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Author | Topic: The problem with science II | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
They are TOTALLY silly ideas and that's that. If you don't get it you don't get it. Stop this bullying you all do.
What can I say? OK I'll say that it's all speculative and unprovable, for starters, and nothing but the thinnest application of the most stupefyingly addlepated version of "survival of the fittest" to the complexity of human experience.
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SuperNintendo Chalmers Member (Idle past 5864 days) Posts: 772 From: Bartlett, IL, USA Joined: |
I'm pretty sure sexual attraction is genetic on a physical level.
It certainly feels that way to me. No one is bullying you. They are just asking you to support your position
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
It's been supported. And it is bullying. And no you do NOT feel any genetic motivation in your sexual attraction.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: No, there's nothing silly in the idea that evolution can and does shape instinctive behaviour. It would be silly to ignore cultural factors or to insist that these ideas were the whole story, but I'm not doing that.
quote: It's not bullying. I'm raising perfectly reasonable objections to your argument. So please don't waste everyones time with baseless accusations.
quote: I'd say that the ideas were certainly testable. And it is completely false to say that they are based on a simplistic version of "survival of the fittest", since the role sexual attraction is based on a proper understanding of "fitness" not found in simplistic treatments and the whole idea of kin selection is also well beyond the simplistic understanding found in basic arguments. But if, in lieu of actual explanation all you can offer is abuse, it seems like you're the one engaging in bullying in the place of discussiony
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I've supported my point. You don't get it. You are the one being abusive and bullying. Again, this is a perfect example of the cultural divide. All you want to do is force me to submit to the terms of your side of the divide instead of making any effort to get what things look like from my side. My point has been supported. I've been arguing it for weeks off and on. You and others here have an occupational blindness to recognizing the point I'm making. That, again, is an expression of the two cultures problem.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
What can I say? OK I'll say that it's all speculative and unprovable, for starters, and nothing but the thinnest application of the most stupefyingly addlepated version of "survival of the fittest" to the complexity of human experience.
I'd say that the ideas were certainly testable. There is no way to test such a thing. It's purely interpretive, just a typical case of imaginative fantasy based on evolutionism.
And it is completely false to say that they are based on a simplistic version of "survival of the fittest", since the role sexual attraction is based on a proper understanding of "fitness" not found in simplistic treatments and the whole idea of kin selection is also well beyond the simplistic understanding found in basic arguments. The particular statements under discussion are stupefyingly mindnumbingly reductionistic, trivializing and addlepated. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
Testability doesn't require direct proof. If we can find that the behaviours in question are really instinctive and that they really would produce the claimed benefits then we would have a plausible explanation. If we found out that either was incorrect then the explanation would be shown to be false.
And can you lay off the abuse and try to discuss things reasonably ? You still haven't dealt with the points raised in my first post or even prodcued any real argument in any of your responses.o
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Faith's central point is that when it comes to understanding human nature, then our own experience of it has primacy. We should be extremely skeptical of any "scientific" explanation of human nature that contradicts what it actually feels like to be human. That seems like a very sensible approach to me. Thank you. At least this much we can agree on.
I don't have any truck with any of her religious arguments, or with the notion that science should be barred from certain fields of investigation, but on her central point this atheistic, materialistic, former chemist is in total agreement. Thanks again, but I have to point out that I did NOT say "that science should be barred from certain fields of investigation" at all, only that when they get into some of them they make a mess of it, and that is a clue that science can't deal with some fields. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
In my judgment I produced an argument. Your demands for argument or proof are what is abusive under the circumstances, as well as your accusation that I have produced none. This is a typical go-round between you and me.
In my judgment I am not being abusive, merely descriptive of the level of thinking involved in this sort of thing. It's reductionistic and trivializing. You want me to leave off "addlepated" perhaps? I guess I can do that.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
The "scientism" idea might have to do with the type of evidence that is used, or might be used, to explain human behavior.
Suppose I say, "I like girls with very white skin" (in point of fact I do, but that's by the way). What sort of explanation might be given for this preference? Is it cultural? Can an evolutionary explanation be offered? If one had access to all the external facts about my life, could one come up with an answer? I doubt it. So the reductionism would consist of the notion that ONE COULD EXPLAIN IT, whereas, according to one view, perhaps, it can't be explained.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Is it cultural? Can an evolutionary explanation be offered? If one had access to all the external facts about my life, could one come up with an answer? I doubt it. So the reductionism would consist of the notion that ONE COULD EXPLAIN IT, whereas, according to one view, perhaps, it can't be explained. Well, didn't crash and schraf insist that it had something to do with your own genetic situation that you were looking for the perfect genetic combination to further your own genes? I always thought the best genetic combination was supposed to be the most different from yourself because that has the greatest genetic variability and the least likelihood of deleterious combinations. So I thought. But crash had some fancy ways of rationalizing ANYBODY's choice. You can rationalize ANYTHING this way if you just have a little imagination. That's the problem. There IS no REAL science going on here. According to a sort of vulgar Freudianism you might be attracted to sickly looking women (white skin could symbolize that) because perhaps your mother was sickly through the crucial separation phase of your childhood. I think even that has more going for it than the genetic notions. It does pain me that anyone would even TRY to explain such a thing Darwinistically, yes, because it really can't explain it, and also can't help but be trivializing and reductionistic.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
It does pain me that anyone would even TRY to explain such a thing Darwinistically, yes, because it really can't explain it, and also can't help but be trivializing and reductionistic. But what I was thinking, in trying to pin this down about the difference between the two cultures, is that one culture does not believe in human "instinct," which would make out of court any evolutionary explanations, whereas the other does. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given. Think how soon the world will disregard you, and have no more thought or concern about you, than about the poorest animal that died in a ditch. Your friends, if they can, may bury you with some distinction, and set up a monument, to let posterity see that your dust lies under such a stone; and when that is done, all is done. Your place is filled up by another, the world is just in the same state it was, you are blotted out of its sight, and as much forgotten by the world as if you had never belonged to it."--William Law
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SuperNintendo Chalmers Member (Idle past 5864 days) Posts: 772 From: Bartlett, IL, USA Joined: |
And no you do NOT feel any genetic motivation in your sexual attraction. Yeah, amazing how men are attracted to large breasts, a narrow waist and wide hips. Nothing genetic about that at all. Funny how these qualities have been attractive in mates throughout human history. I can easily see the genetic component in what type of women I'm attracted to. Is that the whole story? Absolutely not, it's a very complicated subject. There is certainly a component of personal taste as well as cultural bias among other things. I'm glad you are now a seer and can read my mind and tell me how I feel. This whole thread presents a false dichotomy that would only be argued by someone with little to no knowledge of science.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
large breasts Do you have to have large breasts to produce a lot of milk? Actually, I tend to prefer the petite type.
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SuperNintendo Chalmers Member (Idle past 5864 days) Posts: 772 From: Bartlett, IL, USA Joined: |
Do you have to have large breasts to produce a lot of milk? I have no idea (and doubt) if breast size has anything to do with milk production. It's certainly a complicated subject..... and I don't mean to say that physical attraction is solely based on genetics. But large breasts are an example of a trait that has been considered sexually attractive by most major cultures... I should probably stop as I am getting a bit off topic
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