The propagandist’s paradise . . .
is our ruinous nightmare.
This can be seen through a game, from the conspiracism thread:
KF, 86: >> . . . there is a silly little mental game we can consider.
[The Crooked Yardstick Effect:]
Step one, define that a certain crooked yardstick, S, is the standard of straight, accurate and upright.
Once that is done, no stick I that is genuinely so can ever conform to S: I != S. So on the S-standard I will always be rejected.
This seems silly, until it is in place on an ideologically tainted matter, ask, how can we move from S to the incommensurable I. Only, by interposing a plumbline P that you are willing to accept is naturally upright and straight. But, if you are committed to S, you may well refuse to acknowledge P.
So, if we can be led to set up a false standard S, it can be self-sustaining in the teeth of all corrections, until something catastrophic forces a change.
Resemblance to too much of political (and so also military and ideological) history is NOT coincidental.
It even reflects a lot of exchanges in and around this blog on ID and related themes.
Sadly, including the case that infers that those who reject the establishment of atheism in a lab coat as the somehow standard definition of Science, its methods and conclusions are deluded and childish, to be taken in charge by their betters, the bright ones.>>
In short, we should never under-estimate the ruinously blinding power of a dominant, warped paradigm. If an adept propagandist can get falsity entrenched as the standard of truth or correctness, that will become self-reinforcing. This also implies the value of naturally evident or self-evident plumb line test cases as a means of breaking false narratives and their agendas. Unsurprisingly, self-evident truth is at a steep discount in our day and “scientific consensus” and the like have been put up on a pedestal as substitutes for plumb line truth.
We even have the establishment of one’s opinion as a substitute for truth:
Let’s add:
This then readily explains the commonly seen problem of resistance to needed change even in the teeth of warning-signs that we are heading over a cliff:
A related perspective can be seen through the lens of the seven mountains of influence, culture agenda model:
Resemblance to trends already in progress for our civilisation is NOT coincidental:
For those of us who are Christian, all of this then brings to the table the force of a modification of Francis Schaeffer’s “taking the roof off” model of reformation (think of the seven mountains as pillars supporting a temple roof in the 7M model above):
Food for thought. END
2 Responses to The propagandist’s paradise . . .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The propagandist’s paradise . . .
F/N: It is amusing at first (then on deeper reflection, quite saddening) to trace some of the onward discussion in the thread from which the OP comes:
JDK, 94: >>Hi JAD. I don’t think there has been anything in this thread about purposelessness. The OP has been about teleological explanations in science, which is a more limited matter than teleological explanations in general.>>
[–> notice this highlighted misleading point, as JDK knows or should know that scientism rules the roost, and in fact in the OP the whole point of the study was to try to identify teleological thinking as the root of both “Creationism” AND conspiracism, AKA tinfoil hat conspiracy theorising]
ET, 95: >>Oh my. Teleological explanations pertain to purpose, Jack. They even say it in the first sentence of their article.>>
JDK 96: >>Yes, teleological explanations in science, as I said.>>
ET, 97: >>But if you have science saying one thing- the one that goes against what you know to be true because of the preponderance of evidence- even the scientific kind- that is akin to what john a designer is talking about. Then you get atheists jumping all over what science sez to rub it in the faces of those who know better.>>
JDK, 99: >>to JAD: Many millions of religious people (and thus not atheists) agree that teleological explanations do not have a place in scientific explanations. To single out atheists as believing this is true misconstrues the situation.
I know we’ve been over this many times, and it’s not the subject of this thread. Also, I know that many here believe that teleological explanations do have a place in science, which is the topic of this thread, but I want it to be clear that those that do believe this are just a subset of all religious people.>>
JAD, 100: >>
If there is no purpose to the universe or life here on earth then there is no ultimate purpose for human existence. That’s what atheists say that science says. But if that’s true, how do they know it and what is the point of convincing everyone else it is true.
Here is a quote from article cited in the OP:
In other words, we are all “hardwired” to believe that there is some sort higher purpose evident in nature. How does the atheist come to the dogmatic conclusion that this intuitive sense of purpose is all an illusion that needs to be suppressed? What’s the argument?>>
ET, 102: >>jdk:
I would need evidence for that. I could easily say billions of others do.
They definitely do and have since the time of the ancient Greeks like Plato and Aristotle. Fast forward to Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern science, who definitely allowed teleological explanations into his science.
Laplace helped stop that but with nothing but hand-waves and concepts he didn’t understand. Darwin tried to get rid of Paley but now we know he also failed.
Except they are the subset, ie those who say what you claim.>>
JDK, 103: >>JAD, did you understand my points in 99 and 94?
To repeat, many people have religious beliefs that the universe and human life have meaning and purpose, but also believe that explanations about such meanings and purpose are not part of science.
Here’s a simple example, which I’ve used before, although I don’t recall that anyone has ever addressed the distinction I’m making with the example. A man misses an airplane flight because a newspaper flies in front of his car on the way to the airport, causing a small accident, and thus causing him to miss his plane. The plane crashes and all aboard are killed.
The man then expresses the quite orthodox Christian belief that God spared him: that it was not part of God’s plan that he die that day.
A scientific explanation of the situation would mention all the physical causal factors (the wind, the flying newspaper, the auto accident, the circumstances that caused the plane to crash, etc.) The scientific explanation would not include the explanation that this all was God’s will. The fact that the scientific explanation does not mention God does NOT mean that science is denying God’s existence: it just means that the teleological presence of God is not something that falls in the domain of science to investigate.>>
ET, 105: >>[Clips JDK]
And many more believe otherwise.
And your analogy is a joke as it has nothing to do with what we mean by teleological thinking in science.
We’re talking about the origins of the universe, the physical laws, the formation of the just-so solar system we have and our own just-so earth moon system, and you bring up someone thanking God for an accident that spared him from death. Why didn’t God just let him live through the crash? Do you have no shame, sir?>>
JAD, 106: >>
Cornell University professor William Provine made the following claim in his 1994 debate at Stanford University with Phillip Johnson:
He’s very clearly claiming that since science shows no ultimate purpose and meaning in nature human existence has no ultimate meaning and purpose.
jdk claimed, “Many millions of religious people (and thus not atheists) agree that teleological explanations do not have a place in scientific explanations.”
That’s a logically fallacious ad populum argument.>>
ET, 107: >>john a designer- Jack doesn’t care. Read his pathetic analogy, his special pleading and emotional response.
But he ain’t no steekin’ materialist, (wink, wink)>>
ET, 109: >>[elaborating on evidences supporting a design inference:]
From what I understand the eclipses have given us a window into many scientific discoveries of light spectra and one even help confirm Einstein’s equation for gravity’s affect on light.
(the above quotes are from “The Privilege Planet”)
Our just-so rotation that mixes the atmospheric gases so we can live from pole to equator. How the heck did cosmic collisions do that? It isn’t like we are a gas giant so the figure skater effect doesn’t apply. We allegedly were bombarded from all angles.>>
ET, 110: >> [picking up from a secondary exchange as it here intersects]
daves, If we were created for a reason and science is about reality, ie the truth to our existence (in this case), then science has to include teleological language or else it is a work of fiction. It is actually doing more harm than good by not allowing us to find and fulfill our purpose.
Did you see “Men in Black”? Right now we are exactly what the cockroach said.>>
JDK, 111: >>JAD: Yes, Provine believes that. So does Lewontin. There are materialists, so of course that is what they believe.
But, many millions of religious people don’t agree with them. Millions of religious people believe, as I explained above, that science limiting itself to non-teleological explanations is the proper scope for science, but that teleological explanations are critical to one’s understandings that go beyond science. Science doesn’t include all knowledge, understanding, or belief.
People like Provine or Lewontin don’t speak for everyone. Just quoting them doesn’t not settle anything other than stating what a materialist thinks, and the majority of scientific literate (or the general populace) are not materialists.>>
[ –> In short, we see here the policy of ignoring inconvenient cat-out-of-the-bag admissions and refusing to engage the substantial issues thereby raised. Just as we have seen since 6 in the thread. This also is a smoking gun, a declared intent to ignore plumb line tests that could correct the crooked yardstick. It also exposes the problem of the enabling fellow traveller who provides useful cover for an agenda, blunting and deflecting correctives. This comment mat be one of the most important, most saddening remarks ever made at UD.]
JDK, 112: >>jad writes, “jdk claimed, “Many millions of religious people (and thus not atheists) agree that teleological explanations do not have a place in scientific explanations.”
That’s a logically fallacious ad populum argument.”
I’m not arguing that they are right just because they are lots of them. That would be the fallacy you mention.
I am arguing that the presence of so many people makes it clear that there are different beliefs among people, so that the statements of one person (say Provine) can’t be taken as a definitively true statement about the situation: that is just one person’s belief.>>
[–> In fact, one of the remarks and cites JDK studiously ignores is the July 2000 declaration by the US national association of science teachers, NSTA. Let me cite:
We see here the establishment of evolutionary materialistic scientism in education, here also clearly backed by the US National academy of Scientists, as would come out in the notorious joint letter on Sci Edu in Kansas of 2005, something JDK must have close knowledge of.
I again cite:
Smoking guns left, right and centre.]
ET, 114: >>[clips from above:]
If we were created for a reason and science is about reality, ie the truth to our existence (in this case), then science has to include teleological language or else it is a work of fiction. It is actually doing more harm than good by not allowing us to find and fulfill our purpose.
Period. End of story.
It makes me wonder what Jack thinks science is about>>
JDK, 115: >>But science is not about all of reality. Science is limited to a certain type of investigation: it doesn’t, and can’t, study everything that we know and believe.>>
ET, 116: >>
Strawman Alert:
1- I didn’t say anything about “all of reality”
2- You aren’t the one who can make such proclamation, anyway.
3- I never said we had to study everything that we know and believe. And if we know it that would mean we already studied it
Science can explore our origins. And science cannot [be] run by dogma, which is the opposite of what you are trying to say is OK. Only dogma disallows teleological thinking from science, Jack. This is worse than what the Church dogma did. At least they had something right.
In the end, if there was a scientifically testable alternative to ID , then we could say science doesn’t need it so it is OK to disallow it- teleological thinking.>>
[–> as will come out in 118, naturalism, the driving force behind the impositions, does entail that science is about all of reality]
JAD, 117: >>
jdk wrote,
But it’s okay for atheists, like Will Provine, to argue that science shows that “There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.” And he’s not alone. Do you want a longer quote from Stephen Pinker who unabashedly promotes scientism– the view that science can serve as a basis for one personal world view
Pinker writes,
Why aren’t you criticizing Pinker?>>
KF, 118: >>JDK,
as you know or should know, “millions” have been indoctrinated with the premise behind the opening remark in the paper I have put on the table since comment 6:
The questions I asked a few days ago regarding imposition are still relevant and are still unanswered. Which is itself revealing.
That’s a smoking gun.
So is the indubitable parallel to the well known remarks by eminent scientist Lewontin which you tried to dismiss with a laugh. Tellingly, you have been silent on the parallel since I began to lay it out in 88:
Going further, it is notorious and obvious from the just cited that a dominant and domineering faction in science, science education and linked policy-influencing circles advocates or enables evolutionary materialistic scientism, indeed in a recent discussion we had here at UD it emerged that this is a key component of much of so-called naturalism.
I remind, from AmHD, sense 3:
However, this whole scheme is inherently, inescapably self-referentially incoherent and self-falsifying, thus false and misleading. Indeed, it dresses falsity in the lab coat and sets out to establish it with power and manipulation. Precisely the might and/or manipulation make ‘truth,’ ‘right,’ ‘rights,’ ‘knowledge,’ ‘justice,’ etc that I have often warned against.
But I get ahead of myself.
Let’s review.
For one, scientism as summarised in AmHD as it defined naturalism, in effect implies that evolutionary materialism circumscribes reality (which is by its insistence physicalist) and infers then insists that all “real” or serious knowledge is therefore scientific. Whatever knowledge claims others make on other grounds are either nonsense (the delusional perceived demons in Lewontin’s and Sagan’s language) or are trivial and displaced once big-S Science comes knocking with its evolutionary materialistic agenda.
The obvious problem with Lewontin’s “science [is] the only begetter of truth,” or the claim summarised by AmHD “all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural [= evolutionary materialistic] causes and laws” is that this is, necessarily a philosophical claim, an epistemological one.
So, it self-destructs.
Going further, the evolutionary materialism reduces our minds, consciences etc to GIGO-driven computation on a material computational substrate, brain tissue in effect. That instantly undermines rationality, responsibility, knowledge and bodies of knowledge. That has stood on the table since Haldane’s telling observation:
Reppert draws out the computational substrate issue (echoing and extending Leibniz):
In short, we see here the imposition of the sort of crooked yardstick I pointed out in 86 above and have also headlined separately:
Therefore your ad populem/ bandwagon argument is not only a fallacy but a pernicious technique in establishing a crooked yardstick. The ruinous effects are increasingly evident all around us.
But of course, all of this is in a sense secondary.
Underlying is a battle for truth and submission to truth rather than to the power brokers of some ideology or another as a core principle of science. Where, what is truth is also in the stakes.
If science seeks to discover and provide support for accurate description of the facts and principles/laws of the empirical world through observation, experiment, hypothesis, testing, analysis, discussion etc, then it must be free to follow the evidence. The sort of ideological captivity to evolutionary materialistic scientism that is yet again being exposed inadvertently, therefore speaks volumes.
Going on, the key issue at stake is freedom to follow the import of discoveries and massively evident facts on the table. For instance, from 1953, alphanumeric code was found to lie at the heart of the cell, in DNA (and by extension in RNA and proteins, thence the working of the living cell). This is language and algorithms with associated storage, reading and execution machinery that may be profitably studied by comparing von Neumann’s 1948 on kinematic self-replicating machine framework — I often abbreviate, vNSR. Moreover, such functionally specific complex organisation and associated information (FSCO/I for handy short) have — per trillions of observed cases and blind needle in haystack search-challenge analysis alike — precisely one empirically and analytically plausible cause: origin by intelligently directed configuration, aka design. Which is of course purposive.
Going back a step, it is trivial to observe that language is inherently intentional and purposive, with algorithms and associated machinery constituting a capital example, here, a cybernetic system.
Trivial and patent, but demonstrably ideologically banned by the evolutionary materialistic scientism establishment.
The evidence of what 100 trillion cells in our bodies screams, design and purpose, is being suppressed by imposition of a crooked yardstick.
The implications of such imposed and established error and folly for our civilisation cannot be good.
(But of course, pointing out such dangers — even by someone who has lived through two societies marching off the cliff — is silly apocalypticism, to be dismissed without serious consideration. As, obviously, is the sort of exposition laid out above.)
It is time for serious rethinking and for taking seriously the obvious plumb line tests:
[a] the necessity of responsible rationality for even science to be done (so the only viable worldviews are those with room for that — and evo mat scientism is not one of these);
[b] the patent reality of code, language, algorithms and associated execution machinery in the living cell (so that purpose in the world is massively evident through scientific study, regardless of silly bans such as we see announced in the paper discussed in the OP).
The power of the plumb line is that it is naturally straight and upright.
But many will studiously ignore its correction to the crooked yardstick.
As we have seen in and around UD for years.>>
The imposition stands exposed.
KF