Wayward Son

The last thing that people should do is automatically respect others who are in positions of extreme power. The pope will receive my respect when he/she has earned it through their actions. Benedict XVI has not earned any from me.

Of course you haven't. You have not heard much that falls outside of conservapedia and similar ignorance spreading sites. So what? Ruse disagrees with Dawkins on some things. Lots of people disagree with lots of people on lots of things. What actually matters is why they are disagreeing on things and what their arguments are. If you can't tell the difference between the large number of Christians who could not name even one of the books of the bible, and someone who failed to give the full name of first edition of Origin of Species, then you are even more delusional then I had thought. This was, and remains a non-issue for anyone except the most insane fundamentalist. I would no more visit conservapedia then I would stormfront, whale.to or an Alex Jones site. There are certain things that a simply not worth my time. As former evangelical Frank Schaeffer said: "Look, a village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot. It’s as simple as that. And we have to understand we have a village idiot in this country: it’s called fundamentalist Christianity, and until we move past these people, and let me add as a former lifelong Republican, until the Republican leadership has the guts to stand up and say it would be better not to have a Republican Party than have a party that caters to the village idiot there’s gonna be no end in sight. The next thing they’ll do is accuse Obama of being the antichrist and then who knows what comes next? On and on it goes. There’s no end to this stuff. Why? Because this subculture has, and its fundamentalist faith, that they distrust facts per se." When you decide that you no longer want to be the villiage idiot, I will respond to you. Until then I have better things to do.

You are just as bad of Hedges. Maybe worse. Hedges flat out lied. He claimed that Haidt, who was clearly showing the views of others, was actually showing his own stated views. You defend Hedges lying about Haidt because you disagree with some of Haidt's views. I don't give a damn if Haidt doesn't meet your (or Hedges') views of what are the acceptable morally pure views. Both Hedges and you are such extremists, and have such hatred for anyone who holds different views, that you view someone as having "no moral compass" because they are trying to understand and explain why others can come to hold views you don't hold. Sad. Of course. That is what extremists do. You and Hedges are peas in a pod. I am well aware of Altemeyer's work, having not only read his popular science book that you link to, but also his earlier more academic book by a similar name. Many years ago I also actually took part in one of his studies which was about authoritarian levels in two different professions (one of which was regarded to be pretty anti-authoritarian, and the other related profession which was regarded to be pretty authoritarian). I like Altemeyer, and I enjoyed reading his books. Undoubtedly that is, at least in part, because they make me feel good about my own views and cause no cognitive dissonance. However, I can't claim that his views are correct (or not correct for that matter), nor do I see any indication that his research holds a prominent place in his field. The problem here is that you promote a book, as "better analysis" than another book that you have not touched. And at the same time expect your views to taken seriously. The book that you promote is clearly a one-sided one where the views you hold are lifted up as great, and the views of others you oppose are exposed as extremely deficient (and despite the lies Hedges spreads about Haidt's book that is not the case with it. Hedges complains that Haidt promotes Conservatives as being more highly evolved because they are far more likely to weigh all six values the same, and while the research Haidt provides does show that Conservatives are more likely to weigh all six equally when compared to non-Conservatives, he in no way claims that weighing all six values equally is ideal, or should be what people should strive for. I, for instance, have zero interest in placing any weight behind a couple of the ideals, let alone equal weighting, because I feel that those values in question are not actually positive values. And while you and Hedges also seem to love to call Haidt a Libertarian, his same research shows that libertarians give the least equal weighing, so which one is it Hedges?) That doesn't mean that the research Altemeyer promotes is crap. Several of the things you mention that Altemeyer focuses on are also found in other books....like Haidt's. I think your conclusions for where both Altemeyer and Haidt sit on the nature/nurture cause scale are simplistic and misleading. The difference between them on this matter is likely much smaller than you would like to believe. You seem to just butcher the pragmatic positions and philosophies that most people have developed in order to place them either in line or opposed to your own ideology and worldview. Haidt, for instance, is middle of the road among experts in his field when it comes to the nature/nurture debate. Studies on identical twins raised apart have shown that nature's influence on political views is about 1/3 to 1/2. That is what the best research shows, and Haidt supports what the best evidence shows. It has been a while since I have read Altemeyer, but he either, like almost everyone else in his field, supports nature having a role along those lines, or he holds views that are not supported by evidence and not inline with the mainstream views in his field. You can call either side whatever you wish. However, every time you and your fellow doomsayers "lie for Jesus" they make more people distrustful not just of your exaggerations and lies, but also of the legitimate problems you may also promote. The lies told by the doomsayers make it much harder for the people who actually want to address legitimate problems, because cynical people say "well, you said -insert crazy thing here - and that was not true, so why should I trust what you say now." It doesn't matter that the crazy thing was said by a nut-case doom-monger. Ehrlich did more harm than good. Yes, he "woke" some people up to long known issues with his ridiculous claims, but he made far more people distrustful of the claims of environmentalists. And no it is not a case of him being correct, but just early. And no it was not a case of disaster being averted because people heard Ehrlich's warnings and managed to steer clear of the iceberg. Ehrlich was spectacularly wrong, worthy of a Guinness World record. He made bold short-term claims of extreme disaster despite that fact that solutions to those problems were already in place at the time he wrote his book. As for your view that the doomsayers are facing the cold hard reality compared to the comfortable humanistic delusion, I disagree completely. The news media has long understood that bad news sells. And whether it is the far right, far left, or the environmental movement they know that if they were to say that things are getting better they would be out of business. People like the idea that there is a great battle between good and evil, and they are a part of it, opposing the evil forces. In my teen years and early twenties I lived in a community that fought a decade long environmental battle. The David and Goliath battle that we all knew we were bound to lose invigorated the community, brought it together with a shared sense of purpose. Somehow we won and we celebrated the next couple days, knowing that the danger was gone, and we now had a new sense of freedom. It was only when one of the leading figures committed suicide a couple months later that I started to realize that I was not the only one who was depressed after the victory. It turned out that many of us were. These things give our lives meaning. That is true whether you are on the "right side" fighting a legitimate battle, or whether your battle is complete nonsense. As for the rest of your post it is irrelevant to the conversation, as 1) it is not only the doomsayers who are concerned about things like climate change, 2) it is not only the doomsayers who are trying to do something about those problems, 3) almost no real climate change research is being done by doomsayers and 4) the doomsayers, as usual, cause more harm than good as their lies lead to distrust from the general public towards both legitimate claims and exaggerated lies. It was not people like Ehrlich who brought the changes needed to avert a population crisis 50 years ago.

There are many ways to make a good living while being dishonest, and Hedges makes a lot of money.

Smith states that Gould is misleading the public....and yet somehow Gould did not sue him for libel. That must mean that it is true!! Or, of course, it could (and actually does) mean that Gould, like almost all public figures, knows that as public figures they have opened themselves up a higher level of criticism and therefore it is almost impossible for them to win such a libel case. If you are too lazy to google this simple fact then, once again, I can't help you.

I have read a couple books and many articles by Chris Hedges. Even when I am in agreement with his overall position, I am deeply suspicious of the honesty of the arguments he makes. Even when I fall on the same side as Hedges I find his writing to among the most logically fallacious I have ever encountered. Not long ago I read his book review of Haidt's latest book "The Righteous Mind." I had already read the book, and was completely ambivalent about both the author and the book. However, I don't like dishonesty, regardless of the political persuasion of the person being dishonest or the political persuasion of the person who is the victim of the dishonesty. This is two consecutive paragraphs from early in the book review: Haidt, who is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business, is an heir of Herbert Spencer, who coined the term “survival of the fittest” and who also attempted to use evolution to explain human behavior, sociology, politics and ethics. Haidt, like Spencer, is dismissive of those he refers to as “slackers,” “leeches,” “free riders,” “cheaters” or “anyone else who ‘drinks the water’ rather than carries it for the group.” They are parasites who should be denied social assistance in the name of fair play. The failure of liberals, Haidt writes, to embrace this elemental form of justice, which he says we are hard-wired to adopt, leaves them despised by those who are more advanced as moral human beings. He chastises liberals, whom he sees as morally underdeveloped, for going “beyond the equality of rights to pursue equality of outcomes, which cannot be obtained in a capitalist system.” “People should reap what they sow,” he writes. “People who work hard should get to keep the fruits of their labor. People who are lazy and irresponsible should suffer the consequences.” The first sentence is a pure example of poisoning the well. Both paragraphs are thoroughly dishonest from start to finish. For instance, while Hedges implies that the views in the last paragraph are Haidt's views, in fact he makes it appear as if they are a direct quote of Haidt's political philosophy, it is beyond obvious to anyone who finds the quoted remarks in the book that Haidt is clearly quoting the views of some of the people who have taken his political surveys. In a book about how people from all ends of the political spectrum think it seems likely that the author would....you know...actually describe views of people from all ends of the political spectrum...and include views that are not his own. The book is not a autobiography of Haidt. It is not a polemic where he tells people to think like himself, in fact he rarely discusses his own political views, and when he does they are pretty middle of the road. Hedges appears to have simply gone through the book and claimed every view, and imagined view, that he did not agree with was the view of author. So what that Hedges so-called quotes above were actually attributed to people other than the author. He doesn't care, nor does it seem that his intended audience does either. I would call it the single most dishonest piece I have ever read, if it were not for other things I have read by Hedges. I find Hedges to be no different then Coulter or Kent Hovind. What you (and Hedges) do with Pinker is no different. Everything you say about him is either poisoning the well, strawmen or flat out dishonest. You have done that before with your claim that he originated terms that were originated by Christina Hoff Summers, you do that when you claim that Pinker is far-right wing, or a libertarian, and you continue to do that when you claim that Pinker claims that things will continue to get better regardless of things like environmental devastation. Pinker doesn't say that. Pinker says that the evidence shows that violence has declined significantly. However, he talks about instances where the decline of violence has reversed. Pinker in no way states that violence will definitely continue to decline, in fact he clearly states that he will not even hypothesize about the level of violence in the future. He lists a couple dozen reasons that various other people have said will result in violence levels to increase in the near future and makes it clear that they could be right or wrong, but that his book is not about making predictions or evaluating the predictions of others. His book is about the presentation of the facts concerning the past and present only. You have not read his book, and instead you attack him based on poisoning the well, strawmen and flat out lies. You claim to have read him in the past, which may or may be true. I don't care; what I care about is the complete lack of accuracy in your claims about his positions. It is because of the attitude of people like Hedges and you that I have nothing to do with the left. It is not just the flagrant dishonesty, but the fact that you don't seem to care that that is what it is. The same goes for the environmental movement. It was not that I got sick of the lies spread about nuclear energy, GMOs and the like. We are all wrong about countless things due to ignorance, or ideology or many other reasons. What I got sick of was that so many people simply could not have cared less if what they were spreading was actually true or not. The ends were all that mattered; the means were irrelevant. If someone doesn't care about what is actually true then I don't see how one can evaluate what the real pressing needs are. You claim to have switched from Pinker's side to Hedges, which may or may not be true. It doesn't matter to me. Lots of people have switched from one ideology to another, while others have made the exact opposite jump, that does not necessarily mean that any of them are correct, or wiser because of it. I include myself in there, as someone who was at one time a doomsayer who valued the writings of Gray, Quinn, Ehrlich, Jensen, Hedges, Caldicott and Jeffrey Smith. While I have not jumped to opposite side, I consider the views of those people to be nonsense at best (and feel roughly the same about authors on the opposite extreme - Pinker is not one of them, something you would know if you actually read him). But the fact that I have held different views and different worldviews before does not in itself mean that my current views are correct, or even more likely to be correct than my past views. That can only be determined (and even then only with strong inferences that are open to change with new facts and arguments) by honest debate, logically valid arguments, and looking at the best facts and evidence. Your (and Hedges') attacks on Pinker are nothing of the sort.

My personal opinion is that you are a lost cause and a waste of my time and energy. I don't know if you actually manage to fool yourself when you say that you want "credible opinion backed by credible sources," but I highly doubt that you fool anyone else here - we all know that the only thing that you want/will look at or accept is opinion and sources that support the piles of nonsense that you currently believe.

Betsy I can't help you when it comes to science or any other matter. Only you can help yourself, but you have proven over and over again that you will not do so. If you prefer to believe completely stupid things because that matches your worldview/ideology and causes the least cognitive dissonance then that is your preference. Some people are interested in trying to find out how the world really is, others are interested in only accepting that the world is exactly how they wish to be. I consider it to be a terrible waste that many people such as yourself choose the latter, but I can't help fix what you want to remain broken. You only make an ass of yourself when you continually demand facts that you will not look at, consider or accept anyways.

Both the opinion of Johnson and Lewontin are being given. If it was only Lewontin's opinion then the piece would be nothing but a direct of quote of him, or a link to his article. Instead we have both Johnson's opinion and Johnson's opinion of what Lewontin is expressing. So we have the opinion of a scientist on a topic for which he has little support from the scientific community being filtered through a thoroughly biased and ignorant lawyer with no scientific education. Great combination.

You used Philip E. Johnson as a source in a thread about science. That is about as stupid as one can get, but not surprising.

Here is the bottom line: the vast majority of the scientific community, after a long hard look at the battle between Lewontin, Gould and Rose etc vs Dawkins et al, sided overwhelming with Dawkins et al. That things may have gotten nasty and personal between them has nothing to do with where the evidence lies. As to the idea that the claims would have left Lewontin vulnerable to a libel lawsuit, I suspect that you know as little about libel law for people who have made themselves public figures as you know about science.

Whether or not CHS is a hack, and who promotes her has nothing to do with the fact that your hatred of Steven Pinker results in you constantly making crap up about him. You don't actually know much about him and instead rely on the distortions of his opponents like Chris Hedges to form your views. My general view is that if someone has a strong case against a person or view they should not need to lie about it/them.

Both Wilson and Dawkins agree that the gene is the unit of selection, so I don't know how Wilson would not also have a gene-centeric view. Kin selection, group selection, and how altruism develops are different questions. However, neither Wilson or Dawkins (or, in my opinion, anyone alive) hold a candle to Robert Trivers when it comes to explaining altruism, and Trivers is about as strong a proponent of the gene-centric view as they get.

I don't think most people should base their scientific views on the opinions of a thoroughly biased and ignorant lawyer who has zero scientific background or education.

I have read this over a couple times, and while I have not read E. O. Wilson's latest book, I feel that you may be missing the central argument between the two Wilson's vs Dawkins et al. They all agree that genes are the replicator. Where they disagree is the vehicle that the replicators act on. For Dawkins et al that vehicle is kin selection, whereas for Wilson, Wilson and a small number of others that vehicle is (at least at times) group selection.

No he did not. The terms were created by Christina Hoff Summers a decade before they were mentioned by Pinker. By that time the terms were already in wide use by some, and rejected by others. Your constant attacks on Pinker are both vehement and completely uninformed. Not the best combination.

Lewontin is a scientist who has done some great work, and I highly respect the role he has played in certain scientific fields. However, Lewontin is also a scientist who's scientific career has been driven by his socialist political ideology. His criticisms of people like Dawkins are in areas where he has little, if any, scientific output and his views in these areas are not accepted by the majority of scientists. Essentially, you just non-stop commit the Argument from Authority logical fallacy. I don't really care what you accept as opinion or fact, as I fully understand that you never apply even a modicum of critical thinking, and simply accept or reject anything you see, hear or read based entirely on how it fits with your worldview. Therefore, you simply search out anyone who says something you agree with and pass them off as an absolute authority. So when you find that someone you had never heard of like Lewontin says something you agree with, he is not only correct, but becomes the authority on that subject. As for the majority of Lewontin's other views that you would vehemently disagree with, well he is is wrong, and has no authority on those subjects.

Today progressive, for most people, seems to mean simply far to the left on the political spectrum. I don't care for that definition, as it paints with too broad a brush (as in the traditional sense there are significant differences between progressivism, socialism and liberalism), and generally stick to the traditional definition from the progressive era in the US, in which case it was a political movement that sprang, in part from the philosophy of pragmatism. In that case Teddy Roosevelt is the example of a progressive President, and is the example of what a traditional progressive politician was, going back to his time as the New York city police commissioner. I generally consider progressive, in the political sense, to mean: 1) anti-corruption 2) increased efficiency and reduction of waste. 3) anti-monopoly, pro-trust busting, and pro-regulation of large businesses. 4) pro-conservation 5) social engineering through things like prohibition, and educational reforms. 6) The trust that science, properly applied, would lead to a better standard of living (although this last one was more related to the philosophy of pragmatism then the politics of progressivism). These are the things that Teddy Roosevelt built his career around, and are in part a reaction to the times which he lived in, so therefore it can't be expected that progressivism would support the exact same things today. And no, it was not anti-religion, in fact there was a strong evangelicalism that joined up with the philosophy of pragmatism that led to things like the promotion of prohibition.

I don't care what they use. Only that it works. In the case of the zombie scenarios, they have been used many times, in many locations and the preliminary evidence is that they work very well. The director of the CDC states: "If you are generally well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake, or terrorist attack." Sounds good to me. Argument from incredulity. I positively detest the recent spike in zombie movies and similar crap. My knee-jerk reaction was initially against such emergency response scenarios because, at least on the surface, they appear less rational then a flood or earthquake scenario. But, in the end I have to accept that just because I want something to be true (or not) does not change whether it actually is (or not).

The evidence that simulations that prepare people for unexpected situations help prepare them to better deal with unexpected situations; helps them think outside the box; results in gaps and problems in emergency preparedness being noticed that are not generally found in routine disaster simulations. How does one prepare for SARS in 1995 or the Spanish flu in 1910? You don't, as neither situation had been imagined at the time. What you do is you simulate unexpected situations. The more unexpected the better. Simulating a routine disaster like a flood, even if you up the scale, or a disaster like Sandy after it has already happened is simply not as effective, and not as efficient a use of money or time. Disasters happen that go far beyond the scale of what people could have imagine. Those disasters overwhelm systems. The best way to find weaknesses is to simulate extreme scenarios. It has nothing to do with zombies, and everything to do with simulating an extreme scenario and seeing what happens, where the problems are, where the communications break down, where the collaboration falters, where resources are needed, and where those resources can come from, and how quickly. Simulating a flood shows where the problems are in dealing with a flood, but little else, and most departments and emergency services have protocols set up for dealing with a flood, and the people run through them. There is value in that type of training, but it doesn't get people really thinking on their feet, or out of their comfort zone - exactly what is needed in a real unexpected disaster. Simulating an impossible scenario shows where the problems are for emergency disasters as a whole, and not just for a flood disaster.

I wrote my previous post a little quick, so it unintentionally implies that it was the Federal Government that axed this. It was the Quebec Provincial government, putting politics ahead of evidence and public safety, that stepped in and replaced the simulation.

Actually, the question was not really in jest at all. Quebec, like the CDC, and other forward thinking places and organizations, had been planning on simulating a zombie apocalypse to test emergency response readiness. The idea makes sense and has been found to be more effective in finding gaps and problems then in simulating known disasters. The reality is that it the unexpected that challenges and overwhelms emergency response, so these simulations are better value for money then more routine disaster simulations. But don't worry, our government has since put a stop to that forward thinking, and instead has forced a routine flood simulation. Less effective, less cost effective, won't better equip emergency workers to deal with the unexpected....but hey, what else is new?

In the first paragraph of my response I stated that the textbook "Animal Behavior" lists the most important journal articles for each topic in the book. Dawkins' appeared to have published more of those most important journal articles than any other scientist. Dawkins' is first and foremost an ethologist (the study of animal behavior), and he revolutionized that field. So what? Any scientist who changes a field is going to face criticism from the minority who either don't like the changes, or our jealous of the notoriety that someone like Dawkins' has earned. You can always find criticism, but such criticism only has value if you can evaluate the claims. That would require someone to also know and understand the topics being criticized. You clearly don't. The problem with what you consistently do, is that you completely close your mind before you "ask" questions. There is really no point in anyone answering your "questions" because you don't actually care about the content of any given answer, or evidence or reality, but only in supporting whatever you have concluded is most in line with your ideology. E. O. Wilson is certainly one of the most admired living scientists, but his 2010 paper (which he bases the group selection/kin selection argument on for the Social Conquest book) received 140 responses from scientists. Almost all extremely negative. Wilson may now condemn some parts of the Selfish Gene, but he doesn't appear to have more than a tiny minority on his side. I love the writing of both Wilson and Gould, and Gould was a towering figure in his field. However, when it comes to the battle of ideas, the scientific community has awarded the victory to Dawkins. As for Midgley, I don't think anyone beyond her few fellow extreme ideologues, has ever gave a damn what she thinks on this issue. She is not a scientist, and was trying to talk about topics that were far over her head. So what? It is a book that has been written because of the impact Dawkins' ideas have had on several scientific fields over 4 or 5 decades. It was not written because of Dawkins' atheism or his popularizing of science to the general public. You say that as if his ex-wife is some regular joe, and not the distinguished professor of animal behavior at Oxford... Dawkins' changed his field of study before he wrote his first book. His first book led to his ideas having influence on several other fields. After his first book he published another 3 in the next 19 years. Dawkins' first accomplishment was revolutionizing his field of study. His second accomplishment was strongly influencing several other fields. His third accomplishment was increasing public understanding of evolution, science, pseudo-science, skepticism and critical thinking. After that he focused more vocally on atheism. Just because the fundamentalists ignored him until he became widely known as an outspoken atheist, doesn't mean that it was he had not already accomplished a great deal.

Yes. Dawkins' scientific accomplishments place him among the pinnacle of living scientists. At the end of each chapter in the textbook "Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach" by Alcock, he lists the most important journal articles for each topic. I never tallied them, but the number by Dawkins appeared to easily eclipse any other scientist (with the possible exception of W.D. Hamilton). People don't realize both the quality and quantity of Dawkins scientific work (which is really not surprising, as for instance, I would not be surprised if no one here has even heard of Hamilton). His 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" will probably always be considered a landmark in biology. In fact a book (Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think) has been written about the impact of "The Selfish Gene" and his academic work (mentioned above). The book is a collection of essays written by some of the world's most renowned scientists. There is also the book "Dawkins vs. Gould" which talks about the scientific disputes between Dawkins and Gould (although in reality it was a dispute in between Dawkins, Williams, Wilson, Hamilton, Trivers and Smith etc on the one side and Gould, Rose, Lewontin and Kamin etc on the other side). The book "Defenders of the Truth" is in my opinion the best book on that topic (as it thoroughly looks at all the major contributors, and not just Dawkins and Gould), but it is hard to find a copy. (My personal view of the dispute: In short, Dawkins' side has come out on top because they were led by the science and evidence, whereas the other side was influenced by political and ideological desires. On an emotional level I have always wanted to side with Gould et al, but when I look at the evidence I simply can't).

The current pope has long had health issues. When he became pope he said that his term would not be a long one. I imagine that he did not see himself surviving as long as he has. Prior to becoming pope he had tried to retire several times, but always stayed on due to loyalty toward JPII. The decision, and the reasons for it, make sense to me.