The problem with science II

So I've been thinking about this thread... (which I actually think is just a big convoluted god of the gaps, false dichotomy) and I thought back again to the evolutionary antenna design done by NASA.Now, as an Eletrical/Computer Engineer my thought on the best way to design an antenna would be to use calculus and antenna theory...However, someone decided to try applying evolution to antenna design (even though it might have seemed silly or counterintuitive at the time) and the result was veyr successful. This is no different than trying to apply what we DO know to areas we know less about. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't,,, Evolutionary psychology is IMO a place where it hasn't been as successful.Science doesn't claim to have all the answers... but scientists will certainly investigate any question they can. Some of the greatest breakthoughs in history have resulted from counterintuitive thinking that might not feel right.I just don't see the problem.This just seems to be god of the gaps, argument from incredulity and a false dichotomy all roled into one.

Feels that way to me. And last time I checked, I'm a man. You don't seem to be.Isn't it possible that you just don't know what you're talking about, here? Oh, really? You've never had the feeling that one of the purposes of children and the family was to take a part of yourself and make sure that it survived beyond your death?I don't understand how anyone can not have the feeling that attraction and mating were about children, and that children were about the survival of some part of the self. As far as I'm concerned, anybody who asserts that they don't have those feelings is probably misrepresenting their feelings out of ignorance or deceit.

We're not blind; you're just wrong. It really is just that simple.But, of course, in your staggering arrogance, anybody who doesn't agree with you is the one that has the problem. The entire scientific community rejects the conclusions that Faith agrees with? Why, of course, the problem is with the entire scientific community. Faith is simply too smart, or whatever you are, to be wrong.Sure, makes perfect sense. I'm sure that's the exact explanation.

Well thanks anyway, JavaMan. And Robin. And maybe there was another voice or two on this thread I should thank as well but I forget. The Science side of the divide has no interest in communication as usual.

You need to start being open to other explanations for our disagreement with you beyond "being indoctrinated" and "being too stupid to know good sense when we see it."There's absolutely nothing about your ideas that is ambiguous or unclear. You're like that guy in "Being John Malcovitch" who's absolutely convinced that he has a speech impediment, and that everybody who tells him that he doesn't and that they understand him just fine is simply being polite.You're just like that. Except for the charitable assumptions about your opponents, that is.

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In my judgment I produced an argument.

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Calling an opposing position "stupid" without explaining why is abuse, not an argument.

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Your demands for argument or proof are what is abusive under the circumstances, as well as your accus ation that I have produced none

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I'm not making demands I offered you the chance to bow out gracefully. All I ask for is reasonable discussion. And the fact is that you haven't produced any argument in response to my first post in this subthread (Message 178). It's not abusive to point out a simple fact.

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In my judgment I am not being abusive, merely descriptive of the level of thinking involved in this sort of thing.

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If you can't back it up - and you haven't - it's just abuse. And if simply pointing out that you haven't made an argument in response to ey earlier points is abusive - even though I didn't use any insulting terms then certainly your continuing use of"stupid" and the like must be considered abusive, even if you believe it and even if you could back it up.

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It's reductionistic and trivializing.

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There's nothing inherently wrong with reductionism. And in my view the trivialising is at your end. If you assume that the material brain cannot produce a mind then the idea that the mind is the pr oduct of the brain might seem to be "trivialising" - but it need not be. Equally explaining tendancies in instinctive behaviour need not be trivialising, and I don't beleive that the views I've been putting forward are guilty of this.

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You want m e to leave off "addlepated" perhaps? I guess I can do that

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Can you manage a reasonable discussion without all the insulting terms and false accusations ?lEdited by PaulK, : Add message link

Sorry if you feel you were being bulied, Faith, but I'm sure that was no-one's intention.I suppose the real objection I have is that your concept of the divide is far too simplistic. I myself am a graphic artist who has studied the arts, but I also have a keen interest in science and also work as a programmer! Where do I fit?For me they are both sides of the same coin - both embody curiosity and creativity.

I wonder how many of these statements are actually relevant. There are plenty of statements that are the product of pride (as in you're caring more about being right or wrong than caring about how it might influence the topic) rather than the attempt to address the issue at hand.The topic still addresses the "Two Cultures / science vs. human nature" post, so I wonder how many of you are able to relate what you've been talking about to this subject. We've approached more than 200 posts, and I've been trying to add a meaningful response, but I haven't seen the right opportunity. The more people that continue to respond, the more apparent it becomes that people aren't even trying to attempt to understand the other's opinion. This is unfortunate because it shows by observation that Snow's "Two Culture’s" scenario is occurring despite my belief that a mutual understanding is possible.I don't know about everyone else, but my purpose to addressing opinions that are different than my own are to learn something from it rather than flaunt my intelligence and arrogance in the matter. If anyone else is of the same persuasion, I suggest you take the same approach and stop quote mining to find trivial arguments wherever possible.And the point of the whole "Snow's Two Cultures" philosophy is that science and the humanities have a different language and are unable to communicate. If you have only provided a rebuttal without an attempt to understand why the opposing party has reached their conclusion, you have provided evidence towards the point of the "Two Cultures" mentality.I'm sorry to be a little drunk while arguing this, but I hope you can see my point. If we're to argue anything meaningful and learn anything, the opposing side must legitimately be considered. If someone made over 1000 posts, they've probably already had their views attacked a number of times with the same mundane arguments, so an effort must be made to make a meaningful counterargument. At any rate, I hope a mutual agreement can be reached that the topic has been forced into tangents, and that we must start over. If this happens, the next 100 posts that occur before this topic is closed might mean something. If no such attempt is made, I will no longer attempt to interject, so have fun!

I think you need to read my post in context. I was making the effort to understand and explain. Faith was making absolutely no effort to explain her position and in fact seems determined to shut down any such discussion - and to blame anyone and everyone else for it.I'm also rather insulted by the implication that I might be using "quote mining to find trivial arguments wherever possible". I'm trying to avoid trivialising the discussion with simplistic ideas. But again, it seems that Faith is opposed to such an effort.

Please keep the discussion focused primarily on the topic. Comments and digressions on other issues are fine as long as they don't distract from discussion of the topic.This thread is about the problem with science. Here is a list of things it is not about:

• It is not about how people aren't getting what you're saying.
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• It's not about how people are bullying you. If you have a moderation concern, please take it to the proper forum.
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• It's not about how you've already supported your points unless you give some indication of where.
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• It is not about repeating positions that you won't discuss. Please do not state positions that you are not willing to defend or raise issues you're not willing to discuss.
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• It is not about how EvC Forum is a weird place.

The goal of EvC Forum is to provide a venue where discussion can move forward rather than bog down as is so often the case around the Internet. Please help make that possible.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I don't understand how this relates to my opening post, SNC.1. I don't believe in any gods;
2. I don't have a problem with incredible scientific interpretations per se;
3. My dichotomy between a scientific description of a thing and the thing itself is a real dichotomy not a false one .

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not a creationist. Darwin is the ideal scientist as far as I'm concerned, and the Theory of Evolution is the epitome of good science: a beautiful and elegant explanation of a complex phenomenon. I'm not talking about Science in the abstract, but about particular scientific interpretations of human nature. Science is a social activity, it has fashions and big egos who can push a particular theory for decades without the theory actually having much support. I'm just saying that where science impinges on our own experience, we can justifiably be skeptical if the theory contradicts that experience.

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

I refer you to some of my previous posts in this thread http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=32&t=38&m=16#20http://EvC Forum: The problem with science II -->EvC Forum: The problem with science II http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=32&t=38&m=28#28The scientific method is a wonderful thing and I'm all for it myself, but to think that all scientific theories that reach the public domain are underpinned by the strictest adherence to the scientific method is a little naive.Firstly, scientists don't just wake up one day and think, 'Hmm, wonder what I'll investigate today?'. To do research you need money, and you only get money if the research is in an area that is (a) potentially profitable, or (b) politically expedient, or (c) academically fashionable. This doesn't make the theories that come out of this process unscientific, but it does mean that, rather than getting the best explanation of a given phenomenon, you get the best explanation given the current bias, which can often be incomplete and sometimes misleading.Secondly, scientists don't do science entirely out of an altruistic desire for truth. The best scientists (or at least the most public ones) are driven by massive egos. They want fame (and hopefully a Nobel prize), and they can be pretty ruthless in achieving their ambitions (as anyone who has worked in academia can testify). A particularly forceful character can dominate a whole field of science for decades, and in this way gain acceptance for a scientific theory that again may be incomplete or misleading.Thirdly, although a particular scientific theory may be perfectly respectable as science within a particular domain, sometimes the desire for completeness can lead to a limited model being extended beyond its remit. A case in point is behaviourism. A perfectly respectable bit of science as far as it goes. Who could argue with its stimulus/repsonse model as an explanation of certain aspects of human behaviour? But somehow it came to dominate academic psychology so completely that for several decades it was considered "unscientific" to discuss human psychology in terms of cognition. The fashion has changed now of course, not because behaviourism has been falsified scientifically, but because we have "scientific" techniques for investigating the neural correlates of cognitive states.So when someone tells me that the latest scientific research tells us that "such and such" is the case, and "such and such" doesn't appear very likely to me, given my personal experience, then I'm sure you'll understand why I want to maintain a little skepticism, at least until I can work out whether this research is just the latest fashion, or whether it actually has some meat.

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

He assumed some things about you.Posters on this forum, Javaman, do a lot of ASSUMING about other posters. The Admins. think I'm a creationist, whereas I am not.Suggestion: perhaps our signature should be a brief statement of our basic position.

I believe the explanation is not that large breasts = more milk but rather that the development, and therefore size, of secondary sexual characteristics is linked to the levels of hormones in the body and that the levels of those same hormones, things like oestradiol, influence fertility.So rather than a direct indication of milk yielding potential breast size is seen as an indirect indicator of fertility.TTFN,WK