'I was just'. You don't say.Even sincerely-held truths can be used as insults. But let my intemperateness pass. Perhaps you could have spared me that particular burst of honesty and instead laid out what you meant in words I can understand. And if you can spare the time, could you comment on the example I provided of Krauss' latest book. Is it an example of doing something if not grossly unethical then intellectually shady? Btw, our interest in reason suggests that we *should* reason a certain way - that the rules of reasoning have a moral import. Validity in argumentation implies we should care about it too. Otherwise invalid or formally unsound arguments can't be condemned; we could not criticize people for reasoning badly, let alone censure them. Christhat’s amazingly insulting.Really? I was just trying to give an honest evaluation.
And if you can spare the time, could you comment on the example I provided of Krauss' latest book. Is it an example of doing something if not grossly unethical then intellectually shady? ChrisNo Chris, what Krauss is doing is cutting edge theoretical physics. I replied to that in post #8. Perhaps you missed it.
Jenny McCarthy. Her son was diagnosed with autism shorty after receiving vaccinations. Since then she has ignored all available evidence and has gone on numerous television shows advising parents to not have their children vaccinated against diseases. Children have died after their parents followed her advice, yet she continues to telling people vaccinations cause autism.This *is* bad, but: She is sincere, and thinks she has enough evidence. She's *incorrect* - but we can't go around making all incorrect reasoning *wicked* just in itself - it's more about application, no? Adults are supposed to have developed their own reasoning faculties (Paul noted laziness). Thus the phrase caveat emptor. These people have been brought up through years of schooling and socializing in a large and technologically advanced country: they should believe their doctors on medical matters, get a second opinion, etc. On 'blindly embrace', it seems the devil is that McCarthy is not *blindly* embracing her belief. She's all too aware - of a false connection. (let's assume; none of us are experts in this, right?) Of the people who go along with her, some have accepted the same bad evidence (but of course think it's good evidence), but some have decided that she is a more trustworthy authority than Big Pharma. They are not always good for trusting. Exx: the Tuskegee experiments; medical hijinks in Africa. As an aside, other countries, especially in Europe, take much more activist approach on beliefs you can publish abroad. National socialism for example. On think-tanks etc. Now this is maybe a specifically intellectual ethical problem: the belief that knowledge is just an instrument to make your point. Hitler was infamous for writing that his library was specifically for refuting his opponents and supporting his own ideas. He wasn't learning, just using. that attitude is tailor-made for playing up some facts and suppressing others as inconvenient. Chris
Jenny McCarthy. Her son was diagnosed with autism shorty after receiving vaccinations. Since then she has ignored all available evidence and has gone on numerous television shows advising parents to not have their children vaccinated against diseases. Children have died after their parents followed her advice, yet she continues to telling people vaccinations cause autism.This *is* bad, but: She is sincere, and thinks she has enough evidence. She's *incorrect* - but we can't go around making all incorrect reasoning *wicked* just in itself - it's more about application, no? Chris Yes, it is about the application. You question Krauss on theoretical physics, then defend McCarthy when she is indirectly responsible for children dying. You are being unethical. Did you read what I wrote in post #8 about your category error? I will also noted that "wicked" carries a much stronger implication than "unethical." I did not say McCarthy is wicked. Unethical, yes.
Darron,
You question Krauss on theoretical physics, then defend McCarthy when she is indirectly responsible for children dying. You are being unethical.Well, yeah, maybe I am a little - if we ignore consequences for a moment (those of McCarthy are obviously more serious.) Krauss is much more educated. McCarthy is mistaken and sincere; Krauss he seems to know that he's spitting in the eye of common English and serious philosophy, and has gotten stubborn in the face even of his fellow physicists. It's not just the title of the book (at the risk of getting all Rumpelstiltkin about it); Krauss has organized the whole book on how cool it is that physicists have 'discovered' that something - in fact everything - really does come from 'nothing'. Chris
Darron,I will not ignore consequences. Krauss is engaging in theoretical physics. No one dies if he is wrong. Children have died after their parents have believed McCarthy's advice. This is not a little bit unethical, it is the difference between life and death.You question Krauss on theoretical physics, then defend McCarthy when she is indirectly responsible for children dying. You are being unethical.Well, yeah, maybe I am a little - if we ignore consequences for a moment (those of McCarthy are obviously more serious.) Krauss is much more educated. McCarthy is mistaken and sincere; Krauss he seems to know that he's spitting in the eye of common English and serious philosophy, and has gotten stubborn in the face even of his fellow physicists. It's not just the title of the book (at the risk of getting all Rumpelstiltkin about it); Krauss has organized the whole book on how cool it is that physicists have 'discovered' that something - in fact everything - really does come from 'nothing'. Chris
Darron,It's all about consequences.You question Krauss on theoretical physics, then defend McCarthy when she is indirectly responsible for children dying. You are being unethical.Well, yeah, maybe I am a little - if we ignore consequences for a moment (those of McCarthy are obviously more serious.) Chris
Chris, as I see your views fleshed out in discussions with others, my original take on your views is being confirmed. It’s as though you want to live in a world where all things are merely hypothetical. No one can do that. To live as you suggest would result in chaos and needless suffering. A firm grounding in reality is an essential component of ethics and for that matter, morality, spirituality and useful religion.
Chris, as I see your views fleshed out in discussions with others, my original take on your views is being confirmed. It's as though you want to live in a world where all things are merely hypothetical. No one can do that. To live as you suggest would result in chaos and needless suffering. A firm grounding in reality is an essential component of ethics and for that matter, morality, spirituality and useful religion.Excellent point Paul
How's this for a specific ethical dilemma: Jenny McCarthy. Her son was diagnosed with autism shorty after receiving vaccinations. Since then she has ignored all available evidence and has gone on numerous television shows advising parents to not have their children vaccinated against diseases. Children have died after their parents followed her advice, yet she continues to telling people vaccinations cause autism. This case illustrates my wider point about the ethics of belief, and what Paul has argued. Believing things without evidence is unethical in a general sense.Basically I agree. A distinction I'd like to draw is, global warming has had pretty strong evidence from the start and was well researched before average people started weighing in on it. The vax-autism connection grew out of anecdotal evidence, plus that one bad study, then there were a few years of research to build the consensus. Part of the response from the vaccine makers was to remove mercury from their formula, even though only weak evidence existed that it was causing anything. I'm glad I was not a parent who had to make that decision during that time. Now, after the studies, it's easy to say Jenny McCarthy is acting unethically. I'm not making excuses, but there is some psychology to be understood here. There is such a thing as bad science, and it is not always easy for non-scientists to recognize it. There are also decisions that have to be made before the science is in. If science was always reliable, there would be no problem. But it's not and that makes terms like "reliable", "trustworthy" and "belief" difficult for some people to sort out.
I disagree that this anti-vax paranoia is substantially different from AGW denialism. Vaccines have been around a long time and have done demonstrable good. Many, many people are alive today who would have died in childhood before vaccines were widely available. If people based their beliefs on evidence they would not take the word of an empty-headed blonde who got famous for looking good naked.
I disagree that this anti-vax paranoia is substantially different from AGW denialism. Vaccines have been around a long time and have done demonstrable good. Many, many people are alive today who would have died in childhood before vaccines were widely available. If people based their beliefs on evidence they would not take the word of an empty-headed blonde who got famous for looking good naked.She looks good naked, what, where? Oh sorry, back on topic. Yeah, big picture, I also have seen the history of anti-vax cartoons from the early days, of cows growing out of people's arms and backs, because something in the vaccine came from cows. So, nothing new really. A friend of mine who works in a lab, sometimes also teaches ethics of science, uses the famous Lancet published study linking autism to vaccines, as an example. It is good for discussion about just what should be published. Part of the problem too is the press. When that was published, many scientist immediately identified it as flawed. Put our "point/counterpoint" culture can't absorb that. It hears everything as if it is equally valid and it is somehow up to the individual to figure it out.
And if you can spare the time, could you comment on the example I provided of Krauss' latest book. Is it an example of doing something if not grossly unethical then intellectually shady? ChrisNo Chris, what Krauss is doing is cutting edge theoretical physics. I replied to that in post #8. Perhaps you missed it. Well, that's true *also*. But to be great at X is not to deny he's talking slick about Y. Chris.
Lausten,
One of my posts accidently implied I question Krauss’ physics. Not at all. Sorry about that.
To repeat, I’m questioning his ethics in not just conflating ‘nothing’ with ‘spacetime’ or ‘the laws of physics’, but in insisting on it in the face of opposition even from his colleagues. And that he couched his popular book with this confusion is to darken people’s minds just a little. Like people need more intellectual darkness. It’s especially galling that he did it, proabably, just because it sounds nice and paradoxical-buddha-y.
Chris
A firm grounding in reality is an essential component of ethics and for that matter, morality, spirituality and useful religion.I am contractually obligated by my Church to thank you for your concern about the state of my knowledge. But we agree on the part I've quoted above. Without mockery, yea verily. And useless religion is worse than useless.
Now, after the studies, it's easy to say Jenny McCarthy is acting unethically. I'm not making excuses, but there is some psychology to be understood here. There is such a thing as bad science, and it is not always easy for non-scientists to recognize it. There are also decisions that have to be made before the science is in. If science was always reliable, there would be no problem. But it's not and that makes terms like "reliable", "trustworthy" and "belief" difficult for some people to sort out.Quite. Chris
Lausten, One of my posts accidently implied I question Krauss' physics. Not at all. Sorry about that. To repeat, I'm questioning his ethics in not just conflating 'nothing' with 'spacetime' or 'the laws of physics', but in insisting on it in the face of opposition even from his colleagues. And that he couched his popular book with this confusion is to darken people's minds just a little. Like people need more intellectual darkness. It's especially galling that he did it, proabably, just because it sounds nice and paradoxical-buddha-y. ChrisHe gets questioned by some of his colleagues because he is working in an area that very few others are and he is exploring things that are difficult to name and describe because they are so new to all of us. Scientists like being questioned as long as there some logic to the question. It's how ideas are developed.
Lausten, One of my posts accidently implied I question Krauss' physics. Not at all. Sorry about that. To repeat, I'm questioning his ethics in not just conflating 'nothing' with 'spacetime' or 'the laws of physics', but in insisting on it in the face of opposition even from his colleagues. And that he couched his popular book with this confusion is to darken people's minds just a little. Like people need more intellectual darkness. It's especially galling that he did it, proabably, just because it sounds nice and paradoxical-buddha-y. ChrisHe gets questioned by some of his colleagues because he is working in an area that very few others are and he is exploring things that are difficult to name and describe because they are so new to all of us. Scientists like being questioned as long as there some logic to the question. It's how ideas are developed. We're talking past each other. There is the healthy debate among physicists about the details of the physical theories held by Krauss; but my point in this thread about ethics of belief is the way he wrapped that physics for a popular audience in a daffy, private definition of 'nothing'. Krauss' fellow physicists are also unhappy with him for doing that, but for different reasons: because that's not about physics but about general clarity. Spacetime is *not nothing* in any ordinary sense of the term. The ordinary full sense of nothing should not be lost in a sea of winking paradoxical language. And Krauss is too important a person to persist in winking paradox. Face it: Krauss didn't want to title and organize his book around 'The Universe from Spacetime and the Laws of Physics'. He thought 'from Nothing' sounded Kool and Edgy. he could have just titled it so and then in the first chapter fessed up that he's not really talking about *nothing*, but *no massy bodies* or something like that. Chris
We're talking past each other. There is the healthy debate among physicists about the details of the physical theories held by Krauss; but my point in this thread about ethics of belief is the way he wrapped that physics for a popular audience in a daffy, private definition of 'nothing'. Krauss' fellow physicists are also unhappy with him for doing that, ChrisYeah, no kidding we're talking past each other. I made a couple suggestions to you about how to correct that. I can only find philosophers who are upset with Krauss. Probably because he says they are not useful anymore when it comes to questions to about the origin of the universe, multi-verse, or laws of physics generally. Do you have any references for these unhappy fellow physicists?
Lausten,
I can only find philosophers who are upset with Krauss. Probably because he says they are not useful anymore when it comes to questions to about the origin of the universe, multiDo you have any references for these unhappy fellow physicists?David Z Albert, from his review in the New York Times Book Review. His book on Quantum Mechanics and Experience is about the best and clearest popular book on the subject on the market. He also includes Bohm's interpretation (while not endorsing it), which is pretty rare for a popular book. From the review:
Krauss seems to be thinking that these vacuum states amount to the relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical version of there not being any physical stuff at all. And he has an argument — or thinks he does — that the laws of relativistic quantum field theories entail that vacuum states are unstable. And that, in a nutshell, is the account he proposes of why there should be something rather than nothing. But that’s just not right. Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff.I hardly need a degree in physics to understand that. Frankly, I don't think you need a degree in anything to understand the bait-and-switch Krauss proposes. To be fair to you, many physicists do have an addiction for calling something, nothing. I guess we're ready for perpetual motion machines after all, eh? because the laws of thermodynamics need the old-fashioned definition of nothing, don't they - as in 'you cannot get something from nothing.' Krauss, when pressed about this, continually changes the subject. That's another unethical epistemic move. No? But never mind: This forum is *all* about *free* thinking. What in *your* opinion is the real, scientific purpose in using 'nothing' in this manner? What's so terrible about sticking to a straightforward claim that the Universe is created from pre-existing physical laws, or preexisting spacetime, or whatever? Why take a word from philosophy and then change its meaning, and *then* diss philosophers - especially when the re-use is superfluous? A final word from a physicist who's no friend of religion, but also no friend of unimportant 'games' against religion:
And I guess it ought to be mentioned, quite apart from the question of whether anything Krauss says turns out to be true or false, that the whole business of approaching the struggle with religion as if it were a card game, or a horse race, or some kind of battle of wits, just feels all wrong — or it does, at any rate, to me. When I was growing up, where I was growing up, there was a critique of religion according to which religion was cruel, and a lie, and a mechanism of enslavement, and something full of loathing and contempt for everything essentially human. Maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t, but it had to do with important things — it had to do, that is, with history, and with suffering, and with the hope of a better world — and it seems like a pity, and more than a pity, and worse than a pity, with all that in the back of one’s head, to think that all that gets offered to us now, by guys like these, in books like this, is the pale, small, silly, nerdy accusation that religion is, I don’t know, dumb.That's all I have to say about Krauss. Ditto most other science books by secularists and atheists. I think i'll go re-read some articles in my Gould anthology and get a certain bad taste outta my mouth. His atheism at least has dignity. Chris