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What would our forebears have made of test-tube babies, microwave ovens, organ transplants, CCTV and iPhones? Could they have believed that one day people might jet to another continent for a weekend break, meet their future spouse on the internet, have their genome sequenced and live to a private soundtrack from an MP3 player? Science and technology have changed our world dramatically, and, for the most part, we take them in our stride. Nevertheless, there are certain innovations that many people find unpalatable.
Leaving aside special-interest attitudes such as the fundamentalist Christian denial of evolution, many controversies over scientific advances are based on ethical concerns. In the past, the main areas of contention have included nuclear weapons, eugenics and experiments on animals, but in recent years the list of “immoral” research areas has grown exponentially. In particular, reproductive biology and medicine have become ripe for moral outrage: think cloning, designer babies, stem-cell research, human-animal hybrids, and so on. Other troublesome areas include nanotechnology, synthetic biology, genomics and genetically modified organisms or so-called “Frankenfoods”.
To many scientists, moral objections to their work are not valid: science, by definition, is morally neutral, so any moral judgement on it simply reflects scientific illiteracy. That, however, is an abdication of responsibility. Some moral reactions are irrational, but if scientists are serious about tackling them – and the bad decisions, harm, suffering and barriers to progress that flow from them – they need to understand a little more and condemn a little less…
I left Jones’ Headline alone. It’s could be construed as opportunism, deliberately leading discussion to the sensational and uninformed – excused as “inviting comment”.
As societies become more scientifically literate, scientific developments may well be judged more from a position of knowledge and less on the basis of intuitive responses driven by moral heuristics. However, there is another serious obstacle to the rational approach: our emotions, and especially the most morally loaded of emotions, disgust. In the wake of the creation of Dolly the cloned sheep, bioethicist Leon Kass of the University of Chicago argued that the visceral feeling which many people have in response to the most contentious scientific advances embodies a kind of wisdom that is beyond the power of reason to articulate. Many people are guided by this supposed “wisdom of repugnance”.
Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is not one of them. He has coined the more disparaging term “yuk response” to describe this reaction, and believes we should challenge the idea that repugnance is a reliable moral guide and the ultimate arbiter. “You begin the process by questioning the validity of the yuk response, calling it into doubt and pointing out that the yuk meter may be untrustworthy,” says Caplan. Then it becomes possible to start exploring the reasons and justifications for people’s initial intuitions of right or wrong, and see how they stand up to scrutiny.
Most of what Jones describes is cultural and parochial, of course. How shall I oversimplify? If I included an illustrative photo at this point of a nubile, bare-breasted young woman, our religious brethren would reel back, aghast. Slightly less hypocritical Western males would leer – and hope ther wives and fellow workers didn’t see them looking. Much of the rest of the world – from Euro sophisticates to Oceania – would admire her beauty. In Japan there wouldn’t be a peep even if she was barely into puberty.
Found by KD Martin at Cage Match
#86 – Hmeyers,
@79 Misanthropic Scott
An adult cat can easily eat a rabbit. Yet no one ever knows of a story of an adult cat eating a smaller cat, no matter how hungry it is.
But an adult cat is certainly capable of eating, say, a kitten. But yet this never happens.
That would be preposterous.
Actually, it happens rather a lot. Lions regularly eat cheetah kittens. Male lions kill all of the cubs in a pride when they come in and take over. Not eating one’s own young is not altruistic. Killing the young of the prior male or of a competing species of cat is commonplace. And, I would call lions one of the most loving species I have ever seen.
Similarly, people eat people on occasion. People eat bonobos and chimps with some regularity. People eat monkey rather a lot in some parts of the world.
Higher intelligent life will never favor theft of another’s work or rightly earned property through hard work, the selfish killing of innocents because these behaviors favor a selfish individual over the good of the group or the whole.
Actually, this too is untrue. Evolution supports whatever works. True, the group punishes cheaters and keeps them to a minimum. And yet, again and again a small number of cheaters make out well enough that evolution does indeed support such cheaters.
#88 – Shubee,
Really? Do you then claim that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god is NOT a spoiled child? Please explain how. Then please let me know exactly what this atheist agenda is. I’ve never heard of it.
#123 – Scottie
>>Then please let me know exactly what this
>>atheist agenda is. I’ve never heard of it.
Speak to Bobbo. He’ll talk your ear off about it.
#95 – Thomas,
#75
> Personally, I actually
> do think humans lived
> better as hunters and gatherers.
Certainly quality of life was worse. Infant mortality was high. Death by a host of causes was high including famine and disease. On top of that, war was far more common. I think you are counting the hits and not the misses.
Actually, that has only been true for about 100 years. For the vast majority of the 10,000 years of agriculture, life has been far far worse for the individual than in hunter-gatherer societies.
Life expectancy of cro magnons was about 65, compared to about 35-50 for most of agrarian history. And, paleopathologists who study the fossil record at the time that groups make the change from hunting and gathering to agriculture are very bored with what they find prior to the change, healthy bones, no signs of malnutrition, not even tooth decay. Once they make the change to agrarian life, they get all the interesting diseases that show up in the bones and die much earlier. They also get much shorter.
The truth is genuinely that hunter-gatherers were healthier for the vast majority of history. It is only recently, and only in the democratic developed nations that we have beaten out the health of the pre-agrarians. World wide, I doubt we have even now. With all of the starvation and disease in the world, it seems likely that we are still worse off on average.
#98 – Mister Mustard,
I don’t force my religious beliefs on them; if they would return the favor, it would be mighty Christian of them.
It’s true that you advocate real separation of church and state. For that you are to be truly commended. But, please, at least acknowledge that here on DU, you pick the fight at least as often as not.
#104 – Shubee,
Sorry BubbaRay. You obviously don’t understand general relativity. You gave that away by your ridiculous comparison of the universe with black holes.
Reread the thread you moran. That was me who suggested that. And, though I am not an astrophysicist, I have read a number of books on the subject and gone to a number of lectures in a series entitled Frontiers in Astronomy and Astrophysics. I do have a basic, though non-mathematic understanding of both general and special relativity. And, the possibility that the observable universe meets the definition of a black hole is something I picked up at one of these lectures.
Thank you BubbaRay and KD Martin. It’s nice to have my amateur level of knowledge confirmed by at least one (two?) professional astronomer(s).
@ MS
“And yet, again and again a small number of cheaters make out well enough that evolution does indeed support such cheaters.”
Yes but this is part of the challenge-response system of evolution.
Some type of evil becomes high profile like child abductions and so we get Megan’s law. Some type of corporate corruption like Enron happens so we try to combat it with Sarbanes Oxley.
The proof that humans aren’t highly evolved yet is that we don’t preemptively solve problems (active evolution). We are lazy and wait for something to be out of control first (passive evolution).
#107 – Mister Mustard,
You consider me to be an evangelistic theist? I guess you haven’t been reading anything I’ve posted, hm? Otherwise, you would never utter such an absurdity.
Hate to say it Mr. Mustard. I respect your views a lot. But, I must say that though you are very obviously NOT an Evangelist, you do get evangelical about your spirituality and are also quite condescending to those of us who do not share your view.
@125 MS
“Life expectancy of cro magnons was about 65”
For males or for females?
Unless somehow cro magnons didn’t have the “women often die during childbirth” problem this seems hard to fathom.
#111 – flowbee,
Suppose we go to a dictionary for our definition of religion instead.
Misanthropic Scott said: “Life expectancy of cro magnons was about 65, compared to about 35-50 for most of agrarian history.”
I call BS. I need a credible reference before I’ll believe that.
Mister Mustard,
I just reread the definitions in my post for religion. Rethinking it now, I think that neither you nor I nor bobbo qualify as having one. You may think you do, but are far too unconventional. You have beliefs, not a full-fledged religion. And yet, you do still try to sell those beliefs, not force them, just ridicule people into agreeing. As yet, I have not seen this work on anyone here.
But, if you read your own posts objectively, you are selling your opinion in the same way that I sell my opinion that religion has had a net negative effect on humanity. Note that mine is not an atheist agenda. It is my belief as an antitheist based on my experience and reading of history. Antitheism is no more scientific than your beliefs.
Atheism, however, is more scientific. Atheism is the assertion that there must be data to give credence to a hypothesis.
I think that you often confuse atheism and antitheism. And, I think you confuse opposition to religion with ritual. For something to be a religion, there must be ritual and devotion. Where is the ritual in either atheism or antitheism? Is blogging and debating a ritual to you? Do you blog because god has ordered you to do so?
#130 – HMeyers,
“Life expectancy of cro magnons was about 65″
For males or for females?
Unless somehow cro magnons didn’t have the “women often die during childbirth” problem this seems hard to fathom.
Checking. My source was Jared Diamond’s book The Third Chimpanzee. Checking for relevant quotes. I’m not sure how specific he was in the book.
Page 50: “Unlike neanderthals, few of whom lived past the age of forty, many Cro-Magnon skeletons indicate life past sixty. Many Cro-Magnons, but few Neanderthals, lived to enjoy their grandchildren.”
Page 139: “That transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is generally considered a decisive step in our progress, when we at last acquired the stable food supply and leisure time prerequisite to the great accomplishments of modern civilization. In fact, careful examination of that transition suggests another conclusion: for most people the transition brought infectious diseases, malnutrition, and a shorter life span. For human society in general it worsened the relative lot of women and introduced class-based inequality. More than any other milestone along the path from chimpanzeehood to humanity, agriculture inextricably combines causes of our rise and fall.”
Sorry. I don’t have information on specific life expectancy numbers for men and women.
#132 – QB,
Here’s the best I could do for shorter life expectancy for agrarian society. Here’s a statement that life expectancy just 200 years ago was only 30.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-112886205.html
This sounds worse to me than Jared Diamond’s statements above, though he did not cite an actual average. Perhaps there are not enough fossils for a statistical universe of Cro-Magnons.
#129, etc. – Scottie
>>But, I must say that though you are very
>>obviously NOT an Evangelist, you do get
>>evangelical about your spirituality
Well, if by “evangelical”, you mean I don’t let the Atheists give me a beat-down an renounce my beliefs (whatever they may be), I’d say you’re right. Although I think I get more evangelical about political and other miscellaneous issues.
>> But, please, at least acknowledge that here
>>on DU, you pick the fight at least as often
>>as not.
Hey, what can I say? As Liberty Loser points out, it’s always easier to get in someone’s face when you can’t see their face! As far as religion goes, I can’t think of a single time that I have ever brought it up (except maybe as an offhand, one-liner joke). Usually my entries into the religion fray come from Bobbolina berating me (or some other hapless theist) for being brainless, unscientific, unquestioning, dumb-as-mud sheeple, who would shed any misguided beliefs they have in a Noo Yawk minute, if only they would attend to his preaching about the idiocy of believing in anything that you can’t punch up on a pocket calculator.
>>I think that neither you nor I nor bobbo
>>qualify as having one.
Well, I wouldn’t argue to hard against that. I know that, at least in my own particular case, my train don’t run on meth and man-ass. It’s just to easy a target when Bobbolina latches onto my trouser leg like a little terrier, braying at me about being unthinking and mindless in my personal choices, when I could become more attractive, lose weight, become wealthy, and see all my cares melt away if only I would follow His path. That fucker is every bit as religious as I am. Even more so; I don’t try to convince others that they are wrong to believe what they do.
>>And yet, you do still try to sell those
>>beliefs, not force them, just ridicule
>>people into agreeing. As yet, I have not
>>seen this work on anyone here.
That’s why I’m not a salesman, Scottie. I’d be a pretty shitty one, don’t you agree? I don’t even advertise what my beliefs ARE (other than that they’re not consistent with Atheism), much less try to convince people that they should believe as I do.
>>Atheism, however, is more scientific.
Well, God bless it! I’m all for science. However, when I go to a concert (perhaps the opera HMS Pinafore), or look at the changing leaves on a fall day, or gaze at a sunset over the Pacific (straining my eyes to see Sapporo, or some other Japanese island, from Paddy-RAMBO’s porch), or look at the odd pieces of artwork at the MOMA, I sometimes let science take a back seat. Not that anyone else should do that, mind you. That’s just my personal preference.
>>Do you blog because god has ordered you
>>to do so?
If God had an opinion on blogging that he chose to share with me, I’m sure he would smite me, as he did to the men of Beth Shemesh, for looking at the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 6:19).
>>1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause,
>>nature, and purpose of the universe, esp.
>>when considered as the creation of a
>>superhuman agency or agencies, usually
>>involving devotional and ritual observances,
>>and often containing a moral code governing
>>the conduct of human affairs.
Except for the optional part following the “esp.”, that would seem to describe many Atheists. Certainly Bobbo.
Sorry, I forgot the WWW. Eds: If you can stop flagging my posts as spam every time I use the <a href=””></a> syntax, this problem would go away.
Lose the “www”, Scottie. The blogtastic software can’t handle it. It just highlights the “http://www” part (like it does “dvorak”, and trashes the rest of the link.
#136–Mustard===SEE!!!! Its really insulting to be called religious by someone as kneejerkingly unthinking as yourself.
Now, I take aggressively belligerent as a badge of honor.
“Still—” when I say “If you think that” or “Anyone who thinks that way—” its not exactly a direct attack on you, although you take pleasure it treating it that way. A quibble I know.
But yea==religious people are pretty stupid when they apply that belief system to anything other than some kind of inflicted emotional response.
God has granted me the serenity to accept what I can’t change. Freedom of speech allows me to write against it. I write not to change minds, but to reinforce the great oppressed minority in America who think they might be alone in thinking rationally. You are not alone!!!!!
#139 – Bobo
>>SEE!!!! Its really insulting to be called
>>religious by someone as kneejerkingly
>>unthinking as yourself.
Since #136 is my message, I infer that you somehow drew that conclusion from what I said. I guess God isn’t the only one who works in mysterious ways.
In any case, you appear to be far more interested in other people’s beliefs than I am (at least with an eye towards changing them), so I’ll leave you to your capitalized realization. I prefer to, as ‘dro has exhorted me many times, adopt the “vivir y dejar vivir” approach to personal religious beliefs. (I’ll bet you were just gnashing your teeth over that split infinitive, wern’cha?)
#135 M. Scott
I’ll buy the shorter life expectancy was pretty low a couple of hundred years ago. By comparison, the average Afghanistani has a life expectancy of 45 years currently.
If you’re looking for morality and science, there it is. One of the major ethical issues in medical science these days is not how to extend life, but when to terminate it. Yes science has limits – and that’s when a common shared morality needs to kick in.
BTW, women tend to live longer and survive tragedy better since they tend to be more communal and supportive. I like where you’re going with your thinking Scott.
#141–QB–I’m confused. Here we have a whole thread thrashing the difference/definition of science and morality and you post as if science, as in medical science, was involved in end of life or life extension morality issues.
If you want to know how to least painfully end a life==use science. If you want to know when to end a life using the least painful technique available==use morality.
No connection at all between the science and the morality.
How the morality debate==yes, we keep too many people alive for too long for no good and for damage to the rest of the still living. Too bad science can’t speak to that except to divide the return on resources available among the conscious and productive? ((And that still doesn’t address the morality at all.))
#141 – QB,
So … I’m confused by your post on several levels. Are you now admitting that agriculture shortened life expectancy until very recently with the advent of modern medicine? Do you believe life expectancy was longer more than 200 years ago but still after the advent of agriculture? Where are you going with your post?
You called mine bullshit. Are you now convinced?
#142 – bobbo,
I still say that science provides the necessary information to make a moral decision. It does not provide the morals. But, think about whether to resuscitate someone, wouldn’t you want the input from the doctors about what the odds of survival are and about what life would be like for a loved one if they do make it before making your moral decision?
Science provides the data. Then, in the presence of objective data, one can make a moral decision. If one is ill-informed, the decision may be tragic or even catastrophic even when the intent is good and moral.
Therefore, in my mind, the two are linked by the fact that one must have accurate information based on science to make many types of moral decisions. One must also be a moral human being to do so. The two are intimately intertwined.
#143–Scott===things are what they are, not what hoomans do with them. Is oil and water “intertwined” just because we can put them in a jar and add an emulsifier==or are they two different things?
If I use a stick to poke your eye out is a stick a weapon, or just a stick that I have used as a weapon? Is the stick part of morality because I have used it wrongly? Is the stick part of morality because science formed it which provided a heretofore unavailable option? Form, function, natural use, designed purpose, human ingenuity. Wait for it Mustard===its all definitional.
It would take a few more paragraphs to go thru, but in short: I prefer keeping things separate as long as I can before losing the distinctions by “intertwining” them==or calling them married on which we discussed earlier all to the same psycholinguistic issue as here.
Physically, we may be what we eat, but spiritually, we are what/how we think===and thats done with words.
#144 – Bobbo
>>Is the stick part of morality because
>>science formed it….
Stick? Science?!?! Everyone knows that God created sticks. Just as he did little green apples. Or are you talking about some genetically modified FrankenSticks?
#145–Mustard==think that thru. Are you sure Satan didn’t take gods natural and good tree branches and turn them into sticks to tempt Adam to beat Eve?
I’m sure thats what the Good Book says somewhere.
#146 – Bobbo
Yes, I’m sure. Just as the devil can quote Scripture, so can he use sticks for evil.
They can also be used for great good, such as when they clutter up Dumbya’s “ranch”, requiring to spend an inordinate amount of time clearing brush (made up of sticks), rather than getting himself and us into trouble playing president.
#125
> For the vast majority of the 10,000
> years of agriculture, life has been
> far far worse for the individual
> than in hunter-gatherer societies.
Are we comparing the dawn of agrarian societies or modern society to that of the hunter-gatherer? Even in agrarian societies, the population growth was generally greater. That there are some Cro-Magnons that lived to 65 cannot be taken as evidence that the overall survival rate was greater than that of Homo-Sapiens. Clearly the reverse must be true. It might be the case that Cro-Magnons that lived past a certain point had a higher probability of survival but prior to that age have a significantly lower probability. It is difficult to know. You cannot conclude that they were “healthier” as their lack of survival clearly argues against it.
#134
RE: Your quote from page 139
This seems to be the reverse problem of counting the misses and not the hits. When you make systems more efficient you increase the ability to take down larger numbers of nodes with a single input. Thus, when humans began settling in close quarters, an obvious consequence was that it increased the speed at which disease might spread. Hunter-gather’s might have been exposed to similar diseases as those of agrarian societies but their isolation helped prevent rapid spread. If the problems in your quote were true it would argue against improved survivability and yet the opposite is clearly the case. That the development of societies created new problems in no way diminishes the success of its improved ability for the species to survive.
I think a significant cause of our disconnect is in our respective definition of “healthier.” Spending all day hunting for food is not what I call a healthier lifestyle.
#147–Mustard==as I watch the wonderfully religiously uplifting tale of “Tess of the d”Urbevilles,” I can see the thematic threads coming together==Satan is a SCIENTIST!!! Turning us from gods natural good plan.
It all makes sense now. I do wonder how long someone with your demonstrated individuality and imagination would actually last in the company of god==judgment being a two way street and all.
#148–Thomas==being healthy has nothing to do with being outcompeted by another species nor being unable to adapt thru weather/climate changes affecting food supply, shelter, predators, the tax man.
Likewise I think all experts constantly advise the health lifestyle: a variety of food and lots of exercise. That comes from hunter/gatherer==not bent over all day breathing ox farts consuming a constant high carb diet of moldy bread.
But you are right==what is healthy? Are all the competing references using the same definition?
As a professional astronomer (as is BubbaRay), the universe is what it is. A vast void, expanding exponentially, contaminated very sparesely and primarily with some hydrogen and a little helium, populated with some galaxy clusters, in which there are some galaxies, in which there are some solar systems, one of which has almost been proven to contain “intelligent” life.
Only here, at jcdvorak dot org slash blog can that premise be scrutinized to such a degree that an article on “Science Out Of Control”, which I now regret forwarding to Eideard, can disintegrate into a boxing match on religion and puerile insults.
But Hey! It’s been entertaining, especially from M. Scott, bobbo, Mr. Mustard and Mr. Fusion, each with his own views of our universe. I enjoy each of your ideas.
OK, to heck with “Science out of control.” Carry on!