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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 9:21 pm Post subject: dangerous thoughts |
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A recent survey asked leading academics and scientists to list what they felt to be the most dangerous ideas of today.
Samples:
Our planet is not in peril
Environmental crises are a fundamental part of the history of the earth: there have been dramatic temperature excursions, severe glaciations, vast asteroid and comet impacts. Yet the earth is still here, unscathed. And yet many people in the various green movements feel compelled to add on the notion that the planet is in crisis, or doomed; that all life on earth is threatened. The most important thing about environmental change is that it hurts people; the basis of our response should be human solidarity. The planet will take care of itself.
Oliver Morton, Chief news and features editor at Nature
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The posterior probability of any particular God is small
You can't in any logical system I understand disprove the existence of God, or prove it for that matter. But in the probability calculus I use, He is very improbable.
Philip Anderson, Princeton University, Nobel laureate
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Science must destroy religion
Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticising ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive. It has also obliged us to lie to ourselves about the compatibility between religious faith and scientific rationality.
In the spirit of religious tolerance, most scientists keep silent when they should be blasting the hideous fantasies of a prior age with all the facts at their disposal.
Sam Harris, University of California, Los Angeles
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School is bad for children
Schools are structured today in much the same way as they have been for hundreds of years. Schools should simply cease to exist as we know them.
The Government needs to get out of the education business and stop thinking it knows what children should know and then testing them constantly to see if they regurgitate whatever they have been spoon-fed.
We need to stop producing a nation of stressed-out students who learn how to please the teacher instead of pleasing themselves.
We need to produce adults who love learning, not adults who avoid all learning because it reminds them of the horrors of school.
We need to stop thinking that all children need to learn the same stuff. We need to create adults who can think for themselves.
Call school off. Turn them into apartments.
Roger Schank, Chief learning officer, Trump University
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20909-1966076,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/03/wedge03.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/03/ixnewstop.html
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_print.html |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 10:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
School is bad for children
Schools are structured today in much the same way as they have been for hundreds of years. Schools should simply cease to exist as we know them.
The Government needs to get out of the education business and stop thinking it knows what children should know and then testing them constantly to see if they regurgitate whatever they have been spoon-fed.
We need to stop producing a nation of stressed-out students who learn how to please the teacher instead of pleasing themselves.
We need to produce adults who love learning, not adults who avoid all learning because it reminds them of the horrors of school.
We need to stop thinking that all children need to learn the same stuff. We need to create adults who can think for themselves.
Call school off. Turn them into apartments.
Roger Schank, Chief learning officer, Trump University
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This sounds like the kind of stuff you always here from "skateboard anarchists". Yeah man, school sucks 'cuz they force you to CONFORM!! This is then followed by a twenty-minute lecture on how the government is suppressing hemp-powered automobiles.
But hey, who am I to argue with the hallowed halls of academia?
| Quote: |
Trump University is an online university founded by real estate mogul and billionaire Donald J Trump. It is part of the Trump Organization. It offers courses in real estate, marketing , entrepeneurship and how to create wealth. Trump brought together a few business experts such as Jack Kaplan and Don Sexton to help him work out the curriculum for the subjects.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_University |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, he sure didn't fit well on a list of Nobel winners.
Though, I don't necessarily disagree with what he said. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 3:56 am Post subject: |
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Neither is Sam Harris a good fit. Though he mocks religion he himself "embraces Eastern philosophy and Buddaism"
A quick google search on his name shows this. |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 4:09 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| Quote: |
School is bad for children
Schools are structured today in much the same way as they have been for hundreds of years. Schools should simply cease to exist as we know them.
The Government needs to get out of the education business and stop thinking it knows what children should know and then testing them constantly to see if they regurgitate whatever they have been spoon-fed.
We need to stop producing a nation of stressed-out students who learn how to please the teacher instead of pleasing themselves.
We need to produce adults who love learning, not adults who avoid all learning because it reminds them of the horrors of school.
We need to stop thinking that all children need to learn the same stuff. We need to create adults who can think for themselves.
Call school off. Turn them into apartments.
Roger Schank, Chief learning officer, Trump University
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This sounds like the kind of stuff you always here from "skateboard anarchists". Yeah man, school sucks 'cuz they force you to CONFORM!! This is then followed by a twenty-minute lecture on how the government is suppressing hemp-powered automobiles.
But hey, who am I to argue with the hallowed halls of academia?
| Quote: |
Trump University is an online university founded by real estate mogul and billionaire Donald J Trump. It is part of the Trump Organization. It offers courses in real estate, marketing , entrepeneurship and how to create wealth. Trump brought together a few business experts such as Jack Kaplan and Don Sexton to help him work out the curriculum for the subjects.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_University |
I wholeheartedly agree with him. Just look at programs that are non-traditional and how well they develop students: Home schooling trumps public schooling; experiential programs, like Semester at Sea trump public schooling... Etc. Check out the Johnston Center program at the University of Redlands. Great stuff.
There's virtually nothing like the old form of apprencticeship anymore, and we are worse for it.
How ironic that I hated school and am now a teacher. Had I a million bucks, I'd be damned tempted to start up my own school affiliated with a progressive university to do real-world, real-time classroom research as well as exploring alternative programs and forward future sorts of projects. |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 4:29 am Post subject: |
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This is brilliant (from last year's Q.). The last line is what does it.
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ROBERT SAPOLSKY
Neuroscientist, Stanford University, Author, A Primate's Memoir
Well, of course, it is tempting to go for something like, "That the wheel, agriculture, and the Macarena were all actually invented by yetis." Or to do the sophomoric pseudo-ironic logic twist of, "That every truth can eventually be proven." Or to get up my hackles, draw up to my full height and intone, "Sir, we scientists believe in nothing that cannot be proven by the whetstone of science, verily our faith is our lack of faith," and then go off in a lab coat and a huff.
The first two aren't worth the words, and the third just isn't so. No matter how many times we read Arrowsmith, scientists are subjective humans operating in an ostensibly objective business, so there 's probably lots of things we take on faith.
So mine would be a fairly simple, straightforward case of an unjustifiable belief, namely that there is no god(s) or such a thing as a soul (whatever the religiously inclined of the right persuasion mean by that word). I'm very impressed, moved, by one approach of people on the other side of the fence. These are the believers who argue that it would be a disaster, would be the very work of Beelzebub, for it to be proven that god exists. What good would religiosity be if it came with a transparently clear contract, instead of requiring the leap of faith into an unknowable void?
So I'm taken with religious folks who argue that you not only can, but should believe without requiring proof. Mine is to not believe without requiring proof. Mind you, it would be perfectly fine with me if there were a proof that there is no god. Some might view this as a potential public health problem, given the number of people who would then run damagingly amok. But it's obvious that there's no shortage of folks running amok thanks to their belief. So that wouldn 't be a problem and, all things considered, such a proof would be a relief—many physicists, especially astrophysicists, seem weirdly willing to go on about their communing with god about the Big Bang, but in my world of biologists, the god concept gets mighty infuriating when you spend your time thinking about, say, untreatably aggressive childhood leukemia.
Finally, just to undo any semblance of logic here, I might even continue to believe there is no god, even if it was proven that there is one. A religious friend of mine once said to me that the concept of god is very useful, so that you can berate god during the bad times. But it is clear to me that I don't need to believe that there is a god in order to berate him. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 7:53 am Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
Neither is Sam Harris a good fit. Though he mocks religion he himself "embraces Eastern philosophy and Buddaism"
A quick google search on his name shows this. |
You can mock religion and embrace eastern philosophy, since the words alone tell you that a philosophy - Eastern, Western, or Martian - is not a religion.
You can mock religion and still embrace buddhism - I tend to avoid the capital letter when I write that word because Guatama Siddharta never claimed to be a god, and I'm pretty sure that "buddha" was a word ascribed to him by his followers. (I think it might mean "teacher," and I never capitalize that word in English either.)
Regardless, most who have looked into it regard it as a philosophy, not a religion : he never provided a creation mythology, as most religions do, and read any English version of his Teachings and you'll be hard-pressed to find mention of life after death. (If reincarnation is in there, um, have to point out that this constitutes "life after life.") All discussions of God, or usually "gods" are discussions that vary within subcultural contexts, Hindu vs Tibetan vs Chinese vs Shinto, etc., thyerefore quite a separate thing from whatever "Buddaism" might possibly be.
Likewise, Siddharta never promulgated anything like "laws" or "morality" - rather, I think his "precepts" are best seen as "suggestions," as in, "if you really wanna break free of this birth / pain / illusion / desire / birth / pain / illusion etcetera thing, here are some things you can do to break free of the Wheel. In simple terms, Nirvana does not equal Heaven, though it has seemed to come around to that in English slang ... it really means "Nothing," and so the concept is more in tune with Sartre and existentialism than it is with the New Testament.
(As a contrast to buddhist thought, consider how different Western culture would be today if Moses had come down from the mountain after conferring with Yahweh up on Sinai and said, "Lisdten up, I got these here Ten Suggestions - hey, yeah, I know that sounds like a lot but I haggled him down from his original 25 or 30. Believe me, Isrealites, I'm workin' for you." )
Finally, a human being can have a spiritual impulse and even a love of religion while still mocking religion in just the same way that anyone who loves life can make dark-humor jests about death. We arre complex creatures, and it's part of why homo sapiens is one of my favorite species.
The tendency to look for contradiction as evident of failure, hypocrisy or simple error indicates a desire to portray humanity as far less complex than we are, and the universe as less fgascinating as it actually is ... I think it's only counter-intuitive but counter-reality.
Reflecting back on the original purpose of this thread, perhaps looking at things as they really are rather than as we think or want them to be - perhaps this is the dangerous idea of all ... and I'm guessing also means most promising. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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| The Bobster wrote: |
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
Neither is Sam Harris a good fit. Though he mocks religion he himself "embraces Eastern philosophy and Buddaism"
A quick google search on his name shows this. |
(1) You can mock religion and embrace eastern philosophy, since the words alone tell you that a philosophy - Eastern, Western, or Martian - is not a religion.
You can mock religion and still embrace buddhism - I tend to avoid the capital letter when I write that word because Guatama Siddharta never claimed to be a god, and I'm pretty sure that "buddha" was a word ascribed to him by his followers. (I think it might mean "teacher," and I never capitalize that word in English either.)
(2) Regardless, most who have looked into it regard it as a philosophy, not a religion : he never provided a creation mythology, as most religions do, and read any English version of his Teachings and you'll be hard-pressed to find mention of life after death. (If reincarnation is in there, um, have to point out that this constitutes "life after life.") All discussions of God, or usually "gods" are discussions that vary within subcultural contexts, Hindu vs Tibetan vs Chinese vs Shinto, etc., thyerefore quite a separate thing from whatever "Buddaism" might possibly be.
(3) Likewise, Siddharta never promulgated anything like "laws" or "morality" - rather, I think his "precepts" are best seen as "suggestions," as in, "if you really wanna break free of this birth / pain / illusion / desire / birth / pain / illusion etcetera thing, here are some things you can do to break free of the Wheel. In simple terms, Nirvana does not equal Heaven, though it has seemed to come around to that in English slang ... it really means "Nothing," and so the concept is more in tune with Sartre and existentialism than it is with the New Testament.
(As a contrast to buddhist thought, consider how different Western culture would be today if Moses had come down from the mountain after conferring with Yahweh up on Sinai and said, "Lisdten up, I got these here Ten Suggestions - hey, yeah, I know that sounds like a lot but I haggled him down from his original 25 or 30. Believe me, Isrealites, I'm workin' for you." )
(4) Finally, a human being can have a spiritual impulse and even a love of religion while still mocking religion in just the same way that anyone who loves life can make dark-humor jests about death. We arre complex creatures, and it's part of why homo sapiens is one of my favorite species.
(5) The tendency to look for contradiction as evident of failure, hypocrisy or simple error indicates a desire to portray humanity as far less complex than we are, and the universe as less fgascinating as it actually is ... I think it's only counter-intuitive but counter-reality.
(6)Reflecting back on the original purpose of this thread, perhaps looking at things as they really are rather than as we think or want them to be - perhaps this is the dangerous idea of all ... and I'm guessing also means most promising. |
(numbers are mine)
1. True. However eastern philosophy and buddhism tend to have a spiritual aspect to them. And I was talking about SAM HARRIS's specific claims rather than the above two as a whole.
Mocking religion while attempting to claim that what you believe in (eastern philosophy and buddhism) is "rational" sounds more than just a bit dogmatic. As for your remark about never capitalizing the word, neither do I...but I do tend to QUOTE what was said.
2. Thanks for correcting the spelling mistake. I'll return the favour later
3. Agree here although I never suggested otherwise
4. I doubt that. If one has a sincere love of religion one is not going to mock it. Devout Jews, Christians, Moslems... they don't mock their religion or flout its restrictions (at least they try not to). Making "dark-humor jokes about death" is not really in the same league as "mocking".
5. I really don't think humanity is all that complex. It's fairly simple to figure out what motivates the vast majority of people (be it money, sex, nationalism....)
6. I agree here...I am agreeing with you twice in ONE post? Gotta be a record of some kind or another
As regards 2 there's no "d" in "listen" and only one "g" in "fascinating"
But I assume you knew that and simply typed too fast, as I did too.  |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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That was by far the coolest couple of paragraphs I've read all week. |
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