welcome to the cultural revolution (aka what the FUCK is wrong with the florida legislature?)

the thing is, there is a difference between classic 'young-earth' creationism and the new-school 'Intelligent Design' folks. Both are despicable, but the 'intelligent design' people dress their tired arguments up in more sophisticated trappings (i.e. they don't deny that the earth is billions of years old and they dont deny the existence of natural selection, though they weaken its power to just being something that eliminates unfit phenotypes). This allows them to be reach more educated people (yet who are not familiar with the literature on evolution).

the 'Intelligent Design' movement gained momentum in the 90's with the book Darwin on Trial, by Philip Johnson (a lawyer!), and Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe, a molecular biologist who claimed that the biology of cells is TOO COMPLEX OMGWTFLOL to be created step-by-step by natural selection (an old, old argument that has been refuted many times). Of course neither of them really suggest a viable alternative except for "Intelligent Design", which of course is not an workable explanation for anything.

yeah, this shit is tiring.

no shit!

There are plenty of examples of intellectuals who cling to pseudo-science or other forms of dogma. We just don't tend to lump the "intelligent design" phoneys in the same group as the doom-and-gloom crowd who've predicted another Ice Age, the end of the oil supply, or a 36,000 NYSE.

again, their system of values, their morality, is completely dependent on having the moral authority, of them being unquestionably right. things must be literal, that there must be an Absolute Standard(one that's unarguable) since any interpretation of it seen as questioning it, which is seen as an attack on its legitimacy. every single word of the Bible has to be literally true, for how else can they claim their moral authority on it. This is the true Literal Word of God, they say, and we're merely following what God said. Anyone who questions this must be against us, which is therefore against God, which is therefore Evil and must be never be tolerated ever and stamped out whever it could possibly rear its ugly head.

Also, a central value is continually supporting and propagating their view of morality. this is part of while they're better at organizing that most progressives tend to be. despite which subgenre of conservativism you subscribe to, you know that a main part of it(as well as a main part of any other flavor of conservatism) is reaffirming and propagating conservativism.

the Narcissism of Small Differences hasn't seemed to play as much as a role in conservative organinizing efforts in the last 30+ years as it has say, in the many strands of progressive movements.

(xpost)

wtf? you think oil is never gonna run out? or are you referring to people making specific predictions...?

The whole new ice age thing is a fairly localised effect of global warming. Melting of the greenland icecap floods the north atlantic with cold water stopping the north atlantic sink which drives the gulf stream. Without the gulf stream, the temperature in europe drops giving a little ice age. This has happened before in the 16th an 17th centuries.

This is a competing adjunct to the general global warming story.

They may have underestimated supply, but no one was really factoring the big increase in demand that china's boom has caused.

Here's a very interesting article about the movement for a post-autistic economics.
http://www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/truecosteconomics/post-autistic.html

Unfortunately, like most progressive movements this one has a terrible name. While the right wing crusades under banners like "educational freedom" or "student rights" the left comes up with the predictably cumbersome "post-autistic economics."

(i) i don't like the idea of left-wing (or moderate, or any label) "cultural revolutionists" running amok in the university.

(ii) what do you consider to be "dangerous hogwash" running amok in economics? milton friedman is NOT the only economist, you know (nor is he necessarily always wrong).

Besides, global cooling is a measurable reality. Dust particles in the atmosphere have been keeping a lid on global warming for many years. In the 70s global cooling could have been an easy conclusion to make, with the greenhouse effect and greenhouse gas emissions not being fully understood.

Lakoff writes about how Grover Nordquist holds a weekly meeting with like six dozen leaders of different conservative factions. they meet, argue, debate, air grievances, figure out what each other is doing and how to organize this to best effect. they compromise with each other, which is easy, since each guy knows that if his stuff ain't at the forefront this week, it could be at the agreed-upon forefront next week, and they all know that each other wants effectively the same thing and sing the same tune, they only sing it in different keys.

it helps that conservative types tend to have a personality very much oriented towards a top-down, authoritarian. everything else is in service to reaffirming authority.

of course, as others and Lakoff have pointed out, the progressive side has does science on their side, which can be used to disprove the other side(handy for convincing other progressive-leaning folks of how the other side is wrong) as well as tools of analysis to figure out exactly what the other side has done to get where it is, and ways to go about using similar methods to further progressive causes.

heh. how does that line go? "They have the guns / but we have the music..."

(xpost)

note that their side REQUIRES culture war. (how do you say that in German, anyway? "kulturkampf?") they HAVE to have animosity, alienation, yelling & shouting on news shows instead of slightly quieter debate, demonification of the Other(just because they're the Other), a Manichean US/THEM viewpoint.

They NEED to feel themselves as put-upon, as the victims, of an immoral and vicious Culture(be it education, social, pop, or political), to feel righteous and that their efforts are Just & Good. Doesn't matter that they actually control the politics, or the media groups that put out the cultures, etc.

dammit, i really need to start that Lakoff thread when I get home. I have too much to type out in the limited breaks i get at the new job here.

That's why I said that hindsight is 20/20. And that's what the intelligent design crowd will tell you about intelligent design--that their theories will be borne out with time i.e. as this design is more fully understood. 40 years from now, it's almost certain that our understanding of intelligent design (and shit, I really hate even typing that phrase) will be much better, as will global warming.

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/03/the_scandal_of_.html

...For Scalia, as an originalist, the Constitution means what it says and it says what it means. That's a phrase borrowed from evangelical preachers, of course, who say the same thing about their reading of the "plain text" of the Bible.

Mark Noll describes this evangelical approach as "naive Baconianism." Here's Noll in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (the one book you should read if you want to understand American evangelical Christians):

Evangelicals make much of their ability to read the Bible in a "simple," "literal" or "natural" fashion -- that is, in a Baconian way. In actual fact, evangelical hermeneutics, as illustrated in creationism, is dictated by very specific assumptions that dominated Western intellectual life from roughly 1650 to 1850 (and in North America for a few decades more). Before and after that time, many Christians and other thinkers have recognized that no observations are "simple" and no texts yield to uncritically "literal" readings. ...

When evangelicals rely on a naive Baconianism, they align themselves with the worst features of the naive positivism that lingers among some of those who worship at the shrine of modern science. Thus, under the illusion of fostering a Baconian approach to Scripture, creationists seek to convince their audience that they are merely contemplating simple conclusions from the Bible, when they are really contemplating conclusions from the Bible shaped by their preunderstandings of how the Bible should be read.

There are, in other words, two problems with evangelicals' alleged "simple," "common-sense" approach to the text. First, such an approach doesn't work. Second, this isn't really what they're doing anyway. The supposedly literal approach begins with certain presuppositions (cultural, personal, psychological, economic) and then finds these very same presuppositions as obvious and self-evident in the plain meaning of the text. Thus the sacred word becomes a mirror and our exegesis begins to resemble Stuart Smalley's daily affirmations....

which actualy agrees with much of what Lakoff has written before.

this Christian doesn't, at least.

that's part of the kicker, too. it can be very difficult to talk about one's personal beliefs, thanks to the fact those most vocal about their beliefs(esp. in the last 30+ years) have mostly been total fucking assholes(having prosetlyzation as a central tenet of their beliefs hasn't helped).

so anybody talking about what they believe tend to get viewed with suspicion and outright scorn(hell, just check what happens on this board).

(xpost)

I think they're amused and appalled by what we've done with everything after the first 5 books.

Lewis Black talks about this, about how conservatives get the Old Testament wrong becuase "...it's not your Book. Your Book is the other one."

Weirdness...I looked it up and all the sites in James' defence are Christian websites.

in my experience as a Jew, I'd say Judaism on the whole places much more weight on human agency than Christians do, as far as how they relate to texts. Judaism posits the Torah as being directly handed to the Jews by God - but only because of their "covenant" with God, as established by three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Insofar as the Torah contains commandments, Judaism views these as being directly communicated by God through his "chosen people" here on earth (the three patriarchs, various prophets, Moses "the lawgiver", etc.). But the Torah also functions as a history of the Jewish people, and in that respect its treated like a family document handed down from one generation to the next - ie, this is what your folks were doing in the desert all these years - and as such it is implied that a "literal" reading is appropriate.

And maybe it's just me, but I've always felt that Judaism by and large placed a much higher premium on debate/interpretation/scholarship than any kind of fundie christianity. The importance of literacy, of "arguing" with God, of engaging with the text was always front and center in my religious education.

-- don weiner (migg...), March 24th, 2005.

they already have, and that's the problem. the "Intelligent Design" bastards keep yakking, writing, and complaining away even though they lost the scientific debate in the 19th centry.

I don't know of any Jews who argue against evolution on the basis of the Torah, if that's what you mean. They might argue that Moses really *did* part the Red Sea or that Lot's wife really *was* turned into a pillar of salt, but they're more prone to discuss these as evidence of God's singularly miraculous powers as opposed to proof of science's blasphemy.

x-post

I know from experience that there are plenty of professors where there is a lack of freedom of thought in their classes. Bad grades are given out just if you "disrespect other's points of view" even if the other peoples points of view are probably wrong. Truth can never be learned in these circumstances.

Using the court and lawsuits is probably the worst way to motivate this kind of progress. It'd be better to start at the roots. Too many leftists in acedemia are getting away with their theories without any strong analysis or confrontation.

I'm just saying I've never come across it or witnessed it. There may very well be some analogous school of thought within, say, the Lubavitchers or some other Orthodox radical offshoots, but I've never encountered it. I will say that, on the whole, Judaism has done a better job of preserving its texts and ensuring continued, rigorous scholarly anlaysis of said texts than Christianity. I'm willing to bet most fundies couldn't even tell you what century the book of John was written in.

x-post

yeah, I agree with this, but there is not many places for a student to turn when facing bad teachers.

Tho I find your idea that creationism is more complex (and therefore, harder to argue) than evolution really funny.

The Chiristian uses a system of inquiry when they ask the Holy Spirit to guide them.

That sounds like a belief to me.

these terms are meaningless. Define them.

"The Chiristian uses a system of inquiry when they ask the Holy Spirit to guide them"

what if the Holy Spirit is guiding you by presenting indisputable physical evidence, from which you must draw your own conclusions?

"The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge.
That sounds like a belief to me. "

The totality of human experience is filtered through the senses. If you believe otherwise, please explain.

yes, but what does this tend to mean in practices? also, does holitically involve something akin to, say, contextual analysis? analysis that might neat little bits of info about how the Decalogue share many structural similarities to Hittite laws that were going around at the time.

in other words, please clarify.

(xpost)

catagorically - Looking at single verses only; neglecting to consider the whole bible as God-breathed.

"What if the Holy Spirit is guiding you by presenting indisputable physical evidence, from which you must draw your own conclusions?"

This may be one way, but not the only possible way. It could guide the spirit of a human.

"The totality of human experience is filtered through the senses. If you believe otherwise, please explain."

This is a good question. The Holy Spirit can work on the spirit of a human which is something deeper then senses.

Which gets to another point that mark touched on aptly -- evolution isn't a *theory* -- it's a process that is a central object of *investigation* in the disciplinary domain of biology. To do biology, one must first accept that the object of one's investigation exists. So to the extent that this issue isn't "headed off at the pass" I think it's because we're teaching *what science is* wrong, with a crude sort of empiricism that Zizek manages to dodge quite well. (point of information -- as I understand it the "concrete universal" is actually from Laclau and Zizek picked up on it early in his career only to generally throw it by the wayside or at least scare-quote it in his more recent work. along those lines, Zizek's ontology has always had an objective reality, just as his epistimology has always had an irreconcilable rupture with that reality -- tho a *relative* one rather than absolute).

I never understood the scientific method until I started reading philosophy of science, because the way that it was taught in school was mystical-religious junk! Hypotheses just appear in thin air, and experiments just verify or disprove them. Science is just a huge collection of generally verified atomized facts. ("The world is all that is the case." full stop) This is what I think mark is growling about and against, and rightfully so. If instead of saying we're teaching our kids the TRUTH we said "we're teaching our kids productive methods for generating applicable knowledge of the world" we'd be in much better shape.

But I think mark is also prettifying Nairn's arguments. If the wager of science is on a verifiable reality, then the wager of Narin's version of religion is that verification is *never enough*. Everything is encapsulated in the exchange:

You don't draw a conclusion and then find evidence to support it, you look at the evidence and then draw a conclusion."

where are you getting this process from? What if you were to already know the conclusion as told by GOD?

Both sides are obv. wrong. If you know the conclusion you don't bother with evidence. But if you don't have prior sets of conclusions (not to mention historically developed instruments and technique and method), then you don't know what evidence you feel like gathering, or can gather. And similarly if you don't have tentative conclusions, or at least conclusions as to what possible conclusions one might expect, or etc.

Nairn's position is clearly not "once we discover everything that's true, the sum total of this knowledge will turn out to be the true xtianity." Rather, it is that the only *way* to discover truth is through true xtianity -- which, whether Nairn is consistent in drawing implications or not (he's not), means that the mertonian norms of science are destroyed!

(Sorry, you probably know that, it just drives me nuts. Little copyeditor rage there.)

This is so completely...what's the word...OTMFM. Teaching people how to think rather than what to think -- how to approach the world critically, how to recognize received wisdom and subject it to the same scrutiny as brand-new information, how to deal with "information" period, in all its forms.

For what it's worth, my mom's a middle-school science teacher at a small, mostly progressive private school, and she has one creationist student in her class this year. After some tactful discussions with the parents, sympathizing with their right to believe whatever they want, she told them their daughter was just going to have to deal with discussion of evolution because that was a core part of the subject matter. Mom even kind of pushed it with a multiple choice test in which students had to select the right definition of "evolution." The girl circled the right answer, and then wrote next to it in big letters, "STUPID!" But at least she got it right.

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/plannine/plannine7.jpg

"Y'see?! Y'see?! STUPID!"