(2018-12-27, 12:38 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]I’m an advocate of free speech. I’m talking about taking personal responsibility for what you fill your head with.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that you are attempting to take personal responsibility for what we fill our heads with - not quite the same
I don't understand why you spend your time debating with the intellectual unwashed - I guess you are to be admired for trying to help such an unworthy crowd!
(2018-12-27, 12:38 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]I’m an advocate of free speech. I’m talking about taking personal responsibility for what you fill your head with. I agree with you that attempting to “preserve truth” as a top down approach is likely to fail. Much better to teach individuals about valid and reliable information and leave it to them to choose what they want to read.
For example, if I wish to understand the impact of a Nature paper on reconstruction of the ancestral metazoan genome and genomic novelty, I go to the article and look at the citations of that article. I then read those citations and look at what the authors have to say about the original Nature article (e.g. https://elifesciences.org/articles/38726) and its impact. I most definitely don’t go looking at a website whose agenda is to present a specific, ideologically motivated, perspective, since there will be a conflict of interest between what I am looking for (a reasonable representation of the unvarnished truth) and what they can offer ((mis)represent the results in a way which supports their ideology). Note that this applies to websites devoted to either side of a debate.
Linda
No matter what you say or how often, these types of persons have pretty much made up their minds they are on the path of knowledge even discovered it. Hopefully though, what you say reaches the tens of thousands that only read what you've written.
(2018-12-27, 02:10 PM)David001 Wrote: [ -> ]Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that you are attempting to take personal responsibility for what we fill our heads with - not quite the same
Wow, that’s a new one! I’m just doing the same thing as everyone else here - discussing ideas, giving an opinion, offering information, etc.
I like to collect examples of how the same behaviour is characterized when it comes from a proponent vs. a non-proponent (on the iterations of the Skeptiko forum and here).
For example, in a protracted back and forth discussion/argument, the proponent is “patient” while the non-proponent is “obstreperous”. Or if a reasonable thing is said and it’s misunderstood as something dumb, when the proponent clarifies it is accepted, apologies are given and everyone moves on. When the non-proponent clarifies, the dumb thing is doubled down on, and the non-proponent becomes a “liar” or “mentally ill” for insisting on the reasonable thing.
So now proponents are “debating” and non-proponents are “trying to control what fills your heads”.
It should be exquisitely obvious that I have no control whatsoever over what goes into the head of proponents. :
I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about psi/afterlife stuff if it was otherwise, though. I realize how important these beliefs can be for people. If someone’s mind was changed, I’d be uncomfortable if I was responsible for that.
Quote:I don't understand why you spend your time debating with the intellectual unwashed
Curiosity. Optimism.
If you look more closely about what I write, it’s mostly about trying to understand the perspective of a scientist or skeptic, or what a particular bit of research shows. The only “win” for me is if someone says, “I see what you mean”. Nobody needs to agree with me. And I think I have a lot to offer from my experience and knowledge, for those who are interested in those perspectives.
Linda
(2018-12-27, 05:00 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]Wow, that’s a new one! I’m just doing the same thing as everyone else here - discussing ideas, giving an opinion, offering information, etc.
I like to collect examples of how the same behaviour is characterized when it comes from a proponent vs. a non-proponent (on the iterations of the Skeptiko forum and here).
For example, in a protracted back and forth discussion/argument, the proponent is “patient” while the non-proponent is “obstreperous”. Or if a reasonable thing is said and it’s misunderstood as something dumb, when the proponent clarifies it is accepted, apologies are given and everyone moves on. When the non-proponent clarifies, the dumb thing is doubled down on, and the non-proponent becomes a “liar” or “mentally ill” for insisting on the reasonable thing.
So now proponents are “debating” and non-proponents are “trying to control what fills your heads”.
It should be exquisitely obvious that I have no control whatsoever over what goes into the head of proponents. : I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about psi/afterlife stuff if it was otherwise, though. I realize how important these beliefs can be for people. If someone’s mind was changed, I’d be uncomfortable if I was responsible for that.
Curiosity. Optimism.
If you look more closely about what I write, it’s mostly about trying to understand the perspective of a scientist or skeptic, or what a particular bit of research shows. The only “win” for me is if someone says, “I see what you mean”. Nobody needs to agree with me. And I think I have a lot to offer from my experience and knowledge, for those who are interested in those perspectives.
Linda
For the most part psi sympathizers are shouting eureka, while you me and others are saying hold on there for a minute and let's be sure.
(2018-12-27, 06:04 PM)Steve001 Wrote: [ -> ]For the most part psi sympathizers are shouting eureka, while you me and others are saying hold on there for a minute and let's be sure.
What’s interesting, as we saw in the “Message from Mom” thread, is that saying, “hold on there for a minute, let’s be sure” is either allowed or denigrated depending upon whether the speaker is in-group or out (in that case the
in-
group speaker was the one doing the denigrating when you said the same as them).
Linda
(2018-12-26, 09:08 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I do think, in fairness, there is a strong motivation among some ID advocates to preserve a place for God.
However this to me seems like a great error, as elucidated by [Catholic theologian] Feser there is nothing [definitively] of God to be found in ID:
Signature in the cell?
(See also Where's God?)
OTOH, the nobel physicist Josephson did suggest we all read Signature in the Cell at the end of one of his lectures about his own ideas...was years ago so but I'll try to find which one that was...
Not sure the lecture is still available, but
Josephson did mention ID in one of his Closer to Truth interviews.
If you scroll down you can get all the interviews which were conducted on the subject of "Evolution & God?"
Nagel had an interesting paper regarding teleology and ID, will try to find...
(2018-12-26, 12:25 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]I do know, as has already come up in this thread, that evolutionary biologists don’t think that RM+NS are the only mechanisms at play, so to continually refer to RM+NS, as though this is the only possible mechanism under consideration, is a straw man.
Linda
It is still a "left-over" public perception that RM+NS is a working model for the science of evolution. There are other mechanisms discovered, that have rapidly altered the landscape in the last 30 years. But those mechanisms DID NOT come from mainstream evo-bio figures.
They came from outsiders like Carl Woese (HGT), Edward (Ted) Steele (soma-to-germline), Barbara Mcclintock and Lynn Margulis (Symbiogenesis), who had to fight for the facts vs belief in RM+NS! Backed by a bunch of bioinformatic quants,
it is these outsiders who are correcting a sad-sack bio-evolutionary theory.
Quote:"They thought I was crazy, absolutely mad."
The response (1944) of the National Academy of Sciences, to her (later Nobel prize-winning) theory that proposed that genes could transition—'jumping'—to new locations on a chromosome.
— Barbara McClintock
(2018-12-27, 08:07 PM)stephenw Wrote: [ -> ]It is still a "left-over" public perception that RM+NS is a working model for the science of evolution. There are other mechanisms discovered, that have rapidly altered the landscape in the last 30 years. But those mechanisms DID NOT come from mainstream evo-bio figures.
They came from outsiders like Carl Woese (HGT), Edward (Ted) Steele (soma-to-germline), Barbara Mcclintock and Lynn Margulis (Symbiogenesis), who had to fight for the facts vs belief in RM+NS! It is these outsiders who are correcting a sad-sack bio-evolutionary theory, backed by a bunch of bioinformatic quants.
I do think this is a fascinating time for evolution, as we are closer to answering questions regarding the levels of the universe "exploited".
It will be very interesting to see if/how quantum biology factors in. Curious re: your thoughts there...
(2018-12-27, 09:22 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]What do you think of certain potential cases of [non-local] information transfer - for example bacteria exceeding the expected rate of adaptability? (I believe there are extant cases suggesting this, but for our purposes let's assume they're hypothetical.)
Would such a thing be enough to account for these issues? Could Psi effects account for them?
Or does it take some kind of top-down guidance in your view, whether that is God or Tutelary Spirits?
I prefer not to speculate on the ultimate nature of the intelligence that evidently is operating. I think it must be a sentient intelligence. It is sufficient to show without a reasonable doubt that it is indeed operating.
(2018-12-27, 09:22 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]What do you think of certain potential cases of [non-local] information transfer - for example bacteria exceeding the expected rate of adaptability? (I believe there are extant cases suggesting this, but for our purposes let's assume they're hypothetical.)
Would such a thing be enough to account for these issues? Could Psi effects account for them?
Or does it take some kind of top-down guidance in your view, whether that is God or Tutelary Spirits?
Not wanting to butt in, but it seems to me that if we were open to the possibility of the laws of physics allowing retro-causation, in principle that would open the door to an alternative evolutionary mechanism that wouldn't necessarily involve intelligence - and might not even involve anything non-material.