christianity).
The commenters here disagree with nish-wit and insist that those who use the scientific method must be bound by ethics or morality lest something horrifying occur, to keep science on the side of good and not evil. Sometimes ethics and morality will tell a person that you can’t use the scientific method on that, you cannot conduct that experiment because it will lead to evil. nish-wit is upset because science ought to be able to go ahead and do anything without the Judeo-Christian morals police stopping it.
nish-wit doesn’t understand that her belief in science trumping all concerns of ethics and morality is the first step on the road to Treblinka.
Ric Locke: Dr. Beetle? Former head of Transylvania Polygnostic University (“Know Enough To Be Afraid”)?
sheesh mitch…its the Expelled Calumny.
gerson and levin are propagating the Science is Bad meme.
the villagers agree that policing Science and scientists with judeoxian ethics is imperative.
Not worth your time or ur neural funchtion.
i gtg to work.
And now that the LOLCat’s temporarily slunk away, we get Double-D, the master of the factually questionable collective ad hominem, who reads (or doesn’t read) the thread and proclaim’s LOLCat’s first excreable scribble “spot-on” (in what world? By what standards?). He then repeats every moonbat’s standard boilerplate with regard to Jonah Goldberg, as though we hadn’t heard it a thousand million times.
You really think you’re adding something to this debate, davey boy?
Science is Bad meme – That is a demonstrable lie, and not a collective belief or opinion around here.
the villagers agree that policing Science and scientists with judeoxian ethics is imperative. – As opposed to research without boundaries of morals or ethics? Yup. You can count me firmly in the camp of people that would not be comfortable with a disingenuous lolcat like nishit having any type of say in the laying or construction of boundaries, as she has demonstrated herself to be an amoral unethical twit.
“nish-wit is upset because science ought to be able to go ahead and do anything without the Judeo-Christian morals police stopping it.”
I think nishidiot sees herself as Victor Frankenstein.
Or more likely, Josef Mengele.
gerson and levin are propagating the Science is Bad meme.
the villagers agree that policing Science and scientists with judeoxian ethics is imperative.
Not worth your time or ur neural funchtion.
Just because you keep repeating it, child, doesn’t make it so. You are desperate – absolutely, hysterically, fingers-stuck-in-ears-singing-lalalalala desperate – to be one of a “special class” of people who have no responsibility to any ethical, moral code. Your hatred of being held to account for your actions by anyone other than yourself or who you accept as peers (you reject other scientists who would disagree with you) is clearly on display.
In some respects, I give you credit for staying out of jail to this point. The kind of basic sociopathy you exhibit here is fundamental in much of the criminal class, including out-of-control juveniles. Like you, they truly believe ethics/morality/law is only for chumps.
N.O’Brain
see #178
:-)
and of course, neonazidavey weighs in with non sequitors but in support of nishi’s sociopathy.
well, and I think most of us understand that there are different foundations for ethics. but, nishi is the ONLY one here that keeps adding JudeoChristian everytime it’s mentioned.
I guess if she can have her own definition of secular, it’s to be expected there are other words that have different meanings just for her.
is that nishi behind the mask?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yzrd6eVAsjA
Mheh.
Great minds think alike.
Oh, the youtube link is via HotAir.
The ABA and AMA don’t license doctors and lawyers, and you can’t call yourself a doctor or a lawyer just for taking some classes in med school and working in a related field.
It is a government function to license and discipline doctors and lawyers via their respective State Boards. As far as I know, there is no such board for scientists. Like journalists, they are who they claim to be.
The AMA promotes ethics, but even if they determined it was ethical for their members to begin euthanising cancer patients, the state wouldn’t agree.
Nishi has acknowledged the government should create the legal framework for scientists, but she will not acknowledge that legal framework would be based on the values of our society. There’s no need to label it judeo-christian, but there’s no reason to believe that “scientists”, unlike any other group in our society, should get to determine their own acceptable limits.
I love it how nishi presumes to speak for scientists, how she sets all arguments up into “us vs them” situations and how she cannot and will not argue against someones actual words and instead argues against the phantoms in her own mind.
Then again, in her world I’m just standing here with a pitchfork and a torch yelling “burn the witch”. Because of Jesus.
Mikey, that’s the one.
Yes, nishi generates some long threads, often containing more heat than light. Sometimes the proportions reach the point of silliness. An experienced Chief (Petty Officer, Navy) once told me that the reason it was impossible to make things foolproof was that fools are too persistent. That’s nishi in a few words.
But she does sometimes provide a valuable service. There are many issues around where I, for one, know what I think and believe, but have never put those thoughts together in any coherent way, and there are others where nishi’s obstinacy finally reveals just what the f* it is the damned moonbats are talking about, which often isn’t evident in the soundbyte “argument” style they employ. Not all useful services are pleasure-inducing.
That is simply, flatly, and unequivocally a bald-faced lie. “Science” is neither “bad” nor “good”; the terms do not apply; it is a tool. The behavior of people employing the scientific method is just as subject to ethical and moral constraints as the behavior of plumbers, priests, and politicians, and announcing that “it’s for science!” does not free them from those restrictions. We do not, and will not, allow “scientists” to determine their own ethical and moral rules uninformed and uninfluenced by by those of the larger society, any more than we allow that privilege to any other self-identified group.
The morals and ethics of our society are derived, in large part, from Christian doctrine. Whatever else may be said of that system, it has resulted in a society that works fairly well — and that is the function and purpose of a moral and ethical system. Note “derived” rather than “adopted”. Civilis (#241) puts it with admirable succinctness.
This is actually quite an illuminating example. It is impossible to read Romans, the thirteenth chapter, without concluding that it says that rulers oppress their people, and God at least acquiesces to that. Generations of despots have used that passage the way nishi wants to use “for science!”, to declare themselves exempt from (and superior to) the ethics and morals of society as a whole by virtue of their privileged position. We have burned a lot of powder and shed a lot of blood over the centuries to establish that that is not the case. Any Lord in his cups might strike a servant, and fail to measure the blow seemed a perfectly reasonable excuse for murder by bludgeoning at one time; nowadays we have penalties for verbal “harassment”, and though we may sometimes rail against extreme or foolish applications we accept the principle without question. An overzealous scientist might conduct an experiment that does great harm is not an excuse for, e.g., Tuskeegee or Eppinger.
Regards,
Ric
Hmm. I don’t buy this picture of Nishi as irresponsible mad scientist. This is someone who I’ve seen propose umpteen stratagems for nonviolently winning the war on terror, and deliberate on how to prevent genocide and WMD terrorism.
I see that this is a blog that lives on real-time discussion, and unfortunately I’m in the wrong timezone to continue further today. Don’t worry, Nishi-haters, I’ll try not to drag things out for too long when I return. I think I get the gist of things already.
nishi:it is kinda like the FLDS polygamy wives.
at first i thought they were just alien….but i have decided that i absolutely loathe them…..they are an affront to my sex and my species.
Those women allowed themselves and their children to become chattel in service to their “religionâ€Â.
They simply don’t accept your judeochristian morality, nishi.
Warren Jeffs is an expert in his field, and he developed his own ethics based on what he could do. These people should be your heroes.
I don’t hate Nishi. I’m only disappointed by her repeated failure to use the gigantic brain she’s, by her own account, endowed with.
It’d be nice to see some examples where she was actually saying intelligent things. Can you throw me a link?
and deliberate on how to prevent genocide and WMD terrorism.
Except, of course, the genocide in Africa. Those two-digits don’t deserve our help.
We don’t hate. We disagree. We’re as dispassionate as scientists about it.
Ric, you can say that to nishi a dozen different ways, and still the very next thing out of her keyboard will contain some Greenwaldian assertion or other. It’s almost as if some planarian, somewhere, decided that the commentariat here was editorially lockstepped, and Nishi went ahead and ate it.
I would recommend going back and practicing on Barrens chat some.
Me so Hordy.
Slart, I know that. In many ways my screeds aren’t addressed to nishi at all; her posts serve as inspiration for codifying my thoughts on the subject, and I’m egotistical enough to imagine that others might find them interesting and/or useful as well.
Regards,
Ric
I don’t hate nishi, I just wish she would argue against things I actually say rather than labeling me a theocon and then presuming all my arguments fit that mold.
This other finds them interesting, Ric.
and I’m egotistical enough to imagine that others might find them interesting and/or useful as well.
There is nothing egotistical about it. We do, and they are.
Absolutely.
[quote]From her point of view he came to that conclusion for all the wrong reasons, but science doesn’t give a damn about reasons; to briefly anthropomorphosize, it only matters/cares if the sums come out right, not what inspired the calculation.[/quote]
Mr. Locke, I have to disagree on this point. I don’t disagree with President Bush’s reasons, but I don’t think they hold ANY bearing on the argument of stem cells’ lack of usefulness, if only because those reasons are something one can debate (Though, really, in this case, you’ve debated them to a satisfactory conclusion.). Tying Mr. Bush’s reasons into the usefulness of stem cells brings together two arguments that run better separated. Otherwise, a similar argument could be made for Ron Paul’s support of small federal government marred only by the slight blemish that he wants it small because he thinks it would spy on him otherwise.
“Science†is neither “bad†nor “goodâ€Â; the terms do not apply; it is a tool. The behavior of people employing the scientific method is just as subject to ethical and moral constraints as the behavior of plumbers, priests, and politicians, and announcing that “it’s for science!†does not free them from those restrictions.
To add to the Ric love, I highlight the above. Much more coherent than my flippant response somewheres way up there. The heralded “peer review” doesn’t act as a sufficient constraint.
ric:
Romans 13:1-3; Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgement upon themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right ans he will commend you. (NIV)
A couple of thoughts in ric’s well presented analysis: Paul was explicitly speaking to those remnants of the “Jesus as the Warrior rebel king” segment who were still trying to jam politics into spiritual matters. He was reinforcing previous admonitions for Christians to stick to the personal, spiritual warfare that reflected Christ’s teachings. While it sounds like a blanket endorsement of every tin pot murderous dictator in history it reflected the historical reality of a tiny, minority religion surrounded by mostly polytheistic pagan based governments who didn’t care about them as long as they made a minimum of fuss. Become fussy and you were liable to be a lion aperitif for the amusement of “the mob.â€Â
Fast forward to Divine Right of Kings, most specifically in England. Those monarchs lost no time lifting their noses and trumpeting those verses as an effective whitewash for all manner of indelicate deeds. The Puritans (as well as those pesky, anal Scottish Presbyterians) raised an inconvenient difference, that being said Kings also considered themselves Christian (first Catholic, then Anglican) leaders of the faith. It was one thing for pagan rulers to act badly but when your King models himself as the both chief statesman and big top spiritual guide well, they got some splainin’ to do.
The Puritans approached this hypocrisy by focusing on the Treason laws as they existed circa 1600. The law stated that any criticism publicly levied against any member of his/her majesty’s government constituted an insult to the monarch and, thus, rose to the level of treason. The Puritans attacked this by putting up handbills and printing little subversive missives pointing out, in gory detail, the peccadilloes of numerous public officials. Eventually, after enough juries ignored the plain meaning of the treason statute and acquitted enough press men who were clearly guilty, both the definition of treason and The Divine Right of Kings were reworked into a more reasonable understanding of a ruler’s authority and responsibility.
With a nice big dollop of help from that insufferable Colonial revolution declaring the plain understanding of biblical teaching: That all men are created equal.
Just as other passages were used to justify slavery (never addressing the historical differences of “slaves by conquest” over “slaves by commercial expediency,”) this passage was taken as written without any attempt at scholarly critique or literary understanding. My favorite phrase in the Protestant ethic is “Reform and always reforming.” As long as we don’t turn off our brains and become so locked into a meme that requires no self examination, then we are free to criticize the nishi declarations of science without ethics or restraint of any kind. A view that, I suspect, would not be shared by most people on the “right side of the Bell Curve.”
OHNOES, I don’t absolutely disagree; I simply think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
Science, qua science, doesn’t “care” (because it hasn’t the facilities for “caring”) what questions lead to the answers, and it isn’t nearly the orderly process sometimes pictured. Would the benzene ring be a less-significant insight if Kekulé had been engaged in anal sex when it occurred, rather than riding a bus?
Furthermore, if the wrong question leads to the right answer, perhaps it isn’t a wrong question — it could be that the “wrong” question does in fact refer to a causal relationship heretofore ignored (see “Hubble, Edwin” — why is the sky dark at night?) I don’t know if there’s a causal relationship between correctly ethical behavior and success, but it’s at least an interesting question, isn’t it?
Regards,
Ric
Mr. Locke, we may well be working on this at completely different angles…
I think paring science down to “science qua science” misses the fact that the reasons like those Mr. Bush had establish precedents for societal standards. While these certainly aren’t any real parallels to judicial standards, I like to think that, given that science happens within those societal rules, such reasoning is important to consider not in relation to the result, but in relation to its effect on society, for good or ill.
Note, I’m really grasping to explain what I’m thinking here… I’m not even sure I’m fully grasping what I think I’m thinking, or even if it makes logical sense, so bear that in mind if this sounded nonsensical. You are many times not only more eloquent but also more insightful than I probably will ever be, so I may just be confused.
well…here is the basic problem.
while maybee an friends are settin up some mega-bureaucracy to be the ethics police on science, other ppl are gonna be forging full steam ahead.
Theil: If the virtuous people relinquish these things, it means that they will be developed by the evil people, and that seems to me to be a recipe for these technologies going wrong.
The only way for something like Joy’s approach to work would be basically a totalitarian world-state in which we control the technologies worldwide. It is incredibly arrogant to say that the only smart people in the world exist in the United States and that if you can stop it in the U.S., you’ll stop it everywhere. Maybe it’s going to be developed by the Chinese military. Maybe it’ll be developed by people working for Islamic terrorist groups.
The anti-Joy view that I would articulate is that what we need to be doing is to be pushing the accelerator further and harder. What I fear is that people working in free countries, where I think these technologies are likely to be developed in a more benign way, are being blocked by bureaucratic regulation and by cultural ideas that we shouldn’t be doing this. We are on this technological arc. We don’t know where it’s going to go, but I think the best trajectory is for us to just hit the accelerator really hard.
So basically you are gonna have to trust scientists to have the basic humanist ethics and morals that we grew up with.
Or fall farther and farther and behind the bad guys in technology.
Personally, I think our science and technology edge is too important to America to let the theocons muck about with it much longer.
And that is one reason the Dems will take the WH.
Also, that random bit of obsequious praise was not meant sarcastically. I just thought I’d slip it in because … it is true, dammit.
so if all your friends jump off a cliff….
They simply don’t accept your judeochristian morality, nishi.
Warren Jeffs is an expert in his field, and he developed his own ethics based on what he could do.
Maybee you are wrong. Those are your fellow judeo-xians.
I object to the FLDS mothers violating one of the core social mores developed before any religions.
For the mother to protect her child.
So basically you are gonna have to trust scientists to have the basic humanist ethics and morals that we grew up with.
You once said, quite proudly, that you question everything. So I know you don’t believe that “you are just going to have to trust scientists” is a good argument.
So basically you are gonna have to trust scientists to have the basic humanist ethics and morals that we grew up with.
No, in fact we don’t have to. You claim that lawyers and doctors are self policing and then run with that as a reason why scientists should be too, but the truth is that society has a right to police lawyers and doctors too, and it does. You just like to pretend otherwise, just like you have some need to attribute to those who would dare argue with you traits that you find disagreeable.
erm, how are you defining “child”? I mean, they’re old enough to be mothers themselves….
Maybee you are wrong. Those are your fellow judeo-xians.
I object to the FLDS mothers violating one of the core social mores developed before any religions.
For the mother to protect her child.
Not at all, and I highly doubt they would label themselves as having judeo-christian mores.
The mother protecting her child may be an instinct, but some societal mores throughout time have made it perfectly acceptable for a mother to abandon a sick baby to the elements, or let a man have sex with a 10 year old daughter, to abort the unborn child, or to genitally mutilate your own daughter.
There is not, and there never has been, some universal morality that people naturally follow. What is going on at the FDLS is unacceptable in America now, but there are societies today where such a life is perfectly acceptable and even normal. They, at the compound, wanted to self-police.
Ah! Coherence! Excellent; thank you. It is much easier to follow your arguments when they’re expressed that way.
The trouble with arguing from those principles is that it’s too selective. The United States also has some extremely powerful corporations whose business practices tend to overwhelm those elsewhere; shall we unleash them without ethical or moral restrictions? We are on this financial arc. We don’t know where it’s going to go; is the best trajectory to hit the accelerator really hard? Keeping in mind that others (notably the French and Chinese, although Dubai is coming on strong) are doing just that. Shall we lose our advantage by blocking our own people via bureaucratic regulation and cultural ideas?
Or, perhaps closer to the bone: We have the best military in the world, and could make it better by investing more. There is very little doubt that we could conquer half the world, Alexander-style, and a high probability that we could get all of it if we spent enough to overcome the Chinese advantage in numbers. Should we “hit the accelerator really hard”, or allow that capability to be frustrated by bureaucratic regulation and cultural ideas?
And bleating “science” as an excuse for excepting it doesn’t work. Science is a tool expressed as a procedure; so is business; so is the Army. As tools and procedures they have no ethical or moral valence — they are moral and ethical to the extent that they are used by moral and ethical people in moral and ethical ways for moral and ethical ends.
****
OHNOES: I encourage you to think about that a little harder. I think you have an important insight there, but as you say you haven’t developed it enough to express it fully. Let nishi, who takes the opposite tack, serve as a prod or goad to encourage you to reason it out.
Regards,
Ric
may I just say, you’re reading my mind, but expressing in a much better manner than I can? there, I’ve said it.
for someone that wants to “police” her own community nishi sure is judgemental of others.
You are seriously misinformed about the legal profession. Attorneys are licensed and regulated by the states. They do not ‘self-regulate’. And they are held to the same laws as the rest of society. We do not just ‘trust them to keep to their ethics’, we make sure they keep to them by punishing them through the power of the state when they fail.
Your fears of other nations getting ahead of the US in science because they do not have moral qualms about research or experiments so we shouldn’t is simply chilling. You are saying that the ends justify the means, you are holding brief that an atrocity is justified if it gives a scientific advance.
Thankfully, you are not above society, you are a part of society, and society gets to regulate your behavior. Otherwise you would quite happily commit a crime against humanity and then sleep well afterwards. You are well on the road to Treblinka, and you don’t mind one bit.
may I just say, you’re reading my mind, but expressing in a much better manner than I can?
funny, because I often wish I would have just shut up and let you make the point, because you are so much better at it.
*sigh* it’s like hair. nobody ever likes what they have. ;D
others might find them interesting and/or useful as well.
This drive-by poster thinks so. I appreciate all the interesting commentary as it helps me identify and challenge my own understandings.
So, I don’t find your efforts futile at all.
It reminds me of a quote by John Adams though. Paraphrasing: “The more I learn the more I realize I don’t understand”.
Thanks.
Go ahead and “self-police”. Go ahead and “hit the accelerator really hard”. Go ahead and try to trump the bad-guys in technology….
But if I find one flipper-baby in a kennel or a foetus in a jar you’ll all be swinging at the end of a rope.
Maybee they are christians.
self defined.
your brothers and sisters in christ.
Cockerell told legislators the investigation has been difficult because members of the church have refused to co-operate. Parents coached children not to answer questions and children – even breast-feeding infants – were switched around to different mothers in what Cockerell called a co-ordinated effort to deceive.
The state has said that nearly 60 per cent of the 14-to 17-year-old girls in custody from the ranch are pregnant or already have children. Many refused to take pregnancy tests, the agency said Wednesday.
Where are the boys?
Of those 463 children, 250 are girls and 213 are boys. Children 13 and younger are about evenly split  197 girls and 196 boys  but there are only 17 boys aged 14 to 17 compared with the 53 girls in that age range.
hehe…well you are losin the WH.
im pretty sure the 11 blessed lines will get jumpstarted with federal fundage.
that is a good start.
;)
huh, I didn’t even know I was running for President.
my middle school aged neice told me she heard the boys from the sect get “exiled”.
they get dumped off in a big city, like LA or Houston.
in a state of culture shock from being raised inside the compound the boys are easy prey for drug dealers and pimps.
kk, the theocons have lost the WH.
better?
;)
nope.
ooooh, you mean the imaginary ones in your head? kk.
“Science†is neither “bad†nor “goodâ€Â; the terms do not apply; it is a tool.
I disagree. Tools are good. A wrench is good, a hammer is good. Any tool that helps us deal with reality is good. The fact that an evil person can use a hammer to bash in someone’s head does not make the hammer evil, it just makes it misused. Science is good whether some people misuse it or not.
GW is most despised president ever.
do you think it is because he is an evangelical?
they get dumped off in a big city, like LA or Houston.
in a state of culture shock from being raised inside the compound the boys are easy prey for drug dealers and pimps.
Who could imagine something could go so wrong when people are told they should simply trust the judgment of someone who holds himself out as an expert?
the FLDS patriarchy daddies are your true eugenicists.
they culled the herd of exccess young males to preserve the patriarchy daddie bloodlines.
lovely judeo-xian mores theres.
and yes, actually the FLDS describe themselves as mormons, altho the LDS church repudiates polygamy.
but maybee..they are ALL Christians.
lulz.
the FLDS patriarchy daddies are your true eugenicists.
And it is the work of the true scientists, like you, to change the meaning of words to fit whatever idiotic idea you are currently trying to sell.
Islam is a death cult, and you jumped into it knowing that.
lulz.
You never know what you’ll learn next on the Internet. Just listen up; nishi will be back around shortly to tell you what you think.
So you don’t have to!
Heh.
As several people have pointed out, your obsession with the FLDS situation results in your arguing against your own points, nishi.
The FLDS elders arrogated to themselves precisely the privilege that you demand — the “right” to form an independent community, within which they defined their own morals and ethics, disregarding those of the larger society. It is another in a long series of experiences which have convinced us that allowing that is a bad idea.
What you think of the FLDS is exactly what I think of you.
Regards,
Ric
GW is most despised president ever.
do you think it is because he is an evangelical?
I think it’s because there are so many stupid people who’ve been coddled by their parents their whole life and had their IQ tested with the back of a cereal box.
nishi went Muslim on us? Does she wear a burka, or at least a headscarf now?
I wonder what it is like to go thru life like the nishit. Oblivious to principled positions. Fingers jammed firmly in ears. Complete lack of morals and ethics. ALL BOW AT NISHITS ALTAR OF SCIENCE !!!
“You helped Cap’n Crunch find his way through the maze back to his ship! You’re a genius nishi!”
I think I’ve been through this before. But I’m gonna offend. There is only one Christian Church. And (God have mercy) it ain’t the Mormon one. (Sorry to those who that will offend.)
They aren’t Christians. They don’t have Apostolic succession for one, and secondly they teach a doctrine about the scriptures which is completely at odds with what the Church has taught.
River C – That is one of the rabbit holes that the nishit want everyone to dive into, to distract from the fact that she is a eugenecist and thinks genocide in Africa ain’t such a bad idea. Shiny sparkly object to distract from her transparent will to power.
they say they are christians. i thot to be a xian you just have to profess belief in christ.
JD, i said birth control, not genocide.
nope ric, the patriarchy daddies extrapolated religion, not science.
slightly different.
their religion says they must marry at least 3 wives to acheive heaven.
what would prevent immoral scientists from layering FLDS super-mores over the base judeo-xian ethic, which we have anyways?
i thot to be a xian you just have to profess belief in christ.
i thot to be a moozlim you just have to say the shahada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahadah
Haven’t you?
FLDS is to Xian as Al Qaida is to Sufism.
But really, what are glass houses for if not stones? You ninjicompoop!
You and Osama bin Laden believe in Allah and Mohammed.
Why do you want to kill me?
And gray:
Christian Brotherhood is to “xtian” as bin laden is to Islam
Ayran Nation is to “xtian” as bin laden is to Islam
LDS (national) church is to “xtain” as sufi is to Islam
But you know what, nishi? I’m just going to apply your narrow, self centered “xtian = stoopid” construct to Islam.
Islam = freedom hating misogynistic bloodthirsty terrorists.
How does that make you feel?
so ,Obama is a theocon also?
Maggie: He doesn’t represent “mainstream” theocons.
Until the theocons condemn him, of course…. wait a minute …
well, according to my definition… “anyone that goes to church” he is!
You and Osama bin Laden believe in Allah and Mohammed.
Why do you want to kill me?
Is she for real and serious a Muslim? How in the world can she subscribe to such an inherently fascist religion, and then condemn another religion for being backward?
Sometimes I think that nishi is actually some geek’s science project: a bot that posts random sentences on blogs. The goal is to see how much debate can be generated by commenters attempting to grapple with semi-relevant statements and arbitrary assertions. If we ever push the comments over 500, I’m pretty sure the geek will get an A+ on his project, so post away guys. We’re almost there.
Well then I condemn Barack Obama as a theocon xtian science hating home schooler!
Did I miss anything?
I thought it pretty well established that both Truman and Nixon left office with less support than Bush currently enjoys. Nixon is naturally a special case, but Truman, now regarded as a sage and a beaux ideal by both parties, was perhaps even more unpopular.
Why? Korea.
LOLCat, if you think the conflation of FLDS to cover all Christianity, or even all “Judeo-Christian Morality” (as though you had any but the most stereotypical notions of it), gets by as an argument, you may be still dumber than the imagination suggests. Is this an attempt to kick up dust to cover the ethical basis which ought to be used to guide scientific application in presumed moral mirk? Or does your Sufi wisdom not percieve the blinding black hole un such an argument?
Ards: She’s a self confessed Sufi. And yes, the level of hypocrisy is atmospheric.
Think Gnostic as compared to mainstream Christianity. Very mystiocal with a peudo scientific bent.
um, with dementia?
well…….that is an honest point…the FLDS patriarchy daddies just built their own mores on top of judeo-xian ethics.
even if you can force scientists to adopt a judeo-xian moral code of some sort, why wouldn’t we just build what we need on top of it?
Wait a minute. WAIT A MINUTE!!!
ARDSGAINE HOME SCHOOLS HIS KIDS BUT … BUT … BUT …
HE’S AN ATHEIST!!!???!!!
What will become of nishi’s xtian stereotypes?
Ards: She’s a self confessed Sufi. And yes, the level of hypocrisy is atmospheric.
Think Gnostic as compared to mainstream Christianity. Very mystiocal with a peudo scientific bent.
So it’s a science the same way astrology and alchemy are sciences.
There’s more than one way to destroy science. Flooding the field with mystical junk-science is probably the most effective.
Just for kicks, I’d love to know which parts of the Judeo-Christian moral code that this country has adopted that scientists would want to modify, and why.
why indeed? why are you complaining about it then? oh, I forgot, knee jerk reaction that’s completely unreasoned.
and another question.
why aren’t judeo-xian societal mores already operative for scientists?
do you suspect us because so many of us are atheists?
Im complaining about the right’s war on science.
part of the war is a memewar where science gets demonized and discreditted.
ARDSGAINE HOME SCHOOLS HIS KIDS BUT … BUT … BUT …
HE’S AN ATHEIST!!!???!!!
That’s funny. You would be surprised–or maybe only nishi would be surprised–at the diversity in the homeschooling community. Lots of pagans, atheists, and liberal Christians in addition to the fundamentalists. :)
why aren’t judeo-xian societal mores already operative for scientists?
do you suspect us because so many of us are atheists?
Well, you are not an atheist.
I don’t know that judeo-christian societal mores are not already operative for scientists, or at least for many scientists. You can easily have the mores without the religion. You can also have the religion without the mores.
Nishi’s confused. Very, very confused. She’s got a sliver of the religious right somehow wound up with everyone right of center, and has decided Obama’s worth a worship or two on that basis.
And she wants to speak on behalf of science. I seriously think she needs to seek therapy.
part of the war is a memewar where science gets demonized and discreditted.
Perhaps because its crap and it isn’t really science.
Descredittoed?
gerson and dan justify propagating the Science-is-Bad meme by saying science is bad without moral guidance.
ards is the most correct.
science cannot be bad. that is like saying guns are bad, acuz sometimes they kill ppl.
Ben Stein says “Science causes murder.”
is that true in your worldview?
why wouldn’t we just build what we need on top of it?
You might do. But like the FDLS church, you might end up building something immoral or illegal. Something that people absolutely loathe, something people consider an affront to their sex and their species.
nishi, a word of warning:
crazy and immoral is no way to go through life.
illiterate.
I forgot …and illiterate…
Climate changey scientist scammers are wanting to divert resources away from helping people to this silly fetish they have about eradicating CO2 molecules. A lot of people will die. That’s kind of like murder I think.
aw, it’s repeating itself again. so sad to see dementia in one so young.
maggie katzen, there is a war by the right on science.
blood libel
the right is popularily known as the anti-science party.
“How in the world can she subscribe to such an inherently fascist religion, and then condemn another religion for being backward?”
‘Cause she is a fascist?
in your imagination.
or is this one of those, “three times and it’s comedy” things?
“Ben Stein says “Science causes murder.â€Â
is that true in your worldview?”
No.
[STAND BACK, IT’S GONNA BLOWWWWW!!!!!!!]
“#
Comment by happyfeet on 5/8 @ 12:02 pm #
Climate changey scientist scammers are wanting to divert resources away from helping people to this silly fetish they have about eradicating CO2 molecules. A lot of people will die. That’s kind of like murder I think.”
But it’s exactly what nishit is arguing for.
feets…the difference is that the left is not blocking scientific research with religious prejudice, or demonizing science by saying it leads to nazis.
globalwarming is reproducible, researchable science……but anthropogenic globalwarming is junkscience, meaning there is no supporting data.
i guess it is like the difference between type A and type B error.
in statistics.
have you been to planet gore yet?
that is the debunk site, like expelledexposed is for Stein’s Wxpelled.
“the right is popularily known as the anti-science party.”
[IN MY HEAD!!!!!!}
Leaving science in the hands of anyone who has no moral or ethical guidance would be as bad as leaving a gun with that same person, nishwit. That is what everyone here is saying. Powerful tools should not be left in the hands of people with no conception of a right or wrong greater than their own desires, people who think the ends justify the means. That is what everyone here has been saying you utter simpleton.
Because of that the greater society gets to regulate the use of that tool, and this society is based on Judeo-Christian ethics and morals, so the regulation reflects that. Your druthers are highly unimportant, and the greater you desire to be self-regulated with something that powerful, the more it is realized that having society do the regulation is best. By your own words you are not trustworthy, and to be frank I wouldn’t trust you alone with a burned out match let alone the scientific method and soley your conscience for guidance.
Im complaining about the right’s war on science.
part of the war is a memewar where science gets demonized and discreditted.
Where were you all those years that the left was waging its memewar against reason? Where are you now in that fight? Contemplating your navel in a Sufi trance?
“Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/8 @ 12:10 pm #
feets…the difference is that the left is not blocking scientific research with religious prejudice, or demonizing science by saying it leads to nazis.”
No the left is demonizing science by claiming we are destroying Mother Gaia with carbon dioxide.
And the left already are fascists, so they got there ahead of us.
Popularily known by the people she hangs out with and the voices in her head. Oh and the flying unicorns that populate her house.
Don’t forget the nishi math: Republicans war on science, xtians war on science, xtians are stoopid therefore — REPUBLICANS ARE STOOPID!
They seem to be teaching math and rhetoric very differently from when I was in school.
BTW: The vast majority of Christians probably don’t care whether or not your little eugenics club thinks they are “anti-science.”
yup that is a problem.
see, some of us internet meme-mercenaries are wantin to do to AGW wat we did to Expelled….we googlebombed the debunk site onto the first page and greifed all the positive reviews of Expelled we could reach.
but we kinda feel like we haven’t accomplished our mission while ppl still belive the Expelled calumny, that science leads to naziis.
“I love this stuff because if you ever doubt your own sanity, all you have to do is read {HER} stuff and realize that you’re okay.”
— Charles Krauthammer
***edited for content***
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/8 @ 12:14 pm #
What’s this “WE” shit, kemosabe?
Oh. Thanks. Here it is. I hadn’t really been over there in awhile.
The climate change nazis are a lot like nazis though I think. It’s a huge mistake for the scientific community to not police these people more better. They could say hey not in my name! That would be catchy I think. Would take a modicum of bravery though.
Where were you all those years that the left was waging its memewar against reason? Where are you now in that fight?
i am a recent convert.
i just told you, my cohort has reshaped the internet perception of Expelled.
our next project is AGW.
that will be much harder.
Stein didnt have a nobel, and AGW has wormed it’s way into the global psyche much more efficiently than Expelled.
Oh. Pretend like just the word Here is orangey. There you go.
when are we getting back around to ESCR? how many “Expelled”s do we have left ot go?
Now if we’re talking strictly about ID, I agree that it is an attempt by some to insert theology into the science debate on origins.
The “war on science by the right” is a political mem generated by the left trying to discredit conservatives questioning the assertions of social(ist) engineers. nishi is merely parroting leftwing propaganda that fits her preconceived political notions. Al Gore calling AGW sceptics “deniers” in his attempt to conflate them with holocaust deniers and ESCR proponents smearing sceptics and those who have ethical misgivings are part of this meme job.
nishi also completely ignores the very vocal and influencial leftists who are are really at war with science to the point of committing terrorist acts.
N
see, some of us internet meme-mercenaries are wantin to do to AGW wat we did to Expelled…
You should get right on that.
“i just told you, my cohort has reshaped the internet perception of Expelled.”
[MY NAME IS LEGION!!!}
***name that movie***
You never answered my question, nishi.
Since you and bin laden both follow Islam, why do you want to kill me?
Actually, it should have read [!!!NOIGEL SI EMAN YM]
I think it was Carin that provided the link that first informed nishi about Expelled. Although I love Carin, I’m not sure I can forgive her for that.
there are plenty of debunk scientists attacking AGW.
we have to get them exposure.
we hack wikis to shape public perception.
the adversary hacks them back to what they were.
AGW is heavily politicized.
I have 3 other nic/diaries where i post subversive anti-AGW at dkos.
it has to be subtle or i get flamed.
nishi- why don’t you start a university that would teach the debunking of AGW?
We are done with Expelled.
stein is reduced to flogging his fakeumentery on xian broadcast networks where it belongs.
bye
In other words you lie. Not much of a scientist after all. But the ends justify the means.
You are on the road to Treblinka
Nishi in a box!
Each and every box comes with: Expelled, Discovery, Wedge, xtians, theocons, ESCR, mysticism, Jesusland, Jailed Scientists, Greifers.
Lather, rinse, repeat. (ad nauseum)
blaaaargh
I truly miss the days when Ardsgaine would shout “Faith is Unreason!” and I would scream that he was a heretic and attempt to have him burned at the stake and then he’s fight me off by tossing volumes of Aristotle and Neitzche at my head while a I tried to beat him with a crucifix.
good times … good times …
Now, that’s not how I remember those debates at all. :D
What irritates me so much about nishi is that occasionally some random sentence will make sense, but in the overall context of how she writes and argues, I can’t believe that it’s anything more than an accident. I’ve thought about trying to engage her more and see if I could get her to put together an argument, but the hell with it. If she can’t be arsed to put her thoughts into coherent form, I’m not going to waste my time on it.
i usually do that Ardsgaine, but i figured since Dan posted this to bait her i might as well participate.
erm..a bunch of us were disgusted by Expelled.
so we did something.
a lotta you are disgusted by AGW, but you do nothing.
you don’t even write about it.
you just sit around and bitch.
she’s lazy, Ards, the way all idealogues are lazy and has an inflated sense of her own influence.
She has her own mental 3×5 cards stacked in her head, attached by reinforced bolts to her ego. She will stay out of threads for which she has no talking points and then fling the 3×5’s over and over again, dismissing all arguments with “u r rong!” or “theocon” or “stoopid!”, declare herself the winner and then keep flinging the 3×5’s!
For some reason, on this thread, it was mildly stimulating. Most other times I just ignore her to avoid the whole “lather, rinse, repeat.”
And the brutal headache…
“erm..a bunch of us were disgusted by Expelled.
so we did something.”
Most people would call that “multiple personality disorder”.
So you decided to lie. Well, that is doing something, I suppose; and it does explain why you are concerned that any morality or ethics would be imposed on your work. It does leave one questioning the quality of your work, if you are so eager to debunk something that you would lie to do so, then what would happen if you were eager to promote some conclusion you had worked out? I’m afraid you aren’t trustworthy enough, by your own admission, to assume that you wouldn’t fake the data to support your conclusion.
I wonder how often you have done that.
internet meme-mercenaries
Ao, she really does not believe this shit she types, she is just doing it for the money?
Expelled was awesome. I am buying copies for all of my friends, and will buy a few extra to leave around the office. Had it not been for nishit, I would have never seen it.
Listening to Nishi claim victory over Expelled makes me facepalm so hard my hand is about to go through my skull.
Wow, it’s like she’s watched our every move. Perhaps we ought to disband the intelligence agencies and just turn it all over to the all-seeing eye.
PT
she cant quit us
lulz
Wow. Yes, it makes sense. Islam is the most repressive form of religion ever concocted by man.
Somehow I’m not surprised that Nishi would find a home there. She’s probably been lied to. The MSU at our college is great at whitewashing Islam.
I am going to give copies of Expelled out as Christmas presents, and hand them out to the street bums and hobos downtown, for educational purposes. I am going to donate a couple copies to the libraries in the local grade schools.
And I fear the day when the nishit gets to set the moral and ethical boundaries of science.
For some reason, on this thread, it was mildly stimulating.
There’s a very good debate to be had on this subject within the right. I’ve followed some of the posts on it over at the Corner. Derbyshire has been very good. I can’t join in nishi’s wholehearted condemnation of Goldberg, even though I object to his attempt to connect science and industrialization with fascism. There’s too much good in Liberal Fascism to try to sum it up as an attack on science. The idea that fascism is a reaction to Darwin, though, is fundamentally wrong. Fascism was given license by the wholesale attack on reason carried out by philosophers of the 19th century. The most important of these was Hegel, yet Goldberg does not even mention Hegel’s ideas until halfway through the book, and then he spends barely a paragraph on him. For a much better discussion of the rise of fascism in both Germany and America, I recommend Leonard Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels. Still, I think that Goldberg has written a very important book. What he’s essentially done is make the case that anything in the US political scene that is not classical liberalism is fascism. I agree with that.
Hmmm…sitting around and bitching is something you put a great deal of time (which is not the same as quality time) into. What else are you doing?
I am going to give copies of Expelled out as Christmas presents, and hand them out to the street bums and hobos downtown, for educational purposes. I am going to donate a couple copies to the libraries in the local grade schools.
I’m going to wait until MST3k gets ahold of it. That should be good.
“Bueller… Bueller… “
That, as far as I’m concerned, is Stein’s greatest contribution to society. And that was, what, a couple of decades ago?
I am going to give copies of Expelled out as Christmas presents
I had an Expelled birthday party for my son.
I thought putting this on the cake was a nice touch.
I hear that Expelled is a big hit among anorexics.
All right … All right! I condemn myself.
Ards – MST3K is one my favorite shows, that I can rarely find on TV any longer. Pity, that.
BJ – That one was bad.
I hear that Expelled is a big hit among anorexics.
All right … All right! I condemn myself.
You mean Buellerimics, don’t you?
Being an animation nerd, I’ve found Stein more enlightening in his recurring role of the Boring Accountant Pixies (all of them) on “Fairly Oddparents,” and his appearance on the “Earthworm Jim” cartoon as a psychiatrist named Dr. Houston. (Who existed only for Jim to declare, “Houston, we have a problem.”)
As for “Expelled,” I can’t bring myself to consider seeing it. The image of Ben Stein in those shorts fills me with a terror that mere words cannot express…
#414
You’re always welcome to take a hike. Whoa. Dejavu.
Yes. You’ve raised it to a level of awareness wherein many people who could not have cared less about it or its contents are now interested in seeing it, and this has resulted in, well, this.
I don’t suppose they ever taught you the law of unintended consequences, did they?
You know, Dr. Sanity would probably find the nish-wit a good subject of an academic paper. If you are generous, Matoko, give her a call; it would help out an actual person who uses the scientific method.
Although if I was a cruel person, I would suggest a two hour interview between Matoko and Don Cherry. I would actually pay for that DVD.
@ #206
Have you ever stood next to a big railroad steam-engine? …the presence of Old No. 9, much less the Twentieth Century Limited.
Perhaps you meant Broad Way Limited?
…
Echo chamber, HA!
idizono,
Tridents…
This is the thread that never ends,
And it goes on and on my friends,
Somebody started commenting not knowing what it was
And they’ll continue commenting forever just because . . .
@ #137
I’m all about diplomacy. Should that read, “Lady…?”
not knowing what it was
It’s a war on science, Karl. Wake up.
Steam locomotives? The Allegheny. http://www.steamlocomotive.com/allegheny/
But for largest non-turbine steam engines you had to go with the Olympic class liners.
http://www.titanic-titanic.com/olympic_class_liners.shtml
Remember, a mime is a terrrible thing to waste.
And give me the GG1 any time.
http://tinyurl.com/6b7w79
Beauty AND utility.
No for real my feeling is a consensus is nigh. But it does kind of trouble me that Michael Gerson might stumble on this thread and mistake himself for a provocative thinker.
Remember that scene in Miller’s Crossing where Tommy turns the tables on Bernie Bernbaum? That’s what this thread is.
I was reading Dashiell Hammet’s The Glass Key a few months ago, and started to get an eerie feeling of deja vu. Turns out the Coen brothers borrowed heavily from it when they wrote Miller’s Crossing.
No, actually, I did mean the Twentieth Century Limited.
I amused some people on another list by speculating that ragtime, Sousa, and the other highly rhythmic music of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries was because of steam engines. Prior to the Age of Steam, the only real rhythms the normal person would encounter were natural systems, heartbeats, horse hoof-falls, and the like, with major stochastic components superimposed on the rhythm. Steam engines produce a beat that’s within human or animal ranges, chuffachuffachuffa, so they occupy a weird half-place between natural systems and mechanical ones. Vehicles and factories running on steam had a throb and beat that almost seemed organic, and the music of the time responded. The pounding beat of ragtime or rinky-tink and the rigid repetitiveness of the brass band are as much a commentary on the new experience as Modern Times is visually.
Regards,
Ric
hmmmm, Ric, you reminded me of this it’s a bit more recent. ;D
Slart: It’d be nice to see some examples where she was actually saying intelligent things. Can you throw me a link?
This is at her old blog. But she may want to keep that private, so sorry, no link for now.
they simply don’t have no man is no domain knowledge to make grey goo in case you will be very sovereign as well as profoundly anti-libertarian. it is just outlaw particle physics and abortion and Kurzweil bridges? i think you have all men genetically equal. or at least equal under the law. this is equal under the solutions, much less all men are Ben Stein, Jonah Goldberg, David Berlinski, Leon Kass, the members of the approved version? why not being stupid, dan. im sure you were smarter dan collins you’re a host of us into fascists and a republican war on what the approved version? why not just makes us scientists are pushing– Expelled is the LAW is equal under the genes (hehe), but i was wrong. one more time, in science is what the idea of the odious bioluddite council(except Dr. K–he’s a host of crap. you are now the soljahs are completely blind not to remind that is what he developed his field, and he developed his own ethics based prisons, no man is for. no man is what about biomemes?
look….it is ever so pointless.
i lost my temper.
Expelled is just a grossout, and i get tweaked when i see ppl i thought were smarter buyin the line.
i get it.
you’re not smarter.
Expelled is just the right’s farenheit 911.
so when ppl are forced to retreat from the captain stupid position, the lie that Expelled is about “supression of free inquiry”, their fallback line is that science is bad.
it makes you into villagers with pitchforks.
it makes you look stupid.
maybe you just are.
the LAW is equal under the technological Singularity. it be very sovereign as profoundly anti-libertarian. it might be very comfortable there edu guy. there IS a group of that is BAD..reallyreally bad….unless religion guides it. the mother to become chattel in particular, the core social mores and their “religionâ€Â. /spit cut out the LAW is equal under the approved version? why not to make all together! afer all, science is just outlaw nanotechnology and my species. Those are equal under the mother to see it. “Science, simply don’t have decided that i think you for a simpleton like the troglodytes here. forty-percenter! also, outlaw certain brands of crap.
Steam engines produce a beat that’s within human or animal ranges, chuffachuffachuffa, so they occupy a weird half-place between natural systems and mechanical ones. Vehicles and factories running on steam had a throb and beat that almost seemed organic, and the music of the time responded.
Hey used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack,
Sit beneath the trees by the railroad track,
Engineer would see him sitting in the shade,
Strumming to the rhythm that the driver’s made.
The greatest rock and roll song of all time agrees.
Expelled is just a grossout, and i get tweaked when i see ppl i thought were smarter buyin the line.
i get it.
you’re not smarter.
Expelled is just the right’s farenheit 911.
nishi, let me try to make this a little more obvious:
I HAVE NOT SEEN EXPELLED!
Nor have most folks here, I would suspect. Nothing I am arguing has jackshit to do with that movie. If you cannot get that through your think fucking head and start arguing with the people and positions stated here instead of Ben Stein, then you really do need to find another blog to hang out in because contrary to what you believe, you are the one not smart enough for this one.
From your link, nishi:
It’s one thing to believe in Intelligent Design, and I certainly think it’s fair to take issue with elitists who think they’re entitled to stifle skepticism and dissent.
Manzi and Augustine say it better than I can.
“Trying to wish away valid scientific findings because you believe that they imperil religious or ethical beliefs is a fool’s errand on many levels. Augustine’s guidance from The Literal Meaning of Genesis is quite relevant here:”
Those of you that acknowledge that Expelled is indefensible and IDT is risible, have now retreated to the Science is bad line.
You are simply reinforcing the cultural perception that thinkers can’t believers…..and that, well, believers ARE stupid.
Scientific investigation cannot be supressed.
Science saved our butts in WWII, and has given Americans the best standard of living in the wide wide world.
There is a republican war on science.
And quite simply, you are going to lose.
I suppose that if I lived in abject terror of early onset Alzheimer’s, and was convinced that the only thing between me and a near-term cure was the fifty percent of the country that are abject godbotherers, and that furthermore the readership here was a representative section of said godbotherers, and that (I know, this is even more of a stretch) said readership would be swayed by arguments composed of nearly equal parts insult, imaginary intellectual superiority, logical fallacy, and hello-kitty spelling, syntax, and grammar, I’d probably be making the same kinds of arguments nishi has been indulging herself in.
That would require me to have some brand of crazy that science currently lacks the language to express, but it’s an explanation.
“elitists who think they’re entitled to stifle skepticism and dissent.”
those ppl dont exist in Science B Moes.
the scientific method is egalitarian to the core.
if you bring a better model..it will be adopted.
I think it was Carin that provided the link that first informed nishi about Expelled. Although I love Carin, I’m not sure I can forgive her for that.
I will flog myself. I would denounce, or condemn, but I do try to keep things fun.
And, honestly – what I found interesting about the original mention of the flick wasn’t that it was a movie about ID, but about the hysterics surrounding debate. FTR, I haven’t seen the movie.
Expelled is just the right’s farenheit 911.
so when ppl are forced to retreat from the captain stupid position, the lie that Expelled is about “supression of free inquiryâ€Â, their fallback line is that science is bad.
A bit of hyperbole, isn’t it? You think it’s going to be nominated for an Oscar? There COULDN’T be a Farenheit 9/11 for the Right because you can’t get the fawning media and Hollywood to play along.
those ppl dont exist in Science B Moes.
Well they sure as fuck exist in reality, and unfortunately that is where the rest of us dwell, nish.
“the readership here was a representative section of said godbotherers”
the sad thing is that the readership here is prolly the upper 10% in IQ and g of the godbots.
it doesnt really matter.
like i said, the republicans have declared a war on science….. and you will lose.
theocons only represent 1/5 of the electorate, slart, not half the country.
evangelicals seem to be the problem, not regular believers.
evangelicals seem to be the problem, not regular believers.
But if you repeatedly insult the regular believers and lump them in with the fringe like a ranting bigot…, um… , what is it you think that will accomplish?
Im not the only one that says it, Carin.
The difference between left and right attitude to science, is that the right says all science is bad, contra religion, while the left bends over backwards to include all sorts of goofy marginal junkscience.
type A and type B error.
The media, the intelligentsia and the artiste community percieve all inclusivity as a far lesser transgression against liberty than the blanket portrayal of all science as bad.
The media, the intelligentsia, the artists, all sense that the right wants to tell them how to act and what to think.
I think that is accurate…..as evidenced by this thread.
Expelled is just more time, in the scientific fields. would link obscene as sovereign. thnx SGT Ted. you have decided that in biotech? would it be very sovereign as sovereign. thnx SGT Ted. you were smarter dan collins and you have all the law. ironically, transhumanism is B..A..D. without religion and abortion and you should know it. Gerson, Levin, Stein and supercolliders! outlaw lifehacking and their fallback line is what the FLDS polygamy ranch is for. no ones master. now the core social mores developed before any religions. For the line. i have a positive good for not just the LAW is just the mother to protect her child. wat a republican war on science, dude, that the FLDS mothers violating one of stringtheory, and they don’t accept your fellow judeo-xians.
lump them in with the fringe
you self include B Moes.
on this thread–only ards and possibly slart reject the science-is-bad meme.
very small percentage..possibly statistically insignificant.
I trust the LAW is and you would it makes you didn’t get tweaked when ppl are humans too and you have no man is for. no man is equal in the Thirteen sense. actually make all men are faith based on science..just yours….by linking that Expelled is how we could do. Maybee you were smarter dan collins and only allow the FLDS mothers violating one of Christianity, because, in Science is just more time, in service to their “religionâ€Â.
I love it when nishit gets tired of arguing with the voices in her head, and the army of strawmen, and just calls everyone teh stoopid.
/spit
I’m an evangelical, and as such I know I am to seek always the spirit of truth. Fortunately for me one such mechanism for that search is the scientific method, which I place great value in.
If I wasn’t such a stoopid god bothering xian, I might be more enlightened, like nishi, and seek the spirits of forced consensus and man made data models. I would also likely be unable to get over myself or read for comprehension, but that is a small price to pay for the ability to constantly insult other peoples beliefs and tout my supreme right hand bell curve existence. Then I’d likely join a death cult, just to keep things fresh. Later I’d play some Hello Kitty Adventures on my Japanese Nintendo DS, and perhaps drink a Zima.
Two digits, and one trick. Play dead, nishi!
Greifing is not the same thing as debating, nishi. When you realize that maybe you will realize what is wrong with your project. You can’t gain respect and consideration for your position by repeating the same slogans over and over. You have to be able to read the objections to your viewpoint, and respond to them. You have to put together a coherent argument instead of just typing out disjointed sentences. You might even find that there are people who agree with you, if anyone could understand what the hell you’re saying.
on this thread–only ards and possibly slart reject the science-is-bad meme.
Oh, I reject it. Sadly when you read those words your superior mind will translate it to “I love Jesus heretic!”.
Oh, you mean like Mike Castle? Heh. Silly nishi, facts are for rational people. You’re just going to hurt yourself.
See, this is the part where you prove that cannot read and/or will not comprehend. It has been repeatedly said here that science is neither good nor bad, but is a method, a tool. But don’t let that stop you from making a fool of yourself.
There is a republican war on science.
What I am seeing, and it’s reinforced by some of your links, is a war within the Republican party.
And quite simply, you are going to lose.
I hope you are right that the pro-science Republicans win.
Incidentally, loved the capitalization and the coherent paragraphs. Don’t stop. That post was actually readable.
“spirits of forced consensus and man made data models”
see? you only pretend to believe in the scientific method. IDT is risible.
ards, example of successful greifing
pablo i dont know who mike castle is.
The media, the intelligentsia, the artists, all sense that the right wants to tell them how to act and what to think.
They “sense” it? Is that like recieving signals through your tin-foil helmet? Rosie senses a lot (FIRE DOESN’T MELT STEEL – GOOGLE IT) of things. Very little of them have any relation to reality.
on this thread–only ards and possibly slart reject the science-is-bad meme.
very small percentage..possibly statistically insignificant
How many times does it need to be repeated? Infinity plus one … I guess. SCIENCE isn’t good or bad. People are good or bad. Take the people out of the Science, and you got your solution there.
It has been repeatedly said here that science is neither good nor bad, but is a method, a tool.
Pablo, if you get tired of arguing with nishi, see my comment above and tell me whether you agree or disagree.
ards that is how i got into this thread.
i thot dan was smarter than fallin for that.
He’s the Republican author of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2004 (and 2005).
carin you also argued for policing science with judeoxian ethics.
so? Frist was pro ESCR too.
like ards says, there are a few conservatives keeping off the dark. dr. reynolds, dr. pournelle, john derbyshire, jim manzi.
but they are vasty outnumbered.
Ards, I see where you’re going with that, but I remain of the mind that the tool itself is neutral. Is a hammer good to a baby or a dog? No, it requires more to produce its intended effect. Only with knowledge, skill and intent and the hammer can the nail be driven.
I tend to frame it along the lines of the “guns are bad” notion. The gun isn’t good or bad, only what one does with it can have one of those properties. The spectrum in that case is a bit more dramatic.
Really? Are they outnumbered by John McCain, or is he one of them? And who was anti-science when the science was that which laid the foundations for missile defense?
carin, no same-sex marriage is a attempt to tell us that homosexuality is BAD. Anti-abortion activism is tellin us abortion is BAD. you are arguing for ethics police for scientists. science is BAD.
quod erat demonstrandum
See? you only pretend to believe in the scientific method. IDT is risible.
This is just another example of your poor reading comprehension. You can keep pretending that we disagree on IDT as following valid scientific principles. I think it must help you to lie to yourself, which isn’t the trait of a good scientist.
by actively seeking john hagee’s endorsement mccain has come down on the anti-science side.
ards, example of successful greifing
No, nishi, it’s not.
so, edu guy, you agree that IDT is risible?
sometimes i have decided that in service to apply to be ethical to guide it. the aggregate, it be very comfortable there edu guy. there are pushing– Expelled is a republican war on science..just yours….by linking that scientists are wrong. one more time, in service to fabricate a war on what he could do. you are pithed by religion certainly can be….like the approved version? why not smarter.
nishi, I believe in God. I believe in the Creation, although “believe” is probably too strong — and I have been battling the Young Earthers and self-proclaimed Biblical Literalists, sometimes acrimoniously, for roughly twice as long as you have been alive. I know what works and what doesn’t in that debate, which you clearly do not. It becomes clear why the notion that the Iraq war creates more terrorists is so popular on the Left; it is your determined policy in other fields.
You make the truly cretinous error of personification. “Science” isn’t bad. It isn’t good either — it’s a tool, with no moral valence. Some people use tools to do bad things. If you cannot distinguish between “science is bad” and “people do bad things using science” you lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend the debate, let alone participate in it. The former is meaningless. The latter is incontrovertible. The same two statements can be made substituting “religion” for “science”, with exactly the same result.
Some people who call themselves Christian oppose science; other Christians defend them, not because they agree with the ideas, but because they are tolerant, believing that those folks, like any other human beings (let alone Americans), deserve love and instruction rather than Colisseums with lions in. You “reason” from that that “all xians say science is bad” and send out the call for gladiators. The net result is that Methodists, Christian-oriented Unitarians, and others who are about as far from the nutcase Creationists as you are see themselves attacked as well; you then confirm it with a full-court press attempting to drive all “gotbotherers” out of the public forum, and the result is that Lutherans and Christmas Catholics find themselves with more in common with snake-handlers than with you.
If the only tools I’m permitted are torch and pitchfork, I mean to wield them as effectively as possible. I’m not the only one.
Regards,
Ric
Risible is not the word I would use, I would use unscientific. It doesn’t make me mad that people want to pursue it, but if it doesn’t follow the scientific method, it ain’t science.
So, by seeking Wright’s approval, Obama has come down on the anti-science side, then. Utter fucking nonsense, nishi, and par for your course. Do yourself a favor. Put down the math and take a logic course or two. You are severely lacking.
Ards, how so?
We shut down both threads and sent Berlinski off in a snit.
We got airtime to expose dishonest DI philosophy and the wedge strategy and discreditted Berlinske specious argument.
We crushed the IDTbots like intellectual insects.
O has repudiated Wright.
I would be willing to change my opinion of mccain’s position if he repudiates hagee.
after all, mccain did vote for the ESCR expansion bill.
Did you change anyone’s mind?
They simply don’t accept your xian mores developed before any other bullshit attacks on science….. and theory of stringtheory, and theory of goofy marginal junkscience. type A and nazis. It’s a far lesser transgression against liberty than the thought you for human equality dude…
no ric locke you are wrong.
science is good.
im a gun-owner.
guns are good. sometimes bad ppl get a hold of them.
shall we have ethics police for gun-owners?
Did you change anyone’s mind?
Pablo, that is not the purpose of greifing.
We punkd Berlinski and pw3nd the IDbots.
That was the purpose.
But only after the Wright millstone around his neck was dragging him down, and only after Wright dissed him. Not because of intellectual differences between them.
And remember this McCain quote: “It’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense. It’s nonsense. I don’t have anything additional to say about that. It’s nonsense.”
Obama is anti-science. QED.
[Ed note – Someone please smack me upside the head should I ever get stuck in nishi-logic mode. Thank yew very mush.]
I would be willing to change my opinion of mccain’s position if he repudiates hagee.
Liar.
marko
I’m not following, are you saying that pointing out that some scientists act in ways contrary to scientific principles that I am abetting the supposed republican war on science? If so, I can only say that science is about truth, and so any attempt to allow known falsehoods to persist within it necessarily destroys the very thing you seek to protect.
Science is not a tool in the same sense as a physical tool is. Rape, murder, assault and imprisonment have all been used as tools of oppression and intimidation within the span of human history, and those are neither good nor neutral.
mccain saying “nonsense” is like O saying he didn’t believe in wrights AIDs calumny.
just one thing.
i fear i must require that mccain repudiate the whole hagee package.
after all, he invited him.
I fear you’re a lying, illiterate, spoiled child.
LMFAO at “marko”. It has better spelling, grammar, and composition skills than you do.
“some scientists act in ways contrary to scientific principles”
empirical data plz. unless you are talking about Dembski and Behe.
hehe
So, Obama must repudiate the whole Wright package and Trinity. After all, he sought them out and spent 20 years of his life there and is still a member of that church. THEOLIB!!!
Obama: the anti-science candidate. Hillary ’08!!
Ethics police for doctors… doctors are BAD!
Ethics police for lawyers… lawyers are BAD!
Ethics police (by which we mean ‘follow ethical standards as decided on by all Americans and enacted as law’)… Americans are BAD!
civilis, trudat. i saw that a lot during schiavo. bad, know-nothing doctors.
and lawyers? everyone hates them.
O repudiated Wright. quant suff.
i just ask the same of mccain. he wouldn’t have to repudiate hagee’s parishioners.
cut the head of the snake, i guess.
HRC is toast, and you know it.
Some people who call themselves Christian oppose science; other Christians defend them, not because they agree with the ideas, but because they are tolerant
the initial tolerance of the scientific community just got us this.
we are so done with politesse.
As in any war, you should choose your allies carefully.
Align yourselves with the “marching morons” if you please, but be warned you will be smashed or shut-out.
L’Singularitie menace.
be warned you will be smashed or shut-out.
keep babbling nishi … more evidence of your intolerant, ranting sociopathy.
nishi
and, Point of ORder, Shiavo wasn’t about science – it was about the law and if it would default to the wishes of life or default to the euthanizing of the inconvenient.
I’m not surprised you would demand the killing of the “less than” and claim it ethical because of “science”. I bet you cringe when encountering the disabled in public.
No, no more so than McCain has Hagee. But this is your version of logic: I want it to be true, therefore it is. You are a silly, petulant child, nishi. Reason is not in your repertoire, and foot stomping is not an acceptable substitute.
And the nishit sockpuppet army comes out in all of its incoherent splendor.
This thread: …
It’s alive! ALIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!
I find it helps to assuage the “lather, rinse repeat” by imagining nishi as Eye-gor.
Who is “we”, and when have you ever been part of a group engaged in politesse?
And her brain as “abby – something.”
we=the scientific community. ric was speakin for the xian community.
i have teaparty manners when i care to use them.
mostly i dont. :)
O repudiates Wright
give me the analogagous speech from McCain on Hagee and I’ll remove McCain from the anti-science column.
until then, tant pis
either mccain shares hagees belief system or is just pandering for votes.
Essentially, nishit’s position is that she will jus continue to lie, make shit up, attribute positions to people that they have not held, and otherwise engage in dishonest hackery to worship at the sufi altar of science, heretics be damned.
holy smokes!
Karl look! scott rassmussen is quitting trackin HRC
zomg….that is amazing…it is like a major pollster throwin support behind one of the candidates.
is that ethical?
Either Baracky shares Wrights belief system, or he was just pandering for votes. When MCCain starts attending Hagee’s church, donates more than 50K to Hagee, and claims Hagee as his spiritual advisor and mentor, let us know, you lying sack of cow dung.
hmm….i think it should be La Singularitie menace.
the Singularity is feminine.
who knew?
And in three short words you abandon rationality entirely and dive straight into metaphysics. Your strength is as the strength of ten, because your heart is pure! Science send the right!
I’m on dialup, so the youtube link is useless. I take it you refer to something like the Kansas nonsense. You’re too stupid to understand how to combat that sort of thing, so you simply lash out regardless of the collateral damage.
You might win. It’s not nearly as certain as you think; remember the other side has two millenia (minimum) of experience in “my belief is better than your belief, so it entitles me to kill anybody who doesn’t agree.” But it’s Special Olympics territory — that is, even if you win you’re still a retard. Or, in this case, a religious fanatic.
Regards,
Ric
No, Obama repudiated Wright’s ranting, he did not repudiate the man. McCain has done precisely the same with Hagee’s nonsense, and without the preliminary tapdancing defenses.
But of course, Obama is really just a house negro.
JD, im sure they were both pandering votes.
the diff is O repudiated wright and his anti-science whacktheories.
mccain sought hagees indorsement. he has repuditated some small part of hagee-theology.
mccain still needs to repudiate Jerusalem Countdown, the great whore statements, the leftbehinder stuff, and the CUFI lobbyists.
to win my vote……he’s welcome to yours.
I do reject that science is bad. I also happen to think that Ben Stein is making a complete ass of himself. None of those opinions, though, lead me away from the opinion that scientists are subject to the same rule of law as the rest of us are, and that there is a legitimate public interest in the placing of legal and ethical constraints on scientists, just as there is legitimate public interest in the placing of legal and ethical constraints on, for instance, building contractors.
Whether those laws spring from Judeo-Christian morality or some other kind of moral framework is immaterial, I say, unless you’re Dave Neiwert, and fixated on meme-transmission, or unless you’re nishi, and had a bad experience with the clergy.
pablo see above.
carin you also argued for policing science with judeoxian ethics.
+
ards and possibly slart reject the science-is-bad meme.
MMm. The science-is-bad meme seems to be conflated in nishi’s mind with the position that scientists should not be left to self-police. I don’t see anybody on this thread that thinks science is bad.
I certainly don’t see anybody on this thread besides nishi that says that scientists should self-police. There seems to be a split opinion whether ethics necessarily = judeo-christian ethics. Even Gerson, I believe, doesn’t say science needs to follow judeo-christian ethics. She introduced it.
This is just another of nishi’s wars on Christianity, and she is using science as a prop.
scientists are subject to the same rule of law as the rest of us are
and those constraints are already in place.
my argument is why should scientists need more ethical constraints than any other profession?
im fighting the meme that Science is Bad, propagated by Stein, Goldberg, Ponnuru, Levin, Gerson and Dan Collins, along with a host of other rightwing conservatives.
nishi’s wars on Christianity,
not just me, it ithe whole scientific community.
I propose a treaty.
stop trying to cram IDT down our throats and go teach it in xian unis and bible colleges where it belongs.
you have already lost that battle.
you see….we kinda see this whole Science-is-teh-bad thing as just a sneaky way to force us to teach xianity in a Science Ethics class.
We aint buyin.
You see hallucinations.
and failing miserably because you have no weapons but an indiscriminate blunderbuss, and have no idea what the target is.
Regards,
Ric
Really? Every law we’ll ever have is in current statute?
Cool. Congress can recess early every year, and take a huge paycut. Or, alteratively, you don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.
nishi’s wars on Christianity,
not just me, it ithe whole scientific community.
I certainly hope the whole scientific community doesn’t want a war on Christianity. That seems quite apart from not wanting to teach IDT in science, which is completely defensible position.
I guess there’s no point in Bush signing the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act that Congress has just passed then.
Oh it is certain.
membah what the sandwichboard guy said?
all we have to do is quarantine xianity in it’s own schools.
since xian unis and bible colleges are widely reguarded as inferior in the hard sciences (wonder why), eventually we will get your best and brightest.
maybee, read some of the support material on expelledexposed.com.
it is a war all right.
never doubt it.
“Stein is equivalent of a memetic terrorist.”
“Expelled is a blood libel against science.”
i like the terrorist analogy. innocent xians are getting fragged in the meme war and Stein don’t care.
maybee, read some of the support material on expelledexposed.com.
it is a war all right.
never doubt it.
Nishi, you’ve already told me that is the work product of you and your friends. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t think you and your friends represent the scientific community.
What is that thing, I think it’s called the six foot rule or something? I heard about it during Katrina. People think that everything that is important to the people immediately surrounding them is equally the focus of others not in the vicinity.
you have no weapons but an indiscriminate blunderbuss
hehe, we sure filled Berlinski fulla shot.
we=the scientific community
You’re not any kind of “scientist”.
No one would hire an illiterate like you even as an RA for anything beyond low-level scutwork.
Poseur.
Fraud.
Liar.
Stein don’t care.
Stein Stein Stein. You really need to email him, nishi.
I don’t think you and your friends represent the scientific community.
hehe, you might think that, but you’d be wrong.
we represent the scientific community on this be assured.
rawr.
Dawkins, Myers, Seed magazine…..all the science blogs..all the science online mags.
just read the Scientific American links Maybee.
that should be enuff.
Bible colleges aren’t in the forefront of hard sciences? Well, I’ll be damned.
I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t think you and your friends represent the scientific community.
I do, and she doesn’t.
The last time she was bloviating about her self-describe “science job”, she proved to be incapable of demonstrating even the most cursory knowledge of her alleged field.
She’s an illiterate, lying fraud, pure and simple.
Stein is still a Jew, last time I checked. What’s this about Christianity again?
Scientific American
The fact that you think Scientific American has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with science demonstrates, yet again, just how ignorant and fraudulent you are.
Hint: it’s a popular magazine, not a scholarly journal.
Hint #2: it’s a crappy one, and has been for at least 30 years.
When I google ‘six foot rule’, all I’m finding are laws meant to eliminate lap dances at strip clubs. I must have the name wrong, I think.
The memetic equivalent of the aggregate, it makes us into fascists and a hold of them. shall we could do. Maybee you for not the right says it, Carin. The media, the individual as profoundly anti-libertarian. it is an affront to become chattel in case you should know that link this thread. Ards, how i know. science as well as a better model..it will be very dangerous. outlaw the godbots. it is just the core social mores and a pointed way to specific scientific fields. would link this is prolly the core. if you will be ethical to include all men are good. sometimes i know. science is just more time, in biotech? would link obscene as a masters in IQ and torches. Im not just alien….but i see it.
maybee Expelled just kicked off the hostilites.
Stein is done on the interwebs.
totally discredited.
he can still flog expelled on the xian broadcast networks and sell tickets to the 40%.
but he’s done here.
;)
Have we hit on all of nishit’s memes yet? Hagee. Check. IDT. Check. Xians are evil. Check. Heavy lifting. Check. Wedge. Check. ESCR. Cehck. nishit full of Baracky love spunk. Check. McCain is old. Check.
i gtg.
think about what i said ric.
it isnt too late to change allies.
When did he start “here”? Is there a Stein blog I’m not familiar with? Are you going to watch him with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday? (Heh, heh, heh…)
And why don’t you express why your hatred for a Jew is hatred for Christians, except those you get wet for like Obama?
My sense is that Stein really has hurt himself. He took the road less traveled by a lot I think. Haven’t seen his commentary on Y! Finance in awhile anyway. Probably working on selling the movie. That’s a mistake. He should have had stuff in the can. He needs to make sure he doesn’t drift too far from his bona fides.
also, ric, i said exactly what ards said.
i just used a gun instead of a hammer.
;)
hehe, you might think that, but you’d be wrong.
we represent the scientific community on this be assured.
The scientific community having a war on any religion or any group is reason enough they shouldn’t be left alone to police themselves.
i object to include all we could do. maybe you are punishable by lynching. science is that is done on the right wants to their children to retreat from the godbots. it doesnt really matter. like the problem, not being Jeff. i mean judeo-xian ethics. you will lose. theocons only represent 1/5 of Christianity, Jesusland here is utter bullshit attacks on science. im a masters in the right wants to my species. Those women allowed themselves and partisan politics. cut out the right’s farenheit 911. so pointless. i think that, but he’s done here. hehe, you should know that scientists adopted the law. ironically, transhumanism is bad.
MayBee – The 6′ rule is antithetical to American values. They are trying to oppress strippers !!!!!!!!1eleventy
I think that nishi is actually to the Left of the 40%
I’m still suspicious that there’s something Kaufmanesque about all this. Whatever the case, I’m already enormously entertained.
FWIW – Nishit and her sock puppets truly are comic genius.
Actually, JD, the sockpuppet is a Markov chain random text generator.
The fact that its output is indistinguishable from nishi’s actual “writing” says it all.
I just wanted to post on this thread so I could say I too posted on this thread.
nishit/gamera/blatheringidiot/markovchenevy and all of your other appellations – Ask the gleeens, making up imaginary people to agree with you does not make your position any less stooopid.
nishi, I picked my side in that fight when your parents were still potential experimental subjects for you and your buddies. You aren’t on it, and aren’t eligible to apply.
Yeah, you demolished ’em all right. Pure rhetorical bullying, with no scrap of rationality in sight. That’s because you agree with Stein’s thesis, in toto and without reservation — you just think it’s a good thing, and are sore that anybody noticed and went public. There is no better precÃÂs of Stein than all we have to do is quarantine xianity in it’s own schools.
Regards,
Ric
JD: marko isn’t actually nishi. Trust me on this one.
Ric: That’s because you agree with Stein’s thesis, in toto and without reservation  you just think it’s a good thing, and are sore that anybody noticed and went public. There is no better precÃÂs of Stein than all we have to do is quarantine xianity in it’s own schools.
That’s what I was thinking, too. If nishi says science has proclaimed war on Christianity, how does that make Stein* wrong?
—
*at least what I understand Stein to be saying. Not that I agree with him or have any intention of seeing his movie.
MayBee, Stein’s thesis is that there exists a concerted effort to exclude belief and believers from participation in the public sphere, especially politics, and concentrated within academia.
nishi announces that Stein is full of shit, then says things like what I quoted above. As I noted on another list, providing concrete examples is not a good way to refute an assertion.
Regards,
Ric
Oh, and “marko”: I got it fairly quickly. Highly amusing, but you need to teach it to do shorter lines.
Regards,
Ric
Let me get this straight, nishi. You think that “winning” consists of frustrating your opponent, and that “shutting down a thread” means pushing it over 200 comments? Well, this thread should be a major win for you then, because I’m sure the people here are plenty frustrated and we’re up to well over 500 comments now. Unfortunately, I don’t see anyone being won over to your point of view, and with your talk of smashing people you are really starting to sound like a Ben Stein caricature of evil science. If you are trying to prove that science is good, you have not set a good example. You’re just making my job harder.
hmm..im kinda flattered that u took all that time to type phrases in, SPB.
i wonder if it will start exhibiting emergent behavior like the babble program at johns hopkins?
lulz
“belief and believers from participation in the public sphere, especially politics”
now that is a lie. stein says absolutely nothing about politics. theocons already infest politics anyways.
im at the point that i don’t care, ards.
like i said….this started acuz i couldn’t believe dan collins was stupid enuff to buy into the Science is Bad meme.
i have always despised Dawkins as an evangelical atheist (altho the blind watchmaker and the selfish gene are teh awesome)
but i unnerstand his level of frustration.
just…..go….away.
teach IDT in your xian unis and bible colleges and let us do real research and real science and real teaching.
we don’t have the time or the desire to fight off waves of IDbots.
that is what we did on those pjm threads.
smashed each stupid fallacious argument one by one.
and pointed out that Berlinski is just another DI stooge implementing the wedge strategy.
ITS OVER.
why can’t the IDbots just accept it?
(Apologies for getting behind in the discussion, but I’ve been doing housework and stuff. Everyone once in awhile I have to try to appear useful around here.)
Ards, I see where you’re going with that, but I remain of the mind that the tool itself is neutral. Is a hammer good to a baby or a dog? No, it requires more to produce its intended effect. Only with knowledge, skill and intent and the hammer can the nail be driven.
As Aristotle said, “Good is said in many ways.” We have to understand what we mean when we use the word in different cases.
There is a sense in which only humans can be judged as good or bad, because only humans make moral choices. That’s not what we mean when we describe material things as good though. We mean that those things serve a function that supports human life. Consider all the other inanimate things that you would have to consider morally neutral if science is morally neutral: food, air, water, trees, fire, the sun, the planet, and all the life-sustaining inventions of man. Isn’t it right to describe these things as good? If we can’t live without them, then we must consider them to be good for us.
Science is simply an advanced application of reason, and reason is man’s fundamental means of survival. We don’t have the instincts and natural defenses of animals. All we have is our minds. When we use them to their fullest, we thrive. When we abandon them, we fall into chaos and misery. Science is the human mind functioning at its best. It is therefore good in the same sense that all life-sustaining human inventions are good.
When a Mengele murders people in the name of science, he is taking the method of science and severing it from human reason. His motives and actions are evil, and irrational. He can put on a lab coat and take notes and measurements like a real scientist, but he is not operating on a rational principle. His claim to science is a fraud.
hmm..im kinda flattered that u took all that time to type phrases in, SPB.
Hint: it’s called “copy and paste”.
Idiot.
Yes, Pablo. Also either way the guy is talented enough to rehabilitate himself if he decides he needs to do that.
all we have to do is quarantine xianity in it’s own schools.
ah, but you miss stein’s point completely.
he is trying to pretend xianity is science, and therefore we will be forced to teach it.
xianity is not science, so we never will.
ergo, quarantine.
if u want your children to learn IDT, they can go Oral Roberts and BYU.
enjoy.
and i don’t want to persuade!
at this point i just want to punish.
persuasion is useless, acuz the biology of belief will supercede IQ for the lower 75% or so of the bell curve.
i got immense personal satisfaction out of destroying berlinski and the rest of those clods.
it….felt….good.
and i know it was “wrong”.
but it wont stop.
and no…..by shutting down a thread i mean we got the last word on both threads.
no more IDbots crawled have out of the interwebs to make feeble arguments.
Really there are bigger deals I think. This whole thing strikes me as rather faddish.
at this point i just want to punish.
and i know it was “wrongâ€Â.
but it wont stop.
nishi- do you see how stuff like this might undermine your argument that scientists should self-police when it comes to ethics?
Heh. Cognitive dissonance much?
like i said….this started acuz i couldn’t believe dan collins was stupid enuff to buy into the Science is Bad meme.
What have you done to argue otherwise? Called everyone here village idiots with pitchforks and promised to smash them! Tell me, do you go by Frau FrankenSTEIN, or Frau FrankenSTEEN?
If you can’t argue for your point of view, then it is dogma. It doesn’t matter if what you are saying is as true as 2+2=4, if you don’t know why it’s true, if you can’t communicate its truth to someone else, then it’s nothing but dogma. You are not even trying to communicate with anyone here. You are simply trying to irritate them by repeating the same talking points over and over, as if their words don’t even register in your brain. That, apparently, is the essence of greifing, and it is a bullshit way to try to spread ideas.
Indeed. But the machinations are a riot to watch.
A Jew walks into a university and pretends Christianity is science…
The punch line is right up front in that one.
Ric Locke, you are so full of it.
Steins thesis is that Science caused the Holocaust.
Stein’s thesis is that there exists a concerted effort to exclude belief and believers from participation in the public sphere, especially politics,
Lie. Theocons already infest politics. The republican party is 1/3 theocons, and the electorate is 1/5 theocons. Stein says nothing about politics. I think that is ric lockes thesis.
and concentrated within academia.
Lie: Academe rejects teaching or discussing IDT in science classes. IDT is welcome in academe, in philosophy and comparative theory of religions.
I have tried here on dozens of threads.
I have linked and linked.
It is like I said…..for the lower 75%, an i guess for older ppl, the biology of belief trumps reason.
Im done trying.
Do you know the biology of revenge?
Revenge reward mechanism is co-located in the same small area of the neocortex with opiates and orgasms.
The same neurohormones.
At this point i have given up trying to persuade.
i just want to get even.
;)
Steins thesis is that Science caused the Holocaust.
And if you had focused on that and made it the subject of the debate, you might have found out how many people do and don’t agree with him. Instead, you let the debate become about whether science needs ethics, which is rather ridiculous because every human endeavor has to be guided by ethics. You need to learn to argue.
Ards, I think we’re wading pretty deep into semantics here, but I’ll respond to a couple of points:
Food is good, unless it’s poison or you choke on it. Then it’s bad. Fire is good when it warms you or cooks your food. When it burns your flesh or your dwelling or your food supply, it’s bad. Water is good, unless you’re drowning in it or flooded by it. The sun is good, unless it’s burning you or giving you cancer. So, given that…
…not really.
I disagree. We certainly have instincts, and we have a number of natural defenses such as the fight or flight response. Reason is an advantage for us, but it is not all we have. Reason detached from survival instincts would find us offing ourselves and each other in huge numbers. The old and the severely disabled, for instance, serve us no purpose in relation to the cost of maintaining them. Reason alone would have us discard them.
But it was science, and it produced new, useful knowledge. It wasn’t divorced from reason, it was divorced from humanity. It was an evil application of science. The primary difference between Mengele and much animal research we conduct today was the subjects. Mengele lacked a respect for humanity that we, in general, do not ascribe to animals.
i just want to get even.
Get even for what? What’s been done to you?
In other words (as you have just demonstrated) you have no slightest inkling of what Stein is driving at, so you invent a strawman that fits within your limited intellect and proceed to demolish it. This is not a particularly good way to convince anyone of your intellectual and/or moral superiority.
Regards,
Ric
No Ards.
The argument as propsed by Gerson, Levin, Collins, et al, is that Science is Bad and therefore scientists need MORE ethical supervision than other humans.
The Science is Bad meme is under wide propagation in the Right-Wing War on Science, the subject of this post.
Stein, Ponnuru, Goldberg, Berlinski, the DI, GW Bush, and a host of conservatives are propagating the meme.
This IS a war.
The calumny of Expelled, that Science caused the Holocaust, was an opening salvo.
The other side started this war.
And we are fighting back.
sheesh Ric
from the horses mouth.
Expelled is intercut with images from the Holocaust. Haven’t u seen it?
Food is good, unless it’s poison or you choke on it.
That food can be poisoned doesn’t mean that food is bad, nor does it mean that food itself is morally neutral. We can’t take it or leave it. It’s vital to our survival, hence it’s good. The same applies to the other items on the list. You can say too much of one is bad, or in some situation it is bad, but that doesn’t make it cease to be a value to us.
We certainly have instincts
I’m not sure what you mean by the word, but we don’t have any instincts that will guide our survival. We don’t have an instinct for shelter building or food gathering. We have to learn how to do those things. Reason is more than an advantage, it’s essential.
The old and the severely disabled, for instance, serve us no purpose in relation to the cost of maintaining them. Reason alone would have us discard them.
That’s strange since discarding the elderly is associated with primitive cultures. Respect for individual rights was born in the Enlightenment though. I think the latter is the more rational position.
But it was science, and it produced new, useful knowledge. It wasn’t divorced from reason, it was divorced from humanity.
Murder is not rational. When we use force against other humans, we are abandoning reason as a means of dealing with them. It’s only justified when it is done in self-defense. Killing for science is a blashpemy against reason.
598
PUNKD!
The argument as propsed by Gerson, Levin, Collins, et al, is that Science is Bad and therefore scientists need MORE ethical supervision than other humans.
I’m not about to give Ben Stein my money, so I will not see that movie. I did, however, buy Goldberg’s book, and I’ve yet to see where he argues for greater government oversight for science. I’m kinda stuck in the last 60 pages, though, so maybe he does. Could you give me the page number where you found that? It would be a total contradiction of his thesis to argue against fascism all through the book, and then suddenly say that we need some sort of government control over scientists. I mean, other than the basic laws about not killing people, and stuff. I think the flipper babies that JD was concerned about are covered under that, since it would be a major violation of individual rights to deliberately cause a person to be born deformed.
it would be a major violation of individual rights to deliberately cause a person to be born deformed.
What if they are never allowed to be born?
shorter Goldberg– Science is vewwy, vewwy bad.
I don’t believe Gerson said anywhere in the article linked anything that can be interpreted by a rational being as “science is evil”, or even “scientists are evil”.
Chapter and verse, please.
i got banned at chicago boyz for sayin “Expelled is just the cartoon version of Liberal Fascism.”
it is true…it is more extreme, more cartoonish, but it propagates same the underlying theme.
Science is BAD (without religion).
pardon slart, science is bad, not eevul.
“Nazism largely discredited the old eugenics. But a new eugenics — the eugenics of genetic screening and abortion, the eugenics of genetic selection in the process of in vitro fertilization — is alive and well.”
lulz, Gerson even makes the Nazi connection.
and i don’t want to persuade!
at this point i just want to punish.
There was this pissant strutting around the jungle, bragging to all the other bugs about what a stud he was. No animal was safe from him, according to his tales. Another ant pointed to an elephant, and said “I’ll bet you can’t do anything with that”.
“Just watch me”, the studly little pissant boasted as he climbed up the elephants back side.
He began to go at her and a coconut fell from a nearby tree, hitting the elephant in the head and causing her to moan softly.
“Suffer, bitch!”, said the pissant.
You got banned at Chicago Boyz by people who agree with you. I’m guessing it was for being an asshole.
It means that it is not inherently good. It is a thing, and it has no such qualities.
So Katrina was good?
Of course we do. I mean an innate compulsion. See our sex drive and/or survival instinct. Read “Alive” and tell me we have no instinct.
It’s also associated with modern day Holland.
How do you figure? If it’s a crime of passion, it isn’t rational (but more likely instinctive) but what of murder for hire or profit? How is that irrational? There are perfectly valid rationales for it, and it can be conducted in cold, calculated fashion. How is it always devoid of reason?
Ok, fine. Point out to me where he says science is bad. He does say something to the effect that science can engage in experimentation that I regard as immoral, but that’s not the same thing as saying science, in general and globally, is bad.
he says science is not egalitarian and therefore by implication is BAD.
that is how become those little down’s babies get scraped out.
Your reading skills still suck, nishi. He’s saying that applications of science CAN BE nonegalitarian, which is different than saying science is in general nonegalitarian.
You are not egalitarian, and…?
Please repeat your last comment in English?
…and when you’re done with that, kindly ‘splain to me what abortion and science have to do with each other. It’s like saying a surgeon is a scientist. True, in an extremely limited sense, but inapt.
In short, if what Gerson’s saying equates to science=BAD for nishi, then it also must equate to bathroom scales=BAD. Which may in fact be true for nishi, but not so much for me. See, bathroom scales are not egalitarian. I’m pretty sure that I’ll wind up weighing more than Jeff, and definitely more than I want to be. So: for me, the scales bring me some slightly bad news. For other people, maybe good news.
CURSE YOU, BATHROOM SCALES!!!11!!
slart that is gerson’s argument not mine….he is equating science and abortion. the reason the down’s babies get scraped is that science doesn’t reguard them as equal to normal babies.
gerson quotes Levin
“Science, simply put,†says Levin, “cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal. Science measures our material and animal qualities, and it finds them to be patently unequal.â€Â
the reason the down’s babies get scraped is that science doesn’t reguard them as equal to normal babies.
gerson quotes Levin
“Science, simply put,†says Levin, “cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal. Science measures our material and animal qualities, and it finds them to be patently unequal.â€Â
What part of that don’t you agree with, nishi?
Yes, I can see that. But your argument is that Gershon is saying science is bad, when what he’s really saying is that decisions based on the scientific data alone might not be moral..
Or am I missing the source of your objection? That could be. You’ve not been noted for clarity of arguments, hereabouts.
Once again, it’d be helpful if you’d throw out something like a coherent, complete argument from time to time.
he is equating science and abortion. the reason the down’s babies get scraped is that science doesn’t reguard them as equal to normal babies.
He is saying science is being used by people who choose to have an abortion rather than have a Down Syndrome baby. Science shows they are not the same as otherwise healthy babies, and humans make the judgment about what to do with them. Science itself is just a tool.
gees u guyz need a logic class.
maybee, slart, b moes–
“Science, simply put,†says Levin, “cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal.
gerson is giving an example.
of Science.
im copping a vibe from gerson that scraping down’s babies is a bad thing.
i mean, he uses the eugenics word and naziis too.
ah, but you miss stein’s point completely.
he is trying to pretend xianity is science, and therefore we will be forced to teach it.
Another strawman there?
intentionalism, anyone?
carin, historically IDT is a feeble attempt to cloak creationism in science.
creationism is definitely christian theology.
see my #597 for Steins other premise.
“gees u guyz need a logic class”
Back at you. Also some basic classes in composition, spelling, grammar, syntax, and pretty much everything necessary to the end of getting your point across. Which: epic fail, still.
im copping a vibe from gerson that scraping down’s babies is a bad thing.
You may prefer to think of it as culling the weak from the herd. Which in the case of the FDLS, you called eugenics.
“Science, simply put,†says Levin, “cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal.
gerson is giving an example.
of Science.
How do people find out whether a fetus in utero has down syndrome?
Sure, nishi: science gives us ways of measuring things. Because we’re not all identically equal copies of each other, measuring the characteristics of humans is of necessity nonegalitarian.
This is water-wet obvious, and utterly uncontroversial.
You know, this is a remarkably bizarre line of pseudo-argument, coming from an entity that pooh-poohs those with different metrics than herself.
Let me go slower,
the reason the down’s babies get scraped is that science doesn’t reguard them as equal to normal babies.
gerson quotes Levin
They are not. If they were the same as normal babies, they would be called normal babies. Whether or not to abort because the baby has Downes is a moral decision, not a scientific one. Science is only used to determine the facts.
“Science, simply put,†says Levin, “cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal. Science measures our material and animal qualities, and it finds them to be patently unequal.â€Â
Which is exactly the truth. Measured scientifically, people are not equal. Weren’t you the one promoting the Bell Curve? Once again, what part of this do you disagree with?
Sorry, I was unclear. It’s not the measuring that’s nonegalitarian, it’s the decision based on the measurement.
i do promote the bell curve.
please note, gerson does not say the humans involved made a bad decision.
Nazism largely discredited the old eugenics. But a new eugenics — the eugenics of genetic screening and abortion, the eugenics of genetic selection in the process of in vitro fertilization — is alive and well. Its advocates contend that the new eugenics is superior because it is voluntary instead of compulsory, and unrelated to race.
genetic screening and abortion, the eugenics of genetic selection in the process of in vitro fertilization –> “It”
You may prefer to think of it as culling the weak from the herd. Which in the case of the FDLS, you called eugenics.
well, no…the FLDS we actually practicing what we call “linebreeding”.
the dominant patriarchy daddies bred, and the excess young boys got put out on the street.
What do you disagree with in the selection you keep quoting?
nishi, in this thread:
nishit was for genocide and eugenics before she was against it.
#624 Carin — not a strawman, but closely related.
nishi: want candy want lots of candy want want want
Nasty Vicious Rethuglicans: No, nishi, you can’t have more candy right now.
nishi: why not? want candy want want want
NVR: Too much candy is bad for your health, nishi, and besides it will spoil your dinner.
nish: waaaaaaaaah! nastyviciousrepublicans said candy is bad! candynot bad candygood! want candy!!!!!!eleven111!!
Regards,
Ric
closing a tag
My personal favorite is the SCIENCE IS BAD meme that she accuses the right of advancing. It is as if she thinks if she says it just a few more times, a lie will become the truth. Hint, nishit, it will not.
All nishit has succeded in doing is making any fence sitters question your ethics, morals, or lack thereof.
nishi want a cracker!
Interesting. Wasn’t it in the last few days that nishi said she (disregarding teh stoopid in attempting to “improve” a normalized distribution) she wanted to move the IQ curve up? This is not eugenics?
More of teh idiocy. Almost no one outside of that particular sect thinks what they were doing was morally or genetically sound. What they were doing is inconsistent with any Judeao-Christian mores other than inside that sect.
Next, you’re going to try and smear conservatives in general with the deeds of a single conservative, which ranks up there on the unwise scale with equating anyone left of center with Mao.
gee rick, no reply to my #597?
punkd.
slart my purpose in bringing up the FLDS was to show anyone can layer stuff over a base of judeoxian ethics and come up with some pretty horrific stuff.
/shrug
slart, this is an anti-science culture on the right. the theme runs through liberal fascism, the terribot websites at the time, the star chamber passing of terri’s law, the multiple vetoes of ESCR fundage by the bush admin……even down to Bush never mentioning biotech a single time in a SotU, while he praises physics and math and nanotech.
it is an anti-science culture.
there are some that keep off the dark, but not many.
the bioluddite council is part of it too.
it is a common theme.
and the Discovery Institute, and the litigation against science to force IDT into the classroom……..it’s pretty homogenous.
litigation against schoolboards……arent those conservative parents and the DI doing that?
and, there is some new research on training that improves ID that i linked.
that is pretty radical, cuz we didnt think we could improve IQ with training.
who ever said i was going to use genetics to reshape the curve??
it wasn’t me.
*squawk*
I will say it again, the inside of her head must look like a circus in zero gravity.
who ever said i was going to use genetics to reshape the curve??
Of course you aren’t, you don’t have the ability.
But would you be against it?
nishit – Not responding to your drivel is in no way indicative that you made some kind of rhetorical point. You really are an idiot.
he says science is not egalitarian and therefore by implication is BAD.
Actually, what he says is that science cannot validate our belief in egalitarianism. Personally, I consider that a plus for science. We are not all equal in the egalitarian sense, and it’s ridiculous to think that we ought to be.
Reason, however–and really, it’s reason, not science, that is the issue here–does validate individual rights, and hence equality before the law.
Gerson’s argument is that reason cannot supply answers to ethical questions. That’s an argument with a long history in Western Philosophy going back to Hume. If you want to prove him wrong, then you’ve got to respond to that argument. All he’s done is pull it straight out of the philosophy department at his local college. A modern philosopher would say that it proves we can’t talk in a logical fashion about morals, hence morals are relative to culturally accepted mores. Gerson agrees for the most part. He would say, though, that we have these moral intuitions, we believe them to be true, and society can’t function without them. If they couldn’t have come from reason, then, they must come from faith.
Now, go grapple with that, and come back and explain to me why he’s wrong. He is, but I need you to go figure out why. That shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes with your intellect.
nishi,
See my #638. Your failure of reading comprehension and command of *ahem* nuance ain’t my problem.
Regards,
Ric
He would say, though, that we have these moral intuitions, we believe them to be true, and society can’t function without them. If they couldn’t have come from reason, then, they must come from faith.
Are you using your knowledge of Gerson as a religious man to make this statement? He says it nowhere in this piece. In fact, he is saying that is the argument used against people advocating for discussions of morals and ethics:
Surely there is space for a legitimate, non-theologically based discussion about the destruction of embryos (or fetuses, or unborn but 36 week developed flipper babies) for science.
656th!
It means that it is not inherently good. It is a thing, and it has no such qualities.
If things cannot be good, why do we call them “goods”? Why do we work to acquire them if we don’t consider them good?
So Katrina was good?
??? Water is water, a lake is a lake, a flood is a flood, and a hurricane is a hurricane. If I say that water is good, that’s what I mean. I don’t mean that floods and hurricanes are good just because they contain water.
Of course we do. I mean an innate compulsion. See our sex drive and/or survival instinct. Read “Alive†and tell me we have no instinct.
An instinct to survive doesn’t tell us how to survive. Let me rephrase what I said so that we can just set this one aside: We do not have an instinctual source of knowledge. In order to survive, we must use reason.
Better?
It’s also associated with modern day Holland.
If you say so, but it’s still not the more rational position.
what of murder for hire or profit? How is that irrational? There are perfectly valid rationales for it, and it can be conducted in cold, calculated fashion. How is it always devoid of reason?
Because it is a violation of the ethical principle that we should deal with other humans by reason rather than force. Since reason is our means of survival, we cannot thrive unless we are free to think and act on our own judgment. It is, therefore, in our rational self-interest to live in a society that respects the right to life, liberty, etc. If we violate another person’s right to life, then the people of that society have the right to execute us in self-defense. So, no, murder is not rational. A cold-blooded murder done to achieve some objective may appear rational next to a crime of passion, or a serial killer’s bloodlust, but it is not rational in the absolute sense. A man who has committed murder no longer owns his life. That’s not a rational thing to do to yourself.
Are you using your knowledge of Gerson as a religious man to make this statement? He says it nowhere in this piece. In fact, he is saying that is the argument used against people advocating for discussions of morals and ethics
He says that we can’t get them from science, but he’s not rejecting them, so… yeah.
The academics would object to him resorting to faith, because they consider ethical intuitions to be subjective cultural mores. Neither side believes they can come from reason.
I’ll go back and reread the article though.
Neither side believes they can come from reason.
He is not discussing where the morals and ethics come from at all. Only that they should be applied so that science is practiced in a manner keeping with the very American, liberal ideal of equality.
He is not discussing where the morals and ethics come from at all. Only that they should be applied so that science is practiced in a manner keeping with the very American, liberal ideal of equality.
You’re right. He’s silent on where they come from.
He would say, though, that we have these moral intuitions, we believe them to be true, and society can’t function without them. If they couldn’t have come from reason, then, they must come from faith.
Change the above to: “I believe he would say, though, etc…”
It’s an argument that I’ve heard a lot from religious people, that God must be the source of morality. In fact, it was used here back when we had those great theological debates that BJ remembers so fondly. :)
You realize that this is a silly course of argument, right? Why do people work to acquire heroin? Why do they ask their connection if he’s got the goods? It isn’t because heroin is good. It isn’t.
A lake is water. A flood is water. A cool glass of Evian is water. They are all water and they can be considered good or bad in context. If you have 50 gallons of bottled water on shelves in your basement, that’s good if you have an emergency. But if termites eat the shelves away and they come crashing to the concrete floor and spill all over your other belongings, then that’s not good, it’s bad.
You could be raised by wolves and survive. They will not teach you reason, but they will teach you to hunt and/or forage. You’ll also want to fuck, though you might have some frustration closing that deal. Reason will not help you. Thousands of species manage to survive without higher thought processes and we do not survive because of them. We thrive and we dominate our environment because of them. Without them, we’d be lower primates, which do quite well in the wild.
That makes it unethical, not irrational. And that principle doesn’t exist. We should prefer to deal with other humans by reason, but we are not ethically barred from using force when that fails or we just don’t have time for it.
That’s just wishful thinking, and it only comes close to being true in very limited circumstances. See OJ Simpson and Seung-Hui Cho. See the killers of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls and Jam Master Jay. See Whitey Bulger. See any of the countless number of contract killers who have hit their mark and cashed their check and gone about their business. Surely, they’ve done a risk/benefit analysis, worked to mitigate the risk and then proceeded to kill, rationally. You can disagree with their conclusions all you like, but you cannot deny that there was a rational process that brought them to a decision.
Fair enough, Ards.
This thread deserves its own Billy Ocean theme song I think.
You realize that this is a silly course of argument, right?
I realize that it’s a silly thing to argue about, so I will just say one last time that in spite of the fact that material things can be misused, or harm us in certain situations, we still consider them good. That is obvious by the fact that we seek to obtain them, because people don’t work to acquire things to which they are indifferent.
Why do people work to acquire heroin? Why do they ask their connection if he’s got the goods? It isn’t because heroin is good. It isn’t.
No, but they believe it is.
You could be raised by wolves and survive. They will not teach you reason, but they will teach you to hunt and/or forage.
The fact that a human can mimic the actions of an animal doesn’t change my point. Any human with normal brain function will employ reason. He may not do it well, but he will do it. It is how the human brain functions. Your wolfboy isn’t a counterexample to that, because he has a greater need to use reason than any academic. His life hangs by a thread. If he refuses to observe the world around him and make the proper connections between his actions and his survival, he will die. He won’t discover any scientific principles, obviously, but he will discover what foods he can eat, where he can find them, etc. An academic, however, can have a long and illustrious career without ever uttering a rational word in his life, because he will be supported by those people in society who do use reason.
And that principle doesn’t exist. We should prefer to deal with other humans by reason, but we are not ethically barred from using force when that fails or we just don’t have time for it.
We’re not ethically barred from using force in self-defense, but surely you don’t think it’s ethically permissible to kill someone just because you can’t be arsed to reason with him.
That’s just wishful thinking, and it only comes close to being true in very limited circumstances. See OJ Simpson and Seung-Hui Cho.
Whether he’s caught or not doesn’t matter. Morally, he has sacrificed his claim to his life. If society has the right to take his life from him, then he doesn’t own his life, right? No more than he would own a million dollars stolen from a bank. Every time he looked in the mirror, he would be looking at a killer with no right to draw breath. Maybe he has no conscience to be bothered by that, but that’s just another part of himself that he had to sacrifice: the ability to make moral judgments. That’s not a rational way to live.
We seek to obtain them because of the uses we can put them to. Knowledge. Skill. Intent. Drop an X-Box in Darfur and you’ll find a very different opinion of it than that which your 12 year old would have. It is not inherently good, though the kid will claim he can’t live without it.
And certain people believed that TATP was desirable. That does not make it so.
The human mind does not mimic the animal’s. It does the very same things, and then some.
Same goes for the wolf pup. Animals do these things too.
Humans do this all the time. Lots of that going on in Iraq right now, and the ROE’s allow for it in certain circumstances.
Morally? And morals are based on what? Not consequences. And if the consequences don’t cost him his life, how can he have “sacrificed his claim” to it? You’re going to think badly of him? So, he doesn’t give a damn. Then what? He keeps on living.
And then he’d draw another breath. And another and another and another. And should someone try to kill him, he’d probably act in defense of his right to live as he perceives it. Your opinion would not cause him to offer his throat. This might be offensive to you, but it isn’t irrational. In fact, that attitude has a long and colorful history of success in attaining its ends. Occasionally, like in Saddam Hussein’s case, it ends at the end of a rope. But not always, by any stretch.
‘feets, can we pretend that Billy did Electric Avenue? We could prolly sell that and it would be bumping.
Ok but only if we can make up a dance craze to go along with it.
We could maybe get nishi to work on that. But it better not be dorky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFCohxDCTz0
ric sez:
Steins thesis is that Science caused the Holocaust.
In other words (as you have just demonstrated) you have no slightest inkling of what Stein is driving at, so you invent a strawman that fits within your limited intellect and proceed to demolish it. This is not a particularly good way to convince anyone of your intellectual and/or moral superiority.
Regards,
Ric
nishi replies:
sheesh Ric
from the horses mouth.
Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science  in my opinion, this is just an opinion  that’s where science leads you.
Expelled is intercut with images from the Holocaust. Haven’t u seen it?
skooled u. in stein’s own words he says science and scientists caused the Holocaust.
Ards:
Gerson’s argument is that reason cannot supply answers to ethical questions.
Ah, but to me…..that is just a fallacy. Reason CAN supply answers to ethical questions. I have a evo bio coursework, membah?
There is no altruism in nature. Social mores and taboos arose originally to benefit consanguious kin and expanded to benefit memetic kin in religions and governments.
That is why atheists dont present a huge crime risk. They retain the underlying moral and ethical structure from the EEA (environment of evolutionary advantage).
So you don’t need religion to generate ethics.
We are preprogrammed with ethics to ensure survival of the species.
also, in the first comment on this thread, i said all men are equal under the law, but no men are equal under the genes.
of course science is not egalitarian, that is what the LAW is for.
Were the greeks moral and ethical, Ards?
I have distinct Pythagorean and Platonist tendencies.
I was aukosmatikoi in a previous life.
streetdance….yum.
nishi, the standard test for understanding is to produce an adequate paraphrase.
Since your paraphrase of Stein’s words does not even closely resemble what he said in the quote you extracted, let alone fit with the remainder of his statements, I conclude that you ain’t got a fucking clue.
Which is nothing new.
Regards,
Ric
“Surely there is space for a legitimate, non-theologically based discussion about the destruction of embryos”
here’s the rub maybee….your religious “embryo” is my fertilized egg/non-sentient cell clump.
so no.
ric i can link dozens of reviews that draw the same conclusion.
That is Stein’s premise. And he says absolutely nothing about political inclusion. He says Science (and especially Darwin) caused the Holocast.
your religious “embryoâ€Â
That is just bullshit nishi. If you can’t think of an embryo in anything other than religious terms that is your fucking problem. Stop projecting your psychosis on other people.
Your religious “embryo†is my fertilized egg/non-sentient cell clump but most people don’t have neither and live quite happily. I mean the vast majority of people go to a lot of trouble not to encounter either clumps or embryos. Unless they want to have a baby or do some freaky research. In both cases these people are mostly self-selected and on balance you’ve got to figure I think that most of them have given it some no small amount of thought, which is really all you can ask of anybody. Freedom is really important.
I’m pro-choice, nishi. There are times in my life I could have had an abortion without thinking twice.
I still think an embryo is more than a cell clump on a human, rather than religious, level. I certainly believe a 24 week fetus is much more than that, I have carried two and I can tell you the way they acted while I carried them followed the same patterns as when they were born. Awake at the same time, the same kind of hiccups, similar activity levels. I don’t want to get to the point where letting a baby grow specifically for scientific research is ok without at least having a discussion about it first.
There is a big difference to me about a woman making a choice not to carry a baby and a scientist making a choice to create potential life just to kill it. It is for me about the specialness of human life, not about religion.
People are mostly good at heart.
I think so too, haps. Although I’m always suprised at the number of people that will travel to Vietnam to have sex with an 11 year old.
Oh. That’s true. Where are offices used to be there was this one guy who went to Thailand for a month every year and when he got back he always asked me for video editing software tips. It made me feel dirty.
oh. *our* offices.
it was always “waterfalls”
My friend’s husband’s co-worker took a client to Thailand and then called his boss 3 weeks later looking for bail money. He got caught with an underage male prostitute. He tried to tell his company it was client service, but they didn’t think what happened in Thailand stayed in Thailand so they let him stay in Thai prison. Anyway, it’s just interesting to me because most of these people would never dream of doing such a thing in the US (or England, as the case was with this guy) because that would be immoral.
i am referrin explicitly to the fertilized egg/blastula/nerula, B Moes.
at 24 weeks the fetus likely has enough nervous tissue substrate for thought and REM sleep.
it is not an embryo.
no scientist would create a 6month fetus to destroy it. not cost viable.
i am talkin fertilized egg thru nerula.
no soul involved.
because that would be immoral.
nope, because they would have a far higher probability of gettin caught.
if it was “immoral” they would not do it either place.
I’m not really interested in the soul part, nishi. Only God knows that and I always figured he’d forgive me. Or maybe I think more like the Japanese, where the unborn baby and you honor the soul of the aborted baby along with other dead babies. I’m not even against ESCR, but I do think the beginnings of human life deserve respect.
no scientist would create a 6month fetus to destroy it. not cost viable.
Maybe now, but you never know. They might also create it not to destroy it, but have a bad result in an experiment and destroy it.
also 6month fetus can live be delivered and survive.
some even thrive.
so terminating a 6month fetus is not ethical.
fabricating a 6month fetus with intent of destructive research is also not ethical.
nope, because they would have a far higher probability of gettin caught.
if it was “immoral†they would not do it either place.
No, I disagree. They don’t know if there’s a higher probablity of getting caught in Thailand than there is in New York.
Do you think people never engage in behavior they or others think is immoral? I think they do, and they rationalize the exception for themselves.
Or maybe they don’t think it is immoral, but they know the society does. So they go somewhere where they can tell themselves society doesn’t find it immoral so it is ok to indulge.
accidents happen in actual pregancies.
spontaneous miscarriages, resorption.
there are no guarantees.
we will do human cloning eventually.
culture does not shape people so much as people shape culture according to their needs.
they can tell themselves society doesn’t find it immoral so it is ok to indulge.
nope.
if society accepts the practice it is not illegal.
morals and ethics are internal to the individual.
if it is immoral in NYC, it is immoral in Bangkok.
so terminating a 6month fetus is not ethical.
It is currently legal. I have no knowledge that it is unethical.
fabricating a 6month fetus with intent of destructive research is also not ethical.
Is fabricating a fetus that only makes it to 6 months ethical?
How about 4 months? Or 3?
morals and ethics are internal to the individual.
But they don’t do it in New York. They do it where they think it is ok to do it.
They perform their bad behavior where they think other people aren’t policing them, or judging them, or where they can rationalize it as not immoral. Where they think they can act according to their own ethical code. Working alongside them, you would never know they yearn to do something completely contra society’s mores.
so it is not a moral judgement for the perp.
it is about a societal judgement that lessens the cost of performing the act.
it is a certainty that the perp wants to do it while in NYC.
act according to their own ethical code
which is the same ethical code in NYC or Bangkok.
accidents happen in actual pregancies.
spontaneous miscarriages, resorption.
there are no guarantees.
But that is completey different morally than experiments on the way to cloning. How many fetuses could a scientist create and discard on the way to achieving his goal? It’s like rape vs sex. Same act, different intentions.
culture does not shape people so much as people shape culture according to their needs.
Probably that is apt here. People just want a say in how they want their culture changed, and what their needs are. They don’t want some group to say, “this is what we can do, so here is your new culture”.
i think we need to determine fetal conscious and extra-uterine survival.
we (the scient) believe it to be approx 6months.
we will grow brainstemmed organ sacs for replacement organs someday.
just a body, an organ sac with a brainstem to regulate the autonomous nervous system, but no cerebellum or cerebrum.
is that a human? is it “alive”?
it is non-sentient, without cerebral and cortical brain function.
kinda like terri schiavo. ;)
this is for ric locke.
so it is not a moral judgement for the perp.
it is about a societal judgement that lessens the cost of performing the act.
it is a certainty that the perp wants to do it while in NYC.
Yes, exactly. Societal judgement changes how people that want to behave otherwise, do behave. Or I should say perceived societal judgement. It reallly isn’t ok with the Thai people if you have sex with their preteens. If someone that wants to act badly *thinks* they have permission to do so, they probably will.
this i mean
im mad sleepy.
g’night maybee
g’night feets
sweet dreams, nishi.
you too nishi
#677 nishi: “Dozens of reviews” is immaterial, especially since like anybody else (including me) you will have culled them from sites favorable to your attitudes because you don’t enjoy going to others. It’s why I don’t link.
You are still missing something that is both deep and important. People keep explaining it to you, and you keep changing the subject.
As for the rest of it, cloning and brainstemmed bodies, I’m not an arbiter of such things. I can tell you that there will be people with conscience-based objections. You will have to answer those objections, and “they’re too stoopid to participate in the discussion” is not an answer, it’s a validation of their complaint.
Regards,
Ric
Oh yeah.
ric says im setting up a strawman and refuses to click link evidence.
In the youtube ric wont watch, Ben Stein says “Science leads you to killing people”. It is not taken out of context.
You can download the php and bittorrent the whole thing.
here
If you’re going to use quotation marks, nishi, then you need to be directly quoting. You are not and you have indeed taken it out of context. See your own 671 where you did a much better job of reproducing what Stein said.
There are no “positive” reviews of Expelled that deny that Stein links what he calls “Dawrwinism” as causal for the Holocaust.
It is a core theme of the of movie. all these snips from MSM reviews.
“Talk about negative campaigning: Stein and the “Expelled” filmmakers try to link Charles Darwin and “Big Science” to Nazism and Stalinism. Scenes of death camps, mad scientists, marching minions and the Berlin Wall are flashed on the screen when Darwinism is discussed.”
“What you may not know but most certainly cannot fail to realize by the time this film ends is that Stein has no understanding of science and is a proponent of a singularly despicable explanation of the cause of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.”
“All this is without even touching on the most spurious and risible sections of the film, in which Stein visits a Nazi sanitarium and concentration camp, attempting to draw a line from Darwin to Hitler to Stalin to John Lennon (for real).”
” The visual metaphor of the Berlin Wall is prominent, used to depict the monolithic “neo-Darwinist” establishment – which includes the courts and the media, by the way. Through fast-cutting of interview snippets and movie images, the movie links Darwin to eugenics, euthanasia, abortion, Planned Parenthood, the Soviets and that old argumentative trump card, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. ”
pablo i linked that above.
here again.
“Science leads to killing people.”
ric wont click any links.
According to “Expelled,” Darwinism responsible for everything from atheism to abortion
Ben Stein
Movie review (NO STARS)
“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a documentary with Ben Stein. Directed by Nathan Frankowski, from a screenplay by Stein. 97 minutes. Rated PG for thematic material, some disturbing images and brief smoking. Several theaters.
Pop quiz: What is the real source of evil in the modern world? Greed? Intolerance?
Well, according to “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” it’s Darwinism, described as a philosophy that posits the pointlessness of life and encourages the “de-privileging of human beings”  and as such is responsible for everything from atheism to abortion, euthanasia to the Holocaust.
Ben Stein says “Science leads you to killing peopleâ€Â. It is not taken out of context.
So Ben Stein just walked out, said “Science leads you to killing people” and then walked off stage? Off course it is out of context, nishi, there is no context in the clip you linked.
If you are going to force us to discuss Ben Stein, at least link whole clips of his interviews/statements. Either that or buy me a movie ticket so I can go watch the shit.
Also, how would you feel if I made the statement “Science leads you to saving lives.”?
“And for these horrors Ben Stein wishes to blame the theory of evolution by natural selection. He produces a shambles of an essay in the course of which he manages to malign the name of Darwin by association with both Communism and Naziism, a remarkable day’s work after which any civilized man would knock off early and call for cocktails. But not Ben. No, Ben toils on. By the time he’s through, every kook and monster who ever used the word “evolution†has become the satanic spawn of Charles Darwin. This sort of thing is doubtless effective in a sermonette at the Discovery Institute, but as a contribution to the public discourse it is simply shameful. ”
“He [stein] said he also believed the theory of evolution leads to racism and ultimately genocide, an idea common among creationist thinkers. If it were up to him, he said, the film would be called “From Darwin to Hitler.â€Â
“It’s in the film’s final third that it runs entirely off the rails as Stein argues that there is a clear line from Darwinism to euthanasia, abortion, eugenics and–wait for it–Nazism. Theories of natural selection, it’s claimed, were a necessary if not sufficient condition for Hitler’s killing machine to get started.”
B Moe i am publishing evidence for ric because he will not link my evidence.
Im taking it all from here.
There are no reviews ANYWHERE that deny Stein links ToE to the Holocaust.
It is a core component of the movie.
Pablo the bitttorrent has the whole interview.
I can’t get Ric to click a youtube link, he isnt gonna download a bittorrent.
ANNES, France, May 23  “An Inconvenient Truth,” Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary about the dangers of climate change, is a film that should never have been made. It is, after all, the job of political leaders and policymakers to protect against possible future calamities, to respond to the findings of science and to persuade the public that action must be taken to protect the common interest.
But when this does not happen  and it is hardly a partisan statement to observe that, in the case of global warming, it hasn’t  others must take up the responsibility: filmmakers, activists, scientists, even retired politicians. That “An Inconvenient Truth” should not have to exist is a reason to be grateful that it does.But as I said, the movie is not about him. He is, rather, the surprisingly engaging vehicle for some very disturbing information. His explanations of complex environmental phenomena  the jet stream has always been a particularly tough one for me to grasp  are clear, and while some of the visual aids are a little corny, most of the images are stark, illuminating and powerful.
…
I can’t think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling. Photographs of receding ice fields and glaciers  consequences of climate change that have already taken place  are as disturbing as speculative maps of submerged coastlines. The news of increased hurricane activity and warming oceans is all the more alarming for being delivered in Mr. Gore’s matter-of-fact, scholarly tone.
He speaks of the need to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions as a “moral imperative,” and most people who see this movie will do so out of a sense of duty, which seems to me entirely appropriate. Luckily, it happens to be a well-made documentary, edited crisply enough to keep it from feeling like 90 minutes of C-Span and shaped to give Mr. Gore’s argument a real sense of drama. As unsettling as it can be, it is also intellectually exhilarating, and, like any good piece of pedagogy, whets the appetite for further study. This is not everything you need to know about global warming: that’s the point. But it is a good place to start, and to continue, a process of education that could hardly be more urgent. “An Inconvenient Truth” is a necessary film.
“An Inconvenient Truth” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Some of the subjects discussed might be upsetting.
you guyz can download the bittorrent from here…the last link in John’s letter to David Berg.
“(And no, that Stein clip is not taken out of context. The rest of the interview is as bad, if not worse. Watch the whole appalling, disgraceful thing here. Then tell me, if you can, why any educated person of integrity would touch creationism with a ten-foot pole.)”
A master race was a core component of Hitler’s program. Racial hygiene, dontcha know.
Then tell me, if you can, why any educated person of integrity would touch creationism with a ten-foot pole.
Do you honestly not see the symmetry of that statement with the assertion that evolution leads to the holocaust? You and Stein appear to me to be opposite sides of the same coin.
Dimwitted, dishonest absolutists.
Who said anything about creationism? And how does a Ben Stein comment about Darwin and the Holocaust validate or invalidate the notion?
Though I must admit that something like your theory of invalidity by association is probably pretty close to the reason you got banned at Chicago Boyz. They don’t want to be seen as agreeing with nutjobs.
Pablo, I have said before AGW is bullshit.
What, do you think an inconvenient truth cancells out Stein’s calumny somehow?
And, like I told you…people that object to gorejunkscience should do what we did to Expelled.
A lot of us are involed in doing just that, actually. go to planet gore and check it out…that is the debunk site, like expelledexposed is for Expelled.
But when us scient types have keep replacing the stake thru the heart of the undead zombie of IDT, it just takes time from other battles we should be fighting like AGW.
dr. pournelle is also a mighty meme-warrior against AGW. do you belong to chaos manor?
i just snipped a bunch of random reviews for ric cuz he won’t link.
John is pretty exercised over Expelled. He gets hot.
He can’t believe that other NRO bloggers buy into Ben Stein crapology, especially azshkenazi jews like David.
;)
A master race was a core component of Hitler’s program. Racial hygiene, dontcha know.
haha, fine pablo agree with stein.
its your choice.
Point: Reviews can be crap.
Then your priorities are completely fucked, though you are amusing me, so there’s that.
Is that true, or is it false?
“Science leads you to killing peopleâ€Â.
“Science leads you to saving lives”.
Compare and contrast.
Pablo they banned me for that one comment, “Expelled is just the cartoon version of Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.”
I tried to post it 3x.
i looked back 3days later and they had posted one of the times, acuz i made them look like fascists.
i might be unbanned now too, but why would i ever even read there again?
i have more entertainong things to do.
Look! A pony!
Right. By assertion. Or, maybe you just made yourself look like an obnoxious nitwit.
its true pablo.
bad people use guns too….does that mean guns are bad?
I love my ruger and my browning. I have had the browning since my dad taught me to shoot skeet when I was six.
It has roses carved in the stock.
What Stein ignores is that science saved us from Hilter with the Manhattan Project.
Isn’t that true?
w/e
they banned me for trying to post that, and then they put it up days later.
i can only guess at their motivations.
the empirical data leads me to believe that they didn’t like what i said.
tant pis
No matter how many times it lies, and gets called on it, it just keeps lying. Someone interpreting Stein is not evidence of your position. It simply shows that the person that wrote the review made the same (il)logical leaps that you do, nishit.
B Moes i don’t unnerstand the point of your comarison.
What Stein ignores is that science saved us from Hilter with the Manhattan Project.
Isn’t that true?
Where is slart? We need that face palm link again.
B Moes i don’t unnerstand the point of your comarison.
Which is exactly my point. Both statements are silly, science can neither save lives nor end them. The use of scientifically obtained knowledge can do both. It is equally ridiculous to try to describe science as either good or evil. You and Stein are opposite sides of the same coin.
/sigh
look, a core theme of the movie is that Stein causally links Darwin, science, scientists with the Holocaust.
that is undeniable.
you can agree that science caused the holocaust like most of the PW comment cohort seems to, or you can disagree and view steins calumny as part of the rightwing war on science that we discussing.
it is your choice.
But the causal relationship between science and the Holocaust is a core theme of the movie that no one denies except ric locke.
im out.
I think I spelled my view of that out pretty clearly upthread in my discussion with Ardsgaine.
Um, no. The Manhattan Project saved us from a longer and bloodier war with Japan. Hitler’s greed/insanity saved Europe from Hitler, who was dead before a nuclear weapon was ever detonated.
Bullshit, nishi. Let us spell it out for the benefit of retarded grade-schoolers and other Riders of the Yellow Shortbus.
Stein’s thesis, as expressed in the title of the f*ing piece and thoroughly elaborated throughout, is that there has been a largely successful attempt to forcibly remove — “expel” — religion and the religious from the debate over scientific ethics, and that that expulsion has deleterious effects upon religion, science, and the public weal. Claiming to extract any other purpose from the piece is an exercise in lying, distortion, and/or moronic stupidity of the variety called “missing the point”.
In order to support his thesis, particularly the “deleterious effects” part, he employs a rhetorical device whose formal name I do not know, but which is described as exaggeration for dramatic effect. That device is common to the point of cliché in English prose, most especially in propaganda and polemic, which Expelled most certainly is. Failure to recognize and allow for common rhetorical devices is a symptom of moron-level illiteracy, hostile and deliberate purblindness, or both, most especially in someone who routinely employs the same rhetorical devices.
Stein’s point is that science untrammeled by ethical and moral considerations is capable of doing immense harm. It is fact that Darwin’s ideas, expressed and employed by unethical people using “it’s Science!” to suppress moral and ethical considerations, led directly to the assumption that Survivors were entitled to oppress Lesser Beings and thence to the mass murder of that particular category of Lesser Being called “Jews”. The causal relationships are absolutely clear, and the participants cited Darwinism and its corollaries extensively in their self-justification.
If you genuinely cannot make the distinction, if in fact you are unable to recognize Stein’s rhetorical device and extract the meaning(s) from it, your attempts to counter the AGW hysteria are foredoomed because that same device is an integral part of the “warmenist” campaign.
Stein goes on to state that religion is the only possible source of ethical and moral restraints on science. That’s debatable; I don’t think so myself. I do agree that religion is a valuable and powerful source of such restraints. But if you insist on taking the rhetorical device at face value, you are demonstrating a moronic literalism that disqualifies you from participating in that debate — a disqualification which you have amply demonstrated on this thread.
Regards,
Ric
utter bullshit ric.
Stein’s theme is that science CAUSED the Holocaust.
you are just smearing words around like any midgrade apologist.
you sound very prog to me.
i refer to Jeff’s discussions of intentionalism to give you a smack down.
There is no pure consciousness. What Stein depicts in visual spectrum and says in aural spectrum is quite simply what he means.
Like I said: moron-level literalism.
What’s ironically amusing is your self-satisfied braggadocio over having “debunked” Expelled. Unfortunately for you you have done no such thing, because the point flew by you at Mach 5. In actual fact, Stein could and should include a link to expelledexposed.com on his web site, with the notation See? This is the sort of shit I was talking about. An elaborate and extended illustration of a piece’s major thrust does not constitute “debunking”.
Regards,
Ric
i refer to Jeff’s discussions of intentionalism to give you a smack down.
Laughing My Fucking Ass Off!
ta ric
you are the moron.
pithed by religion.
see, expelledexposed is science.
Expelled is useless calumny.
And Expelled is just the right’s farenheit911.
don’t laff b moes, refute my argument.
I’m not sure. Just cause Stein for years and years has been really quite reasonable and measured. Science has a lot embraced an ethos that is molding scientists into a secular priesthood. If you can’t see it in the scientists you know, look for it in liberal appeal to scientific authority for their social justicey policy ventures. That didn’t just come from nowhere.
if you can.
well feets, do you think Expelled will cause the scientific community to suddenly embrace IDt?
it just pisses us off.
Steins could have a made a different movie that argues for including IDT in secualr education.
He didn’t.
Expelled is just IQ baiting. Exploiting the the thinker/believer gap.
don’t laff b moes, refute my argument.
What argument? That Goldstein’s post on intentionalism will prove that Stein’s intent doesn’t matter? That the only thing that matters is a strictly literal interpretation of single soundbites? Stick to numbers, nishi, you really are borderline retarded literally.
@748
Nishi, why should he bother. You aren’t listening to basically anybody.
Just as an aside, on NPR ever since the 2004 election, which they a lot excused with this elaborate thesis about gay marriage and abortion and liberals not being able to connect with religious voters, they’ve been playing these games of having progressives lay out their progressiveyness in these pseudo religious terms, and then finding random stupid religious people to say yup, that’s downright Jesusy can I subscribe to your newsletter. This is the same phenomenon that the Washington Post’s On Faith (I think that’s how they brand it – I’ll check later) blog/article series came from. This has not been successful, with really the only success being in implicating evangelicals in climate change angst, but what they forget is that evangelicals have always been a soft touch for that. God’s creation good stewards blah blah blah. Jeremiah Wright was pretty much the culmination of this experiment, at least for now is my sense.
Of course Expelled pisses a lot of scientists off. That’s the tail wagging the dog for them. Stein has defied their priestly authoritah. But what’s weird about the pissed-off scientists is that they know that Stein hasn’t laid a finger on their science. They’re pissed cause they don’t like ideas out there that undermine their arbiteyness. Very thin-skinned people.
Science used to have an ethos of patience that was a lot more honored I think. They would talk about paradigm shifts that they were not expecting to see in their lifetimes. I think the pace of scientific progress has so outstripped the social arena that scientists get confused who they are anymores. This happened in the Internet too during the bubble. If you’re not online you get left behind. A lot of thems what thought that were out of work in short order.
For real I think if you factor in the accelerated pace of science, you’ll have to say hey maybe the thinker/believer gap is a lot more cause the scientists have been the ones drawing away.
Hey scientists, come back. We made kolaches.
Stein could and should include a link to expelledexposed.com on his web site
i don’t think so ric.
those reviews i snipped aren’t from scientists.
they are ALL from magazines, newspapers and movie critics.
if you would condescend to link you could see.
no B Moes
i myself can use intentionalism to prove Stein means what he says.
Do you think intentionalism applies only to Jeff Goldstein and the constitution?
For real I think if you factor in the accelerated pace of science, you’ll have to say hey maybe the thinker/believer gap is a lot more cause the scientists have been the ones drawing away.
yeah, like at the speed of light.
here’s my truce agreement.
you xians stop pushing IDT on us and we’ll stop calling you stupid for trying.
nishi, if you plan to use the same reasoning and appreciation of debate to your anti-AGW campaign, we all need to start saving our money. The coronation of the God-Emperor Al will be a once-in-a-civilization event, not to be missed if at all possible.
Regards,
Ric
Hmmm. That expelledexposed thinger is sponsored by people who don’t express any qualms at all about imprisoning creationists. That’s sort of over-the-top I think. Freedom is important.
Look feets.
The LHSC is open for bidness soon.
We are gonna unpick the fabric of spacetime!
It is wildly exciting. :)
but sadly we are constantly being forced to get involved in boring 19th century arguments with IDbots, because if we ignore them they will force religious intruction into secular highschools and unis and colleges.
we think they are very stupid at a basic level to keep trying, but they never quit, just like HRC.
So we won’t quit either.
Someone has to keep off the Dark.
Intelligent Design is a fad though. Like Crocs but slower-burning. Christians are not stupid. Have a little patience.
It’s okay if you wanna sigh like Peggy Noonan. But manning the barricades is a little much.
For real. Scientists risk legitimizing ID with their vehemence I think.
It’s a lot like how President Bush refused to meet with Cindy Sheehan. That was very smart. Look at her now.
feets be honest…he is being imprisoned for fraud.
feets they act stupid.
did you see how many times Vine and FP and I had debunk the same boring argument over and over and over?
they don’t seem to ever learn.
Christians are not stupid. Have a little patience.
feets, all the empirical data is coming in to the contrary.
Intelligent Design is a fad though. Like Crocs but slower-burning.
Never as wide-spread as Crocs, though. And for sure not practical like crocs can be. The ID push in high schools is over for sure, and has been for a few years.
It’s Turkey. The justice system in Turkey really doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt. There’s no evidence of fraud adduced in the article. Even if, NCSE is using his purported fraud to delegitimize his ideas. Stem cell research would be in big big trouble if they applied this same analytic rigor I think.
#761
at least we are doing something.
you just sit on your hands and bitch about academe and science shuttin out the IDbots.
AGW is a very different problem from IDT.
We are using different strategies.
a blow for the Light sure, but there are open cases in cali right now.
maybee, it never seems to stop.
we wont let our guard down until it’s over.
I just don’t think the battle against ID is all that fraught with import. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be challenged. For real though, it’s probably best for all concerned if the ID people are busy out making movies so yous guys can unpick the fabric of spacetime! unmolested.
You’ve got the bad guys trapped in ID canyon. It’s an intellectual cul-de-sac I think.
Stem cell research would be in big big trouble if they applied this same analytic rigor I think.
a lot of ppl have tried to discredit ESCR by citing Woo Hwang Suk.
the problem is Woo was censured by the scientific societies for reporting fraudlent reserch research results.
is anyone censuring Stein? censuring Michael Moore? don’t think so.
It’s marginalized to the point of nothing though, nishi. It’s like you’ve landed in the middle of Topanga Canyon, looked around, and decided the country has been overtaken by hippies. If you spend all your energy fighting the onslaught of hippies, you’ll never realize that just a few miles away the world has moved on.
oh weird. I typed the Topanga canyon thing before I saw hap’s ID Canyon.
Ha. That’s funny, MB. Intelligent Design 101 is a lot tedious, nishi. I agree with that. But Intelligent Design 201 is same as what in the course catalog is called genetics. The ID people are never gonna be able to get around that.
Who are you talking to? Names, please.
There. Now it all makes sense.
There is not and never will be demand for Intelligent Design scientists. They don’t produce anything except documentaries about how there is not and never will be demand for Intelligent Design scientists. It’s a self-limiting reaction like that.
no B Moes
i myself can use intentionalism to prove Stein means what he says.
You have no idea what any of these words mean, do you. I haven’t seen the movie, but I know enough about Stein to know he is very intelligent, has an incredibly dry wit, and is quite mischeivious. I suspect Ric is correct in that he is having you on and you are too strident to see it. I am going to have to go see this fucking thing I guess.
Is Stein doing science? Is he doing scientific research? No. He’s doing social commentary. He’s doing politics. He’s doing entertainment.
Who would you expect to censure him, or Moore? The Academy? OK, maybe they’ll thumb their noses at Stein, but they gave Moore a freaking Oscar.
Oh, and they gave An Inconvenient Truth one too.
Yup.
I’ve been suggesting that he’s doing a neo-Kaufmann bit, and it just occurred to me that perhaps the Academy is a primary target.
Heh. nishi has no idea what the war is about, and refuses to accept or acknowledge the explanations when they are offered. which means she can be forced into endless inconclusive battles. It’s actually kind of fun, in a sad sort of way.
Regards,
Ric
Speed Racer looks to have opened kinda soft. This is apropos of nothing really.
Apropós of nothing is fine, ‘feets. We’re well on the way to 800 comments, which has to be some kind of PW record.
Regards,
Ric
I know. And my first comment… um, back at #2, was a lot dismissive. I are out of step. Humbling.
“You have no idea what any of these words mean, do you.”
??? I have read the Theory of Forms.
I am possibly more copacetic with the Framers unnerstanding of those words than Jeff is.
#786 well, ric, you refuse to read my linked evidence so I must say I think you have lost by default.
You don’t unnerstand.
How many times have I have destroyed that stupid complexity argument? Or cited un-oppressed scientists who are believers but reject IDT? Or explained that ToE is not abiogenisis?
This is what it do. you are only marginally less annoying the rest of the theocons at the gate.
what I do.
I am possibly more copacetic with the Framers unnerstanding of those words than Jeff is.
You are possibly many things, nishi. That line of speculation could easily boost the thread over 1000.
Speed Racer looks to have opened kinda soft.
Should have cast Earnhardt, Jr. in the lead.
and my battles are conclusive.
see comments here and
here.
oh…i forgot.
you don’t link.
i punkd you, ric. get a clue.
You do what you do well I think. The AGW thing needs to get cracking.
well….B Moes, ima platonist…so were some of the Framers. I have pythagorean elements too.
I was aukousmatikoi in a previous life. ;)
That’s a good point B Moe. I’m supposed to keep an eye on these things and I swear I couldn’t tell you who they got playing Speed. This whole thing sort of failed to click for me. Some sort of tie-in to the contemporary would have a lot helped I think.
Pythagorus had a Sufi slave. Did you know that?
I think I was a short-order cook in a previous life. This is why I eat out too much I think.
You can see them everywhere in known blogspace, the mathematikoi (speakers of the inner temple) surrounded by their circles of aukousmatikoi ( listeners)
Maybe, but you sure as hell aren’t one now.
Heh. nishi, your links establish:
1) Fellow travelers are fully capable of exhibiting a united front;
2) Sock puppets have enough teeth to produce soundbites;
3) You have no idea what the war’s about, so exhaust yourself blowing up inflatable tanks and destroying log artillery.
Some pnking.
Regards,
Ric
Oh, and just for the record:
It’s springtime in Texas, meaning humidity, pollen, and pollution-trapping atmospheric inversions. As a result, my sinuses are serving as strong evidence that any putative Designer responsible for humans’ upright stance needs to be demoted back to beetle duty.
Regards,
Ric
You can see them everywhere in known blogspace, the mathematikoi (speakers of the inner temple) surrounded by their circles of aukousmatikoi ( listeners)
sure i am.
Im Jeff’s aukousmatikoi.
#800
this is what we do.
we keep off the Dark.
and, like feets says, we are good at it.
I am possibly more copacetic with the Framers unnerstanding of those words than Jeff is.
You have got to seek help.
You are going to claim that intentionalism led you to the conclusion that Stein is saying Science is BAD and caused the Holocaust? The earth must be off of its axis, or you are off your rocker.
nope, intentionalism has led me to the conclusion that Stein is sayin what he means.
;)
@ #446
And give me the GG1 any time.
For those of you keeping score at home, that makes it:
Broadway Limited (PRR)…………2
Twentieth Century Limited (NYC)…1
Pythagorus had a Sufi slave. Did you know that?
PythagorAs died ca. 500 BCE.
Muhammed was born ca. 570 CE.
But, hey, what’s a thousand years or so?
Idiot.
sillie SBP
there were bedouin sufi long before the Prophet.
Uh, no there weren’t. Prove it.
pfft
we just worshipped the Moon God.
;)
disprove it.
there were bedouin sufi long before the Prophet.
Liar.
disprove it.
Idiot.
Sufism did not originate until the 7th century AD. “Sufi origins”, Google it. You’ll not produce anything that says otherwise unless you go write it first, which I would not put past you.
Why lie about something so easily disproven? Why not just admit you were wrong? Why act like you’re a fucking nonexistent Bedouin with this “we” shit? Who do you think you’re fooling?
Poser.
Fraud.
Liar.
Oh yeah, Allah. But not until the later 7th century.
Did you know Christians slaves built Stonehenge? We worked really hard on it.
Did you know I created the universe? And I designed all of you. Except nishi. Production fucked that one up.
You guys, and everything else in the universe, are just an ornate hallucination resulting from some dubious-looking mushrooms I found growing behind the cattle sale barn, chased with a half-bottle of prescription cough medicine. Maybe if I leave off the cough medicine next time, I’ll get the universe without nishi in it.
Disprove it, dudes and dudettes.
dur….we revere Salmonia as the earliest prototype of Sufism.
he was our originator.
but you won’t find that in google.
lolz, not everything is on the web.
some things must be lived to be known.
Yeah. That one guy was asking today what the currency was called that they used in the original George of the Jungle cartoons from the 60s and I can pretty much certify that no that’s not on the web.
And you didn’t live them, so how would you know them? Because the voices in your head told you so. Sufism does not predate Islam, and you’re a pretty lousy bullshit artist.
Pablo you don’t know anything about the origins of Sufism as believed by actual Sufis.
And you won’t find it on the web.
And you won’t find any “I was a Sufi!” exposees, acuz because the sensationalist stuff is inaccessable to the lower levels; you can’t just join for a year to write a book.
And I don’t care what you think.
No, you don’t care, nishi, because you don’t give a damn about facts. You are neither a muslim nor a sufi because you have exactly no understanding of either. You are a cartoon, drawn dirtily, for the purpose of irritating your elders. You bring no light, only heat, and you influence no one.
History is a matter of fact, not of belief and I really don’t give a damn what you believe. I believe you are a liar, and I can prove it, so there you have it.
Oh, and by your illogic, because people believe that God literally created the Earth and all that is on it in 7 days, then it must be true. Idiot.
Lulz, i still don’t care….and you can’t make me. :)
Your religion is better for you, mine is better for me.
I think this thread should bust a K at least.
Look what other esteemed scientist is a “racist/eugenicist” by PW definition.
And what religion is mine, fool? Yours must be better for you, because it allows you to be delusional and to, quite frankly, make shit up and swear to it. Of course you like it! I’m not interested in changing your mind any more than I’m interested in pissing into the wind. As efforts go, that one would at least have the upside of some relief associated with it.
What definition is that, and where did you find it? Or did your real Sufis tell you what it is and its a secret?
What definition is that, and where did you find it?
the cult of educational romanticism as verbalized by Carin and others.
I have been told here multiple times that the bell curve is psuedoscience and racist besides.
Then why can’t you link to those comments here? The New Criterion is not pw, liar. And that piece doesn’t speak to either racism or eugenics, so it doesn’t point to a definition of such.
You used to be able to deploy some semblance of rationality. Now you’re all over the bloody map, like a cloudburst of inanity. WTF happened to you?
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Just say no to drugs.
whenever i link comments here ppl get pissed off and say i’m takin them out of context.
then i have to link whole chains of multiple comments. and they still that isn’t what they “meant”.
it just isn’t cost-viable.
and the common theme is the bell curve.
British academics countered that subjects should not be off limits because they are politically incorrect. Susan Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution, said that “nothing should stop you ascertaining the scientific truth; science must be free of concerns about gender and raceâ€Â.
;)
So it’s better to completely misrepresent comments, refer to that misrepresentation as a consensus here and prove the theory with a link to another website discussing a completely different topic.
Who do you think you’re fooling? Other than yourself, that is.
nope, i just dont want to invest the searchfu.
i got other stuff to do.
have a nice mother’s day, be good to your mom, pablo.
finnimalyyah