Feminism is slowly dying the death it deserves; increasingly, it is being recognized as sexism with another name. Anyone who pays attention to statistics knows that women attend colleges and universities in droves, and anyone attentive to the imperatives of the profit motive knows a priori that basing employment decisions on the basis of gender is ludicrous. Feminism, like many other \”isms,\” has proved to be only one of many attempts–successful attempts–to cash in by exaggerating social crises even as those which are truly urgent remain ignored. Ignored, because they are not lucrative. (In this context, the terms \’fashionable\’ and \’lucrative\’ are interchangeable). But fashions come and go. What\’s always proved most lucrative–regardless of fashion (not always interchangeable in this context) is being in favor of people and what is good for them, because in the end, what\’s good for people is good for all of us.
Re: Claiming Darwin for the Left: an interview with Peter Singer.
\”…they always seek to co-operate with others, but withdraw that co-operation as soon as they are taken advantage of. Because this is the attitude which increases the survival value of a species, it would seem to follow that humans have evolved an in-built tendency to co-operation, along with a tendency to withdraw that co-operation if exploited. Hence, it is argued, and essential feature of ethics – reciprocity – is explained by evolution.\”
According to Darwin (and Dawkins) this explanation of the mechanism is subtly incorrect. Individuals of a species are in competition (with respect to gene propogation) with other individuals of the same species. Even in evolutionary arms races, it is the differential survival of individuals of each species that drives adaptation. If a selfish strategy gives an immediate advantage to an individual compared to its peers, then its genes and hence the stategy will be prefentially propogated.
It is because the \”tit-for-tat\” stategy benefits the *individual* that the stategy persists rather than because it benefits the species. (Small tribes for example may prosper at the expense of uncooperative loners). Species survival compared with other species can better be explained by Evolutionary Stable Stategies. In some such stategies, species can employ term self-destructive (to the species) stategies that gurantee their imminent extinction. This is because this stategy prefentially propogates compared to individuals of the species who do not adopt this stategy.
Thanks for a helpful article on Hindutva\’s attempt to rewrite history in a communalist, anti-scientific framework.
I think you are a little harsh on Nandy and Chatterjee. One can take issue with Nandy\’s argument, but I believe his intentions are honorable (i.e., he is a true Congress supporter, hardly a communalist). And I think Chatterjee\’s arguments are much too complex to be dismissed so simply.
It was certainly one-sided. I didn\’t see any quotations from Christian scientists. Nor did I see any quotations from Christians who would be very happy to provide compelling evidence re: the existence of God and the reliability of the Holy Bible. Nor did I see any information about the fallibilty of science and the danger of placing one\’s faith in it. All I saw was a very narrow-minded, biased and inaccurate view of the subject.
Albert Einstein said that scientists, of all people, should believe in God because they understand the complexity of this world and how it could not have come into existence by chance. As he said, it was obvious that a Creator had made this world.
What is science, after all, except humankind figuring out how God has done so?
In regards to the idea that the community must be the final arbiter of whether a belief is justified, I think that it should be pointed out that this is already the case in standard empirical science, in the sense that a new scientific theory is generally not widely called on or taught until a majority of scientists believe it. It just so happens that, within the community of educated scientists, empirical and rational claims are the ones which are by far the most effe3ctive at persuading the group. THerefore, I am not sure that this proposed new model is really very if at all different from the current state of affairs, unless it would require that those uneducated in a field, or holding unshakeable and arbitrary a priori beliefs about the subject, be included in the community (which would seem to be unreasonable).
Voltaire did not say \”every hero becomes a bore at last.\” That quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Votaire did, however, say \”the secret of being a bore is to tell everything.\”
You can all calm down – the science genie is out of his bottle and has been growing for centuries.
Nothing the various religions can do will put it back.
Knowledge is in the hands of the people now and the days of blind faith and obedience to the priest are gone in the west and numbered elsewhere.
Even in those countries dominated by fundamentalist reactionaries, reason and pragmatism are slowly changing the minds of men.
Most people who look at the world experience a deep sense of awe and wonder and feel the need for some sort of explanation – What\’s it all about? Why am I here?
In the earliest times, having few means of investigating scientifically, the more curious and inventive would naturally muse about the stars and planets, the vagaries of climate, the origins of man an animals, the nature of the sea and solid earth, and they would come up with stories that seemed to explain these things.
Once these stories were in circulation, the elders of any tribe would see how useful they could be in directing or manipulating the efforts of the people towards ends that they considered to be useful to all the members and controlling damaging individual selfish actions.
Over the years these stories could be tweaked to keep up with changing conditions, new gods and other bogeymen recruited to a band of enforcers, living (conveniently) in a world a secret step away, who could however smite any transgressor through the curtain, or await him in the afterlife with a pointy stick.
So religion carried out a major and important role in reinforcing the opinions and authority of the elders except on those rare occasions where a canny youngster would claim some special revelation, some epiphany that put him in direct contact with god – going over the heads of the tribal bosses and usurping their power or creating a split and a new and dangerous sect.
It is a commonplace remarks that religion is used by politicians to control the people. The opposite of this is not always appreciated – that the followers of a religion which sets their god above everyone, including the King or other tyrant, are usually able to exercise some restraining influence on him, either by calling upon him directly to abide by the rules or by using the priests to intercede for them or to agitate for a change at the top.
So apart from promoting some weird and wonderful beliefs, religion has had, and continues to have, a mostly positive and useful effect on society.
The downside to this includes the great slaughters of the past which had religion at their core – mostly the result of battles between groups who have hived-off from the same religious
tradition as in the crusades by christians against the muslims.
Some say that religion and science are converging – that as the scientists approach the limits of their investigative procedures in studying the quantum world, they will find themselves faced with the ultimately unknowable Demiurge who holds the strings of the universe and there human knowledge will stop.
Some will worship – others will continue to probe – and maybe find another answer…
I agree with the objection to the term \”Bright\” to desginate nonbelievers. I disliked it from the time I first heard it, for precisely the reason given – it sounds like a snob-appeal thing: Because I don\’t believe, I\’m \”bright\” (smart, intelligent) and you\’re not. That may or not be true, but in any event, it isn\’t for us to say (or imply) by name.
Unpopular as the word \”atheist\” is, it\’s the only one that defines us unambiguously, so I will continue to use it. If more of us did, we would all have an easier road to travel.
Re: The State of the State of Feminism
Feminism is slowly dying the death it deserves; increasingly, it is being recognized as sexism with another name. Anyone who pays attention to statistics knows that women attend colleges and universities in droves, and anyone attentive to the imperatives of the profit motive knows a priori that basing employment decisions on the basis of gender is ludicrous. Feminism, like many other \”isms,\” has proved to be only one of many attempts–successful attempts–to cash in by exaggerating social crises even as those which are truly urgent remain ignored. Ignored, because they are not lucrative. (In this context, the terms \’fashionable\’ and \’lucrative\’ are interchangeable). But fashions come and go. What\’s always proved most lucrative–regardless of fashion (not always interchangeable in this context) is being in favor of people and what is good for them, because in the end, what\’s good for people is good for all of us.
I wish to read some samples to get an idea of the content material
Tim Kaposy\’s review has to be another Sokal hoax. It was well done! Good for him.
Re: Claiming Darwin for the Left: an interview with Peter Singer.
\”…they always seek to co-operate with others, but withdraw that co-operation as soon as they are taken advantage of. Because this is the attitude which increases the survival value of a species, it would seem to follow that humans have evolved an in-built tendency to co-operation, along with a tendency to withdraw that co-operation if exploited. Hence, it is argued, and essential feature of ethics – reciprocity – is explained by evolution.\”
According to Darwin (and Dawkins) this explanation of the mechanism is subtly incorrect. Individuals of a species are in competition (with respect to gene propogation) with other individuals of the same species. Even in evolutionary arms races, it is the differential survival of individuals of each species that drives adaptation. If a selfish strategy gives an immediate advantage to an individual compared to its peers, then its genes and hence the stategy will be prefentially propogated.
It is because the \”tit-for-tat\” stategy benefits the *individual* that the stategy persists rather than because it benefits the species. (Small tribes for example may prosper at the expense of uncooperative loners). Species survival compared with other species can better be explained by Evolutionary Stable Stategies. In some such stategies, species can employ term self-destructive (to the species) stategies that gurantee their imminent extinction. This is because this stategy prefentially propogates compared to individuals of the species who do not adopt this stategy.
Thanks for a helpful article on Hindutva\’s attempt to rewrite history in a communalist, anti-scientific framework.
I think you are a little harsh on Nandy and Chatterjee. One can take issue with Nandy\’s argument, but I believe his intentions are honorable (i.e., he is a true Congress supporter, hardly a communalist). And I think Chatterjee\’s arguments are much too complex to be dismissed so simply.
In reading the piece you pointed to on multiculturalism by Andrew Anthony I
looked for the editorial he referred to as the Guardian\’s \”April Fool\’s Day
leader\”. It was not an April Fool\’s Day piece, it really meant it when it
treated as reasonable the notion that Britain had not moved quickly enough
to set up more Muslim schools. It\’s
here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1183103,00.html
From there I also found my way to something even more egregious in the
Guardian, by Madeline Bunting, their religious affairs editor. I didn\’t
know they still gave space to people who speak of \”belief systems\” as
though every worldview is based on one and who assume – as is logically
implicit in that notion – that everybody has a religion.
In reading the piece you pointed to on liberal
education
http://www.aacu-edu.org/liberaleducation/le-wi04/le-wi04feature4.cfm I had
the following thought. This is the umpteenth article I have read about how
we liberals, westerners, etc. need to be more understanding about Islam.
But, you know what? I don\’t think that is really the problem, or even a
problem. I have lived in the same London neighbourhood for the past 10
years and never seen an attack against a Muslim, the only religiously
motivated attack I\’ve seen was directed against a Jewish schoolboy (and
there are many more Muslims around than Jews).
There is not a problem of lack of understanding of Islam. There is a
problem in the Islamic world and in the greater Middle East in particular,
and there is a problem among many of us here in the West who want to
pretend there is no such problem. That is the problem which worries me right now.
RE: the article on science and religion
It was certainly one-sided. I didn\’t see any quotations from Christian scientists. Nor did I see any quotations from Christians who would be very happy to provide compelling evidence re: the existence of God and the reliability of the Holy Bible. Nor did I see any information about the fallibilty of science and the danger of placing one\’s faith in it. All I saw was a very narrow-minded, biased and inaccurate view of the subject.
Albert Einstein said that scientists, of all people, should believe in God because they understand the complexity of this world and how it could not have come into existence by chance. As he said, it was obvious that a Creator had made this world.
What is science, after all, except humankind figuring out how God has done so?
In regards to the idea that the community must be the final arbiter of whether a belief is justified, I think that it should be pointed out that this is already the case in standard empirical science, in the sense that a new scientific theory is generally not widely called on or taught until a majority of scientists believe it. It just so happens that, within the community of educated scientists, empirical and rational claims are the ones which are by far the most effe3ctive at persuading the group. THerefore, I am not sure that this proposed new model is really very if at all different from the current state of affairs, unless it would require that those uneducated in a field, or holding unshakeable and arbitrary a priori beliefs about the subject, be included in the community (which would seem to be unreasonable).
Voltaire did not say \”every hero becomes a bore at last.\” That quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Votaire did, however, say \”the secret of being a bore is to tell everything.\”
You can all calm down – the science genie is out of his bottle and has been growing for centuries.
Nothing the various religions can do will put it back.
Knowledge is in the hands of the people now and the days of blind faith and obedience to the priest are gone in the west and numbered elsewhere.
Even in those countries dominated by fundamentalist reactionaries, reason and pragmatism are slowly changing the minds of men.
Most people who look at the world experience a deep sense of awe and wonder and feel the need for some sort of explanation – What\’s it all about? Why am I here?
In the earliest times, having few means of investigating scientifically, the more curious and inventive would naturally muse about the stars and planets, the vagaries of climate, the origins of man an animals, the nature of the sea and solid earth, and they would come up with stories that seemed to explain these things.
Once these stories were in circulation, the elders of any tribe would see how useful they could be in directing or manipulating the efforts of the people towards ends that they considered to be useful to all the members and controlling damaging individual selfish actions.
Over the years these stories could be tweaked to keep up with changing conditions, new gods and other bogeymen recruited to a band of enforcers, living (conveniently) in a world a secret step away, who could however smite any transgressor through the curtain, or await him in the afterlife with a pointy stick.
So religion carried out a major and important role in reinforcing the opinions and authority of the elders except on those rare occasions where a canny youngster would claim some special revelation, some epiphany that put him in direct contact with god – going over the heads of the tribal bosses and usurping their power or creating a split and a new and dangerous sect.
It is a commonplace remarks that religion is used by politicians to control the people. The opposite of this is not always appreciated – that the followers of a religion which sets their god above everyone, including the King or other tyrant, are usually able to exercise some restraining influence on him, either by calling upon him directly to abide by the rules or by using the priests to intercede for them or to agitate for a change at the top.
So apart from promoting some weird and wonderful beliefs, religion has had, and continues to have, a mostly positive and useful effect on society.
The downside to this includes the great slaughters of the past which had religion at their core – mostly the result of battles between groups who have hived-off from the same religious
tradition as in the crusades by christians against the muslims.
Some say that religion and science are converging – that as the scientists approach the limits of their investigative procedures in studying the quantum world, they will find themselves faced with the ultimately unknowable Demiurge who holds the strings of the universe and there human knowledge will stop.
Some will worship – others will continue to probe – and maybe find another answer…
I agree with the objection to the term \”Bright\” to desginate nonbelievers. I disliked it from the time I first heard it, for precisely the reason given – it sounds like a snob-appeal thing: Because I don\’t believe, I\’m \”bright\” (smart, intelligent) and you\’re not. That may or not be true, but in any event, it isn\’t for us to say (or imply) by name.
Unpopular as the word \”atheist\” is, it\’s the only one that defines us unambiguously, so I will continue to use it. If more of us did, we would all have an easier road to travel.