The problem with science II

To comment on a couple of points:

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No, it's a worldview, a whole conceptual framework which has consequences in everyday thinking, how one thinks about abstinence-only sex education for instance. Everything is now conceptualized in terms of animal health and human morality is subsumed under such ideas, as something that evolved, that may have some usefulness but certainly no overarching authority for humanity.

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I think that this is fundamentally mistaken. Certainly there is nothing in the culture of the humanities that would force them to favour abstinance-only sex education. Amd it is pretty odd to see the science side being condemned for caring too much about people. Indeed the condemnation xould even be read as saying that the scientific side is being too Christian in that it is more concerned with helping people than in adherence to rules.And this

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Describing the inner life in terms of brain functions is what I'm talking about, and it's eyerolling stuff.

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There's pretty good evidnece that the mind is produced by brain function. I don't see any valid reason for you to get upset.s

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Well, for instance, the sort of speculative scientistic explanation that Robin encountered some time back that he reported on this thread, about men's attraction to particular qualities in women "really" being about their suitability for breeding. Sure doesn't FEEL that way. Nor for a woman's attraction to particular qualities in men I might add.

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Or the famous sociobiology idea that self-sacrificial love for a child is really based on an altruism gene or something like that and is intended to further the genetic package of the family. Sure doesn't feel like that.

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Neither of these are especially silly ideas, and I really don't understand the reasoning behind the objection. Since both examples refer to behaviour that is essentially instinctive I find it hard to see why it should "feel" any different than it does.In the first case it should be simple attraction (probably sexual attraction) but there doesn't need to be any understanding of the reasons behind it because it is not something consciously decided on. It is an example of the sort of preferences that underly our consciosu decisions and that is what it "should" feel like.In the second case we should expect to see a tendency to help close relatives over strangers. And we know that is true. And, again, it shouldn't be something conscious or undersood. It should feel like a stronger urge to help when it is a relative in trouble as opposed to a stranger.

No, it's not the end of the subject. I'm trying to discuss the issues. If you can't answer my points and your only real objection is that you don't like the idea then say so, and there's nothing more to discuss.If your objections are more than personal distaste and you can explain them then there's absolutely no reason to call a halt.a

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They are TOTALLY silly ideas and that's that. If you don't get it you don't get it.

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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.

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Stop this bullying you all do.

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It's not bullying. I'm raising perfectly reasonable objections to your argument. So please don't waste everyones time with baseless accusations.

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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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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

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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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

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.

If it is the case that men often find a certain trait in females sexually attractive. and this is common across cultural boundaries.And if it is the case that this trait is positively correlated with fertility.What is the problem with hypothesising that there is a genetic element which influences men to find this trait sexually attractive and that it has become common because it increases evolutionary fitness ?In what way is this "trivialising" or "silly" ?What alternative explanation would be neither "trivialising" or "silly", and why ?‘

OK, no hard feelings.In future if you don't want to reply to somebody specifically, there's a "Gen Reply" button at the bottom left of the page. It's what I used to create the "Questions"" post, just above yours.

It isn't to the point of the novels, but that doesn't make it silly. They're two very different things and I would suggest that it would be the comparison that would be is silly. Would you try to compare the flavours of a fine meal with the chemical description of how our sense of taste works ? Or an Old Master with a trace of the signals passing down the optic nerve when it is viewed ?Can we test it ? In principle we could look for genetic markers, although I suspect that any such effect will be too subtle to be detected without a very advanced understanding of genes and development. If we found a human population where it didn't apply that could lead to tests. Could we reasonably explain their preference on purely cultural grounds, or are they genetically that different ? If not then we might have to discard the hypothesis. On the other hand if there is no such population that would strengthen the evidence for a genetic component.
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I would say that trying to explain the sexual attraction between two people solely in terms of the attraction of one physical trait would be silly in itself. Explaining why that trait is widely considered attractive doesn't seem silly at all. In my view the mistake is in adopting a simplistic explanation of the whole attraction - not in explaining a possible cause for part of it.And let me make it clear. I'm not talking about simplistic genetic determinism. I'm talking about far more subtle effects which manifest as widespread, general tendencies, not as universal programming. I'm not denying the influence of environmental influences - ne they biochemical or cultural.So it seems that the "silliness" isn't really what I'm talking about at all.y