Re: Correlation v. causality
On 7 Dec 2007, at 02:24, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Ronn! Blankenship wrote: It might help to define what you mean by stupid As opposed to common working definition used by many people of disagrees with me . . . ? ;) It's not true that everybody that disagree with me is stupid! There are those that are really smart, but disagree because they are evil, and want to deceive other people into their evil ways. Q: What's the difference between intelligence and stupidity? A: There's a limit to intelligence. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If so, then Microsoft would have great products. - Steve Jobs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007 6:07 PM, jon louis mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: guided research and quantum computer modeling, we may be approaching the trans human singularity. ayn rand believed the masses of humanity were morons and would return to bestiality if not for the altruism of the elite who were kind enough to harness their labor so we plebians could reap the benefits of civilization. They would abandon adultery for bestiality, I suppose. (I'm sure you meant beastliness or similar) Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Warren Ockrassa wrote: Most people is stupid _and_ most stupid people have an instinctive drive to mindlessly obey the orders of those that they believe are more intelligent - and this is what prevents extinction. This is an interesting pair of claims and I'd be intrigued to know what evidence you have to support either one of them, Evidence? None, except accumulated experience that comes with old age. and more particularly why you've arrived at the conclusion you have. What I mean is that it almost looks like you've made a decision and are doing a post hoc analysis to support it. Which decision? It might help to define what you mean by stupid, but what I'm reading here could be inverted as this: Stupid = not able to think clearly. People who believe that a fairy may turn 2 + 2 into fish. Because many people tend to be followers rather than leaders, and because many people prefer the comfort of feeling part of a group to the relative discomfort of being trend-setters, most people tend to align with a leader of their choice. This can lead to destructive, mindless behavior and inculcate intellectual laziness, which can often be characterized as rank stupidity. That's not the same thing as saying that most people are stupid, but it might be a middle ground that's more conducive to productive discussion regarding what to actually *do* about it. And with groups in play, stupidity might be relative. Consider, for instance, that a YEC would consider most biologists, paleontologists, anthropologists, physicists and geologists as being incredibly stupid for not seeing the obvious clarity of the point of view that aligns to strict Biblical interpretation. Ah, the relativity of evaluation... And that is relevant, because Isaac Newton was a young-earth creationist and, when he wasn't inventing calculus in order to define physics and optics, he was trying to find proofs of a literal interpretation of Biblical teachings. So which was he? Stupid or brilliant? At that time? He was extremely brilliant! Not being a literal interpreter of the Bible had dangerous consequences those times, like having his brain physically separated from his heart by more than 2 meters. Or consider what might happen if I were to begin holding forth on the subject of opera, about which I know essentially nothing. To an aficionado I'd sure as hell look plenty stupid, but it would (probably) be a mistake to characterize me as being so, instead of simply labeling me a loudmouthed ignoramus on the topic. This is not stupidity, this is ignorance of a specialized field. The point is that we might be more inclined to consider those who are not part of our in-crowd as being stupid simply because they aren't part of our in-crowd, but as with the case of Newton, it seems unwise to apply one label to all members of a clade. If you're thinking of stupid as meaning inclined to mental laziness, I'd probably agree, but my personal working definition of stupid is (more or less) totally incapable of comprehending something. I don't believe the concepts are equivalent, and I don't believe most people fit that definition of stupid. Maybe everybody is totally incapable of comprehending something - after all, human knowledge is much bigger than the size of human brains :-) Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Nick Arnett wrote: Emergence has applications in ecosystems, crowd control, city design, animal behaviour, surveillance, neural nets, and so on. Economics. Must not omit economics. The implications for economics are, in my mind, too interesting to make a list and leave it out. Just a point of personal preference...but money makes the world go 'round. Yes. It doesn't matter that 10 million scientists warn us of the dangers of Global Warming or other horrible scenarios, but when the barrel gets to 100 dollars, everybody talks about alternative energies :-) Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 6 Dec 2007, at 03:46, Julia Thompson wrote: On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Warren Ockrassa wrote: If you're thinking of stupid as meaning inclined to mental laziness, I'd probably agree, but my personal working definition of stupid is (more or less) totally incapable of comprehending something. I don't believe the concepts are equivalent, and I don't believe most people fit that definition of stupid. I have several categories for people who don't have given information or knowledge: 1) Ignorant (but probably willing to learn, or at least not rejecting the information) 2) Willfully ignorant (actively rejecting the information) 3) Stupid Ignorance can be cured with information. Stupidity can't. Willful ignorance is the worst, IMO. Brittle dogmatism leads to willful ignorance in a number of cases, hence is a very negative thing. That's another reason religion is evil. People with faith will tie themselves in knots to avoid confronting information that conflicts with their beliefs. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If so, then Microsoft would have great products. - Steve Jobs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007 3:31 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's another reason religion is evil. People with faith will tie themselves in knots to avoid confronting information that conflicts with their beliefs. But thank goodness that people with scientific beliefs never have any trouble confronting information that conflicts with their beliefs. If scientists weren't so open-minded and willing to abandon old theories in a flash, science would hardly move forward at all! Please excuse the sarcasm... but there are benefits of the existence of conservatives in faith, science and other endeavors. Even though I'm not one of them in most domains, I can see the value. And you, William, seem to be a radically conservative atheist, apparently utterly unwilling to confront any ideas that would conflict with your belief. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 6 Dec 2007, at 15:17, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 6, 2007 3:31 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's another reason religion is evil. People with faith will tie themselves in knots to avoid confronting information that conflicts with their beliefs. But thank goodness that people with scientific beliefs never have any trouble confronting information that conflicts with their beliefs. If scientists weren't so open-minded and willing to abandon old theories in a flash, science would hardly move forward at all! This is completely irrelevant misdirection and entirely typical of the faith-addled response to a reasonable discussion. This is arguing that smoking doesn't cause cancer because sunbathing causes cancer. Please excuse the sarcasm... but there are benefits of the existence of conservatives in faith, science and other endeavors. Even though I'm not one of them in most domains, I can see the value. And you, William, seem to be a radically conservative atheist, apparently utterly unwilling to confront any ideas that would conflict with your belief. I confront them all the time. Vigourously. That's how this discussion got started! Gentle Correction Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time. - Bill Gates, 1987 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007 7:47 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is arguing that smoking doesn't cause cancer because sunbathing causes cancer. No, it's arguing that people tend to cling to their beliefs for reasons other than logic. The same challenge exists in faith as in science -- to remain open-minded. You seem to be claiming that religion is inherently close-minded... perhaps you might consider the possibility that it isn't so, even though some religious people, like some of all people, are close-minded and seek to convert others to close-mindedness. Politics is much the same. And science is riddled with politics. I confront them all the time. Vigourously. That's how this discussion got started! Then you get the point of my sarcasm. Is it confrontation if your mind is already made up? Perhaps so, but it is certainly not engagement. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 6 Dec 2007, at 16:14, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 6, 2007 7:47 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is arguing that smoking doesn't cause cancer because sunbathing causes cancer. No, it's arguing that people tend to cling to their beliefs for reasons other than logic. People cursed with faith do, but I don't. My beliefs are what the evidence and logic lead me to. The same challenge exists in faith as in science -- to remain open- minded. You seem to be claiming that religion is inherently close-minded... perhaps you might consider the possibility that it isn't so, even though some religious people, like some of all people, are close-minded and seek to convert others to close-mindedness. Politics is much the same. And science is riddled with politics. Creeds, dogma, holy texts, Papal infallibility, God revealing the Qur'an to Muhammad - this is all extremely close-minded and not open to discussion. You either accept it or you're not part of that religion. There is no open-mindedness there. Try having an open-minded discussion with a Muslim about whether Muhammad might not have been the last prophet, or a Catholic about that 'every sperm is sacred' gibberish. I confront them all the time. Vigourously. That's how this discussion got started! Then you get the point of my sarcasm. Is it confrontation if your mind is already made up? Perhaps so, but it is certainly not engagement. Why would I want to 'engage' with ideas I have already proved to be false and evil? That would just be stupid and I'm not stupid. Clever Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time. - Bill Gates, 1987 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007 8:35 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: People cursed with faith do, but I don't. My beliefs are what the evidence and logic lead me to. Haven't you seen, in science fiction, what happens when intelligent computers and robots operate entirely on evidence and logic? Did I miss the memorial service for your emotions, or should we be planning one? ;-) Creeds, dogma, holy texts, Papal infallibility, God revealing the Qur'an to Muhammad - this is all extremely close-minded and not open to discussion. You either accept it or you're not part of that religion. There is no open-mindedness there. Try having an open-minded discussion with a Muslim about whether Muhammad might not have been the last prophet, or a Catholic about that 'every sperm is sacred' gibberish. You're just wrong. You're basing this on the false idea that everybody is conservative. They are not. For example, you are entirely welcome in my church and many others. The only requirement for entrance is to walk in the door... and we'll lend a hand with that if you need it. And you can keep coming back without subscribing to any of our beliefs. Try having an open-minded discussion about faith with an extremist atheist ;-) Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 6 Dec 2007, at 16:58, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 6, 2007 8:35 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: People cursed with faith do, but I don't. My beliefs are what the evidence and logic lead me to. Haven't you seen, in science fiction, what happens when intelligent computers and robots operate entirely on evidence and logic? Made up stories aren't actually evidence you know. Oh! Of course you don't know because you think made up stories in religious books are evidence. Did I miss the memorial service for your emotions, or should we be planning one? ;-) Creeds, dogma, holy texts, Papal infallibility, God revealing the Qur'an to Muhammad - this is all extremely close-minded and not open to discussion. You either accept it or you're not part of that religion. There is no open-mindedness there. Try having an open- minded discussion with a Muslim about whether Muhammad might not have been the last prophet, or a Catholic about that 'every sperm is sacred' gibberish. You're just wrong. You're basing this on the false idea that everybody is conservative. They are not. For example, you are entirely welcome in my church and many others. The only requirement for entrance is to walk in the door... and we'll lend a hand with that if you need it. And you can keep coming back without subscribing to any of our beliefs. Would it make you happy if I added the occasional (almost all) here and there? Try having an open-minded discussion about faith with an extremist atheist ;-) Nick I've never met an extremist atheist. They're all moderate and reasonable like me. Almost all religion is evil Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Two years from now, spam will be solved. - Bill Gates, 2004 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, jon louis mann wrote: william does seem to be saying that all catholics and muslims are narrow minded, which is not true. there are many catholics who question the papal infallibility, and many moderate muslims who do not follow sharia law. according to asimov there are a billion names for god and many of their followers are not true believers. I thought it was Clarke, not Asimov. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Nick said: And just what Kauffman (or is it Axelrod) suggests is signified by the mathematical relationships between gene counts and cell differentiation counts, if I am remembering it correctly. I'm struggling to recall (and away from my books), but isn't the mechanism of cell differentiation still quite a mystery? Of course, with all the stem cell research going on, perhaps there's a lot of new evidence coming out all the time. If you're interested in that sort of thing, I can highly recommend Sean Carroll's _Endless Forms Most Beautiful_, a good recent popular book on evo-devo, the evolution of development. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007, at 3:40 AM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Warren Ockrassa wrote: Most people is stupid _and_ most stupid people have an instinctive drive to mindlessly obey the orders of those that they believe are more intelligent - and this is what prevents extinction. This is an interesting pair of claims and I'd be intrigued to know what evidence you have to support either one of them, Evidence? None, except accumulated experience that comes with old age. Which can be translated as curmdgeonhood. ;) and more particularly why you've arrived at the conclusion you have. What I mean is that it almost looks like you've made a decision and are doing a post hoc analysis to support it. Which decision? That people are stupid. The argument you offered suggests you decided that people are stupid, and were doing an after-the-fact expansion on the point of view. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but that the structure of what you wrote seemed to be justifying a conclusion rather than building a foundation for it. It might help to define what you mean by stupid, but what I'm reading here could be inverted as this: Stupid = not able to think clearly. People who believe that a fairy may turn 2 + 2 into fish. Oh, that's not stupid; it's surrealism! :D More seriously, though, even the term not able to think clearly doesn't necessarily indicate much about a given person's mind or mental faculties. Many people are not able to think clearly when they're angry, for instance, which renders temporary stupidity; as Julia pointed out some *choose* not to think clearly, which tends to lead others into ... anger. Some people don't have the tools to think clearly but that's only because they lack the training; others are genuinely organically dysfunctional and blameless about their inability to think clearly. And with groups in play, stupidity might be relative. Consider, for instance, that a YEC would consider most biologists, paleontologists, anthropologists, physicists and geologists as being incredibly stupid for not seeing the obvious clarity of the point of view that aligns to strict Biblical interpretation. Ah, the relativity of evaluation... Yes, that's correct. Were you rebutting the validity of the above? And that is relevant, because Isaac Newton was a young-earth creationist and, when he wasn't inventing calculus in order to define physics and optics, he was trying to find proofs of a literal interpretation of Biblical teachings. So which was he? Stupid or brilliant? At that time? He was extremely brilliant! Not being a literal interpreter of the Bible had dangerous consequences those times, like having his brain physically separated from his heart by more than 2 meters. During the Enlightenment? Not so much so. Inventing physics from nothing was a heck of an achievement, but the literalism he tried to justify was much more than simply a hobby or something he was doing to save face. He was genuinely committed to proving the literal truth of the Bible. If you're thinking of stupid as meaning inclined to mental laziness, I'd probably agree, but my personal working definition of stupid is (more or less) totally incapable of comprehending something. I don't believe the concepts are equivalent, and I don't believe most people fit that definition of stupid. Maybe everybody is totally incapable of comprehending something - after all, human knowledge is much bigger than the size of human brains :-) Yeah, you're probably right that everyone is probably guaranteed to be incapable of total comprehension of *something*; I was being a little narrower in intent, though, as in Totally incapable of comprehending X, where X is something presumably simple to grasp, such as number lines or the dangers of lighting firecrackers and swallowing them. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 5, 2007, at 8:54 PM, jon louis mann wrote: in that sense stupid is not only relative, but its definition depends on what one chooses to believe to be true knowledge. perhaps how you determine what is truth is genuine wisdom. Or at least one aspect of it, yeah, maybe. one who chooses to remain ignorant about arguments that logically refute their belief system may instead excercise their consider intellect to rationalize their belief just as newton tried to resolve religion with science to keep the church off his back. I'm not convinced he was doing it to avoid evangelical persecution. There appears to have been a little too much zealotry in his pursuit to make it seem entirely like a cover story. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 5, 2007, at 8:46 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Warren Ockrassa wrote: If you're thinking of stupid as meaning inclined to mental laziness, I'd probably agree, but my personal working definition of stupid is (more or less) totally incapable of comprehending something. I don't believe the concepts are equivalent, and I don't believe most people fit that definition of stupid. I have several categories for people who don't have given information or knowledge: 1) Ignorant (but probably willing to learn, or at least not rejecting the information) 2) Willfully ignorant (actively rejecting the information) 3) Stupid Ignorance can be cured with information. Stupidity can't. Willful ignorance is the worst, IMO. Brittle dogmatism leads to willful ignorance in a number of cases, hence is a very negative thing. I like the categories. Willful ignorance is inarguably the worst. Stubbornness in general is frustrating, but when it's combined with wealth and/or power, and particularly with willful ignorance, the combination is much more than annoying; it can be actively, aggressively dangerous. For instance, CNN reported today that Bush was told back in August that Iran had dismantled its nuke program -- yet he continued pushing the panic button and beating the war drum, *exactly as he did with Iraq*. And yet no one is commenting on the obvious inability he has to either (1) learn from history; or (2) give a shit.* Of course it goes both ways -- Huckabee's rising in popularity despite the fact he's clearly an even more deranged, fundamentalist wacko than Bush. Despite the last seven ghastly years, there are people in the US who want even *more* of this kind of garbage. And no, you can't fix stupid. ;) == * Either choice works, and of course it doesn't have to be either/or. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Warren Ockrassa wrote: For instance, CNN reported today that Bush was told back in August that Iran had dismantled its nuke program -- yet he continued pushing the panic button and beating the war drum, *exactly as he did with Iraq*. And yet no one is commenting on the obvious inability he has to either (1) learn from history; or (2) give a shit.* Bush did that because he's a genius, who sees far into the future, much clearly than any of us. The panic button raises the price of oil, etc, etc. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
At 05:47 PM Wednesday 12/5/2007, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Dec 5, 2007, at 5:39 AM, William T Goodall wrote: On 5 Dec 2007, at 00:55, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Dec 4, 2007, at 10:56 AM, William T Goodall wrote: And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. No more nor less so than any other institution. Other institutions don't necessarily require people to believe untrue things. Some religions require that, yes. That does not justify tarring the entire field with the same brush. The UU church, for instance, doesn't particularly have any articles of faith (which could be one reason membership* numbers seem so low) and doesn't particularly care if you ascribe to any given belief system. Furthermore there are ample cases of individuals being motivated to perform good deeds as a direct result of religious teachings, which is pretty much inarguable proof that the statement religion is evil is simply not correct. It *can* be evil, there are myriad times when it *is* evil, but your statement that religion *is* evil is functionally equivalent to saying that, since some people are anaphylactically allergic to shellfish, all shellfish are lethal poisons to all individuals. It's just not true. Agreed. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 09:55 PM Tuesday 12/4/2007, Warren Ockrassa wrote: Anthropic principle aside, sexual selection might go a pretty decent way toward explaining why we have such vastly oversized brains with which to observe the universe, make deductions and inferences about it, and contemplate a nice cup of gyokuro tea. Sexual selection in birds, for instance, appears to be the reason for a peacock's tail; an analogous mechanism in primates might have led to a positive feedback loop that resulted in a ludicrously disproportionate enlarging of the brain. So, alas, size might matter after all. Yes. Most of us have observed how the high school coeds all flock to the big-brained geeks and nerds and leave the jocks to sit home alone on Friday nights. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 08:07 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, jon louis mann wrote: ayn rand believed the masses of humanity were morons and would return to bestiality if not for the altruism of the elite who were kind enough to harness their labor so we plebians could reap the benefits of civilization. jon Whereas various Christian religions teach that man is a child of God or was made a little lower than the angels and so that every human being has worth first of all and foremost because s/he IS a human being, and that we should treat them as having that worth. Again Practice Sometimes Falls Short Of The Ideal Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 08:30 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Dec 6, 2007, at 7:24 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 07:06 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, Julia Thompson wrote: On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? I thought it was a reference to satan's prawns: seafood prepared with an extra-hot spicy coating . . . This should not, of course, be confused with Satan's pr0n. I'm not sure what that would be, and I'm quite confident I don't want to know. I suspect, however, that if your curiosity ever gets the better of you entering that term into a (non-net-nannied) search engine would turn something up . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007, at 7:24 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 07:06 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, Julia Thompson wrote: On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? I thought it was a reference to satan's prawns: seafood prepared with an extra-hot spicy coating . . . This should not, of course, be confused with Satan's pr0n. I'm not sure what that would be, and I'm quite confident I don't want to know. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Ronn! Blankenship wrote: It might help to define what you mean by stupid As opposed to common working definition used by many people of disagrees with me . . . ? ;) It's not true that everybody that disagree with me is stupid! There are those that are really smart, but disagree because they are evil, and want to deceive other people into their evil ways. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Julia Thompson wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? Ok, Satan's pawns. Or Satan's claws, if you want to get methaphorical :-) Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 07:06 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, Julia Thompson wrote: On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? Julia I thought it was a reference to satan's prawns: seafood prepared with an extra-hot spicy coating . . . Hot As You-Know-What Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 06:07 PM Wednesday 12/5/2007, Warren Ockrassa wrote: It might help to define what you mean by stupid As opposed to common working definition used by many people of disagrees with me . . . ? ;) -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Warren Ockrassa wrote: Which decision? That people are stupid. The argument you offered suggests you decided that people are stupid, and were doing an after-the-fact expansion on the point of view. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but that the structure of what you wrote seemed to be justifying a conclusion rather than building a foundation for it. No, I _observed_ that people are stupid. This conflicts with the data that people, after all, built the Parthenon, the Soyuz and nukes, so there must be something that forces people to act non-stupidly sometimes. Stupid = not able to think clearly. People who believe that a fairy may turn 2 + 2 into fish. Oh, that's not stupid; it's surrealism! :D Of course you don't have pre-teen children, or you would not miss the reference :-) More seriously, though, even the term not able to think clearly doesn't necessarily indicate much about a given person's mind or mental faculties. Many people are not able to think clearly when they're angry, for instance, which renders temporary stupidity; as Julia pointed out some *choose* not to think clearly, which tends to lead others into ... anger. Some people don't have the tools to think clearly but that's only because they lack the training; others are genuinely organically dysfunctional and blameless about their inability to think clearly. Ok, so we are just diverging on the _number_ of stupid people. And with groups in play, stupidity might be relative. Consider, for instance, that a YEC would consider most biologists, paleontologists, anthropologists, physicists and geologists as being incredibly stupid for not seeing the obvious clarity of the point of view that aligns to strict Biblical interpretation. Ah, the relativity of evaluation... Yes, that's correct. Were you rebutting the validity of the above? The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. But since it's impossible to define stupidity, it's also impossible to prove that most people are stupid. If we take an average brinller as the measure, it's obvious that most (other) people are stupid... And that is relevant, because Isaac Newton was a young-earth creationist and, when he wasn't inventing calculus in order to define physics and optics, he was trying to find proofs of a literal interpretation of Biblical teachings. So which was he? Stupid or brilliant? At that time? He was extremely brilliant! Not being a literal interpreter of the Bible had dangerous consequences those times, like having his brain physically separated from his heart by more than 2 meters. During the Enlightenment? IIRC (I could wikipedia for it, but it's not worth it), Kepler's mother had some problems one or two generations before Newton, for being accused of witchery. England, around the time of Newton, had a bloody revolution. Those were dangerous times - freedom of speech was bought with the blood of martyrs [ouch, I sound poetic...] Not so much so. Inventing physics from nothing was a heck of an achievement, but the literalism he tried to justify was much more than simply a hobby or something he was doing to save face. He was genuinely committed to proving the literal truth of the Bible. So? Maybe he thought he had the mathematical tools to do that. Maybe everybody is totally incapable of comprehending something - after all, human knowledge is much bigger than the size of human brains :-) Yeah, you're probably right that everyone is probably guaranteed to be incapable of total comprehension of *something*; I was being a little narrower in intent, though, as in Totally incapable of comprehending X, where X is something presumably simple to grasp, such as number lines or the dangers of lighting firecrackers and swallowing them. Ah, now we agree. From what I have seen, most people is totally incapable of comprehending those simple things. I just hope this is due to a lack of education or lack of nutrients during an early phase of the life; otherwise, the future of mankind will be horrible. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 10:06 PM Tuesday 12/4/2007, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 4, 2007 7:55 PM, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW, are you referring to the strong or weak anthropic model? Strong. And I just have to add, to be reasonably silly... the weak one is doomed -- survival of the fittest. Nick Does that reasoning apply to nuclear forces, too? -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007, at 7:36 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 08:30 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Dec 6, 2007, at 7:24 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 07:06 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, Julia Thompson wrote: On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? I thought it was a reference to satan's prawns: seafood prepared with an extra-hot spicy coating . . . This should not, of course, be confused with Satan's pr0n. I'm not sure what that would be, and I'm quite confident I don't want to know. I suspect, however, that if your curiosity ever gets the better of you entering that term into a (non-net-nannied) search engine would turn something up . . . Very likely. Which is why I'm not even going to try. Hysterical blindness is not something I want to experience. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 09:47 AM Thursday 12/6/2007, William T Goodall wrote: On 6 Dec 2007, at 15:17, Nick Arnett wrote: But thank goodness that people with scientific beliefs never have any trouble confronting information that conflicts with their beliefs.If scientists weren't so open-minded and willing to abandon old theories in a flash, science would hardly move forward at all! This is completely irrelevant misdirection and entirely typical of the faith-addled response to a reasonable discussion. No, it is an inevitable observation of anyone who has actually worked in scientific research and seen that Sturgeon's Law (and its corollary) applies equally as well to new scientific ideas (including ones they themselves come up with) as it does to the contents of the in-basket at any publisher of FSF . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 05:10 PM Tuesday 12/4/2007, hkhenson wrote: snip I favor direct selection via a primary mortality mode in the EEA, EEA? European Education Association? Early Early A.M.? -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 6, 2007, at 6:29 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: It *can* be evil, there are myriad times when it *is* evil, but your statement that religion *is* evil is functionally equivalent to saying that, since some people are anaphylactically allergic to shellfish, all shellfish are lethal poisons to all individuals. It's just not true. Agreed. What, no Satan's prawn reference here? Or was that just too obvious? -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 07:06 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, Julia Thompson wrote: On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? Julia I thought it was a reference to satan's prawns: seafood prepared with an extra-hot spicy coating . . . Hot As You-Know-What Maru Not so bad if there's pickled ginger around. At least, that's the case if the hot is from wasabi Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Correlation v. causality
Does Satan have retractable claws at the end of his paws? http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ Now is the winter of our discontent Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 20:24:41 -0600 To: brin-l@mccmedia.com From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Correlation v. causality At 07:06 PM Thursday 12/6/2007, Julia Thompson wrote: On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? Julia I thought it was a reference to satan's prawns: seafood prepared with an extra-hot spicy coating . . . Hot As You-Know-What Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Julia Thompson wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? Ok, Satan's pawns. Or Satan's claws, if you want to get methaphorical :-) Claws works. Thanks! Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007, at 6:22 PM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Julia Thompson wrote: The datum can't be refutted: YEC would consider non-YEC as evil, stupid or satan's paws. I don't know how to connect this to the argument, namely, the measure of how many people are stupid. Do you mean satan's *pawns*, or have I just been exposed to something new? Ok, Satan's pawns. Or Satan's claws, if you want to get methaphorical :-) No, no, no, you logic-addled fools, you Science-benumbed dupes! They're Santa Claws, with which he holds the reins of his magical sleigh! Sheesh. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 6, 2007, at 10:37 PM, Dave Land wrote: They're Santa Claws, with which he holds the reins of his magical sleigh! Slay. SLAY! Sheesh indeed! -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Warren Ockrassa wrote: (2) Most people are stupid, and forced to think for themselves will opt for the most stupid and evil choices No. It's a mischaracterization -- and unfair -- to assert that most people are stupid. Most people are not stupid. They make the best operational decisions they can given the information available to them. If most people were stupid, our species would have been extinct long ago. Most people is stupid _and_ most stupid people have an instinctive drive to mindlessly obey the orders of those that they believe are more intelligent - and this is what prevents extinction. Sorry, no time (now) to reply to the rest of the post. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007 9:45 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not necessarily. You could just be repeating buzz-words (in fact, complexity is a red-flag buzz-word in precisely the same way transitional fossils or macroevolution are - makes me think you're alluding to William Dembski, but I'd be shocked and disappointed if you were). Which is why I was asking for a more in-depth discussion of the perceived issues complexity has to a specific Darwinian model. If you can do that, then we can have a discussion. If you can't, or won't, then it's just a waste of time. I'm talking about the Santa Fe Institution people and those doing related work. Kauffman, Waldrop, Holland, Arthur, Lewin, etc. I've read probably 20 such books, none in the last few years, so I may be somewhat behind. I did most of an undergraduate degree in biology until I switched into writing and rhetoric. I got interested in genetics when I was a kid; as a college freshman in 1975, one of my first programs on a PDP-8 modeled Mendelian inheritance. Just looked to see who Dembski is. I guess I need to say clearly that I am not nor ever have been a proponent of intelligent design. I find that whole idea and movement rather nauseating. It seems to me to be rather obviously based in fear, not science. I feel the same way about people who assume that anybody who is unsatisfied with Darwinian -- natural selection as the over-reaching mechanism of speciation -- must be proponents of intelligent design. It's like it's impossible to engage in debate without first rejecting the lunatics. Emergence isn't trivial, it's actually an important insight, one of those (like natural selection) that seems so damned obvious in hindsight that it's hard to imagine not understanding it. However you're right in that pointing out that a system exhibits emergence doesn't tell you much about it unless you bother to discover the nature of the simple causes and how they generate complex results. I wasn't saying that emergence is trivial. I was saying that it is trivial to describe emergence. As I think you're saying, figuring out the implications of emergence is challenging. There's a lot to be discovered by those who can figure out the mathematics that will allow us to model many kinds of emergent phenomena, which currently seem to be beyond-astronomical in magnitude. So... perhaps I can answer your question this way... we don't know much much of evolution is driven by simple rules that are inherent in the universe (thus the anthropic principle) v. how much is driven by competition. It's a lot easier to see competition at work because our main tool for studying emergence is modeling that rapidly sucks down all the computing power we can throw at it. Saying it another way... complexity says that the interactions of lots of agents gives rise to unpredictable (so far) phenomena. At the simplest mathematical levels, it is meaningless to describe those interactions as competitive or cooperative, but at higher levels of observation, such behaviors appear to emerge. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Nick Arnett wrote: I'm talking about the Santa Fe Institution people and those doing related work. Kauffman, Waldrop, Holland, Arthur, Lewin, etc. I've read probably 20 such books, none in the last few years, so I may be somewhat behind. I did most of an undergraduate degree in biology until I switched into writing and rhetoric. I got interested in genetics when I was a kid; as a college freshman in 1975, one of my first programs on a PDP-8 modeled Mendelian inheritance. Just to give you an idea as to where my mind was, when I read Waldrop I immediately thought Howard, not M. Mitchell. :P (We owned a copy of _Complexity_, I read it, it got lost sometime around 1998 or so, and we may replace it, because we liked it. I own a copy of _Howard Who?_ that I've seen a lot more recently, and I'm at the same conventions as Howard on a regular basis. Don't think I've ever shared space with M. Mitchell.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 5 Dec 2007, at 02:35, jon louis mann wrote: It may prevent most people from being evil some of the time but it also makes most people evil some of the time too. Catholic ideas about birth control are evil whenever applied. What about the various recent evil Muslim antics? William T Goodall the original judeo religion which spawned christianity, and islam and all their schisms is far less evil and dogmatic in its campaigns against heretics. reform and reconstructionist jews are far more progressive than its conservative and orthodox forbears. some protestant religions and moderate muslims are improving, also, so tere is hope... i would not say that all evangelical fundamentalists are stupid, just ignorant. they often make a choice to ignore facts and are motived more by emotion than rational thought. people who are sceptical and free thinkers are probably more intelligent in general because they make a conscious choice to reject mystical superstition and creation mythos. Catholics are still the largest Christian sect and Sharia law is part of Muslim culture. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or Allow? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 06/12/2007, at 11:09 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: those systems through a few simple rules is a challenge, but not beyond our capacity. Interestingly, some of the most successful work has come out of games and movies - SimCity exhibits some emergence, and CGI crowd/battle scenes Oh, I gotta disagree about what we can calculate. Take the simplest sort of rule system -- a binary network -- and if it is big enough to be interesting, there isn't enough time and computing power in the life of the universe to examine the possible states. Oh, I see what you mean. Well, yes if you're talking on that scale. But at smaller scales, look at some of what's been done in Game of Life, building computational devices and so on. And then we (well not me...) can build systems that treat those computational devices as agents within a larger scale sim. So we have some shortcuts to help ameliorate some of the pure scale issues. Unless there's been some breakthrough I haven't heard about, nobody has come up with an algorithmic solution, either but when if and when somebody does, it'll be huge. Nobody has figured out how to mathematically describe the observable way the models cycle through similar (attractor) states. Perhaps with quantum computing... Yep, that'll be the big one. Although it'll render PGP useless... Especially interesting is actually the pre-evolutionary field of abiogenesis, where hypercycles may turn out to explain how a set of complex interactions of molecules could bootstrap out of the prebiotic chemical soup. This is where Kauffman opened my eyes... replicators like to replicate and all that. But it's not Darwinism Arrgh. No, it's not Darwinism. But it isn't outside of evolutionary theory either! -- unless everything that we observe is getting tossed into the Darwinism bucket to fight off the ID people, which might be politically useful, but confusing. No!!! Stop saying Darwinism! Yes. But that's describing behaviour, not evolution (which is simply changes in gene frequencies in a population over time). That strikes me as a surprisingly narrow definition and not at all common in my reading. It's the fact of evolution - given a breeding population with imperfect inheritance, gene frequencies will change over time. That's all evolution actually is. Now, charting how that's manifested itself over the history of life on Earth is one huge area of study (also known as evolution but really genealogy writ extremely large), and how variability and selection and so on work is another area of study (also shorthanded to evolution, but really evolutionary theory). Now, there's some speculation that DNA has a bit more going on than just a gene carrier: - it's been postulated that interactions of genes can act in a self-organising way, or even as a form of calculating device, a genetic computer. But this is controversial, and it's going to take a lot of work to show this. Interesting line of study, however. And just what Kauffman (or is it Axelrod) suggests is signified by the mathematical relationships between gene counts and cell differentiation counts, if I am remembering it correctly. I'm struggling to recall (and away from my books), but isn't the mechanism of cell differentiation still quite a mystery? It's imperfectly understood, but when I was an undergraduate we learnt a fair bit about it, and in the 15 years since everything I learnt has been superceded. It's the fastest moving field in biology, as I mentioned in a previous post. Of course, with all the stem cell research going on, perhaps there's a lot of new evidence coming out all the time. Stem cells, and other biological models. The main ones used are the nematode worm _C. elegans_ and the zebrafish. Charlie. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
William T Goodall wrote: Corollary: Religion is not evil, because it prevents most people from being evil. It may prevent most people from being evil some of the time but it also makes most people evil some of the time too. Catholic ideas about birth control are evil whenever applied. What about the various recent evil Muslim antics? People who blindless follow those ideas are already stupid, evil, or both. If they weren't puppets of those evil clerics, who knows what other evil things they would do? Maybe instead of unprotected sex, they would be practicing mass rape. Maybe instead of terrorist suicidal acts, they would be practicing kidnapping, extorsion, or drug traffic. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 5, 2007 3:44 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 06/12/2007, at 2:56 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: I'm talking about the Santa Fe Institution people and those doing related work. Kauffman, Waldrop, Holland, Arthur, Lewin, etc. Right, now I'm a lot closer to understanding what you're alluding to (but it's the Santa Fe Institute...). Of course it is... the older I get the more my fingers decide to type words that are similar the ones I intended. I'm really astonished when they type the wrong articles -- correct part of speech, but not the word I was thinking. Makes me wonder how the whole brain-fingers things works. People who make sweeping statements without getting involved in specifics are 9 times out of 10 cranks, or at the very least don't know what they're talking about. It's hard to give people the benefit of the doubt when there are so many aggressive cranks out there. Emergence has applications in ecosystems, crowd control, city design, animal behaviour, surveillance, neural nets, and so on. Economics. Must not omit economics. The implications for economics are, in my mind, too interesting to make a list and leave it out. Just a point of personal preference...but money makes the world go 'round. Modelling those systems through a few simple rules is a challenge, but not beyond our capacity. Interestingly, some of the most successful work has come out of games and movies - SimCity exhibits some emergence, and CGI crowd/battle scenes Oh, I gotta disagree about what we can calculate. Take the simplest sort of rule system -- a binary network -- and if it is big enough to be interesting, there isn't enough time and computing power in the life of the universe to examine the possible states. Unless there's been some breakthrough I haven't heard about, nobody has come up with an algorithmic solution, either but when if and when somebody does, it'll be huge. Nobody has figured out how to mathematically describe the observable way the models cycle through similar (attractor) states. Perhaps with quantum computing... Especially interesting is actually the pre-evolutionary field of abiogenesis, where hypercycles may turn out to explain how a set of complex interactions of molecules could bootstrap out of the prebiotic chemical soup. This is where Kauffman opened my eyes... replicators like to replicate and all that. But it's not Darwinism -- unless everything that we observe is getting tossed into the Darwinism bucket to fight off the ID people, which might be politically useful, but confusing. Yes. But that's describing behaviour, not evolution (which is simply changes in gene frequencies in a population over time). That strikes me as a surprisingly narrow definition and not at all common in my reading. Now, there's some speculation that DNA has a bit more going on than just a gene carrier: - it's been postulated that interactions of genes can act in a self-organising way, or even as a form of calculating device, a genetic computer. But this is controversial, and it's going to take a lot of work to show this. Interesting line of study, however. And just what Kauffman (or is it Axelrod) suggests is signified by the mathematical relationships between gene counts and cell differentiation counts, if I am remembering it correctly. I'm struggling to recall (and away from my books), but isn't the mechanism of cell differentiation still quite a mystery? Of course, with all the stem cell research going on, perhaps there's a lot of new evidence coming out all the time. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 5 Dec 2007, at 00:55, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Dec 4, 2007, at 10:56 AM, William T Goodall wrote: On 4 Dec 2007, at 16:26, Richard Baker wrote: Nick said: I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. It's not scepticism though. The people in the US who don't believe in evolution by natural selection by and large aren't saying we don't think evolution by natural selection is an adequate explanation for the extant biological diversity so for the moment we won't believe in it even though there are no plausible alternatives but rather we don't believe in evolution by natural selection because these fairy stories are so much more plausible despite the total lack of evidence for them! That's not scepticism, it's misplaced credulity. And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. No more nor less so than any other institution. Other institutions don't necessarily require people to believe untrue things. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If so, then Microsoft would have great products. - Steve Jobs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 06/12/2007, at 2:56 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: I'm talking about the Santa Fe Institution people and those doing related work. Kauffman, Waldrop, Holland, Arthur, Lewin, etc. Right, now I'm a lot closer to understanding what you're alluding to (but it's the Santa Fe Institute...). I followed the early A-life stuff very carefully, and think that Chris Langton's work is fascinating. Kauffman is very interesting too, but he's got a lot of work to do. I'll discuss it below a bit. Just looked to see who Dembski is. I guess I need to say clearly that I am not nor ever have been a proponent of intelligent design. I find that whole idea and movement rather nauseating. It seems to me to be rather obviously based in fear, not science. Yes. But when you start saying things like complexity poses challenges to Darwinian models without providing examples, you're echoing (inadvertently it seems), one of the major battle cries of the ID movement. Gets my hackles up, because it's vacuous at best and downright unscientific more likely. I feel the same way about people who assume that anybody who is unsatisfied with Darwinian -- natural selection as the over-reaching mechanism of speciation -- must be proponents of intelligent design. It depends what people are saying. If one actually proposes some other model, then it can be evaluated, and there's a discussion, and we're doing science. But if you look back over the last few posts, you'll see that I've been trying to ask what models you're talking about, and it took several attempts to even get you to even mention some scientists by name. It appeared extremely evasive from where I'm sitting, and that again is a red-flag to pseudoscience. Bear in mind that outside of Brin-L, I spend a lot of time discussing evolutionary biology, and I'm well used to cranks hijacking discussions. People who make sweeping statements without getting involved in specifics are 9 times out of 10 cranks, or at the very least don't know what they're talking about. It's like it's impossible to engage in debate without first rejecting the lunatics. Which is what I've been trying to do by asking you exactly what you were alluding to. It's a lot easier to engage in a debate if you actually engage in it. Emergence isn't trivial, it's actually an important insight, one of those (like natural selection) that seems so damned obvious in hindsight that it's hard to imagine not understanding it. However you're right in that pointing out that a system exhibits emergence doesn't tell you much about it unless you bother to discover the nature of the simple causes and how they generate complex results. I wasn't saying that emergence is trivial. I was saying that it is trivial to describe emergence. As I think you're saying, figuring out the implications of emergence is challenging. There's a lot to be discovered by those who can figure out the mathematics that will allow us to model many kinds of emergent phenomena, which currently seem to be beyond- astronomical in magnitude. Emergence has applications in ecosystems, crowd control, city design, animal behaviour, surveillance, neural nets, and so on. Modelling those systems through a few simple rules is a challenge, but not beyond our capacity. Interestingly, some of the most successful work has come out of games and movies - SimCity exhibits some emergence, and CGI crowd/battle scenes So... perhaps I can answer your question this way... we don't know much much of evolution is driven by simple rules that are inherent in the universe (thus the anthropic principle) v. how much is driven by competition. Why are those two different things? Evolution as currently accepted *is* driven by simple rules. If you have inheritance and differential breeding rates, that lead to changes in gene prevalence over generations. That's all evolution is. There is a lot in the complexity of ecosystems (or in maintaining simple systems in a stable way) that could be understood and explained by emergence. Especially interesting is actually the pre-evolutionary field of abiogenesis, where hypercycles may turn out to explain how a set of complex interactions of molecules could bootstrap out of the prebiotic chemical soup. Indeed, emergence and hypercycles may go a long way to explaining how biochemical systems like the Krebs cycle could have appeared and been incorporated. Look at one of those huge posters of the human metabolic pathways, and it absolutely screams emergence. Here: http://expasy.org/cgi-bin/show_thumbnails.pl Kauffman argues that the complexity of systems may result as much from emergent phenomena and complexity, non-linear dynamics, maybe chaos, as they do through natural selection. Well yes, they probably do. But I think these are two related but not totally overlapping areas - natural selection explains
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 5, 2007, at 5:39 AM, William T Goodall wrote: On 5 Dec 2007, at 00:55, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Dec 4, 2007, at 10:56 AM, William T Goodall wrote: And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. No more nor less so than any other institution. Other institutions don't necessarily require people to believe untrue things. Some religions require that, yes. That does not justify tarring the entire field with the same brush. The UU church, for instance, doesn't particularly have any articles of faith (which could be one reason membership* numbers seem so low) and doesn't particularly care if you ascribe to any given belief system. Furthermore there are ample cases of individuals being motivated to perform good deeds as a direct result of religious teachings, which is pretty much inarguable proof that the statement religion is evil is simply not correct. It *can* be evil, there are myriad times when it *is* evil, but your statement that religion *is* evil is functionally equivalent to saying that, since some people are anaphylactically allergic to shellfish, all shellfish are lethal poisons to all individuals. It's just not true. == * I originally mistyped that as memebership. Rather Freudian- slippish of me. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 5, 2007, at 4:45 AM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Warren Ockrassa wrote: (2) Most people are stupid, and forced to think for themselves will opt for the most stupid and evil choices No. It's a mischaracterization -- and unfair -- to assert that most people are stupid. Most people are not stupid. They make the best operational decisions they can given the information available to them. If most people were stupid, our species would have been extinct long ago. Most people is stupid _and_ most stupid people have an instinctive drive to mindlessly obey the orders of those that they believe are more intelligent - and this is what prevents extinction. This is an interesting pair of claims and I'd be intrigued to know what evidence you have to support either one of them, and more particularly why you've arrived at the conclusion you have. What I mean is that it almost looks like you've made a decision and are doing a post hoc analysis to support it. It might help to define what you mean by stupid, but what I'm reading here could be inverted as this: Because many people tend to be followers rather than leaders, and because many people prefer the comfort of feeling part of a group to the relative discomfort of being trend-setters, most people tend to align with a leader of their choice. This can lead to destructive, mindless behavior and inculcate intellectual laziness, which can often be characterized as rank stupidity. That's not the same thing as saying that most people are stupid, but it might be a middle ground that's more conducive to productive discussion regarding what to actually *do* about it. And with groups in play, stupidity might be relative. Consider, for instance, that a YEC would consider most biologists, paleontologists, anthropologists, physicists and geologists as being incredibly stupid for not seeing the obvious clarity of the point of view that aligns to strict Biblical interpretation. And that is relevant, because Isaac Newton was a young-earth creationist and, when he wasn't inventing calculus in order to define physics and optics, he was trying to find proofs of a literal interpretation of Biblical teachings. So which was he? Stupid or brilliant? Or consider what might happen if I were to begin holding forth on the subject of opera, about which I know essentially nothing. To an aficionado I'd sure as hell look plenty stupid, but it would (probably) be a mistake to characterize me as being so, instead of simply labeling me a loudmouthed ignoramus on the topic. The point is that we might be more inclined to consider those who are not part of our in-crowd as being stupid simply because they aren't part of our in-crowd, but as with the case of Newton, it seems unwise to apply one label to all members of a clade. If you're thinking of stupid as meaning inclined to mental laziness, I'd probably agree, but my personal working definition of stupid is (more or less) totally incapable of comprehending something. I don't believe the concepts are equivalent, and I don't believe most people fit that definition of stupid. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Warren Ockrassa wrote: If you're thinking of stupid as meaning inclined to mental laziness, I'd probably agree, but my personal working definition of stupid is (more or less) totally incapable of comprehending something. I don't believe the concepts are equivalent, and I don't believe most people fit that definition of stupid. I have several categories for people who don't have given information or knowledge: 1) Ignorant (but probably willing to learn, or at least not rejecting the information) 2) Willfully ignorant (actively rejecting the information) 3) Stupid Ignorance can be cured with information. Stupidity can't. Willful ignorance is the worst, IMO. Brittle dogmatism leads to willful ignorance in a number of cases, hence is a very negative thing. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
Nick said: I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. It's not scepticism though. The people in the US who don't believe in evolution by natural selection by and large aren't saying we don't think evolution by natural selection is an adequate explanation for the extant biological diversity so for the moment we won't believe in it even though there are no plausible alternatives but rather we don't believe in evolution by natural selection because these fairy stories are so much more plausible despite the total lack of evidence for them! That's not scepticism, it's misplaced credulity. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 4 Dec 2007, at 16:26, Richard Baker wrote: Nick said: I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. It's not scepticism though. The people in the US who don't believe in evolution by natural selection by and large aren't saying we don't think evolution by natural selection is an adequate explanation for the extant biological diversity so for the moment we won't believe in it even though there are no plausible alternatives but rather we don't believe in evolution by natural selection because these fairy stories are so much more plausible despite the total lack of evidence for them! That's not scepticism, it's misplaced credulity. And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance - Steve Ballmer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 4, 2007, at 9:56 AM, William T Goodall wrote: On 4 Dec 2007, at 16:26, Richard Baker wrote: Nick said: I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. It's not scepticism though. The people in the US who don't believe in evolution by natural selection by and large aren't saying we don't think evolution by natural selection is an adequate explanation for the extant biological diversity so for the moment we won't believe in it even though there are no plausible alternatives but rather we don't believe in evolution by natural selection because these fairy stories are so much more plausible despite the total lack of evidence for them! That's not scepticism, it's misplaced credulity. And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. *Sigh* Saying the same thing over and over again is not the same thing as making a reasoned argument. Hence the question of the possible evil of religion remains open. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 4 Dec 2007, at 19:44, Dave Land wrote: On Dec 4, 2007, at 9:56 AM, William T Goodall wrote: On 4 Dec 2007, at 16:26, Richard Baker wrote: Nick said: I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. It's not scepticism though. The people in the US who don't believe in evolution by natural selection by and large aren't saying we don't think evolution by natural selection is an adequate explanation for the extant biological diversity so for the moment we won't believe in it even though there are no plausible alternatives but rather we don't believe in evolution by natural selection because these fairy stories are so much more plausible despite the total lack of evidence for them! That's not scepticism, it's misplaced credulity. And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. *Sigh* Saying the same thing over and over again is not the same thing as making a reasoned argument. Denying the same thing over and over again is not the same thing as making a reasoned argument. Do you think people who act as if made up nonsense is true are not harmful? Or do you think all the nonsense is true? Because if you don't agree with one of those then you agree with me. Hence the question of the possible evil of religion remains open. Not really. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance - Steve Ballmer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 05/12/2007, at 4:56 AM, William T Goodall wrote: And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. I don't agree that religion is evil. It just opens a large door to evil by fostering unquestioning obedience. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 04/12/2007, at 11:03 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. If it's true scepticism, and not denialism. The US is a leader of science in spite of it's religiosity, not because of it. And the US is squandering its lead - Florida and Texas are both about to be hit by creationist school boards trying to get round prior rulings, and the only thing saving America from losing increasing chunks of its population to nonsense is the courts. It's a line that's holding, but a Supreme Court reversal would be a disaster. Or one can think more rationally and realize that there are other factors, such as freedom or wealth, that cause both science and skepticism to thrive. The first of which is being restricted, the second is increasingly concentrated in fewer hands. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 4 Dec 2007, at 20:32, Charlie Bell wrote: On 05/12/2007, at 4:56 AM, William T Goodall wrote: And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. I don't agree that religion is evil. It just opens a large door to evil by fostering unquestioning obedience. But that's evil in itself! Dissenter Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance - Steve Ballmer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 4, 2007 12:47 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If it's true scepticism, and not denialism. The US is a leader of science in spite of it's religiosity, not because of it. It seems far more likely to me that the same freedoms that allow wacky religious ideas (which is what we're really talking about, not religion) to grow are the same soil in which scientific growth thrives. Maybe you can't get one without the other. This is not to say that I'm in favor of any of the ways in which some of the religious wackos try to suppress science or replace it with unscientific ideas. However, I think we would be wise to fear that any sort of repression of wacky religious ideas might also stifle the growth and development of less wacky ideas. Legislating what people are allowed to think, in any form, opens a very dangerous door, in my opinion. Fascism intended to suppress wacky religious ideas is no better than any other sort of fascism. Still, I'm entirely comfortable with aggressive criticism of wacky religious ideas, so long as the criticism is logical. Making illogical arguments against the illogic of the wacky ideas is worse than self-defeating, I think. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 4, 2007 12:32 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't agree that religion is evil. It just opens a large door to evil by fostering unquestioning obedience. I think this confuses a belief of certain religions with the general meaning of religion. Religions are belief systems having to do with spiritual or metaphysical matters. Unquestioning obedience is nothing more than a belief of the more cult-like religions. It certainly is not true of the major ones except in a very limited sense that by no means extends to scientific pursuits. It is only a minority -- a foolish, arrogant and disturbingly politically active minority -- that seeks such directions. In other words, I'm not denying that there are anti-science forces at work in some religions. But I fail to see any convincing argument that this has anything to do with religion in general. There is no human institution that is exempt from such corruption. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 05/12/2007, at 8:06 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 4, 2007 12:47 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If it's true scepticism, and not denialism. The US is a leader of science in spite of it's religiosity, not because of it. It seems far more likely to me that the same freedoms that allow wacky religious ideas (which is what we're really talking about, not religion) to grow are the same soil in which scientific growth thrives. Maybe you can't get one without the other. Maybe you can't. But other countries with similarly advanced scientific research (the UK, Australia, Japan and so on) seem to get by with similar freedoms but with a lot less overtly religious nuttiness. This is not to say that I'm in favor of any of the ways in which some of the religious wackos try to suppress science or replace it with unscientific ideas. However, I think we would be wise to fear that any sort of repression of wacky religious ideas might also stifle the growth and development of less wacky ideas. Legislating what people are allowed to think, in any form, opens a very dangerous door, in my opinion. People can think what they like. But non-science should not be allowed to be taught as science. And non-medicine should not be sold as medicine. Fascism intended to suppress wacky religious ideas is no better than any other sort of fascism. I said nothing about suppression. I think the way to squeeze back the exploiters and loons is education. But in the US, the education system is being usurped. Still, I'm entirely comfortable with aggressive criticism of wacky religious ideas, so long as the criticism is logical. Making illogical arguments against the illogic of the wacky ideas is worse than self-defeating, I think. Sure. But if one thinks that all religious ideas are whacky, then it's hard to appear logical, because even engaging with nutty ideas can drag one to the same level. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 05/12/2007, at 8:19 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 4, 2007 12:32 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't agree that religion is evil. It just opens a large door to evil by fostering unquestioning obedience. I think this confuses a belief of certain religions with the general meaning of religion. Religions are belief systems having to do with spiritual or metaphysical matters. Yes. Which you have to believe in order to be a part of that religion. If you question the basic tenets of the faith, you are not adhering to that faith and won't be part of it for long, unless as many people do, you hide your doubts and pay lip-service. Unquestioning obedience is nothing more than a belief of the more cult-like religions. There aren't many that aren't cult-like in at least some of their aspects. It took me a long time to extract myself far enough from the religious upbringing of my youth to see that. It certainly is not true of the major ones except in a very limited sense that by no means extends to scientific pursuits. It is only a minority -- a foolish, arrogant and disturbingly politically active minority -- that seeks such directions. I think it's a lot more prevalent than you think. In other words, I'm not denying that there are anti-science forces at work in some religions. But I fail to see any convincing argument that this has anything to do with religion in general. There is no human institution that is exempt from such corruption. Your last sentence I agree with. However, where we differ is that I've come to think that the special status accorded to religion in most societies catalyses and shelters a lot of the corruption. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:51 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: snip There are iatrogenic illnesses, those that are caused by the healer. I have no doubt that there are parallels in religion, but just as we don't shut down hospitals because, for example, people pick up infections there, it is not a compelling argument for shutting down churches. Nobody is arguing that zero harm is done by religion. To me, there's a difference between hospitals and churches, though; hospitals are places where the rules and results of science-based research are applied. By and large it seems to me that churches aren't of that nature. grimace Well, we strive and hope for sound science in our medicine; unfortunately we have, IMO, a runaway for-profit frenzy. I am astounded at the continual bombardment of advertising to convince Americans that they need these pills, those injectables, that session-under-the-knife to be healthy, happy and *normal.* What a freak show. Then, of course, there are the take these natural compounds only hucksters -I mean, gurus- also eager to extract dollars from ignorant folks' pockets. I see a strong parallel between the desire for a simple set of rules to win the divine jackpot, and the desire to gain eternal youth by pills procedures. In neither case does one have to think or question or work for one's reward. Genuine spiritual growth and improved health require time, effort and dedication...with no guarantee of success in the conventional sense. Debbi Embrace The Journey (Like There's A Choice!) Maru Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/sports;_ylt=At9_qDKvtAbMuh1G1SQtBI7ntAcJ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
At 01:00 PM 12/4/2007, Nick Arnett wrote: snip You've set an impossibly high burden of proof by claiming that religion causes evil. You'll never prove it. I don't think that's the proper model. Evolutionary psychology states that *every* human psychological trait is either the result of direct selection or a side effect of direct selection. (With a bit of possibility of something being fixed due to random genetic drift.) I think we can agree that the psychological mechanisms behind religion are a species wide psychological trait. It's known from twin studies to be at least as heritable as other personality traits. You have a choice of directly selected (like the psychological mechanism behind Stockholm syndrome) or a side effect like drug addiction. (In the EEA being wiped out on plant sap was a formula for experiencing the intestines of a predator from the inside.) I favor direct selection via a primary mortality mode in the EEA, wars between groups of humans. Here is the background: http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/gatpres1.pdf I have gone a little further than Dr. Gat and propose that the psychological mechanism leading to wars starts with a population average bleak outlook. Under circumstances where parents can see they won't be able to feed the kids through the next dry season, it makes genetic sense for an evolved behavioral switch to flip. So the future looks bleak enough, it is cost effective from the gene's viewpoint for a group of related males to go to war and take the high risk of dying. Of course genes want the tribe to go to war as a *group* because coordinated attacks on neighbors are a lot more likely to succeed. Even chimps agree on this point (see Goodall). I have proposed that the mechanism works thus: Detection of bad times a-coming turns up the gain on the circulation of xenophobic memes. The memes synch the tribe's warriors to make do or die attacks on neighbors, which (in the EEA) almost always solved the problem of a bad ratio of mouths to food. You ask: How do religions fit in here? What are religions? They are memes of course, but in particular religions are *xenophobic* memes. When times are good they are relatively inactive seed xenophobic memes. What we see today as religions are the result of evolved psychological mechanisms that induce groups to go to war as needed by conditions. By this model religions don't _cause_ wars. It's easy to see how religions and wars or other social disruptions are associated with religions because some meme (often a religion class meme) will be amplified up to serve as a synchronizing reason to go to war. Evil is a difficult concept in this model. Humans became the top predator a *long* time ago. So if conditions are such that a population anticipates a kill or starve situation, humans have to be their own predator. Do we consider lions killing zebras evil. If you consider killing people evil or at least undesirable, and want to get back to a cause, it's population growth in excess of economic growth. Malthus with method if you like. Religions are just xenophobic memes. When people feel the need to thin out the overpopulation, some meme (including memes like communism) will gain enough influence over enough people to serve as a reason for a war. Since they bear the children, you can blame women for wars. grin Of course you also have to give them credit for peace. In this model the low birth rate is the reason Western Europe has been so peaceful since WW II. If you wonder about the recent Sudan and the school teacher incident or the Danish cartoons a few years ago, it because population growth has generated a bleak future for these people. That turned up the gain on xenophobic religious memes. A substantial fraction of the population is now primed for war or related social disruptions. It wouldn't help if there were no religious memes circulating beforehand because some warrior synchronizing meme would be amplified out of the noise. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it means you're acting on faith in your intuitions and experience, not reason. Meanwhile, it's BORING to hear the same thing over and over. Do you really imagine that one day, anybody will be enlightened by your repetition? In hopes of going somewhere more interesting with this topic, let me offer this challenge -- can you (or anybody else who can stomach the subject) come up with external causalities when religion and evil co-occur? If we're going to argue about whether or not faith is anti-scientific, how about if we do so in a reasonably logical manner? It only seems fitting. Is this model logical enough for you? Keith Henson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Since they bear the children, you can blame women for wars. grin Of course you also have to give them credit for peace. In this model the low birth rate is the reason Western Europe has been so peaceful since WW II. Apart from Ireland and Spain... ;) Keith Henson Welcome back Keith. :-) Good post. Quite a bit to digest, I'll give it another read later. For now, I'm a bit out of it on codeine and so on. Had all four wisdom teeth out less than 48 hours ago. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
hkhenson wrote: ... I have gone a little further than Dr. Gat and propose that the psychological mechanism leading to wars starts with a population average bleak outlook. ... memes. The memes synch the tribe's warriors to make do or die attacks on neighbors, which (in the EEA) almost always solved the problem of a bad ratio of mouths to food. Keith-- Hey, good to hear from you! I just got done googling to figure out that EEA was environment of evolutionary adaptation. That's definitely a concept that deserves a word , but an acronym out of the blue? ... wouldn't help if there were no religious memes circulating beforehand because some warrior synchronizing meme would be amplified out of the noise. I like that, warrior synchronizing meme. I'll file that away next to subtractive volume renderer and other nice phrases... ... Is this model logical enough for you? Keith Henson You know, some of this could be tested. Has anyone done so? I do like the idea, and liked it last time you posted it. ---David Illegitimi non carborundum, Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
Charlie Bell wrote: And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. I don't agree that religion is evil. It just opens a large door to evil by fostering unquestioning obedience. Facts: (1) Most religions tell people to obey the higher authorities and don't question them. (2) Most people are stupid, and forced to think for themselves will opt for the most stupid and evil choices Corollary: Religion is not evil, because it prevents most people from being evil. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 4 Dec 2007, at 23:40, Charlie Bell wrote: Since they bear the children, you can blame women for wars. grin Of course you also have to give them credit for peace. In this model the low birth rate is the reason Western Europe has been so peaceful since WW II. Apart from Ireland and Spain... ;) Keith Henson Welcome back Keith. :-) Good post. Quite a bit to digest, I'll give it another read later. For now, I'm a bit out of it on codeine and so on. Had all four wisdom teeth out less than 48 hours ago. I went partying after I had three out and scared people with my blood- filled smile. Black stool Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If so, then Microsoft would have great products. - Steve Jobs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 4 Dec 2007, at 23:46, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Charlie Bell wrote: And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. I don't agree that religion is evil. It just opens a large door to evil by fostering unquestioning obedience. Facts: (1) Most religions tell people to obey the higher authorities and don't question them. (2) Most people are stupid, and forced to think for themselves will opt for the most stupid and evil choices Corollary: Religion is not evil, because it prevents most people from being evil. It may prevent most people from being evil some of the time but it also makes most people evil some of the time too. Catholic ideas about birth control are evil whenever applied. What about the various recent evil Muslim antics? -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or Allow? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 4, 2007, at 10:56 AM, William T Goodall wrote: On 4 Dec 2007, at 16:26, Richard Baker wrote: Nick said: I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. It's not scepticism though. The people in the US who don't believe in evolution by natural selection by and large aren't saying we don't think evolution by natural selection is an adequate explanation for the extant biological diversity so for the moment we won't believe in it even though there are no plausible alternatives but rather we don't believe in evolution by natural selection because these fairy stories are so much more plausible despite the total lack of evidence for them! That's not scepticism, it's misplaced credulity. And people who think like that are dangerous to themselves and others. Hence religion is evil. No more nor less so than any other institution. The above sentence just doesn't qualify as a rebuttal to (for instance) the material I posted earlier. It's not an argument, and as declarations go, it's not even particularly valid. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007, at 4:46 PM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Facts: (1) Most religions tell people to obey the higher authorities and don't question them. Yes. (2) Most people are stupid, and forced to think for themselves will opt for the most stupid and evil choices No. It's a mischaracterization -- and unfair -- to assert that most people are stupid. Most people are not stupid. They make the best operational decisions they can given the information available to them. If most people were stupid, our species would have been extinct long ago. What many people might be is unused to the processes involved in rigorous logical thinking, which leaves them with little more than gut or instinct responses. In the wild, this is sensible. A reaction of fear toward a threat is a positive survival trait. In a society, not so much, because the reaction might be a fear to a *perceived* threat rather than an actual one. It takes training to respond with reason, and that is a training many people lack. To this unfamiliarity with reason we can add inadequate or insufficient information, which might be the result of willful stupidity or willful ignorance (in some cases I believe that's a valid charge to level); but I think many of us here can recall a time when we made poor choices -- or what are retrospectively poor choices -- because we simply did not have the information then that's available to us now. Does that mean we were stupid then, or that we just weren't adequately supplied wit the tools we needed to make more appropriate decisions? And what does that suggest about where any of us might be in ten years' time? Corollary: Religion is not evil, because it prevents most people from being evil. My suggestion is that religion is neither inherently good nor evil, but is actually an institution of abstractions that are more or less applied to the world by the religion's adherents. To the extent those abstractions comment on what seems to be reality, we can easily test to see if they make sense; if not, they should be discarded. To the extent that the abstractions apply to behavior, morés and social customs, we should probably remember that they're actually social artifacts themselves and therefore almost certain to change over time as things fall into or out of vogue. Where I see a big problem is when we try to take the latter type of declarations and behave as though they are incontrovertible, bedrock Truths. That's the part that can lead to evil behavior. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007, at 4:10 PM, hkhenson wrote: [long snip] Is this model logical enough for you? Can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's interesting as hell. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007 3:46 PM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Facts: (1) Most religions tell people to obey the higher authorities and don't question them. Really? Fact? Got a source for that fact? (2) Most people are stupid, and forced to think for themselves will opt for the most stupid and evil choices Most people are average, on average. Corollary: Religion is not evil, because it prevents most people from being evil. I don't see how you got to the corollary. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007 3:10 PM, hkhenson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 01:00 PM 12/4/2007, Nick Arnett wrote: snip You've set an impossibly high burden of proof by claiming that religion causes evil. You'll never prove it. I don't think that's the proper model. My argument there is really about the squishiness of psychology and sociology. Evolutionary psychology states that *every* human psychological trait is either the result of direct selection or a side effect of direct selection. (With a bit of possibility of something being fixed due to random genetic drift.) This is arguing from a conclusion. The conclusion is that everything that exists in living organisms arose via evolution, therefore everything has an evolutionary explanation. I'll certainly allow that it *may* be true, but it certainly isn't proved -- our understanding of evolution is far from complete. Furthermore, I think pure Darwinian explanations are generally wrong. Everything doesn't arise from competition and we have mathematics (complexity) that demonstrates that, or at least very strongly suggests that Darwinian models are substantially incomplete. (Nothing in this is an argument for or against God; like the majority of people, I don't think religion has anything much to say about evolution.) I think we can agree that the psychological mechanisms behind religion are a species wide psychological trait. It's known from twin studies to be at least as heritable as other personality traits. That's interesting and certainly speaks to causes. You have a choice of directly selected (like the psychological mechanism behind Stockholm syndrome) or a side effect like drug addiction. (In the EEA being wiped out on plant sap was a formula for experiencing the intestines of a predator from the inside.) I favor direct selection via a primary mortality mode in the EEA, wars between groups of humans. Here is the background: http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/gatpres1.pdf I have gone a little further than Dr. Gat and propose that the psychological mechanism leading to wars starts with a population average bleak outlook. Under circumstances where parents can see they won't be able to feed the kids through the next dry season, it makes genetic sense for an evolved behavioral switch to flip. So the future looks bleak enough, it is cost effective from the gene's viewpoint for a group of related males to go to war and take the high risk of dying. Hmmm. Are you suggesting that this mechanism directly explains, for example, our invasion and occupation of Iraq? Or is war simply a leftover from a time of scarcer resources? You ask: How do religions fit in here? What are religions? They are memes of course, Ouch. Though I love the concept of a meme, it is at best vaguely defined. Clever, but not obviously useful, at least to me. So it's very little help to me to postulate that religions are memes. but in particular religions are *xenophobic* memes. When times are good they are relatively inactive seed xenophobic memes. What we see today as religions are the result of evolved psychological mechanisms that induce groups to go to war as needed by conditions. By this model religions don't _cause_ wars. How does this explain non-warring religions? How could they have anything meaningful left over? If you consider killing people evil or at least undesirable, and want to get back to a cause, it's population growth in excess of economic growth. Malthus with method if you like. Religions are just xenophobic memes. When people feel the need to thin out the overpopulation, some meme (including memes like communism) will gain enough influence over enough people to serve as a reason for a war. As I see it, one can substitute idea for meme in everything you've written here and it makes no difference in the meaning... I'm curious why you're using the word. Back to the point at hand, I smell the same argument from conclusion that you started with. I.e., if people kill each other, there must be an evolutionary explanation, since all behavior arises from evolution. Tempting, but tautological. I think it is tempting because we are hard-pressed to see any other mechanism at work. At some point, we have to explain all the ways that living things behave that isn't clearly competitive. War is rather obviously survival of the fittest, so it is no surprise that it fits neatly into Darwinian thinking. Is this model logical enough for you? It's great food for thought, but I'd still like to escape the circularity. Is it just politically incorrect to consider non-Darwinian explanations? And I mean *scientific* non-Darwinian explanations, not the non-thinking kind that some folks seem to think is all that fits in one's head if one chooses to have faith. For example, how does the anthropic principle (which I suspect the math of complexity hints at) fit into this discussion? Intuitively, I'm
Re: Correlation v. causality
Evolutionary psychology states that *every* human psychological trait is either the result of direct selection or a side effect of direct selection. (With a bit of possibility of something being fixed due to random genetic drift.) This is arguing from a conclusion. The conclusion is that everything that exists in living organisms arose via evolution, therefore everything has an evolutionary explanation. Well, everything that we understand so far has an evolutionary explanation, so it's a fair step to look first at evolutionary explanations. If one proves to be unsatisfying, then it will be discarded. I'll certainly allow that it *may* be true, but it certainly isn't proved -- our understanding of evolution is far from complete. Yours may be - that doesn't mean others don't have a far better grasp... Furthermore, I think pure Darwinian explanations are generally wrong. Good, 'cause so do most biologists. That's why the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and more recently other leaps in evolutionary theory, have prevailed. Everything doesn't arise from competition No, but competition does provide much of the direction. and we have mathematics (complexity) that demonstrates that, or at least very strongly suggests that Darwinian models are substantially incomplete. Which particular models are you thinking of? Ouch. Though I love the concept of a meme, it is at best vaguely defined. Clever, but not obviously useful, at least to me. So it's very little help to me to postulate that religions are memes. There we agree. I happen to think religion is an emergent phenomenon. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007, at 8:22 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: For example, how does the anthropic principle (which I suspect the math of complexity hints at) fit into this discussion? Intuitively, I'm tempted to believe that if Darwinism was all there is, we wouldn't be here to observe the universe. But how can one prove the anthropic principle without a few other universes available as examples? Anthropic principle aside, sexual selection might go a pretty decent way toward explaining why we have such vastly oversized brains with which to observe the universe, make deductions and inferences about it, and contemplate a nice cup of gyokuro tea. Sexual selection in birds, for instance, appears to be the reason for a peacock's tail; an analogous mechanism in primates might have led to a positive feedback loop that resulted in a ludicrously disproportionate enlarging of the brain. So, alas, size might matter after all. BTW, are you referring to the strong or weak anthropic model? -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007 7:39 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'll certainly allow that it *may* be true, but it certainly isn't proved -- our understanding of evolution is far from complete. Yours may be - that doesn't mean others don't have a far better grasp... Ah, ad hominem. One doesn't have to be an expert in evolutionary biology to understand the state of knowledge. I'm not an expert software engineer, but I have a pretty good idea of what is possible and what isn't. Everything doesn't arise from competition No, but competition does provide much of the direction. And how do you know that? and we have mathematics (complexity) that demonstrates that, or at least very strongly suggests that Darwinian models are substantially incomplete. Which particular models are you thinking of? Darwinian ones, as I said. All of them. Complexity poses a serious challenge. I happen to think religion is an emergent phenomenon. Although emergent is a difficult term (and well-loved, yet ill-defined by the complexity folks), I suspect you're right. But calling phenomena emergent may be saying little more than this doesn't come about by any mechanism we can understand other than the way the universe operates. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007 7:55 PM, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW, are you referring to the strong or weak anthropic model? Strong. And I just have to add, to be reasonably silly... the weak one is doomed -- survival of the fittest. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 05/12/2007, at 3:04 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 4, 2007 7:39 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'll certainly allow that it *may* be true, but it certainly isn't proved -- our understanding of evolution is far from complete. Yours may be - that doesn't mean others don't have a far better grasp... Ah, ad hominem. Nah-ah. Just a fact. No-one knows everything in a field, and lay- people often think they have a far better grasp of a technical field than they do. One doesn't have to be an expert in evolutionary biology to understand the state of knowledge. I'm not an expert software engineer, but I have a pretty good idea of what is possible and what isn't. Really? I *am* a biologist, and I wouldn't claim to have a grasp on the state-of-the-art. What I meant was, it depends greatly on your sources, and what you're reading. Everything doesn't arise from competition No, but competition does provide much of the direction. And how do you know that? From doing a degree in the subject (specifically, Zoology, with my focus in my final year on evolutionary biology, ecosystems and artificial life), and looking at a lot of models. What causes variation is one thing, what provides direction is another. Competition can be interspecies, intraspecies, intergender, within sibling groups, across groups. Different circumstances can provide different strengths to these pressures, but if there's any distinct pressure, then competition in one of its many guises is a likely candidate for that pressure. In any system with finite resources, there will be competition. and we have mathematics (complexity) that demonstrates that, or at least very strongly suggests that Darwinian models are substantially incomplete. Which particular models are you thinking of? Darwinian ones, as I said. All of them. Complexity poses a serious challenge.\ Yes, you said Darwinian models. All of them is just side-stepping the question. I'm asking you to show a specific example of an incomplete model. Unless you actually mean Darwin's models? In which case, of course they were incomplete, it was 150 years ago. Your use of Darwinian sends up a red flag, 'cause the only people who use that are strict gradualists or old-school biologists like Dawkins who use it from habit from before it was hijacked, and creationists (and they're using it in rather a different way). In my opinion, complexity poses no real challenge at all, as emergence and chaos etc were being incorporated into models when I was graduating, and successfully, and that was over 10 years ago. So again, please enlighten me with a specific example of how complexity is troubling a Darwinian model. I happen to think religion is an emergent phenomenon. Although emergent is a difficult term (and well-loved, yet ill- defined by the complexity folks), I suspect you're right. But calling phenomena emergent may be saying little more than this doesn't come about by any mechanism we can understand other than the way the universe operates. It's defined well enough as complex-appearing behaviours or attributes which arise from a few simple rules or characteristics. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On Dec 4, 2007 8:33 PM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nah-ah. Just a fact. No-one knows everything in a field, and lay- people often think they have a far better grasp of a technical field than they do. Sure. But you don't know what I have or haven't studied about evolution and Darwinism, so there was no basis for you to evaluate what I said. The fact that I know how complexity relates to it might have suggested that I have a more than passing acquaintance... eh? One doesn't have to be an expert in evolutionary biology to understand the state of knowledge. I'm not an expert software engineer, but I have a pretty good idea of what is possible and what isn't. Really? I *am* a biologist, and I wouldn't claim to have a grasp on the state-of-the-art. What I meant was, it depends greatly on your sources, and what you're reading. You don't know which major questions have been answered and which haven't? You don't have a good overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the generally accepted theories? That's the sort of knowledge I'm talking about when I say that you don't have to be an expert to have a good idea of what is possible and what isn't. In any system with finite resources, there will be competition. You are correct of course. But you are correct in the way that television network explain their programming -- We only show what people want. Trouble is, it's not *all* they want. The fact that you can find competition happening doesn't mean other things aren't going on. But calling phenomena emergent may be saying little more than this doesn't come about by any mechanism we can understand other than the way the universe operates. It's defined well enough as complex-appearing behaviours or attributes which arise from a few simple rules or characteristics. But that explains EVERYTHING, so it is trivial. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality
On 05/12/2007, at 4:02 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: Nah-ah. Just a fact. No-one knows everything in a field, and lay- people often think they have a far better grasp of a technical field than they do. Sure. But you don't know what I have or haven't studied about evolution and Darwinism, so there was no basis for you to evaluate what I said. Which is why I'm asking you some questions, to find out what you *do* actually know. The fact that I know how complexity relates to it might have suggested that I have a more than passing acquaintance... eh? Not necessarily. You could just be repeating buzz-words (in fact, complexity is a red-flag buzz-word in precisely the same way transitional fossils or macroevolution are - makes me think you're alluding to William Dembski, but I'd be shocked and disappointed if you were). Which is why I was asking for a more in-depth discussion of the perceived issues complexity has to a specific Darwinian model. If you can do that, then we can have a discussion. If you can't, or won't, then it's just a waste of time. One doesn't have to be an expert in evolutionary biology to understand the state of knowledge. I'm not an expert software engineer, but I have a pretty good idea of what is possible and what isn't. Really? I *am* a biologist, and I wouldn't claim to have a grasp on the state-of-the-art. What I meant was, it depends greatly on your sources, and what you're reading. You don't know which major questions have been answered and which haven't? Um? There are a lot of questions in a lot of fields. You don't have a good overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the generally accepted theories? That's the sort of knowledge I'm talking about when I say that you don't have to be an expert to have a good idea of what is possible and what isn't. I have a reasonable grasp of undergraduate evolution as taught 10 years ago (which encompasses about 5 textbooks and maybe a couple of kilos of journal offprints). But again, I'm not sure what specifically you're talking about, 'cause you're not telling me. I know quite a bit about the stuff I studied, and I know a smattering of other biology. Speaking in such general terms is simply not actually telling me anything about what you do or do not know, or even what we're actually talking about. If you actually ask a question, I may or may not be able to answer it off the top of my head, or go look to see what is known. You're talking about a huge field. Right now, it's all happening in evo-devo. Huge leaps are being made thanks to genome sequencing. The tree of life is mapped moderately well, although we're still shuffling branches. Molecular genetics has largely confirmed relationships to a high degree of confidence for many well-conserved genes (although there have been a few surprises along the way when comparing molecular trees against the trees derived from fossils and taxonomy). We know rather a lot about how cells work, but not enough to reliably predict the activity of all drugs. We know a fair bit about ecosystems and sustainability (but not enough about how to communicate this to people who set quotas, apparently). I could keep listing stuff I know, and stuff I know other people know, but this is missing the point. I'm trying to understand what you mean about Darwinian models and how complexity poses problems, and you're not helping me understand, you're either being deliberately obtuse, or you think it's something I ought to already know, or you don't actually know and you're smokescreening. Being charitable, I'll assume it's the middle of those, and ask you again to point out a specific example of how a Darwinian model is struggling with complexity. In any system with finite resources, there will be competition. You are correct of course. But you are correct in the way that television network explain their programming -- We only show what people want. Not quite, but I take the point. Trouble is, it's not *all* they want. The fact that you can find competition happening doesn't mean other things aren't going on. No, it doesn't. But in order to discuss it, you have to point out what else may be going on... But calling phenomena emergent may be saying little more than this doesn't come about by any mechanism we can understand other than the way the universe operates. It's defined well enough as complex-appearing behaviours or attributes which arise from a few simple rules or characteristics. But that explains EVERYTHING, so it is trivial. It's simply a definition of emergence, as opposed to simple causes - simple results (dropping something, say), complex start - simple results (bushfire maybe, or collapsing debris clouds), or complex cause - complex result (epidemiology, sociology). How it works requires a different field of study for whatever you're talking about.
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 3 Dec 2007, at 16:04, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 3, 2007 1:41 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Darwin's theory of evolution met a far more skeptical audience which might surprise some outsiders as the United States is renowned for its excellence in scientific research. This demonstrates that skepticism leads to better science, right? You're arguing that evolution is bad science? I say that only because anti-religious people constantly confuse correlation with causality. It's only fair if I do, too, even though it is terribly unscientific. But hey, I'm an American. Stimulated by being surrounded by those who are skeptical of science, I strive to excel. Seriously, though, confusing correlation and causality has become my main problem with your anti-religious postings, William. If you're going to argue that religion is anti-scientific and causes all sorts of social ills, it seems that you have no freedom do simply cite all sorts of correlations. You have to show causality -- that religion *causes* evil, no just that they co-occur. You sound like the tobacco lobby claiming that cigarettes don't cause cancer! It is basic to statistics that when things correlate, the cause often is a third factor. The coexistence of religion and evil isn't exactly news, now is it? Let me suggest the sort of third factor that could cause the correlation between fundamentalist religion and creationism: greed and fear -- leaders' greed for money and political power; followers' fear of what might happen if they misbehave. Keeping people ignorant has been a tool of greedy people, religious or not, for all of history. It is demagoguery and religion has no corner on it. It's bad science use correlations to say that religion is to blame for evil. It's like saying that hospitals obviously are the cause of disease because a survey showed that a high percentage of people who go to hospitals are sick. Correlation does not imply causality. It certainly indicates somewhere to look very closely for it though. And when multiple indicators all point the same way you need a much better counter-argument than appealing to 'correlation does not imply causality.' The survey, which has a sampling error of plus or minus two percent, found that 35 percent of the respondents believed in UFOs and 31 percent in witches. How many of the UFO believers imagine that dolphins could fly spaceships? Now that's truly bizarre. When people are encouraged to believe any old nonsense they choose as a matter of 'faith' it is not surprising that they lose the ability to discriminate in other areas too. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance - Steve Ballmer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 3, 2007 11:02 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This demonstrates that skepticism leads to better science, right? You're arguing that evolution is bad science? No. I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. Or one can think more rationally and realize that there are other factors, such as freedom or wealth, that cause both science and skepticism to thrive. My point is that co-occurrence and correlation should never be mistake for causality. You have to show causality -- that religion *causes* evil, no just that they co-occur. You sound like the tobacco lobby claiming that cigarettes don't cause cancer! And if I sound like them, surely I must be just as venal. I'm not sure if that's better described as a red herring or just a stupid argument by analogy, but in either case, it is illogical. Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to abandon logic when arguing that religion causes people to believe unscientific ideas? When people are encouraged to believe any old nonsense they choose as a matter of 'faith' it is not surprising that they lose the ability to discriminate in other areas too. It'll be just fine with me if you never trot out that particular straw man again. You've set an impossibly high burden of proof by claiming that religion causes evil. You'll never prove it. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it means you're acting on faith in your intuitions and experience, not reason. Meanwhile, it's BORING to hear the same thing over and over. Do you really imagine that one day, anybody will be enlightened by your repetition? In hopes of going somewhere more interesting with this topic, let me offer this challenge -- can you (or anybody else who can stomach the subject) come up with external causalities when religion and evil co-occur? If we're going to argue about whether or not faith is anti-scientific, how about if we do so in a reasonably logical manner? It only seems fitting. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 3, 2007, at 5:03 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: In hopes of going somewhere more interesting with this topic, let me offer this challenge -- can you (or anybody else who can stomach the subject) come up with external causalities when religion and evil co-occur? If we're going to argue about whether or not faith is anti-scientific, how about if we do so in a reasonably logical manner? It only seems fitting. If I understand the question properly, examples of the politicization of religion might fit the bill. There are are times when religious fervor has been manipulated as a tool by those in power to control various factions. There are clearly inimical examples of this too obvious to bear mentioning, but there are other cases where it's considerably more subtle, such as the successful demonization of nonheterosexuals; or the ongoing war on pornography waged by strange bedfellows indeed in the form of extreme right-wing fundamentalists and feminists (of which the latter raises better concerns about porn, IMO, than simply pointing to the forbidden status of onanism). And, of course, when manipulation teams up with anti-intellectualism, you have scientists being booted from their education posts for daring to suggest that the religious perspective might be, at best, questionable. To me these are all examples of shades of evil, but it would be a mistake (I think) to lay the blame wholly at the feet of religion. It's just a convenient handle to grab if you're after power and control, because so many are trained to respond unthinkingly to it. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 4 Dec 2007, at 01:12, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Dec 3, 2007, at 5:03 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: In hopes of going somewhere more interesting with this topic, let me offer this challenge -- can you (or anybody else who can stomach the subject) come up with external causalities when religion and evil co-occur? If we're going to argue about whether or not faith is anti-scientific, how about if we do so in a reasonably logical manner? It only seems fitting. If I understand the question properly, examples of the politicization of religion might fit the bill. There are are times when religious fervor has been manipulated as a tool by those in power to control various factions. Political ideologies are often matters of faith too though. That's why politicians ignore scientific studies that contradict their beliefs. As I have pointed out before political cults like Nazism and Marxism are quasi-religious in nature. Religion doesn't have to be about the supernatural - one of the world's major religions (Confucianism) is actually based on a handbook for civil servants. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance - Steve Ballmer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On 4 Dec 2007, at 00:03, Nick Arnett wrote: On Dec 3, 2007 11:02 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This demonstrates that skepticism leads to better science, right? You're arguing that evolution is bad science? No. I'm pointing out that there's a correlation between skepticism about science and good science. The country that includes a lot of skeptics about science is the same country that excels in science. Therefore, one may leap to the conclusion that skepticism about science causes good science. Or one can think more rationally and realize that there are other factors, such as freedom or wealth, that cause both science and skepticism to thrive. But America is losing its excellence in science. One of the tables I quoted showed that American high schools now produce kids with a significantly below average grasp of science. My point is that co-occurrence and correlation should never be mistake for causality. I have a theory, evidence and Occam's razor. If you want to posit an extra factor that causes both evil and religion it's up to you to come up with it. And if there is such a factor than reducing it will reduce both evil and religion :-) You have to show causality -- that religion *causes* evil, no just that they co-occur. The theory is that religion causes evil by clouding minds. That's the causality. The correlation is there. QED. You sound like the tobacco lobby claiming that cigarettes don't cause cancer! And if I sound like them, surely I must be just as venal. I'm not sure if that's better described as a red herring or just a stupid argument by analogy, but in either case, it is illogical. Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to abandon logic when arguing that religion causes people to believe unscientific ideas? I was pointing out that you are following a typical pattern of denial. When people are encouraged to believe any old nonsense they choose as a matter of 'faith' it is not surprising that they lose the ability to discriminate in other areas too. It'll be just fine with me if you never trot out that particular straw man again. It's not a straw man. How can people partition their thinking so that they abandon reason in just one area without it polluting their thinking about other matters? How can they have superstitious beliefs that don't conflict with reality on occasion? You've set an impossibly high burden of proof by claiming that religion causes evil. You'll never prove it. I have proved it. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance - Steve Ballmer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 3, 2007 5:09 PM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The theory is that religion causes evil by clouding minds. That's the causality. The correlation is there. QED. It's hardly logical to state your premise and the correlation and claim that you've proved something. But you put QED at the end, so it *looks* like a proof. Hmm, making something that isn't science have the appearance of science by using scientific terminology... where have I seen that before? Of course, we could debate the nature of proof in sociology and psychology for a long time without reaching any conclusions. Even if there is causality at work in the relationship between doing evil and being religious, how do you know that it isn't the other way around? Perhaps people who have greater evil impulses turn to religion at a higher rate than others and thus evil causes religion, which then proceeds in some cases to diminish the evil-doing and the world comes out ahead as a result? I guess you have proposed at least one means of causality -- that religion teaches people to believe nonsense. Unfortunately, you're arguing from your premise (that religion is nonsense), so there's no proof there. Or you're throwing up straw men about what religion really is about. And by the way, I left you an opening with the hospital metaphor, but you didn't grab it. There are iatrogenic illnesses, those that are caused by the healer. I have no doubt that there are parallels in religion, but just as we don't shut down hospitals because, for example, people pick up infections there, it is not a compelling argument for shutting down churches. Nobody is arguing that zero harm is done by religion. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:51 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: And by the way, I left you an opening with the hospital metaphor, but you didn't grab it. There are iatrogenic illnesses, those that are caused by the healer. I have no doubt that there are parallels in religion, but just as we don't shut down hospitals because, for example, people pick up infections there, it is not a compelling argument for shutting down churches. Nobody is arguing that zero harm is done by religion. To me, there's a difference between hospitals and churches, though; hospitals are places where the rules and results of science-based research are applied. By and large it seems to me that churches aren't of that nature. So looking at this from the perspective of symptomology, is it worthwhile to consider the possibility that religion itself isn't particularly responsible for either the good or harm its practitioners do, but that it's merely an available thing to point to as justification for any particular deed? Put another way, might it follow that any religion can be used to justify both good and evil actions, and therefore the presence (or lack) of religion is not actually relevant? That doesn't quite ring true to me -- possibly religion can act as a catalyst toward good or evil deeds, something that motivates further along a given path of behavior; but it doesn't make rational sense (to me) to claim religion is itself intrinsically evil when it has, in fact, been a tool for good as well over the millennia. There's something else at work here, it seems. William mentioned the demi-religious nature of some ideologies, even those officially atheist. This suggests both the will to religion and the will to using an institution to justify any particular action (good or evil) goes deeper than the existence of those institutions. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Correlation v. causality (was Re: Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin)
On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:29 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 4 Dec 2007, at 01:12, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Dec 3, 2007, at 5:03 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: In hopes of going somewhere more interesting with this topic, let me offer this challenge -- can you (or anybody else who can stomach the subject) come up with external causalities when religion and evil co-occur? If we're going to argue about whether or not faith is anti-scientific, how about if we do so in a reasonably logical manner? It only seems fitting. If I understand the question properly, examples of the politicization of religion might fit the bill. There are are times when religious fervor has been manipulated as a tool by those in power to control various factions. Political ideologies are often matters of faith too though. That's why politicians ignore scientific studies that contradict their beliefs. I can't disagree with that. IIRC the grand experiment of American democracy was originally regarded as an insanely optimistic leap of faith in many other parts of the world. However the deliberate co- opting of faith by those in power is not new; it's how power structures were once built, as with pharaohs and Sun Kings and so on. The trick seems to be to attempt a disconnect between faith (of any kind) and behavior in the real world. And it seems to go in cycles. There didn't seem to be much antiscientific outcry, for instance, in the late 1950s when Sputnik I was launched and the US realized it needed to push science a LOT more heavily if it wanted to keep up with the next generation of USSR-based citizens. (On Plan59 recently I saw a posting of a Christmas card from the 1960s that read Season's Greetings; no one at the time was protesting that this represented a war on Christmas.) As I have pointed out before political cults like Nazism and Marxism are quasi-religious in nature. Naziism was overtly religious. The movement was deeply enmeshed with Norse mythology. Marxism borrowed from the strong authoritarian model of fundamentalist religion to enforce obedience and conformity, as you suggest here. It's a little like attending AA meetings and trading your addiction to booze for an addiction to cigarettes and coffee and, of course, the 12 steps. Religion doesn't have to be about the supernatural - one of the world's major religions (Confucianism) is actually based on a handbook for civil servants. There's an interesting slice of history I didn't know about; but Confucianism's roots haven't kept it from being about the supernatural anyway. The human capacity for short-circuiting logic is really rather breathtaking in its scope and endurance. That said, religion itself doesn't seem to my mind to be a source of evil so much as a symptom of ignorance (to the extent that blind faith and unthinking adherence are manifest, as opposed to an attempt at balance or recognition of the need for rational grounding), which isn't the same thing -- however, ignorance can definitely produce actions of stunning evil. This shouldn't be read as an attempt at appeasement. I'm quite comfortable with my atheism and would love to see it spread. I'm just trying to see if there's a root cause that goes deeper than the manifestations we're seeing in religion, since it makes more sense -- I think -- to find the source and attack that rather than the institutions it creates. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
