In a current thread that is nominally on the latest allegedly earth-like exoplanet, predictably that is where distractors will come up on things like:
>>[RVB8, 21:] “800 million (unusual figure) unborn aborted fetuses. Perhaps this is true, it’s certainly true abortions have occured, and probably happen at a faster rate now becuse of the ‘day after’ pill.”>>
Of course, equally predictably, this sort of talking point did not crop up in the many threads where I have repeatedly outlined exactly how this estimate was put together. (Such are the now all too predictable patterns of objections and dismissals we see at UD and in the penumbra of attack sites. More on that in the PS.)
I answered in a following comment then went on to try to pull the discussion back on track. I thought, let me answer this for record, and then I realised I should headline my response and allow discussion in a thread where it will be on-topic.
For, the abortion holocaust is perhaps the central sign of what has been happening with our time, and it is directly connected to the implications of evolutionary materialistic scientism, radically secularist humanism and fellow travellers. Clipping:
>>KF, 22: you and ilk continually monitor UD looking for how to pounce. So, you pretty well know or should know the basis. Planned Parenthood’s Guttmacher Institute reports a global abortion rate 50+million pa. In a recent BBC item, the remark was it had fallen to 52 from 56 mn.
Take 50, multiply by 40 y and by 1/2 for a simple growth model. Slice off 20% to be on the safe side, see where that gets you . . . you fill in the blank: ______ mn . . . since the mid 70’s but to the worst, ongoing holocaust in history, half a generation slaughtered in the womb under false colour of law, perversion of medicine in ways Hippocrates of Cos warned against through the famous oath 2500 years ago, with an enabling media culture and educational elite.
Guilty, guilty, guilty are we.
With the American total now about 60 millions in line with their proportion of the global population.
This is a global failure of civilisation.
One that utterly indicts us as an utterly be-numbed, en-darkened, wicked age.
The further issue is, evolutionary materialistic scientism under-writes the key radically secularist humanism, cultural marxism and the like that are so much a part of the picture, where from Plato in The Laws Bk X 2350+ years ago, it was known that such is inherently radically relativistic and amoral, thus utterly undermines objectivity of moral government and therefore opens the door to might and manipulation make right nihilism. Yes, 2350+ years ago, we have no excuse of ignorance. Scientism, by in effect trying to undermine bases for knowledge other than big-S Science, manages to put up an epistemological — thus philosophical — claim that refutes itself.
In addition, evo mat radically undermines the coherent, responsibly and rationally free self, ending in self falsification by incoherence. This of course fatally corrodes responsible, reasonable discussion — a phenomenon readily seen from ever so much Darwinist trollery all across the Internet.
We need to get back to basics and realise that we must be responsibly, rationally free or discussion is futile.
{I add, courtesy a wonderful summary by Harry:}
>>Folks, there is no empirical evidence that intelligence exists. Evidence is defined as the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. It shouldn’t surprise us then that since recognizing that which facts or information indicates would require intelligence, and it doesn’t exist, there can be no such empirical evidence for intelligence. Nor can there be, for that matter, any such things as facts, information, indications or evidence. So it is even worse than we thought. There is no empirical evidence for anything. There is no basis for knowledge whatsoever. I am now certain of that. Well, the electrochemical activity of my physical brain is producing the experience of certainty, anyway. Thanks for letting the electrochemical activity of your brain experience this expression of the electrochemical activity of mine. Don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything.>>
Yes, that puts on the table the issue, what sort of world-root grounds the existence of beings like we must be, just to account for the massive fact of responsible, rational discussion and freedom, on pain of self-referential absurdity.
After Hume’s guillotine argument, that requires a world in which IS and OUGHT are inextricably fused in the root, bridging the notorious gap. Where also, non-being has no causal powers so if once there were utterly nothing, such would forever obtain. We need necessary being root, and one simultaneously capable of grounding ought.
There is but one viable, serious candidate (after centuries of debates): the inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of loyalty and the responsible, reasonable service of doing the good in accord with our manifestly evident nature.
If you doubt, simply put up an alternative and engage comparative difficulties: ____________________ . (Of course, to do so, you imply responsible, rational freedom, and any scheme of thought not consistent with such cannot meet the coherence and factual adequacy tests so dies not even reach the stage of being tested for balanced elegant explanatory power. This sweeps away entire categories of views fashionable over the past 150 years.)
So, it is high time to re-think, undergo metanoia and set out to reform our civilisation from its deeply suicidal blood guilt, be-numbing of conscience, en-darkenment of mind, and ongoing march of folly.>>
Where of course, Plato long ago warned our civilisation:
>>Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,350+ ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical “material” elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ –> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . .
[Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-
[ –> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by “winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . ” cf a video on Plato’s parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,
[ –> Evolutionary materialism — having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT — leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for “OUGHT” is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in “spin”) . . . ]
and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ –> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality “naturally” leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ –> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, “naturally” tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush — as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [–> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].>>
Of course, evolutionary materialistic scientism is not openly and blatantly nihilistic — that would so openly discredit it that it would long since have been a dead letter. Instead, as Plato spotted, it undermines the objective foundation of moral governance by pushing an inherently amoral foundation for the world. This leads to radical relativisation of morality and opens the door to those who imply (or sometimes explicitly teach) that might and/or manipulation make ‘right,’ ‘truth,’ ‘law,’ ‘justice,’ ‘rights,’ etc. That, is then how nihilism sneaks in by the back door.
A further prediction, objectors will very likely refuse to address the self-referential incoherence of evolutionary materialistic scientism, and ditto for its inherent amorality. Likewise, they will refuse to seriously take up the worldviews foundations challenge.
Not hard to make, that is a years-long consistent pattern.
(The difference is, I am no longer pretty much a lone voice in these parts, on this point. So, the objection is now how dare you suggest we are nihilists! Nope, just that evo mat advocates and fellow travellers have no adequate worldviews foundations for our world of being necessarily responsible, rationally free beings, just to be able to have a facts-/ evidence- based logical discussion.)
Let’s see if at last we can have the real discussion. END
PS, I also saw how I have “meandered into sustainability.” Of course, this too is a manifestation of the rhetoric of contemptuous dismissal by one-liner. I responded:
>>As for meandered into sustainability, in your patent contempt you did not even pause to do the homework that would easily show that I have long been a practising professional under that theme (with a focus on capacity development — cf here for a recent remark:http://kairosfocus.blogspot.co…..-gvcs.html ), seeing the principle as an application of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (and the classical Golden Rule), though I am leery of some of the more junk science and bad economics claims that are too often advanced under that rubric. Energy and industrial civilisation transformation are tied to that. If we can get something like polywell fusion to work, and the Bussard drive, that puts greening across the globe within reach in this century and onward solar system colonialisation. Molten salt and pebble bed reactors are despatchable, allowing us to get out of many of the intermittency problems that plague ever so many renewable techs. I have hope that algae oil may come through, and have not given up hopes for fuel cells. And yes, energy is the pivot. Though good governance transformation is not far behind . . . a current major focus. The distortions of law, government, media, education, family and more driven by abortion are a major manifestation of the progressive disintegration of governance leading to crises that will invite that notorious “solution” the follow me blindly, manipulative political messiah.>>
(Of course, in too many hands, “sustainability” has been turned into a handy slogan for promoting just such agendas. Instead, I think an adaptation of Bruntland’s famously circular definition of 1987, will help: SD better and more equitably meets our needs today and tomorrow, requiring that we better understand and husband our bio-physical/ natural, socio-cultural and economic contexts. Better and more fairly meeting needs points to soundly founded development strategies and inclusive economic growth, responsive to sound insights on the three domains of our environment and prudent policy and implementation measures that credibly will be robust on a multi-generational scale. Which is the context in which I mentioned earth transformation across this century, solar system colonisation beyond and if the physics gives us ways and means, galactic colonisation further beyond.)