Loves Science ???

General Discussion
1

I’m no scientists.

But I love science.

I believe in the scientific process, which has opened my eyes to the wonders of the Universe, our Earth and it’s amazing Evolutionary story, and Deep Time along the human story, and our condition, including our fertile evolution created Mindscapes and our need to believe in something bigger than we are.

 

Science is basically a simple set of rules intended to remove as much personal bias from our observations and studies as possible. This is done in order to enable as rational and objective understanding of the Physical World around us as is humanly possible.

Science depends on objective observations.

Science rejects arguments from Subjective Personal Faith - in favor of objective physical observations and facts supported by measurements, followed by Constructive Rational Arguments.

The process of Science contains some universally accepted laws that the Faith Shackled are incapable of abiding by or even fathoming ( as I’ve discover from paying attention to the unmitigated crap I’ve seen them put forward time after time.).

 

THE SCIENTIFIC DEBATE

Require Good Faith, Honest Curiosity, Full Spectrum Skepticism, Fidelity to Truthfully Representing the facts as known.

 

In a Scientific Debates,

{ as opposed to Political/Lawyerly Debate which are performances, highlighted by their focus on showmanship and utter disregard for honesty or truth. Winning an argument, no matter how dishonestly achieved, is all that matters. }

Whereas the Scientific Debate’s goal is a getter collective understanding. This requires not only honestly representing one’s own evidence and arguments - it also requires honestly sharing the evidence, arguments and objects of other experts in the field.

CREATIONIST HAVE NEVER ACTED IN GOOD FAITH - THEY ARE DEPENDENT ON MISREPRESENTING EVIDENCE AND IGNORING TONS MORE.

There is a name for the FRAUD !!!

 

 

2

corrections.

… a greater collective understanding…

… and objections of other experts in the field. …

3

re #328502

Then when I try to bring it up for a serious unemotional review - you ignore it.

I wonder why that is - but than I can’t read your mind, so who knows why defending honesty against deliberate, tactical fraud get’s shit on a losing idea not even worth considering? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

 

4

Lausten thanks for linking midway into the video. Oh and thanks for handing me something to stir that beast inside of me - Those 15 minutes are going to demand their own thread. We’ll see if I can buckle down and put it together.

18:30 Why do I never hear a word from Haidt examining the reasons for Left Wing "contempt" towards the Right Wing??? Why does Haidt never defend honesty and respect for Physical Reality? I don't hate the person - but I have absolute contempt for how easily the Right Wing fabricates completely false narratives about serious explainable learnable science. AND WHY SHOULDN'T I FEEL THAT WAY HAIDT?

…

Nope instead Haidt rather focus on the lack of certainty within science - as if that were a fault.

Why doesn’t Haidt spend a moment pointing out that the uncertainties in science are about refining focus and deepening understanding.

ps: The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44

The Relativity of Wrong By Isaac Asimov

https: //chem.tufts - edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong - htm

5
Then when I try to bring it up for a serious unemotional review – you ignore it.
I'm not going to apologize for not reading and responding to everything you said. 328502 was not unemotional and I already had to fish around in another thread to find that one, let alone whatever "it" you are referring to.
6
Why do I never hear a word from Haidt examining the reasons for Left Wing “contempt” towards the Right Wing???
It could be something about your filters. I'm glad to hear your critique, but I'm not going to type it out Haidt's words for you or paraphrase them. Actually I might do that, just not on this sunny day.
7

I listened to the 30 min of Haidt. I didn’t hear anything specifically about justification of the left’s contempt for the right.

He mentioned 2009-2012 as being the time in our history where “social media shredded any common understanding”.

He called that a “Tower of Babel” event. I say, “Hell No.” God didn’t use social media to undermine truth. The righties did. They have always sought to undermine truth, (e.g., global warming is a hoax, cigarettes are good for you, immigrants are bad, tax cuts for the rich will trickle down, etc.)

But they were in hog heaven, when they, not God, were able to destroy more truth than ever with social media. (I would also point out that 2009-2012 was when the latent Nazi’s within our society were emerging as a counter to our having a black President. Haidt noted some personal astonishment that the right now includes actual Nazis. But they were always there. They just found the motivation and the means to emerge and have an impact again. And now they have a champion in T rump.)

Haidt says we should be epistemologically humble. I Know that I make mistakes sometimes, and when I realize it, I acknowledge it. I also know that I am correct the great majority of the time and that the extreme righties are way wrong most of the time. How does humility fit into that?

Haidt’s big (seemingly forlorn) hope is that our crisis now is so great that the mass of the public will grow so tired of the conflict between the extremes that a new more moderate consensus will emerge.

Why would that be when the extreme righties have the advantage of blatantly false narratives presented as truth? And they have the public megaphones (social media, the DOTUS, the MAJOR right wing medias, the alt right, Russia, etc.) to spread their false narratives so effectively.

Especially why would that be, when the lefties are expected to be the rational, non emotional, moderating influences?

I think the left must vigorously oppose the LIES of the right. Else, what is really likely is that the masses will continue to be swayed toward the LIES. Because, in that case, eventually, if the masses do get fed up with the conflict and blow off the extremes, they won’t land in the center, but will become victims of the right.

 

 

8
He called that a “Tower of Babel” event. I say, “Hell No.” God didn’t use social media to undermine truth.
He didn't say God did anything. The Tower of a Babel is a fable to explain languages. The analogy to social media is just that, an analogy. It wasn't invented specifically for fake news. WIRED magazine was not conservative. But that happens with new tech, it gets co-opted.
9
Haidt’s big (seemingly forlorn) hope is that our crisis now is so great that the mass of the public will grow so tired of the conflict between the extremes that a new more moderate consensus will emerge
I don't get that from him.
Else, what is really likely is that the masses will continue to be swayed toward the LIES.
I haven't noticed the polling change that much. Bannon figured out how to win the Presidency with a minority, actually Bush had laid some groundwork for that, and a generation of Republicans who have redistricted democracy into oblivion. Would it help if I screamed my head off at lovescience? He probably doesn't know what gerrymandering means.

I think Nader had it right in 2000. It wasn’t him who took away any votes, it was Democrats who put up a boring candidate and chased away their own base. They still haven’t corrected for that. Increasing voter turnout by 10% or so would kill the Republican party.

10
Lausten said "He didn't say God did anything. The Tower of a Babel is a fable to explain languages."
That "fable" is from Genesis 11, 1-9, in which God disrupted the work of humans that were getting too uppity.
I said: "Haidt’s big (seemingly forlorn) hope is that our crisis now is so great that the mass of the public will grow so tired of the conflict between the extremes that a new more moderate consensus will emerge..."

Lausten said: “I don’t get that from him.”

I say: “Watch the vid again from the 29:30 mark. Haidt is hopeful that young people will be so sick of the extremes and be exhausted with them and this will somehow motivate the ‘exhausted majority’ to take charge. He says he won’t bet on it, but that things are so bad now, that there’s a chance.”

Hence I said “…what is really likely is that the masses will continue to be swayed toward the LIES.”

Lausten said “I haven’t noticed the polling change that much…”

I say: “Perhaps the polls, which signify nothing, haven’t changed but a hell of a lot else has. The righties have power now that they have not had for decades. And it is entirely possible that this cannot, now, be wrested away from them.”

Lausten said “Would it help if I screamed my head off at lovescience?”

I say, "I don’t want you to scream at lovescience. I don’t know that lovescience is one of those who are trying to be tricky and spread lies that way. If so, then ok, scream at him.

What I am getting at, is you and Haidt are basically acting as if what passes for the extreme left these days is as dysfunctional and as humanity destroying as the extreme right. You are supporting a kind of false equivalence. You might as well say there are good people on both sides. Hoping that the apathetic middle will ride in and save us from the extremes is a forlorn hope. I don’t think they will. Meanwhile the righties take on more and more power and the hopes for democracy will continue to die."


And no, third parties in our two party system are just another way for one side to gain advantage over the other. They don’t have it right. Unless you mean right-wing. You blame Dems for not increasing voter turnout and for not picking the flashiest candidate every time. I blame the ignorant masses in the middle for allowing the dirty tricks of the righties to win out. They are truly ignorant. And the main thing they have ignored is the destructiveness toward humanity of the right.

 

 


 

11
Would it help if I screamed my head off at lovescience?
Still haven't figured out it's more about trying to wake up the supposedly rational thinkers who have fallen asleep.
TimB: Haidt’s big (seemingly forlorn) hope is that our crisis now is so great that the mass of the public will grow so tired of the conflict between the extremes that a new more moderate consensus will emerge

Lausten: I don’t get that from him.


Actually I thought Tim’s assessment was spot on.

 

Haidt - 31:08

and then this is backed up by what really wonderful work by a British organization more in common that has done wonderful work in Britain the United States looking at the makeup of the election and they find there are seven groups if you do a cluster analysis of people’s attitudes there’s seven groups you know the extreme groups are very extreme and are everything’s politics but there’s a large group of 70 or 80 percent which they call the exhausted majority and it includes a lot of two different groups on the left along with centrists and along with people a big group the biggest group in America is people who just are apathetic they’re not political they don’t vote very much so the majority of Americans are already exhausted by this social media has given two extremes a megaphone so it’s we’re now even more sick of it so if someone some movement

31:58

some coherent moral narrative about who we are …


If you can make heads or tails out of that, please do,

 

 

Oh and why aren’t atrocities worth screaming about???

 

12
Lausten: I’m not going to apologize for not reading and responding to everything
But you should be ashamed of dancing around this, every time I bring it up:
Science is basically a simple set of rules intended to remove as much personal bias from our observations and studies as possible. This is done in order to enable as rational and objective understanding of the Physical World around us as is humanly possible.

Science depends on objective observations.

Science rejects arguments from Subjective Personal Faith – in favor of objective physical observations and facts supported by measurements, followed by Constructive Rational Arguments.

The process of Science contains some universally accepted laws that the Faith Shackled are incapable of abiding by or even fathoming ( as I’ve discover from paying attention to the unmitigated crap I’ve seen them put forward time after time.).

 

THE SCIENTIFIC DEBATE

Require Good Faith, Honest Curiosity, Full Spectrum Skepticism, Fidelity to Truthfully Representing the facts as known.

 

In a Scientific Debates,

{ as opposed to Political/Lawyerly Debate which are performances, highlighted by their focus on showmanship and utter disregard for honesty or truth. Winning an argument, no matter how dishonestly achieved, is all that matters. }

Whereas the Scientific Debate’s goal is a getter collective understanding. This requires not only honestly representing one’s own evidence and arguments – it also requires honestly sharing the evidence, arguments and objects of other experts in the field.

CREATIONIST HAVE NEVER ACTED IN GOOD FAITH – THEY ARE DEPENDENT ON MISREPRESENTING EVIDENCE AND IGNORING TONS MORE.

There is a name for the FRAUD !!!


:expressionless:

13
But you should be ashamed of dancing around this, every time I bring it up:
You don't get to ignore every post I've ever made that says exactly what you just said up there. That lacks intellectual integrity. You don't get to point to how I responded to one person in a couple posts and say that is indicative of my entire theme and personality.
14
If you can make heads or tails out of that, please do,
That's your filter, your cognitive dissonance. It's clearly saying there is a large group of apathetic voters out there and they're apathetic because they are tired of the shouting and name calling and each side calling the other a liar. That's you my friend. People come to the public square for some debate and to be informed, and what they see is a man (usually a man) and a pig (almost always a male politician) rolling in the mud and they can barely tell who's who because they are both covered in mud.
15
I blame the ignorant masses in the middle for allowing the dirty tricks of the righties to win out. They are truly ignorant. And the main thing they have ignored is the destructiveness toward humanity of the right. -- Timb
You make a lot of good points Tim. Thanks for taking the time to be so specific. I'll respond to this for now since I'm supposed to be at work.

If they are ignorant, then they need to be informed. But, we know that next phase, they don’t respond to information. And we know a little about why that is, but we (the Left) are way behind on putting counter measures in action. Personally, I have to consider my limitations. Gray haired men have a certain disadvantage in reaching young LGBTQ for example. I’m okay at organizing, but not so great at public speaking. So, I do what I can.

16

I appreciate what you do.

Back to the ignorant masses. I mean that adjective descriptively, not pejoratively. They literally ignore the realities in our society. But now, if they can ignore the LIES of the right when there will be over 100K dead Americans and perhaps a record breaking number of unemployed, then they must be completely immune to truth.

Even the ones who don’t give a flip about other people in general must care about the economy for their own self interest. But they still may not pay attention enough to understand that T rump is failing us SO terribly.

17

I wonder why Haidt get’s a pass for the many time he’s telling us what we are thinking. For instance

so I think part what's going on here is 26:08 you have to look at each person who 26:10 cares about a cause now are they 26:13 motivated to solve the problem or are 26:17 they motivated to be part of the team 26:19 and show how much they're part of the 26:20 team and

 

you know the conclusion I came
26:23
to in the righteous mind is that our
26:25
moral reasoning is really much more
26:26
about display we want people to think
26:28
well of us and so we adopt strategies
26:31
that often alienate people that fail to
26:34
persuade them


Another thing that I’ve yet to hear Haidt address, (I admit I’ve only listened to a few of his performances, I’d love for someone to share a link that might correct my impression - That is, if Haidt’s ever touched on that aspect of understanding science vs human nature.),

is for him to address the Physical Reality of what’s happening upon this planet as something distinct from human perceptions. I always hear him reducing it to humans arguing with each other, as though nothing greater exists out there - making him, to me, the same problem he’s preaching against.

 

Until he can explicitly recognize and discuss the difference between his mind and all his fancy thinking - from the realm of creation’s Physical Reality unfolding regardless, he’s making points and collecting speakers fees and royalties, showing everyone what a superior mind he’s been gifted with, but doing nothing to change the dialogue, or enlighten anyone.

display what we want people to think well of us
 

 

18

What’s the point?

We The People have a moral ethical right - along with a pragmatic need - to learn what scientists have learned about this planet’s biosphere and climate engine without constant dishonest crossfire.

We should not tolerate serious scientists always being drown out by amoral, dishonest and frankly ignorant arguments - that an astoundingly ruthless PR factory repeats over and over again, without ever learning a damned thing from the evidence in front of us.

19

Twitter just tried one little attempt to call attention to a blatant LIE that T rump has tweeted. A LIE that T rump wants to be seen as true because he thinks he will have a better chance in the election if no one is allowed to vote by mail during the Pandemic. He LIED about massive fraud being inherent in voting by mail.

Twitter did not take down the lie, they only added a button one could click if they wanted to see the truth about voting by mail.

That simple act lead to an outraged T rump signing an executive order the next day, commanding that social media companies cannot restrict his freedom of speech like that.

Facebook who also allow dangerous LIES to be posted on their format, was in agreement with the DOTUS. They think they should have NO role in restricting the LIES that are posted and spread to America on their social media.

The forces of the RepugLIARS have the power to obfuscate and overcome truth. They have been doing it for a long time, and now they are massively using social media in ways that VASTLY increase their power to sabotage truth.

 

20
They think they should have NO role in restricting the LIES that are posted and spread to America on their social media.
Trump was not telling a lie. It was his opinion. He should be allowed to voice his opinion. This is what free speech is all about. Fake news to Trump are also opinions of journalists of the left wing media. This is allowed in America.