SubJeff on 4/7/2012 at 17:25
Quote Posted by Tocky
Nothing we do holds up under scrutiny, not even survival, when you understand all we build will at some point be floating cold and dead in expanding space.
Whilst I have some sympathy with your point of view this statement is just wrong. For me, certainly, anyway.
If you're alluding to a "what is the point of it all anyway" attitude my answer would be "because it was fun whilst it lasted". I don't even think you have to do anything especially meaningful in life to feel that you've lived well. For me it's all about appreciating what you have, the time you have, the people and experience you have. And this world interacts with our senses such that one can find a great deal of fabulous without needing imagination. I don't need to have an imagination to appreciate the sound of the sea. Do I?
demagogue on 4/7/2012 at 18:33
As a philosophy student, I was always sensitive to a lot of the meta-issues swirling around science & our understanding of reality, and the humanism side of it -- how everything fits into the greater "meaning of it all" -- things that sometimes get short shrift or even contempt by some scientists themselves when they get into those issues.
I remember, I believe it was Steve Weinberg's book "Dreams of a Final Theory", where he gave so much praise about the contribution of math to physics, but then he just started railing against the contribution of philosophy of science, and that he & most scientists believed it was irrelevant at best, or dangerous poppycock by naive amateurs at worst... And I got sort of miffed at his strawman arguments.
The punchline is that humans don't have a completely "neutral" perspective on reality. It's filtered through what we can experience, and we have a very slanted perspective at that ... we're in a sea of subatomic virtual particles popping in and out of existence & moving at the speed of light, but we "live in" a world of trees and stock markets and revolutions and love affairs... I mean, that's not news, but not sure it's always sufficiently appreciated just how much the world we actually live in is constructed as much from the inside projecting out as from the outside filtering in...
The other thing that always really struck me is our actual relationship with the physical world, which science narratives sometimes shy away from... I mean you get shadows of it like the debates on the relationship between quantum collapse & observation... But so many interesting questions in there that they don't dive into or skirt around. It's not like we experience the world as outsiders looking out at it. We're seeing through it itself. Like we don't give orders to our brain to make some free choice; we live through the mechanism itself. Its choice is our choice, and through it all the beauty and hope and freedom of life is sparked into existence. We have this insider's perspective on reality itself, we're seeing through it, that's very special I think, and not the typical perspective scientific narratives seem comfortable taking.
Well there's more I want to say about it, but you get what I'm thinking.
faetal on 4/7/2012 at 19:50
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
8 jesus christ. That's a lot of damage to the parts of the brain that effect whatever it is that regular cell phone usage damages.
I don't think any research has shown cell phones to damage the brain at all.
faetal on 4/7/2012 at 19:52
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Thing is, I still struggle to explain all...
this.
It's just too amazing for it all to be a coincidence so I wouldn't call myself an atheist.
It's a relativity problem. We are able to comprehend X amount of complexity, the universe is x^y complex, so we assume that y must = special, because the alternative is that we are mundane.
faetal on 4/7/2012 at 20:09
(triple post - sorry)
In response to the OP, I do think there is a definite growth of anti-intellectualism and not just in science. Take politics for example - the whole Tea Party movement seems to want to replace an experienced or skilled executive with "regular folks" who aren't elitist, politicking types. As if you'd want the top slot of executive decision occupied by the likes of Sarah Palin...
One idea for why anti-science sentiment spreads so well is that the increase in scientific knowledge increasingly paints life on earth and humans in particular as being emergent from a much bigger system, in the scheme of which, we are both ephemeral and very primitive. Creationism allows a person to think that they are special, one of god's chosen creations and living as the very pinnacle of the universe's creative force at the hands of a creator. People's egos are not boosted by hearing that they are a configuration of chemicals which have developed a mechanism to mould to an environment, but believing that the universe is 6,000 years old and that we are the main players in a divine story is highly reaffirming of our own importance.
Personally, I am grateful that the chemical configuration which makes me exists and am completely happy to believe that it is all completely material, possibly on account of the fact that being a biochemist and having a very good understanding of evolution and neuroscience allows me access to more of the picture. What I do find frustrating however is when people who do not understand a great deal about biology and its mechanisms extrapolate from what they do know to assume that there is no way simple natural mechanisms could result in all this. It very much can and we're finding more and more out about it all of the time. Science expands exponentially all of the time, while mysticism, spirituality, religion - all they do is shrink to inhabit the gaps. This trend certainly points to the likelihood that science has got it much more right. After all, when is the last time any religion received a major update and had to re-assess large parts of its logic? No, for me, religion is very much in the realm of "well, we don't know all about X, therefore maybe divine", which seems to be an arbitrary place-holder.
Kolya on 4/7/2012 at 21:41
Quote Posted by Vivian
One of the problems is the absolute necessity of objectivity to the scientific method. You cannot, as a scientist, call something 'beautiful'.
Yes, you can. Objectivity is a noble goal but it can only be approximated. As dema explained, even when trying to be as objective as you can, you're still a human being which looks at the world through it's experiences. Beauty is one of these experiences, that we all know. It shouldn't be embarrassing for any good scientist to call something beautiful. You'd be ignoring the beauty in science to begin with. There is beauty in an elegant mathematical equation or a good theory that explains all the variables with minimal effort or a symmetrical pattern or a harmonic tone. Don't dismiss beauty as unscientific just because it isn't easily accessible to empirical research. That's not all of science anyway.
EDIT: As for the anti-intellectualism: We achieved that everyone can publish their thoughts, which gives rise to the appearance of equal validity of all publications.
faetal on 4/7/2012 at 22:06
He wasn't dismissing beauty as unscientific, he was saying that as part of science, one can not use the word beauty, e.g. in a paper. Beauty is subjective, science is not. Sure science can be beautiful, but only in the eye of the beholder. Likewise, it can describe, beauty, but not to say it is beautiful - that too is for each individual to decide. I highly recommend reading up on the neuroscience behind aesthetics, it is extremely interesting. There is a chapter dedicated to it in VS Ramachandran's 'The Tell-Tale Brain', which is a fantastic book on the whole.
Kolya on 4/7/2012 at 22:33
Beauty is not subjective. It's defined by cultural parameters. Much like the aforementioned best theory is defined by parameters of explaining all variables with least effort, ie it is the most elegant, aka beautiful. Which happens to make the connection between truth and beauty that has been discussed since ancient times.
faetal on 4/7/2012 at 22:56
I can't think of a single aspect of the scientific method which would be enhanced by commenting on the aesthetics, other than a study into human interaction with aesthetics. The beauty of science is that it is necessarily 100% dry and interprets data extracted from nature. The beauty is the realisation that gives rise to in the observer. Note, not everyone is affected by this beauty. Some people genuinely find it dull.
heywood on 5/7/2012 at 04:48
The mermaid thing is more about people being gullible than anti-intellectual. Evidently, there are still people who think that Discovery channel programming is meant to be educational.
Anyway, I see three sources of anti-intellectualism causing problems:
1. Religious fundamentalism
2. Poison politics
3. Conspiracy theory
Of the three, religious fundamentalism is the most worrying because it's a global problem, it's no longer fringe but spreading into mainstream religious organizations, it's causing wars, and it's not just anti-intellectual but openly regressive. If it keeps growing it could be the great scourge of the 21st century, like fascism and communism were in the 20th century.
Poison politics is the most annoying of the three, especially in the US where too many people see everything through a reality-distorting political lens. I dread meeting people who are so political they aren't comfortable talking to you until they've decided which team you're on, and then either talk to you like you're a "brother" who agrees with them on everything, or you're an enemy and a moron and obviously you believe all the stupid stuff the other side thinks. Either way, no intelligent conversation can be had. In this hyper-political context, science is just another weapon to be used against the other side, or the other side's weapon to be defended against.
I'm somewhat mystified by the rise of conspiracy theories. On one hand, it seems like a natural response to being fed a constant stream of propaganda. But I would have expected the rise of the internet and the proliferation of news sources to counter it and instead they seem to reinforce it. Maybe this is what happens to people who deeply trusted something or someone and had their trust broken.
Sometimes scientists and other intellectuals do themselves no favors when advocacy becomes more important than objectivity. If people get a hint you're withholding or manipulating information to achieve a certain outcome in the public opinion (e.g. with climate science), it's hard to gain their trust back.
