We cannot live by scepticism alone

_{Mario Lopez

March 5, 2009

Science}

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Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism — social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society, says Harry Collins.

Comments

StephenB
In any case the natural moral law is a general rule to which individual applications must be addressed.
Can you spell out that "rule" or not?
The dispute among rational people is about the individual applications not the law itself.
Well, as you have said you don't consider me a rational person.
Now would you mind addressing my questions to you.
What, if I consider child prostitution to be wrong? That one?
My statements to David are of a slightly different texture because his remedial needs are slightly different that yours.
I tug my forlock at thee.
Which is why you need to pay less attention to my questions for him and more attention to my questions for you.
Thanks for telling me what I need to do. Are you getting that information the same place you are pulling your comments about "objective moral law" from?George L Farquhar_{March 9, 2009
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mullerpr, As I've just pointed out, biblical era slave owners were entitled to do things that if done in the western world today would put you in jail for a very long time.
regardless of the truth.
Indeed.George L Farquhar_{March 9, 2009
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----Goerge: "If objective morality is true, then please explain why people consistently give the same answers to the dilemmas I posed above when if they were considering it “objectivly” the same number of lives would be saved in each situation." Do you always evade my questions by hiding behind my statements to others? In any case the natural moral law is a general rule to which individual applications must be addressed. The dispute among rational people is about the individual applications not the law itself. Now would you mind addressing my questions to you. My statements to David are of a slightly different texture because his remedial needs are slightly different that yours. Which is why you need to pay less attention to my questions for him and more attention to my questions for you.StephenB_{March 9, 2009
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I actually had to mention in #252 that Biblical slavery has far more objective similarities with any modern work contract than the slave trade of the 18th and 19th century. But again it has to be noted that the skepticism that we discuss here will use its method just to have its way for the moment regardless of the truth. With a method like this you can never be sure that tomorrow the "new way" might be 18th century slavery is back into fashion. Something similar did happen in Germany in the 20th century.mullerpr_{March 9, 2009
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mullerpr
Your objective reality of modern stereotype of slavery has no bearing on the objective characteristics of Biblical slavery because you are completely oblivious to the fact that Biblical slaves sold themselves to their “owners” for a 6 year contract after which they are free again.
Really?
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever.
(Exodus 21:2-6 NLT) So, it was OK to keep a male Hebrew slave by keeping his wife and children hostage until he agrees to become a permanent slave? What kind of values are these?
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.
(Exodus 21:7-11 NLT) So it' OK to keep a sex slave as long as you feed them? What about how you treat them?
When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.
(Exodus 21:20-21 NAB) So, as long as you don't actually beat them to death you can beat them as much as you like. And so on and on and on. Pretend as much as you like that the slaves loved it. You are wrong.George L Farquhar_{March 9, 2009
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Adel: Thank you again. The link works, thank you. I spent a slice or two of today thinking on Faraday Disk generators, Faraday's paradox of an axially rotating bar magnet in that context [effectively, doesn't spin the field . . . compare the equiv solenoid], and implications for magnetic braking, in the context of Hoyle's model on the Laplace Angular Momentum issue and onward extensions by others. [Rule of thumb: Fred Hoyle may be wrong on points, but he is never dull or pedestrian. One of my personal intellectual heroes.) Thanks again. GEM of TKI PS: My contact is through my always linked.kairosfocus_{March 9, 2009
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George, You are a stubborn lazy thinker. You have been challenged to bring the social construct "slavery" into the Biblical context and instead of showing your new insight you stubbornly stick to the stereotype to attack the objective character of any construct. Your objective reality of modern stereotype of slavery has no bearing on the objective characteristics of Biblical slavery because you are completely oblivious to the fact that Biblical slaves sold themselves to their "owners" for a 6 year contract after which they are free again. That is vastly different than, being caught like an animal and sold as mindless property. There is virtually no overlap in the objective realities of these two constructs, but you stick to your simplistic misunderstanding.mullerpr_{March 9, 2009
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StephenB
I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it.
Perhaps you too should write a paper and get a Nobel prize! Proving such a thing would deserve it! Do you at least have a link to this "proof"? What's stopping you from writing down these objective moral laws right now? If objective morality is true, then please explain why people consistently give the same answers to the dilemmas I posed above when if they were considering it "objectivly" the same number of lives would be saved in each situation. Square that circle please StephenB.George L Farquhar_{March 9, 2009
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StephenB, As it happens moral issues are of significant interest to scientists generally and have led to ways of investigating such scientifically. For example, how does your objective morality prompt you to answer these dilemmas
Scenario 1 You’re standing beside a set of train tracks and you see a train coming. There are five people working on the track and they’ll be killed if the train keeps coming. You can’t warn them and they can’t see the train. There’s also another side track and on this track there is only one person. Same scenario, you can’t warn them and they can’t see the train. Beside you is a lever that will direct the train off the track with five people onto the track with only one. Do you pull the lever?
Do you pull the lever? Why?
Scenario 2 You’re on a bridge overlooking a single train track. In one direction you see the train coming. In the other direction you see the same five people working on the track but this time instead of the other person being on a side track they’re standing next to you on the bridge overlooking the track. If you push the person off the bridge the train will hit them and stop before it reaches the five people down the track. Do you push the guy off?
Do you pull the lever? Why? In scenario one 9 out of 10 people say “Yes, I’d pull the lever.” In scenario two 9 out of 10 people say “No, I wouldn’t push the person off the bridge even to save the five down the track.” Why? I would have thought that objective morality would lead to the same answer each time? The maths are the same for each! Go here http://moral.wjh.harvard.edu/eric1/test/testN.html To take similar tests yourself. You might be surprised at your answers!George L Farquhar_{March 9, 2009
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----David Kellogg: "Do you have anything to support your appeal to objective morality besides repeating “it’s objective!”? You still don't get it. I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it. I am currently showing, as I have done in the past, that you don't accept it and are looking for a thousand ways to rationalize that fact. Hence, you say that child prostitution is wrong but not objectively wrong. That is an irrational statement. Ask any rational person. It is either wrong for everyone all the time, or else it is conditionally wrong. For you, (so far) it is conditionally wrong, which is another way of saying that there are times when it is not wrong.StephenB_{March 9, 2009
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GLF: Let's take it from the top again: when you make a post of 143+ ASCII characters in contextually responsive English, it is functional, and comes from a config space of 2^1,000+, i.e. > 10^301. Since the functionality is sensitive to perturbation by random changes, it reflects the isolation of that functionality in the config space. So, random walk based searches will be maximally unlikely to get to shores of such an island; so hill-climbing that rewards improved function cannot get started. But then, you evidently know that all along -- you do not get a monkey to pound away at random at your keyboard to make a post. MS Office applications programs and the Windows Opereating Sysrem are similarly FSCI -- and contrary to rumnour Uncle Bill does not hire monkeys to create the next version each time. random bit changes are far more likely to destroy or damage existing function than to improve it. the same holds for DNA, and that is the reason why starting in a prebiotic soup under realistic conditions ends up in Shapiro's dilemmas. But then, all of this is plainly evident just for a simple reflection on easily accessible observations. in short, skepticism that fails to be sufficiently skeptical of itself . . . GEM of TKI PS: on Weasel, I simply send you to the Creationists [the citations from Dawkins in Blind Watchmaker and New Scientist make the targetted oracular search crystal clear . . . for those willing to look and to acknowledge what they see] ; for basic correction. And I strongly doubt that Mr Dawkins will ever publicly admit to his oracular, foresighted search tactics that he passed off as a true representation of what RV + NS (especially the selection part) is supposed to be able to do. But that is what he plainly did back to the 1980's, as can be seen by inspection of his examples as they zero in step by step on eh preselected solution. (You might want to look at Dembski and Marks on active information to see a more general analysis on the cost of search, here and here.) You need to be a bit more skeptical of the claims and magic-show demos of Darwinist advocates.kairosfocus_{March 9, 2009
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StephenB
If you don’t understand that objective morality is binding while popular opinion is not, I can’t help you.
Perhaps you should speak to mullerpr regarding that, as he says that slavery was OK until bad people corrupted it
everything about the social construct became perverted by evil persons
So, does objective morality allow slavery as long as it's the "nice" sort? Upright Biped
Jerry is simply saying that the factual evidence uncovered by modern biology does not show that DESIGN is an invalid hypothesis.
It's also not incompatable with a teapot in space hypothesis, where the teapot is guiding evolution via mechanisms that in effect look exactly like unguided evolution. There are an infinite number of possible hypothesis, the question is which of them are supported by evidence. Simply saying "X has not been invalidated" does not support X in any way whatsoever. StephenB
The Bible makes the transition from bad behavior to good behavior.
Does it now? Does it really...
What do you think the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament is about?
Did your "objective morality" only exist when the New Testament came about then? I thought it was eternal and unchanging?
To allude to the temporary accomodation of bad behavior for the sake of improving that behavior is to play a strawman’s game.
Hardly "accomodated" was it? It was normal. It was moral. Therefore your "objective morals" were not in play when the OT was in force were they?
The barbarians had their excuses because they had nothing else to draw from.
Oh? I thought they could use your objective morality to better themselves? What stopped them doing that? Either your objective morality has been available all the time to everybody or it has not. If not, how is it eternal or objective?
On the other hand, todays moral relativists are without exuse.
Perhaps you could tell me what your "objective morality" consists of? Then I'll read it and be convinced. Won't I?George L Farquhar_{March 9, 2009
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kairosfocus [168]: This thread is getting too long and there are too many voices in it, but I want to note:
Adel, First, I must thank you for the wider context you supplied, and your further warranting that my inference to Cliffordian provenance (based on phrasing and timeline) was correct. This is the spirit of serious objective discussion that we need more of here at UD, on all sides.
I agree, and I thank you for your collegial reaction to my efforts to maintain a civil and productive discussion. As I said way up there in this thread, I come here as a friendly critic. I want to learn about viewpoints, and I value instruction.
Did you get it online, or from the print [I have had no luck turning out an Internet version]? kindly provide a link or bibliographical information.
The online source is at The Huxley Files, Clark University Agnosticism and Christianity [1899] Collected Essays V (I hope that link works. Sorry, but my html skills are limited.) Regarding your subsequent comments, I found them helpful and challenging, and I would very much like to pursue them when I have time and energy. If not here, maybe on a subsequent thread...Adel DiBagno_{March 9, 2009
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mullerpr, no offense taken. I'll have to think about your question, as I'm not a theologian. I'll try to get back to you later.David Kellogg_{March 9, 2009
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StephenB, your saying I contradict myself does not actually make it so. I could as easily (and with more evidence, since you have provided none) say you debase yourself by your tactics, but that's not likely to lead to a more dignified response from you. Do you have anything to support your appeal to objective morality besides repeating "it's objective!"? Holding your breath and stamping your feet, perhaps? You have provided no evidence that such a standard exists, much less that it might be binding.David Kellogg_{March 9, 2009
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----George: "Were the people who wrote those words rational (Biblical passages) StephenB?" The Bible makes the transition from bad behavior to good behavior. This is news to you? You don't bring barbarians around overnight. You either ween them away from bad behavior slowly or you kill them. What do you think the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament is about? It's about bringing people out of irrationality and barbarism to rationality and civilized behavior. To allude to the temporary accomodation of bad behavior for the sake of improving that behavior is to play a strawman's game. Its the last refuge for those who cannot make their case. The barbarians had their excuses because they had nothing else to draw from. On the other hand, todays moral relativists are without exuse. What is your excuse for not knowing that child prostituion is wrong?StephenB_{March 9, 2009
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I see ray left his hat. Oh well.Upright BiPed_{March 9, 2009
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Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray "Egregious Error of Stupendous Ignorance" Martinez Jerry is simply saying that the factual evidence uncovered by modern biology does not show that DESIGN is an invalid hypothesis. Now...the researchers themselves certainly do (given there mistaken ideological position) BUT the evidence itself does not. To the contrary, the evidence shows that DESIGN is (far and away) the most plausible hypothesis of all (which also has the evidentiary bolstering aspect of being parsimonious with other data). ID is ABOUT the evidence. You savvy that Skippy?Upright BiPed_{March 9, 2009
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George, Your sarcasm regarding the "only six years" slavery issue is only funny in the light of your modern stereotypes of slavery. Most of the successful arguments for the abolition of slavery was made by Christians because they saw that everything about the social construct became perverted by evil persons (I think of William Wilberforce among others). A lot of this evil sprang from the minds of evolutionary motivated racists. (Yes some of these evil persons claimed to be Christian, but their claims of knowing Christ has no effect of who Christ is, except if you like to use this to degrade Christ to your subjective standards.) In stead of being sarcastic you can show that you can look at an argument within the context. What you are doing is like making Newton out to be a fool and unscientific because Einstein came along.mullerpr_{March 9, 2009
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----David Kellogg: I’m frankly amazed that you seem to enjoy refusing an actual debate in favor of such childish games, whereby a facile attempt to label another as self-contradicting (with the added bonus of calling him a supporter of child prostiution! cool!) trumps any measured discussion of different positions." David, you contradict yourself every time you write, as I have made clear several times. If you don't understand that objective morality is binding while popular opinion is not, I can't help you. On the other hand, I am not trying to convince those who are impervious to reason, I speak to onlookers who may yet have an open mind.StephenB_{March 9, 2009
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Rude,
What should be mentioned in the LORD’s defense is that this slavery could last for a maximum of six years for a citizen of the realm, and that the Torah is also filled with admonitions to respect the noncitizen: the alien be he slave or free could become a citizen.
Oh, that's all right then. Only six years? I don't know what I was thinking of to imagine that slavery might have been a bad thing. Only six years? I wish I knew that from the beginning! Silly me!George L Farquhar_{March 9, 2009
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Upright Biped, I am sure Ray does not understand that all I am saying is consistent with the findings and conclusions of Behe in the Edge of Evolution. So I am saying nothing that is inconsistent with Behe. But then again, Ray does not like Catholics and Behe is a Catholic.jerry_{March 9, 2009
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KF You said
Weasel sets a target sentence then once a letter is guessed it preserves it for future iterations of trials until the full target is met. That means it rewards partial but non-functional success, and is foresighted. Targetted search, not a proper RV + NS model.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/complex-does-not-equal-contingent/#comment-300338 If you care to substantiate this with a quote from Mr Dawkins (book or otherwise, if book page number and issue is required) my offer of $100,000 to a charity of your choice stands. If you are right, as you obviously believe you are, it's easy money?George L Farquhar_{March 9, 2009
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George, I should be more clear. Pick any paper that has ever been published in evolutionary biology. The findings either are consistent with ID or they contradicts ID. I maintain that no paper ever published in evolutionary biology has findings that have contradicted ID.jerry_{March 9, 2009
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David, In #186: "n any event, I’m amused that my critique of objectivity is countered by your defense of an objectivity somehow beyond human understanding. What use is that? There’s an objective measure out there somewhere, but we can’t access it? That seems far less stable than my appeal to provisional, relative judgment." You must be living in a strange world to conclude this from anything that I have written. It is completely the opposite of my argument. My argument is that Abraham KNOW God and rationally and fully understood the implications of God's command. It was completely within his understanding**. It is now clear to me that you actually amused yourself and projected it on me. (Such a projection is actually common for an internalist epistemology, and it proof that for you the law of non contradiction is relative as well.) Further more have I argued that the objective truth that exist outside any individual can be understood in the full respect that is required for a rational being within this or any other possible universe. It is a truth that can be found in the completest sense that is required for a human being. There are actually a number of academics in philosophy, physics and mathematics that agree that it is extremely "odd" that human logic has such success in understanding and predicting our external environment. This reality is far more superior that your misconstrued "provisional, and relative judgment". The fact that we trust the uniformity of nature gives us the ability to generate new knowledge, and truly explore our complete reality without any provision. The true skeptic cannot have this trust because he has to be provisional about any observation which make any prediction impossible. And there you have the skeptic embracing self contradiction again, because they do make accurate predictions be cause they do trust nature to be understandable. You see... there is nothing special in saying one thing and acting against your claims, it is a form of delusion. The one irrational provision that a lot of skeptics consistently supports is naturalism. It is just sad to see people amputating their sense and understanding of the non-natural aspects of being, like beauty, love, logic, God, and so much more. It truly pains me to see the efforts to explain all these things into a naturalist view. ** This thought force me to ask you to name the theologian that argues that God goes out of his way not to be understood by man? P.S. David, please understand that I consider us both standing on "soap boxes" in public, making fun about each other while arguing serious issues for the entertainment and betterment of our audience. Nothing I argue is personal, it is about the issues and the fun.mullerpr_{March 9, 2009
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George, You seem to be confused. Pick any paper that has ever been published in evolutionary biology. It either is consistent with ID or it contradicts ID. I maintain that no paper ever published in evolutionary biology ever contradicted ID. I gave you a basic proposition which ID has as a hypothesis. Find me a paper that contradicts it. Since there are thousands of studies on the mapping and analysis of genomes, they are either consistent or contradict this ID hypothesis. I have not found anyone who can provide one that contradicts ID. You are either dense or playing games. My guess is the latter.jerry_{March 9, 2009
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Jerry (#182): "Nearly every paper of the several hundred thousand if not all papers in evolutionary biology are either neutral on design or support design." Egregious and inexcusable ignorance. Darwinists DO NOT support the concept of design. The concept of evolution accomplished by natural causation, since Darwin 1859 when it was accepted, says design does not exist in nature (Darwin, Autobio:87; Dawkins 1986: book title). The reason Darwinists do not support design is because design implies invisible Designer (DUH!). The concept of design always presupposes Intelligent causation. The concept of evolution always presupposes natural or material agency (= unintelligent causation). This is why all Atheists are Evolutionists. "I haven’t seen one presented anywhere on the internet or in a journal or referenced here that does not fit this description." Evolution by definition presupposes the non-existence of design. The mass of pro-evolution papers alluded to were written under this presupposition, whether actually stated or not. William Dembski "Intelligent Design" (1999). Michael Shermer "Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design" (2006). According to the massive ignorance of Jerry, the ID-Evolution debate that has been raging for decades does not exist. And there is no such thing as being neutral towards design: logically impossible. Darwinists and Evolutionists are anti-design. This is a basic, self-evident, axiomatic fact. "On another thread just last night Allen MacNeill, a teacher of evolutionary biology, demonstrates this every time he comes here and provides examples." And here is the source of Jerry's jaw dropping ignorance: Allen MacNeill. Allen MacNeill is an Atheist-evolutionist. He deliberately misrepresents the most basic claim of evolutionary theory (anti-design) in order to deceive naive persons like Jerry into accepting evolutionary theory. Again, Atheists support evolutionary theory unanimously because Darwinism says the concept of design does not exist in nature. MacNeill misrepresents the *objective claims* of evolution---intentionally---as a reaction to the success of Dembski IDism. We see the victims of this egregious misrepresentation in the laughable beliefs of Jerry. I predict because Jerry has been exposed to be horribly and inexcusably ignorant concerning the fact that the concepts of evolution and design are enemies, he will dig in his heels and defend these ridiculous assertions. We will probably have to endure more posts by Jerry that insult our intelligence. If he doesn't then I will be most happy to apologize for this last paragraph. But my experience in these matters tells me that very few people have the integrity to admit they were wrong after being embarrassed. Jerry needs to be humiliated---that's how egregiously ignorant he is concerning this BASIC 101 issue. RayR. Martinez_{March 9, 2009
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StephenB, I'm frankly amazed that you seem to enjoy refusing an actual debate in favor of such childish games, whereby a facile attempt to label another as self-contradicting (with the added bonus of calling him a supporter of child prostiution! cool!) trumps any measured discussion of different positions. I would have though you were more mature. We don't need to continue this. If you'd like, I'll leave you giggling in your corner, and you can declare victory.David Kellogg_{March 9, 2009
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George L Farquhar (“no true Scotsman”?) 203 brings up the Torah’s laws restricting slavery. What should be mentioned in the LORD’s defense is that this slavery could last for a maximum of six years for a citizen of the realm, and that the Torah is also filled with admonitions to respect the noncitizen: the alien be he slave or free could become a citizen. Thus no such slavery as existed under Roman rule, nor the slavery that tainted the Western Continents, could have endured under Torah Law. Another thing to note is that there is no provision for prison in the Torah, which is odd in that prisons play a role in Genesis (e.g., Joseph in Egypt). What the Torah is about is liberty, liberty through the rule of law. It begins with the freeing of slaves from Egypt. And it is no coincidence that the freest societies in the world have emerged from cultures most wedded to the Book that grew up around the Torah. Nor does the Torah enjoin its laws on the world in general. That is for the nation that covenanted with its God, and it is up to that nation to demonstrate to the world the efficacy of those laws, as in Deuteronomy 4:6-8:
Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
So is the indentured servitude of the Torah so much more horrible than our modern prison system? I know, most ivory tower academics cannot speak to this from personal experience, certainly the experience of prison, and I’m not advocating that we empty those prisons, execute the hard core, levy fines which in certain instances might mean up to six years of servitude. I’m just suggesting that we may not be as morally wise and all knowing as we think.Rude_{March 9, 2009
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StephenB, I am saying that you are violating widely accepted practices of argument (by attempting to smear me by association). Such violations are not objective, but I would have thought they are widespread enough that you might pause from your self-congratulation to share my disgust. Apparently not.David Kellogg_{March 9, 2009
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