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Author Topic:   Why Only Creationism So Politicized?
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 134 of 155 (73307)
12-16-2003 9:52 AM
Reply to: Message 133 by mark24
12-16-2003 6:42 AM


There's nothing wrong with refuting objections, but altruism is still an exception according to Dawkins selfish gene theory, eventhough he spends many chapters covering them. Again this explains why Dawkins can say that people are born selfish, because altruism is an exception, otherwise you would simply have to make the assertion that Dawkins is blatantly wrong about his own theory in the preface.
Both the altruism and selfishness that Dawkins talks about are genetically determined, this does not exclude the workings of cultural determinism, and random / chance factors, just that cultural determinism and chance / choice factors are not covered by Dawkins theory.
Again, organisms generally do not behave interestingly altruisticly like in the many examples Dawkins covers, they generally behave boringly selfish, according to the selfish gene theory. The food an animal eats generally goes selfishly into it's own mouth, and not the mouth of another (not as sometimes with the altruistic bats that Dawkins covers).
I don't know if it's the context of the debate, but otherwise your comprehension of Dawkins seems quite low.
Eh yes, on google politization has only 2500 hits and politicization 71500.... oops
I don't know what you mean by reading Gasman's text from "an evolutionary point of view." I'm afraid you are sinking into depraved depths of ignorance in your interpretation of Gasman's text.
Of course Rushton doesn't claim the comparitive method is false, he uses it all the time, and insists on it's use, being preoccupied with racial differences as he is. I was saying that racism is linked to Natural Selection through the comparitive method, and the quote supports that.
You forget that people are free to conflate science and politics by constitutional freedom of religion. Biolgists simply have to use other words then good, better, and selfish etc. words that don't have rich cultural meaning, that would solve a lot of problems of politicization, and perhaps would also make biologists more technically accurate. Of course your total denial of the history of violent racism linked to the works of the most influential evolutionary biologists such as Lorenz, Haeckel and Darwin comes in handy now, to deny that there is any problem at all. And why stop denying there, why not deny the holocaust as well? That's the sort of people you side with, by denying any meaningful link between Darwinism and Social Darwinism, even when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Sometime before I shared your opinion that equality was not based on sameness. However I found this is simply not true. Equality of human beings is supposed to be understood as same and therefore equal, and you will not go wrong believing this, but you will go wrong believing your way. Part of this can be explained in terms of that the differences between humans are like the differences in fingerprints, they essentially have no different meaning even if they are dissimilar. Another part can be explained in terms of relational properties of human beings. All people have a father and a mother, these relational properties, and other relational properties, are more fundamental to what makes a human being then physical properties. I should warn you that your moral elitism in blatantly denying what is paramount in secular culture, as well as most religious culture, will inevitably result in very cruel punishment, as history shows.
Do you agree that when I put a pot of honey next to an anthill, that it will result in a differential rate of reproduction of ants and elephants? These are undeniable facts, they don't mean anything however, just as your comparitive method doesn't mean anything. Once again, it only means something when there is a point to the differential success, the point being the one replacing the other, and this point is lost in Natural Selection theory.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 133 by mark24, posted 12-16-2003 6:42 AM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 135 by mark24, posted 12-16-2003 11:22 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 140 of 155 (73748)
12-17-2003 11:33 AM
Reply to: Message 135 by mark24
12-16-2003 11:22 AM


No you can't say with the same justification that selfishness is the exception because on the individual level selfishness is 99 percent, and altruism 1 percent.
(R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene)
"This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behavior. However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals. 'Special' and 'limited' are important words in the last sentence. Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense.
You are WRONG about Dawkins, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. All the while telling me I don't understand, making snide comments to undercut my authority, while you are yourself completely WRONG. Now let's see if this standard you and others have works both ways. If now you have to pack up, shut up because you don't know what you're talking about etc. etc.
Jews not eating pork, and memes, are obviously not covered by Dawkins theory of selfish genes. Again, the altruism that Dawkins refers to in his theory is genetically determined, and so is the selfishness. This does not preclude other factors from operating, but those fall outside his theory obviously.
IMO to note that an animal eating their food is noted as selfish according to Dawkins selfish gene theory, just shows how ridiculous a theory it is. This is one of the reasosn why he doesn't cover individual selfishness much, why he concentrates on the 1 percent of altruistic cases in many chapters, eventhough altruism is a very small part of cases where his theory applies.
I am merely using Dawkins theory to demonstrate it's absurdity, of course I don't myself view organisms as selfish or altruistic the way Dawkins does.
As you can read in Rushton's text the anti-racists emphasize similarities, while racists emphasize differences. Darwinists have to emphasize the differences, it's the only way their theory works. You could say this leads to a non-political racialist rather then a racist position when applied to human beings, but then Rushton, in reading a little further, is a racist.
Besides you have already proven for me that the comparing is what leads to racism, by simply denying human equality because of it. I do not mean to say that you're a racist, but of course anyone that denies human equality can more easily become one.
It may have been too heavy-handed to refer to holocaust deniers, but you previously omitted the holocaust by making a cut of for evidence of politicized evolutionary biology at 20 years ago.
I'm not really sure if your support for things like "all men are created equal" has substance. Some time ago Dawkins talked about the ethics of having clones, saying in a debate on it that it is just the same as twins. He was then rebuffed by some religious people, which made him post a furious article in the paper. Later, when someone made him calm down apparently, he wrote a nuanced article about the subject talking about all the many ethical issues involved that he failed to notice before, not at all in his own writing style. A twin is not so much like a clone, because a man who has a clone, is much like a father and a brother to the clone, or in other words he's basicly a m*th*rf*ck*r... So you see it can be very misleading to view solely in terms of physical properties, it is much wrong.
I said myself that NS is not about replacement, read again. It's not about replacement, therefore there is no point to the comparing in NS. Darwin's theory of NS as expressed in "Descent of Man" was about replacement, but this theory is also wrong, because replacement is just one of several possible relationships between organisms. It is not right to limit the theory to replacement, when there could also be symbiosis between them.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 135 by mark24, posted 12-16-2003 11:22 AM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 141 by mark24, posted 12-18-2003 10:50 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 142 of 155 (74231)
12-19-2003 9:10 AM
Reply to: Message 141 by mark24
12-18-2003 10:50 AM


By saying the point (of replacement) is lost in natural selection theory, I meant that in natural selection theory the comparing is not about replacement, just like you say.
I guess with ESS you mean evolutionary stable strategy? I don't know what you mean, but the point of individual selection without comparing is just to see how it reproduces or not, as the case may be. All of these mutations happen, and then each of them get selected, they either reproduce or they don't. Which is ever so slightly different then saying; we have all this variation and this one reproduces more then the other one, which is comparitive selection. Much as you wish otherwise you don't know for sure which of these descriptions is better science.
I think your question about superimposing is wrong. Does Darwinism strongly tend to influence intellectual climate of opinion personally and societally, including religious and political opinion? The answer is yes.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 141 by mark24, posted 12-18-2003 10:50 AM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 143 by mark24, posted 12-19-2003 2:04 PM Syamsu has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 145 of 155 (78962)
01-16-2004 9:35 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by mark24
12-19-2003 2:04 PM


Your question is obviously lawyering, not a question aimed at getting more insight into the issue, but a question aimed at establishing the innocence of evolutionary biology, and therefore wrong.
I don't believe that any kind of position that mainly treats evolutionary biology as a victim of racist ideologists, in stead of treating it as a motor of racist ideology has any credibility with intellectuals.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by mark24, posted 12-19-2003 2:04 PM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 146 by mark24, posted 01-17-2004 4:57 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 147 of 155 (79019)
01-17-2004 9:16 AM
Reply to: Message 146 by mark24
01-17-2004 4:57 AM


Well I could say the answer is yes, we are logically compelled to draw moral conclusions from observation by the logic of our psychology, and being compelled emotionally to know right from wrong. But the question is wrong.
If the answer is no, then the question is meaningless, since it still allows for evolutionary biology to heavily influence personal and societal opinion, to the extent we have seen in the past, both surreptiously through the subjective language that is employed in the discipline and the emotive subjects it covers, and selfconsciously by preaching of believers in evolutionist ethics.
But again it's simply lawyering, when the issue comes up next in some other thread you will say to a poster that we aren't logically compelled to draw moral conclusions from observation, in stead of saying people do and have drawn moral conclusions from evolutionary biology to a large extent, including a large percentage of the most influential evolutionary biologist scientists themselves. You will then not be telling the whole truth, but simply playing a game with the truth to shield evolutionary biology from criticism, lawyering.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 146 by mark24, posted 01-17-2004 4:57 AM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 148 by mark24, posted 01-17-2004 10:30 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 149 of 155 (79171)
01-17-2004 11:05 PM
Reply to: Message 148 by mark24
01-17-2004 10:30 AM


Again, it is a fault of evolutionary biology, by the subjective language employed, the structural fault of comparison which is sustained politically, and the straightforward politics and religion in the main works of evolutionary biology.
Some time ago there was a poster here who commented that she was influenced by selfish gene theory much, and then in the end she blamed herself for being so stupid to be influenced by it very much. But at Amazon book reviews you can read this time and again that people are influenced by it very much in the way to have a much lower appreciation of nature generally, and people in particular, and regret this influence. Are all these people stupid, or somehow too emotional?
IMO that's ridiculous, the intentionally hateful book of Dawkins towards religion, the use of subjective language like selfish, the glorification of evolutionary biology and Darwinism particularly, the shoddy and faulty science, neccessarily lead to large amount of influence on religious and political opinion. It is possible to accept it as a straightforward scientific proposition, and that you don't let it influence your political and religious opinion much, but you would have to do a lot of work not to let it influence you much that way, to keep it separate from your judgement about the worth of things.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 148 by mark24, posted 01-17-2004 10:30 AM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 150 by mark24, posted 01-18-2004 10:21 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 151 of 155 (79362)
01-19-2004 3:01 AM
Reply to: Message 150 by mark24
01-18-2004 10:21 AM


It seems you don't read a word I say. There are numerous obvious ways in which evolutionary biology can be improved to better comply with the ideal of objectivity in science, as we should do by our nasty experiences with evolutionary biology in the past, and the new dangers presented by evolutionary pscyhology in the present. As before, it's likely you too will be manipulated by evolutionary biology, and then you will just blame yourself like that other person who came on this forum and the many people at Amazon bookreview. Some sort of willfull slavery it seems.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 150 by mark24, posted 01-18-2004 10:21 AM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 152 by mark24, posted 01-19-2004 4:16 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
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