Author: VD

Dr. Stanley Fish fails to grasp why to Thomas Hobbes’s understanding of Conscience should not be applied to the current debate over the “conscience clause”:

Hobbes is aware that others take conscience to be the name of the private arbiter of right and wrong, but he regards this as a corrupted usage invented by those who wished to elevate “their own . . .opinions” to the status of reliable knowledge and try to do so by giving “their opinions . . . that reverenced name of Conscience.”

Hobbes’s larger point — the point he is always making — is that if one gets to prefer one’s own internal judgments to the judgments of authorized external bodies (legislatures, courts, professional associations), the result will be the undermining of public order and the substitution of personal whim for general decorums: “. . . because the Law is the public Conscience . . . in such diversity as there is of private Consciences, which are but private opinions, the Commonwealth must needs be distracted, and no man dare to obey the Sovereign Power farther than it shall seem good in his own eyes.”

If the Law is the public Conscience, it must be a remarkably dynamic and malleable thing indeed. Given the Law’s observably transient nature, Hobbes’s argument is based on a flawed foundation, leading one to conclude that the argument is best left to languish in historical obscurity rather than cited in the debate over the conscience clause.

Furthermore, appealing to public order as a basis for forcing the majority of doctors and nurses to violate their religious beliefs is self-defeating. The lack of observable damage to public order caused by the conscience clause – which, after all, is already in effect – will stand in contrast to the very real damage to public order if large quantities of religious individuals exit and/or avoid the medical field in order to avoid committing what they believe to be murder.

As Jeffrey Collier has already pointed out, the “public Conscience” argument could be just as easily used to justify euthanasia or even genocide.

Rogue nukes! Perhaps Obama will get his wish and have a shot at his own invasion. But will he choose Pakistan, Somalia, or Thailand?

PAKISTAN could collapse within months, one of the more influential counter-insurgency voices in Washington says. The warning comes as the US scrambles to redeploy its military forces and diplomats in an attempt to stem rising violence and anarchy in Afghanistan and Pakistan….

As the US implements a new strategy in Central Asia so comprehensive that some analysts now dub the cross-border conflict “Obama’s war”, Dr Kilcullen said time was running out for international efforts to pull both countries back from the brink.

Given that Thailand is engulfed in chaos, I won’t be surprised to see several national governments collapse before the end of the year. And the more Washington insists on involving itself in these situations, the more likely additional forms of blowback will become.

It’s Clinton redux. Federal agencies appear to be gunning for the right-wing militias again:

“The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic right wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence.” Nonetheless, it states that “right wing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about … the economic downturn and the election of the first African-American President …”

I don’t think anyone has fears about election of the first African-American president. I think, on the other hand, they wish they could be certain that Obama actually was African-American. The fear is more centered around the possibility that the man is the first Kenyan-Muslim socialist to hold the office. It’s not so much that Obama’s middle name is Hussein as the fact that he has “mistakenly” referred to “his Muslim faith” and bowed in public to the King of Saudi Arabia.

What’s he going to do next for an encore, get caught on film praying to Mecca? No doubt the mainstream media would attempt to explain it away as a misunderstood yoga session. Anyhow, what happened to all those green shoots we were hearing about last week? If the recovery is just around the corner, then one would assume that any concerns driven by the economic downturn have already been rendered moot.

Paul Krugman attempts to further the astroturfing meme:

[I]t turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.

As usual, Democrats are engaging in nothing more than projection here. I appreciate the sentiments of the Tea Party movement more than I expect any results out of their actions, but aside from the fact that they’re not permitting the usual suspects – including Newt Gingrich and the Chairman of the RNC – to hijack their efforts, the sheer size and scope of their activities demonstrates quite conclusively that they cannot be dismissed as mere astroturfing.

Of course, Krugman is a neo-Keynesian, so it should come as little surprise that reaching a logical conclusion from the observable numbers is beyond him. I have no affiliation with nor affection for the Republican Party, but to repeatedly dismiss it as “crazy” is a remarkably stupid thing to do, even for a New York Times columnist.

The Answer of Evil:

For more than 2,000 years, men have wrestled with the so-called problem of evil. Presumed to have first been formulated by the Greek philosopher Epicurus and also known as the Epicurean Paradox, the problem concerns balancing the obvious existence of evil with belief in the existence of God. How, Epicurus wondered, could evil and an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God exist simultaneously? Centuries later, the problem was addressed by the Scottish historian and philosopher David Hume, who considered the matter in his “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.” Hume wrote:

Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, “Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.”

And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “All hail.” And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

Then said Jesus unto them, “Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.”

Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, “Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.”

So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

I thought this extended comment by Post-secular merited a post of its own:

As an evangelical Christian who has practiced science at the highest levels, I’m very ambivalent about the alleged decline of scientists’ trustworthiness. Since I don’t believe science is the ultimate way of knowing about the world, I applaud the demotion of scientists from their undeserved position as the modern day arbiters of ultimate truth. At the same time, I shudder at the fact that something like a 3rd of the population of the world’s only superpower believe the earth is only 10,000 years old, and that scientists only believe otherwise so they can force our children to learn about evolution, which will, of course, turn them into atheists. I’d like to think we’re increasingly rejecting knowledge handed down from on high because we’re thinking more critically about the alleged objectivity of science. But I’m afraid the main driver of this distrust is less rational, and therefore, more harmful than good. I’d like to think Americans increasingly distrust scientists because our increasingly sophisticated epistemology requires us to. However, the lamentable reality is that most Americans distrust science for mostly bad reasons including misunderstanding how science really works, unnecessary religious prejudices, rare but highly publicized cases of fraud, and science’s arrogant and offensive self-appointed ambassadors (Dawkins et al.). Influential leaders from both Science and Faith have drawn lines in the sand that they shouldn’t have. And the voices of those who wear both hats in good conscience are unfortunately drowned out by the mobs on either side, both foaming at the mouth. People should be properly skeptical about scientists’ biases and other human failings. They should not, however, use these as excuses to deny the reality of verifiable facts.

In regards to the role of consensus and the scientific method in the actual practice of science, I refer interested parties to Thomas Kuhn’s work. Having read Kuhn’s work and that of his critics, in my opinion, his description is by far the most accurate portrayal of how science actually works. There are episodes in the development of science that don’t fit his description very well, but the majority of science history bears out his arguments admirably well and much better than those of his detractors. At the risk of oversimplification, let me briefly summarize for those who are unfamiliar with Kuhn. As you have accurately pointed out, the scientific method isn’t hard to understand. However, science doesn’t work by the scientific method, at least not the one most people think of when they hear the term. Undergraduate textbooks tell the new initiate that if the data don’t support the hypothesis, the hypothesis must be thrown out. But up on the 6th floor where science is really occurring, the first time this happens, it is not the hypothesis but the data that is immediately thrown out, and the experiment is repeated. This problematic piece of data will remain an irrelevant artifact of a botched experiment until it pops up repeatedly and simply refuses to go away. Then, and only then, does a scientist even begin to question his hypothesis, and even then only very cautiously. Only after the data is found by other labs using other equipment/techniques will the scientific community even begin to acknowledge that an anomaly to the hypothesis has been found. But even then, the hypothesis is not discarded. The hypothesis will generally only be discarded after an alternative, competing hypothesis that explains at least as much of the total data in the field has been formulated. The hypotheses then duel it out, and eventually, the community of scientists decides which hypothesis will carry them into future investigations.

Now all of this may sound “unscientific”, but it appears so only if one tries to impose the textbook version of science onto the actual thing. It may also seem that all of this bias results in lots of wasted time and decreases the efficiency of scientific progress. However, it is precisely the opposite. Science progresses as fast as it does precisely because it is driven by paradigms. A paradigm provides a scientist with the confidence she needs to expend the enormous resources necessary to perform experiments that by sheer probability are almost certain to fail. My own analogy might help illustrate Kuhn’s ideas.

Imagine you’re standing in an Olympic-sized pool of water you can’t see through trying to find 10 red objects on the bottom of the pool. These are the major pieces of data that confirm your developing scientific model. Unawares to you, one of the red objects is attached to a blue object, and your scientific model cannot account for blue objects of any kind. Imagine further that each reach of your hand into the water costs you a year of your life. Your task is to find all the red objects that will firmly establish your scientific model before you die so you can claim the model as your own, give it your name or the name of your favorite video game (which scientists love to do) cure some diseases, and maybe win a Nobel prize. Obviously, you’d want to find the object in as few attempts as possible. In the absence of any a priori information, the objects you search for are distributed randomly. Your situation is hopeless without a map of where in the water to look. That map is the rough equivalent of a scientific paradigm. A paradigm tells you where to look in the water. It gives you the confidence you need to thrust your hand in the water over and over, giving a year of your life each time. Now imagine the pool has several other ambitious scientists like you. If you all operate on the same paradigm, the objects will be found much faster than if you were all operating on different paradigms. And most importantly, the blue object, the one that will call the model into question, will be found faster too. That’s what paradigms do, and they do it very successfully 90% of the time. Most of the major breakthroughs in science have come when a prevailing paradigm has been used so successfully and explored so thoroughly that its inevitable limitations are exposed. Far from being an irrational process, following a paradigm is a highly rational process. In fact, doing science without a paradigm represents a much more random process. I experienced much of this process firsthand as a contributor to a paradigm-changing study published in Science in 2006. (Exploiting the reversibility of natural product glycosyltransferase-catalyzed reactions, Zhang CS, Griffith BR, et al., SCIENCE, Volume 313, Issue: 5791, Pages: 1291-1294.) At the risk of appearing to brag, this paper now has 6x the average number of citations for a Science paper. In other words, our study changed the way others in our field thought about their science, and when they went looking where we told them to, the red objects were where we predicted they’d be.

My larger point is that consensus does and should play a huge role in the progress of science. Anyone who argues that working within a consensus is unscientific most likely has never done any real science. Scientists’ description of the world only changes in fundamental ways rarely, but it has happened many times, and will probably happen many more times. That doesn’t mean science isn’t scientific. It does mean that it is not a thoroughly rational process, because as Kuhn points out, the winner in a paradigm competition is not always chosen for rational reasons. Scientists are people and prefer paradigms for subjective reasons of beauty, elegance, and simplicity, which are all in the eye of the beholder. But neither is science thoroughly irrational. It is a human endeavor to gain understanding of the world that differs in some fundamental ways from other types of learning but is similar in many fundamental ways too. I hope this helps some of the contributors to this thread understand a) that scientists work 90% of the time within a consensus, b) a bit
more about why scientists work within paradigms and c) how scientists can change the way they describe the world in fundamental ways without being unscientific.

I quite appreciate this informative lecture on real science from a real scientist. However, I note that according to Post-secular, scientists are commonly operating outside the bounds of the scientific method for perfectly reasonable and pragmatic reasons. I think that’s completely acceptable, as results are the main object of scientific research, after all. But here’s the problem with this exo-methodological science. If scientists are NOT genuinely operating by the pure scientific method which the science fetishists so regularly hold over everyone’s heads, then they have absolutely no right to claim that they doing so. They especially have no right to hide behind what could fairly be described as a Noble Lie in order to discredit other forms of non-science or to grant a false imprimatur to their own efforts.

This is precisely why I believe it is so necessary to distinguish between the three aspects of science; science: the knowledge base, science: the method, and science: the profession. It is absurd to speak of consensus with regards to the method just as it makes little sense to talk about the progress of the profession. It is ironic indeed that a profession devoted to detail should be so careless when it comes to describing itself and its activities; one might reasonably conclude that this carelessness, combined with what appears to be somewhat of a Noble Lie, is at least in part due to a general awareness that its secular priesthood status might be in jeopardy should the public ever come to a sufficient understanding of the way in which the profession operates and protects what it perceives as its turf.

The issue here is not if science is irrational or not, but rather, if activities outside the direct application of the scientific method are science or not. If they are, then it is obvious that the legitimacy objections to describing a wide variety fields, including mathematics, intelligent design, evolution, sociology, and even economics, as non-scientific really needs to be reconsidered.

Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, “Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, “He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.'”

The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, “This man calleth for Elias.” And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, “Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.”

Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
– Matthew 27:38-50

BL suggests a theory as to why internet discourse takes place at such a low level today:

I wish to comment on books and reading. My observation is that most people don’t read books; those that claim to usually don’t finish them or skim the book, read the forward, and carry on as if they,ve read it confident that next person they encounter on the subject has done the same thing or less. This I find to be predominant among younger liberals who operate behind an intellectual facade. They then seem to be convinced that they have actually read the book! This is clearly evident in the response to TIA – an excellent and valuable book which I like to give as a gift to students.

I find it remarkable how many individuals on both sides of numerous debates – not just the atheism/religion one – operate in almost complete ignorance of not only the material on the other side, but of the material on their own side! Just as it’s readily apparent that the average individual who brings up Hume, Epictetus, or Plato have never read their works, it’s seldom hard to detect that a significant percentage of those who claim they have read the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, or Homer have actually done so.

The conflation of having heard of something with knowing it is a widespread disease, and tools like Wikipedia and other Internet reference sites only make it worse. But reading a single famous quote from a work is not tantamount to reading the work itself, and citing a summary on Wikipedia is not indicative of actually understanding anything about that which is being summarized.

Most people read only to have their prejudices confirmed. So, if you want to have a significant advantage over most people, always read as much as you can about your subject from every perspective. I don’t particularly enjoy wallowing in jargon-filled Communist literature, logically challenged atheist philosophy or mindless neo-monetarism with a Keynesian twist, but I do it because I cannot understand the full scope of the discourse if I don’t.

I very seldom agree with Cisbio – and mama mia is he in for a spanking when I finally get around to replying to his last critique – but one thing he was absolutely right to do was to call me on my not having read a book that I cited based on a third-party reference. In general, it’s always wise to either read a book so that you know what you’re talking about, or just keep your mouth shut about it.