And no, recreational reading doesn't make an expert - especially when the statement in question is supported by "Never read anything that said otherwise."
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Sorry, Threads, I wasn't clear. I meant, "why, in your opinion, would that be an inherent characteristic?"
Why do you think that we have that revulsion?
From an evolutionary perspective there are many possible explanations: - We are inherently social creatures due to the environment in which our ancestors grew up. A single human being is fairly vulnerable to predators so it was necessary for us to band together purely for survival's sake. Part of working together involves not killing others within a tribe. - We fear death for obvious reasons and would like to minimize our risk of death. We crave security. Permitting murder would destroy that security. - Societies, including animal societies, cannot function if murder is openly permitted. Someone brought up Meerkat Manor. Notice that the meerkats only "murder" the meerkats in other meerkat tribes (humans do the same and it is not a routine activity). I have not seen murder within a single tribe documented on that show.
I could give you some more if you want.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Looks like a lot of wiggling to me.
And no, recreational reading doesn't make an expert - especially when the statement in question is supported by "Never read anything that said otherwise."
Which is why he never claimed to be an expert.
His beliefs are pretty logical given what he knows. You haven't provided any evidence to counter his and your attack on his sources consists of nothing more than incredulity. Why don't you post something of substance? He told you why he believes what he does.
EDIT: Matt is basically applying Occam's Razor. He knows that he is fairly well read on the subject and that he has not encountered many examples of "recreational" murder (or whatever you want to call it) among animals. This suggests that such "recreational" murder is not very common (suggesting an aversion to murder).
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quote:And no, recreational reading doesn't make an expert - especially when the statement in question is supported by "Never read anything that said otherwise."
Fortunately, I didn't claim expertise or you'd have me on that one. If lack of expertise in a subject were a bar to posting an opinion on it, we'd all be screwed. Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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posted
Threads, all those things may well be the case; do you see, though, how it isn't really getting at the heart of the question?
Again, it doesn't matter. There can be any number of reasons. Or combinations of reasons. There are still bigger questions.
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posted
Right. Because he thinks he heard it on Animal Planet, except now it's because he can't remember reading anything that that said otherwise.
The point is even those who claim a rational, scientific basis for everything they believe are usually hard-pressed to come up with a source for any specific question, even those that ARE verifiable through the scientific method.
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posted
Matt, I think that I sidetracked the conversation with my "why" question to Threads. Sorry about that.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Threads, all those things may well be the case; do you see, though, how it isn't really getting at the heart of the question?
Not really. I was just trying to point out that humans tend seem to have a natural aversion to murder and that one does not need to get their morals from a holy book. Even if we didn't evolve such an aversion and God just gave it to us, that isn't really relevant to my point. It would still shows that atheists can have morals (just that those morals would, ironically, be given to them by God). It's possible but it's also not a particularly strong theory.
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I see. I missed that. Probably because it didn't occur to me to believe that we get our morals from a book. Or that atheists were amoral.
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quote:The point is even those who claim a rational, scientific basis for everything they believe are usually hard-pressed to come up with a source for any specific question, even those that ARE verifiable through the scientific method.
So those who believe in the scientific method should only speak if they can site a source on every statement they are going to make?
You're coming off a little scary in this thread Kat. I don't think your attacks are anywhere close to being justified (or effective). Edit: Though Matt doesn't seem to mind, and is answering far more politely than I would in the same situation.
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quote:The point is even those who claim a rational, scientific basis for everything they believe
I'm not sure you could produce a statement by me to that affect.
I believe that rationality is an ideal that we should strive for. I believe that I am more rational in my approach to some subjects than to others and that I should try to correct that. I am willing to grant tentative approval to ideas that appear to be based on rational processes (i.e. a scientific study from a respected journal) with the understanding that the methodology and data that produce those ideas are, in principal, independently testable and reproducible. I also understand that I may have to give up these ideas when they are disproved or when conflicting ones are more convincingly presented in the future.
I do take many thing on faith and I see that as a an evil but unfortunately a necessary one. I cannot possibly become an expert on all subject matter, but I am willing to grant credence to those who have demonstrated expertise and I do my best to educate myself as much as possible.
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quote:You're coming off a little scary in this thread Kat. I don't think your attacks are anywhere close to being justified (or effective). Edit: Though Matt doesn't seem to mind, and is answering far more politely than I would in the same situation.
To be honest, I do mind, but I've chosen not to engage it given how productive that has been in the past. The best I can do is try to be clear and polite and let everything else roll off. It's a zen thing. Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Right. Because he thinks he heard it on Animal Planet, except now it's because he can't remember reading anything that that said otherwise.
How do you manage to get by every day? Do you never eat until you've verified with multiple peer-review journals that eating food won't kill you?
I think it's pretty clear that believing in the scientific method doesn't necessitate having to find sources for every piece of knowledge.
As a bonus, here's a University of Maine article which specifically addresses that most species don't kill one another on a regular basis, but instead use non-lethal methods of asserting dominance.
posted
I think the entire argument about whether other mammals engage in recreational killing of their own species is really moot.
We know that other some other mammals kill their own species. Many cases have been observed and although we can't be sure about any non-humans motivations we suspect that they kill to defend territory, to obtain mating rites, to eliminte their rivals offspring, and to gain social status. Wars have been observed between packs of wolves and groups of Gorilla's. While Human motives for murder may be more varied and complex, Human desires and social interactions are more varied and complex in almost every respect.
Recreational killing isn't exactly common among humans either. There are ~5.7 murders for every 100,000 people in the US annually. I suspect that most of those murders are commited for motives like property, territory, sex, status which aren't all that different from the motives we assign to killings between bears, lions or elk. Which leaves a very small number indeed which would qualify as "recreational killing". If the murder rate was similar among Grizzly bears (world population 200,000) for example, we would only anticipate 12 Grizzlies killed by other Grizzlies per year. Given that bears live mostly in areas that are not heavily populated by humans, that many bear murders could easily escape observation. Given those statistics, I think it would be very difficult to conclude that other mammals, particularly other predators, are less likely to kill their own with out cause than humans.
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: As a bonus, here's a University of Maine article which specifically addresses that most species don't kill one another on a regular basis, but instead use non-lethal methods of asserting dominance.
I've looked through that article and think there is a critical flaw in the work. "Most species" aren't comparable to humans because they do not have a well defined social structure and they aren't predators. The examples he gives are for red deer and are quite consistent for most herbivors.
If on the other hand you look at wolves, who like humans are predators that rely on a social structure for survival, you get a very different story. An alpha male wolf will typically kill 2 to 5 other wolves during the course of his life. Since the reintrodution of wolves into Yellowstone National Park, their have been several "wars" between various packs over territory.
Chimpanzees, the closest relatives to humans, who are omnivores living in social groups like us, fight wars too.
I'm quite confident that if Roscoe had compared human tribal groups to wolves, he would have come to quite different conclusions.
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posted
I didn't claim it was an exhaustive source, but it is a source, which is all JH demanded in order to continue the discussion.
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quote:It seems to me that any epistemology can be [mis]used to produce conclusions that we are not willing to license.
This is a bit of a dodge. The idea that all epistemologies are equally valid because all of them can produce incorrect conclusions, while perhaps appealing, ignores the fact that all epistemologies are not equally likely to produce correct conclusions. I might, for example, flip a coin every time I'm faced with a yes/no decision. Is this as useful as the scientific method?
I cannot think of a single epistemology that is as consistently correct, useful, and self-correcting as the scientific method. Comparing it to faith on that basis does not make faith look better as an epistemology.
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quote:The point is even those who claim a rational, scientific basis for everything they believe are usually hard-pressed to come up with a source for any specific question, even those that ARE verifiable through the scientific method.
The difference here, of course, is that people who actually have a rational, scientific basis for what they believe can produce reliable sources for any specific question. Whereas people who merely have faith in something, no matter how dedicated they are to that belief, will never be able to produce a source of any kind.
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quote:Which would explain why so many people feel your argument is not compelling.
Hey, if some people don't think that belief in an unnecessarily complicated system, without any proof of any kind and without any demonstrable benefit, constitutes irrational behavior, more power to 'em. I think that's pretty much a functional definition of irrationality, but they don't have to agree with me.
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posted
But Tom, since he scientific method is inherently non-prescriptive it alone is even less useful for making decisions than flipping a coin.
Science is a method for gaining knowledge about the natural world. That knowledge sometimes helps us better understand the far reaching consequences of a decision and knowledge is an important tool in making decisions. But knowledge alone is insufficient. Even if science can some day provide us with a clear understanding of the outcomes of every decision we might make, Science is incapable of telling us what outcomes would be desirable. In order for science to be of use in decision making, we must have a system of values that science itself can not provide.
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quote:But Tom, since he scientific method is inherently non-prescriptive it alone is even less useful for making decisions than flipping a coin.
Depends on the decision. If, for example, I would like to heat some water, science will tell me that I should put it on the stove instead of on a block of ice. In fact, science can (in principle) answer pretty much any precise question; it's just the questions we can't ask coherently that give us problems. Basically, the fault is in our method of asking, not science's ability to answer.
When we say that science cannot tell us which outcomes would be desirable, that's inaccurate. Science cannot define the word "desirable" for us. Once we have defined "desirable," science can tell us whether a given outcome matches that definition or not.
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quote:In order for science to be of use in decision making, we must have a system of values that science itself can not provide.
Then we make a system of values, either personally or as a society.
What's the problem?
The problem is that that "system of values" whether its personal or societal is outside the realm of science. It can not be determined in a purely rational manner. If we are still talking about Politcal leaders (and I'm not sure we are but that is where we started) then the problem is that I a want leader who not only appreciates the importance of rational scientific knowledge but also a leader who shares my values. And quite frankly, I think the latter is more important than the former. In fact, the last think I want is someone with values I consider to be highly immoral (for example someone who valued "racial purity") using a highly scientific approach to achieve those ends.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm not sure why we're confusing ethics with reality. Is "goodness" empirical?
Your statement implies a fundamental assumption that all things "real" are necessarily empirical. Which begs the fundamental question we are debating.
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posted
Not everything is verified by experimental observation. In matters of religion, there are no controlled variables (that is, from a humble observer's perspective) and there is no garauntee that what is happening will or can happen again. Much of the morality that is religious is based on reasoning (the apostle Paul for example, did not by any record become the puppet of God when he wrote all those letters; he was speaking from what he knew about God and Jesus and what made sense to him. Most of which makes sense to me) and trust that something had happened because God made it so. When you study religion, you can't say "If there is a God, he will use his magic and make the cup in my hand disappear" to verify the existence of God. The hypothesis from the start is flawed.
The assumption that reality must be empirical is pervasive among scientists; that's one reason we hear some really loony conclusions about quantum mechanics and the state of unobserved waves/particles. It's not "real" until it's observed! The uncertainty principle tears apart the notion that all that is real is observable.
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quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: The assumption that reality must be empirical is pervasive among scientists; that's one reason we hear some really loony conclusions about quantum mechanics and the state of unobserved waves/particles. It's not "real" until it's observed!
That's not really true. A particle in a state of superposition is still "real" (it still exists).
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: The uncertainty principle tears apart the notion that all that is real is observable.
quote:The difference here, of course, is that people who actually have a rational, scientific basis for what they believe can produce reliable sources for any specific question. Whereas people who merely have faith in something, no matter how dedicated they are to that belief, will never be able to produce a source of any kind.
The Bible. The Koran. God. The Pope. A Dream. All belief systems, including science, are built upon sources that we must trust in order to accept those belief systems. You personally may trust the observations of scientists coupled with various assumptions about the universe far more than you trust ancient books, people, or dreams - but they are still all sources.
Keep in mind that so far, the only justification you have given for accepting the foundational premises of science was that you are "comfortable with relying on the starting assumptions necessary for the scientific method." Other people are comfortable placing their faith in other assumptions, or other sources.
quote:I cannot think of a single epistemology that is as consistently correct, useful, and self-correcting as the scientific method.
Why?
Imagine if some mad sociologist took a bunch of children and isolated them from the rest of society, in two groups. One group is taught only the scientific method, and is taught to use that to solve all questions. The other group is taught to have faith in the Bible, and to use that faith to solve all questions. If both groups actually ended up following the epistimologies they were taught, I'd be willing to bet that the latter society would turn out happier and more successful. The scientific group might be better at figuring out how to make a fire, but the religious society would know not to kill one another.
quote:In fact, science can (in principle) answer pretty much any precise question; it's just the questions we can't ask coherently that give us problems.
I don't believe this is the case. The scope of science is extremely limited, to the point where it can answer only a very few questions - although it can answer those pretty well. But science can definitely NOT tell me what the color of the car parked next to mine at work tomorrow will be, no matter how precisely I ask the question. It can't tell me the name of the person to marry if I want to be happiest. It can't tell me if God exists. It can't tell me how to define "faith". It can't tell me what the experience of tasting apple pie is like for you, in your consciousness. It can't tell me if cheating on a test is wrong. It can't tell me why life is of any value.
Science is a tool in the epistemological toolbox, in my opinion - but I wouldn't want to go through life using only science any more than I'd want to try to build a house using only a hammer.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Imagine if some mad sociologist took a bunch of children and isolated them from the rest of society, in two groups. One group is taught only the scientific method, and is taught to use that to solve all questions. The other group is taught to have faith in the Bible, and to use that faith to solve all questions. If both groups actually ended up following the epistimologies they were taught, I'd be willing to bet that the latter society would turn out happier and more successful. The scientific group might be better at figuring out how to make a fire, but the religious society would know not to kill one another.
posted
Note I did say "If both groups actually ended up following the epistimologies they were taught".
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posted
"You're on a scenic route through the state recreational area known as Tresopax's mind. You ask a passer-by for directions, only to find he has no face or something. Suddenly, up ahead, a door in the road. You swerve, narrowly avoiding The Scary Door"
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posted
And I, as an atheist, just enjoyed a baby for breakfast. I think I may have another for dinner tonight.
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quote:Keep in mind that so far, the only justification you have given for accepting the foundational premises of science was that you are "comfortable with relying on the starting assumptions necessary for the scientific method." Other people are comfortable placing their faith in other assumptions, or other sources.
Yes. I'm certainly not disputing that other people are willing to rely on poor starting assumptions.
quote:I'd be willing to bet that the latter society would turn out happier and more successful.
I'd be willing to take that bet, especially if you're serious about their use of faith to answer all questions.
quote:But science can definitely NOT tell me what the color of the car parked next to mine at work tomorrow will be, no matter how precisely I ask the question.
Science can tell you this better than any other epistemology. It can examine the lot, figure out what percentage of cars owned by your coworkers are which color, record where they like to park, etc. Do you think this is a question which faith can answer as satisfactorily?
quote:It can't tell me the name of the person to marry if I want to be happiest. It can't tell me if God exists. It can't tell me how to define "faith". It can't tell me what the experience of tasting apple pie is like for you, in your consciousness. It can't tell me if cheating on a test is wrong. It can't tell me why life is of any value.
Do you maintain that these questions have answers? I certainly submit that science can provide partial answers to all of them more reliably and more correctly than any other epistemology of which I'm aware.
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quote:Well, as an atheist, I regularly kill people, since I don't have a holy book to tell me not to.
I didn't say anything about atheists. Fortunately for the world, there aren't many people around who actually put what Tom is suggesting into practice - few people, if any, actually turn to science to answer questions about morality or other issues science is unable to study. Atheists turn to scientifically unjustified assumptions (such as "killing is wrong") just like most other people do, and often get these assumptions from society at large, their own observations, or even simply from what they were taught as children. Humanism is just that - it is definitely not from a scientific experiment that most atheists have concluded that human life is fundamentally valuable.
quote:Do you maintain that these questions have answers? I certainly submit that science can provide partial answers to all of them more reliably and more correctly than any other epistemology of which I'm aware.
Yes, they have answers.
And "partial answers" are not actual answers; they do us no good when we need an actual answer. For instance, if I ask my friend "Should we go see a movie tonight" and they reply "The average person sees 1 movie every 26 days", it may have "partially" answered my question, but it doesn't do me any good; he left out the important part of the answer.
Do you actually use science to back up every question you need to ask yourself in life? Do you really think your life would be best if you did that?
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quote:The scientific group might be better at figuring out how to make a fire, but the religious society would know not to kill one another.
Somehow I don't think they'd miss all of the "mass genocide is a good thing, if the victims are of another tribe" parts. Oh and the parts which tell you to execute people for various sins.
A society which based its decision making entirely on the bible would scare the crap out of me.
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quote:The scientific group might be better at figuring out how to make a fire, but the religious society would know not to kill one another.
Somehow I don't think they'd miss all of the "mass genocide is a good thing, if the victims are of another tribe" parts. Oh and the parts which tell you to execute people for various sins.
A society which based its decision making entirely on the bible would scare the crap out of me.
And Tres also assumes that these faith believers won't break off into competing groups and start fighting, which seems to be a trend.
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posted
Which parts of the Bible? Or did you mean the Old Testament?
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Yes, Tres does assume that, which he stated at the beginning.
Fascinatingly, do you believe that without religion, there would be no war? Really?
I think that's one of the main problems here - you're looking at humanity and seeing both war and religiona and deciding that one caused by the either, and I look at humanity, see both war and relgion, actually look at what most of the religions are saying, and conclude that people want different things simultaneously.
Correlation does not equal causation.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Which parts of the Bible? Or did you mean the Old Testament?
While the New Testament doesn't directly support mass genocide, it does have it's own share of bad ideas and philosophies, as well as saying that it supports the laws of the OT.
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posted
I find the insistence on ignoring everyting but the most questionable parts of religion and then taking that to be representative of the whole to be puzzling.
And marvelously unscientific.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: I find the insistence on ignoring everyting but the most questionable parts of religion and then taking that to be representative of the whole to be puzzling.
And marvelously unscientific.
And I find the insistence on ignoring everything but the best parts of religion and then taking that to be representative of the whole to be equally as puzzling.
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They do? You have an epistemology that can reliably and provably tell you the name of the person you would be happiest with on Earth? Or what apple pie tastes like for me? Pray tell.
quote:And "partial answers" are not actual answers; they do us no good when we need an actual answer. For instance, if I ask my friend "Should we go see a movie tonight" and they reply "The average person sees 1 movie every 26 days", it may have "partially" answered my question, but it doesn't do me any good; he left out the important part of the answer.
Science can do more than that. Science can say "Do you want to see a movie? Are there any movies out that we'd want to see? Can we afford a movie? Do we have something else of higher priority or greater personal value to do?"
You're laboring under a remarkably narrow definition of "science" here that ignores the fact that it includes all of observational reality.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Fascinatingly, do you believe that without religion, there would be no war? Really?
No. But there would be no war caused by the reasons religions cause wars. That wouldn't be a bad thing.
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posted
It seems like one empirical good being advanced is not to kill. But isn't competition and extinction part of evolution? I'm not saying it has to go that way, there are certainly mechanisms where death comes from without.
I've just seen dogs eat their own puppies. Sure they were domesticated dogs, but if eating the runts gives you more calories to pass on the the healthy puppies.
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