'Enlightenment Now'

[Nearly Sane]

for total clarification please view the following video on the subject

https://youtu.be/oTJGrGAa_wg

Ah, the darling Philomena, a sage for our times, cutting through the loaf of obfuscation with the big sharp knife of clarity.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Can you cite where I didn't believe on that? Rather I would suggest I would suggest that my answer is more like to be that Science doesn't slip words in, it's a methodology. Further you can use words such as moral if you are commenting on the 'is' e.g. if someone describes something they do as a moral act then they may have observable brain states that can be observed. It does not have a way of jumping the ought is gap and I would think that of any poster on here I've made that comment more than anyone else.

I think the idea that someone is a 'true Ultra Darwinian' is incredibly simplistic as already covered. And since I've already stated that I don't think New Atheism is actually a real thing in the way you view it, ignoring that point and saying that people should call it out progresses the discussion not a whit.

I believe you questioned my belief that science doesn't make observations of moral behaviour.
If it is you that was right then science indeed would be inserting the word moral in. Would it therefore be doing so for any good reason?

If you really do and can agree with me then you have my apologies.

[Walter]

Ah, the darling Philomena, a sage for our times, cutting through the loaf of obfuscation with the big sharp knife of clarity.

saying what people think because they cant say it themselves 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Spelt Cunk wrong.

[Nearly Sane]

I believe you questioned my belief that science doesn't make observations of moral behaviour.
If it is you that was right then science indeed would be inserting the word moral in. Would it therefore be doing so for any good reason?

If you really do and can agree with me then you have my apologies.

I thought this was covered in my previous post to which you are replying. We can scientifically make observations around what we call moral behaviour, just as we could scientifically make observations about brain states when someone eats Marmite. That could tell us what it looks like to think an act right/wrong or a taste good/bad, t cannot give an objective indication of what right/wrong and good/bad are as these are subjective. There is no insertion in here of a word by the observation, it's using the concept as we think of it elsewhere - the same for morality as for taste.


Again science doesn't do anything, it's a methodology.

[jeremyp]

Therefore the very same people who promote Darwinism as a kind of overarching universal force are the same people who promote 'progress' as some kind of overarching force.

Who is it that promotes Darwinism as a kind of overarching universal force?

The true ultra Darwinian should be saying 'Told you so' rather than promoting Pinker.

Perhaps they are. Can you name any ultra Darwinians?

[SusanDoris]

I liked the video, Walter.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Who is it that promotes Darwinism as a kind of overarching universal force?
Perhaps they are. Can you name any ultra Darwinians?

Basically anyone who thinks Darwins theory works outside biology up to and including Dawkins advocacy of Smolins theory of naturally selected universe idea which Dawkins does in TGD. If Dawkins still claims that Darwin made it respectable to be an atheist then that is definitely ultra Darwinian.

[jeremyp]

Basically anyone who thinks Darwins theory works outside biology

It's important to realise that Darwin's theory doesn't work inside biology. What works inside biology is called the modern synthesis which is Darwin's theory in combination with Mendelian genetics.

There is empirical evidence that analogous ideas to the Theory of Evolution do work in areas outside of biology. For example, genetic algorithms can be used to optimise designs of various things.

up to and including Dawkins advocacy of Smolins theory of naturally selected universe idea which Dawkins does in TGD. If Dawkins still claims that Darwin made it respectable to be an atheist then that is definitely ultra Darwinian.

You keep talking about Dawkins but he does not fit the description. If you hd read any of his work you'd understand that he specifically denies that everything is based on Darwinian evolution. He argues that one of the wonders of evolution is that it gave us the equipment to ignore it in human affairs.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's important to realise that Darwin's theory doesn't work inside biology. What works inside biology is called the modern synthesis which is Darwin's theory in combination with Mendelian genetics.

There is empirical evidence that analogous ideas to the Theory of Evolution do work in areas outside of biology. For example, genetic algorithms can be used to optimise designs of various things.
You keep talking about Dawkins but he does not fit the description. If you hd read any of his work you'd understand that he specifically denies that everything is based on Darwinian evolution. He argues that one of the wonders of evolution is that it gave us the equipment to ignore it in human affairs.

Just a further example of contradiction and confusion within New atheism

[jeremyp]

Just a further example of contradiction and confusion within New atheism

Don't blame new atheism for your contradiction and confusion.

[Walter]

Spelt Cunk wrong.

takes one to know one 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Harris on Pinker

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/26/have-nots-denigration-brexit-trump

[Nearly Sane]

You might like this, Vlad.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/01/09/if-you-ever-doubted-that-steven-pinkers-sympathies-lie-with-the-alt-right/


And an alternative take

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/social-media-dumber-steven-pinker.html

[Nearly Sane]

Pinker given a going over here


https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/ours-best-world-ever

[Nearly Sane]

A gentler filleting of Pinker and in its gentleness, it does better at laying out what I think will be many people's issue with the thesis.


https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/554054/

[Walt Zingmatilder]

A gentler filleting of Pinker and in its gentleness, it does better at laying out what I think will be many people's issue with the thesis.


https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/554054/

Hard on pinker
Softer on pinker
Hard on pinker
Soft on Pinker
Are you giving a massage?

[Nearly Sane]

Hard on pinker
Softer on pinker
Hard on pinker
Soft on Pinker
Are you giving a massage?

I think the different takes are interesting. Given as the Atlantic review says most atheists of this isn't a new idea, it seems to have created a bigger reaction than one might expect.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think the different takes are interesting. Given as the Atlantic review says most atheists of this isn't a new idea, it seems to have created a bigger reaction than one might expect.

I'd like to think of Pinker as some kind of quaint bobbymcferrinist. But he is an antitheist obviously working under the aegis of " religion, toot of all evil?.....and the inherent goodness of reason and scientism, something presently being thrashed out in the atheist and skeptic organisations.

[Nearly Sane]

I'd like to think of Pinker as some kind of quaint bobbymcferrinist. But he is an antitheist obviously working under the aegis of " religion, toot of all evil?.....and the inherent goodness of reason and scientism, something presently being thrashed out in the atheist and skeptic organisations.

is your post some sort of free poetry?


It seems to me that the reaction to the book is a bit wider than the normal preoccupations. Hans Rosling in putting forward essentially the same idea didn't create this sort of fuss. Now, in part, that's because he didn't attribute it to such a basic idea but I think that Pinker's book seems to be being pucked up because there is a turn in feeling about progress.  I know we always hark back to golden ages but it feels like the uncertainty that we always hold about the future is growing amongst those who might once have been the vanguard. Alternatively tar may just be that extra portion of chilli cheese fries acting on my mood.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

is your post some sort of free poetry?


It seems to me that the reaction to the book is a bit wider than the normal preoccupations. Hans Rosling in putting forward essentially the same idea didn't create this sort of fuss. Now, in part, that's because he didn't attribute it to such a basic idea but I think that Pinker's book seems to be being pucked up because there is a turn in feeling about progress.  I know we always hark back to golden ages but it feels like the uncertainty that we always hold about the future is growing amongst those who might once have been the vanguard. Alternatively tar may just be that extra portion of chilli cheese fries acting on my mood.

Are you making an "If you disagree with Pinker then you disagree with progress" type argument.

My own view is probably the Gray view where certain indicators are missing from Pinker's account
And that fatally weakens the argument and renders Pinker an invitation to don the rose tinted spectacles.

[Nearly Sane]

Are you making an "If you disagree with Pinker then you disagree with progress" type argument.

My own view is probably the Gray view where certain indicators are missing from Pinker's account
And that fatally weakens the argument and renders Pinker an invitation to don the rose tinted spectacles.

Not making any such argument. As stated, I'm interested in the reaction here. It seems to be about more than just the thesis, given the entangling of it with ideas of whether he is alt right, and the idea that thinking about progress being made is somehow about being neo liberal. Indeed I suppose my fascination with it relates back to the split between Hume and Rousseau.

[Dicky Underpants]

I should of course apologise to Gray - his position on almost everything has changed 180 degrees over the years, but it's always been held with fervent certainty.

According to his contribution to Desert Island Discs, he still thinks anaesthetic dentistry is one of the very few ways humans have improved on the past. This would seem to suggest that he doesn't hold the idea of progress with any particular fervour.

[Nearly Sane]

According to his contribution to Desert Island Discs, he still thinks anaesthetic dentistry is one of the very few ways humans have improved on the past. This would seem to suggest that he doesn't hold the idea of progress with any particular fervour.

Oh yes, he's against it now. A time machine could bring the younger Gray face to face with his current self and put the universe in danger by having the matter anti matter of certainty on his positions.

[Dicky Underpants]

Oh yes, he's against it now. A time machine could bring the younger Gray face to face with his current self and put the universe in danger by having the matter anti matter of certainty on his positions.

I don't doubt he's wobbled all over the place during his career. The only books of his I've read are Straw Dogs and The Black Mass. In SD - which I think is a pretty early work - he seemed to be very down on the progress idea.