COSMOLOGY
"The Mathematical
World" by James Franklin, April 7,
2014
I've read this essay once. My thinking the first time
through kept me going to my effort some time back to understand the concept of
time in a universe where humans did not exist -http://jameselassiter.blogspot.com/2011/05/time-does-not-objectively-exist.html?m=1
On that occasion I felt somewhat comfortable that time is
indeed an artifact with no objective existence prior to its invention by humans.
But the present essay has me fairly well convinced that
mathematics, at least the natural shapes and processes it accurately accounts
for, exists independent of humans inventing it. As I read with that notion
under tow, I began to think that perhaps time might also exist independent of
humans "discovering" it. The intervals between cosmic and quantum events
are real. Call them time if we must.
I can ease my dilemma if I couch these notions in an
explanation/understanding that acknowledges that both exist - objective
mathematics and time on the one hand AND the
artifactual constructs we create and use to think about and discuss them on the
other. This seems to square with modern science - the objective existence of
preexisting regularities (predictabilities) in the universe AND
the formulation of laws, equations, and descriptions that represent and explain
those conditions.
Then again, without our "mathematics" and
"time" the universe would only be matter of various types,
combinations, and shapes, in motion. Certain outcomes of this motion would
repeat themselves (events we would describe as being in conformity with natural
laws) and other motion outcomes would be novel or emergent. Period.
Let me read it once again....
EARTH
"Our Lonely Home in
Nature" by Alan Lightman, May 2, 2014
"Nature can survive far more than what we can do to it
and is totally oblivious to whether homo sapiens lives or dies in the next
hundred years. Our concern should be about protecting ourselves — because we
have only ourselves to protect us."
Really?! Lightman does place human empowerment a far second
from the power of nature. The problem with his conclusion is his, I think, unfounded
assumption that nature can withstand whatever humans do.
Nature writ large, as in the cosmos, sure. But the life
sustaining land, air, and water of the biosphere, the only part of nature we
significantly impact, may not survive what we humans "can do to it."
Paul Kingsnorth, a self-described "ecocentric
environmentalist," would likely describe Lightman, a physicist, as a
"utilitarian environmentalist." See Kingsnorth's article:
The difference being the ecocentrist places the needs of the
biosphere first in his/her environmental (protective) efforts, even if those
needs mean accepting reductions in human global economic growth, human
standards of living, and human resource exploitation and energy consumption.
The utilitarian, on the other hand, seeks to steward the
earth with emphasis placed on human needs first. This is normally done in a
manner that allows for continual economic growth, maintaining or increasing
standards of living, and maintaining or increasing energy consumption through
new technologies. Lightman doesn't address these matters but does place the
protective needs of humans above the protective needs of nature.
I tend to side with Kingsnorth in principle but in practical
terms it seems unlikely humans will willingly step down from their
self-glorified pedestal and put themselves second to anything, including Earth.
What do you think? Maybe I'm reading too much into
Lightman's essay. But he does strike me as a bit anthropocentric at the end.
What do you make of Kingsnorth's article?
```
"The Mental Life of
Plants and Worms April 24, 2014
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/apr/24/mental-life-plants-and-worms-among-others/?insrc=hpss
Rethinking mind and consciousness....
HUMAN EVOLUTION
"Our Skulls Didn’t
Evolve to be Punched" by Brian Switek, June 10, 2014
Happy to see National Geographic address this nonsense
masquerading as science.
```
"How Do We Explain the
Evolution of Religion?" by Barbara J. King, April 18, 2014
The suggestion that religion and a belief in god began in
families and subsequently spread to a larger circle of non-kin is probably wrong.
Such an idea is not supported by the findings of paleoarchaeology or the
patterns of social organization in living primates and extant hunter-gather
societies.
From the fossil evidence, the archaeological excavations of
prehistoric hominin living sites, and primatological and ethnographic analogy,
it is generally accepted that the first proto-human, and all subsequent human
social organization up to the time of the formation of "tribal"
states, was the band, not the family.
Human and primate bands are usually comprised of two, and
usually more, extended families and other non-related individuals who were,
under extraordinary circumstances, allowed to join the group. Notions about the
supernatural and gods more likely originated after the emergence of language
200,000+ years ago among the leaders of human bands (headmen, elders, medicine
men and women) as a means of enhancing the protection, maintenance, and
survival of the band, and maintaining the leaders' prestige and hold on power.
The notion that religion and gods originated among family
parents and grandparents as a means of raising and obtaining allegiance from
their children fits our Western ideas about families, not the evidence of the
fossils, dwelling sites in the archaeological record, or what we observe of the
social structure and organization of primates and living hunter-gatherer human
groups.
```
"Human Nature, A
Humean Take" by Massimo Pigliucci, April 14, 2014
Great essay. Am in full agreement with almost everything
Pigliucci says except what I see as his opinion that a good (unified,
comprehensive) theory of cultural evolution may one day be established.
"...despite much interest and a number of valiant
efforts — we really don’t quite have a good theory of cultural evolution at
hand."
Though he doesn't directly address the reasons for this lack
of a good cultural evolutionary theory, Pigliucci is right about this.
The lack of a "good" cultural evolutionary theory
has to do with our scientistic expectations. That is, the incorrect belief and
insistence that the patterns and practices of human cultural adaptation, at
present and throughout history and prehistory, are reducible to a unified
theory containing equations, formulae, and genetic mapping in a manner similar
to what mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology apply to other phenomena.
The reason we don't have a good theory also, and more
importantly, has to do with the complexity of culture as an adaptive process.
Culture and cultural evolution are not fully explained by
the Darwinian-Mendelian theory of biological evolution, or more recent related
efforts called evolutionary psychology and memetics.
Ideas such as beliefs and values and their attendant and
complex social relations such as marriage, family, and broader group relations,
and the rituals, institutions, codes, and laws that, in turn, attend to them,
have different properties from those of atoms, molecules, cells, tissues,
organs, bodies, and species.
Cultural phenomena, both within a society at any point in
time and through time, and comparatively between societies over large expanses
of time, are artifacts of human mental life. They are created, shared,
enforced, upheld, maintained, revised, and/or rejected within ever-fluctuating
environmental and social and historical contexts.
There is a similarity between cultural phenomena and atoms,
molecules , and species in that all are acted upon by conditions and processes
in their environments. The difference is in the type and nature of these
respective environmental conditions and processes.
Physical environmental contexts are at work on matter,
biological individuals, and on cultural phenomena. Over time the cultural adaptive
strategies of individual societies and Humankind as a whole have led to the
emergent development of an immense, complex, worldwide cultural environment.
This cultural domain influences the ideas and values of every human society and
their constituent individuals.
Non-human species are impacted by the physical environment,
as are their decisions and other behaviors that impact individual and group
survival and reproduction. Cultural phenomena are not completely comparable to
matter and species. They are subject not only to the same physical and social
influences at work on matter and species, they are also subject to the history
and prehistory of ideas.
Take fire, for example. It was initially used by humans for
warmth, lighting, cooking, and stampede-ambush hunting. Since those times,
there has been a gradual increase in the quality and quantity of ideas about
the nature and uses of fire. Any new idea about fire is not only subject to its
potential influence on and from the environment, and on the viability and
reproductivity of human groups, it is additionally subject to the full panorama
of historical and prehistorical ideas, codes, laws, and behaviors pertaining to
fire.
Trying to evaluate and understand the essence or fundamental
nature of fire only (reductively) in terms of its relationship to the physical
environment (matter), or fireness" as might be found in genes and neurons,
or as fire's potential impact on individual and group survival and their
biological fecundity, is ludicrous.
Fire ideas may be, to a degree, successfully subjected to
the above approaches. However, and far more importantly, ideas about fire are
also subject not only to the current market place of ideas (itself an
environment separate from material physicality and bio-repro), but to all
market places of ideas throughout cultural evolutionary history.
Pigliucci is right. Physio-chemical reductionism
(materialism) is insufficient on its own and the Darwinian clone memetics is a
misplaced metaphor ineffectively posing as a biological theory of culture and
cultural evolution.
Will there ever be a physical/genetic equation or formula
for, or Darwinian explanation of, cultural evolutionary processes and their
expression in human lives, past and present? I am doubtful. In fact, the best
minds in the social sciences over the past century and a-half have failed to
reduce this vast cultural complexity to a "good" unified theory.
I see a parallel between this failure and the failure, so
far, to solve the brain-mind problem. The levels of complexity inherent in the
entirety of cultural phenomena and their processes and manifestations, past and
present, are directly expressed, in large part, in the mental life of the
contemporary human individual.
Such information, for the most part, can be
"held," "carried," and manipulated by the brain but deep
notions about fire and it's use are embedded not in our nerve cells and genes,
rather in our archaeological sites, textbooks, and libraries.
Still, this essay is a very good read.
MORALITY
"Morality is a Culturally Conditioned Response" by Jesse Prinz, July/August 2014
I agree. My only reservation about the essay is Prinz's
acceptance of the long-standing and commonly held view that science and reason
can only tell us what “is” and not what “ought” to be regarding morality. Sam
Harris's and Michael Shermer's efforts to establish a universal morality are
very persuasive - that an ought based on harm avoidance and the pursuit of the
greatest possible level of well-being in communities can be derived through
science and reason. Also, anthropologist Donald Brown's extensive list of human
universals also contains guidance for developing, through science and reason, a
universal or objective morality when each universal is assessed using the harm
and community well-being standards. What do you think?
NEUROSCIENCE
"Building a Brain"
by Lynne Malcolm, June 8, 2014
Fascinating! The Quest To Understand And Explain
"~>"
Neuron structure & function~>neuronal
connections~>neural networks~>brain
states~>consciousness~>mind~>speech production &
comprehension~>self person~>social & physical worlds
"Actually a brain is incredibly stable, and it's very
difficult to get a brain disease. And the reason why that's the case is because
everything constrains everything else. It's like an all to all constraint. ...
So there are so many rules. And what we are after is just hunting all these
rules. And if you get one rule, two rules, and they start interlacing together
you discover that the problem is actually not that complex. What becomes very
complex is the emergent properties. That is…there's just not enough
information, you don't have a machine, you don't have a way to interpret these
emergent properties.
...
"I think what we have to do is realise that there are ways to make what appears to be a complex problem tractable. ... I think that what I'm very confident we will understand is the machinery, the biology, how things are put together, how many neurons, the types of neurons, the way that the proteins are put together, the way that they are interacting and the way genes are expressed, and we'll understand that machinery, and that will give us in the very, very least case a very, very strong foundation for understanding any theories of the brain, of what the brain may do as a whole.
...
"What we know or what we believe is that consciousness is a state of activity, there is a state, it's a special state, we don't know what it is, we've got to hunt for the state. By 'state' I mean the neurons are collectively doing something that we don't believe it's coming from magic. It's a machine, it's producing some kind of state. It's an emergent state which then produces consciousness.
...
"I think what we have to do is realise that there are ways to make what appears to be a complex problem tractable. ... I think that what I'm very confident we will understand is the machinery, the biology, how things are put together, how many neurons, the types of neurons, the way that the proteins are put together, the way that they are interacting and the way genes are expressed, and we'll understand that machinery, and that will give us in the very, very least case a very, very strong foundation for understanding any theories of the brain, of what the brain may do as a whole.
...
"What we know or what we believe is that consciousness is a state of activity, there is a state, it's a special state, we don't know what it is, we've got to hunt for the state. By 'state' I mean the neurons are collectively doing something that we don't believe it's coming from magic. It's a machine, it's producing some kind of state. It's an emergent state which then produces consciousness.
What I really think that we are going to have a better
understanding of is what kind of states can emerge in the brain. You know,
states when you make decisions, states when you become aware of your body in an
environment. We need to understand all those different states in order to
really understand what's a special state, because consciousness is a special
state. Even if we bumped into the state of consciousness today, it would take a
long time for us to understand why it's special.
...
"Yes, we have a philosophy section and ethicists, and I think that it's a very important issue to tackle as to what would be the set of questions…in fact that's the philosopher's Holy Grail; what is the set of questions I should ask you in order to determine whether you are conscious?"
...
"Yes, we have a philosophy section and ethicists, and I think that it's a very important issue to tackle as to what would be the set of questions…in fact that's the philosopher's Holy Grail; what is the set of questions I should ask you in order to determine whether you are conscious?"
```
"How the Brain Makes
and Breaks Habits" by Ann M. Graybiel and Kyle S. Smith, June 2014
My brain made me post this. I'm not sure but my delusion of
self thinks (?) my brain wants me to do so because it, my brain, thinks other
brains might benefit from it. I'll respectfully leave it up to your brain what
it wants your delusion of self to do with it. Brain, out.
```
"The Mental Life of
Plants and Worms April 24, 2014
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/apr/24/mental-life-plants-and-worms-among-others/?insrc=hpss
Rethinking mind and consciousness....
```
"So My Mushy Head is
'Hardwired' for Girly Things, Is It? If This is Science, I Am Richard Dawkins"
by Suzanne Moore, December 4, 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/04/richard-dawkins-stereotypes-male-female-brain
Such articles are important for keeping us grounded in
science and not in the hopes and desires of scientists and the hyperbole of
journalists who write about science. Neuroscience will continue to tell us more
and more about how the brain works and how it is related to the self. But it
will not ultimately make the self and freewill irrelevant delusions as many of
its proponents within and outside science want us to believe. The fervor with
which neuroscientists are working is in large part an ego-driven race to make
that one Holy Grail discovery that solves, once and for all time, the
mind-brain problem. It is akin to 19th Century efforts to come up with “the”
grand theory of anthropology, the scientific laws of human behavior. That
pursuit was finally abandoned, happily, following significant failed attempts
in the early 20th Century and the accumulation of scientific findings that
human behavior, psychologically and socially, is too complex to reduce to a
single theory. I predict the practitioners of neuroscience, followed by their
legions of fad-chasing science writer parasites, will likewise realize that
neuroscience reductionism will continue to provide more and more detail but
will ultimately not provide the explanatory hegemony they so confidently seek
without integrating their findings into pluralistic explanatory models.
Neuroscience will not make physics and chemistry out of human behavior. The
sooner we accept this the sooner we will make true progress in understanding
and solving the mind-brain problem. Is their an echo in this room or am I
hearing a loop tape?
PHILOSOPHY
Plato at the
Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away by Rebecca Newberger
Goldstein, 2014
http://www.amazon.com/Plato-Googleplex-Philosophy-Wont-Away/dp/0307378195/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1409846823&sr=8-1
Enjoyed this book very much. Good mix of history,
philosophy, contemporary thinking, and humor. Plato was astonished while at the
Googleplex to learn that Google's overriding purpose in trying to accumulate
all knowledge in one place, including that on living a life that matters, is to
make money.
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
"Is the World Living or
Dead? Or, The Trouble with Science" by Christy Rodgers, August 30, 2014
Here’s a gold mine of ideas to truly think freely about.
That is, to discuss openly and honestly, free from unquestioning science
advocacy and defensiveness and accusations of science bashing. Science,
including reductionistic materialism, is great and is among Humankind's
greatest intellectual achievements. But along with its contributions to
knowledge, technological progress, and human material prosperity science,
especially reductionistic materialism, has explanatory limitations and
shortcomings that threaten planetary and human well being. I think there is
great benefit in thinking about and discussing specific points this essayist
puts forward, including the content and quality of her argumentation.
```
"Simple Isn't Better
When Talking About science, Stanford Philosopher Suggests" by Helen Longino,
July 25, 2014
Oh my, another philosopher, this time Helen Longino, daring
to comment on the modern methods of science and its reporting. Strong,
anti-philosophy Hawkinsians, Tysonians, Kraussians, Coynees please note, she's
not trying to bash science. She's trying to broaden scientific thinking and
methodology and improve its reporting, and thereby strengthen (make more
accurate) science's truths and the public's understanding of them. Her book is
likely a very worthwhile read.
I share this for its intrinsic worth and to support the
approach I often argue for, usually less than successfully, on this page.
"In her analysis of citations of behavioral research,
Longino found that the demands of journalism and of the culture at large favor
science with a very simple storyline. Research that looks for a single 'warrior
gene' or a 'gay gene,' for example, receives more attention in both popular and
scholarly media than research that takes an integrative approach across
scientific approaches or disciplines.
"Social research was always treated as 'terminally
inconclusive,' using terms that amount to 'we'll never get an answer.'
Biological research was always treated as being a step 'on the road to
knowledge.'
"[Q]uantitative behavioral genetics research will
consider a putatively shared genome against social factors such as birth order,
parental environment and socioeconomic status. Molecular genetics research
seeks to associate specific traits with specific alleles or combinations within
the genome, but the social factors examined by quantitative behavioral genetics
lie outside its purview. Neurobiological research might occupy a middle ground.
But no single approach or even a combination of approaches can measure all the
factors that bear on a behavior."
```
"Beyond Energy, Time,
Matter, and Space" by George Johnson, July 21, 2014
Some good links to some WD-40 for the secular-scientific
mind. I've read Nagel's book and appreciated his notion that scientific
thinking needs to be expanded in order to understand such things as the mind.
Also read Kauffman's Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason and
Religion. I like all I've read of Pinker but think his slam of Nagel was
unnecessary and perhaps a disservice to science. Science is a big boy/girl and
can take care of itself. A science that rejects reasonable, pro-science, non-woo
proddings, which is what Nagel and Kauffman are about, is a science that is
limiting itself unnecessarily. It is also a science that may be on a path to an
absolutism little different from the one deeply entrenched in the thinking of
religious fundamentalists.
```
"Ten Questions Science
Must Answer" by Martin Rees, November
29, 2010
"Will science and engineering give us back our
individuality?" Don't understand exactly how 3D printers work. Can't
imagine they can create a pair of eyeglasses, for example, with all the
specialized materials and specs required. More importantly, is our
individuality as expressed materially that important. I tend to think of
individuality as the content of one's character not the uniqueness of one's
stuff. Wouldn't put this matter, as stated, on my top ten things science should
attend to.
"Is there a pattern to the prime numbers? The primes
are the atoms of arithmetic; from numbers you get mathematics; and from
mathematics flow all the other sciences."
Huh? I am too much of an itchy-scratchy terrestrial primate
to think prime numbers may hold enough promise for me to, say, vote public
funding for researching them and not more pressing matters. But, hey, who
really knows?
Otherwise, I like the other questions. Like you I could come
up with a prioritized list than would include many of those described, and
more. I think I would put at the top of my list - How can science help further,
make tolerable to all, and make sustainable a global, panhuman morality and
civilization?
What would head your list?
SCIENCE, RELIGION, CULTURE
"A Muddled Defense of
New Atheism: On Stenger’s Response" by Massimo Pigliucci, February 28, 2014
A new open-access journal you might enjoy. Stenger and
Pigliucci square off at the very beginning....
```
"Hobby Lobby’s Steve
Green Launches a New Project: A Public School Bible Curriculum" by David Van
Biema, April 15, 2014
I have no problem with a Bible studies elective course in
public schools, in principle. I do think it possibly unconstitutional to use
public funds to pay teachers to teach it, not to mention the infrastructural
costs of the classrooms and their utilities where it is taught. What do you
think? Also, I don't know so please help me out here. Do US
public schools offer elective courses in philosophy/critical thinking,
comparative cultures, or anthropology?
```
"An Epistle to the
Epicureans" by R. Joseph Hoffman, May 27, 2014
http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/the-epistle-to-the-epicureans/
A must read for many atheists/agnostics as well as
Christians who think their religion is too often treated unjustly.
Don't mind the learned author's snarky sarcasm. I think he
is justifiably angry about the malformed notions of those professing a
"new atheism," especially their arrogance and willful ignoring and
distortion of the historical precedents that nurtured modern science and
atheism.
There is much to be learned from this essay and others on
the author's blog, including an opportunity to achieve a more truthful and
complete understanding of science, Christianity, and atheism. An excerpt:
"A contempt for fundamentalism, for the crudity of
ancient rituals and law as it is depicted in the world’s religious books;
disgust at the stupidity of some religious leaders and politicos; remorse that
too many Christians and Muslims believe preposterous things–on a range of
social and ethical issues; despair that certain kinds of religious teaching and
practice can encourage superstition, violence, and mental illness. It is
possible to hate all of these effects, as I do, and still appreciate the
possibilities of religion and respect what William James called the 'will to
believe.'"
```
"The Confraternity of Saint Charles Darwin January 11, 2014
....a lot of Darwin
haters haven’t given a minute’s thought to Darwin
in their whole hypoactive grill-it-and-eat it lives.
I remember Sister Mary Alacoque’s quick reply when I asked
her one day if we came from monkeys. “I can’t say everyone did Joseph, but I’m
quite sure about you.”
....you have to be a little shy in the compression chamber
not to “believe” in evolution.
```
"Sunday Assembly: A
Church For The Godless Picks Up Steam" by Mandalit del Barco, January 07, 2014
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/07/260184473/sunday-assembly-a-church-for-the-godless-picks-up-steam
```
"The Fire Burns Yet -
Native American peoples are still here and still caring for their land. Can
their conquerors say the same?" by Peter Whitely, November 29, 2013
http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/native-american-worldviews-and-the-environment/?utm_source=Aeon%20newsletter&utm_campaign=5a2ef09b60-Weekly_Newsletter_November_29_201311_29_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-5a2ef09b60-49117469
Is the main message in this article woo? If it is, then the
anthropologist author has surely strayed far from the conventional
secular-scientific view of Nature and our relationship to it. If it is not,
then the science-religion disconnect new atheism touts as a founding principle
and Humankind's best way toward a sustainable future needs some serious
reconsideration.
```
"The Political Future
of Atheism (Jacques Berlinerblau)" by R. Joseph Hoffman, November 27, 2013
http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/the-political-future-of-atheism-jacques-berlinerblau/
Here are a couple of essays that ask: "What do atheists
want?" Berlinerblau's to the point essay is about modern atheism's lack of
political cohesion, focus, strategic goals, and direction. Hoffman also goes to
the heart of the matter but is much more informative about the shortcomings of
atheism from an intellectual, ideological standpoint. What they both highlight
is the failure, so far, of atheism to find social and political traction due,
in part, to its crude believer-bashing and ridiculing tactics, and its lack of
a sociopolitical agenda and platform. I share their view regarding the
crudeness of atheist tactics and have written about it on my blog under the
topic of "new freethinkers." Yes, there is a certain level of
activism among atheists but it lacks clarity of focus, methodology, direction,
and a clear cut message that appeals to a majority of American society. Even
more lacking is a global attempt in this regard. Berlinerblau's essay offers
some good practical suggestions for getting started. Perhaps it is too early to
expect more results than we've so far seen. Perhaps a unifying vision is coming
into focus and finding traction but for various reasons it is not easy to see,
yet.
```
"Did Music Come Before
Language?" From The Master and His Emissary (2009) by Iain McGilchrist, July 31, 2013
http://delanceyplace.bmobilized.com/?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fdelanceyplace.com%2F&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdelanceyplace.com%2Findex.php
Like me, I'm sure many of you have wondered how American
society became so deeply divided in terms of the beliefs and values its
citizens hold. I often ask: What happened in the history of the US, whose
founders in 1776 adopted the motto "e pluribus unum" (out of many,
one), that led to today's society being so starkly divided by two diametrically
opposed sets of beliefs and values? Consider the following:
Excerpt - "The new discipline of economics (as found in
Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations' of 1776) boldly claimed to reduce what had
once seemed vital questions of moral and political justice to the mechanical
application of objective scientific truths."
This kind of thinking, as more fully explained and
exemplified in the link below, is one among the most important historical ideas
that have come to define the battle lines in the contemporary "culture
wars" in the US.
Notwithstanding some individual exceptions, the Adam Smith
view of science, society, morality, and the role of government described in the
link is held by most of those on one side of the firing line. These citizens
comprise about forty percent of US
society, most of whom are white, politically conservative, relatively wealthy,
Christian, and Republican.
This camp also includes other less wealthy and less informed
white Americans who vote for Republican politicians despite incontrovertible
evidence that doing so leads to governmental actions that are against their
social and economic interests. Members of this group of followers and
supporters, more often than not, choose to believe most, and in many instances
all, of what they see on Fox News and hear on the radio from Rush Limbaugh and
his ilk regarding the causes of and solutions for America 's
problems.
On the other side of the battle line is slightly more than
half of the US
population which is, fortunately, a steadily increasing percentage. This camp
is comprised of the racially and culturally diverse, persons holding a wide
range of religious beliefs and non-beliefs, a wide range of incomes, and
supporters of the Democratic party or the politically independent. The beliefs
and values they all share favor merit, equality, and justice over privilege;
liberal progressive versus conservative approaches to society's problems and
solutions, and the common well-being of all over the well-being of a few.
The main story line of US social history is how the
conservative, social Darwinistic thinking described in this link and that found
in other complementary worldviews, ideologies, and belief systems
(Eurocentrism, Manifest Destiny, Christianity, etc.) have persisted and
continue to so strongly influence American society and politics.
Clearly the approach described has and continues to have
great appeal to many for a reason.
This is the case because of the social and economic benefits
such a worldview promises to all who support it. Regrettably for all in the
society such a view and approach only delivers on its promises to a small
minority of the nation's political and economic elite.
In which camp are you? Why?
```
"On Naturalism" - Our philosophical science
correspondent Massimo Pigliucci reports from a workshop, 2013
"(O)ntological reductionism goes against the available
empirical evidence, in that the universe appears to be characterized by layers
of complexity, with new types of behavior of matter ‘emerging’ with increasing
complexity." - Massimo Pigliucci
Check out the thinkers who attended this gathering.
```
"Some Modern Perspectives
on the Quest for Ultimate Knowledge" by Stephen Wolfram
http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/some-modern-perspectives-quest-ultimate-knowledge/
"At various times in the history of exact science,
people have thought there might be some complete predictive theory of human
behavior.
"And what we can now see is that in a sense there's a
fundamental reason why there can't be.
So the result is that at some level to know what will
happen, we just have to watch and see history unfold."
- Stephen Wolfram, mathematician, physicist
```
"Science and Moral
Life," The Hedgehog Review, Vol. 15, No. 1 (SPRING 2013)
http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/hedgehog_review_2013-Spring.php
A must read complement to Michael Shermer (The Science of
Good and Evil) and Sam Harris (The Moral Landscape) on science and morality.
All three are excellent treatments of this subject.
