There are several ways that we can 'frame' these issues and there are
no hard dependencies in any of them on the 'correctness' or
'incorrectness' of 'intelligent design'
A prime manifestation of 'the problem' is the discrimination against
those in academia who would question Darwin's theory of evolution;
i.e. to be too vocal in such questioning is to risk one's job, and
many have lost their jobs by refusing to be silenced.
As Stein says, and many of us have felt, splitting the world into
inorganic (inanimate) and organic (animate) and then explaining how a
dead world got 'infected with life' by way of lightning striking a mud-
puddle, is not very convincing.
Stein summarizes the issue as follows;
"The issue is that Darwiinism which was a brilliant theory and a
great, great relic of the age of imperialism in the nineteenth
century, basically said that mankind evolved from apes and monkeys and
primitive cells, and that's a brilliant proposition, Darwin was a
brilliant guy, but it didn't say how life began, it didn't say how the
cell got that hundreds of thousands of moving parts, each of which has
to work perfectly. It said 'maybe life was created by lightning
striking a mud-puddle. That has never struck me as convincing, and I
thought there were a lot of gaps in Darwinism. 'Intelligent Design'
is an effort to try to fill in some of those gaps. It might be
totally wrong, but at least it's and effort to try to fill in some
very obvious gaps."
Stein's opponents suggest that he is "a primitive", an 'intellectual
deficient' who has ''no right to intrude on American secular culture
by bringing up there may be a Creator', and Stein responds in the
context of his right to free speech."
"I say there's a First Amendment. I'm allowed to say anything I
want. ... This whole problem is about a violation of the First
Amendment, there are many scientists that we interviewed, that have
been expelled from their jobs, that have had their websites shut down,
who have been denied grants, who have been denied tenure because they
wanted to question the limits and boundaries of Darwinism and the gaps
of Darwinism, and they've been expelled, shut down, ... that's not how
society has progressed. Society has progressed by asking questions,
having freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. We're not trying to
shut anyone up. [Darwinists] can say anything they want. We would
just like to have freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech. Is this
problem important? ... well, is freedom of speech important? ... is
freedom of inquiry important?."
Darwinism, with its 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection'
concepts has clearly had an impact on how we organise ourselves.
Without our softening it (which would equate to going to war against
Nature taking ts natural course), it suggests that 'our natural way to
relate to one another' is by brute force power and by behaving so as
to implicitly if not explicitly euthanising the 'less perfect' forms
and ensuring that the most perfect races and specimens breed most
prolifically so as to dominate in the population.
That Hitler was influenced by Darwinist concepts is evident from his
Chapter XI, “Nation and Race" in Mein Kampf, where he discusses the
imperative to defend the Aryan race from the Jewish menace;
"In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or
less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the
female grants the right of opportunity to propagate only to the
healthiest. And struggle is always a mean for improving a species’
health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of higher
development.
He further praises “the iron logic of Nature” with its “right to
victory of the best and stronger in this world.”
Hitler's fear was that if it happened in human society that the
inferior races and specimens began to breed more prolifically than the
superior races and specimens, then the “whole work [of Nature] of
higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be
ruined with one blow.” And so on and on.
The point here is that if 'Darwinism' is nature's natural course of
evolution, then man would be going against this natural course of
things by allowing the inferior races and specimens not to be
dominated, killed and prevented from breeding and growing in number
relative to the superior races and specimens.
Since Darwinism and its 'survival of the fittest' behavioural
orientation is endorsed by Nature, it is argued by many that we should
not seriously depart from it, and in our society, concepts such as
'trickle-down economics' we base on the notion of cultivating,
rewarding, amplifying the 'most performant' and keeping them free of
the 'baggage' of the 'least performant', so as to achieve the most
productive machinery.
If Darwinism is thus 'really' Nature's way rather than a theory with a
lot of flaws and gaps in it, and it is man's way to temper 'the way of
nature' by moderating 'survival-of-the-fittest' (progressively
cultivating 'superior strains') by his (man's) instinctive 'empathy'
and 'altruism', .. this implies that man's instinctive knowledge of a
'better approach' to relating to one another and the entirety of
nature, is knowledge that transcends that which comes to us through
the method of nature.
Given that Darwinism, as the method of nature that applies to 'animate
nature', ignores questions of man's relationship with water, air, soil
etc. which seem to be included in the package on how to relate that
nature gives to plants and other animals (which keeps those others in
tune with the natural cycles of renewal in water, air, earth and
fire), might it be that Darwinism is a flawed theory rather than a
'base case' that we use to 'correct our experiences' insofar as they
depart from the Darwinian theory, treating our experiences that
conflict with Darwinism as 'laden with noise'. That is, what we call
'empathy' and 'altruism', instincts that we purport belong to the
local, independent 'being', because they do not 'fit' into Darwinism,
we say 'come from man' rather than 'from the method of
nature' (Darwinism) so that we are not required to revise our
Darwinian theory.
Meanwhile, theories of nature (eg. wherein nature is a nonlocal fluid-
dynamical continuum as suggested by relativiity and quantum theory)
that do not require the severe constraining assumptions that split
apart the 'animate world' and the 'inanimate world' (invoking the
notional lightning bolt in the mud-puddle or some-such explanation to
explain the jumpstarting of the organic/animate 'kingdom'), and that
do not require the severe constraining assumption that 'organisms' are
local, independently-existing 'machines' with locally (internally
driven and directed behaviour; i.e. driven and directed by notional
internally resident 'instinct' such as 'empathy' and 'altruism', ...
notions that are pulled in for the purpose of assuring internal
logical consistency once we define organisms as local, independently
existing systems/machines).
As Ben Stein makes very clear, the issue is not 'Darwinism' versus
'Intelligent Design', it is about allowing open inquiry into the
competency of Darwinism as a 'theory of evolution'; i.e. Stein says;
'Intelligent Design' is an effort to try to fill in some of those gaps
[in Darwinism]. It might be totally wrong, but at least it's and
effort to try to fill in some very obvious gaps"
Scientific American, in its critique of Stein and his film 'Expelled'
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-... muddies the waters when it uses the words 'evolution' and 'Darwinism'
interchangeably; "Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who
all know evolution to be true are also still religious."
What this reveals is the assumption, on the part of Scientific
American, that 'evolution' is a theory that has no dependencies on
'faith' (religion), that the notion of 'evolution' stands on its own
rational, objective feet.
This is not the case. Darwinism is built on the notion of 'local,
independently-existing systems/organisms' which is abstraction of the
same 'absolute' type as religious belief. There is nothing in our
experiencing of nature that suggests that there is anything in nature
that is 'mutually exclusive' of the continuing spatial-relational
dynamics that are 'nature', that has an absolute 'inside' that is
mutually exclusive of its 'outside' (the 'environment'). This notion
comes to us by way of axiomatic closed-form mathematical/geometrical
entities known as 'objects' whose 'independence' we simply 'declare',
a declaration which, like those 'Declarations of Independence' in the
politics of man, rules over the common beliefs of men, but does not
rule over nature.
We have forgotten about the 'sovereignty' (which is what 'Declarations
of Independence' are all about) that we applied in our scientific
method of modeling nature, but the same concept, used in politics to
support colonization/imperialism is less distant in our view. Once
again, as we had done in science by way of 'objects', we imposed the
notion of an 'absolute inside' on a local tract of land and imputed to
it 'local supreme authority over internal affairs'.
There arises the same basic 'problem' with the 'separation of Church
and State' as is being argued in the case of 'evolution' (deemed
'secular' as in 'Darwinism') and 'intelligent design' (evolution
deemed 'theological').
That is, 'sovereignty' which is the basis of the modern 'secular
state' is a 'secularized theological concept'; i.e. 'sovereignty', the
notion of a 'local, independently-existing object/system/nation,
...
> There are several ways that we can 'frame' these issues and there are > no hard dependencies in any of them on the 'correctness' or > 'incorrectness' of 'intelligent design'
> A prime manifestation of 'the problem' is the discrimination against > those in academia who would question Darwin's theory of evolution; > i.e. to be too vocal in such questioning is to risk one's job, and > many have lost their jobs by refusing to be silenced.
> As Stein says, and many of us have felt, splitting the world into > inorganic (inanimate) and organic (animate) and then explaining how a > dead world got 'infected with life' by way of lightning striking a mud- > puddle, is not very convincing.
> Stein summarizes the issue as follows;
> "The issue is that Darwiinism which was a brilliant theory and a > great, great relic of the age of imperialism in the nineteenth > century, basically said that mankind evolved from apes and monkeys and > primitive cells, and that's a brilliant proposition, Darwin was a > brilliant guy, but it didn't say how life began, it didn't say how the > cell got that hundreds of thousands of moving parts, each of which has > to work perfectly. It said 'maybe life was created by lightning > striking a mud-puddle. That has never struck me as convincing, and I > thought there were a lot of gaps in Darwinism. 'Intelligent Design' > is an effort to try to fill in some of those gaps. It might be > totally wrong, but at least it's and effort to try to fill in some > very obvious gaps."
> Stein's opponents suggest that he is "a primitive", an 'intellectual > deficient' who has ''no right to intrude on American secular culture > by bringing up there may be a Creator', and Stein responds in the > context of his right to free speech."
> "I say there's a First Amendment. I'm allowed to say anything I > want. ... This whole problem is about a violation of the First > Amendment, there are many scientists that we interviewed, that have > been expelled from their jobs, that have had their websites shut down, > who have been denied grants, who have been denied tenure because they > wanted to question the limits and boundaries of Darwinism and the gaps > of Darwinism, and they've been expelled, shut down, ... that's not how > society has progressed. Society has progressed by asking questions, > having freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. We're not trying to > shut anyone up. [Darwinists] can say anything they want. We would > just like to have freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech. Is this > problem important? ... well, is freedom of speech important? ... is > freedom of inquiry important?."
> Darwinism, with its 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' > concepts has clearly had an impact on how we organise ourselves. > Without our softening it (which would equate to going to war against > Nature taking ts natural course), it suggests that 'our natural way to > relate to one another' is by brute force power and by behaving so as > to implicitly if not explicitly euthanising the 'less perfect' forms > and ensuring that the most perfect races and specimens breed most > prolifically so as to dominate in the population.
> That Hitler was influenced by Darwinist concepts is evident from his > Chapter XI, "Nation and Race" in Mein Kampf, where he discusses the > imperative to defend the Aryan race from the Jewish menace;
> "In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or > less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the > female grants the right of opportunity to propagate only to the > healthiest. And struggle is always a mean for improving a species' > health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of higher > development.
> He further praises "the iron logic of Nature" with its "right to > victory of the best and stronger in this world."
> Hitler's fear was that if it happened in human society that the > inferior races and specimens began to breed more prolifically than the > superior races and specimens, then the "whole work [of Nature] of > higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be > ruined with one blow." And so on and on.
> The point here is that if 'Darwinism' is nature's natural course of > evolution, then man would be going against this natural course of > things by allowing the inferior races and specimens not to be > dominated, killed and prevented from breeding and growing in number > relative to the superior races and specimens.
> Since Darwinism and its 'survival of the fittest' behavioural > orientation is endorsed by Nature, it is argued by many that we should > not seriously depart from it, and in our society, concepts such as > 'trickle-down economics' we base on the notion of cultivating, > rewarding, amplifying the 'most performant' and keeping them free of > the 'baggage' of the 'least performant', so as to achieve the most > productive machinery.
> If Darwinism is thus 'really' Nature's way rather than a theory with a > lot of flaws and gaps in it, and it is man's way to temper 'the way of > nature' by moderating 'survival-of-the-fittest' (progressively > cultivating 'superior strains') by his (man's) instinctive 'empathy' > and 'altruism', .. this implies that man's instinctive knowledge of a > 'better approach' to relating to one another and the entirety of > nature, is knowledge that transcends that which comes to us through > the method of nature.
> Given that Darwinism, as the method of nature that applies to 'animate > nature', ignores questions of man's relationship with water, air, soil > etc. which seem to be included in the package on how to relate that > nature gives to plants and other animals (which keeps those others in > tune with the natural cycles of renewal in water, air, earth and > fire), might it be that Darwinism is a flawed theory rather than a > 'base case' that we use to 'correct our experiences' insofar as they > depart from the Darwinian theory, treating our experiences that > conflict with Darwinism as 'laden with noise'. That is, what we call > 'empathy' and 'altruism', instincts that we purport belong to the > local, independent 'being', because they do not 'fit' into Darwinism, > we say 'come from man' rather than 'from the method of > nature' (Darwinism) so that we are not required to revise our > Darwinian theory.
> Meanwhile, theories of nature (eg. wherein nature is a nonlocal fluid- > dynamical continuum as suggested by relativiity and quantum theory) > that do not require the severe constraining assumptions that split > apart the 'animate world' and the 'inanimate world' (invoking the > notional lightning bolt in the mud-puddle or some-such explanation to > explain the jumpstarting of the organic/animate 'kingdom'), and that > do not require the severe constraining assumption that 'organisms' are > local, independently-existing 'machines' with locally (internally > driven and directed behaviour; i.e. driven and directed by notional > internally resident 'instinct' such as 'empathy' and 'altruism', ... > notions that are pulled in for the purpose of assuring internal > logical consistency once we define organisms as local, independently > existing systems/machines).
> As Ben Stein makes very clear, the issue is not 'Darwinism' versus > 'Intelligent Design', it is about allowing open inquiry into the > competency of Darwinism as a 'theory of evolution'; i.e. Stein says; > 'Intelligent Design' is an effort to try to fill in some of those gaps > [in Darwinism]. It might be totally wrong, but at least it's and > effort to try to fill in some very obvious gaps"
> Scientific American, in its critique of Stein and his film 'Expelled'
> What this reveals is the assumption, on the part of Scientific > American, that 'evolution' is a theory that has no dependencies on > 'faith' (religion), that the notion of 'evolution' stands on its own > rational, objective feet.
> This is not the case. Darwinism is built on the notion of 'local, > independently-existing systems/organisms' which is abstraction of the > same 'absolute' type as religious belief. There is nothing in our > experiencing of nature that suggests that there is anything in nature > that is 'mutually exclusive' of the continuing spatial-relational > dynamics that are 'nature', that has an absolute 'inside' that is > mutually exclusive of its 'outside' (the 'environment'). This notion > comes to us by way of axiomatic closed-form mathematical/geometrical > entities known as 'objects' whose 'independence' we simply 'declare', > a declaration which, like those 'Declarations of Independence' in the > politics of man, rules over the common beliefs of men, but does not > rule over nature.
> We have forgotten about the 'sovereignty' (which is what 'Declarations > of Independence' are all about) that we applied in our scientific > method of modeling nature, but the same concept, used in politics to > support colonization/imperialism is less distant in our view. Once > again, as we had done in science by way of 'objects', we imposed the > notion of an 'absolute inside' on a local tract of land and imputed to > it 'local supreme authority over internal affairs'.
> There arises the same basic 'problem' with the 'separation of Church > and State' as is being argued
When you say "splitting the world into inorganic (inanimate) and organic (animate) and then explaining how a dead world got 'infected with life' by way of lightning striking a mud- puddle, is not very convincing."
I say, of course it's not convincing ... that's just a "sound-bite", a straw man to make the opposite argument. No scientist who wanted to be taken seriously would talk about the evolution of life from the inorganic in such terms.
In fact people using "rhetoric" disguised as logic to "win" arguments is a large part of the problem.
Again the abuse of the "ree-speech "mantra" is another example of dirty rhetorical tricks. Professional and social institutions come with rules about "access to the microphone". Free speech does not mean that anyone can say anything anywhere. Never has, never should.
The real underlying problems you highlight later.
In my terms. Scientists deny their "faith" in scientific method as their basis of belief and therefore refuse to even question received wisdom if what is accepted as objective / empirical basis of their knowledge. A basic hypocrisy.
This leaves quality-pursuit-of-knowledge-through-science-and-not-faith open to these rhetorical abuses. This does lead science to suppress valid "free speech" ... and give the conspiracy theorists a field day. So easily fixed too.
Nothing wrong with faith - but it is all important how & to what you apply it. Winning (binary) arguments is a very poor choice of target.
> There are several ways that we can 'frame' these issues and there are > no hard dependencies in any of them on the 'correctness' or > 'incorrectness' of 'intelligent design'
> A prime manifestation of 'the problem' is the discrimination against > those in academia who would question Darwin's theory of evolution; > i.e. to be too vocal in such questioning is to risk one's job, and > many have lost their jobs by refusing to be silenced.
> As Stein says, and many of us have felt, splitting the world into > inorganic (inanimate) and organic (animate) and then explaining how a > dead world got 'infected with life' by way of lightning striking a mud- > puddle, is not very convincing.
> Stein summarizes the issue as follows;
> "The issue is that Darwiinism which was a brilliant theory and a > great, great relic of the age of imperialism in the nineteenth > century, basically said that mankind evolved from apes and monkeys and > primitive cells, and that's a brilliant proposition, Darwin was a > brilliant guy, but it didn't say how life began, it didn't say how the > cell got that hundreds of thousands of moving parts, each of which has > to work perfectly. It said 'maybe life was created by lightning > striking a mud-puddle. That has never struck me as convincing, and I > thought there were a lot of gaps in Darwinism. 'Intelligent Design' > is an effort to try to fill in some of those gaps. It might be > totally wrong, but at least it's and effort to try to fill in some > very obvious gaps."
> Stein's opponents suggest that he is "a primitive", an 'intellectual > deficient' who has ''no right to intrude on American secular culture > by bringing up there may be a Creator', and Stein responds in the > context of his right to free speech."
> "I say there's a First Amendment. I'm allowed to say anything I > want. ... This whole problem is about a violation of the First > Amendment, there are many scientists that we interviewed, that have > been expelled from their jobs, that have had their websites shut down, > who have been denied grants, who have been denied tenure because they > wanted to question the limits and boundaries of Darwinism and the gaps > of Darwinism, and they've been expelled, shut down, ... that's not how > society has progressed. Society has progressed by asking questions, > having freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. We're not trying to > shut anyone up. [Darwinists] can say anything they want. We would > just like to have freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech. Is this > problem important? ... well, is freedom of speech important? ... is > freedom of inquiry important?."
> Darwinism, with its 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' > concepts has clearly had an impact on how we organise ourselves. > Without our softening it (which would equate to going to war against > Nature taking ts natural course), it suggests that 'our natural way to > relate to one another' is by brute force power and by behaving so as > to implicitly if not explicitly euthanising the 'less perfect' forms > and ensuring that the most perfect races and specimens breed most > prolifically so as to dominate in the population.
> That Hitler was influenced by Darwinist concepts is evident from his > Chapter XI, "Nation and Race" in Mein Kampf, where he discusses the > imperative to defend the Aryan race from the Jewish menace;
> "In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or > less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the > female grants the right of opportunity to propagate only to the > healthiest. And struggle is always a mean for improving a species' > health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of higher > development.
> He further praises "the iron logic of Nature" with its "right to > victory of the best and stronger in this world."
> Hitler's fear was that if it happened in human society that the > inferior races and specimens began to breed more prolifically than the > superior races and specimens, then the "whole work [of Nature] of > higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be > ruined with one blow." And so on and on.
> The point here is that if 'Darwinism' is nature's natural course of > evolution, then man would be going against this natural course of > things by allowing the inferior races and specimens not to be > dominated, killed and prevented from breeding and growing in number > relative to the superior races and specimens.
> Since Darwinism and its 'survival of the fittest' behavioural > orientation is endorsed by Nature, it is argued by many that we should > not seriously depart from it, and in our society, concepts such as > 'trickle-down economics' we base on the notion of cultivating, > rewarding, amplifying the 'most performant' and keeping them free of > the 'baggage' of the 'least performant', so as to achieve the most > productive machinery.
> If Darwinism is thus 'really' Nature's way rather than a theory with a > lot of flaws and gaps in it, and it is man's way to temper 'the way of > nature' by moderating 'survival-of-the-fittest' (progressively > cultivating 'superior strains') by his (man's) instinctive 'empathy' > and 'altruism', .. this implies that man's instinctive knowledge of a > 'better approach' to relating to one another and the entirety of > nature, is knowledge that transcends that which comes to us through > the method of nature.
> Given that Darwinism, as the method of nature that applies to 'animate > nature', ignores questions of man's relationship with water, air, soil > etc. which seem to be included in the package on how to relate that > nature gives to plants and other animals (which keeps those others in > tune with the natural cycles of renewal in water, air, earth and > fire), might it be that Darwinism is a flawed theory rather than a > 'base case' that we use to 'correct our experiences' insofar as they > depart from the Darwinian theory, treating our experiences that > conflict with Darwinism as 'laden with noise'. That is, what we call > 'empathy' and 'altruism', instincts that we purport belong to the > local, independent 'being', because they do not 'fit' into Darwinism, > we say 'come from man' rather than 'from the method of > nature' (Darwinism) so that we are not required to revise our > Darwinian theory.
> Meanwhile, theories of nature (eg. wherein nature is a nonlocal fluid- > dynamical continuum as suggested by relativiity and quantum theory) > that do not require the severe constraining assumptions that split > apart the 'animate world' and the 'inanimate world' (invoking the > notional lightning bolt in the mud-puddle or some-such explanation to > explain the jumpstarting of the organic/animate 'kingdom'), and that > do not require the severe constraining assumption that 'organisms' are > local, independently-existing 'machines' with locally (internally > driven and directed behaviour; i.e. driven and directed by notional > internally resident 'instinct' such as 'empathy' and 'altruism', ... > notions that are pulled in for the purpose of assuring internal > logical consistency once we define organisms as local, independently > existing systems/machines).
> As Ben Stein makes very clear, the issue is not 'Darwinism' versus > 'Intelligent Design', it is about allowing open inquiry into the > competency of Darwinism as a 'theory of evolution'; i.e. Stein says; > 'Intelligent Design' is an effort to try to fill in some of those gaps > [in Darwinism]. It might be totally wrong, but at least it's and > effort to try to fill in some very obvious gaps"
> Scientific American, in its critique of Stein and his film 'Expelled' > http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-... > muddies the waters when it uses the words 'evolution' and 'Darwinism' > interchangeably; "Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who > all know evolution to be true are also still religious."
> What this reveals is the assumption, on the part of Scientific > American, that 'evolution' is a theory that has no dependencies on > 'faith' (religion), that the notion of 'evolution' stands on its own
clearly, i see where stein is coming from in a different light, and am
'overlooking' his disingenuities, inflations and michael moore tricks,
to get down to the nitty gritty of the point he is trying to make
(perhaps i am going deeper than he is, but that doesn't refute the
fact that there is some important point to be made, that stein is
playing around with).
and yes, like you, i am also no fan of ‘conspiracy theories’ and that
is one way that stein’s film ‘Expelled’ could be interpreted, ... but
that was not ‘my take’ and, again, i don’t believe that stein’s
message can be summarily dismissed by categorizing it as ‘conspiracy
theory’.
‘blood diamonds’ is a film about atrocities in africa linking to a
tradition wherein loving men in prosperous developed countries pay
huge amounts of money to purchase jewels for their sweeties. no,
they are not conspiring to convert young african children into
murderous child soldiers, but that doesn’t mean there is not a linkage
between the sweet moves in a rich country and the murderous turbulence
in a poor country.
when one connects up a big powerful gear wheel with a tine weak one,
the little weak one is spun around backwards without choice. as
pierre trudeau said; canada (with one tenth the population of the US)
living beside the US was like ‘sleeping with an elephant’, it didn’t
matter that the elephant was a kindly elephant, because it was
ignorant of your small life-sustaining activities and dreams, when it
rolled over in bed, you could be seriously injured.
big ships, like big establishments, can induce a wake that swamps
small boats.
i am not surprised that this intolerance in science strikes a chord
with stein. those who merely mention ‘ID’ (intelligent design) are
seen as pests, and like the jews of the WWII era, are turned away at
the door, ... they have no place to go once they are categorized as
‘one of those’.
this ‘categorization’ stein has APPROPRIATELY, in my view, associated
with the berlin wall, an attempt to PROTECT PURE AND WORTHY IDEAS
AGAINST CONTAMINATION BY IMPURE AND UNWORTHY IDEAS. that is, in the
case of east germany, ‘socialism’ was a more highly evolved,
developing strain of idea, that was rising up out of the mud of ideas
wherein capitalism had been dominant. one therefore had to erect a
wall to protect this crown jewel in the evolution of ideas on social
organisation from contamination.
i.e. 'positivists' or 'hard science' advocates like dawkins, consider
their scientific ideas to be 'worthy' and the ideas of 'soft science'
to be unworthy and capable of 'contaminating' the pure, exact and
refined ideas of 'hard science'.
clearly, there is an ‘evolutionary paradigm’ built into this way of
thinking. the evolutionary paradigm is that ‘more worthy variants
rise up out of the soup of the ‘less worthy’. i.e. ‘the mother
somehow spawns offspring that transcend her’. this is equivalent to
the virgin mortal giving birth to a god, and this is what 'positivism'
is all about.
ian, in your website comment on stein's 'Expelled', you dismiss the
need to incorporate ‘the beginning of life’ in a theory of evolution,
as is a basic criticism of Darwinism, but in my view, as in stein’s,
that is essential. newton also pointed out that his ‘theories of
motion’ only addressed what went on AFTER the planets had come
together in their amazing harmonic, mutually resonant orbital
configurations, it did not address the gathering together, the
birthing of celestial harmonies, it merely described the regular
periodic orbital motions after the fact, in ad hoc terms of ‘balancing
forces’ and movements relative to an absolute fixed and empty
euclidian reference frame.
to me, stein is addressing something far more fundamental about our
[dysfunctional] society than he may even believe he is, something that
has permeated and grown to increasingly dominate western thought for
some 2500 years (since the contemporaries Lao Tsu, Buddha and
Heraclitus in ca. 500 B.C. all contended that ‘change’ or ‘flow’ was
more fundamental than matter and the dynamics of matter). this trio's
worldview/beliefs have been validated by modern physics, but as modern
philosophers observe, we continue to be addicted to a "most easy
though not most true" positivist, material causal based understanding
of the world we live in, as is the foundation of Darwinism and
Newtonianism. it works great for ‘machinery’, for the pragmatic
design, construction and implementation of systems that ‘do stuff’ or
‘produce some tangible/material results’, but as McLuhan observed,
understanding of this ‘material causal mechanics’ type does not
address the larger phenomenon of the transformation of the continually
unfolding dynamics of the common space we all live in;
“Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but
what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message. In
terms of the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one
another and ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned
out cornflakes or Cadillacs”. (‘Understanding Media’)
how many films like ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ (how a coke-bottle
dropping ‘from the sky’ into a tribe of Bushmen in South Africa
inductively transforms the dynamics of their society, not by ‘what a
coke bottle is or by what it can do’, but by how it induces
transformation in their continually unfolding living dynamics) does it
take before we acknowledge that the continually unfolding dynamics of
the natural living space we are included in, and how it is transformed
by the newly things that come to be included in, IS A BIGGER STORY
THAN THE STORY MADE UP FROM ALL THE CAUSAL ACTIONS AND RESULTS THAN WE
CAN EVER INCORPORATE INTO A QUASI-COHERENT STORY?
stories that being after the fact of the ‘creation’, like newton’s
stories about motion being after the fact of the creation of celestial
harmony are an inherently limited form of story.
ok, i am not trying to pry open the door to let ‘creationism’ come in
like a pest, jew or cockroach to contaminate the purity and worthiness
that we have refined in our evolving of ideas and theory, ... i am
trying to point out that we have left out of our theories the universe-
permeating harmonies that we are made of, the ignored nonlocal
atmospheric aura that gives life and meaning to the 'eye' of the
hurricane, ... and then, when we discover some intricate
interconnective design bringing hundreds of thousands of ‘parts’
together inside of what we conjectured was a ‘simple basic cell’, we
are snookered in trying to explain it in the local 'what you see
inside there is all there is' terms of our ‘most easy but not most
true’ material-causal theoretical paradigm.
at first glance, as a ‘bookmark’ or something to say about the
fundamental gap in our evolutionary theory (Darwinism), wherein we
postulated that more highly refined and worthy things rise up out of a
less refined and less worthy world soup [i.e. ignoring the nonlocal
auro that gives life to those apparently 'local' things] those , it
is as if ‘something or someONE must be responsible for this
‘intelligent design’. meanwhile, the ‘gap’ we are discovering, is
instead a ‘gap’ in our own theory which we are discovering because our
analytical science enables us to take things apart and inquiry into
their inner workings and we have gotten so good at it, that we are
discovering that our simple building blocks, ‘cells’, are not only NOT
SIMPLE, but what goes on inside of them looks like reflection of the
harmonious interconnected celestial dynamics that includes them and us
and all.
so, stein is really asking us to take a look a the birth of two from
one, wherein ‘two’ is inherently bigger and better than ‘one’ or 'more
than' one, since this seems to be foundational to our western
scientific thinking; i.e. in science (of the limited material-causal
paradigm), our ‘idea’ of what is going on keeps transcending itself by
an evolutionary process that is likened to ‘refining’ or
‘purification’. those scientists that see it this way have a
nightmarish fear that the long ongoing refinement of ideas, ... all of
the progress in scientific thinking and understanding, ... could be
destroyed if it were to be ‘contaminated’ by less pure and worthy
breeds of thinking. this parallels hitler’s nightmarish fear that
the aryan race, the crowning glory of thousands of years of evolution
of man, could be destroyed if it were to be contaminated by inter-
breeding with inferior races.
as noted in stein’s film, hitler thought he was doing something good
that would benefit the world, just as those today’s scientists do, who
are uncovering statistical correlations of all manner of DNA
configurations with the propensity for diseases and infirmities in
people so that mothers can abort their ‘imperfect’ embryos. eugenics
is alive and well today. of course, if we later come around to a
more ‘inclusional’ scientific understanding, we may find that ‘what
manifests’ is not the linear causal product of genes as atomic
building blocks, but is instead a ‘cocktail effect’ of mutual
interference of many things (influences) at the same time, as in the
celestial harmonies. such eugenic purificationism, based on simple
linear causal theory, can lead to the situation parallel to that which
occurs in prescribing drugs (which have a ‘cocktail effect’ that
differs with different individuals). when one eliminates or adds a
drug to the cocktail, the result is not predictable and undesired
effects emerge that we then treat by adding another drug to the
cocktail or by
...
* Science response to ID / IDC is wrong - but it is not a conspiracy, it's a systematic hypocrisy with the basis of belief in science (lack of wisdom / inclusionality).
* Evolutionary theories of the emergence of life are indeed essential - and exist a-plenty. Wise-cracking about lightning striking swamp mud - is a straw-man - offensive rhetoric rightly dismissed.
* It's disingenuous for ID / IDC promoters to feign scientific arguments, when the problem is that the argumentation of science is flawed. Cheap-tricks vs denial. I choose neither.
But plenty of scope for the right debates ;-) Expelled is too "polarizing" to contribute - its propaganda. Stein is not making the nitty-gritty arguments you or I would make.
> clearly, i see where stein is coming from in a different light, and am > 'overlooking' his disingenuities, inflations and michael moore tricks, > to get down to the nitty gritty of the point he is trying to make > (perhaps i am going deeper than he is, but that doesn't refute the > fact that there is some important point to be made, that stein is > playing around with).
> and yes, like you, i am also no fan of 'conspiracy theories' and that > is one way that stein's film 'Expelled' could be interpreted, ... but > that was not 'my take' and, again, i don't believe that stein's > message can be summarily dismissed by categorizing it as 'conspiracy > theory'.
> 'blood diamonds' is a film about atrocities in africa linking to a > tradition wherein loving men in prosperous developed countries pay > huge amounts of money to purchase jewels for their sweeties. no, > they are not conspiring to convert young african children into > murderous child soldiers, but that doesn't mean there is not a linkage > between the sweet moves in a rich country and the murderous turbulence > in a poor country.
> when one connects up a big powerful gear wheel with a tine weak one, > the little weak one is spun around backwards without choice. as > pierre trudeau said; canada (with one tenth the population of the US) > living beside the US was like 'sleeping with an elephant', it didn't > matter that the elephant was a kindly elephant, because it was > ignorant of your small life-sustaining activities and dreams, when it > rolled over in bed, you could be seriously injured.
> big ships, like big establishments, can induce a wake that swamps > small boats.
> i am not surprised that this intolerance in science strikes a chord > with stein. those who merely mention 'ID' (intelligent design) are > seen as pests, and like the jews of the WWII era, are turned away at > the door, ... they have no place to go once they are categorized as > 'one of those'.
> this 'categorization' stein has APPROPRIATELY, in my view, associated > with the berlin wall, an attempt to PROTECT PURE AND WORTHY IDEAS > AGAINST CONTAMINATION BY IMPURE AND UNWORTHY IDEAS. that is, in the > case of east germany, 'socialism' was a more highly evolved, > developing strain of idea, that was rising up out of the mud of ideas > wherein capitalism had been dominant. one therefore had to erect a > wall to protect this crown jewel in the evolution of ideas on social > organisation from contamination.
> i.e. 'positivists' or 'hard science' advocates like dawkins, consider > their scientific ideas to be 'worthy' and the ideas of 'soft science' > to be unworthy and capable of 'contaminating' the pure, exact and > refined ideas of 'hard science'.
> clearly, there is an 'evolutionary paradigm' built into this way of > thinking. the evolutionary paradigm is that 'more worthy variants > rise up out of the soup of the 'less worthy'. i.e. 'the mother > somehow spawns offspring that transcend her'. this is equivalent to > the virgin mortal giving birth to a god, and this is what 'positivism' > is all about.
> ian, in your website comment on stein's 'Expelled', you dismiss the > need to incorporate 'the beginning of life' in a theory of evolution, > as is a basic criticism of Darwinism, but in my view, as in stein's, > that is essential. newton also pointed out that his 'theories of > motion' only addressed what went on AFTER the planets had come > together in their amazing harmonic, mutually resonant orbital > configurations, it did not address the gathering together, the > birthing of celestial harmonies, it merely described the regular > periodic orbital motions after the fact, in ad hoc terms of 'balancing > forces' and movements relative to an absolute fixed and empty > euclidian reference frame.
> to me, stein is addressing something far more fundamental about our > [dysfunctional] society than he may even believe he is, something that > has permeated and grown to increasingly dominate western thought for > some 2500 years (since the contemporaries Lao Tsu, Buddha and > Heraclitus in ca. 500 B.C. all contended that 'change' or 'flow' was > more fundamental than matter and the dynamics of matter). this trio's > worldview/beliefs have been validated by modern physics, but as modern > philosophers observe, we continue to be addicted to a "most easy > though not most true" positivist, material causal based understanding > of the world we live in, as is the foundation of Darwinism and > Newtonianism. it works great for 'machinery', for the pragmatic > design, construction and implementation of systems that 'do stuff' or > 'produce some tangible/material results', but as McLuhan observed, > understanding of this 'material causal mechanics' type does not > address the larger phenomenon of the transformation of the continually > unfolding dynamics of the common space we all live in;
> "Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but > what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message. In > terms of the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one > another and ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned > out cornflakes or Cadillacs". ('Understanding Media')
> how many films like 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' (how a coke-bottle > dropping 'from the sky' into a tribe of Bushmen in South Africa > inductively transforms the dynamics of their society, not by 'what a > coke bottle is or by what it can do', but by how it induces > transformation in their continually unfolding living dynamics) does it > take before we acknowledge that the continually unfolding dynamics of > the natural living space we are included in, and how it is transformed > by the newly things that come to be included in, IS A BIGGER STORY > THAN THE STORY MADE UP FROM ALL THE CAUSAL ACTIONS AND RESULTS THAN WE > CAN EVER INCORPORATE INTO A QUASI-COHERENT STORY?
> stories that being after the fact of the 'creation', like newton's > stories about motion being after the fact of the creation of celestial > harmony are an inherently limited form of story.
> ok, i am not trying to pry open the door to let 'creationism' come in > like a pest, jew or cockroach to contaminate the purity and worthiness > that we have refined in our evolving of ideas and theory, ... i am > trying to point out that we have left out of our theories the universe- > permeating harmonies that we are made of, the ignored nonlocal > atmospheric aura that gives life and meaning to the 'eye' of the > hurricane, ... and then, when we discover some intricate > interconnective design bringing hundreds of thousands of 'parts' > together inside of what we conjectured was a 'simple basic cell', we > are snookered in trying to explain it in the local 'what you see > inside there is all there is' terms of our 'most easy but not most > true' material-causal theoretical paradigm.
> at first glance, as a 'bookmark' or something to say about the > fundamental gap in our evolutionary theory (Darwinism), wherein we > postulated that more highly refined and worthy things rise up out of a > less refined and less worthy world soup [i.e. ignoring the nonlocal > auro that gives life to those apparently 'local' things] those , it > is as if 'something or someONE must be responsible for this > 'intelligent design'. meanwhile, the 'gap' we are discovering, is > instead a 'gap' in our own theory which we are discovering because our > analytical science enables us to take things apart and inquiry into > their inner workings and we have gotten so good at it, that we are > discovering that our simple building blocks, 'cells', are not only NOT > SIMPLE, but what goes on inside of them looks like reflection of the > harmonious interconnected celestial dynamics that includes them and us > and all.
> so, stein is really asking us to take a look a the birth of two from > one, wherein 'two' is inherently bigger and better than 'one' or 'more > than' one, since this seems to be foundational to our western > scientific thinking; i.e. in science (of the limited material-causal > paradigm), our 'idea' of what is going on keeps transcending itself by > an evolutionary process that is likened to 'refining' or > 'purification'. those scientists that see it this way have a > nightmarish fear that the long ongoing refinement of ideas, ... all of > the progress in scientific thinking and understanding, ... could be > destroyed if it were to be 'contaminated' by less pure and worthy > breeds of thinking. this parallels hitler's nightmarish fear that > the aryan race, the crowning glory of thousands of years of evolution > of man, could be destroyed if it were to be contaminated by inter- > breeding with inferior races.
> as noted in stein's film, hitler thought he was doing something good > that would benefit the world, just as those today's scientists do, who > are uncovering statistical correlations of all manner of DNA > configurations with the propensity for diseases and infirmities in > people so that mothers can
Hello Ted - I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading this message and that I think the points you are making are excellent ones. I'm no fan personally of Ben Stein, but this issue seems to be one that certainly deserves more attention.
-----Original Message----- >From: emile <emili...@goodshare.org> >Sent: Jul 8, 2008 1:06 PM >To: Inclusional Research <inclusional-research@googlegroups.com> >Subject: Re: Comments (not a review) on Ben Stein's Film 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed'
>hi ian,
>clearly, i see where stein is coming from in a different light, and am >'overlooking' his disingenuities, inflations and michael moore tricks, >to get down to the nitty gritty of the point he is trying to make >(perhaps i am going deeper than he is, but that doesn't refute the >fact that there is some important point to be made, that stein is >playing around with).
>and yes, like you, i am also no fan of ‘conspiracy theories’ and that >is one way that stein’s film ‘Expelled’ could be interpreted, ... but >that was not ‘my take’ and, again, i don’t believe that stein’s >message can be summarily dismissed by categorizing it as ‘conspiracy >theory’.
>‘blood diamonds’ is a film about atrocities in africa linking to a >tradition wherein loving men in prosperous developed countries pay >huge amounts of money to purchase jewels for their sweeties. no, >they are not conspiring to convert young african children into >murderous child soldiers, but that doesn’t mean there is not a linkage >between the sweet moves in a rich country and the murderous turbulence >in a poor country.
>when one connects up a big powerful gear wheel with a tine weak one, >the little weak one is spun around backwards without choice. as >pierre trudeau said; canada (with one tenth the population of the US) >living beside the US was like ‘sleeping with an elephant’, it didn’t >matter that the elephant was a kindly elephant, because it was >ignorant of your small life-sustaining activities and dreams, when it >rolled over in bed, you could be seriously injured.
>big ships, like big establishments, can induce a wake that swamps >small boats.
>i am not surprised that this intolerance in science strikes a chord >with stein. those who merely mention ‘ID’ (intelligent design) are >seen as pests, and like the jews of the WWII era, are turned away at >the door, ... they have no plac
