krabapple wrote:(My god, imagine when you discover *Feyerabend*)
From a review:
Possibly Feyerabend's best known book, Against Method is basically an attack on the idea that science has a single, monolithic 'method', one which has stood the test of time and produced the 'advances' leading to the science we know today. Instead of the close connection between ideas of rationality and scientific method on which many thinkers would base their understanding of science on, Feyerabend points out contradictory and irrational ideas, to his mind not just part of science but at its very core. They are particularly important, he believes, in the challenging of fundamental assumptions which leads to 'revolutions'.Does the hidebound scientific community consider “out of the box” thinking and “brainstorming” (which are two common terms that seem equivalent to Feyerabend’s premise of “anything goes”) radical ideas? If so, that’s pathetic.
OF course, this will require that you actually *READ RUSE'S FUCKING BOOKS" instead of just blurbs about them.
IMO, I will have a more balanced view (and my time will be spent more efficiently) if I read a couple of summations, a few thoughtful critiques (pro and con), and some pertinent excerpts of ten books rather than reading one book completely. And this attitude of mine pisses you off, because you (apparently) think that if I only read some of these books cover to cover I’d have some sort of epiphany.
You might also find that he's often talking about figures like Spencer and Huxley, who weren't 'Darwinists' per se...they were 'social Darwinists'.
Well, criticizing social Darwinists doesn’t strike me as compelling or daring or even very interesting.
Krabapple wrote:Dob wrote:It doesn't matter how many books I read about the science of evolution or how well I understand it.
Er..I suspect Michael Ruse would call that a damn fool thing to claim.
By quoting me out of context you totally obliterated my point. Or was that your intent?
But there is no science in positing "God' as an explanation for a natural phenomenon.
And there is no science in positing “all phenomena are natural.” That’s philosophy. You DO believe there is no such thing as a supernatural phenomenon, correct? (note the word “believe”)
Do you know what *is* science?
Do you know what *isn’t* science? Are you aware that stating “all phenomena are natural” takes you straight into “all phenomena are caused”? Meaning there is no such thing as a “causeless cause”? Which would lead me to ask, “what then is the scientific definition of freedom as it applies to the actions of man?”
If you don’t want to open that can of worms, don’t say that the idea of a supernatural element existing in the mind of man isn’t “even on the table.” You can’t make that statement without understanding the origins of reason and abstract thought, which you don’t. Until then, “anything goes.”
If you don't want to read about evolution, shut the fuck *up* about the evolution vs. creationism debate, please. Because otherwise you're no better than the ignorant yahoos holding court on the school board in Kansas
Whatever my religious/philosophical beliefs, I have never taken the position that those beliefs should be force fed to students in a science class. Don’t you believe me?
I said I don’t want to read (further) about the *science* of evolution. I feel that my basic layman’s (high school level) understanding of it is sufficient for the purposes of this debate, which is about evolutionism/ materialism, not the finer points of the fossil record of the Cambrian explosion.
You don't even know what you're talking abot re: Dawkins' books. His seminal best-seller, 'The Selfish Gene' is pretty much entirely about selection, not 'philosophy'.
From “The Selfish Gene,” Chapter 1, Paragraph 1 – “Why Are People?”
Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence. If superior creatures from space ever visit earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of our civilization, is: ‘Have they discovered evolution yet?’…To be fair, others had had inklings of the truth, but it was Darwin who first put together a coherent and tenable account of why we exist. Darwin made it possible for us to give a sensible answer to the curious child whose question heads this chapter. We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man? After posing the last of these questions, the eminent zoologist G.G. Simpson put it thus: ‘The point I want to make now is that all attempts to answer that question before 1859 are worthless and that we will be better off if we ignore them completely.’I apologize for being so wrong, Krab. No philosophy there, no sir. But (as you would undoubtedly protest) I haven’t read the whole thing… maybe Dawkins is one of the few (only?) writers in human history to write a book that goes in a completely different direction than what is laid out in the first paragraph.
Gosh, if that's true, maybe I shouldn’t make snap judgments about books by what is described in blurbs or dust jackets or the first paragraph. Maybe the book is actually nothing like that.
Wiley is *responding* to religious fuckheads who insist on making the debate about theology and philosophy, not about *data* and its *interpretation*.
You mean the “data” and “interpretation” that finally answered the questions “Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man?” The nerve of those religious f*ckheads, twisting those scientific questions into a debate about theology and philosophy. No wonder you’re enraged.
Second, what the *fuck* is the 'evolutionist worldview'?
“an outlook that goes far beyond the scientific acceptance of evolution as a means of explaining the origins and development of species” – Michael Ruse
How does an 'evolutionist worldview' differ from physicist Murray Gell-Mann's ? He's an atheist too, btw.
I’m assuming you’re referring to the work he’s done on “emergent complexities” at the Santa Fe Institute. He seems like a determinist/materialist, which is what I would expect from an atheist physicist. So my answer to your question would be “not at all, apparently.” But why would I be especially interested in what his views are? Because he’s “the man with five brains”?
Hey, I’ll disagree and argue with anyone, their superior intelligence notwithstanding. This thread is a perfect example of that.
Ruse bitching seems to come down to: OK, Dawkins et al aren't 'social Darwinists' -- they *aren't* offering evolutionary science as a religion.
It's not that Dawkins is *wrong* or anything, it's just that they're *rude* to believers, and that makes them as bad as creationists.
WTF?
Is this what *you* are complaining about?
If you put that rant into a coherent form I might be able to answer.