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Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
bigwill2 #292739 02/18/10 01:05 AM
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While we are on the topic of pedagogues, my girlfriend mentioned last week that she had a class on racism (she's in school for an RPN). She told me that her professor said that this city is considered a "white city". I was completely awestruck at that statement. Here is someone "teaching" students on racism and then they use a defamatory (in my opinion) statement like that. How about it's not an ethnically diverse city.

That old adage comes to mind- "the more we're taught, the less we learn".


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Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
Ya_basta #292750 02/18/10 01:41 AM
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 Quote:
While we are on the topic of pedagogues

I didn't know Al Gore was a dirty old man! ;\)


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Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
grunt #292872 02/18/10 04:41 PM
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I understand your unease many if not most people in the West are educated from day one that science is just right.

I don’t agree at all. Are there people that take science as an absolute truth or just plainly right? Really? I may be naïve in thinking this but most everyone knows that for the most part, science is just the best way discovered yet for weeding out the truth from human bias. Of course science is not immutable or absolute. The scientific method could be refined or completely reformed in the future. But right now: Is there a better way of systematically explain our reality? Maybe, I do know this though; all religions so far throughout history have failed miserably at this.


The sailor does not pray for wind, he learns to sail. --Lindborg
Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
JaimeG #292892 02/18/10 07:20 PM
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 Originally Posted By: JaimeG
 Quote:
I understand your unease many if not most people in the West are educated from day one that science is just right.

I don’t agree at all. Are there people that take science as an absolute truth or just plainly right? Really? I may be naïve in thinking this but most everyone knows that for the most part, science is just the best way discovered yet for weeding out the truth from human bias. Of course science is not immutable or absolute. The scientific method could be refined or completely reformed in the future. But right now: Is there a better way of systematically explain our reality? Maybe, I do know this though; all religions so far throughout history have failed miserably at this.


Absolutely, there are very many at the University level who view “science” in the way a traditional person views religion. Some people are so anti-religious that it drives their beliefs in science to the point of becoming religious in there absoluteness. Others are so pro-technological progress that science takes on an absolutist context for them. Most Westerners have simply been educated all their lives to believe science is best and has defeated and shamed all the “unsuccessful/outdated” (western) religions for a couple of reasons.

In the broadest sense these beliefs are an outgrowth of the schism between religion and academia. With sciences “triumph” over religion modern scientific academics have supplanted the previous “religious” academics as the purveyors “truth.“ The problem, however, is that while science is great in figuring out the workings of things, at least to certain small scale, it has no moral foundation to guide people on how to use this information. So almost from it’s modern inception science has been struggling to find “it’s way” so to speak in not just providing information but in telling people how “best” to use it.

This is where pure science quickly devolves into ideology which in the opinion of many is just another form of religious belief. The most pervasive of these ideologies in modern academics are the embodied in modern socialism. Secular Humanism, due largely to the stigma surrounding the history of socialism has gained some traction in becoming the ideological (religious) face of modern science.

However, all is not harmonious on the political left. There is also counter movement of lefties who view traditional science as so terribly biased by the culture of DWEM (Dead White European Males) to be counterproductive. Many alternatives to traditional science have been offered by feminists and various “third world” authors. But for now most of this is on the fringe.

As I mentioned above most Westerners view science as the best way of knowing our world which on the surface when looking at the modern technological boom would seem obvious. However, science didn’t bring us this technology. Both regulated markets and command directed economies (the U.S. space program was not based on free markets or capitalism) did. (Note: Most people confuse market based and command directed economies with capitalism and socialism respectively). Science itself can’t seem to prove which or what combination of these or other economic theories is best.

Another problem for modern science is it’s deconstructionist nature. In order to progress quickly and more “accurately” (at least at the small scale) science breaks things into parts. While this may hasten “progress” it often overlooks the consequences of such progress on the large scale. This whole discussion began because of man-made-global-warming and it’s potential dire consequences. Which science has brought upon us by providing limited knowledge without full understanding resulting in our rapid “progress” which may in also hasten our demise. My engineering friends are quite confident the science will work it all out as has apparently been the case for the last 150 and especially 50 years. However, narrowly focused scientifically based “solutions” invariably have knock-on effects which in turn may end up being worse than the problem being solved.

This is one of my biggest gripes about the we-must-reduce-carbon-emissions-to-stop-global warming/climate change crowed is that this “solution” itself is based once again on deconstructionist narrowly focused “scientific” study. Data suggests Methane could easily be a greater problem. Never mind if the sun has a bad day and we’re all toast. So the issue for me isn’t whether the globe is warming it’s whether we are applying our limited resources to mitigate it in the most productive way and even more importantly is this something we really want to do sense we have know way of knowing what the long term consequences of cooling the globe might be. In the headlong rush toward progress we once again are loosing sight of the forest for the trees.

Interestingly enough I remember once reading a story about humans gaining to much knowledge to fast because of someone eating an apple. Funny, how well over 2000 years ago some religious types seemed to have figured out what modern academics have forgotten. More generally if you strip way the trappings of the successful (by social evolutionary standards) world religions you get some pretty good messages about how people who want live together harmoniously should behave toward each other. However, since it’s sacrilege for a Western academic to adopt Judeo/Christian beliefs you see many turning to Eastern beliefs to find meaning since the meaning science provides usually doesn’t suffice.

So is “science” the best way of learning about our world? Clearly that depends on what one considers “best.” I spent a semester with a professor and about 10 other people discussing this exact topic. The engineers and business types where absolutely sure it was. The feminist felt science was so biased it should be reworked. The Hippy, professor and I all felt any answer was arbitrary and temporal (depending on how one defined a “best” outcome and over what timeframe). One thing I can say is that up to now no religion that I’m aware of has brough us the potential to destroy all of humanity. Will science turn out to be "best?"

Cheers,
Dean

P.S. Thanks for keeping the discussion civil.


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Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
grunt #292908 02/18/10 09:06 PM
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Science is not a religion. It's a process.

Belief in your own interpretation of the results of scientific experiment may be religious, as they may have to be if you don't or can't understand the experiments your believing in.

Please do not confuse religion with morality. More religion certainly does not equal more morality. Looking at how most people judge the behaviour of people who literally interpret their religion it would seem obvious to me that the exact opposite is true.

The good and the bad morality that is documented by religion comes from the mouths of humans. The good messages in religion are unoriginal and largely common sense. The bad moral messages in religion are gleefully glossed over... how do we decide which morals we should take from religion?

We use our inherent morality. If we have such good inherent morality why would we need to take any queues from religion?

To take the writings of a few humans around 1500 years ago and take them to be our moral compass in modern society is foolish, at best.

It's fairly ironic that all these global warming deniers were happy enough to consume the results of scientific process by buying cars and packaged food... yet when science starts telling them that they should probably rethink their habits they are wanting to burn science at the stake. How does that morality (or logic) work?

Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
Luke Smith #292916 02/18/10 10:10 PM
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Science really came about, exploding in the 16th and 17th century out of a theistic background. Many philosophers of science have studied this, but I forget what it's called (maybe Grunt can help me out). So in a sense, yes, science is a religion (Edit-or this is at least one strong current theory). Saying this, I favor science.

Being an atheist and anti-theist, I wholeheartedly agree with everything else you said, Luke. I'm also an anarchist (following the teachings of Bakunin), and would extend morality to controlling all of life, therefore no laws etc. There isn't one law that stops me from doing something because I may face jurisprudence or end up in jail. But rather my morality guides me through life, choosing not to do something because I've been taught, formulated on my own, or experience that it or something is morally corrupt.

Last edited by wheelz999; 02/18/10 10:43 PM.

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Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
Ya_basta #292923 02/18/10 11:02 PM
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It's called Whitehead's thesis.


The only reasonable argument for owning a gun is to protect yourself from the police.
Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
grunt #292951 02/19/10 03:55 AM
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 Quote:
With sciences “triumph” over religion modern scientific academics have supplanted the previous “religious” academics as the purveyors “truth.“ The problem, however, is that while science is great in figuring out the workings of things, at least to certain small scale, it has no moral foundation to guide people on how to use this information. So almost from it’s modern inception science has been struggling to find “it’s way” so to speak in not just providing information but in telling people how “best” to use it.

Except the small things after science, I agree. Science and religion are about different things. I see no incompatibility between the two if you have a reasonably open mind.

 Quote:
This is where pure science quickly devolves into ideology which in the opinion of many is just another form of religious belief.

Its not about how science is devolving, its about the politicization of science: people using science as a lever for an end goal without caring much about the actual science. Political ideology, left or right is not particularly helpful in the current debate on climate change.

 Quote:
(Note: Most people confuse market based and command directed economies with capitalism and socialism respectively). Science itself can’t seem to prove which or what combination of these or other economic theories is best.

Most people view the left and right as a linear scale. I see it more like a circle with communism on the extreme left and fascism on the extreme right ending up being much the same thing in a different guise. In both cases the world of politics and economic endeavor are completely controlled by one group. They hate each other so much because they are exactly the same and thus occupy the exact same niche. They are both equally unsustainable.

The best is when there is some sort of balance of power between the 'left' social and the 'right' economic/business. The Scandinavian countries seem to do this balancing trick the best and have both strong social programs and strong economies.

 Quote:
Another problem for modern science is it’s deconstructionist nature. In order to progress quickly and more “accurately” (at least at the small scale) science breaks things into parts. While this may hasten “progress” it often overlooks the consequences of such progress on the large scale.

That is not a failure of science, but a failure of the application of science. There are also branches of every scientific area that examine large scale systems.

Sometimes, very simple science can quite elegantly explain seemingly complex things. Robotics have done some really cool things in understanding some basic bug behavior by putting together robots with as little as 6 simple pieces of decision making logic.

We as a species have a bias toward the simple and immediate that leads to a failure in the application of things discovoured by 'science'.

 Quote:
This is one of my biggest gripes about the we-must-reduce-carbon-emissions-to-stop-global warming/climate change crowed is that this “solution” itself is based once again on deconstructionist narrowly focused “scientific” study. Data suggests Methane could easily be a greater problem.

Again, this is the politicization of science, this time by the left.

The political left has seized upon CO2 as its big stick and has chosen it as its primary weapon in the war-on-climate. The world of science has known about the risks/issues of methane as a greenhouse gas for quite a while.

The short term suppression of 'contradictory' evidence in the scientific community is a short term issue that deserves to be brought to light and corrected. The right wing claim that it is 'smoking gun' proof that all climate science is false is yet another politicization of science. The right's next big stick in the war.

 Quote:
So is “science” the best way of learning about our world?

It is a tool. No more, no less. It needs to be applied properly and judiciously to help us better understand our place in this world and how to best manage it. Pure science is the best tool for figuring out the how of things. Applied science is an art that requires pulling together multiple disciplines to achieve a goal or objective.


Fred

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Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
Luke Smith #292952 02/19/10 03:59 AM
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 Quote:
It's fairly ironic that all these global warming deniers were happy enough to consume the results of scientific process by buying cars and packaged food... yet when science starts telling them that they should probably rethink their habits they are wanting to burn science at the stake. How does that morality (or logic) work?

Pain avoidance? Seems to be a very basic and strong motivator in all living beings.


Fred

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Re: Maybe Al Gore is onto something...
Ya_basta #292953 02/19/10 04:05 AM
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 Originally Posted By: wheelz999
Science really came about, exploding in the 16th and 17th century out of a theistic background. Many philosophers of science have studied this, but I forget what it's called (maybe Grunt can help me out). So in a sense, yes, science is a religion (Edit-or this is at least one strong current theory). Saying this, I favor science.

Being an atheist and anti-theist, I wholeheartedly agree with everything else you said, Luke. I'm also an anarchist (following the teachings of Bakunin), and would extend morality to controlling all of life, therefore no laws etc. There isn't one law that stops me from doing something because I may face jurisprudence or end up in jail. But rather my morality guides me through life, choosing not to do something because I've been taught, formulated on my own, or experience that it or something is morally corrupt.


OK, I got a problem with this. If man is a part of nature, not the image of a divinity, merely another species in the animal kingdom... what kind of arrogance would imbue him with an inherent morality non-existant in the rest of nature. Nature is amoral. All of God's critters are running around killing each other without compunction.

Seems to me, whether you believe or not, we benefit from the idea that there is right and wrong. And right and wrong can't be determined by a man, or a handful of men, or an entire society, right? All that relativist crap they like to teach you in college... who are we to say that stoning aldutresses is immoral.... \:D

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