This is a dialog from a blog thread yesterday, if it continues I’ll add that at the bottom. Note, this is with “Dan L.” who shouldn’t be confused with my frequent opponent “ Dan S.” Also note, I give the definition of “materialism” at the beginning which has always been what I understood the ideology to consist of. I didn’t realize Dan L is a mathematician before posing the question to him, I did know he was defending materialism. I had earlier said that I didn’t think that we could limit the universe to materialism and that, while I thought the biggest reason for rejecting Dualism was that it was unfashionable, I could see no inherent problem with the idea, though I don’t take that position or Idealism either.
AM — I'll pose a problem to you that I posed elsewhere. If by "materialism" you mean the belief that only those things within the material universe are real, consider this. Think of a number, let's say in the set of Real numbers, that is a trillion, trillion powers bigger than the number of individual entities in the physical universe, every subatomic particle, every everything. A number a trillion, trillion times bigger than whatever number that is. Is that number contained within the material universe? In what way is it contained in the material universe? Is it real? Is there a number even larger than that which, eventually, even you could not account for being in the material universe? Please explain in a way that will convince a skeptic of materialism as opposed to a true believer.
And there are other barriers to clarity on the issue of materialism. That's just one
Dan L.---- I think the anxiety and confusion such questions cause actually comes down to the fact that words like "exist" and "real" are notoriously hard to define. For example, the assertion, "I exist" is terribly problematic whatever Descartes might have to say about it. The atoms in my body are constantly recycled, as are the cells. New memories are constantly being added, and my beliefs and desires change as a function of new experiences in my life. To borrow from Nietzsche, "to be" is not the correct verb - it is "to become." This is connected to what I was saying to Mike about problems with intuitive notions of causality.
Another example: the U.S.S Constitution, moored right across the harbor from me, has at most one piece of wood left of the original ship. Is it still the same ship it was during the Revolutionary War? It has the same name and the hull was refurbished one board at a time as needed. I say there is a sense in which it is the same thing (the U.S.S Constitution) and a sense in which it is not (the physical matter of which it is composed has been recycled).
Similarly, there is a sense in which numbers exist and a sense in which they don't exist. Think about trying to make a perfect circle from a material substrate. Since the substrate is composed of a finite number of atoms, you can never get the ratio of the circumference to the diameter to be pi. It will always be a rational number. There is a sense in which pi exists and a sense in which it does not - we can calculate its value to an arbitrary degree of precision in principle, but in practice we actually can't.
As I've been trying to get across, I'm not really a reductionist. See my example in my response to Mike above - I don't believe knowledge can in principle be reduced to statements about subatomic particles. But I don't think the fact that we can talk intelligibly about abstractions makes souls, deities, or the flying spaghetti monster any more coherent as elements of causal models.
AM ---- What do you mean by "materailism" if it isn't that classic definition? Is there a coherent definition for "materialism", one that would be self-apparent to a reasonable person who was given that definition? If there isn't, then I'd contend that materialism wasn't real in any but a subjective sense, which wouldn't bother me but I'd imagine some materialists might have a rather strong emotional reaction to the idea.
Is there a number so large that there would exceed a definable one-to-one correspondence with the actual number of physical entities in the material universe? Would that number be a part of the material universe? Would that number be real? You know, when I really want to be a pain, I make it a rational number and then ask how it could be represented as a ratio. I've never actually had to duck after doing that yet.
I'd like an explanation of why that question isn't a valid one.
I believe the FSM is copyrighted and maybe even trademarked, and I do believe the creator of it is known. I don't think any souls and no supernatural deities have such a clear historical foundation. Gogol notwithstanding.
Dan L. — There's no coherent definition for "materialism" any more than there is for "dualism," which is usually taken to include various forms of animism and similarly "primitive" beliefs despite the fact that such beliefs bear little resemblance to scholastic Christianity. The categories are fuzzy. My philosophical beliefs are largely influenced by Dennett, but I don't agree with him on everything either.
The core of it, though, is that I reject dualism. I reject causal explanations that invoke immaterial causes. I have several reasons for doing so, but the most obvious is something that occurred to me by the age of twelve: that if the supernatural actually exists, then it is part of nature and therefore natural. If human intelligence is really mediated through a soul, then that soul must be able to transfer or transduce energy either by applying a force or through other means.
And there is no evidence that such a thing happens, or that it is a necessary element of any explanation of human behavior or any other natural event. Positing such things is completely extraneous to the goal of actually learning about how things work. Either you posit an entity whose existence we can verify through falsifiable experimental hypotheses, or you posit an entity that is by definition impossible to study. The latter is not science; it cannot be science; it is, in fact, antithetical to science.
Is there a number so large that there would exceed a definable one-to-one correspondence with the actual number of physical entities in the material universe? Would that number be a part of the material universe? Would that number be real? You know, when I really want to be a pain, I make it a rational number and then ask how it could be represented as a ratio. I've never actually had to duck after doing that yet.
Asking whether numbers exist is, to me, like asking whether I could put a particular build of Microsoft Windows in the freezer. Microsoft Windows isn't a thing; it's a pattern of behaviors that occur within an electronic device of a particular architecture. It does not exist corporeally, it exists functionally. To ask me to put it in a freezer is a simple category mistake. There is an abstract sense of existence, in which we can talk perfectly coherently about unicorns, and then there is an actual state of existence in which there is no such thing as unicorns. Likewise, we can talk about pi, the ratio of the circumference of a perfect circle to its diameter, even though there is no such thing as a perfect circle. And again, none of this implies the existence of a soul or a god or anything else "supernatural."
AM – @ Dan L. Asking whether numbers exist is, to me, like asking whether I could put a particular build of Microsoft Windows in the freezer. Microsoft Windows isn't a thing; it's a pattern of behaviors that occur within an electronic device of a particular architecture. It does not exist corporeally, it exists functionally. To ask me to put it in a freezer is a simple category mistake. Dan L.
So we have non-corporeal entities that seem to be relevant to the material universe, I'd imagine you would agree, at least to the extent that you can explain physical phenomena with math, in fact, science is about entirely dependent on doing so, at times with great accuracy. I'd guess you wouldn't hazard to explain that interaction between the material and the non-corporeal, would you? Would the numbers exist without the material universe? But if they can't then that makes my big numbers question all the more relevant. Does that number exist and if it doesn't wouldn't that mean that there are a finite number of numbers? Maybe that property of the numbers system is just an invented myth? Do you really want to go there?
I've never thought of this before, has anyone ever described a computer program as an artificial natural law? One that governs forces towards a, one hopes, relatively fixed end? Maybe the role that numbers play in those might help, or maybe not, since those are artificial and not natural but a merely mimic the actual universe. Maybe "phony natural laws" would be a better term.
Come to think of it "actual universe" might be a more inclusive term than "natural universe". Who knows? Maybe it might get some materialists out of a rut?
- There is an abstract sense of existence, in which we can talk perfectly coherently about unicorns, and then there is an actual state of existence in which there is no such thing as unicorns.
Unicorns were alleged to exist in the physical world, you were supposed to be able to trap one because they would put their head in the lap of a virgin. They were not alleged to be suprenatural or abstract. And now you're giving me two senses of existence, though I don't see how unicorns are at all relevant to numbers, what properties do they share in common? Certainly not in that one is a made up story and the other is rather useful to science and other areas of real life.
- Likewise, we can talk about pi, the ratio of the circumference of a perfect circle to its diameter, even though there is no such thing as a perfect circle. And again, none of this implies the existence of a soul or a god or anything else "supernatural."
I haven't implied that numbers are implications of the existence of a supernatural, as far as I know, our only means of knowing them is in relation to the natural part of that "actual universe" that I'm liking more as this comment develops. I don't think we have any idea if numbers would be relevant to the supernatural, just as we would have no reason to insist that logic or science would be relevant to it. There is absolutely no evidence that any of those would apply. All I wanted to do is explore the idea of real things that aren't contained in the material universe and I'm doubting numbers are the more I think about it. At least unless they got that infinity thing wrong. Wouldn't that be fun.
- Logic is prior to mathematics because you cannot do mathematics without logic.
Logic is the product of human experience of the material universe. In his Swathmore Lecture, Eddington said, "Mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience; all else is remote inference." Logic is the product of the human experience of the world. It has no known existence outside of us, we have no idea of any other animals in the universe use logic, it could be peculiar to us, a peculiar feature of our minds using our brains to reach and interact with the outside world. Maybe we're just interfaces, hum?
- If human intelligence is really mediated through a soul, then that soul must be able to transfer or transduce energy either by applying a force or through other means.
Why not? as I said there isn't any reason to believe that what we know about physical laws would govern any supernatural, there isn't any reason to believe that would be a necessity in the supernatural. There isn't any reason to think that a supernatural wouldn't be able to apply force to the material world. Many religions assert that what we do in the physical world has an effect on our souls in the supernatural, after all.
- Positing such things is completely extraneous to the goal of actually learning about how things work.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "learning how things work". I don't see that this is an absolutely necessary conclusion. Maybe it's, actually, intrinsic to the way in which we, as individual beings, are conscious in the material universe. No one has ever explained how we are conscious of the physical universe, we don't just reflect what's out there like a mirror.
- Either you posit an entity whose existence we can verify through falsifiable experimental hypotheses, or you posit an entity that is by definition impossible to study. The latter is not science; it cannot be science; it is, in fact, antithetical to science.
I never thought it was science, I'd say it's outside of the proper subject matter of science, the material universe being the only thing that science was invented to study. I think you've got the cart before the horse, too. Falsifiability is a tool of science to test ideas, it's not a test of usefulness or even the existence of something, it's a tool to test the usefulness of an idea about things.
If I wasn't tired I'd think of a dozen things that couldn't be falsified that you'd really rather not do without, actual existence, for a starter, though the separation of church and state is one of my favorites in this argument and the foundation of the entirety of civil rights and democratic government. And I think you might want to take up Exobiology and Evo-psy in that regard, in which case prepare yourself to do battle with, I'd guess, the larger part of the world council of new atheism. Certainly the blog contingent. Remember to be sufficiently pious while you're debunking them or you'll catch it.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
During The Rain Delay
A cleaned up comment
Note: I really, really wish the new atheists would get a few new hobby horses to bring up because this has been done to death.
Steven Sullivan, the question, which some new atheists, including Lawrence Krauss brought up and not me, was The Virgin Birth of Jesus. It wasn't any other one, it was that one. Remember that, I didn't choose the proposition for discussion the new atheists did.
In logic, when you are dealing with a proposition, you deal with THE PROPOSITION AS IT IS PROPOSED, that proposition chosen by these new atheists is the Christian belief in The Virgin Birth of Jesus.
That the new atheists, once they have proposed that topic, find that they have been unwise enough to choose a belief that was defined by the writers of two gospels and those who believe those two accounts, in a way that puts it beyond the reach of science, have only shown their own lack of insight and foresight. I'll deal with that below.
This inevitably leads them to find they are unhappy with their choice if they find their opponent is logical enough to be able to point that out to them and insist that they stick to their own, chosen proposition in the argument.
The continually manifested habit of trying to change the proposition mid-argument, which I've never not found to be the recourse of the new atheist who finds themselves unable to press their point using science, doesn't do anything but show that they want to twist the requirements of logic to suit their own ends, which is what they are continually accusing religious believers of doing.
Then the new atheist begins asserting that the person they are arguing with is a Christian who is probably some species of biblical fundamentalist who is, no doubt, a creationist-snake handler who deprives children of medical care, thus causing their early deaths. When you point out that you are not and fully accept evolution as deeply established and that you, yourself, don't happen to believe in The Virgin Birth but do happen to believe in the rules of both logic and the requirements necessary to practice science, they really lose it.
I will say that, this month, having to think through this and the other favorite proposition of new atheists, The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, I'm pretty impressed that the writers of the gospels and the early Christians, who are generally considered as superstitious idiots by new atheists , for some reason came to a far better understanding of the difference between believing in something and knowing something in a scientific sense, than many contemporary scientists and mathematicians. Some of whom are, actually, otherwise quite sensible.
Considering scientific methods hadn't been formally developed and would have almost certainly been unknown to those simple folk, their insight is rather more impressive than that held by many well known scientists today.
Note: I really, really wish the new atheists would get a few new hobby horses to bring up because this has been done to death.
Steven Sullivan, the question, which some new atheists, including Lawrence Krauss brought up and not me, was The Virgin Birth of Jesus. It wasn't any other one, it was that one. Remember that, I didn't choose the proposition for discussion the new atheists did.
In logic, when you are dealing with a proposition, you deal with THE PROPOSITION AS IT IS PROPOSED, that proposition chosen by these new atheists is the Christian belief in The Virgin Birth of Jesus.
That the new atheists, once they have proposed that topic, find that they have been unwise enough to choose a belief that was defined by the writers of two gospels and those who believe those two accounts, in a way that puts it beyond the reach of science, have only shown their own lack of insight and foresight. I'll deal with that below.
This inevitably leads them to find they are unhappy with their choice if they find their opponent is logical enough to be able to point that out to them and insist that they stick to their own, chosen proposition in the argument.
The continually manifested habit of trying to change the proposition mid-argument, which I've never not found to be the recourse of the new atheist who finds themselves unable to press their point using science, doesn't do anything but show that they want to twist the requirements of logic to suit their own ends, which is what they are continually accusing religious believers of doing.
Then the new atheist begins asserting that the person they are arguing with is a Christian who is probably some species of biblical fundamentalist who is, no doubt, a creationist-snake handler who deprives children of medical care, thus causing their early deaths. When you point out that you are not and fully accept evolution as deeply established and that you, yourself, don't happen to believe in The Virgin Birth but do happen to believe in the rules of both logic and the requirements necessary to practice science, they really lose it.
I will say that, this month, having to think through this and the other favorite proposition of new atheists, The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, I'm pretty impressed that the writers of the gospels and the early Christians, who are generally considered as superstitious idiots by new atheists , for some reason came to a far better understanding of the difference between believing in something and knowing something in a scientific sense, than many contemporary scientists and mathematicians. Some of whom are, actually, otherwise quite sensible.
Considering scientific methods hadn't been formally developed and would have almost certainly been unknown to those simple folk, their insight is rather more impressive than that held by many well known scientists today.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The Challenge To Subject The Virgin Birth of Jesus To The Methods of Science
In the discussion over Lawrence Krauss' op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the new atheists, as they almost invariably do brought up The Virgin Birth of Jesus. Here's the challenge that Krauss issued, as he described it in his piece:
When I confronted my two Catholic colleagues on the panel with the apparent miracle of the virgin birth and asked how they could reconcile this with basic biology, I was ultimately told that perhaps this biblical claim merely meant to emphasize what an important event the birth was. Neither came to the explicit defense of what is undeniably one of the central tenets of Catholic theology.
Here's the claim as made by one "MadScientist:
– Krauss never suggests that science move out of its own realm; what he is saying is that claims such as the virgin birth do not conform to what we know of the world. The claim of a virgin birth is essentially hearsay. MadScientist
One of the often made boasts of scientists is that they are required by science to back up their claims with the evidence attained through sound methodology. Well, let's see them do it in this case. Here's the challenge I issued in response.
Then it’s up to any scientist claiming that they can address The Virgin Birth of Jesus, as described in the gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke and actually believed by those who believe it, and not in a modified version so science can be made ez, to show how they could do it. They have to do it with absolutely no physical evidence, through an unknown range of possible mechanisms, and without recourse to any other human birth since it is held by its believers to have happened in that way exactly once in the entire course of history.
If you accept this assignment, please have your methodology and proof in by next Tuesday. You can feel free to post it on the last comment of my blog which you can reach by clicking on my name.
If anyone can produce a method that takes in all of those aspects, I’ll gladly announce that I’ve been stumped. But only if it addresses what is actually believed by those who believe it. Which I don’t happen to for historical and literary reasons.
I'll keep you posted on the results. If there are any.
I should add that I fully believe in the allegorical truth of the story. But I'll save that for the Christmas season.
When I confronted my two Catholic colleagues on the panel with the apparent miracle of the virgin birth and asked how they could reconcile this with basic biology, I was ultimately told that perhaps this biblical claim merely meant to emphasize what an important event the birth was. Neither came to the explicit defense of what is undeniably one of the central tenets of Catholic theology.
Here's the claim as made by one "MadScientist:
– Krauss never suggests that science move out of its own realm; what he is saying is that claims such as the virgin birth do not conform to what we know of the world. The claim of a virgin birth is essentially hearsay. MadScientist
One of the often made boasts of scientists is that they are required by science to back up their claims with the evidence attained through sound methodology. Well, let's see them do it in this case. Here's the challenge I issued in response.
Then it’s up to any scientist claiming that they can address The Virgin Birth of Jesus, as described in the gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke and actually believed by those who believe it, and not in a modified version so science can be made ez, to show how they could do it. They have to do it with absolutely no physical evidence, through an unknown range of possible mechanisms, and without recourse to any other human birth since it is held by its believers to have happened in that way exactly once in the entire course of history.
If you accept this assignment, please have your methodology and proof in by next Tuesday. You can feel free to post it on the last comment of my blog which you can reach by clicking on my name.
If anyone can produce a method that takes in all of those aspects, I’ll gladly announce that I’ve been stumped. But only if it addresses what is actually believed by those who believe it. Which I don’t happen to for historical and literary reasons.
I'll keep you posted on the results. If there are any.
I should add that I fully believe in the allegorical truth of the story. But I'll save that for the Christmas season.
Monday, June 22, 2009
The Kind of Religious Hypocrisy That Is Entirely Fair Game
And why the New Atheists might really want to dump the rehabilitation of Herbert Spencer
Cynthia Davis, chair of the Missouri House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families is proof that the putrid ideas of Herbert Spencer and the Social Darwinists are not only alive, their true believers have political power.
Her recent legislative newsletter contains a detailed critique of a summer food program for children who receive subsidized meals during the school year. As full of double-talk as it does the a callous view of hungry children, Davis is a clear example of the reason Spencer shouldn’t be rehabilitated in an ill thought out defense of Charles Darwin.
In her own words, here are some low lights
- Is school the only place a child can get a nutritious meal? Parents have good reason to dispute the idea that their children will not receive a nutritious meal if they are not in a government institution. Who should be the one to pass judgment on what defines a nutritious meal?
- They are using a "crisis" to create an expansion of a government program. [Note: a fifth of Missouri children are believed to be in danger of hunger according to a federal report, apparently that’s not enough of a “crisis” for Cynthia Davis and the Republicans of Missouri who put her in this post.]
- This is not a discussion of how to handle the public orphanage. These are children who have parents already providing meals for their children. This program could have an unintended consequence of diminishing parental involvement. Why have meals at home with your loved ones if you can go to the government soup kitchen and get one for free? This could have the effect of breaking apart more families.
- Who's buying dinner? Who is getting paid to serve the meal? Churches and other non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer if it is warranted. That is what they did when Louisiana had a hurricane. [I am assuming everyone capable of reading this realizes this is a whopper of a lie, considering what happened to those the government didn’t get help to after Katrina. Churches have never been able to make up for what only government can do. Churches have always been among the strongest supporters these kinds of government programs.]
- This is also an entitlement program with no cap on how much can be spent. In the early 1900's the average family paid about $20.00 per person per year for taxes. That left a great deal for our citizens to engage in acts of charity and helping poor neighbors who needed a meal.
- When churches offer a meal, they can serve the individual with a sense of love and caring for those less fortunate. Government cannot match that. Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another.
- While nobody is disputing the benefits of nutritious food, why the presumption that parents are not providing nutritious food for their children? Even if they are not, who created a new rule that says government must make up for any lack at home? The problem of childhood obesity has been cited as one of the most rapidly growing health problems in America. People who are struggling with lack of food usually do not have an obesity problem.
- Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can't they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals?
Tip: If you work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break.
From the mind of Charles Dickens to chairing an important committee in a large American State. I’ll bet she watches A Christmas Carol with her children every year. Though on Easter she apparently lets them wander alone on dangerous highways in Missouri.
From what I’ve read about her preparing this post, you won’t be surprised to find out that Cynthia Davis constantly portrays herself as a “Christian” as she does what she does to the least among us. The phenomenon of “christians” who say and do the direct opposite of what Jesus, the older Jewish prophets and the earliest Christians did and taught, is an entirely legitimate target for the most severe criticism of religion. Criticizing Davis and those who put her in power on those grounds isn’t bigotry, it’s a moral duty. And some of those doing so are doing that on the basis of her religious hypocrisy.
Herbert Spencer was always popular with the callous rich. In the version of “christianity” as practiced by some, his teachings clearly are substituted for those they say are, literally, the word of God. This is odd, considering Spencer was agnostic, if not an atheist. Since Davis brought up the tax rates of the early 1900s, during that period, John D. Rockefeller famously delivered lesson on the necessity of pruning away the inferior blooms in order to produce the American Beauty Rose in line with Social Darwinism. Considering his own cultivated aroma of sanctity and his own religious pretensions, Rockefeller’s lesson was obviously and entirely removed from anything Jesus or his disciples are recorded to have said. About the best that can be said, was that he was speaking of businesses, on that occasion, at least.
Reading an attempt to resurrect Herbert Spenser and the other Social Darwinists by ill informed new atheists was ironic in so many ways, foremost among those was the fact that Spencer has always lived on in the ideas and programs of conservatives with political power, that ethical vampire never died. As ironic is that some of the most ardent movers of Social Darwinism in all too real life, are as ardent creationists, insisting on Genesis replacing science in biology classrooms. I’m sure they would be just as surprised as the new atheists to find their forgotten, if not quite missing, link.
Cynthia Davis, chair of the Missouri House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families is proof that the putrid ideas of Herbert Spencer and the Social Darwinists are not only alive, their true believers have political power.
Her recent legislative newsletter contains a detailed critique of a summer food program for children who receive subsidized meals during the school year. As full of double-talk as it does the a callous view of hungry children, Davis is a clear example of the reason Spencer shouldn’t be rehabilitated in an ill thought out defense of Charles Darwin.
In her own words, here are some low lights
- Is school the only place a child can get a nutritious meal? Parents have good reason to dispute the idea that their children will not receive a nutritious meal if they are not in a government institution. Who should be the one to pass judgment on what defines a nutritious meal?
- They are using a "crisis" to create an expansion of a government program. [Note: a fifth of Missouri children are believed to be in danger of hunger according to a federal report, apparently that’s not enough of a “crisis” for Cynthia Davis and the Republicans of Missouri who put her in this post.]
- This is not a discussion of how to handle the public orphanage. These are children who have parents already providing meals for their children. This program could have an unintended consequence of diminishing parental involvement. Why have meals at home with your loved ones if you can go to the government soup kitchen and get one for free? This could have the effect of breaking apart more families.
- Who's buying dinner? Who is getting paid to serve the meal? Churches and other non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer if it is warranted. That is what they did when Louisiana had a hurricane. [I am assuming everyone capable of reading this realizes this is a whopper of a lie, considering what happened to those the government didn’t get help to after Katrina. Churches have never been able to make up for what only government can do. Churches have always been among the strongest supporters these kinds of government programs.]
- This is also an entitlement program with no cap on how much can be spent. In the early 1900's the average family paid about $20.00 per person per year for taxes. That left a great deal for our citizens to engage in acts of charity and helping poor neighbors who needed a meal.
- When churches offer a meal, they can serve the individual with a sense of love and caring for those less fortunate. Government cannot match that. Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another.
- While nobody is disputing the benefits of nutritious food, why the presumption that parents are not providing nutritious food for their children? Even if they are not, who created a new rule that says government must make up for any lack at home? The problem of childhood obesity has been cited as one of the most rapidly growing health problems in America. People who are struggling with lack of food usually do not have an obesity problem.
- Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can't they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals?
Tip: If you work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break.
From the mind of Charles Dickens to chairing an important committee in a large American State. I’ll bet she watches A Christmas Carol with her children every year. Though on Easter she apparently lets them wander alone on dangerous highways in Missouri.
From what I’ve read about her preparing this post, you won’t be surprised to find out that Cynthia Davis constantly portrays herself as a “Christian” as she does what she does to the least among us. The phenomenon of “christians” who say and do the direct opposite of what Jesus, the older Jewish prophets and the earliest Christians did and taught, is an entirely legitimate target for the most severe criticism of religion. Criticizing Davis and those who put her in power on those grounds isn’t bigotry, it’s a moral duty. And some of those doing so are doing that on the basis of her religious hypocrisy.
Herbert Spencer was always popular with the callous rich. In the version of “christianity” as practiced by some, his teachings clearly are substituted for those they say are, literally, the word of God. This is odd, considering Spencer was agnostic, if not an atheist. Since Davis brought up the tax rates of the early 1900s, during that period, John D. Rockefeller famously delivered lesson on the necessity of pruning away the inferior blooms in order to produce the American Beauty Rose in line with Social Darwinism. Considering his own cultivated aroma of sanctity and his own religious pretensions, Rockefeller’s lesson was obviously and entirely removed from anything Jesus or his disciples are recorded to have said. About the best that can be said, was that he was speaking of businesses, on that occasion, at least.
Reading an attempt to resurrect Herbert Spenser and the other Social Darwinists by ill informed new atheists was ironic in so many ways, foremost among those was the fact that Spencer has always lived on in the ideas and programs of conservatives with political power, that ethical vampire never died. As ironic is that some of the most ardent movers of Social Darwinism in all too real life, are as ardent creationists, insisting on Genesis replacing science in biology classrooms. I’m sure they would be just as surprised as the new atheists to find their forgotten, if not quite missing, link.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Answer to a Comment on the Previous Thread
I read the blog post which was kind of silly. You will notice that the writer depends on the one writer in the journal who tried to “debunk” the existence of Social Darwinism while dismissing the several he says support its existence. He also depends too much on the origin of the term “Social Darwinism” instead of on the ideas that are generally understood to comprise it. Odd that so many scholars of the other relevant writers are hoodwinked by Richard Hofstadter even today.
I thought this was especially telling:
That certainly sounds rough, but as it turns out, Hofstadter failed to mention the first sentence of Spencer’s next paragraph, which reads, “Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated.” As philosophy professor Roderick Long has remarked, “The upshot of the entire section, then, is that while the operation of natural selection is beneficial, its mitigation by human benevolence is even more beneficial.”
Beneficial for whom and to what effect is the whole point when talking Social Darwinism. Private charity has never, in history been sufficient to aid the destitute. Spenser was dependent on Malthus, his ideas about economics and politics are a development of his appalling writings.
The geneticist, Richard Lewontin pointed out an interesting difference between biological and political uses of Darwin’s ideas last month:
The parallel between the arguments for natural selection and nineteenth-century economic and social theory, however, misses an extremely important divergence between Darwin and political economy. The theory of competitive socioeconomic success is a theory about the rise of individuals and individual enterprises as a consequence of their superior fitness. But even though the Industrial Revolution resulted eventually, at least in some countries, in a general rise in material well-being, the number of immensely successful entrepreneurs is evidently limited precisely because their success depends on the existence of a large mass of less successful workers. No population can consist largely of people like Henry Clay Frick.
The theory of evolution by natural selection, in contrast, is meant to explain the adaptation and biological success of an entire species as a consequence of the disappearance of the less fit. Provided that a species does not become so numerous as to destroy the resources on which it depends, there is no structural reason why every individual of that species cannot be highly fit. If we seek a true originality in the understanding of Darwin and Wallace, it is to be found in their ability to adapt a theory meant to explain the success of a few to produce a theory of the success of the many, even though the many may be competing for resources in short supply. Whether they were conscious of this divergence of the theory of evolution by natural selection from the reigning economic and social theory is a question.
I’m not so sure they did appreciate the difference, but I’m really more interested in what we understand and do now than the reputation of people who have been dead for a hundred twenty years.
It’s been a long, long time since I read Spencer but I’m just about certain that he was opposed to state financed and operated public education. If that idea was carried out and the public schools gave way to private schools it would have the interesting effect of entirely opening up science classes to creationism, without even the veil of ID to hide it. Given the pretense of the New Atheism that they are the only reliable and true defenders of the teaching of pure evolution, defending Spencer in order to “defend Darwin” would have a pretty odd result. But I’ve never thought the new atheists were all that practical. I think the best way to defend the teaching of evolution is to forget the reputation of Darwin and concentrate on the enormous mass or post-Darwin confirmation that evolution is as sound an idea as any in the history of science.
It also shows how much of social progress the new atheists might be willing to abandon in the cults ideological quest. They like to think of themselves as being daring liberals or even leftists, but they're not.
I thought this was especially telling:
That certainly sounds rough, but as it turns out, Hofstadter failed to mention the first sentence of Spencer’s next paragraph, which reads, “Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated.” As philosophy professor Roderick Long has remarked, “The upshot of the entire section, then, is that while the operation of natural selection is beneficial, its mitigation by human benevolence is even more beneficial.”
Beneficial for whom and to what effect is the whole point when talking Social Darwinism. Private charity has never, in history been sufficient to aid the destitute. Spenser was dependent on Malthus, his ideas about economics and politics are a development of his appalling writings.
The geneticist, Richard Lewontin pointed out an interesting difference between biological and political uses of Darwin’s ideas last month:
The parallel between the arguments for natural selection and nineteenth-century economic and social theory, however, misses an extremely important divergence between Darwin and political economy. The theory of competitive socioeconomic success is a theory about the rise of individuals and individual enterprises as a consequence of their superior fitness. But even though the Industrial Revolution resulted eventually, at least in some countries, in a general rise in material well-being, the number of immensely successful entrepreneurs is evidently limited precisely because their success depends on the existence of a large mass of less successful workers. No population can consist largely of people like Henry Clay Frick.
The theory of evolution by natural selection, in contrast, is meant to explain the adaptation and biological success of an entire species as a consequence of the disappearance of the less fit. Provided that a species does not become so numerous as to destroy the resources on which it depends, there is no structural reason why every individual of that species cannot be highly fit. If we seek a true originality in the understanding of Darwin and Wallace, it is to be found in their ability to adapt a theory meant to explain the success of a few to produce a theory of the success of the many, even though the many may be competing for resources in short supply. Whether they were conscious of this divergence of the theory of evolution by natural selection from the reigning economic and social theory is a question.
I’m not so sure they did appreciate the difference, but I’m really more interested in what we understand and do now than the reputation of people who have been dead for a hundred twenty years.
It’s been a long, long time since I read Spencer but I’m just about certain that he was opposed to state financed and operated public education. If that idea was carried out and the public schools gave way to private schools it would have the interesting effect of entirely opening up science classes to creationism, without even the veil of ID to hide it. Given the pretense of the New Atheism that they are the only reliable and true defenders of the teaching of pure evolution, defending Spencer in order to “defend Darwin” would have a pretty odd result. But I’ve never thought the new atheists were all that practical. I think the best way to defend the teaching of evolution is to forget the reputation of Darwin and concentrate on the enormous mass or post-Darwin confirmation that evolution is as sound an idea as any in the history of science.
It also shows how much of social progress the new atheists might be willing to abandon in the cults ideological quest. They like to think of themselves as being daring liberals or even leftists, but they're not.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
I’m Burned Out Just Listening To A Little Of What Teachers Are Up Against
A repost from my old blogging. The topic was the idea of “teaching the controversy” and a counter proposal by a university based genius to add more topics to high school biology courses. You'd be surprised what you can learn from asking people who actually teach in public schools instead of listening to people who either haven't been in one for years, or who never set foot in one.
Asking two high school teachers I know about one of those tertiary level issues I mentioned yesterday, I got a crash course in their reality. Most of the basic assumptions I brought to my questioning were wildly optimistic. Instead of the 185 days I assumed as their opportunity for teaching their subject it was actually 180 days. Instead of the three days I’d imagined given to standardized testing, it was actually a week, sometimes more. And, as one of them reminded me, a class period devoted to giving a unit test is also a “day” when they aren’t teaching new information. He said that he never gets to the end of the textbook he’s got, never mind adding new topics to be brought up. That’s why he couldn’t tell me how many actual teaching days to subtract for unit tests.
And, as both reminded me, their “day” is actually not a day but an “hour”. And that “hour” was 50 minutes long, at least a tenth of that just spent on getting kids settled and taking care of administrative junk. Then there are the non-teaching problems they’ve got while actually teaching their subject matter, ranging from confused or listless kids to even the best behaved kids cutting up, to kids with a history of psychopathic violence. I asked how they dealt with kids who didn’t have the background knowledge for their subject, they said it was a huge problem.
So, when you subtract the 15 minutes from those 180 hours and start subtracting “hours” given over to, not teaching but testing, and figuring in the time spent with remedial and behavior problems, it looks like a mighty hard job.
When you ask one, don’t even bring up what they think when university based geniuses start telling them what they need to add to their curriculum. Not unless you really want an earful.
Asking two high school teachers I know about one of those tertiary level issues I mentioned yesterday, I got a crash course in their reality. Most of the basic assumptions I brought to my questioning were wildly optimistic. Instead of the 185 days I assumed as their opportunity for teaching their subject it was actually 180 days. Instead of the three days I’d imagined given to standardized testing, it was actually a week, sometimes more. And, as one of them reminded me, a class period devoted to giving a unit test is also a “day” when they aren’t teaching new information. He said that he never gets to the end of the textbook he’s got, never mind adding new topics to be brought up. That’s why he couldn’t tell me how many actual teaching days to subtract for unit tests.
And, as both reminded me, their “day” is actually not a day but an “hour”. And that “hour” was 50 minutes long, at least a tenth of that just spent on getting kids settled and taking care of administrative junk. Then there are the non-teaching problems they’ve got while actually teaching their subject matter, ranging from confused or listless kids to even the best behaved kids cutting up, to kids with a history of psychopathic violence. I asked how they dealt with kids who didn’t have the background knowledge for their subject, they said it was a huge problem.
So, when you subtract the 15 minutes from those 180 hours and start subtracting “hours” given over to, not teaching but testing, and figuring in the time spent with remedial and behavior problems, it looks like a mighty hard job.
When you ask one, don’t even bring up what they think when university based geniuses start telling them what they need to add to their curriculum. Not unless you really want an earful.
A Comment
E. , I’d agree with most of your last comment and as your goal is to promote rationality, you certainly see that irrationality isn’t limited to a subset or religious believers.
One of the questions that keeps popping up is why the United States and not some other developed country has problems over the teaching of evolution. You’ve hit on one of the biggest, our system of local and state school boards. If one municipality or state get hijacked by creationist candidates, as has happened, or even a whole state, it can take a court challenge to prevent them from putting it into science classes. I’m skeptical of the ability of a small, unpopular minority to sustain their civil rights on the basis of court rulings. The Rehnquist and Roberts courts have shown any rights gained even by legislation can be effectively abridged by a malicious court. Public acceptance is the only certain way to protect civil rights. I doubt that anyone should expect that Dover is the last word on the evolution struggle, those who want to keep religion out of biology classes in public schools here had better not rest on that, very possibly, temporary decision. Clearly, the new atheists’ hijacking of that issue combined with the rest of their program won’t help in the effort to build broad public support for protecting the science in the schools. You don’t win elections by insulting the majority of voters.
Given how difficult it is to change the basic forms of our government in the United States, the local-state school board structure should be taken as permanent. Even more permanent should be the fact that our basic act of governance is the vote.
The first time I ever waded into this issue was in the months before the 2006 election when the media was trying to provoke the left by widely discussing that stupid poll that showed the public would elect a gay person as president before they would an atheist. Stupid, not just because the poll was bogus, but because most of the various minorities coming out ahead of atheists weren’t in any great danger of being elected. I wrote a piece saying that the coming election was what the left should concentrate on, not getting into the already polluted atheist-religion squabble. I also told atheists that insulting the majority of the voters wouldn’t do a thing to make them want to vote for an atheist. I figured it was about as rational a point as possible to make.
A number of atheists, notably Amanda Marcott took that point and distorted the entire meaning of what I wrote, which was my refresher course in blog ethics. Austin Cline doing the same thing was several months away. But that’s not really important. What is important is that now a sizable number of atheists have recognized that the new atheism is irrational and is already damaging to other atheists’ interests and potentially to science. I think their positions are superior to the new atheists’ they are more rational and honest. I think their positions.
I figure science isn’t my responsibility, the future of science rests in the hands of scientists and those who fund their work. I’d like nothing better than to not have this distraction out of politics altogether. My interest is in political progress, environmental protection, national healthcare, civil rights…. all of which I think are more important than the keeping biology classes pure of extraneous religious content. I’m enough of a practical heretic to think that most of those who take biology classes need some of the other topics covered by the one and only biology class they’ll ever take more than they do a pure and pristine view of their ancestry. A knowledge of evolution isn’t going to keep them from an unintended pregnancy or a life threatening venereal disease. The evolution ball that every always has their eye on is important but its not all that big.
I think the real problem is that the line of explicitly anti-religious intent stemming from those around and about Darwin, as seen most honestly in Thomas Huxley but also others, which took up evolution as a weapon against religion, meets head on with biblical fundamentalism. I don’t think that is useful for science or religious liberalism. In practical terms, in the United States, at least, the effort would clearly favor the biblical literalists. The use of evolution as a weapon against religion has failed the test of history, it’s failed the test of time. It has been damaging to the publics understanding of science and has been an effective tool of political organization among the far right. I don’t think most of the Republicans who kow-towed to the TV evangelists cared at all about evolution and they demonstrably had no intention of following the teachings of Jesus, certainly not in economic and social justice. They saw them as a large and easily used political force. And they have won elections with them. The loss of power by the far right has not been due to the religious right disappearing but due to economic and other factors. The religious right is always going to be a potential source of votes for them.
So, when we are talking about reason, those considerations are the crux of the problem. The program of Dawkins, Harris, et al are irrational and unrealistic. I think their motive has nothing to do with the promotion of reason or science, it’s because they can’t stand the existence of anything but their chosen mix of materialism-scientism. In that they are no different from their opposite. They don’t like pluralism on the issue of belief any more than the most rigid Souther Baptists. The irony with the Southern Baptists is that the Baptist tradition began as a quite liberal one in which individual conscience and reason were major positions it took. There are still Free-will Baptists, though they are quite invisible. The ironies of the new atheism is that they are some of the worst supporters of science and reason and logic, certainly their web presence is anything but a new enlightenment. When arguing with them, notably one “Science Avenger” it was clear they had no concept of the basic requirements of science and had a very damaged idea of logic.
I don’t think religion is the only thing that could usefully be checked at the political door.
P.S. It shouldn't be forgotten that voters will not leave their religion outside of the voting booth.
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