Now that is real faith

[Syzygys]

You guys seem to hang up on this natural selection thingy. When we are talking about sociology, anything what humans do is natural. If we annihilate ourselves in a nuclear war, that is natural selection, and our species won't survive. It would still be natural, since humans caused it.

Now to show an example what wouldn't be natural for humans is the act of gods or aliens. If let's say God interferes and does this or that to humans, (the same with aliens) that wouldn't be natural, so if God selectively wipes out a nation or race, that would be unnatural selection. I guess I could list here a giant meteor too, although literally that would be natural, but not sociologically speaking...

At least that's how I look at it, and if you disagree, tough luck....

 

[Aqueous Id]

You guys seem to hang up on this natural selection thingy. When we are talking about sociology, anything what humans do is natural.

By contrast:

 

[Syzygys]

Artifical selection means human selection and that is natural is sociology.

 

[iceaura]

But even if we talk about technology, we can assume that overall, the winners' collective brain capacity was better than the losers'.

No, we can’t. We have no evidence of such a pattern, at least not in modern times.
People with experience have even asserted the opposite – that beyond a certain minimum, the Lamarckian evolution of human technology and culture has removed some of the Darwinian pressure on human mental capability, allowing reproduction by people simply too stupid to live in a low-tech society.
So that in modern wars won by cultural factors and technological superiorities, overall mental capacity of winners has quite possibly been less than that of losers.

But since humankind continuously has improved in the last few thousand years, we can assume it does.

It hasn’t, and the assumption would not be safe anyway.

Let's talk about Romans. They ruled the known world, occasionally whipping out nations. Then a stronger nation came, and Rome fell. The newer and stronger always replacing the weaker.

The nations that replaced the Roman empire were not stronger than that empire in any obvious way. The years that followed came to be known as the Dark Ages, for confused reasons, but illustrating the lack of apparent superiority of the human cultures and people who replaced the Roman Empire’s cultures and people.

You guys seem to hang up on this natural selection thingy. When we are talking about sociology, anything what humans do is natural.

Without care, which is not apparent so far, you will end up confusing Lamarckian evolution, and other evolutionary patterns, with Darwinian evolution.

 

[Sarkus]

You guys seem to hang up on this natural selection thingy. When we are talking about sociology, anything what humans do is natural. If we annihilate ourselves in a nuclear war, that is natural selection, and our species won't survive. It would still be natural, since humans caused it.

That's more survival of the fittest... which is not the same as natural selection.

But I think you could argue it both ways, to be fair, but it depends on what you consider natural selection to be.

To me, natural selection, as understood as a mechanism of evolution, is where biological traits become more or less common as a result of the propensity of the population to reproduce with those holding those traits.

I therefore can't see how Communism can be seen within the remit of natural selection: there is no aspect of biology that I am aware of that results in one adopting communism over another government style.


Survival of the fittest, however, is certainly another mechanism of evolution, and some societies' willingness to adopt one regime, one belief over another, could lead to that society either dominating or being dominated by another... and thus they might be more/less fit etc.

So personally I don't think differences in individual societies is really anything to do with natural selection.
One might certainly consider the diversity of human beliefs and societies to be a trait that could, through survival of the fittest, either be a benefit or detriment in the long term evolution of our race... e.g. wiping ourselves out as a result of the diversity would be a detriment. But this is a different evolutionary mechanism to natural selection.

And there other theories of evolution that may be even more applicable.

 

[Neverfly]

But I think you could argue it both ways, to be fair, but it depends on what you consider natural selection to be.

To me, natural selection, as understood as a mechanism of evolution, is where biological traits become more or less common as a result of the propensity of the population to reproduce with those holding those traits.

I therefore can't see how Communism can be seen within the remit of natural selection: there is no aspect of biology that I am aware of that results in one adopting communism over another government style.

It's there, just extremely complex. The biology of it has to do with fields in science that are still in their infancy- a lot of the medical field, where there is a great deal about the biology of the brain yet to be learned. Psychology, almost a pseudoscience; currently we cannot track and map all the complex interactions and actions of the human brain.
Someday, these will be hard sciences.

Survival of the fittest, however, is certainly another mechanism of evolution, and some societies' willingness to adopt one regime, one belief over another, could lead to that society either dominating or being dominated by another... and thus they might be more/less fit etc.

The "fittest" has always bothered me in usage. There is no "fittest." Maybe only a 'most fit at that moment.'
We're not really in a position to decide who is fit and who isn't even when we may think it's obvious (a person with normal limbs may feel he is more fit than one with webbed short limbs and big feet) simply because not only environment, but changes to environment determine that, not our egos (Global flood from uhhh a combo of global warming and a big icey comet soft landing in the Pacific).

 

[Sarkus]

It's there, just extremely complex. The biology of it has to do with fields in science that are still in their infancy- a lot of the medical field, where there is a great deal about the biology of the brain yet to be learned. Psychology, almost a pseudoscience; currently we cannot track and map all the complex interactions and actions of the human brain.
Someday, these will be hard sciences.

But will a trait such as a society's move toward a specific politics ever truly be biological? Or will the biological aspect be more a tendency toward apathy, or to gullibility, or to submission - and the subject of that trait (e.g. communism) merely a meme that is prevalent on which our biology works.
I.e. I personally can't see how biology can be so specific as to target a certain politics... I've neither read nor seen anything that suggests it occurs.
But if the science subsequently suggests otherwise then so be it.

The "fittest" has always bothered me in usage. There is no "fittest." Maybe only a 'most fit at that moment.'

Sure - the mechanism is with regard a given environment, and if the environment is in equilibrium then all species generating that equilibrium are "fit".
All we can say at present is that those species alive at the moment are "fit", and those that have died out were "unfit" for the environment when they died out.
But we can not say we are "fit" for an environment in the future, when we have no idea what that environment is.

We're not really in a position to decide who is fit and who isn't even when we may think it's obvious (a person with normal limbs may feel he is more fit than one with webbed short limbs and big feet) simply because not only environment, but changes to environment determine that, not our egos (Global flood from uhhh a combo of global warming and a big icey comet soft landing in the Pacific).

Agreed. "Fit" in evolutionary terms is surely a retrospective label only... i.e. we can determine what was more "fit" than other species, simply because they survived, either through adaptation or existing hardiness etc.
To say we are more fit than, say, dogs, or a house-fly, is meaningless... as we are all currently fit for our role in the environment. Species that become extinct because of human intervention (e.g. cutting down the rain-forest) can be deemed no longer fit, as they couldn't survive the changing environment that humans wrought upon them.

 

[Neverfly]

But will a trait such as a society's move toward a specific politics ever truly be biological? Or will the biological aspect be more a tendency toward apathy, or to gullibility, or to submission - and the subject of that trait (e.g. communism) merely a meme that is prevalent on which our biology works.
I.e. I personally can't see how biology can be so specific as to target a certain politics... I've neither read nor seen anything that suggests it occurs.
But if the science subsequently suggests otherwise then so be it.

I think I presented myself poorly there.
Let me try it this way:
There is a biological reason why peoples minds work as they do. A biological reason why they might follow a leader, why they might tolerate a regime or why they might choose to agree with one.
As a complex moving system, we cannot organize that, currently, into a scientific Theory of Politics.
But I'm suggesting that it is biology that drives it even if we do not have a working or plausible theory.

 

[aaqucnaona]

Not to forget Nazism, and the eugenics programme championed by Margaret Sanger, which is still in effect today under the guise of abortion.

jan.

Oh jan, I dont remember you being that irrational! Thats some miss california stuff there!

 

[Jan Ardena]

Oh jan, I dont remember you being that irrational! Thats some miss california stuff there!

jan.

 

[Balerion]

You guys seem to hang up on this natural selection thingy. When we are talking about sociology, anything what humans do is natural. If we annihilate ourselves in a nuclear war, that is natural selection, and our species won't survive. It would still be natural, since humans caused it.

Now to show an example what wouldn't be natural for humans is the act of gods or aliens. If let's say God interferes and does this or that to humans, (the same with aliens) that wouldn't be natural, so if God selectively wipes out a nation or race, that would be unnatural selection. I guess I could list here a giant meteor too, although literally that would be natural, but not sociologically speaking...

At least that's how I look at it, and if you disagree, tough luck....

You're getting trounced here, Syz. And at any rate, you're the one who absolved the Nazis by claiming that what they did was "natural selection." You've been shown to be wrong on that count. Act like an adult and admit it.

 

[lightgigantic]

Wrong.

While it is true that persecution of the Jews has a very long history in Europe, it is also true that science in the twentieth century revived and absolutized persecution by giving it a fresh rationale — Jewishness was not religious or cultural, but genetic. Therefore no appeal could be made against the brute fact of a Jewish grandparent.
Dawkins deals with all this in one sentence. Hitler did his evil "in the name of. . . an insane and unscientific eugenics theory." But eugenics is science as surely as totemism is religion. That either is in error is beside the point. Science quite appropriately acknowledges that error should be assumed, and at best it proceeds by a continuous process of criticism meant to isolate and identify error. So bad science is still science in more or less the same sense that bad religion is still religion. That both of them can do damage on a huge scale is clear. The prestige of both is a great part of the problem, and in the modern period the credibility of anything called science is enormous. As the history of eugenics proves, science at the highest levels is no reliable corrective to the influence of cultural prejudice but is in fact profoundly vulnerable to it.
There is indeed historical precedent in the Spanish Inquisition for the notion of hereditary Judaism. But the fact that the worst religious thought of the sixteenth century can be likened to the worst scientific thought of the twentieth century hardly redounds to the credit of science."

 

[spidergoat]

The Nazi conception of eugenics was accompanied by a huge portion of pseudoscience and only minimal adherence to scientific principles. Why would Jews be considered inferior? Not based on any scientific principle, but rather a pseudoscience of Nazi creation that measured forehead ridges, the shape the head, the shape of the nose and placed human beings on a continuum of evolution with Aryans at the "top" and blacks at the "bottom".

 

[iceaura]

While it is true that persecution of the Jews has a very long history in Europe, it is also true that science in the twentieth century revived and absolutized persecution by giving it a fresh rationale — Jewishness was not religious or cultural, but genetic. Therefore no appeal could be made against the brute fact of a Jewish grandparent.

Genetics, as a science, dates to the discovery and recognition of DNA's role - early 1940's, maybe.

Science has never given anyone a rationale for thinking Jewishness is genetic.

The notion that Jewishness is genetic is no more a part of science than is the notion that Relativity theory is Jewish (another Nazi belief), or (from another tyranny) the notion that Darwinian theory is wrong because it supports capitalism.

That's not bad science. It's no science.

 

[lightgigantic]

The Nazi conception of eugenics was accompanied by a huge portion of pseudoscience and only minimal adherence to scientific principles. Why would Jews be considered inferior? Not based on any scientific principle, but rather a pseudoscience of Nazi creation that measured forehead ridges, the shape the head, the shape of the nose and placed human beings on a continuum of evolution with Aryans at the "top" and blacks at the "bottom".

That's just like trying to say that totemism is not religion or eugenics is not science

:shrug:

 

[lightgigantic]

Genetics, as a science, dates to the discovery and recognition of DNA's role - early 1940's, maybe.

Science has never given anyone a rationale for thinking Jewishness is genetic.

The notion that Jewishness is genetic is no more a part of science than is the notion that Relativity theory is Jewish (another Nazi belief), or (from another tyranny) the notion that Darwinian theory is wrong because it supports capitalism.

That's not bad science. It's no science.

So you think its merely a coincidence that the forbears of nazi eugenics not only had scientific credentials but used them extensively to rationalize their views?

 

[seagypsy]

By contrast:

Arifical selection means human selection and that is natural is sociology.

I find it curious that certain groups do not consider activities by humans to be natural. While at the same time these same groups argue that homosexual behavior is not natural and subsequent marriages are not natural.

From the way they see the definition of natural, nothing we do is natural so why get in a stink about non-heterosexual behavior. Marriage is something unique to humans, so marriage is not natural. If doing what is natural is equated with being right, then we also shouldn't fly in planes, study the ocean floor, or go to outer space. These are activities unique to human behavior and therefore not natural. Ironically homosexual behavior is NOT unique to humans, so I guess it is more natural than marriage... makes ya wonder... doesn't it.

 

[Sarkus]

So you think its merely a coincidence that the forbears of nazi eugenics not only had scientific credentials but used them extensively to rationalize their views?

Ah, your classic appeal to authority.
"If a scientist says it then it must be so!"

I could label Intelligent Design a science - and there are even credentialled scientists who adhere to the "theory" of ID.
But it still doesn't make it a science.

Similarly Dawkins wasn't criticising eugenics in his statement, merely the practice and unscientific theories that the nazis carried out in the name of eugenics.

Unless you can somehow show that either Dawkins was criticising eugenics (properly conducted) as a science, or that what the nazis did in the name of eugenics was properly labelled as such and not based on unscientific principles.

 

[lightgigantic]

Ah, your classic appeal to authority.
"If a scientist says it then it must be so!"

That depends entirely whether they are lending scientific authority to their statements

I could label Intelligent Design a science - and there are even credentialled scientists who adhere to the "theory" of ID.
But it still doesn't make it a science.

the fact that you (and others) label non-ID design a science illustrates a clear dichotomy in your thinking that is conveniently avoided ...

Similarly Dawkins wasn't criticising eugenics in his statement, merely the practice and unscientific theories that the nazis carried out in the name of eugenics.

Yet he blathers quite a lot about how godlessness is the natural consequence of a scientific outlook

:shrug:

Unless you can somehow show that either Dawkins was criticising eugenics (properly conducted) as a science, or that what the nazis did in the name of eugenics was properly labelled as such and not based on unscientific principles.

regardless whether we are talking about nazi ideas of eugenics or dawkins ideas of god and the universe, it is all milling about in the same shroud of authority ... hence :

So bad science is still science in more or less the same sense that bad religion is still religion. That both of them can do damage on a huge scale is clear. The prestige of both is a great part of the problem, and in the modern period the credibility of anything called science is enormous. As the history of eugenics proves, science at the highest levels is no reliable corrective to the influence of cultural prejudice but is in fact profoundly vulnerable to it.

 

[Sarkus]

That depends entirely whether they are lending scientific authority to their statements

You were claiming that because they had scientific credentials then it must be science... :shrug:
I.e. you were appealing to their "authority".

the fact that you (and others) label non-ID design a science illustrates a clear dichotomy in your thinking that is conveniently avoided ...

Some of us label non-ID design a science? Not sure I understand you here? What is an example of non-ID design? Architecture, perhaps?

Yet he blathers quite a lot about how godlessness is the natural consequence of a scientific outlook

Irrelevant to the argument of whether he is criticising the science of eugenics or the nazi practices in the name of eugenics.
Unless you can demonstrate how the act of "blathering" has relevance to this issue?

regardless whether we are talking about nazi ideas of eugenics or dawkins ideas of god and the universe, it is all milling about in the same shroud of authority ... hence :

So bad science is still science in more or less the same sense that bad religion is still religion.
...

Sure, bad science is still science. But when one falls outside the remit of science entirely, however, one can not classify it as science at all.
For example ID is not science - it is not even bad science - it is just unscientific. Calling it a science, or treating it as such may give it a popular weight, but that is mere marketing.

And noone is arguing that what the nazis did was not promoted and rationalised as science. Or that merely referring to something as science gives it a sense of authority with the general public.

But there is a difference between being merely bad science and being unscientific.