To me, the motivation is irrelevant when judging the moral value of an action. I don't believe in 'evil' motivations, so it was probably the wrong word to use.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
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To me, the motivation is irrelevant when judging the moral value of an action. I don't believe in 'evil' motivations, so it was probably the wrong word to use.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
SLG- Self interest tends to become more powerful when the money you are talking about was earned by your own labor... at a job that you quite often find less than ideal... and especially if you have a family whose immediate needs and wants concern you far more than something that appears but an abstraction. Should "we" give more? What country donates any where near what the US contributes to half of the developing nations of the world?
Dodo- Pretty much any industrialized country. The US gives away less than 1% of its budget. Furthermore, just as an example, the crazy subventions for the US cotton industry used to lower prizes for cotton and lead to third world countries not being able to sell their stuff. I'm not sure if that's still the case, it might very well be.
The US is by far the largest contributer in foreign aid in actual dollars although this may amount to a smaller percentage of the over-all US budget than some other countries. Of course this doesn't take into consideration the dollar amount of foreign aid that is donated by private citizens in the US which is more than twice the federal aid and by far the largest in the world. Nor does it take into consideration that almost all aid from any Western nation has political ties. A huge donation by Bill Gates to India is impressive... but certainly helps Microsoft's future in the growing Indian economy. Financial aid goes far less to desperately poor nations than it does to nations which are strategically important to the donor nation (Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc...) What is also ignored is the cost of military spending incurred in policing all the hot spots of the world. The United States, Britain, and several other nations incur this cost which whether we like it or not is a necessity for maintaining the freedoms afforded in the West.
SLG- "Self-interest is a strong drive..." or so you stated above. What is in it for the individual? Compassion? A sense of duty? Priviledge? How many individuals do you imagine would put forth the effort and the expense of medical school and residency if a doctor were paid the same as a school teacher or an office clerk? You are suggesting a ruler... a leader of a nation... with all that entails... the stress, the long hours, the time spent away from the family, the lack of privacy... and for little or no personal reward. The reality is that those willing to do the job under such conditions probably aren't the best qualified, and the best qualified aren't likely to be willing to do the job under those conditions. Of course Plato's solution was to essentially "draft" the philosopher kings... force them into doing the job as a great noble sacrifice due to society. What a noble idea. The poor philosopher suffering for the sake of humanity.
Dodo-I disagree. I think the pursuit of knowledge and challenging yet fruitful tasks is one of the best ways to be satisfied in life. If the education offered includes, obviously, a scholarship for a program better (and harder) than Harvard, I'm sure the right people would even volunteer. Think of Kant, Mill, Singer, I'm sure they would. I really don't think motivation would be the problem.
You disagree... based upon what? Your own personal feeling? How many employers attempt to entice employees by promising long hours, lots of stress, lots of time away from the family, constant public scrutiny and criticism with little chance of personal gain? What you are ignoring is that the private sector offers many opportunities which include a challenging pursuit of knowledge... properly compensatory. Kant and Mill would jump at the chance? Of course. But do you really imagine that they were the best qualified to lead a nation?
SLG- Yes... a statement of fact... which you cannot substantiate with proof.
Dodo- "There most certainly are no unicorns". Do I have to provide proof for this statement? As long as there's no positive evidence for a thing's existance, there really is no reason whatsoever to think that it is likely to exist.
A statement of fact demands proof. The suggestion that you have yet to see proof of an event is not proof. Personally, I am of an agnostic persuasion... because I don't think the questions of the origin of the universe, creation, God, spirituality, or what occurs after death have been answered one way or another.
Furthermore, God is extremely improbable. Creationists like to say things like how crazily improbable amino acid sequences are. Think of whole human beings, they are orders of magnitudes more complex. If they just came out of nowhere, that wouldn't make any sense! Evolution of course explains that, it explains how SIMPLE beginnings over time GRADUALLY lead to complexity.
No... evolution does not explain that. It does not explain just how probable it is that something as improbable as life began... or something as improbably complex as humanity evolved. What is the probability of life in other solar systems? What is the probability that any given planet will be blessed with the temperatures, the atmosphere, and all else that is necessary to sustain life? In a universe bordering on infinity... what is the probability that that there would not be life?
Something as complex as God (or intelligence, consciousness, all that fancy stuff) just existing is absurd to the highest degree.
Just as life... human beings... the universe just existing by luck... seems equally absurd.
I've had countless discussions about this, I've heard virtually all the arguments there are. I've read the Bible and parts of the Qu'ran and the Hadiths. I've studied evolutionary biology in my free time and read books on philosophy and theism. The answer to the question of God's existance is very obvious, so much speaks against it, nothing for.
And yet as obvious at it seems to you... so many far greater minds than your have taken a different view... or simply suggested that "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
DD- Faith is irrational and dangerous.
SLG- So is love.
Indeed. There are even more parallels. Faith can be a 'good thing' in certain situations, even though it is always wrong, it can give hope and stuff. Still, I'm convinced that we have other, more justified, more worthy values we can tie or hopes to. I think the disadvantages of faith outweigh its benefits.
So the dangers of love also outweigh the benefits?
Dodo-At least love is the best feeling ever, so that kinda justifies it. And while many crimes do have to do with love, major wars don't (at least at this stage of history).
There are many who would argue that faith might bring an equal if not greater "feeling"... that the two are inherently intertwined. As for the consequences of faith, it is not faith but religion that lies at the cause of the wars of which you speak... and again... religion is but an excuse for prejudice and hatred. If it were not for religion, those in power would find another justification for war. Ultimately, war is about prejudice, envy, avarice, and all the range of human hatreds that will not be eliminated with the elimination of religion and the establishment of some great secular world.
Education is actually very much the key here, there's a strong correlation between atheism and education.
Is there? So you imagine that you are more educated than Thomas Aquinas or Pope John Paul II or Robert Alter, or Abdullah Yusuf Ali? There is a separation of church and state in most Western nations so that religion is not part of public education. This in no way correlates to the notion that atheists are more likely to be educated.
Dodo- Faith (is) a stupid thing:
Is it? We all engage in acts of faith each an every day. How many things do you take for granted without ever having proven them? The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776... Was it? How do you know? Were you there? Or are you merely taking the word of others for fact? Faith is stupid? Again it would seem no stupider than love for those in love will often trust one another... without the need of empirical proof. faith is stupid? Yet amazingly there are so many brilliant individuals... far more brilliant than you are I... who had faith.
I don't base my life on acts of faith. In fact, I DO NOT HAVE FAITH IN ANYTHING.
And that is your loss.
"Where you there?" What kind of question is that? You say you're good at history, why would you study anything about it if you don't have a time machine? We know about historical 'facts' (never 100% proveable, yet still supported by evidence beyond reasonable doubt) because of evidence. That's not faith, it is well-supported belief.
One might ask how you define "well supported"? What one might call "well supported" another might call blind faith. History, by the way, is far from being beyond doubt. Certain events and interpretations face continual revision.
Dodo-And the argument about brilliant individuals is flawed too. For one thing, there were/are also many 'brilliant individuals' that agree with me. Moreover, some which you may have in mind lived before 1859, and that doesn't really count for the question. Also, I hope you don't mean Einstein or Hawking, because they certainly weren't/aren't religious.
"Some" brilliant individuals agree with you... so that makes you right beyond all doubt? There are any number of artists, writers, poets, theologians, composers, educators, philosophers, etc... who take an opposing view... or admit to doubt (Agnosticism). One can always pick and choose who to quote based upon who supports one's views.
Dodo- I'm starting to regret having brought (multiple universes) up. As I said, there is some evidence for it, but among expert circles, it is a minority view. I have my own argument for the existance of multiverses, I think it is sound.
That would sound a lot like "faith" to me.:ihih:
Dodo- Whether that also justifies the explanation for dark mater is a different question. Either way, I guess I can see how you consider this 'faith', note however that I in no way base my life, or for that matter, any important decisions on this 'belief'. Moreover, I don't state 'I know it for sure', I was very careful to emphasize how weak my belief is in this case. And finally, at least there is SOME evidence for it, however small.
You don't know for sure about God or the creation of the universe... but you are prepared to make a statement of fact.
SLG- You seemingly place a great deal of "faith" in science... considering some of the achievements of science in the last 100 years during two world wars and elsewhere, some might suggest that your "faith" is a belief contrary to evidence
'Belief contrary to evidence', that's a good phrase! That's fundamentalism, faith taken to the extreme. I hav no idea how this applies to me though. Science has made a tremendous progress in the last 100 years. The track record is considerable. So many things once believed because of religion are now explained and attributed to different, natural causes - all due to science. Science isn't perfect, in fact, that's a strength. When mistakes are made, scientists discard the wrong hypotheses and come up with new, improved concepts. Science changes and grows, dogmatic religion doesn't, it's stuck in the barbaric bronze age!
One might point out that your concept of religion is rather primitive or barbaric. Yes... there are illiterate fundamentalists... but serious religious scholars... be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc... do not take such a primitive view of the world. Most admit that there is a clear separation between science and what science can know and religion. The problem is when the line is crossed... when scientists presume to know the answers that pertain to religion... or when religious leaders presume to challenge scientific fact.
You speak of science' willingness to abandon a hypothesis when it is proven wrong. There are more than a few instances of scientists holding on to certain hypotheses as "fact" contrary to other "facts". You glory in science's conquering much that was once unknown... but with every advance, scientists discover that what they do not know also increases. As brilliant as our scientist may be they have not been able to conquer cancer... or even something as simple as the common cold... and yet you would have us presume that these same scientists have the ultimate understanding of human nature, the universe, creation... the possibility of God?
DoDo- The problem with religion is that it can motivate good people to do evil. Few other things can do that. If one sincerely believes that i.e. the Qu'ran is divinely inspired, there's a logical pathay leading over an airplane right into the twin towers.
SLG- Nationalism, Racism, prejudice, envy, fear, lust, love, any number of things may motivate the individual into doing evil. Even striving toward ideals. The French, Soviet, and Russian Revolutions all devolved into atrocity and horror in spite of the noblest intentions. Of course, "the road to hell... "
Dodo- Yeah sure, but the 'logical pathway' is often lacking, while in religion, it is all too obvious. Also, while the bad aspects of most of the things you mentioned are generally condemned, this is not the case about religion.
So you imagine there was no logic behind the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, Mao's Cultural Revolution? If anything, the exact opposite was true. These events were rooted is cold, calculated reason and rationale that placed abstract ideals above human individuals... with horrific results.
breathtest- I think a better solution to overpopulation is restricting the amount of children one family is allowed to have. We cannot ignore the amount of suffering going on in the world. I think people who are currently alive and suffering because of lack of food and water and shelter deserve our attention. Reducing the amount of children two people have together will reduce the population down to a better size, but ignoring suffering on the scale that you have suggested i think would be pretty heartless. I think overpopulation needs to be addressed quickly, but there are more humane and empathetic ways.
How do you address this issue in a way that is not prejudiced... if not outright racist? The reality is that most Western nations have greatly controlled their populations since the Black Death of the Middle Ages. There was a recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population. Most of the problem with population exists in poorer nations or the third-world... or within the poorer populations of the Western nations. In part this is due to a lack of education and a lack of access to contraceptives... but it is also due to the misguided belief in the need for larger families... multiple children... both to support the parents when they age... and as a means of countering the high infant and child mortality rates in these cultures. It isn't France or Germany or the US that needs to curtail its growth and we cannot expect families there to stop having children so that India, China, and the nations of Africa and South America can continue to add to the population.
There are many cancers that can be successfully treated already. The common cold is not one virus, but hundreds of different ones so it's certainly not "simple." Scientists, however, have decoded the genomes of a big sample of these viruses. This information could lead to the production of an efficient medicine. The question is whether it's really necessary to find a "cure" for something that lasts, on average, a week and is typically considered to be a minor nuisance. The costs of developing any drug are extremely high, it's unlikey that many people would buy this drug. So even if they do find a "cure" drug manufacturers will probably not invest in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
As for that last part of your post... When I read Dodo's post I don't see where he says scientists have the ultimate understand of anything. On the contrary, he says science is not perfect at all.
Personally, I think science does not need to tackle the god issue. It's a waste of time and it's impossible to prove a negative. God does not exist. If you think he does, fine, show me. There is nothing that indicates the existence of a god. If there is, I'll gladly accept it.
It's not about prejudice or racism.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
That "recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population" never happened. Can the US quench its thrist for oil without going abroad? How many mouths in the US are fed with imported food? Are dressed by imported clothes?
It's the entire world that needs to curtail its growth. If we fail to do that, we will ultimately face the consequences of our irresponsibility.
[QUOTE=stlukesguild;950287]No... evolution does not explain that.[QUOTE]
Well, it does actually - read on!
It certainly does, because the probability is clearly 1.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Life, including complex ones exist, ergo the probability cannot be less.
There are clearly only two choices - either the universe and life were created by a god or they were not.
When i talk about reducing the amount of children a couple can have, i am not just referring to western cultures. I am talking about all cultures, and that is how we can make it fair and not at all racist. This probably isn't likely to happen, but i think it would be a better solution than trying to pretend that third-world countries are not sufferingQuote:
How do you address this issue in a way that is not prejudiced... if not outright racist? The reality is that most Western nations have greatly controlled their populations since the Black Death of the Middle Ages. There was a recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population. Most of the problem with population exists in poorer nations or the third-world... or within the poorer populations of the Western nations. In part this is due to a lack of education and a lack of access to contraceptives... but it is also due to the misguided belief in the need for larger families... multiple children... both to support the parents when they age... and as a means of countering the high infant and child mortality rates in these cultures. It isn't France or Germany or the US that needs to curtail its growth and we cannot expect families there to stop having children so that India, China, and the nations of Africa and South America can continue to add to the population.
[QUOTE=The Atheist;950335][QUOTE=stlukesguild;950287]No... evolution does not explain that.There are two choices that we know of...who knows how many that we dont know of, yetQuote:
Well, it does actually - read on!
It certainly does, because the probability is clearly 1.
Life, including complex ones exist, ergo the probability cannot be less.
There are clearly only two choices - either the universe and life were created by a god or they were not.
@ SLG, dang it!! I wrote the whole response to your post and then accidentally deleted it.
I don't feel like writing it all again now, I'll do so later, tomorrow or in a couple of days.
There are many cancers that can be successfully treated already. The common cold is not one virus, but hundreds of different ones so it's certainly not "simple." Scientists, however, have decoded the genomes of a big sample of these viruses. This information could lead to the production of an efficient medicine. The question is whether it's really necessary to find a "cure" for something that lasts, on average, a week and is typically considered to be a minor nuisance. The costs of developing any drug are extremely high, it's unlikey that many people would buy this drug. So even if they do find a "cure" drug manufacturers will probably not invest in it.
Can be successfully treated how... and with what degree of success and at what cost physically to the patient... and after how many years and how many billions of dollars invested in research. And the common cold? Perhaps of little consequence... except when it leads to something worse in the young, the elderly, the diabetic, etc... not to speak of the ever-looming potential for the mutation and epidemic spread of a deadly virus. Yet just the simply common cold surely costs billion of dollars in lost productivity alone... yet science has give erections to octogenarians and grow hair on a bowling ball so it seems we know where the focus lies.
As for that last part of your post... When I read Dodo's post I don't see where he says scientists have the ultimate understand of anything. On the contrary, he says science is not perfect at all.
He makes repeated statements of fact with regard to evolution, creation, and God. Theories regarding evolution and creation are being continually revised... while any question of God would seem to be unknowable... unless one simply employs a simplistic, literal concept of God as some old man with a flowing white beard who lives in the sky.
Personally, I think science does not need to tackle the god issue. It's a waste of time and it's impossible to prove a negative. God does not exist. If you think he does, fine, show me. There is nothing that indicates the existence of a god. If there is, I'll gladly accept it.
No one needs to show you the existence of God. That seems to be an issue best left to the individual. Again I state this from the position of an agnostic... someone who freely admits that he has no irrefutable proof one way or the other.
Your expectations and demands are unrealistic.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
It's not about prejudice or racism.
It becomes racially charged when you make assumptions that a developing nation should curtail its growth for the good of the planet... at the cost of remaining poor and undeveloped as opposed to the Western nations. It becomes racially charged when you suggest families limit the number of children they have when families in these developing nations face the very real problem of high child and infant mortality.
That "recognition that one cannot stretch the population beyond the ability of the nation to meet the needs of that population" never happened.
Maybe you need to read your history a little better. There are studies that show that prior to the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) of the 1300s European populations had grown to a level that was unsustainable. Many were already facing malnutrition which further weakened them when ultimately confronted with the plague. The populations of Europe did not again match the period before the plague for 150-200 years. Various documentation used for measuring population growth and family size show that family size was curtailed... especially in the Northern European nations... and this curtailment correlated with the growing wealth of the same nations (England, Holland, France ). By the time the population had returned to the pre-plague numbers Europe was able to sustain this population through increased agricultural production and trade.
Can the US quench its thrist for oil without going abroad? How many mouths in the US are fed with imported food? Are dressed by imported clothes?
So you suggest that we return to an era of pre-civilization where there is no trade... where every small community must be able the fully sustain itself? That's ridiculous. The US, by the way, is the third largest agricultural producer in the world. It ranks only after India and China. The US produces far more than can be used by the US population and as a result they sell much on the international market. The US is actually responsible for fully half the food sold in export in the world. In return the US consumers import foods that are not native to the US (banana, kiwi, etc...) as well as foods that can be more inexpensively grown elsewhere (grapes). Few if any nations are wholly self-sustaining and this has been true for eons.
It's the entire world that needs to curtail its growth. If we fail to do that, we will ultimately face the consequences of our irresponsibility.
What will be the consequence? Does anyone really have a notion as to where the line of sustainability is broached? As populations grow the productivity also increases... as a result of the science you so champion. Some nations have already passed the level at which they can sustain themselves as the results are warfare, malnutrition, famine, etc... Again, how do we dictate to these developing nations that they need to curtail their growth and not strive to match the standard of living of the wealthier Western nations that are able to sustain themselves? How does one dictate to the wealthy Western nations that they need to cut back and lower their standards of living to offset population explosions in the third world? And do you imagine that if the US and Western Europe and Japan and China were to cut back upon their standard of living that this would translate into increased productivity in the developing nations?
Can be successfully treated how... and with what degree of success and at what cost physically to the patient... and after how many years and how many billions of dollars invested in research. And the common cold? Perhaps of little consequence... except when it leads to something worse in the young, the elderly, the diabetic, etc... not to speak of the ever-looming potential for the mutation and epidemic spread of a deadly virus. Yet just the simply common cold surely costs billion of dollars in lost productivity alone... yet science has give erections to octogenarians and grow hair on a bowling ball so it seems we know where the focus lies.
Your expectations and demands are unrealistic.
My expectations are very realistic. I "expect" that human beings will always act like human beings... that they will put forth their best effort where there is the most personal gain. Scientists and those who employ scientists are no different. There was more money to be made from giving perpetual erections and growing hair on bald men than there is in treating the common cold. There is more money to be made for the huge pharmaceutical companies in "treating" many illnesses with a continual need for treatment than there is in developing an actual cure. There is more money to be made by continuing oil dependency... even at the cost of shipping the oil around the globe or dangerously drilling in the oceans than there is to be made from developing alternative fuel sources.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
First you say scientists can't cure cancer, and when they do... it's not fast enough, not comfortable enough and not cheap enough. I call that unrealistic expectations.Quote:
Can be successfully treated how... and with what degree of success and at what cost physically to the patient... and after how many years and how many billions of dollars invested in research.
First you say scientists can't cure cancer, and when they do... it's not fast enough, not comfortable enough and not cheap enough. I call that unrealistic expectations.
Science is grossly limited in "curing" cancer. They are able to stop some forms of cancer but this often involves major surgery, radiation, and chemo therapy. To suggest this is an issue of comfort suggests you know nothing whatsoever about cancer or what patients face with regard to treatment. Chemo therapy essentially involves poisoning and killing the cells of the body and hoping that it is the cancer cells that dies off before the rest of the body. There is little or no chance of a cure for many forms of cancer or for cancer that has progressed beyond a given stage. Still billions are funneled into research with little or no result and one is left to wonder how it is that science can drill for oil miles beneath the ocean floor, land on the moon and mars, create weapons that can hit targets that are selected employing satellites in outer-space but they still seem confounded by any number of realities of human existence. I find it surprising that anyone living past the horrors of the 20th century... many wrought by blind faith in progress and technology... would still have such an idealistic belief in the miracles of science.
Why so pessimistic? Watch this:Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/st..._violence.html
This is not really an accurate view of science today. Hell if you want to complain about science's priorities, it's society at fault not the scientist. Scientist don't self-finance, they rely on the government, or increasingly, private financing. If people really wanted a cure for the common cold, they'd finance it (and actually large amounts of private money has gone into producing cold remedies, I'm not sure why we should even try to cure the common cold). Is that the fault of the scientist? I don't think so. The best and the brightest scientist working today still work in the universities, off of public money, on projects with humanitarian goals. The head of my department at McGill worked on more cost effective treatments of Leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that effects primarily poor rural South Americans. Other research conducted in the department include a large HIV lab, a tuberculosis research lab, and some theoretical basic science labs. Scientist want to feed their families as much as the next person, but people don't choose to be scientist to get rich, it's a horrible career path if you want job security and good pay.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I know what chemo is. Some cancers can be cured rather easily, especially if they are discovered early enough. Some are very difficult to treat.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Either way, this isn't a debate about cancer. Like I said, you have unrealistic expectations and demands of science.
You want a cure for cancer, but you don't want money to go to research or you think the research's not fast enough. When they find ways to cure cancers or treat them successfully, you consider it "little or no result". I can tell you that all this money and time, which you consider wasted, has saved a lot of people. You object to chemo, yet don't understand why more money is invested in cancer research...
Then you suddenly change the topic from cancer to oil, to moon landings to weapons. It's odd you don't focus on all the drugs that do work for countless other diseases or the successful surgeries that save lives on a daily basis. Why not a word about the amazing advances in prostheses?
Your assumption that no one is left to wonder about those things you listed is simply wrong. Your assumption that I have an idealistic belief in science is also wrong. Science is neither good nor bad.
@ The Atheist: My opinion is unpopular amongst followers of the Neurodiversity movement, which is why I've moved away from them to start the True Neurodiversity movement. They think all of us should be proud and not simply accept the fact of difference.
His description of chemotherapy is rather narrow as well. Although, in basic terms it is "poisoning the body" in an attempt to kill the cancer cells before you, it is not as willy-nilly as he implies. The drugs used are particularly targeted to non-senescent cells, radiotherapy also disproportionately effects rapidly dividing cells (where mutations can multiply much quicker) than senescent cells. It's not directionless use of poisons. Likewise, many of our last ditch antibiotics are toxic against our own mitochondria. Life shares common origins, so it is not so easy to find things that only kill the harmful stuff. We are lucky to have drugs like beta-lactams (penicillin family drugs) that target gram-negative cell wall production, instead of still using sulfa drugs that are highly toxic to both humans and bacteria. Our knowledge of cancer, and human molecular biology in general, increases annually, eventually we will understand enough, and have the technology, to target cancer cells directly in the way we are now able to target bacteria directly with a vast array of drugs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Propter W.
The thing is that drilling oil from the bottom of the ocean and flying to the moon were simply easier problems to solve than curing all cancers (which are diverse) or HIV.
This isn't to say there aren't problems with the way biological science is conducted. Public funding for basic research science, like understanding molecular biology, has to be goal based these days. So, I know from personal experience that many researchers in biology tag on possible uses for cancer research, even if they aren't interested in cancer, to get funding. It's really hard to get funding otherwise if you're trying to figure out how X transcription factor expressed in the kidneys functions. Our society doesn't want to foster basic science research anymore, instead they want all our efforts directed towards practical applications, the problem with this is that we rely on our knowledge of basic science to access new practical applications. The basic sciences in biology have done decently well in the molecular and biochemical fields, because their relation to practical solutions is much more apparent. However, physics and physical chemistry have suffered greatly. As have behavioral biology and ecology, who rely entirely on increasingly slim government funding. Likewise, the vast majority of HIV research is concentrated on finding treatments and vaccines for the prominent Western strain, while many other strains exist in Africa with little scientific attention.
The old adage about how "we can put a man on the moon but can't cure the common cold" is entirely misguided. First of all, the number of strains of rhino viridae and adeno viridae is so large as to make cold vaccination an entirely futile effort when we could much better use our resources to study Hepatitis C and HIV, which actually kill people. Likewise, parasitic disease are fairly easy to eliminate with increases in hygiene and killing the vectors (like mosquitoes) than it is to develop direct cures. So, as much as I appreciate the efforts of scientist to find helpful cures for Leishmaniasis, the ultimate problem for those rural Peruvians isn't flesh eating parasites but poverty. I'd also add that HIV is controllable with widespread education campaigns, Nigeria and Thailand have proven this, so Sub-Saharan Africa's AIDS epidemic is largely a result of poor government. Tuberculosis, likewise, is easily controllable with proper medical infrastructure (cases pop up annually in developed countries and are quickly controlled), but kills millions annually in Asia and Africa. Much of the "failures" of modern science are more so the failures of governments than they are of individual scientist.
The common cold does kill people. Granted not on the same scale as HIV and hepatitis, but it does kill. Most people who die from it are the elderly, the young, and people whose immune system is already weakened, perhaps by another minor illness.Quote:
First of all, the number of strains of rhino viridae and adeno viridae is so large as to make cold vaccination an entirely futile effort when we could much better use our resources to study Hepatitis C and HIV, which actually kill people.
Influenza, yes, pneumonia, frequently, but the common cold, not often. The common cold is usually used to refer to viral rhinitis, a viral infection of the sinuses, not usually implicated int he deaths of the elderly.Quote:
Originally Posted by breathtest
Edit: Specifically, strains of rhinovirus are very rarely indicated in severe upper respiratory tract infections.
Edit: Bacterial pneumonia, and influenza are often causes of death in infants and the elderly though. But we do have effective treatments for both when they are diagnosed in time, and we have a very effective preventative against influenza.
Thank you for this, I gained a lot of insight, but it seems to me that you blame politics and, the mindset that science is only useful to solve practical problems; as the problem of modern science. But this problem has been there since the dawn of time, there has never been a society where scientific progress was not driven by politics, and the favorance of applicable science as opposed to theoretical science.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
thanks, i didn't know any of that.Quote:
Influenza, yes, pneumonia, frequently, but the common cold, not often. The common cold is usually used to refer to viral rhinitis, a viral infection of the sinuses, not usually implicated int he deaths of the elderly.
Edit: Specifically, strains of rhinovirus are very rarely indicated in severe upper respiratory tract infections.
Edit: Bacterial pneumonia, and influenza are often causes of death in infants and the elderly though. But we do have effective treatments for both when they are diagnosed in time, and we have a very effective preventative against influenza.
I think this is generally true, except for brief periods where science flourished off of individual patronage rather than institutionalized funding. Many early scientist just conducted experiments in their free time, as many came from the nobility. Mendel, a Catholic monk, had all the time in the world to grow peas and build his theory of inheritance. I think the problem of modern science is largely that science is very expensive to conduct, a scholar of literature is relatively cheap to maintain as opposed to a biology lab with expensive machines and a full staff of technitians and assistants. So, there is much less willingness to invest in research that might not produce returns, other than expanded knowledge. Scientist operate under the maxim of "publish or perish," if you don't produce results your career is over, this results in a cutthroat industry of pre-empting the publications of others. A PhD. student I had as a T.A. had his thesis work pre-empted by a Chinese research group one month before publishing his own research. His research went from a top tier publication to a 2nd tier, virtually stifling his career options for several years. A publication in Nature or Science, the giants of science publishing, will make you set for life. The focus on high impact publishing, i.e. you not only have to produce results, but results people will care about, further serves to focus research onto a few key fields (cancer and HIV being the giants in biomedical research) and leads to the neglect of areas where research might be more fruitful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
However, I mainly object to the common criticism of science as being about big money and private interest, this isn't the fault of science, we all share the blame in private funding shaping the focus of research. I'm not saying science was better in the past, I actually think it was worse. Today we have an international publishing community, the scientific endeavors of every university in the world are pooled in the major journals. The standardized system of research and publishing is also much more efficient for producing reliable results than we ever had in the past. Now science is a collaborative effort, we rarely hear of great scientist like Pasteur or Newton anymore because individual breakthroughs are a thing of the past, rarely is a major paper published without 10 co-authors from various institutions. I think science works better today than it has in the past, but it's not perfect, as if any human endeavor could be.
Edit: I'd like to add though that the USA actually does a very good job of financing the basic sciences. Funding in Canada involves even more bureaucratic hoop jumping.
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Technophile
Now I know - yours is the group that wears green underpants!
How dare you sir ! The underpants are most certainly blue, I hope you assumptions can bare the brunt of court.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
No other cell is specialized to process information like neurons are. Consciousness is just the brain processing information. We have no actual direct access to the world, sensory stimuli is converted by the brain into electrical signals which we process subjectively, it isn't the sensory stimuli itself that we process, it's what we make of it (the electrical signals). No non-animals have any kind of system like this, reacting to external stimuli isn't the same thing as turning it into useful information and processing that information subjectively.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rores28
Thanks for the book recommendations, on animal rights I've only read Animal Equality and Speciesism by Joan Dunayer as well as Animal Liberation by Peter Singer and I would recommend those.
If I don't respond to any other posts, it's because I'm too lazy and there are too many replies, lol.
“Pedophilia is a sexual orientation, there is nothing inherently perverse about it nor is child-adult sex inherently harmful. I'm not saying that child-adult sex should not be discouraged but it should only be discouraged on the basis that the child might come to regret the experience (especially having been raised in a culture that would condition him/her to view the act as harmful and inappropriate in retrospect despite being consensual and harmless at the time) and suffer as a result, I think that children/young teens are more emotionally vulnerable than are adults. Simulated child pornography should be legal, pedophiles should have a right to express their sexuality so long as they don't act on their desires.”
I look at pedophilia more as a sexual/psychological disorder than an orientation. I agree that some humans instinctively prefer [sexually] people much younger than themselves, and although that may be viewed as an orientation, it is only acceptable to a degree. In today’s societies, it is almost unacceptable altogether. I don’t believe that age should be a highly emphasized factor of true love; take my favorite politician, Dennis Kucinich, for example: he is 60 and his wife is 30, yet they are both [seemingly] very happy together and love each other, and they are both very intelligent and “in the right.” Yet I don’t consider them foolish for being lovers because of their age! Certainly not! I think that age is not a factor of love, but I also think that many children do not quite understand love; or, perhaps I should say, they may think they are in love, and are much more vulnerable to believing it than adults, and so the resulting actions may be harmful and regretted by the child, such as sex.
The child and the adult, if they are truly in love, will have the patience to wait until the child is of age and they can begin their relationship as two adults. Surely, if they are in love, they will have patience enough to wait for each other. When the child develops into an adult and can make more rational decisions, then it should be right for the two people to decide that they wish to have a life together as something more than friends. It is just not acceptable on the adult’s behalf to rush into a relationship before the child has developed mentally. Once they are both adults and can decide for themselves the kind of lives they wish to lead, I do not consider any relations between them as wrong, even if one is 20 and the other is 60. But if one is 15 and the other is an adult, then there is a problem. It may sound harsh, but it must be done this way, in my opinion.
I've never understood how someone can mistakenly think that they feel an emotion that they don't. What does age or maturity have to do with your capacity to feel a certain emotion? Anyways, I agree that children are more vulnerable than adults are and that an adult could use their position of authority to persuade a child into having unwanted sex or sex that they might later regret.Quote:
they may think they are in love, and are much more vulnerable to believing it than adults, and so the resulting actions may be harmful and regretted by the child, such as sex.
Many people (most?) are capable of thinking that they feel an emotion that they don't. There was recently a thread regarding "love at first sight". A physical response is NOT an emotion (love) but the two are often confused.
We don't have to stop sending aid to poor countries. Our compassion compels us to do so, and that's okay because it's human. If you want a population crash, you don't have to worry. As soon as our population/resources balance gets so far off the scale that we're not sitting in comfortable houses or internet cafes, eating a sandwich and ordering a latte, the population crash will happen because that's just how ecology works. We don't have to stop sending aid, or stop curing diseases, or sterilize people or implement laws on reproduction, that's all unnatural and extreme. It's against ecological principals to suggest artificial selection on a human level, it'll have consequences that we can't predict because there are all of these little relationships and fail safes that we can't see unless an aspect of the system is missing (at which point, it'll be too late). Just let things happen as they happen and stop thinking about screwing with nature, the laws of which have been around for billions of years before you were born. Trust me, it doesn't need your help.
Also, I hate it when pseudo-scientists say that love isn't real because it's correlated with a chemical release in the brain and glands, and neurons firing. "Oh, love isn't real, it's just physical!" Um, what? So is EVERYTHING. How exactly does that make it fake? Every human thought and emotion is correlated to chemical releases and feedback mechanisms in the body. Emotions and drives (including love) are "real."
Oh man, I'm out on two counts!Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
If that last was meant for me, allow me to clarify. I'm not trying to imply that LOVE is not real, I believe it may be the only thing that is. I'm just saying not every instance of attraction is love. Personally I don't think ANY initial attraction is love, but may in time become love.
"Love" is just a word representing a subjective experience. What anyone believes is love, is love. If I see a little girl walking outside of my house trip over a crack in the sidewalk and hurt her knees, then I feel a rush of tenderness for the kid and define it as a "feeling of love" to myself, then that's what it is.
I agree with this.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
It's "human", and therefore it's good?Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
It's unnatual to do everything we can, despite the cost, to ensure the (comfortable) survival of mankind. There's nothing artificial about diseased or starving people dying. It's against ecological principles to feed every animal and insect that's starving or to cure every animal that's ill.Quote:
It's against ecological principals to suggest artificial selection on a human level, it'll have consequences that we can't predict because there are all of these little relationships and fail safes that we can't see unless an aspect of the system is missing (at which point, it'll be too late).
I think creating cures for diseases, sending food to those who are starving, attempting to create rain, genetically manipulating plants and animals, locking up animals in tiny places, importing food is not natural at all. It's "civilisation" that has been screwing with nature. People seem to think they're above everything else, including the 'laws that have been around for billions of years' before we were born. People want to control every little aspect of their lives. I'm not concerned about the planet or nature. They'll be fine.Quote:
Just let things happen as they happen and stop thinking about screwing with nature, the laws of which have been around for billions of years before you were born. Trust me, it doesn't need your help.
People have become a plague. An artificially sustained plague.
I'm all for going against "nature." Nature is indistinguishable from humanity in any serious way, human use of tools is no different than termite mounds, beaver damns, or even the use of tools by birds and other primates. The only difference is the scale to which humans shape the environment around us.
Personally, the environment has very little value to me beyond its use to humanity. What good is a world that I don't exist in to me? Not that I think reckless destruction of the environment is a good thing, of course there is a limit where such behavior eventually will harm us. However, I'm all for the exploitation, alteration, and abuse of natural resources and other living things as long as it continues to benefit human beings.
Why? Because I'm a speciesist and self-interested.
People in this thread are speaking of "laws of nature" and "ecological principles" as if these were normative frameworks that describe how things should be, when in fact they are nothing more than descriptions of how things are. There is nothing inherently good or bad about the way nature is, we can maybe assume it's relatively functional since we're around to enjoy ourselves, but that's no reason to assume we aren't able to do better through interference, after all our tendency to do so has been selected for and made us, arguably, the most successful mammals on Earth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Revolte
If the same little girl's father visits her bedroom everytime he's drunk and calls that love; if he beats up the little girl's mother out of boredom and calls that love, can all these acts be considered love too because that is his definition of "feeling of love"?
Well, at least you're honest about it. You should know, however, that man's use of tools and general behaviour won't be able to benefit humans that much longer. We are bound by the laws of nature just like any other creature on this planet. To think you can escape or control them, is utterly foolish.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice!