Spreading evolution, science, and reason efficiently

MonkeyBalls

raah! wrote: »

Well, your post was rather incoherent and poorly connected.

Textbook attempt to save face, to try to maintain the upper hand.

Your bloviated response reeks of fail, trying to muddy the waters.

"Or making the ridiculous claim that those atheists/agnostics are opposed to the calm dissemination of the truth, since this makes their relatives feel bad."

Reading comprehension is not your strong suit. Again: Re-read it, prove to me you're not a dope and are worthy of my attention, and I'll get back to you.

I skimmed the rest of your post. Your obtuseness is tedious. Your predictable type bores me to tears with your idiocy. Strawmanning to try to keep the upper hand because I bitch slapped you, and using distraction tactics of semantic obfuscation in cases where anyone who isn't autistic could interpolate the correct interpretation.

Don't try to outwit me or out-intellectualise me, you will lose.

By the way, all of this could have been avoided and niceness could have permeated the land if you hadn't started your post with some poncy attempts to criticise (what you failed you interpret correctly).

Now try again, objectively, first by summarising *correctly* what I've written, using my other posts in this thread for guidance. Good luck.

robindch

^^^ Now, now. Peace and Love.

MonkeyBalls

smokingman wrote: »

I think the best way to go about it is to teach the wonder and awe of the universe instead. It may be taken in and re-written by any minds eye as they see fit but the wonder of how amazing it is, is what binds religious and atheist mind alike. Religious people may ascribe this to a creator, atheists will ascribe this to actual facts but the drive to teach people true reason will not be successful otherwise.

Cold hard facts may be the lifeblood of science but we humans are not all about that. Our actions and reactions are always conditioned by our emotional responses and if we can add that in to the mix when we are trying to explain science, success will follow. We need the emotional connect as well.

I have retold people stories and explanations of science I've heard or read from astrophysicists, molecular biologists, scientists of all kind, and the only ones that struck a chord were the ones that evoked an emotional response - awe.

Try to explain the cold hard facts and you won't get far. Explain to people, for example, where the billions of carbon atoms in their body come from (the death of a star) and they walk away feeling good and having a better appreciation for science. Tell them to have a look up at the moon and let them know that what they're seeing is actually from 1.2 seconds ago. Likewise with the sun, over 8 minutes ago; the north star, 434 years ago.

We aren't Vulcans and science teachers needs to remember that.

Excellent post, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.

We have to tap into that.

As I've said before, Christianity and Islam (and the countless other cults throughout history) are testament to our gullibility and our desperate need to believe in something transcendent, magical, etheral, anything. As it happens, reality is more extraordinary and mindblowing than the petty tribalisms and superstitions found in the Bible and Koran and other relics of illiterate goat-herders and power-consolidating patriarchs. Every moment of sentience is enriched when you realise it will never come again. Your friends and family and your relationships and experiences will one day be snuffed out. This is all the more reason to enjoy every moment right now while you can, and don't waste your life as a victim of delusion, sleepwalking through this world while waiting for a reward in an afterlife that will never come.

But there are definitely cognitive mechanisms underlying religious belief - it's not just a culturally constructed notion that can be wiped out through fact spreading. We have innate biases, and religion piggeybacks on them. There has to be a way of getting reason to "piggyback" on those innate, universal biases.

raah!

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

Reading comprehension is not your strong suit. Again: Re-read it, prove to me you're not a dope and are worthy of my attention, and I'll get back to you.

Perhaps you should repost it. It doesn't make grammatical sense. You can pretend it does. But it's very clear that it doesn't and I showed that clearly in the post.

Now try again, objectively, first by summarising *correctly* what I've written, using my other posts in this thread for guidance. Good luck.

The point is, the first post doesn't make sense. There is nothing to summarise. Other than a load of tautologies. Even in the light of those other posts 90% of that first post is non-sensical and ridiculous. Now, I've shown it's ridiculous. Perhaps you can show us, how it's possible, with the words you used, to make the points you want to make?

It's quite clear that the meaning you intended to be in the post isn't there. Again, you should learn to speak egnlish. And perhaps don't use words you don't understand, as it results in a rather ridiculous collection of tautologies.

The rest of your posts are along the lines of "how can we convince people of the truth" without any actual argumentation. This isn't something I'd be all to interested in engaging with. I do enjoy correcting people like you though.

Now, your first post doesn't mean anything. You can pretend it does. It doesn't, this has been clearly shown in my post. Taking one quote out of my posts starting with "or" is rather silly aswell. This was put forward as one amongst other interpretations.

sponsoredwalk

raah! wrote: »

Again, you should learn to speak egnlish.

raah! wrote: »

...I do enjoy correcting people like you though...

MonkeyBalls

raah! wrote: »

Perhaps you should repost it. It doesn't make grammatical sense. You can pretend it does. But it's very clear that it doesn't and I showed that clearly in the post.



The point is, the first post doesn't make sense. There is nothing to summarise. Other than a load of tautologies. Even in the light of those other posts 90% of that first post is non-sensical and ridiculous. Now, I've shown it's ridiculous. Perhaps you can show us, how it's possible, with the words you used, to make the points you want to make?

It's quite clear that the meaning you intended to be in the post isn't there. Again, you should learn to speak egnlish. And perhaps don't use words you don't understand, as it results in a rather ridiculous collection of tautologies.

The rest of your posts are along the lines of "how can we convince people of the truth" without any actual argumentation. This isn't something I'd be all to interested in engaging with. I do enjoy correcting people like you though.

Now, your first post doesn't mean anything. You can pretend it does. It doesn't, this has been clearly shown in my post. Taking one quote out of my posts starting with "or" is rather silly aswell. This was put forward as one amongst other interpretations.

So much fail. Just stop, son. It makes perfect grammatical sense. I have a serious question for you: do you have asperger's? Because that's the only explanation for your comments. And if you do, I will forgive you immediately.

But assuming you don't: You sound like a parrot, like you just discovered the word "tautology" (you're using it incorrectly by the way) and think that it's a great weapon in your cognitive toolkit.

Your inability to comprehend is not my issue. As you can see, smokingman nailed it.

MonkeyBalls

robindch wrote: »

^^^ Now, now. Peace and Love.

Peace and love to everyone, until they get poncey with me, and I'll respond in kind. Tit for tat, yo.

MonkeyBalls

Just wondering, by the way, if any of you have read Scott Atran's work on religion, or Jesse Bering's?

sponsoredwalk

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

It's not just an intellectual argument - emotional incentives and deep-rooted immutable drives undergird it. Fact spreading is next to useless in opening minds and changing opinions. The solution is to engage people's emotions, and that's the key to spreading evolution, reason, and science to the masses.

In all fairness this seems to me to be the root of your argument but it
also is just grossly contradictory, I mean you are arguing that emotional
incentives are mainly behind people's resentment against "neo-atheists"
then you tell us that we need to employ emotional arguments to argue
for "science & reason efficiently". Clearly that is just shooting yourself
in the foot since you set up an argument railing against emotional
arguments then finish it off by telling us we need to use the same
techniques you've just derided. Lets be clear, the implicit point in what
you're saying is that if these people would use reason then they would
not harbour this resentment but because they are being controlled by
their emotions they harbour resentment. Somehow you arguing that
we should then appeal to people's emotions with rationality right after
telling us how flawed emotions are never sparked a feeling of contradiction
though...

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

By the way, all of this could have been avoided and niceness could have permeated the land if you hadn't started your post with some poncy attempts to criticise (what you failed you interpret correctly).

I think he accurately summed up your post so I would argue that you
not only offered up a self-contradictory first post but also fail to interpret
this fact & furthermore have to rely on slightly aggressive insults in order
to defend your flawed position. In case you respond telling me that I
haven't engaged your post I have, just read above - it's clear what
the contradiction is so don't get angry at me about it

sponsoredwalk

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

Peace and love to everyone, until they get poncey with me, and I'll respond in kind. Tit for tat, yo.

Again I think you're just interpreting a valid criticism as some kind of "poncey"
attack.

Dades

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

Peace and love to everyone, until they get poncey with me, and I'll respond in kind. Tit for tat, yo.

I'm beginning to mislike your attitude. Your last comments to raah! were overly personal. Step back.

If you have a problem with a post, report it. Otherwise, save your responses.

MonkeyBalls

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

In all fairness this seems to me to be the root of your argument but it
also is just grossly contradictory, I mean you are arguing that emotional
incentives are mainly behind people's resentment against "neo-atheists"
then you tell us that we need to employ emotional arguments to argue
for "science & reason efficiently". Clearly that is just shooting yourself
in the foot...

Now you're going to embolden him. Maybe you feel a little sorry for him, like I do. Let me set the point straight and show that the contradiction is imaginary. It's so simple. Evolved emotional incentives to believe in and desire certain things is a "handle" that religion can "pull on".

When we argue about the truth or falsity of religion, we argue in facts and evidence.

But: underlying the argument are humans, and humans are driven by emotions and biases. One way that atheism is unappealing is that it offers no emotionally appealing alternative. And it also tears away at the emotional comfort net that draws people to religion in the first place (which is why it's easier to attack atheism than to endure the emotionally upsetting questioning of one's comforting religious beliefs).

In order to spread reason (by which I refer to evolution, critical thinking, scientific thinking) we must capture people's hearts and minds. Cold abstract theories that ignore the human need for satisfying, deep, transcendent answers will not work, and this is evidenced in the failure of evolutionary theory to win hearts along with minds.

MonkeyBalls

Dades wrote: »

I'm beginning to mislike your attitude. Your last comments to raah! were overly personal. Step back.

If you have a problem with a post, report it. Otherwise, save your responses.

Dades, I'm just amusing myself but it's tedious to be polite and sweet to someone who says the following and happens to be hilariously wrong in every case:

Your points are nonsensical and ridiculous!
You should learn to speak engrish!
Perhaps don't use words you don't understand! (while misusing the word tautological about 15 times)
I enjoy correcting people like you!

It's just too funny. It's Kruger-Dunning in full effect.

MagicMarker

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

Dades, I'm just amusing myself but it's tedious to be polite and sweet to someone who says the following and happens to be hilariously wrong in every case:

Your points are nonsensical and ridiculous!
You should learn to speak engrish!
Perhaps don't use words you don't understand! (while misusing the word tautological about 15 times)
I enjoy correcting people like you!

It's just too funny. It's Kruger-Dunning in full effect.

Just put him (raah!) on ignore, works for me.

CiaranMT

Just on the point of emotion and rationality/reason etc, during a module I've been studying this semester we watched a video which basically debunked the idea that we need to avoid emotion in order to reason properly.

I can't find the video now, but the logic was that without emotion, one does not know what they want, because they have no reason to choose one option over another.

Pity I can't remember where it was because it was a really strong argument which basically rubbished how our way of reasoning has to progress from Enlightenment-era thinking. Here's a different video which delves into the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wup_K2WN0I

CiaranMT

And here's his full talk, well worth watching.

Zombrex

CiaranMT wrote: »

Just on the point of emotion and rationality/reason etc, during a module I've been studying this semester we watched a video which basically debunked the idea that we need to avoid emotion in order to reason properly.

I can't find the video now, but the logic was that without emotion, one does not know what they want, because they have no reason to choose one option over another.

Pity I can't remember where it was because it was a really strong argument which basically rubbished how our way of reasoning has to progress from Enlightenment-era thinking. Here's a different video which delves into the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wup_K2WN0I

That only really applies for subjective decision making, ie what resturant would you like to go to or what movie would you like to see

Hold very little use when trying to determine objective facts about reality, such as what does an atom really look like. There emotion or common sense often distort accuracy.

philologos

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

Atheists (and theists alike) who loathe Richard Dawkins and other "neo-Atheists", I suspect, find unbearable the thought of their religious loved ones and friends being implicitly made to appear foolish and just plain wrong. They see bold brash truths about the obvious falseness of religion as being an insult to the dignity of those people, a deeply unpleasant feeling that elicits an honorable instinct to defend.

How is this obvious? :pac: Your post also assumes a false diachotomy between religion / faith and science.

I really must have been ill last night if jakkass is thanking me :pac:

CiaranMT

Wicknight wrote: »

That only really applies for subjective decision making, ie what resturant would you like to go to or what movie would you like to see

Hold very little use when trying to determine objective facts about reality, such as what does an atom really look like. There emotion or common sense often distort accuracy.

True, but listening to the talk so far and that's not what Damasio is talking about.

I brought it up because people here were arguing for and against the appeals to emotion when trying to convince students of the merits of science. An aside, if you will, to give the lie to what is seen as essential in proper decision-making, i.e. the removal of emotion.

MonkeyBalls

Ciaran you're entirely correct, it's a very important point that most people fail to realise. Even the mostly coldly rational scientist - Spock - is driven to do what he does by emotions. Emotions regulate behaviour, motivate us to do one thing and not another. We seem of think of emotion and reason as being two separate things that should not be conflated. It's a false distinction, mainly because most people (and I expect many in this thread) have an incorrect understanding of what emotion is (they think of knee jerk shrieking and overt displays of scattered brain exultation etc).

Jakkass wrote: »

How is this obvious? :pac: Your post also assumes a false diachotomy between religion / faith and science.

Oh Christ....

philologos

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

Oh Christ....

Well, if you are to make such claims they can be questioned?

raah!

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

Your points are nonsensical and ridiculous!
You should learn to speak engrish!
Perhaps don't use words you don't understand! (while misusing the word tautological about 15 times)
I enjoy correcting people like you!

I like that you've actually made a point here, though there's only one. What do you think the word tautology means? What it does mean is "saying the same thing twice over in different words, especially as a fault of style".

And then you say:

In order to spread reason (by which I refer to evolution, critical thinking, scientific thinking)

So by reason you refer to evolution, critical thinking, scientific thinking. And the title of your thread is 'how to spread a word which you use to mean "evolution or scientific thinking", as well as "science" and a subset of it'.

In every count these are tautologies. Just in case you can't see the latter, "evolution" being a scientific theory, would be involved in the spread of science.

Now, your posts weren't clear, and in fact contradictory. People have in different places inferred different things from your posts, and you can try to say "what I meant was actually..." but it's clear to everyone that your original posts and many of the following posts were nonsense. Your original post in the context of the posts following it up to my post was still nonsense.

That it wasn't clear is evidenced by the variety of different interpretations of what you said.

Now, here's what happened. You wrote a post that didn't make sense. It was variously interpreted by different people. I showed you it was ridiculous, and you say "ooh, you should have seen past the ridiculous grammar and contradictions and intuited my meaning."

If the meaning you wanted to be intuited is the "we need people to accept evolution with their hearts", which doesn't mean anything. Then perhaps you should have written a post which conveyed that meaning. And perhaps you should learn what the word tautology means.

MonkeyBalls

facepalm

philologos

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

facepalm

Avoiding skepticism and questioning? no way, right? :pac:

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

How is this obvious?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you wouldn't agree with the answer

oldrnwisr

CiaranMT wrote: »

I brought it up because people here were arguing for and against the appeals to emotion when trying to convince students of the merits of science.

Just to make a personal clarification here, I wasn't making an appeal to emotion, at least not in the accepted sense of the term.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-emotion.html

The point I was trying to make was that if we present science to non-scientists in a way that fills them with among other things a sense of wonder then it may generate an impetus for them to learn more about science and reason on their own. From my own experience, it was reading Matt Ridley and Richard Dawkins that spurred me on to learn more about evolution culminating recently in buying some evolution textbooks.

Communicators like Sagan, Feynman and Brian Cox are what we need to make science more appealing to those who do not know that much about it or may have some vague hostility towards it. Brian Cox's tv ratings managed to get up in the Eastender's neighbourhood. A bit more of that would be great.

Dades

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

facepalm

FYI, standalone facepalms are usually accompanied by a picture of Jesus or Captain Picard.

If you make a post and nobody understands it, whose fault is that?

Improbable

Dades wrote: »

FYI, standalone facepalms are usually accompanied by a picture of Jesus or Captain Picard.