Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design

[seek10]

It's interesting to consider that free will is not only the most basic, direct, common-sense experience, but that it is also a fundamental aspect of reality itself, i.e. of consciousness. In other words, the universe is structured so that free will is always and everywhere a reality. It can't be otherwise. No being can be truly coerced; they can only be influenced in ways to give up their own free will, some of which will be more 'coercive' in nature than others, but nothing reaching the level of complete and total overriding of the nature of consciousness. Even that can be intense (e.g., hyperdimensional influences and psychopathic manipulations and "Sophie's choices"), but at the most basic level, everything always chooses.

As for the materialists rejecting it because it implies supernaturalism, here they're only victims of their own semantics. They define nature as being materalistic and atheistic, and perception as being limited ONLY to sensory experience. So yes, free will MUST be supernatural by that definition, and so they have to reject it, because naturalism is true. But naturalism doesn't have to be materialistic, atheistic, or sensationist. In fact, the expression of free will (and the existence of consciousness, a higher/divine reality, and nonsensory perception) is part of the fabric of reality, part of the laws of nature and causation (i.e. final causation).

I don't think materialists deny physicality. Material is part of physicality. What are there any border between them.

Is there a difference in the meaning of “physical” and “material”?

Yes.
“Material” means “made of matter”, which in turn means “made of particles with rest mass”.

“Physical” means “having real existence” or, more specifically, “that can be detected and measured by objective, reproducible methods and represented mathematically”.

For example, an electromagnetic field is physical, but is not material.
While numbers can be used as part of the representation of any physical object, they are not themselves physical, because they exist in minds.

If the existence is acknowledged by 5 human senses( like touch, vision etc.), feel by individual sensitivity, antenna's( whose quality that is limited by material and EM wave used) then physicality recognition is limited by our "ability" (technology or human body). Materialists seems to have no problem saying that "we haven't discovered yet, so don't exist")or "we may find out in future"(contrary to the previous). In a way, these materialists are like police controlling what is acceptable or what is not.

 

[Turgon]

As for the whole selfishness thing, I felt like it was a repeat of the above phenomenon, only ending with inclusive fitness with some (imo) failed attempts to debunk it. Some of his examples are just so bad and not-even-wrong and strawman-y I feel compelled to share them without comment, since I think anyone smart enough to be here could figure out the problems.

This response is similar to the ones the neo-Darwinists like Richard Dawkins gave Ben Stein in his documentary, Expelled. In other words, if you are too stupid to understand then I won't waste my time explaining it to you. That's something you should watch out for because it's an indication of sacred cows and a defense of ideas that need to be put out to pasture.

 

[genero81]

I've wanted to re-read Speculum Mentis but have had too many other things to read to get back to it. However, I felt the time was right in light of our current learning to do just that. I just came across this:

"Of everything that a mind in the full sense does, it gives itself an account as it does it; and this account is inseparably bound up with the doing of the thing. Thus every activity is also a theory of itself and, by implication, of activity in general; but not necessarily a true theory. For instance, every scientist has some way of telling himself what he is doing, some logical theory as to the nature of science; but this logical theory may be and often is a quite unsound one. Nor can it's defects fail to influence the immediate scientific practice of the man who holds it; bad fashions in logic have always had detrimental effects on actual science."

Quite apropos I think

 

[whitecoast]

I'm a bit surprised, that as a long time member, you refer to another forum member's input as idiotic.

Yeah, in retrospect that was kind of aggressive of me. My apologies @hlat.

The problem is that neodarwinism is not a theory (see the underlined quote of yours above), it's rather a hodge podge of often mutually exclusive assumptions spread over 150 years (from Wallace or Romanes, to Dawkins) trying to catch up with observations that falsified the previous neodarwinian assumptions.

Well yeah, that IS how science works. You test falsifiable hypotheses and try and develop alternatives or elaborations if it requires improvement or needs to be discarded altogether if it explains nothing. The increase in nuance in the field of evolutionary biology is indicative of the science’s iterative process actually progressing. Of course that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when whole complexes of theories and explanations get scrapped in favor of something better, like in the Copernican Revolution.

To me, neodarwinism looks like a desperate ideological attempt to make the square peg of materialism fit into the round hole of a Universe pervaded by non-materialism.

I definitely think that is the case with many, while others simply may not have heard the ID arguments or studied them or their implications properly. But whatever the legitimate reasons for neodarwinism (ND) being false, it isn't for the reasons Stove brought up, as far as I can tell.

In any case, to clarify the matter, it would be useful that you describe the tenets of this modern neodarwinism you are alluding to.

Although I've done my best in talking about some aspects of it in this thread, I don't trust myself to have all the details down. I would leave that to the professionals who write textbooks on evolutionary ecology and the like. The wiki articles can provide some good sources on k/K theory, inclusive fitness, as well as a good foundation in ecology as well.

I've tried to find your answer to this point. Twice you mention "natural variation acted upon by natural selection". It seems quite vague to me, since depending on the definition given to the word "natural", the meaning of the whole statement can be drastically modified. So, can you clarify this point too?

Natural as in non-ID. Hope that helps.

You seem pretty identified, so consider that you are underestimating the impact to which you have absorbed Neodarwinism thinking and "logic". Perhaps Stove rubs you the wrong way because he is not a biologist and as a philosopher, he is quite good at getting to the crux of the matter and at pointing out selection and substitution of seemingly uncomfortable premises. Stove is particularly good at pointing out pathological thinking, so I would make an effort to understand his views. It is the most reasonable and open minded approach to take if you have been indoctrinated with pathological thinking since pretty much the day you are born.

I wouldn’t say I’m identified with materialist ND. I believe in ID based on my research. And I have been doing my best to make an effort to understand Stove’s views. But if you’re going to suggest I have some selection-and-substitution going on, or that I have pathological thoughts, I would like to hear evidence in support of your view.

The reason [for ND being false] is this: For "random mutations + natural selection" to work out at all, you need this insane pressure; otherwise there is no way any rare mutation could be selected.

The mechanism of ND evolution (mutation + natural selection) works at whatever pace its inputs allow, slow or fast. If there's far less selection pressure (say, if the environment was actually agreeable and resources were plentiful and the population stayed within carrying capacity) then there simply isn't any need for evolution from an objective standpoint to even change the population. Since k-selective species support one of those requirements (not reproducing crazily) they are both theorized to, and have been observed to, evolve more slowly than r-selective.

These are not straw men, because ridiculous as Stove's examples are, they are what these inclusive fitness theories DO imply! As he says - how many of these ridiculous and obviously wrong predictions do you allow for a theory before you simply say: this theory is completely wrong!? You know, if you really believe we are all about multiplying genes, and therefore are more altruistic towards everything that contains our genes, you really do need to solve problems like "why aren't sperms more altruistic towards each other" or why certain micro-organisms who share large amounts of genes battle each other and so on. Ridiculous, yes? But not because of Stove's examples, but because of the ridiculous theory producing them! Once you get rid of that theory, you stop trying to defend it against all evidence and logical fallacies.

As far as I can tell they are straw men. Stove is essentially claiming biologists assign these additional theories a predictive power that does not match what is actually seen empirically, which isn’t the case. Deductive refutation via negativa, probably the mental tool he is most familiar with as a philosopher, doesn't necessarily disprove a theory or formulation that is inductive or statistically predictive in nature, and I'll explain why below.

If you develop a hypothesis or theory that explains maybe 60% of the variance that is seen in nature, that’s still better than having no clue why things are the way they are. But if I were Stove I could just find an example of an object that happens to be part of the 40% and go, “See? Theory falsified”. But that is fallacious because that doesn’t nullify the 60% that was explained.

Say you empirically look at a ton of examples in the 40%, and refine and develop your theory to include other elements that explain an additional 20%, topping up now to explaining 80% of the variation in total. Would this convince Stove that the theory and process used to produce and elaborate on it is helpful? If Darwinian Fairytales is anything to go by, Stove would point to that item in the 20% of cases not explained and say that that disproves the theory, never mind the 80% it actually explained.

That’s ultimately what all his wrong-headed counterfactuals come down to (his notions about cherishing one’s sperm and eggs as much children, or wondering why robins are able to be fooled by experimenters, or being genuinely puzzled why apes don’t permit child-napping). He makes the same fallacy back with Darwin and his talk about what is now called the r-selective nature of reproductive and survival strategies. It just shows a lack of understanding of the field and the other behavioral forces at play. If biology doesn’t explain something currently, that doesn’t mean what CAN be understood is necessarily false. That kind of demand or standard is roughly akin to demanding all historical events be explainable in terms of sociology, ponerology, dialectics, marxism, Thule Society mysticism, etc.

You contradict yourself here

It isn't contradictory to say that two different people who disagree on one point can agree on another for different reasons and for different agendas. I am referring to how some ND proponents and some ID proponents say that ND = selfishness and non-altruism in organisms. I dislike them both. As per Hume, you cannot derive prescriptive statements from descriptive ones, which is what they're doing.

Jesus, I don't deny at all that this is a good strategy!

You can say that, but you do imply the opposite a lot by saying that ND would destroy an adaptive tendency toward cooperation in an organism (and there’s no logical reason to even think such, as I explained earlier). You demonstrate it here: “some ridiculous argument that 'altruistic behavior' was a good thing for the tribe and therefore we have it” (implying that altruism is not selected for and therefore is not a good strategy). And here: “In the [materialist] view, why would you not cheat and act selfish and lie and scheme whenever you can get away with it? It will pay off, after all!” (Sometimes it can, but often it doesn’t, as JBP or Samenow stress in their books about crime and cheating not paying off long-term.) For what it's worth.

You really don't see the difference between recognizing something higher, a deeper purpose of life and the universe, and some ridiculous argument that "altruistic behavior was a good thing for the tribe and therefore we have it"? In the latter view: why would you not cheat and act selfish and lie and scheme whenever you can get away with it? It will pay off, after all! But if you believe there are natural laws, there is a purpose, and there is an intelligent universe/God/whatever, you have something to strive for, something to set against your selfish impulses. It's beyond me how you could doubt that here on this forum, of all places!

Let me put this question to you. Say the universe really was just all materialism. Would you actually start going out and preoccupying yourself with burglary and murder? Whether you are a product of ID or ND, you are still you, with your biological imperatives, culturally acquired behaviors and beliefs, and your personal decisions. Whether the DNA inside of you was put there through design, or all of it accrued through random mutation, you’re still you and cannot defy your own nature and the potentiality of that nature. You still are the person who (let’s hope) exudes love and fairness and loyalty and respect and responsibility, and who feels on some level an impulse to fulfill those things. Damasio's Strange Order of Things goes into some of the nuts and bolts of this. Laura said something to the same effect earlier on in response to “what if the C's weren't real.”

On the other hand you may not be predisposed to all those lofty sentiments. In this universe of ID, there are also psychopaths designed by STS. By bringing that into the loop you’re forced to consider the possibility that even the psychopaths sending millions to mass graves in the 20th century were just carrying out a “higher purpose” if ID is true. Obviously that implication doesn’t mean it’s false though. Sure adds a layer of creepiness to the Psychopathic God, combined with Masquerade of Angels. Anyway, my point is that whether you believe intellectually in a purposeful or purposeless universe, you still are whatever designed or formed you. There's no escaping that. Atheists or ND proponents can still act with morality and purposefulness, but as Approaching Infinity said once, they do somewhat contradict themselves in doing so. Which is fine. People are full of internal contradictions and lies, so what's one more for your average 3D human? To someone doing The Work, they do need to resolve that contradiction and find some way to see the universe as objectively purposeful, because resolving the issue the other way around is simply infeasible. Sorry if this is starting to get tangential.

And no wonder! Indoctrinated scientists hate sound philosophy. Because it makes their unconscious assumptions conscious, shows how ridiculous they are, and to what ridiculous conclusions they lead. It also brings to light all the contradictions in their beliefs. But they would rather prefer ignoring all that, and/or jumping through endless hoops to save their sacred cows.

According to a few cursory internet searches there are a lot more theistic biologists (percentage-wise) than theistic philosophers. Do with that information what you will.

I think your recent posts here had a strange emotional undercurrent, like a stubborn, rebelling and condescending flavor.

That's kind of interesting. And I'm sorry for the internally considerate tone. I did trim this reply down of that stuff as much as I was able. And if I may say so, I'd say you've had more than a little vehemence and cavalierness yourself when it came to Stove and your responses to me ("Stove is more of a Clint Eastwood type smashing into the saloon and causing bloody mayhem", "ridiculous", "precious theory", "nonsense", "wrong!", yada yada). I guess I did mind your defensiveness in the end. But I do appreciate you saying I don't have to like everything Stove says (and I did say there were some chapters I did like, namely the take-downs of Dawkins and the ND folk who hate altruism).

"I studied biology, you fools!"

That's a rather uncharitable interpretation luc. I mentioned my education twice, once pertaining to how it may have influenced my interests in some of Stove's points relative to other ID authors who have more biological training, and once because my experience as a biology undergraduate directly related to the point I was making about how a certain topic is treated in academia. At no point did I ever tell you to just accept my word on anything I've mentioned related to biology just because of my education - that would be idiotic of me and against the spirit of the forum.

That necessarily means that every now and then, we'll be chucking a book across the room, we'll feel angry, depressed, identified, etc. If that's not happening, probably we're not doing it right. Oh, and by the time we wake up tomorrow morning, many things that were true will be false, and vice versa!

But when those times come, that is precisely when we need to have enough faith and trust in our fellow travelers that maybe they are seeing something we are not.

I do have trust in the process, and am able to change my mind. And I do feel that that runs both ways here successfully, which is why I feel like I can share long posts here which may not exactly "fit" the consensus of some here. Worst case scenario is I learn something, correct some beliefs, and maybe feel a bit silly for a bit, but so what?

This response is similar to the ones the neo-Darwinists like Richard Dawkins gave Ben Stein in his documentary, Expelled. In other words, if you are too stupid to understand then I won't waste my time explaining it to you. That's something you should watch out for because it's an indication of sacred cows and a defense of ideas that need to be put out to pasture.

If you'll notice Turgon, I actually said the opposite in the quote you grabbed. But since it looks like some people didn't make the inferences I was expecting, I decided to elaborate further up when talking about Stove's counterfactuals, and the general problem they face. I hope it's clear(er).

 

[Turgon]

If you'll notice Turgon, I actually said the opposite in the quote you grabbed. But since it looks like some people didn't make the inferences I was expecting, I decided to elaborate further up when talking about Stove's counterfactuals, and the general problem they face.

Even though you said the opposite, it isn't difficult to read between the lines. For all your intellectual prowess, and admittedly, most of the post you just wrote has me scratching my head, what's clear is there seems to be an emotional undertone to your last few posts that stands out, and it's not so much that you're having a disagreement, but how you are going about it. For whatever reason you've decided to bare your teeth which indicates there's more going on here than a simple disagreement. So what's up? Instead of digging your heels and doubling-down, now would be a good time to adopt the true spirit of Science and open discovery and look into what's going on with you and do your best to leave any emotional and intellectual biases aside.

I wouldn’t say I’m identified with materialist ND. I believe in ID based on my research. And I have been doing my best to make an effort to understand Stove’s views. But if you’re going to suggest I have some selection-and-substitution going on, or that I have pathological thoughts, I would like to hear evidence in support of your view.

Here-in lies a good example. If multiple people who are fairly objective and accurate at making assessments are saying similar things and sounding the alarms, but you still demand evidence, then it'll be difficult to open your eyes or convince you of anything other than what you already believe to be true. So I think it should be an assumption not that you don't select and substitute data, and have adopted pathological beliefs, but that you have and are and work from that vantage point. At least there's more humility in that approach.

 

[Cosmos]

What a person studies doesn't really matter much. Sure, it matters in the sense that it provides a foundational knowledge base about a certain topic, but that's about it.

For example, I've lost count of the number of people I have met who have degrees in psychology, but virtually no application of that knowledge to themselves - no real insight into the inner workings of their own minds. It's almost like clockwork.

It is actually a scientifically proven fact as far as I know that Daniel Kahneman brought up in the book „thinking fast and slow“ that people who work at a certain profession professionally, are usually much worse on the same thing privately as the everage person. A Psychologist for example is on everage pretty bad in appling the same things he is doing professionally on himself and in the private life. Or a policeman is usually worst at being good privately and so on...

 

[Martina]

It is actually a scientifically proven fact as far as I know that Daniel Kahneman brought up in the book „thinking fast and slow“ that people who work at a certain profession professionally, are usually much worse on the same thing privately as the everage person. A Psychologist for example is on everage pretty bad in appling the same things he is doing professionally on himself and in the private life. Or a policeman is usually worst at being good privately and so on...

Exactly! I pretty much understand your posts but in private life I live with Richard Dawkins.

 

[John G]

Well yeah, that IS how science works. You test falsifiable hypotheses and try and develop alternatives or elaborations if it requires improvement or needs to be discarded altogether if it explains nothing...

If you develop a hypothesis or theory that explains maybe 60% of the variance that is seen in nature, that’s still better than having no clue why things are the way they are. But if I were Stove I could just find an example of an object that happens to be part of the 40% and go, “See? Theory falsified”. But that is fallacious because that doesn’t nullify the 60% that was explained...

The problem is that once a theory gets entrenched say Darwinism or string theory; it tends to never have its basic ideas questioned enough to ever be discarded even if it's required. You must always look at the other 40% when working on the 60%. Ark once mentioned here a gravity theory that is great and explains everything about gravity. Unfortunately it also has absolutely no hope of connecting to the rest of the known force particles (electroweak and strong). At some point you have to realize that the way you are doing your 60% has no hope of being compatible with the other 40%.

This doesn't mean the base or the added layers are totally wrong; genetics is a good base and epigenetics is a good added layer. For string theory, branes were a good added layer according to the Cs in a session last year and this would mean the basic string connection between branes was good too. The problem is the entrenched ideas that don't fit (like random mutations just happening to show up in bunches at the correct times or supersymmetry for string theory) and leave you unable to explain a lot. The idea isn't that the other 40% can't be explained; it's that it has no hope of being explained using the sacred core ideas of the current 60%.

 

[Voyageur]

The second question I asked was about remote interception of signals from a computer. Puters emit radio waves. Theoretically, if one had a good enough antenna and amplifier, one could pick up and "decode" those emissions from afar, thereby seeing what a person was doing on their puter. No no, I was reassured, that's not possible because the signals would be so weak as to be below the noise floor (IOW, they would look like background noise). Fast forward about 10 years, and oh! Look at that! It became public knowledge that the alphabet soup agencies already had a gizmo that could pick up the emissions from a puter monitor cable or whatever and effectively see what you were doing on your puter - noise floor be damned!

Interesting you brought that up as a question at uni (with tech understanding) as it was almost exactly the same thing that was described in a book as recalled (fiction) in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (2002). When I read this book initially that scene stayed in mind, reading the screen through walls from emitted signals, and of course as you said of your question back then "Fast forward about 10 years, and oh! Look at that!"

Back to the subject at hand:

A short video that I think relates to this topic (hopefully for obvious reasons "scientists wondering why trees act in such an altruistic way").

Altrusim can hardly be understood unless these scientiest are willing to question the assumptions of the prevailing materialistic theory, which we know is rarely the case, especially since it comes with a price of being ostracized from the scientific community, among other things, as shown by Leisola. What usually happens is that things like altrusim get twisted and turned into a caricature to support their theory, claiming that altrusim is really nothing more than poorly disguisde selfishness.

A little over a year ago attend a small group talk (around 20 people) in a cafe with this prof. Her work is on this very network described above in the video. A network of microscopic information that seems to inform on a vast level. From the onset, this talk was as much about a world of ID coded exchanges resulting in sensing and requests for x, y or z etc. being sent out among them and less (unless one was inculcated to it) of a Darwinist mindset, and yet that was still there between the sentences and in the Q&A at the end in trying to make it all fit as a modern 'science.'

In this group talk, though, it was a mixture with some aligned with a new age foundation, and for them their questions resonated from this end. For the prof., though, there was something of the miraculous in her telling as her voice resonated in the direction of a complex design in the microbial world (fungi) being a highway of information reacting in chemical nutrient exchanges - and thus code. She seemed to be trying to described from the biologist in her (from her indoctrinated processes) something that was difficult to laydown on the foundations learned. Of course her discourse leans to the accepted models in scientific Darwinian circles, and I don't know how much struggle was going on in her of a more ID system, if any, and would have to review the recording I had made of the exchange. As with some like Behe who indeed questions, she semed to question and yet not so deeply that it strays far from the standards being taught.

 

[Oxajil]

I mentioned my education twice, once pertaining to how it may have influenced my interests

Just wanted to share my experience in case it helps:

I got my bachelor's in Biology (three years) and what I observed is a glorification of Darwin, by professors, students, etc. There was one blog post by a fellow student who said that if she could be anyone for a day, it would be Darwin. I kinda rolled my eyes when I read that.

I had the luck that I knew of Darwin's shortcomings through the forum at that time (if I remember correctly), so I could to some extent distance myself from all of that. The idea of Intelligent Design as people wrote about in this thread makes a lot of sense to me.

But I can see the great focus on Darwin's work and himself at the university and how it affected the opinions of students.

Remember what Laura wrote here:

And I think that the main ponerization processes begin among "intellectuals" at universities because those are the guides and teachers of the young. Universities train teachers of even younger children, and thus it becomes easy to poison an entire society in a single generation if you have the power to determine what is "correct". Lobaczewski also talked about the corruption and abuse of psychiatry/psychology as a key part in the process.

I hope to start reading Behe's books and the others mentioned here next week and challenge any Darwinian thinking processes. Throughout my studies, I always viewed the forum as the main school and the university as a secondary, poor, school.

 

[Starshine]

Speaking of trees, I really enjoyed Peter Wholleben's book: Amazon.com: The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World (9781771642484): Peter Wohlleben, Jane Billinghurst, Tim Flannery: Books
A few extracts and quotes from the web:

The Secret Life of Trees: The Astonishing Science of What Trees Feel and How They Communicate

“A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.”

www.brainpickings.org

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (book extract) - Daily Review: Film, stage and music reviews, interviews and more.

The Hidden Life of Trees What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries From A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben (Black Inc.) …

dailyreview.com.au

He wrote a few other books that I would love to get into, enjoyable read to get more flavor of the inherent intelligence in 'nature'.

Some quotes that would apply here:

Why are trees such social beings? Why do they share food with their own species and sometimes even go so far as to nourish their competitors? The reasons are the same as for human communities: there are advantages to working together. A tree is not a forest. On its own, a tree cannot establish a consistent local climate. It is at the mercy of wind and weather. But together, many trees create an ecosystem that moderates extremes of heat and cold, stores a great deal of water, and generates a great deal of humidity. And in this protected environment, trees can live to be very old. To get to this point, the community must remain intact no matter what. If every tree were looking out only for itself, then quite a few of them would never reach old age. Regular fatalities would result in many large gaps in the tree canopy, which would make it easier for storms to get inside the forest and uproot more trees. The heat of summer would reach the forest floor and dry it out. Every tree would suffer.
Every tree, therefore, is valuable to the community and worth keeping around for as long as possible. And that is why even sick individuals are supported and nourished until they recover. Next time, perhaps it will be the other way round, and the supporting tree might be the one in need of assistance.
[…]
A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.

[Oh! Double quote! The indentation made it happen, I thought it was not possible anymore.]

Every tree is a member of this community, but there are different levels of membership. For example, most stumps rot away into humus and disappear within a couple of hundred years (which is not very long for a tree). Only a few individuals are kept alive over the centuries… What’s the difference? Do tree societies have second-class citizens just like human societies? It seems they do, though the idea of “class” doesn’t quite fit. It is rather the degree of connection — or maybe even affection — that decides how helpful a tree’s colleagues will be.

 

[Gaby]

I wouldn’t say I’m identified with materialist ND. I believe in ID based on my research. And I have been doing my best to make an effort to understand Stove’s views. But if you’re going to suggest I have some selection-and-substitution going on, or that I have pathological thoughts, I would like to hear evidence in support of your view.

None are more blind than those who refuse to see. In other words, the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Here-in lies a good example. If multiple people who are fairly objective and accurate at making assessments are saying similar things and sounding the alarms, but you still demand evidence, then it'll be difficult to open your eyes or convince you of anything other than what you already believe to be true. So I think it should be an assumption not that you don't select and substitute data, and have adopted pathological beliefs, but that you have and are and work from that vantage point. At least there's more humility in that approach.

Very well said. And it is really no rocket science.

 

[whitecoast]

None are more blind than those who refuse to see.

Gaby, you said I was doing selection-and-substitution, thinking pathologically, etc. When someone says something like that to you, it's usually because they (at least think they) identified something you said as pathological. In the "spirit of discovery" I asked, what were those things? Luc was able to bring up examples of problems he found Gaby, as did Turgon (in his last post). If you're able to make a bunch of general accusations, but then don't point to the examples/reasons after I asked you to because I was interested in what you had to say, then what am I to think? Did you not share anything specific because you were worried about your examples being criticized or rejected by me? Am I swine, and your speech pearls? Earlier on Turgon mentioned that the attitude "if you are too stupid to understand then I won't waste my time explaining it to you" is very unhelpful, and I agree with him, and I'm sure you do too. But that's the attitude I see you displaying, both in not giving what I asked for originally (examples and reasons for why you think X), and in your most recent post, which is kind of terse and condescending. Maybe even a little frustrated, Gaby?

I wouldn’t say I’m identified with materialist ND. I believe in ID based on my research. And I have been doing my best to make an effort to understand Stove’s views. But if you’re going to suggest I have some selection-and-substitution going on, or that I have pathological thoughts, I would like to hear evidence in support of your view.

Here-in lies a good example. If multiple people who are fairly objective and accurate at making assessments are saying similar things and sounding the alarms, but you still demand evidence, then it'll be difficult to open your eyes or convince you of anything other than what you already believe to be true. So I think it should be an assumption not that you don't select and substitute data, and have adopted pathological beliefs, but that you have and are and work from that vantage point. At least there's more humility in that approach.

I did frame the above as a general request, in response to some criticism I got that I was being too barbed, but Gaby was the more specific intended recipient because she didn't present reasons as others had (which is why it was to her I replied). I was satisfied and happy that others (like luc) cared to elaborate. The assumption that I work with is that it's always possible that I have thinking errors and the like. I am open to seeing people point to them, so that I may see them as well, or at least meditate and introspect on things to try and develop the ability to see them if I can't in my less aware original state. But that needs to happen organically, and I just don't think it's beneficial to me to uncritically believe things are true if I don't understand why they're true. And if your response to this is going to be, "well okay, but sort yourself out on that front privately, without wasting your and other people's time by writing responses to critiques that (at least some of) your criticizers find insubstantial"... I would probably just listen. Up to you guys on how to proceed, I'm open.

 

[hlat]

But that's the attitude I see you displaying, both in not giving what I asked for originally (examples and reasons for why you think X), and in your most recent post, which is kind of terse and condescending. Maybe even a little frustrated, Gaby?

Why don't you shut up with the name calling? Even if you think you were slighted, just keep your mouth shut. Notice how I didn't try to attack you when you said idiotic?

Although I've done my best in talking about some aspects of it in this thread, I don't trust myself to have all the details down. I would leave that to the professionals who write textbooks on evolutionary ecology and the like.

You don't even know what you are fighting for. You are wrong, and fighting for wrong. No one is going to change your mind; you have the free will to change it. Your willingness is demonstrated by what you do and not what you say.

Part of the reason psychopaths get away with their crimes against humans is that people hate to admit and are embarrassed to say that they were duped by the psychopaths. Here we have a situation where mainstream science and academia have been duped, and they collectively are going to fight against the idea that they were duped by the psychopathic darwinians. Throw in some victims of narcissism who regard criticism of an idea they have as an attack on their very identities, and it's going to be a tough road to dislodge fake darwinism.

A psychopath will say things like I've never committed a violent crime but I once killed a man (from Without Conscience by Robert Hare). That's the logic of a psychopath and the logic of darwinism; they say altruism is selfish as if that makes any sense. That's the kind of stuff that will make regular people lose their minds.

The society of regular people celebrates charities and volunteers and good deeds and good samaritans. And then we have well meaning academics like Haidt struggling to explain cooperation because he has taken the darwinian predator's mind, a psychopathic materialist mind. No wonder why many people have a dim view of the ivory tower.

 

[fabric]

Gaby, you said I was doing selection-and-substitution, thinking pathologically, etc.

Not exactly. She said Stove was good at pointing it out. Then she said if you have been indoctrinated – which applies to almost anyone that has studied any science (and other fields) in University/college etc. That would include you, yet for some reason you think you are exempt from having been through the indoctrination. And that would be an example of Dunning-Kruger. As for selection and substitution, which you are doing now by taking what she said about the former (that Stove was pointing it out) and making it about you would be an example.

In any case, you decided to take it personally, as if it was some sort of slight. It wasn’t to begin with yet you’ve somehow created this narrative and decided to nitpick on this one point which was based on a shaky assumption on your part.

So then the question is are you really interested in what she was to say? Especially after Turgon said:

If multiple people who are fairly objective and accurate at making assessments are saying similar things and sounding the alarms, but you still demand evidence, then it'll be difficult to open your eyes or convince you of anything other than what you already believe to be true.

Instead of continuing to ‘demand evidence’ you could have taken his advice and began with that premise instead of finding an excuse (“I just don't think it's beneficial to me to uncritically believe things are true if I don't understand why they're true ”) to relieve yourself from what was being asked.

It’s like a bunch of people telling you that you have a blue dot on your face. You look in the mirror and don’t see anything but everyone is telling you it is there. They even tell you why it’s there and why you can’t see it. So do you believe them or not? No matter what they say about it, do you know any better about why it is true? If you don’t believe them, then you aren’t any closer to finding out why. If you do, despite not being able to see or understand it, then you have something to work with.

When confronting uncomfortable things about oneself we rarely know why they are true, and often don’t want to know, even when we say we do. Hence the narratives and mental gymnastics. Instead of being fixated on what Gaby said, perhaps it would be more beneficial to work with what you already have in terms of feedback. You don't need all the pieces of the puzzle or all the evidence to begin the process of understanding why they are true even if you don't believe it at first. Otherwise you are just wasting time.