I’d say it’s about time for me to be departing again. These threads always seem to last longer than they ought to, and I much prefer to swoop in, make lightning, and swoop back out again…yet courtesy obliges my participation from the moment I set foot in them. At last, now, things seem to be tidying up. So, with Thought’s latest reply finally on the record, that’s the signal for a few last remarks from me, and then…away I go.
Supply and demand. High supply equals low demand (barring extra influences, of course, such as marketing). High supply equals low demand which equals low value. Fairly basic, really.
Recall that your original foray into this line of thought was to show that economics was the source of sexism. You thought you had something when you suggested that meat had a higher economic value than plants, and that, because males were the ones who predominantly provided meat to the general population, males achieved dominance over females by controlling this important resource.
Then I pointed out that prehistoric females actually provided most of the human diet, and by your above remark I don’t think you understood the ramifications of this. Yes, it’s quite true that rare things often command a higher value, but it’s also beside the point. With females providing the majority of the human diet,
they were the ones who “controlled” (to use your word) the most important food resource.
They could have held that against males, but they didn’t. They could have said “I have berries; do as I say or starve,”
but they didn’t. Why didn’t they? Because that concept had not yet been conceived. The intellectual manipulation known as bargaining (and with it economics) would only come into being once humans developed civilization, since it was from the
manual manipulation of tangible things that all intellectual manipulation followed, and in our story these humans aren’t to that point in history yet. At this early time, humanity was still much more closely in touch with its animal past, a past where—as with all higher animals—males and females had sex-specific behaviors, a divergence representative of whatever relevant evolutionary pressures were placed upon the species during its development, or similarly placed upon preceding species during their development.
Ironically, “meat” does have something to do with it: Not the edible meat of other animals of course, but the fibrous flesh of pre-humans themselves. Muscle. And males had more of it. Why is that? Nobody knows for sure yet, but it was probably some combination of stresses reflecting this set of general circumstances:
1. Pre-humans had many competitors and predators.
2. Pre-human males had considerable internal competition amongst themselves for “access” to females.
3. Pre-human females had to spend a significant portion of their own energy on reproduction.
4. Pregnancy itself was a physical hardship.
For the pre-human species to succeed (and give rise to the human species), these stresses needed to be relieved. That could have been worked out in any number of ways, and we see examples of some different routes in animal species like the spotted hyena or (for a prosimian example) ruffed lemurs, but in true primates a workable solution led to a strong sexual dimorphism early in the primate line, by which males consumed most of the calories, and with that extra energy developed a larger musculature. Females were left with less to eat, and therefore had to spend a greater percentage of their diet on reproduction, leaving them ill-equipped to become more muscular in their own right.
It is worth noting which areas of the body where this inherent difference in muscular capacity is most pronounced: specifically, the upper body—the chest and the arms.
Everybody needed to run, and so females could only sacrifice so much of their lower-body strength before it became disadvantageous to the species. Likewise, everybody needed to be able to use their own bodies flexibly and under high physical strain, which meant females could only give up so much core abdominal strength. But in the upper body it was possible to give up much more. In so doing, pre-human females preemptively forfeited the ability of human females to compete with their male counterparts in much of the tool-making and specialized manual (i.e., hand-based) exertion that was to follow once human civilization began. A consequence to that was a further divergence of the behavioral roles between the sexes.
(I might suggest that anybody interested pick a primate of their choice and compose a list of activities shared between the sexes, and those limited to one sex only. The greater the sexual dimorphism, the more the first list will shrink and the more the second one will grow.)
In evolution, it is difficult to discover the circumstances which led to some particular development in a species. We are usually limited to generalizations. In this case the generalization is: The sex specialization worked, the primate order grew, and numerous individual species exist to this day—all of them with males physically dominant over females, to varying degrees.
So you see, male humans never “wound up” on top of female humans. They
started out that way, because their pre-human ancestors evolved to be that way. It was never a question of who controlled the beef and who the berries. Male humans were dominant because that is how it had been in the pre-human past. It was all about competition and reproduction. Indeed, the later development of economics reflects
this truth—not the other way around.
Entirely by chance, this dimorphism benefited the progenitors humanity, and so we passed into sentience and founded civilization. From that point, it took thousands of years of two things—the advancement of ideas, and the systematic oppression of females—for humanity to develop what we so casually describe as
feminism.
Thought, you are well-studied and this is obvious. But perhaps you are not so well-informed on these areas where your religion interferes. And that’s no surprise: Religion, when it did arise, took up as one of its principle goals the institutionalization of
sexism, which came into existence as humans passed into sentience and began to put their willful desires over their animal impulses. This included the attempt to preserve the sex-specific behaviors of earlier times, when in truth the sentient will rendered most of these exclusions obsolete, opening up nearly all behaviors to both sexes. What is “sexism” but the prejudgment of sex-specific distinctions where there are none, and bias against people based upon these prejudices?
Religion presumed that these sex-specific differences in our behavior were representative of supreme truths, and worked very hard (and very effectively) to preserve these differences—with a success persevering into modern times.
But while religion and other social institutions were busy shoring up the wall between the sexes, the human mind was busy eroding it. As ideas advanced, and new social orders came into being, the
inherent importance of one’s sex steadily eroded—because so many of these new conventions were unrelated to biological sex. Whereas most animals are concerned with little more than food, water, mating, and predators, humans became involved with all sorts of crazy things, from linen to pianos…and the piano doesn’t care what’s inside your linen underwear. With the relevancy of sex-specific roles rapidly disappearing, yet religion and other institutions artificially imposing them upon everybody, it was inevitable that one day the dam would break, and the creations of the human mind would be turned, at least for a while, to the liberation rather than the enslavement of human beings. That happened in the West in the 18th and 19th centuries. The flood that followed led to 20th century feminism, and sexual emancipation for the entire species is now a reasonable possibility in the centuries to come.
Ah, religion! Bane of progress! Still it persists. Now almost alone among powerful social institutions, religion continues to prescribe gender roles for people based upon their born biological sex. But I ask you, Thought: Why bother? Would it really ruin your life if females aren’t made to answer to males? You yourself are in agreement with me, supposedly, about the actualization of sexual equality. (We’ll touch on that later.)
Let’s recap where we’ve been: It was animal society, not economics, which caused sexism to come into being. Early males and females of that era probably didn’t even think to question the idea that males were dominant, and before those questions
did arise, primitive traditionalist conservatives beat them to the punch by erecting social institutions which silenced those questions and punished those who asked them. Cue the modern day.
I am terribly sorry if I stated that monogamy was a biological trait (I don’t see where I did this, but even if it was implied, I apologize). It is a social trait urged on by biology, but not one that can be found expressly in genes.
You said it here:
Thus, it is to the woman's evolutionary advantage for men to not "sow their wild oats," but rather devote all their resources to a single mate and the children produced there in.
Perhaps you were just being sloppy with the word “evolutionary,” but in any case forgiveness is easily granted—or it would be if you hadn’t persisted in the same idea by saying that monogamy is “a social trait urged on by biology.”
You are welcome to try and prove that. But, again, one quick look at
Britannica ought to persuade you that it probably isn’t worth your time to argue a point you know is mistaken.
Biologically speaking—and since when did you advocate that people listen to their animal instincts rather than their rational thoughts?—most primates are polyamorous to varying degrees, not “monogamous”—a concept whose very word, by the suffix “-gamous” tells you that it is a social and not a biological invention. In humans, as with other primates, a roughly equal sex distribution gives rise not to tidy Christian lifelong pairings of two, but instead to intense competitions within each sex for access to the best mates on the other side, with the general result of polyamory in both sexes, and both males and females having multiple partners in their lives.
Due to male predominance in society, the laws and customs of humanity have generally favored polygyny (or at least tacitly condoned it), while often strictly prohibiting the female equivalent of polyandry. The reason for this is obvious: The males who wrote the laws for everybody else to follow wanted to keep themselves in control, and they were very adept at doing it.
Perhaps, then, in a very roundabout sense, there is one connection between evolution and monogamy: Evolution put males on top, and males then wrote the laws necessary to keep themselves there…monogamy being one example.
It worked for twelve thousand years with few exceptions, but, Thought, after all this time the truth is finally spreading across the developed world:
Both sexes like sex, and it is a distinction of individuals—not of the sexes—as to who prefers more partners and who fewer.
Live with it. If your wife feels that you’re enough “man” to last her a lifetime, then consider yourself fortunate in that your ideology matches your physical circumstances, and work to make sure that Mrs. Thought does not come up with a reason change her mind. =)
Of course, social customs influence biology in turn. The traits that we are taught socially to accept or expect in a mate influence what mate we will then choose. Social influences on natural selection are just as important as environmental influences.
A much more interesting and valid idea! This is why you’re so much more fun than Krispin. You really do have insightful contributions to make.
What you are talking about is something that I describe, in my own vernacular, as “social evolution,” the second of the three major types of evolution.
You are aware that biological evolution (the first of the three major types) operates on a scale of thousands of years at best, and more coherently on a scale of millions of years. In comparison, social evolution operates on a scale of hundreds of years—and sometimes within the space of a few generations, such as happened when steam power made long-distance breeding commonplace.
Therefore, for the past six thousand years, the effect of natural selection has been almost entirely nullified by our own social selections—customs, attitudes, political and religious considerations, and so forth. The result is that our evolution has accelerated by not less than two whole orders of magnitude. This is causing a great genetic confluence in the various branches of humanity, and more importantly it has turned natural selection on its head. Consider how many disadvantageous traits we are consequently allowing to thrive. For one example, people with blurry eyesight now have corrective lenses available to them, allowing them to be more competitive and thus more successful in reproducing—eliminating any natural selectiveness against poor eyesight. On the flipside, we are also encouraging the development of more positive traits that might not have made it in the wild. The brainy nerd, however stereotypical, is a good example. People with a lot of brainpower but relatively little charm or physical strength are now able to reproduce pretty much as easily as anyone else, with promising implications for future generations.
No doubt you know all of this, but it was such an interesting point you raised that I simply could not resist a bit of expounding.
(Incidentally, the third type of evolution is willful or “artificial” evolution. It’s just around the corner, and it will change
everything. If we live through it, ZeaLitY might get his wish of humanity’s ascension to (relative) godhood.)
I would maintain that humans are affected by both nature and nurture.
I am afraid that from this point on, you go into a number of irrelevancies that quite honestly bore me. Forgive me if I give them only limited attention. Case in point: Do I really need to say anything in reply to “humans are affected by both nature and nurture”?
I’ll focus more on your interesting remarks, though, so worry not!
I am not disagreeing with these “astounding” similarities, but I am against ignoring a complete picture, which inherently must include "some apparent differences." These physiological differences are critical for a wide range of behaviors.
To provide just one example; Women have better immune systems than men, as a result of their sex hormones. However, that same increase in their immune systems also put them at a higher risk of autoimmune disorders (which are currently thought to be, in part, the result of our immune systems having nothing to actually fight). This physiological difference necessitates a difference in behavior; women and their doctors need to be aware of this increased risk factor and take the necessary precautions to address any issues that arise as soon as possible.
Let us apply this to transgendered individuals; men who become women would not have this natural predisposition, and so while we can easily imagine a world where their legal status is of that of a woman, their behaviors might still differ from that of a natural women. Yet in turn, depending on the levels of female hormones taken, this might become a factor (which would mean that their behavior should change accordingly), but at a significantly different point in their life.
So, “these physiological differences are critical for a wide range of behaviors,” thus implying that you actually do prefer the continued imposition of sex-specific social roles.
What you said in your above remarks is effectively this: Humans should seek to preserve their health, and, to the extent the sexes have anatomical differences, preserving one’s health will have a sex-specific component.
I agree with you!
Nevertheless, when taken in the context of your remarks, you are making one hell of a conceptual mistake: Males do indeed have an edge on females in some physical tasks, but that doesn’t mean that females lack the desire—or the
competence to compete. Name me an activity outside health and fitness (and reproduction) that sensibly requires sex-specific behavior. Name me
any activity outside the realm of human anatomy where there is not a single female on Earth suited to perform it, or likewise for males.
Sculpture? Freeway construction? Navigation? Marathon running? Teaching? Film directing? Cooking? Calculation and mathematics? Swimming? Dancing? Storytelling? Singing? Directing? Commanding troops?
Fighting? Stapling papers? Horseback riding? Sailing? Stockbrokerage? Using Daniel Krispin as a piñata? Inventing? Smelting? Glassblowing? Rock climbing? Raising children? Stomping grapes? Wrangling? Wrestling? Surfing? Fighting fires? Building buildings? Philosophizing?
Hah! Name me even one, Thought, and we’ll talk further!
If a behavior has no biological base, sure, get rid of it if humanity so desires. That is a possibility I am quite willing to accept. But when there is a biological base for certain behaviors, let's not choose willful ignorance.
Unfortunately, the only experiments that I am aware of that could soundly resolve the question of what behaviors are encouraged by genetics and what behaviors are purely social are entirely unethical, as they would require raising human children in a void of a social context.
Given both the physical and social differences as they currently exist, the goal should not be to attempt to create some sort of grey social expanse, where we are different but no one will admit to it; rather, those differences should be acknowledge but not allowed to hinder.
Thank you for using my phrase, “willful ignorance” in the sense that I mean it.
Your proposed unethical experiments would be most interesting indeed, but they would be misleading for one very important reason, which I shall get to in a moment.
Any attempt to evaluate the “appropriate” roles for people based upon their sex by using experimentation to isolate and measure the genetic contribution to behavior is doomed to run up against this problem: Behavioral
tendencies are driven by group dynamics, with or without a preestablished social context, and in any case there is no end of variation at the individual level. The experiments will yield considerable sexual overlap among individuals, and this overlap is a serious argument against sex-based exclusion.
That by itself should be enough to stop the conversation for most people, but let’s go a bit further, shall we? Very shortly in your experiments, a more serious problem would arise: Remember that, genetically speaking, humanity is still an animal. These children of yours would be feral, and their behaviors would correspond (roughly) to the commonalities we see in all primates. If put together in a group of roughly equal sex distribution, the males once reaching puberty would almost invariably begin abusing—we would call it “abuse” today—the pubescent females, and eventually the familiar specter of barbarianism would rear its ugly head. Sad but true: Our past is as bloody a one as any we see in nature documentaries. Genetically, we are predisposed to being a even crueler species than we actually are. If an uncivilized human were given modern military and economic powers and instructed in their most basic execution, he or she would destroy people left and right. Thus, I am unable to see how we might draw meaningful prescriptions for sex-specific behavior from your experiment. To avoid barbarism and produce cleaner results, we would have to raise the specimens into a minimum level of civility—and enforce these minimums—which, of course, would contaminate the experiment. If we let the barbarism stay in, the results would be preposterous as a source for sex-specific behavioral prescription.
That too should be enough to stop the conversation, but I know you would not let me get away with failing to mention this one final problem: The nurture component cannot be extracted. What are we going to do, raise the children in the vacuum of space? Put them in an environment—any environment—and they will be shaped by it. Put any two or more specimens together, and they will shape each other. Give even one solitary, isolated specimen the chance to pass into adolescence, and they will shape
themselves. In any case, the experiment is hopeless contaminated. What if Test Environment A promoted female dominance and test environment B promoted sexual parity? Eh? Or forget that altogether: What if both Environments A and B promoted male dominance?
How could you use any of this data to draw inherently sex-specific behavioral prescriptions for all humanity? You couldn’t! That’s the whole point of evolution: Species will adapt to their circumstances. There are no fundamental constants. Everything changes. Everything! If you tried to draw sex-specific behavioral prescriptions from your experimental conclusions, you would be reduced to imposing unnatural systems.
Humanity is not written in stone. What we are is only for the moment, and tomorrow is ours to pursue. If a female wants to serve aboard a submarine, then she has the right to pursue that ambition as surely as any of us have a right to pursue our own non-oppressive ambitions…and society will be irrevocably changed!
There is no boundary between nurture and nature. The two blend together like night and day, in faerie light. Therefore, Thought, the results of your experiments would be
misleading. Yes?
Yet really, I think our end point is the same; we both support actualized-equality.
Believe it or not, I actually think you mean what you say. Many sexists hide behind the language of equality—because that is what they are reduced to these days—but I think you are speaking sincerely here. Your defense of religious customs notwithstanding, what little I know about you points to somebody who probably sees the futility of trying to order females (or males) how to live their lives, solely based upon their genitalia.
If only you were not so beholden to your religion, you would probably be a natural ally of mine in the cause of sexual equality.
Like Hadriel, you danced around the question: "When religion does something good, do you praise it?" There are endless sorts of answers to that question, you could even claim that you don't know because, to your perception, religion has never done anything good. But for some reason which I am at a loss for, the question gets avoided.
You may have a point in that I probably didn’t address this explicitly. I will do so now:
Speaking only for myself, my method of judgment is holistic. Religion is a good example. If religion produces some discrete good, such as the medieval monastic invention of the alarm clock, or the magnificent stringed compositions of Vivaldi, I may well praise the good thing itself…but not the religion that made it happen. Here’s why:
I have already established (to my own satisfaction) that religion works against the human good by promoting ignorance. Religious faith is an
evil in my sense of the word, and thus religion itself is simply the sociological institution of the underlying faith—a system of rules and doctrines and norms built upon an evil core and supported by some fraction of the people.
Thus, to me, religion is always inherently a less desirable a route to progress than some generic but neutral (or positive) alternative. For instance, to go with that musical example, Christianity has given rise to some of the world’s most beautiful music, and I love it. However, music is not unique to Christianity.
Therefore, it would still be possible to have a musical world without Christianity—even if some of the pieces I love so much would very likely never have been written, nor their genres created.
This informs me that Christianity does not
own the concept of music. Lack of ownership means no credit for the accomplishment. The best that can be said is that Christianity played a
supporting role…and there are plenty of alternatives out there to support the development of music, so why bother with Christ? Christianity’s role in the development of music, however prominent it made itself out to be—up to and including the prohibition of secular music for many years, and a monopoly on composition—was
incidental to the music itself. Without Christ, other music would still have arisen, and who is to say how much more or less beautiful it would have been?
(Indeed, in this analytical sense, even Christianity is nothing more than a composition of smaller elements—leading to a reducibility that results in the absurdity that compels me to fold my methodology of judgment into a holistic, big-picture finish.)
We have this phrase “the good done by religion,” to which I say—was it really the religion itself doing the deed? Therefore, Thought—and all you others—I derive a general rule for answering: Uniqueness. Only those
unique deeds done by an entity (say, religion) are owned by the executive entity. So, in the case of religion, only those things which could never arise outside of religion are eligible to be said to have been “resulting from” (as opposed to merely “executed by” or “facilitated by”) religion.
Therefore, the answer to your question, do I praise the good done by religion, is this:
There is not a single unique good religion has ever produced. Every observed good facilitated by religion has also occurred secularly. Thus, an opportunity to test the question has not yet come up. (However, I can tell you right now that my answer would be, naturally, “Yes.”)
Conversely, there is one unique
evil to religion: Religious faith. From this faith, we got such disgraces as the Inquisition.
To me, that puts it all in perspective. Religion acts as a conduit for many good and bad things, but when it comes to
creating good and evil, religion has only ever created evil.
(Heh: On my Winamp playlist at the time of writing this: “Requiem Overture,” from the
Lord of the Rings trailer. If you’re familiar with the piece, you’ll appreciate the “heh.”)
As for the second part, that religion was the driving force for the Enlightenment; I don't recall stating as much. I seem to recall stating that religion provided the tinder and fuel that allowed the Enlightenment to take off, however.
You said this:
The Crusades, for example, provided the tinder for the Renaissance and Enlightenment…
As I acknowledged at the time (although perhaps not explicitly), there are two ways to interpret what you said, one being that religion promoted the Enlightenment and the other being that religion, through its abuses, compelled the Enlightenment. I took you to mean the former, but I acknowledged both interpretations.
And in contrast I do resent the constant claim by (some) atheists that Christianity was the great engine of all negative accomplishments in the world, when this is so patently false.
If perchance you meant to implicitly associate me with that group, be apprised that I’m not an atheist. It seems I am so often reduced to reiterating this simple fact, but I guess it is understandable for people to caricaturize their opponents. I am guilty of that myself sometimes.
Anyhow, as to your remark: I say, not at all! Not at all. Christianity was hardly the engine of all negative accomplishments in the world. There are plenty of other evils out there. Merely, I say, Christianity has distinguished itself in the elite club of the most infamous evildoers.
Here you make a good point, Thought, but your good point is also a distraction from Hadriel’s charge of Christian revisionism, which is one of the three central pillars of Christian Dominionism and has led our nation into an absurd debate about the intentions of this country’s founders.
That was Hadriel's charge? I totally missed that (I've also apparently missed out on most of that revisionism, possibly given my sheltered environment of historical study; it is said that being an expert means knowing more and more about less and less, so perhaps I have just by luck missed studying those areas where revisionism has occurred. Indeed, that areas that I do not know as well will only continue to increase as my knowledge of my chosen field deepens).
Phew! To retrace this line of discussion, I’ve had to make several leaps back into the conversation. Here’s where it all began. I will present the relevant bits in nested format:
It has been stated in this thread at some length that in America in particular, atheists are a distrusted minority. In fact, several state constitutions (including that of my state) possess clauses which bar atheists from holding public office, and there have been more than a few horror stories of people being assaulted on account of their nonbelief. In a climate so enraptured by an us-versus-them mentality held over from the Cold War, when atheism was (supposedly) a mark of communist sympathies, an atheist is bound to experience discontent. The American public equates religion with morality, and as such automatically correlates atheism with its inverse, failing to realize that morality is also a societal phenomenon. There are massive numbers of religious people who simply pick and choose the doctrines from their holy books that they wish to follow; this alone is evidence that morality and religion are not synonymous.
Yeah, yet another example of society's (and perhaps humanity's) stupidity. "Religious freedom" in America, yet if you aren't religious of some kind, you are at a loss, here. There's a whole lot of false freedom in America, I tell ya. =P
Not saying that only applies to America, but you get the gist.
It amuses me how Americans still believe they have freedom of speech. Saying anything that even slightly criticizes the status quo apparently warrants abject censure from the profitmongering, irresponsible corporate whores who dare to call themselves the media. Say anything that even vaguely opposes America's actions or calls its history into question, and you are branded a traitor; this was demonstrated recently in the response to Jeremiah Wright's sermons, which, aside from AIDS being a government conspiracy, really aren't that far from the truth as far as discrimination against minorities goes; America has had an abysmal track record. We annihilated the Native Americans, pressed Africans into slavery, passed the Espionage Act and Sedition Act during World War I, incarcerated Japanese-Americans into what were effectively concentration camps during World War II, continue to levy economic oppression upon the lower classes, and again, have a tendency as a nation to discriminate against non-Christians and especially people who subscribe to no faith at all.
Historiography is vital in this claim, and alas it does not hold up. Individuals have been calling America's history into question for the last 80ish years. They aren't branded traitors, they're granted tenure. Academia is awash with individuals who call America's actions and history into question and no, they are not branded traitors but rather praised. Read a modern American History textbook and compare it to a textbook from to years ago. Things have changed quite a bit, all because people called America’s history into question.
Here you make a good point, Thought, but your good point is also a distraction from Hadriel’s charge of Christian revisionism, which is one of the three central pillars of Christian Dominionism and has led our nation into an absurd debate about the intentions of this country’s founders.
And here we are again. What Hadriel said, in passing, was “Say anything that even vaguely opposes America's actions or calls its history into question, and you are branded a traitor…” You responded with an indictment of American academics—fair enough, but a distraction from the point. Had you inspected Hadriel’s claim with a bit of inductive reasoning, you might have seen what I saw: America’s factual history is very well-documented, but its
perceived history is under constant attack from one specific group: Christian Dominionists.
They are the ones who are branding people “traitors” for “(calling America’s history) into question.” They do so because they have their own,
revisionist brand of history to sell.
Now, with much false modesty—e.g., “it is said that being an expert means knowing more and more about less and less, so perhaps I have just by luck missed studying those areas where revisionism has occurred”—you implied that there is no concerted effort to revise America’s history. Demonstrably wrong, although I’ll have to save that demonstration for another time; those who are interested may, in the meantime, research this themselves. Then you tried to hide your tracks by questioning our conversation, but unfortunately for you I went to the trouble of retracing the relevant excerpts and doing the necessary explication. So, now we are left with my original point, that you have (twice, now) tried to distract from the Christian revisionism that is poisoning this country and cheapening its discourse. Sir, what are your motives?
That isn't an inversion of anything modern, that goes back to Solon (and indeed, it is good history besides). This in an entirely historio-centered bit of advice. History is the true judge of all things (but being a historian, what do you expect me to say? I’m biased, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true), and Europe's current assent isn't history yet.
And still you ignore the six decades of immense change since World War II. Come on, Thought! The demise of European colonial imperialism. The socialization of the entire continent. Administrative unification. Cultural blending. Immigration. Reconstruction. Peace!
Peace in Europe for sixty years, with few exceptions! That’s amazing all by itself.
I understand the importance of your general remark: The book of history has not yet closed on the 20th century, and may not yet for a long time to come. Nevertheless, you undercut the importance—and objective measurability—of much of what happened in that era. Why you do this, I know not, but as a historian I am sure you have a reason. As a devout Christian, I fear it may not be the purest reason….since, after all, this line of discussion arose in regard to my earlier identification of Europe as secular.
If I may? I think you’re waiting for Europe to fail, so you can gloat.
Mind you, I am not saying European countries are only number one because everything’s craptacular, rather I am rejecting any ranking system of the sort, be it applied to nations, school students, or clam chowder…
Are you rejecting ranking systems on principle, or are you simply rejecting the specific ranking systems implicitly under discussion? The former smacks of foolhardiness or, worse, pettiness, and I’d like to see your reasoning if indeed that is what you meant. The latter is petulant and, possibly, ill-informed of you, and, in that case, I’d like to see your critique of said ranking systems.
What, exactly, are you claiming is untrue?
Hopefully, you’re not a religious fundamentalist, and thus you would not be included in my censure. But if you are, then of course it would be the general thrust of your comments, which discourage through weasel words the pursuit of embryonic stem-cell research.
Let me put it another way: As I said before, all forms of stem cells show medical promise. Thus, are you in favor of research into all forms of stem cells—including embryonic stem cells?
If you are indeed in favor, then my complaint against your remarks would evaporate due to the whole thing being a misunderstanding on my part. If, on the other hand, you are opposed, then of course my complaint is affirmed—you would, in that scenario, have a religious and not a scientific objection against those stem cells…because there is no scientific objection. Only the Christians and other religious fundies are against it.
Adult stem cells, however, are at a noted economic disadvantage because they aren't quite as flexible as embryonic stem cells.
If that is untrue, please do explain. All the literature I've read on this has indicated it, but I am not all knowing. Adult stem cells should be able to do anything an embryonic stem cell can do, but that hasn’t been proven yet.
Embryonic stem-cell research is at a disadvantage, as a matter of fact, but through no fault of its own: President Bush’s ban on funding and expanding this research has stifled progress in the field. That will all begin to change in less than one year. =)
There may well be no basis left to evaluate an omnipotent being if it is not limited to logic…
Thought, this and your ensuing remarks about logic and omnipotence are most disappointing in their incompetence. I know that everybody has intellectual weak spots, but you would do well to follow my lead and not pretend aptitude where you have not yet developed it. I looked through your remarks three times, and could not find anything meriting a reply. (Not quite true: There is the kernel of a discussion in your remarks, on the meaning of “power.” But not tonight. Perhaps it will come up again in the future.) This disappoints me, because discussion is a hobby of mine, and when I lose interest there is only ever the reason of mediocrity. It also disappoints me because there is no worse way to bring a topic of discussion to an abrupt halt, and it leaves all parties and onlookers unsatisfied or even confused. I don’t find myself comfortable in the role of chiding you like this, and I hope you take it to heart. I hope the abruptness and seriousness of my rebuke takes you by surprise and causes you to give meaningful reconsideration of the topic. I encourage you to reevaluate your formulations with nimbler authorities, and, if you still have questions of me on this subject in the future, perhaps you could word them intelligently and try again when next I appear at the Compendium.
Moving on…
Incorrect. The scientific method is not a falsifiable object or condition, but simply a process. Hypothesize. Test. Evaluate. That’s the scientific method. Where is the fundamental wrong?
Don't know, but that is a red herring. As mentioned, every paradigm has shifted before, which should create the expectation that it will shift again. You might recognize this as scientific evidence. Every time we (humanity) have thrown a ball into the air, it has fallen down. Every time humanity as constructed a paradigm, it’s been discarded. Doesn’t mean that is will always be discarded, just like it doesn’t mean that a ball will always fall down.
It would actually mean that we were quite close to a paradigm shift if we could see what is fundamentally wrong with the scientific method.
Of course, just because there is the expectation that the paradigm will shift doesn't mean it actually will. From this... metalanguage, we should expect it, but just because it is statistically probable doesn't mean it is certain.
And mind, this isn't a religious standpoint, it is a historical one (and scientific, actually, but secondarily so). It is inherently not moderno-centric.
I see what you are saying. What
I am saying is that just because a thing isn’t
impossible doesn’t mean its probability is nonzero. Your suggestion that the scientific method may be wrong is correct only in the semantic sense: It
may be wrong, aye. But, really, it isn’t wrong at all. It works, and that’s that. Of the scientific method, remember what I said before:
All the same, the scientific method works because it reduces to observation and simple deduction, the former of which is the product of our physical environment, and the latter of which is a logical given. There is no opportunity for a flaw: Our world exists consistently.
Unless you want to play the game of solipsism, you’re in a no-win position here. Being skeptical, and keeping an open mind, doesn’t preclude one from observing when something works, how it works, and using that knowledge (where appropriate) to make the prediction that it will continue to work. The universe will never stop being observable, unless you count galactic diffusion and, ultimately, the entropy effect. Thus, so long as we continue to exist in it, with our sensory connections to the fundamental realities of electromagnetic energy, chemistry, vibration, and so forth, we shall continue to be able to apply the scientific method in our understanding of it. For this statement to become false would require the introduction of something unspecified and unknown—and just because this X-factor cannot be ruled out does not mean that it should be ruled
in, either—which is the basis of your mistaken reasoning.
Actually, I think you'd be quite amused. Since you know a bit about me, I'll tell you a bit about my wife; she's a Ph.D. student in one of the nation's top ten biomedical research universities. It is a rather fascinating environment to be associated with, even tangentially.
Well put. In all honesty my original comment was low of me. Sincerely proffered, aye, but poor form on my part to be so blunt with so little cause. For all I know, you are as equitable as you say, and would not use your religious dogma (or any other rationale) to abuse, subjugate, or demean her. Until I know otherwise, I should not demean myself with that sort of speculation. I apologize.
Rather, let me say this: I hope the two of you go on to have rewarding lives, and a thoughtful awakening from this religion business.
And that’s the end…or, it would be, if it weren’t for these:
I am getting sick of this topic...
QFT; I left it a little while back as the topic had more tangents than a circle.
Was it not the Magus who said, “The weak strive to be weaker”? You poor fools.
