Mar 08 2008
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Ignorance is blitz
I happened to notice I was getting some traffic sent my way from Voxday, an ultraconservative blogger who has a history of saying ridiculous things — sometimes so ridiculous it’s indistinguishable from satire. Unfortunately, of course, willful ignorance has quite an audience these days, and just in case it’s not satire, I decided to reply.
He was writing about my blog post where I discussed the WMAP results showing the age of the universe, and that normal matter and energy are only 5% of what we can directly see:
The Bad Astronomer doesn’t realize that science is undermining the basis for materialism:
The energy budget of the Universe is the total amount of energy and matter in the whole cosmos added up. Together with some other observations, WMAP has been able to determine just how much of that budget is occupied by dark energy, dark matter, and normal matter. What they got was: the Universe is 72.1% dark energy, 23.3% dark matter, and 4.62% normal matter. You read that right: everything you can see, taste, hear, touch, just sense in any way… is less than 5% of the whole Universe.
In other words, even by its own lights, science and rational materialist philosophy is only relevant to five percent of what we currently consider to be all known Creation. Combined with its complete inapplicability to abstract concepts such as justice, equality and freedom, this shows that even attempting to build a social order on a secular basis is not only doomed to failure, but is quite arguably insane.
Insane? Only if your grip on reality is tenuous in the first place.
I wrote a comment back to him on his blog entry. Here is what I said:
Your conclusions are way off the mark, for two reasons: you misinterpreted/misunderstood what scientists did, and then you misapplied it.
First, 5% of the Universe is normal matter and energy. About 23% or so is dark matter. While we don’t know precisely what it’s made of, its existence has been conclusively proven, and it was using scientific methods that proved it (its existence was speculated due to odd motions of galaxies, its impact on observations predicted and then confirmed).
Same with dark energy. We don’t know what it is, but scientific observations and prediction show us it exists. We have independent lines of evidence for it now as well.
It’s not just to balance the equations. We have actual observations showing these things exist, just like we have observations that electrons and neutrinos exist.
So actually, “science and rational materialist philosophy” applies to the whole Universe.
Second, evolutionary biology does in fact explain our concepts of justice, equality, and freedom. Just because you say it doesn’t doesn’t mean it doesn’t. We evolved these concepts as prehistoric humans and the species we evolved from developed into tribal cultures. Those concepts helped ensure our survival, so we adapted to include them in our daily lives.
Third, about building a secular society… The US, despite claims by the far right, actually was and is built on a secular basis, and that is not only written in the Constitution, but in the very first right it lays out. Secular in this case doesn’t mean non-religious, it means not favoring any particular religion.
That’s the way it should be.
It’s clear to me that you don’t really understand anything at all about science, the scientific method, and how successful it is in understanding the world and universe around us. There are many books and websites devoted to just these topics; before drawing wildly inaccurate conclusions based on scant reading, you should research these topics.
Some of his commenters on that post basically parrot his own words, and grossly misunderstand what the WMAP results mean, so it’ll be be interesting to see what they reply.
The American Religious Right and the Taliban. Isn’t it nice that two such disparate groups can work so hard for the exact same goals?
Kinda makes ya proud.
Whatever the reply they come up with the source will be same:
?????? ?????
For centuries the church maintained that the sun revolved around the Earth. And when some astronomers first dared suggest that it was actually the other way around, they were tortured or sentenced to death for heresy. Yet in the end truth and reason won out, and we now accept (well, most of us do) that it is the Earth that revolves around the sun.
For me at least, that about sums up religion’s credibility when it comes to explaining the universe.
Whatever the reply they come up with the source will be same:
Thin air…
Beautiful comment and well said. Wish I could have said it as well. I agree with owlbear1 that in all likelyhood the religious right will still not understand. Good job and keep it up.
Why bother with him? Isn’t it better to leave him and other hypochristians to their airport-bathroom-foot-tapping reality? The reason they need a god is to help with the guilt and to ensure them that everyone else will be condemned to hell with them. Afterall, no-one is truly moral unless they have a threat of punishment hanging over their head, right? And only a true loving father like Yahweh could provide such loving eternal punishment, right?
“Rolling in the mud with the pig again?”
I just had to include that “idea” that I heard from BA blog; it applies here really well. But I appreciate the effort — too bad those guys won’t.
Phil, I agree in the importance of this foundational principle, but could you stop promoting the canard that the ordering of the Bill of Rights had anything to do with “importance”? They were ten amendments ordered by the sections of the constitution to which they applied. The First Amendment is first because it speaks to Article I of the Constitution and the legislative powers of Congress, not because it was held to be any more important than the others.
Oh, and that’s another thing. The Establishment Clause (one of many in the First Amendment) was not written in the Constitution originally. That’s why it was amended.
You’re letting your ranting get in the way of grade-school civics lessons here.
“could you stop promoting the canard that the ordering of the Bill of Rights had anything to do with “importance”?”
The way I understood it (and I could be wrong about his intent) was that Phil mentioned that it was first not to underscore its importance, but to accentuate how difficult it is to miss. Regardless of why it’s first, it’s still the first thing you’re likely to see upon reading the Bill of Rights and as such should make a bigger impression upon certain people who choose to ignore it. It’s like saying you don’t know the name of the narrator in Moby Dick. “Call me Ishmael” is not by any means the most important line in the book, but is undoubtedly its most well-known line purely by virtue of having been first.
No, I’ll admit that I thought it was first because freedom of speech and the Establishment clause were most important. I’ll have to read more about the Constitution’s history (it’s been a while) and see what’s what with this.
Still, if I had to pick the most important parts of the Bill of Rights, that would have been first anyway.
Well,I admire your patience Phil.I had a long protracted email debate with a ‘religioner’ recently but it just left me feeling slightly depressed.Whatever cognitive dissonance they have going on leads to a willful ignorance…they just don’t listen.Pearls before swine and all that.Still,keep it up!Someones gotta do it…even if my own patience is flagging!
Owlbear: they actually have three main sources:
1. The Bible
2. Thin air
3. Each other.
If you look into YEC quote-mining, you’ll see what I mean with #3.
I get a 502 error when I try to go to voxday’s blog :O(.
Umm… speaking of rants… sheesh, John Armstrong, take a nap.
“The First Amendment is first because it speaks to Article I of the Constitution and the legislative powers of Congress, not because it was held to be any more important than the others.”
Huh? The First Amendment is first because it speaks to Article 1 of the constitution? And I suppose the Second amendment is second cause it deals with Article 2?? Never learned THAT one in grade school civics. That’s just plain silliness. In fact you’ll find with a little research that the first amendment was actually the *third* amendment listed in the original draft. The original first amendment dealt with the number and appointment of the House of Representitives. So before you climb your high horse to criticize BA… you may want to get a little more than a grade-school civics lesson.
And second, where oh where do you see any mention of the “Establishment Clause” in his post? I must have missed it. Why are you ranting about that?
That having been said, from a purely pedantic standpoint, John Armstrong is right in that you point out the constitution but actually follow it up by referring to the Bill of Rights.
I think anyone reading it got the point, however.
Good work, Phil. Keep at them! They shouldn’t be allowed to spout nonsense and get away with it!
Praise Darwin!
Rich
Phil, I fully understand your predicament here.
We are dealing with people who have an agenda for believing in what they believe. Do not think for one moment that there is any semblance of actual personal belief in what they say beyond their own pathetic need to control their world by trying to convince everyone that what they say is the truth.
Science quite simply gets in the way of their agenda. They have absolutely no chance of being right against the undeniable truth that science presents, so they generate as much noise as they can in an attempt to drown out the truth.
Put yourself in this position: you are a magic cookie salesman with the respect and adoration of the entire villiage from spreading your magic cookie love. One day, a villiager finds some sugar and adds it to his own cookies. He has found the secret of your magic and has no more need for your cookie services. Then another villiager finds sugar, and another, and another…
Soon your respect and adoration wanes along with your profits. What do you do? Do you accept people know the truth of the sugar? Or do you you tell lies about the sugar to make your magic sound like it is some mystical super sugar that only you the path to?
I know it’s not right to mock the afflicted, but I suggest you deal with this ultraconservative as you would the magic cookie salesman. Let him make all the noise he wants. Laugh it off! Not only do you know his magic is just sugar, you know what sugar is made of!
BA -
Read my post above… The First amendment being first has nothing to do with it applying to Article 1. It *does* apply to Article 1 but that’s not why it was first. As I said above, it was originally third. The original first was never ratified and the original second was later ratified as the 27th Amendment. The order of the amendments was, by all accounts, in order of the importance of the issues that threatened to derail ratification of the Constitution by all states. Although this is not definitivey stated in any literature I’ve ever read. Although I’d be happy, as always, for someone to point me to literature proving that last statement wrong.
Ranting? What ranting? That was a very well constructed response. It is possible to make a mistake without ranting, you know.
I do chuckle sometimes, though, when right-wing fundamentalists hold up the Constitution as a sacred document (I’ve seen pastors who will claim that the Bible and the Constitution are the only two historical documents that really matter).
To them, the Constitution has become nothing more than a buzz word to invoke when those horrible liberals attempt to make changes to laws that do not meet with their outmoded concept of morality. They don’t really understand the history of the document (mainly because they swallow the lies of people like David Barton who has made a career out of promoting pseudo-history) and they refuse to grasp the idea that it was deliberately created as an entirely secular document.
It is actually quite remarkable, for it’s time, that there is no religion invoked in the Constitution. After all, virtually all of the other compacts and constitutions of the time were run through with religion, and American society was throughly permeated with it, from top to bottom. That fact alone should give them pause for thought, but since it goes inconveniently against their priorities, it’s dismissed as a triviality.
“First, 5% of the Universe is normal matter and energy. About 23% or so is dark matter. While we don’t know precisely what it’s made of, its existence has been conclusively proven, and it was using scientific methods that proved it (its existence was speculated due to odd motions of galaxies, its impact on observations predicted and then confirmed).”
So what do you think about this and this?
Folks, I have been presenting the case for reason for years on a couple of forums, and the most appalling thing I have learned is that professing Christians lie, lie big, lie constantly and repeat their lies when called on matters of fact. Reality is to be feared. Several of these people have at least the clinical description of a phobia about seeking the truth of any matter. As a phobia is an unreasoning fear, it is unlikely that anything short of personal epiphany will dent the layers of armor erected against reality.
All I do now is post links to Cassini, NOAA, USGS, CHEMnetBASE, NIST and other things which show just how much farther the investigative process has gone beyond them. Unfortunately, technology has uttered the ultimate insult: these people cannot understand it, and therefore it must be false and feared.
Astronomer said: “the guy is right you ignorant egotistical jackass!”
When all else fails, the factless resort to insult.
After all, insult is noise too, right!
“your degrading astronomy ”
And you, Astronomer, are degrading English.
Are you sure you understand what Phil writes about?
Why do some Christians insist on a lazy God who created an uncomplicated universe in seven days, only 6000 years ago? God, having infinite power and wisdom, created the universe as it is. Yes, the Bible says seven days, but the Old Testament says a lot of things that I don’t see the far-right preaching or practicing.
I have trouble with an infinite and all powerful God that limits Him/Herself to taking the easy route. Seems like a contradiction, and I think the Bible would support me on that.
I wondered how long it would take for the vox-tards to show up. I’m not sure what the Astrologer - er, “Astronomer” was ranting about - did anyone make any sense out of that, but I can guess where he came from. Vox is a rather repulsive toad of a human being, and his sycophants aren’t much better. Dispatches (among other of the Scienceblogs) regularly delves into the delusions of this guy, and anybody wanting to see more of his ignorance should also go there.
Good luck Phil - I’ll have to flag this to come back to and see if/when the hordes descend. To end with an insult of my own: when the voxxers descend, watch the collective IQ of the posts drop precipitously.
I try to live the Mark Twain’ism ‘- “I try to never argue with a fool - those watching might not be able to tell the difference…”.
Your post, though, was excellent.
Thanks for taking the time to at least put correct information out there. Hopefully it’ll reach someone who needs to read it. Vox Day didn’t reason his way into his current corner, of that I am fairly certain.
“Why do some Christians insist on a lazy God who created an uncomplicated universe in seven days, only 6000 years ago? God, having infinite power and wisdom, created the universe as it is. Yes, the Bible says seven days, but the Old Testament says a lot of things that I don’t see the far-right preaching or practicing.”
Because studying Bible verses is easy…studying science is hard.
That’s it.
Ah, sometimes I *envy* far-right fundamentalists and their “intellectual” safe harbor of “arguing” from a conclusion.
Facts and reality be damned, I’ve have tautology on my side!
Sigh.
I noticed the banner on Voxday reads Vox Popoli. Is this a wordplay I am unaware of, or did he misspell his own pseudonym?
What amuses me about the conservo-goon is his lack of comments. They dont want the comments, because they cannot defend what they write. Goes to show what a fraud they really are.
I doubt that fool realizes it is the properties of the material universe which are used to measure the rest of it. Also that the entire universe is made of stuff, material stuff. Dark matter is not make of angels or demons or gnomes or unicorns. Its going to be an odd form of matter or space time property.
Ah, Astronomer is back and just regurgitating his/her previous deleted post from another thread with a fresh layer of insult on top.
Astronomer, read this next bit carefully:
TU24.org’s scare-mongering was wrong and unscientific. Live with it.
“When all else fails, the factless resort to insult.” - Barton
Sig-worthy!
Phil, you suck at censoring. I mean, if you’re deleting Astronomer’s comments, you’re doing a really poor job. I can still see them.
Are you sure you’re a moderator?
You’re degrading censorship! Maybe you should not be in the deletion business.
“Second, evolutionary biology does in fact explain our concepts of justice, equality, and freedom. Just because you say it doesn’t doesn’t mean it doesn’t. We evolved these concepts as prehistoric humans and the species we evolved from developed into tribal cultures. Those concepts helped ensure our survival, so we adapted to include them in our daily lives.”
Hmmm, I think that’s very questionable. Different cultures developed vastly different concepts of religion, morality, etc. Some cultures thought that ritual cannibalism was moral. Western culture sees cannibalism as abhorrent. How could natural selection explain such radically different moralities within the same species? I don’t think it can.
I know this was already probably written a million times but still - it’s annoying when they try to ignore the scientific proof not basing their opinion, just saying “it’s in the bible” or “the scientists made it up because it’s convenient”…
By the way, there are two mistakes: one with the “popoli”, the other with “day”. It couldn’t get more messed up than two mistakes. Or could it?..
Ah hell, here I go wrestling with a pig … Aside from being intellectually challenged, Astronomer could use some time with (1) a spelling coach and (2) a grammer teacher.
Furthermore, Astronomer could use some time with a progressive religious leader or atheist for some basic moral education — name calling is inappropriate.
Great blog
Different environments. For example, in a food-rich versus a food-scarce environment, entirely different traits will be selected for. Recall that natural selection is about the fittest organisms doing better in a specific environment.
Not to mention that social dynamics start to play a dominant role in the (social) evolution of societies.
I’m not an expert at biology or sociology but that seems like a start of the answer to me.
I don’t understand how people can use the discoveries of science to argue that science is broken. It’s bass ackwards, that’s what it is.
Concepts such as justice, equality, freedom, morality, etc. are not heritable traits. They are not passed down from one generation to the next through the genes. Instead, they are learned by generation N + 1 from generation N via the mechanism of language. Because they are not heritable traits they are not covered by the theory of biological evolution. Unless you want to talk about a theory of cultural evolution but that’s a whole different theory and much more controversial. I’m not sure what BA was referring to there - if he intended to say they were covered under the biological theory of evolution or the cultural theory of evolution. It needs more clarification.
Halcyon Dayz said:
You’re quite welcome to use it, Halcyon… but the name’s Brango!
lolife said: “Different environments. For example, in a food-rich versus a food-scarce environment, entirely different traits will be selected for. Recall that natural selection is about the fittest organisms doing better in a specific environment.”
I’m no expert, neither, but another plausible answer is our social values evolved back when we were all in the same environment. We’ve just carried it along since then since there’s no selective pressure to get rid of it.
So people are inclined to create social rules, and follow them, and make others follow them. We do it constantly. Everybody’s been in a group (work, school, circle of friends) where you can say or do certain things and not others.
Just take that inclination, add some isolation from other groups, and let percolate for a couple hundred years or so. Poof, culture!
Well, I’m sure it’s a *bit* more complicated than that, but it’s at least plausible.
As a christian myself, what disturbs me most about Creationism/ID is that isn’t just bad science, it’s also bad theology. It’s such bad theology that theologians actually have a Bad Name for it: the God of the Gaps.
For as long as we have records, there have been people who claim that whatever science can’t explain yet must be the work of God. Their unfortunate problem is that , as time goes, by science explains more and more, until they are left conceding 99.8% of biology to science while ludicrously clinging to the remaining flagellum… until that too falls to explanation. The same is true of every other field of science. Pinning your hopes of proof of God’s handiwork on tinier and tinier as-yet-unaddressed problems is, quite simply, a losing strategy.
@Tom Marking:
Surely the existence of varying moralities is powerful evidence FOR evolution and AGAINST the hand of God? If morality were divinely sourced, surely it would be identical everywhere and at all times (as fundamentalists are fond of claiming that it “in fact” is). Only an evolutionary process that allows for the emergence of the most effective morality in different environments can explain the existence of divergent moral standards in different times and places.
“Concepts such as justice, equality, freedom, morality, etc. are not heritable traits. They are not passed down from one generation to the next through the genes. Instead, they are learned by generation N + 1 from generation N via the mechanism of language. Because they are not heritable traits they are not covered by the theory of biological evolution. Unless you want to talk about a theory of cultural evolution but that’s a whole different theory and much more controversial. I’m not sure what BA was referring to there - if he intended to say they were covered under the biological theory of evolution or the cultural theory of evolution. It needs more clarification.”
You are setting up a straw man here, I suspect on purpose.
You really should go and read some of the literature of the evolution of morality. You may even come to realise that it is not only humans who show evidence of morality, the other apes do as well.
The topic is a complex one, not lending itself to being answered in just a paragraph or two. To start with I suggest you read “The Origin of Virtue” by Matt Ridley.
Without biology there wouldn’t be any sociology.
Social rules aren’t created. They evolve from a need.
It is an interaction between genes, environment, and memes.
@Brango
Oops! How did that happen?
Celtic_Evolution:
I didn’t say it was a numerical lineup, only that the Bill of Rights is ordered by the sections of the constitution they amend. In fact, the first article in the original bill (which was not ratified) dealt with the ratio of representatives to citizens, and the second (which wasn’t ratified until 1992) dealt with how congress can vote itself a pay raise. These delineations on congressional power apply to subsections of Article I before those that the First Amendment applies to.
Besides, if you hold that the order corresponds to importance then it’s more important that people be allowed to own guns than it is that they be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, and more important than due process of law in the judicial system. But the Fourth Amendment speaks to the powers of the executive branch, which was laid out in Article II of the Constitution, and the Fifth Amendment speaks to the judicial branch (Article III).
The point is that if we’re going to insist that those against whom we argue stick to facts, then we must stick to facts ourselves. I know that there are a lot of people out there who think that we should take our gloves off like the creationists do, but we’re better than that. We can and will win with truth on our side, not by what feels right.
[…] 8, 2008 by tinyfrog The BadAstronomer takes VoxDay to task for this ridiculous argument. Personally, I think VoxDay’s argument is so stupid, it […]
@Daffy:
“American Religious Right == another Taliban” is the most apt and precise way of describing the situation. They sound sooooooooooooo similar. How I wish some of the fence-sitters listened to that line of reason.
Mike J on the other post was quite right - People typically don’t like hating and fighting, unless they’re brought up in such an atmosphere.
Remember, the Bible has been repeatedly modified throughout history by the rulers and oppressors of the day. Not one of those jerks knew what the Bible actually said or cared about what Jesus actually said.
The church was a seat of **power** and the Bible was the constitution. The Right-wing lawmakers of that day deliberately amended that constitution adding more and more crap, much like today’s Far Right adds more and more laws to deny personal liberty to citizens.
The similarity is just too much to ignore.
Guess what - 200 years down the line, folks will be saying -
“yeah, the far right Reps of that time added compulsory brain scanning, street surveillance and electronic surveillance to keep the public at large afraid at all times so as to make them accept anything in the name of security. Those were such bad times!”
Actually, on second thought, I really hope they’ll be saying this.
*************************************
The revenge of the scientific community is not by talking peacefully and presenting mathematical proofs, but,
BY GETTING CONCRETE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF THE DELIBERATE MODIFICATION OF BIBLICAL TEXT BY MEDIEVAL BARBARIANS.
PUT THAT ON WIKILEAKS - SCANNED AS IMAGES.
AND DO A GODDAMN **VERSION DIFF** ON THE BIBLE TEXT.
Nothing more is needed.
*************************************
I hope at least one in ten historians is rational. It’s a science after all.
A few such proofs of disparate copies of the Bible, dug up from ruins or obtained from ignored churches is enough to shake up the dirty, rotten hate-empire built in the name of Jesus.
Jesus Christ! He could cure people of their diseases by merely uttering words, and he suffered all that pain of crucifiction just to show that He was beyond pain and death - that His state was more than human - that there exists a higher power - which we call God - and these rogues changed that to “Jesus suffered for us to save us from our sins”
Which decent or ethically minded parent would want his/her children to be opportunist criminals having the backing of an eternal refuge of pardon by means of a said divine savior who _already_ suffered for sins not yet committed, **centuries in advance**?
isn’t that better than WMAP itself?
Jesus knows the future of the next 2000+ years - of each and every crime yet to be committed by billions of humans yet to be born!
What? Just what?
Also, isn’t that like telling the kids - go break the law, I’ll pay the fines and handle the courts. Would someone as ethical and enlightened as Jesus Himself ever say something so shamelessly irresponsible?
Quite the opposite.
He would more likely say - “I love you, and I’ll help you in every way, but on one condition - you have to live fairly and cleanly.”
Isn’t that what the Ten Commandments say? What on Earth shows that the Ten commandments are being followed perfectly by the Reps or the GOP? Give me ONE example, please.
Agreed, Bill Clinton trangressed the most spectacular of them, but he doesn’t talk of the Bible, does he? I’m not for one moment saying that you should trust a politician - that’s plain foolish. But if you have to choose, please choose the lesser evil to rule your life - like, y’know you shouldn’t go out there and vote to screw your own happiness, right?
At least the sin-forgiving theory stops its madness there, surely?
Surely, you shouldn’t hate *yourself* right?
Someone get the old Bibles and do a public diff of the texts, please.
Then we’ll discuss at length.
I will say I’m with Richard Dawkins when I say that evolution explaining why we have a sense of justice doesn’t do a whit to say whether we should keep it. It’s a “why” not an “aught” and all that.
That said, I’d much rather keep that. One big annoyance with some of the critics of science is how often they look at science and say “if you think this is true, these are the moral consequences”. I’d be terrified if anyone tried to get a moral system from scientific theory. For example, evolution just says the reality of how it IS, not that morally we SHOULD work towards evolution. Quite frankly I think we will soon reach a point where evolution is replaced with direct genetic alteration, and all life will be the better for it. Evolution is reality, but it’s not a moral system to look up to and apply, it’s a messy haphazard system that never considers the future and sometimes gets creatures stuck in evolutionary deadends, and as much as it can be credited for our intelligence and our empathy it can also be credited for our darker aspects. Replacing it with a worldwide technological monitering and alteration system would go a long way to improving our environment and our current situation by an incredible margin. It just remains to be seen if we are capable of it.
I’m a strong secularist and would go a little beyond the BA’s defn.
Secularism also means that it’s not ethical to use religious-based arguments in politics, because by doing so you are effectively excluding those who do not share your faith.
This means that politics (like science) should be non-religious. What it doesn’t mean is that the religious should be discriminated against.
Many people have no problems understanding secularism in science. They understand that it would be folly if scientists were allowed to use their religious views to back up conclusions in their papers. They also understand that keeping religion out of science isn’t anything to do with being prejudiced against the religious.
It’s much more difficult to convince people that government also works best as a secular entity.
“I’m a strong secularist and would go a little beyond the BA’s defn.
Secularism also means that it’s not ethical to use religious-based arguments in politics, because by doing so you are effectively excluding those who do not share your faith.
This means that politics (like science) should be non-religious. What it doesn’t mean is that the religious should be discriminated against.
Many people have no problems understanding secularism in science. They understand that it would be folly if scientists were allowed to use their religious views to back up conclusions in their papers. They also understand that keeping religion out of science isn’t anything to do with being prejudiced against the religious.
It’s much more difficult to convince people that government also works best as a secular entity.”
I would say that is pretty much the case we have in the UK, at least in terms of the main political parties. That said we do have politicians who object to abortion laws, gay rights etc on religious grounds, but these politicians do tend to be regarded with some suspicion by many. Some Church leaders, such as the Chief Rabbi and some Anglican Bishops, understand that they need to muster something more than just scripture to support them if they want to advocate a particular social policy.
This is the kind of concentrated, weapons-grade stupidity that leaves one wondering if the writer was frequently dropped on his head as a child.
Where do the figures for the composition of the Universe come from? From a model which describes how normal matter, dark matter, and dark energy interact with CMB photons to produce anisotropy. Were science not ‘relevant’ to dark matter and dark energy, no such model would exist, and no predictions would be possible.
DJ
Evolution is only a partial explanation for morality, and Dawkins talks about this.
Our large brains were evolved for empathy so that we can cooperate with and survive each-other in groups.
But, big brains and a natural empathy aren’t always enough. Morality also comes from a continuing discussion as a society as to what is right and wrong. Modern morality is the result of an enormous amount of argument, fact-checking, philosophy, deep thinking and hard-knocks.
We are all aware that our moral sense can be co-opted, such that good people can do horrific things. As Dawkins has written, the suicide bombers who flew into the Twin Towers on 9-11, were being moral by their own twisted standards.
Oh and lastly:
Rah! rah! rah! Huzah! Go BA!
I’m always thrilled when I see a defense of secularism. Secularism is one of the most important developments in our history, which has been vital to the development of both science and Western democracies.
We need more people standing up for secularism. Pity we won’t all be able to write as eloquently as the BA.
Humans are not the only species that exhibits moral behaviour. Chimps certainly do, although their morality is nothing like as developed as ours.
“How could natural selection explain such radically different moralities within the same species? I don’t think it can.”
“Different environments. For example, in a food-rich versus a food-scarce environment, entirely different traits will be selected for.”
Take the case of New Zealand. The original inhabitants were the Maoris who were cannibals. English settlers arrived in the early 19th century and established an English colony. Did the English colonists become cannibals? Answer: No. Why not? It’s the same environment. If biological evolution was driving the whole process then the same environment should have produced the same system of morality.
@Andy James:
“Dark matter is not make of angels or demons or gnomes or unicorns. Its going to be an odd form of matter or space time property.”
Considering the ratios of dark matter, dark energy, and “regular” matter. *We’re* the odd form of matter….
“You really should go and read some of the literature of the evolution of morality. You may even come to realise that it is not only humans who show evidence of morality, the other apes do as well.”
And I would suggest that you read or watch Chapter 11 of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” series which is called “The Persistence of Memory”. In this chatper Sagan is careful to distinguish between the gene library controlled by DNA and the brain library which is changeable. On page 278 he says:
“Emotions and ritualized behavior patterns are built deeply into us. They are part of our humanity. But they are not characteristically human. Many other animals have feelings. What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior patterns of lizards and baboons. We are, each of us, largely responsible for what gets put into our brains, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can change ourselves.”
Powerful words from one of the most original thinkers of our species.
“Surely the existence of varying moralities is powerful evidence FOR evolution and AGAINST the hand of God? If morality were divinely sourced, surely it would be identical everywhere and at all times”
Certainly the existence of many mutually contradictory moralities and religions is evidence against the existence of God, although not conclusive. But I fail to see how it supports the theory of evolution unless it can be demonstrated that systems of morality are passed from one generation to the next exclusively through the genes. That does not appear to be the case.
I get so tired of what I call Swiss Army Knife evolutionists who seek to apply the theory of evolution way beyond its intended bounds. Any theory stretched beyond its limits ends up looking silly. For example:
Premise 1: The theory of evolution explains how the human brain evolved
Premise 2: The human brain controls human psychology
Premise 3: Economics is based on human psychology
Premise 4: The price of commodities is part of economics
Premise 5: Chinese wheat is an economic commodity
Conclusion: The theory of evolution can explain the price of wheat in China
Some of the arguments being presented about evolution and human morality strike me in the same vein.
TM: Even scary old Richard Dawkins has written that evolution is not a full explanation for our entire modern morality. Maybe you’re attacking straw men.
Hi, Phil! We’ve never talked before, but I’m often lurking at PZ’s place and I’ve had some fairly intense interaction with Vox in the past. In his post, he asked me for my thoughts about his reply to this post.
I posted the following on both his site and mine:
In brief, I think that Phil’s comments were intemperate and, taken literally, pretty much impossible to defend. He’s on pretty solid ground when he’s talking about the existence of dark matter and dark energy, but his brief on evolutionary biology runs far afield.
I would say that evolutionary biology provides a conceptual framework to evaluate the degree to which ethical principles/cultural mores etc. are consonant with or (more controversially) derived from our biology. It’s a valid research program within evolutionary biology, but to claim that the reigning model in which the program is nested ‘explains’ ethical concepts in and of itself is a rhetorical overreach, likely prompted by his own beliefs.
Anyway, I invite replies to my blog. By the way, as an aside, anyone who can even try to hang with PZ in blogging-related friendly competition is a person I have to tip my hat to. Peace…SH
Um, what astronomers would that be?
Giordano Bruno was burned at a stake because he was an “heretic”, i.e. held opinions contrary to a church. Only 1 out of 8 accusations was about his cosmology.
Galileo Galilei was put in house arrest for the remainder of his life. (Arguably a kind of torture.)
@ Pythor:
I’m not a cosmologist, but AFAIU the analysis behind the cosmological concordance model (essentially microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations, and super nova data) isn’t very sensitive to the details of gravitation theory. And the newly released WMAP 5 year data confirms the predictions of the very simplest model for the third time, with lower uncertainty.
The unexplained spacecraft accelerations of the first link are interesting if they stand up, but it is hard to see how they would affect the concordance model. The MOND theory of the second link isn’t only refuted by the concordance model, direct observations of dark matter such as in the Bullet cluster is IIRC rejecting MOND outright.
What is really interesting with the latest data is that it has started to constrain models of inflation. Among other things simple eternal inflation models are more or less rejected, and the earlier tendency to a negative spatial curvature (which AFAIU in some inflation models hinted at multiverses) is gone making the flat universe model consistent and possibly infinite.
SH (OM).
You’re mostly criticizing the BA for concepts which he left out of a two sentence summary. In short, you’re being a little pedantic.
It’s fine to expand upon the BA’s short summary, but to claim his ignorance based on a couple of sentences is a little overboard.
As far as I know, the BA doesn’t claim to be an expert on evolutionary biology.
Also, if you had read the comments, you would see that some of us have already been discussing this topic.
@ Tom Marking:
First, what do you mean with “evolutionists”? There isn’t any such group in science or society.
Second, a theory doesn’t “intend bounds”. The boundaries of a theory’s applications is set by its ability to make testable predictions, and that is in all cases a knowledge that comes by investigating the theory and its data. For example, your silly chain of “premises”, that really is results, ends as far as evolution goes after the first step. The rest is outside the theory, so your claim (”conclusion”) doesn’t stand up.
Third, if you mean biologists, they don’t tend to suggest untestable claims.
The area that IMHO does this is psychology and sociology, where for example evolutionary psychology and sociobiology seems to be making claims without testing them fully. And yes, so called “just so” stories are both really annoying and points to immaturity of a field. But biology and especially evolution is long since mature.
The environment was changed.
It now had Englishmen in it.
They brought better farming technology, and they also tended to shoot cannibals.
Survival of the best adapted.
In other words, thinking for yourself gets you killed.
It’s barbarism, and you are trying to defend it.
Pythor, the Bullet Cluster put the nail in the coffin of MOND, for one (it was dying pretty well on its own before that, too).
The anomalous acceleration of spacecraft is very interesting, but I don’t think dark matter or a re-evaluation of gravity is in order yet. People are still working on more mundane explanations.
MartinM, the phrase “weapons-grade stupidity” is brilliant. I rarely use such words, but man, I’m sorely tempted.
Scott, in my reply to VoxDay I wasn’t trying to be completely thorough. What I have read of evolutionary biology (Dawkins, PZ, and others) does seem to indicate that our social mores (justice, fairness, etc) were evolutionarily reinforced when we became a tribal species. I’m not saying the door is shut on all that, just that the framework is in place, and therefore it’s not at all correct to say there is no other explanation than God.
I just went and read the copious comments on the Vox article. They’re an interesting mix, I’d say. Some people are dismissive, of course, as you’d expect. Some people are curious about dark matter and energy, others about what I said about evolution. I see my friend lolife jumped in to explain the Dark Twins. Good on ya!
Vox posted a second time, calling me out for my use of evolutionary biology to explain justice et al. I have but a layman’s knowledge of those topics, but I have read about them, and from what I’ve read it is in fact possible to evolve a sense of justice. I’ll have to get PZ involved in this, if he’s willing. Michael Shermer has written about this as well, quite extensively too.
But anyway, I think it’s funny that VoxDay a) didn’t (because he couldn’t) refute what I said about the astronomy aspects of his post, and b) declares by fiat that I am wrong about evolution, without providing any actual rebuttal or evidence. Again, just because he says so doesn’t mean it is so.
Arguing with people like that really is a waste of time, except that they sometimes command an audience, many of whom are capable of learning. I was reticent to wade into Vox’s quagmire of twisted logic, since I’ve seen what he’s done in the past. But he started this by grossly misunderstanding what I wrote, and then grossly misapplying it, and I felt I had to say something. He’ll never figure this stuff out, and more’s the pity. But I’ve had my say.
If someone has any actual data or evidence to rebut what I wrote about evolution, please post it, as I’d like to see it. I actually do want to learn more about the reality of the Universe around us.
“TM: Even scary old Richard Dawkins has written that evolution is not a full explanation for our entire modern morality. Maybe you’re attacking straw men.”
Christian, if it’s a strawman then it’s a strawman of BA’s making, not mine. Note what he said:
“evolutionary biology does in fact explain our concepts of justice, equality, and freedom.”
There was no qualifier “partially” or “incompletely” or anything like that in the original statement. That’s what I was commenting on. BTW, Dawkins doesn’t scare me at all even though he is a jerk personality-wise. I agree with a lot of what he has to say.
“First, what do you mean with “evolutionists”?”
O.K. Evolutionary biologists and their proponents in blogs such as this one if you want to be more precise about it.
“For example, your silly chain of “premises”, that really is results, ends as far as evolution goes after the first step.”
Not so according to the original post. The theory of evolution goes far beyond how the human brain evolved and can now even explain the systems of human morality now in use throughout the world (a claim I am quite skeptical of and hence the chain of “silly” premises).
“Third, if you mean biologists, they don’t tend to suggest untestable claims.”
Where did the claim that evolutionary biology can explain human morality originate from? Was it really from the biologists or maybe from the popularizers? In any case, how do they propose that the new theory be tested and what can falsify it?
Then BA, what about the questions posed to you by Vox Day on his response on his blog?
Now, do provide the scientific evidence for this evolution of justice, equality and freedom, BA.
What was the mechanism of this “evolution”?
How fast did these concepts evolve, and from what?
At what museum may we view the memetic fossil evidence?
And given the clear empirical evidence that a belief in God is hugely beneficial for the rate of human propagation, aren’t you really offering a proof of God here?
Because, taken by your own words you have stated that
evolutionary biology does in fact explain our concepts of justice, equality, and freedom.
And that we have
evolved these concepts as prehistoric humans and the species we evolved from developed into tribal cultures. Those concepts helped ensure our survival, so we adapted to include them in our daily lives.
Since you sound so sure, there should be no problem for you to offer such empirical evidence; otherwise then you should hear yourself more often:
Just because BA says it does, doesn’t mean it does.
TM: You’re being petty. Uh, with respect.
I think we’re all on the same page. Evolution doesn’t explain all the fine-grained details of our morality, but it certainly helps explain the coarse-grained desire for we have to cooperate with one another.
If you doubt that, then you’re choosing to ignore much of anthropology , sociology, psychology and biology, not to mention all the mathematical modeling of how cooperativity has developed.
Our brains were shaped by evolution. It would be surprising if there were any aspect of our shared thinking which doesn’t in some way have an underlying evolutionary or biological rationale.
—————————
BA:
Read both of the following for differing perspectives on how evolution shapes our culture.
Take the red pill and read: ‘The Blank Slate’, by Steven Pinker.
Take the blue pill and read: ‘Guns Germs and Steel’ by Jared Diamond.
Each is the antidote to the other, and it’s dangerous to read one without the other.
Pinker is absolutely convincing regarding the role genetics has on human behavior and morality.
Diamond is absolutely convincing about the role geography has played in the differing technological gains between societies.
“American Religious Right == another Taliban” is the most apt and precise way of describing the situation. They sound sooooooooooooo similar. How I wish some of the fence-sitters listened to that line of reason.
No, it’s an utterly retarded way to put it, and does much harm to the cause of reason and skepticism. Not to mention it demonstrates a near complete ignorance of what the Taliban was really about.
Will you people ever [bleeping] learn that the name calling and hyperbolic comparisons do nothing more than cause the other side (and many of the fence sitters) to circle the wagons? Will you EVER learn this? It happens every time.
You claim to be scientific, but you keep making the same error over and over.
Too many self proclaimed skeptics are very short on actual reasoning capabilities and critical thinking, and I wish you’d go find another hobby because you make it really hard for the rest of us.
Define “outmoded morality?”
Are you suggesting that morality is based on trend, or what?
Clearly, your parent’s definition of morality differed from yours.
Is there ANY standard?
Or do we go with whatever is popular?
Ahhh, the old “America is a Christian country and that’s why we have justice, equality, freedom” canard. As if Christianity itself would invent/promote democracy and basic human rights. No, I’m afraid the evidence is quite the contrary. If you want to examine what happens when you lose secularism, there are several examples presently around the globe…countries which Voxday would surely support. Voxday writes like the typical right-winger xtian who loves all the freedoms and oppotunities American secularism has given him while being quick to declare his hatred for those same values. <Hank Hill>Love it or leave it Voxday!</Hank Hill>.
@Brango
Succinct! (Though I don’t agree that extremism should be laughed off; it’s dangerous and it’s very restriction of discourse does cause death and worse).
@Daffyon
“Because studying Bible verses is easy…studying science is hard.”
Or in this case, ignoring the bible is almost as easy as parroting each each other. Just challenge a YEC to show you where the bible states the age of the earth.
@Tom Mark
“Hmmm, I think that’s very questionable.”
Still, their very survival illustrates the point, no? Morality isn’t inclusive of survival,no two people ever fully agree on morality. Why is it more/less than a facet of social evolution? If you were the last man on Earth, what would morality consist of?
@Carlon
“as time goes, by science explains more and more, until they are left conceding 99.8% of biology to science while ludicrously clinging to the remaining flagellum”
Except that YEC is relatively new. They will always invent new controversy now that they can not rely on being a source of knowledge.
Google: George McCready Price and Henry Morris to see new flagellum.
@Carl
“Surely the existence of varying moralities is powerful evidence FOR evolution and AGAINST the hand of God? If morality were divinely sourced, surely it would be identical everywhere and at all times”
And voila! That’s why we have most of our wars; the omniscient benevolent god of the xtians only cared about Europeans (who became Americans) and apparently had no interest in, say, China. Moslems are exactly the same with slightly changed locations. Nobody invents a religion that claims “God chose somebody else but not us
I find it truly depressing that so much of this debate ends up in name calling and posters on all sides (not all posters) speaking in absolutes. There are no absolutes in science. We are always coming up with better ways to define things, but all explanations (+/- x%) have a margin of error.
It also depresses me that so many posters deny that both religion and science can coexist.
Couldn’t God have created all this with a set of rules that we are supposed to yearn to discover through the curiosity that we were given?
Couldn’t God have created the universe 5K or 6K years ago with all of the evidence in place to indicate that the universe is billions of years old? It seems to me that an all-knowing being could have created the universe one micro-second before I wrote this post, and that all the discussion prior to my post didn’t exist until God created it.
Or maybe God created the universe 13.73 +/- .12 billion years ago, with evidence (of some sort) that indicates it is only 5,000 years old?
And so what, either way? It seems to me that we have curiosity, and that we should use it to discover whatever we can, otherwise it would be a pretty boring existence (in my opinion). And, after all, that may be our purpose in the universe (to discover, not to be bored).
I’m not saying there is a God. I don’t know if there is one, or many, or none. All I’m saying is that neither side is necessarily correct without the other side. And maybe we should all step back and really look at each other as people. warts and all.
Then, maybe, we can have a meaningful discussion.
I do realize that many of the pro-science posts here do not say there is no God. What they argue against is the use of “God” by others to refute scientific observation. I just want us to try to find common ground to discuss this from, not to be right, but to learn and discover.
I’ve been playing with the pigs on this one, and now there’s to the point of saying that a prediction doesn’t count as a prediction if you are hypothesizing about the (future) result of an experiment that would expose something that was objectively already true.
So, for example, the accurate prediction of the location and existence of the Tiktaalik fossil that led directly to a discovery doesn’t count because the fossil was in place before the prediction was made.
They use that to discount, well, most of the predictions ever made in all non-lab-based scientific disciplines.
Sigh.
I swore I would never get into one of these white frat boy college rant sessions after I left college. I can almost see y’all huffin’ and puffin’ over your half-filled plastic beer cups shouting out comments about “hyperChristians” and “death cult of Jesus”, etc.
Bottom line, science roolz and y’all are going extinct. Why? You don’t make babies, and the Muslims and evil Christians and Jews do. “God” tells them to.
You manufacture and live in such a materialistic, mechanistic, consumerist world that your own women don’t want to bear your children, they would rather scr*w a vibrating battery-powered plastic stick if they want to come rather than take a risk at having more than 1.2 of your children, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 kids.
You are right in one respect: humans are just animals and have the moral significance in the Universe (sans God) of pond scum. Thing is, having established that, your women don’t want to collectively waste their lives squirting out and raising the moral equivalent of pond scum when the alternative is Having Sex, Eating Food, and Buying Fun Stuff.
PS: You have already sold Vox Day. He has no wife, no kids and will likely die childless is some SRO, passionately punching away at a computer keyboard just like y’all.
Big Bill:
You are so right about everything except Vox Day. He has a beautiful and intelligent blond supermodel wife and some kids, one of whom has already written a book, and lives in a villa on a lake in Italy, sipping amaretto and driving a Lamberghini.
.
The Second Law of Conservation of Energy prevents this blog from existing. So there !!!
Even scary old Richard Dawkins has written that evolution is not a full explanation for our entire modern morality.
—
Because it is not and cannot. This is why the field of “evolutionary psychology” is not one of my faves. Evolutionary cause and effect needs to be examined at the macro scale using statistical probability over extreme time scales. The theory of evolution does not and cannot explain most facets of modern human behavior.
Big Bill -
So how much time did you just spend punching away at a computer keyboard to pick on any of us punching away at a computer keyboard? Ever been hit by an irony board?
Was there a point in any of your off-topic rant that came close to adding to the discussion? If not… why oh why did you even bother wasting your time? Seems like such a fruitless exercise for one so enlightened as yourself to take the time to berate and belittle us dopes and tell us about why “our women” won’t mate with us (one of the funnier posts I’ve read here in a while by the way… thanks for the chuckle)… by the way, you speak of “our women”… are you of another species? Or do you have your own set of women?
“Our brains were shaped by evolution. It would be surprising if there were any aspect of our shared thinking which doesn’t in some way have an underlying evolutionary or biological rationale.”
Christian, since you seem to be familiar with the works of Steven Pinker then I would suggest you check out what he has to say about the concept of exaptation - which is the usage of an organ for a purpose different than the purpose it was evolved for. “How the Mind Works”, pp 36-37, pp 169-172, p 301 has a good discussion on the topic.
Basically, in the case of the human brain we see that it can play chess, solve calculus problems, program a digital computer, etc., etc. These are all exaptations because all of these abilities were totally non-adaptive in the environment in which the human brain evolved (i.e., Pleistocene era Ice Age or savannah environment). So in other words, the fact that the human brain can do these things is an accidental byproduct of its abilities to do other behaviors in the past which were adaptive. I think it’s highly probable that modern religion and modern morality are also exaptations and are not directly evolved features of the brain.
“they would rather scr*w a vibrating battery-powered plastic stick if they want to come rather than take a risk at having more than 1.2 of your children”
Truly obnoxious poster. Is this one of Vox’s guys or did he crawl out from underneath some random rock somewhere?
Here’s a funny bit for Big Bill - my husband and I are raising two sons. Both adopted, of course - my posted name is my actual name. Yup, two men, married to each other, raising two boys. Imagine the cumulative cultural impact that could have. They’re being raised to consider intelligence, honesty, courtesy, curiousity, courage, integrity, decency and a healthy sense of humor as cultural values - oh yes, and love for your family, neighbors and friends.
The horror, the horror! And in closing, what was that bumf about
‘your own women’? The good old traditional-cultural division between human beings and women? Check your calendar, it’s 2008.
Don’t forget that according to Vox Day’s theology, angels and daemons are fighting out bloody invisible battles with supernatural machine guns all around us all the time. His grappling with science is all just his part in that epic struggle, where he’s playing the part of John Rambo and Jesus all in one.
In other words, Phil, you’re not even fighting remotely the same battle as he is.
“# Lugosion 08 Mar 2008 at 9:52 am
For centuries the church maintained that the sun revolved around the Earth. And when some astronomers first dared suggest that it was actually the other way around, they were tortured or sentenced to death for heresy. Yet in the end truth and reason won out, and we now accept (well, most of us do) that it is the Earth that revolves around the sun.”
foolish secular atheist!
http://blogs4brownback.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/heliocentrism-is-an-atheist-doctrine/#comment-67968
http://blogs4brownback.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/heliocentrism-is-an-atheist-doctrine/#comment-67968
The mere mention of “Vox Day” and his “Vox Popoli” blog should show his ignorance.
Spelled properly, “Vox populi, vox dei” is an anti-religious saying. It reminds us that the proclamations of “god” are really only what people want.
[…] Now the odious Vox Day is ranting about how the discovery of dark matter and dark energy refute “rational materialist philosophy,” because somehow it ties into the inapplicability of naturalism to “justice, equality, and freedom”. Phil Plait quite rightly slams him back. […]
Olorin,
The full quote from Wikipedia:
“And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.”
Just to note logical distinctions.
Voxday’s argument seems to be
(a) the nature of the universe determines questions of ethics and social order.
(b) contemporary secularist thought depends on the authority physical science.
(c) however physical science has shown that it grasps only 5% of the physical universe, so it’s 95% false.
Now (c) is patently nuts on its own terms, and exhibits the deep epistemological instability of this kind of anti-scientist, who at one moment denies the authority of science and at the next moment invokes it. It’s an obvious target of mockery and wonderment.
But there is no reason to accept (a) or (b) either, on which Phil agrees with Voxday.
There’s a crucial waffle in Phil’s “evolutionary biology does in fact explain our concepts of justice, equality, and freedom.” There is a long history of people using stories about animals to talk about people, and sociobiology is the latest episode in that history. It is dead easy to construct hundreds of explanations linking anything people do to stories about monkeys, much harder to demonstrate the truth of those explanations, and you generally find that sociobiologists have aprioristically smuggled in an axiom that everything in the cultural, meanings-making sphere must have a noncultural explanation.
And the fact that most of y’all are both secularists and natural scientists leads to a somewhat uncritical conflation of the two. The intellectual and political history is a lot more complex than that.
John Armstrong: “The Establishment Clause (one of many in the First Amendment) was not written in the Constitution originally. That’s why it was amended.”
hmmm … do you intend the imply that amendments are of less importance than the original content?
I hope not.
Actually, Vox doesn’t agree with Phil. At all. None of it reflects my beliefs, I was simply following the logic suggested by his original post. Why do people constantly confuse my mocking of obvious illogic with my own beliefs? When I point out that the correct logical conclusion of Sam Harris’s extinction equation is that science should be eliminated, I’m neither stating a personal belief that science should be eliminated nor accepting Harris’s equation, I’m simply pointing out that Harris is can’t handle basic logic and his extinction equation is stupid.
I neither know much nor care at all about dark whatever. I don’t believe that it is God, Spirit Energy or the hammer Mjolnir - although I’d be curious to know how scientists are certain it is not the hammer Mjolnir. It seems that Phil carelessly misspoke several times, not only about evolution, but also in setting up a contradiction between the actual observations of that which cannot be sensed in any way. If it is material and can be observed, then it is fodder for rational materialism.
Of course, Phil still hasn’t shown how belief in the existence of certain abstract concepts can be justified by rational materialist philosophy while the existence of others are rejected. Is equality best categorized as normal matter, dark matter or dark energy?
Oh Vox, you really don’t get it do you?
Where did I say matter had anything to do with equality? You were the one conflating our not knowing what makes up dark matter and energy with abstract concepts of justice and equality, not me. And you were wrong in your premise and your application.
And after posting on your own blog, on PZ’s, and here, you still haven’t rebutted anything I wrote with any actual evidence. You just claim I’m wrong, and that’s that.
So how about it? Care to actually defend yourself?
A J Ayer, the famous empiricist, defended empiricism and materialism while attacking rational thought. Why? Because rational thought supported empiricism, but disproved materialism. So empiricism, which is a valid technique and not a worldview or philosophy, was seen to be rational, while materialism, which is a worldview and a philosophy which is unsupportable both empirically and rationally, is not rational. Is rational thought wrong, or is materialism wrong?
So Ayer, in his zeal to preserve the worldview of materialism, denied rational thought, and set out to destroy it in his book, “Truth Language and Logic”. Later in life, Ayer came to refute much of his position against rational thought, while still not accepting it.
Materialism is not rational; it is a parasitic worldview on empiricism and is damaging to it.
Oh no Big Bill. You’d better wash up. You might catch “teh gay” from reading about old evil Robert and he fulfilling the damned homosexual agenda.
Serious big bill that was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read. I’ll have you know that I use that battery power stick on my wife as well as my own non plastic one.
Grow up. That few sentences of foul smelling vomit you just threw up on the internet was neither accurate or based in anything but your own little dark fantasies.
“Of course, Phil still hasn’t shown how belief in the existence of certain abstract concepts can be justified by rational materialist philosophy while the existence of others are rejected. Is equality best categorized as normal matter, dark matter or dark energy?”
-Why is the burden on Phil to show that belief in “abstract concepts” is consistent with materialism? There are mountains of philosophical litterature that have conclusively argued for this point. Look, for instance, at Rudolf Carnap’s 1950 essay “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology,” which does a fantastic job of showing that we can believe in the existence of abstract entites on a completely empirical basis.
Why we must categorize abstract entities as a type of matter in order to be materialists is unclear to me. Hasn’t Vox ever heard of the notion of emergence? Why couldn’t abstract entities like our conception of equality and justice simply emerge from the physical world? If the view that Phil presented, i.e. the view that evolutionary psychology holds, then abstract concepts like equality and justice EMERGE from evolutionary processes, specifically the evolutionary history of humanity. Of course our conception of justice isn’t a kind of matter and so it’s not material, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t exist a mechanism in the physical world by which the concept of justice arose in a completely natural way.
If you are saying that God created the universe 6010 years ago (or last Thursday) and planted evidence throughout it that it’s actually 13.7 billion years old, you are saying God is a liar…
The French have managed to raise their birth rate to 2.1 children per woman. That’s right, the godless French. How? Through socialism. *mwa ha ha ha haaaaah…* You see, some people — many people, in fact — actually want to have children, so if you provide kindergarten places, crèches and the like, they’ll have children, and that’s what is happening.
Test: &263;
(That’s the HTML entity for the letter at the end of my name.)
———————
Care to explain?
There’s surprisingly little he has ever heard of…
Oops: ć
This should work.
Yep, does.
@ Tom Marking:
Fine. But the problem is that this isn’t a social group. Most educated people would support science when they get around to it, and evolution is biology. It is a label that creationists (a group defined by their beliefs) like to smear on others, which is why I reacted.
Yes, evolution explains some of the underpinnings of morality. But that is a set of predictions from the theory (kin selection et cetera). Your chain of premises are not - you can derive the conclusion as a prediction from the original theory.
Ah, a fair, reasonable and relevant question!
IANAB, and don’t know the status of these theories, but perhaps references here can help. As Phil says, evolutionary biologists like Dawkins, PZ, et cetera indicates this.
And frankly, as other related species shows the same type of moral behavior, it is much easier to accept that evolution predisposes us for morality than that each species learns this as their cultural behavior.
One thing I do know, is that recent research shows that chimps are better rational agents in the economical sense than humans. (It is googleable.) IIRC they haven’t evolved to be so altruistic as humans. It is now established in other research that humans have evolved much the last 40 ky and especially the 10 ky since agriculture and settlements become important, so a differing degree of altruism between species aren’t all that brow raising IMHO.
@ Stan:
“Materialism” is, I believe, a theological concept, or at least beloved by apologists.
Most scientists are realists (there is a stable reality, as our observations suggests) AFAIU, and statistics says most are “monists”/atheists (there is only one coherent set of laws, as our observations suggests).
These observations seems rational to me, and I have to assume to the scientists who individually comes to such conclusions. It seems more irrational to use other systems alongside the empirical, such as taking ideas of supernaturalistic dualism seriously.
You can’t derive
Re A Philosophy Student (09 Mar 2008 at 4:57 pm):
Carnap’s Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology.
Having read the first half of Vox Days book, and subsequently having perused the comments regarding it on the dawkins website I now find a curious similiarity in the comments here. A lot of irrational diatribes and very little substanatial discourse. (Basically, a lot of Christian haters. Just an observation.) I guess I can add some inconsequential musings myself.
Now I am not qualified to comment on dark matter or dark meat, for that matter, but I can put in my 2 cents regarding one paragraph from the article.
“The US, despite claims by the far right, actually was and is built on a secular basis, and that is not only written in the Constitution, but in the very first right it lays out. ”
I have met very few on the right, or left for that matter, that would disagree that the Constitution is a secular document, all anti-right hysteria notwithstanding. However, to say that the US, meaning the “United States” were built on a secular basis is simply incorrect IMHO. I believe it is safe to say that the several states were federated under a secular constitution, but most of the states themselves had plenty to say regarding religion.
* The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 restricted public office to all but Protestants by its religious test/oath.
* The Delaware Constitution of 1776 demanded an acceptance of the Trinity by its religious test/oath.
* The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 had a similar test/oath.
* The Maryland Constitution of 1776 had such a test/oath.
* The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 had a test/oath that restricted all but Protestants from public office.
* The Georgia Constitution of 1777 used an oath/test to screen out all but Protestants.
* The Vermont state charter/constitution of 1777 echoed the Pennsylvania Constitution regarding a test/oath.
* The South Carolina Constitution of 1778 had such a test/oath allowing only Protestants to hold office.
* The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 and New Hampshire Constitution of 1784 restricted such office holders to Protestants.
* Only Virginia and New York did not have such religious tests/oaths during this time period.
( http://candst.tripod.com/cnstntro.htm)
I think it is safe to say that the states wanted to keep matters of religion to themselves and not have some higher government dictate to them anything regarding religion. Hence “Congress shall make not law…”. ‘Congress’ being the operational word here. Combine that with that business about limited powers that are enumerated and you start to get the picture. People didn’t want a federal government messing with their religion. That didn’t mean that they were necessarily opposed to a state government having some latitude in that regard.
You may wonder of what relevance is that at all to dark matter and dark energy. None whatsoever. However, I was wondering. If the “Normal” matter/energy is 4.62% of the Universe and the rest is “Dark” wouldn’t that make the “Dark” part normal and the rest “Light”? At least more normal. I mean, we don’t go to China and say that there are .05% “normal” people and the rest are Chinese, do we? What goes on in the “dark” part anyway? Who lives there and what do they believe? Do they hate Christians too?
By the way. I went to Church today myself. Can you believe it! All the Pastor wanted to talk about was how we should try to be the best people we can be. Oh, and he kept going on about feeding some starving children, as if we were supposed to pony up some of our hard earned cash or something. I mean, what is my secular government for if not to feed the starving children. Why should I bother. Funny part is that a bunch of those idiots buy into that stuff and cough up cash just to send to some brats in Mexico. Shouldn’t natural selection be left alone? Go figure. Well, gotta go. It’s been fun.
Not saying I support this position but this is a very interesting article which points out the flaws in the evolutionary arguments concerning morality:
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5237
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So, in abbreviated form, the reasoning goes like this: I ought to be unselfish because it is better for the group, which is better for the species, which is better for me. So why ought I be unselfish? Because it is better for me. But looking at what is better for me, is selfishness. So all of this so-called description of where morality comes from, gets reduced to this ludicrous statement: I morally ought to be unselfish so that I can be more thoroughly selfish. That is silly. Because we know that morality can’t be reduced to selfishness. Why do we know that? Because our moral rules are against selfishness and for altruism. They are against selfishness and for the opposite. When you think about what it is that morality entails, you don’t believe that morality is really about being selfish. Morality is about being unselfish, or at least it entails that. Which makes my point that this description, based on evolution, does not do the job. It doesn’t explain what it is supposedly meant to explain. It doesn’t explain morality. It is simply reduced to a promotion of selfishness which isn’t morality at all.
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All this armchair discussion about ‘morality’ misses the point entirely. Morals don’t actually exist. Morals, morality, etc are simply flashwords like ‘traditional family’. It’s an illusion.
Now what does exist are behaviours, animal behaviours. Behaviours that are present in every single primate species. Our opinion of these behaviours within our society we call morals. But the ‘morals’ are rally just opinions on natural behaviours within the group. Some lead to group harmony, safety, and success others disharmony, danger, and failure.
It is easy to see and ,using other animals as a guide, envision/test a selection process which weeds out less desirable behaviour in favor of desirable behaviour.
Your opinion of these behaviours is why the same behaviour may be ok in one society and not ok in another despite being identical in reality.
Humans act as humans do worldwide. Only the opinions change. But to debate where ‘morality’ comes from rather misses the point.
JimC is exactly right:
Morality is defined primarily (as my cursory dictionary delve shows) as a system of morals, the quality of being in accord with such a system, and good conduct itself (presumably as defined by the aforementioned system). Morals in that sense are principles or rules “of, pertaining to, or concerned with” good behaviour. “Good” of course being subjective, and therefore subject to change. [Consider that a Reference For Emphasis/Truth]
Tom Marking’s link to that Stand to Reason transcript unfortunately does not deliver as advertised. Though interestingly, however condescending it’s intended to sound, this is actually pretty close to the naturalistic conclusion:
“That which we think is morality, or that which we call morality, turns out to be a description of animals conditioned by their environment to act in certain ways that benefit the survival of the species. We have just given that conduct a label. We call it morality. That is offered as a sufficient, adequate and complete description of how the behavior that we call moral behavior actually came about.”
Well, the last sentence is pretty presumptuous, and it wou