Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Dec 5, 2008 12:03:22 GMT -4
Science invokes no moral judgements, it merely describes the natural world. Gravitational and aerodynamic theories predict the amount of force which a human body will incur on impact with the ground after being pushed from a cliff of specified height. They are silent, however, on the moral circumstances, if any, under which said person may, or even must, be pushed from that cliff. Science itself may not make moral judgements, but there have been many people in the past who have tried to derive moral lessons from it. I already mentioned the eugenics fad. Lots of people are trying to paint global warming as a moral crusade today.
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Post by Jason Thompson on Dec 5, 2008 12:07:45 GMT -4
Lots of people are trying to paint global warming as a moral crusade today. Do you think that, if indeed humans are contributing to a sequence of events that can lead to serious consequences for mankind as a whole, that it is not our moral duty to try and minimise those consequences for the sake of ourselves and future generations? You could argue in circles forever about whether indeed humans are causing global warming, or merely speeding it up, or not having any effect at all, but the bottom line is it can't hurt to start cutting down on various noxious emissions for everyone's sake, can it?
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Dec 5, 2008 12:09:32 GMT -4
I have had to endure many an argument on how religion has been a force and inspiration for great evil in the world, but few people seem to worry about whether the theory of evolution has done the world more good than evil. Endure? Half the time you provoke them... Sometimes I enjoy a good argument, but this particular topic seems to float the same old points every time. Since I didn't find them convincing the first time around I'm unlikely to change my mind the forty-second time the very same points are brought up. And the people who argue loudest that religion is illogical and driven by emotion seem themselves illogically driven by emotion to do so. The most entertaining argument I saw on this forum was wdmundt's claim that Christians set medicine back a thousand years by burning witches, but he tried to ignore that he had made it after I pointed out how ridiculous it was. *sigh* I both miss and don't miss wdmundt.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Dec 5, 2008 12:15:20 GMT -4
Do you think that, if indeed humans are contributing to a sequence of events that can lead to serious consequences for mankind as a whole, that it is not our moral duty to try and minimise those consequences for the sake of ourselves and future generations? I don't think that science by itself can make any arguments about what it is moral or immoral to do. Of course not. A cleaner environment is a worthy goal. But it should not be a crusade. The problem comes when people use global warming as their cover to gain more governmental control, make political scapegoats of industry, and redistribute wealth. And when they use heavy-handed measures to quash dissenters.
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Post by Data Cable on Dec 5, 2008 12:57:48 GMT -4
Science itself may not make moral judgements, but there have been many people in the past who have tried to derive moral lessons from it. Does any religion explicitly proscribe behavior which you deem to be immoral?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Dec 5, 2008 13:31:44 GMT -4
Science itself may not make moral judgements, but there have been many people in the past who have tried to derive moral lessons from it. Does any religion explicitly proscribe behavior which you deem to be immoral? Yes. Your point? Religion is different from science. It might be reasonably argued that the purpose of religion as a whole is to determine what behavior is moral or immoral.
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Post by Data Cable on Dec 6, 2008 6:02:06 GMT -4
Does any religion explicitly proscribe behavior which you deem to be immoral? Yes. Your point? My point was completely mangled by posting in a tired and mildly ill state, resulting in a mental boolean flip on the definition of "proscribe." What I meant to ask was: Does any religion explicitly require behavior which you deem to be immoral?
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Post by VALIS on Dec 6, 2008 19:37:27 GMT -4
Since domestication pre-dated evolutionary theory I don't think you can count it as a useful application of the theory. If you can point out areas where it has obviously improved domestication then you might have something. Hmmm I do expect that creation of new varieties is helped by that knowledge but I just don't know enough to be sure. We can scratch that one I guess. What about medical science? Take avian flu, evolution predicts that this illness could become a serious threat to human populations. So it allows people to try to prepare.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Dec 8, 2008 12:14:17 GMT -4
My point was completely mangled by posting in a tired and mildly ill state, resulting in a mental boolean flip on the definition of "proscribe." What I meant to ask was: Does any religion explicitly require behavior which you deem to be immoral? I would say that some fringe religious groups might require behavior of their members that I would call immoral, but that most modern religions promote moral behavior. At least, I can't think of any behavior a major modern religion requires of its adherents that I would describe as immoral off the top of my head.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Dec 8, 2008 12:16:39 GMT -4
What about medical science? Take avian flu, evolution predicts that this illness could become a serious threat to human populations. So it allows people to try to prepare. As far as I can tell, the effort spent at my work preparing for the avian flu scare has been a total waste of time and resources.
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Post by gillianren on Dec 8, 2008 16:07:59 GMT -4
Isn't the common flu vaccine itself a pretty good example of evolution in action? We are, after all, predicting which of various strains--because it doesn't vaccinate against all strains of the flu--are going to be most common. In order to do that, we have to take into account selection pressures on the influenza virus.
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Dec 8, 2008 16:43:24 GMT -4
So, Jason, does this line of argument mean that you accept the possibility of evolution?
Influenza vaccine is a great example of trying to predict the evolution of a virus.
Another example of evolution is HIV. Strains in the early 80's were much more quick to kill the carrier. They have mostly died out, and the population mostly consists of strains that keep the carrier alive. Differential mortality, once again.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Dec 8, 2008 17:53:19 GMT -4
So, Jason, does this line of argument mean that you accept the possibility of evolution? I remain something of a skeptic. It seems that we have great evidence that life adapts to its circumstances, but does this adaptation really result in the creation of distinct species over time? And even if it does, was it in fact the mechanism that produced our current diversity of life? I don't see any way to absolutely answer that last question without the use of a time machine. We can only say "the current theory seems the best fit to the facts in evidence."
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Post by Data Cable on Dec 8, 2008 20:18:48 GMT -4
I would say that some fringe religious groups might require behavior of their members that I would call immoral And does any scientific theory require behavior which you deem to be immoral?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Dec 9, 2008 0:27:42 GMT -4
I would say that some fringe religious groups might require behavior of their members that I would call immoral And does any scientific theory require behavior which you deem to be immoral? Science by itself cannot require any kind of behavior, and what is moral or immoral is outside its perview. Some groups do use science as their support for immoral behavior.
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