1. Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

Comment #192074 by GSP on June 12, 2008 at 12:26 pm

Ahhh yes.... where would we be without pop-science?

2. Character Attacks: How to Properly Apply the Ad Hominem

Comment #188295 by GSP on June 3, 2008 at 7:42 pm

I am glad this article found its way on to this site. I fear many individuals on this site view argumentation as a sort of black and white or right and wrong process. In reality, rarely is an individual either wholly wrong or right.

For example, in the main forum on this site I began a thread asking people to name what they felt were the weakest "atheist" arguments; that is, the weakest arguments the atheists often featured on this site use. I proposed Sam Harris's argument that the motivation behind suicide bombing has little to nothing to do with political circumstances and almost, or everything, to do with the bomber's religion. I argued that because Sam Harris, because he had, at best, a bachelors in philosophy when he first made that argument, was in no position to make such a statement. In other words, because he was not, say, a political scientist, he should not be making such arguments. Someone quickly dismissed my comment as an ad hominem attack and considered it no further.

Was it an ad hominem attack? In the broadest definition, yes. But as this article makes clear, there are justified ad hominem attacks. For instance, you would, hopefully, not take the medical advice of a stranger on the street as seriously as a doctor, i.e., someone who studies medicine. Why not? Well, because the stranger is not a doctor. This is an ad hominem attack, yet, one that I think most of us would agree is justified. It argues that the stranger's character is somehow lacking and we should therefore not accept her opinion.

Good article. Thanks.

3. Truly Bizarre : Indians Throw Babies 50ft From Roof To Thank God.

Comment #174784 by GSP on May 3, 2008 at 1:43 pm

hey, what doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger...

4. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159917 by GSP on April 13, 2008 at 11:52 am

clearmind,

Your post (number 114), although I am not sure I completely understand it, is a fairly accurate representation of what goes on not just on this forum, but on forums in general. I just love coming to this forum because it strikes me as the definition of ironic that so many people devoted to reason and rationality allow themselves to fall into the sludge of inane debate.

Watching a thread evolve, this inevitably happens: The normal kudos to a particular thread originator and the people involved. Some comments on whether someone agrees with this fact or that. And then, as hoped for by the usual suspects, there comes a long someone who feels the need to "intellectually" analyze what they feel is the underlying theme of everything related to the thread. And so it begins! The constant parsing of sentences, the constant disagreements over definitions, the logically fallacies thrown left and right... it is really interesting to watch it happen.

Almost nothing is ever solved on these discussion boards. It is an immature game of "king of the hill." Whomever can scream the loudest (and longest) wins. And they call this rationality.

I have tried this myself in the past, as anyone that can click to right button can attest. But it really is futile. I think many of the people on here need a therapist more than they need an internet discussion forum.

5. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #128144 by GSP on February 16, 2008 at 10:39 am

I just have to throw this out there... Don't yet know if anyone has already made reference to it...

But pervasive ideas such as these:

yet students in many other countries consistently outperform American students in science, math and reading on comparative tests.

are extremely misleading and give the US its image of stupidity. When people cite quotes such as this, what they fail to say is that other countries, such as Japan DO have more intelligent students in their schools because most of those not interested have other options, such as trade schools, etc. So when measuring, what is actually measured is in other country's schools are the MOST intelligent students, rather than ALL students. It is unfortunate that the US is given this bad rap and I believe if these studies included the intelligence measurements of ALL students, as they do in the US, the results would come more in line.

Also, Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in America" is a fascinating read. Yes, we have had a persistent strain of it in the states since the founding, but let us also remember that this country does have its own intellectuals and intellectual movements, Pragmatism for instance. And there are others.

But come on, cut us some slack. The University, as an institution, has only been around in our country for a couple hundred years. Civilizations in other parts of the world have been around for thousands.

I am intensely concerned at the moment with what the advent of technology and the scientific method will overall do to intellectualism. We just got this new GPS tracking thingy at my work the other day. So now when I need to find a particular address I just type it in and it voice-guides me where to go - turn by turn. Honestly, I felt a little dumber after using it the full day; I didn't have to use my brain at all. This is just one example, but I think it is telling, as the US has historically been one of the most technologically advanced societies the world has ever known. (The scientific method, which I mentioned earlier, works similar to technology in that knowledge is less based on the ability of the human mind, but there are steps to that knowledge one must follow... if a particular assertion doesn't meet the requirements of a particular step in the scientific process, one then disregards it. In this sense it works similarly to my technology example in that it releases from us the need to use our intelligence to its maximum ability because we have a method that will generally do it for us. But this is far from worked out in my mind, and maybe be unfair to science as a whole, just throwing it out there [and that's why it's in parenthesis])

6. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127192 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 3:06 am

Quetzalcoatl

But its a simple equation. And it's not sustainable.

For instance, you have no idea how long the human species will inhabit this planet. Thus, if we add 1 barrel of radioactive waste over and over and over again, eventually this entire planet will be full of radioactive waste.

Now, one objection to this is that science will find a way to somehow magically rid us of this waste, but judging from past history, is it logical to believe this? I dont know. And I dont think so.

Further, the promises of science is what got us into this mess in the first place. Take Yucca Mountain... nuclear power is not even that big of a deal in the world at the moment and ALREADY there are huge controversies over where to store this shit. As the world's population increases, as predicted, these controversies are only going to increase in size. So where is this shit gonna go?

If you wanna get political, its not gonna go near rich people, it will go near poor people, and once again, poor people will be exploited so rich people can have their nuclear power, and feel "green." But this is in no way the reason I have been arguing the way I have been arguing thus far. This is just the logical outcome.

7. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127190 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:58 am

I'd much rather live next to Yucca Mountain

Well, hey, I am willing to bet there is some awesome property up for sale. Pretty cheap too.

8. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127188 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:56 am

You got it, let me quote those famous words, "if you think of it, lifes a piece of shit...so lets just look on the bright side of life..."

Is that George Carlin?

I am a bit more violent than that. I'm not saying lets just all be happy because that implies an attempt to be happy within the confines of the reality in which our rulers have created for is. I am saying let us come together and create our own reality.

Look, you all one day will be dead. So what's the point in listening to how someone else believes the world exists? Create your own. It is those individuals that create there own reality that make life (for us consumers) worth living. Think novelists, philosophers, directors, actors, strippers, and yes, even scientists. These are the individuals making life worth living.

We are all in this together. Let's fight while we are here and respects one another for different views. Let us not claim a monopoly on truth and claim every other species on the planet has been wrong... It does not get much more anthropocentric than that. And I honestly dont think we should be here to care only about ourselves.

9. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127185 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:50 am

I would suggest that if you want to deal with radioactivity, then instruments are just what you need.

This is exactly my point. Let us not get ourselves into this situation, and we wont have to deal with it.

Radioactivity isnt harmless, but that does not mean it is, right now, causing disease in the population.

Name another animal that is putting something harmful onto the planet that is negatively affecting us or anything else in an insustainable degree. You cant, because evolution has created a planet in which all things are sustainable (until the sun blows us up). We are the only species screwing things us, with first our wars and need for power, and then our religions, and now our science.

Here is my question, what is the point of introducing infinitely unsustainable radioactivity on a finite planet? For "US?" I dont know, I just dont follow all you "level-headed, humble" scientists in this respect.

10. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127182 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:39 am

I think having to deal with radioactive waste as a by-product is a reasonable price to pay.

Ok, but this is the problem. And this is completely logical...

EVENTUALLY, like almost everything else we have produced on this planet, we are going to run out of space for all this nuclear waste.. eventually.

By this definition it is unsustainable to produce nuclear power. It is literally that simple. If you are unwilling to live with nuclear waste under or next to your home (as I am) than it is positively unsustainable to even begin to produce the power. Because once the nuclear waste dumps start filling up, like our garbage dumps, then what?

11. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127180 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:34 am

If I may, if one could weigh all the good science has done with all the bad it would be a much anticipated result. Fortunately or unfortunately science is here to stay, so lets advocate good science.

Again, the instrumental, the utilitarian. Believe me, I am very sympathetic to this view, however, I cannot believe myself to be right on the matter. I dont know how to get around this, or near this. And I am afraid, Lorien, if you pressed me on this, you would find my limit. This is where I end. I do not know how to weigh the good v. the bad science has done. I'm stuck here.

I mean, I know it has done immeasurable good. But it has also done immesurable bad; just ask an African American about Tuskegee (and that is just a beginning). So, I guess if we view science merely as an instrument, I would say, "fuck it." It causes good, it causes bad. We cant find out which it has done more of and we cant know if in the future it will do more good than bad or more bad than good.

So I am of the view: Let's negate it. Let's live our lives as our lives. Let's take what life gives us as it is, and not try so hard to manipulate a reality that in the end refuses to let us have complete control.

12. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127173 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:27 am

What is the difference?

For real? Of all the "realities" that all life on the planet has used to understand the world, how can one possibly say the anthropocentric "modern" reality is the "true" reality? Any proof? The only thing I have heard scientists say when presented with this question is, basically, something along the lines of "science works." But this provides us with little more than an instrumental view of reality.

In geological time, radioactive waste is made harmless through decay.

See, I think this is where you and I differ: I don't view radioactivity as harmless, ever. Even if one day the sun expands and envelops the earth, the radioactivity has already caused damage, to us, to other animals, to plants, to the earth. Just because radioactivity will one day (perhaps) be negated to zero, does not mean it is harmless. Difference in ethics perhaps?

13. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127168 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:12 am

Quetzalcoatl,

thanks again for the info. i didnt know that about the rocks. but it forced a question into my mind, would you live next to Yucca Mountain?

And question number 2... So science created nuclear waste, and now its trying to solve that problem (because no one wants to live next to nuclear waste) so would we or would we not be better off if science (in this case) had never existed? i.e., would be better off if science had never invented nuclear power, and thus nuclear waste?

14. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127166 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:08 am

Lorien,

that made me laugh pretty hard, but now I have another question...

What does that mean for Mike Huckabee? Does Chuck Norris rock Mike Huckabees world, or is that just MY fantasy?

15. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127160 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 2:00 am

Ok, thanks for the info Quetzalcoatl.

Does radioactivity spread from where it was originally "stationed?"

16. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127156 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:55 am

Well, we know that common sense is a poor way of understanding scientific reality.

That is fine, if you qualify your arguments with that phrase "scientific reality." I am concerned with actual reality. But as long as you qualify your statements with scientific reality, just as a religious person would qualify there statements with theological reality, we will not have any disagreement.

What about vitrified waste (waste that has been embedded in glass) - how does that move?

How about thru geological time? I mean the earth is not a static object.

I know of no plans to explode nuclear-waste bombs anywhere.

Just a hypothetical.

17. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127147 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:44 am

radioactive waste creates radioactive monsters

ok, someone clear this up for me, because maybe i am just confused, or better yet, wrong.

Does radioactivity cause disease, or has science since done away with this hypothesis?

18. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127146 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:42 am

But my point is that you dont need that data because that which we call common sense (which was called a priori knowledge once upon a time) tells us that nothing that we can possibly set down upon the ground of the planet earth will stay exactly where we set it. Thus, radioactive waste, by this example, would have to move around the planet, and thus infect Jane Doe, as well as yourself, and myself.

I just dont see what is so controversial about this. This is just common sense. We don't need science for this. If you do, that is your problem, not mine.

As far as the mechanism by which radioactive waste spreads, lets consider wind. Suppose you live in Grand Rapids, Michigan (Western side of the state). Now, supposed there were a few hundred nuclear bombs detonated in Chicago (which is directly across Lk MI from Grand Rapids). Would you move because of the fear of the "wind mechanism," as I guess you would call it, would bring the radioactivity to your area of the world? or would you move?

19. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127139 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:25 am

Please do, starting with what I have said. I am getting on a bit and tend to forget.

Cmon now, its four pages to go thru, and you know what youve called me, just go and look again. It'll refresh your memory.

But let's consider a typical member of the public. Let's call her Jane Doe. How does radioactive waste impact her health during a typical day?

Ok, this is the common sense example I was talking about earlier. Can science prove this? I don't know, but we dont need it for this. Ok, so radioactive waste affects life affected by it.

Can we agree on that.

Ok, now. Radioactive waste spreads. Like nothing on the planet, which stays in the same place, it spreads. It spreads. For you to say what you just said, you would have to claim that nuclear waste does not spread. You would have to claim that where we put nuclear waste, it stays. Are you claiming this?

20. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127135 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:18 am

Yep, #137, no doubt about it.

AND

Sure sound like you're stoned.

Cmon now, give me a challenge. It's about the arguments, not about what makes you feel comfortable to label me as.

21. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127133 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:15 am

Science has succeeded like no other method of investigating reality because it encourages humility

This is sort of funny (if it wasnt so tragic). Need I quote you the names, and derogatory comments I have been called by the humble, scientific minds on this site? Including you? Faith, that is what it is called when you believe something that has no basis in reality.

22. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127130 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:12 am

I would be interested to know how you think radioactive waste creates disease.

Wow, so the inanity of science again rears its ugly head. Let's take a vote, who's willing to walk into radioactive waste and play Connect Four with me?

23. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127129 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:10 am

Oh dear. Some real nonsense has been posted.

I love you scientists.... just call me an infidel. Cmon, at least the Muslims have to stones to call me what I am. Don't say I'm nonsense... let it out....

24. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127126 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:08 am

Adorable rants, exactly.

So science has defined physics. Good for science. I define me. You define you. We define We. The rest matters little, to nothing at all. So the planets revolve around the sun... how does that change who I am?

25. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127123 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 1:02 am

Well, I'll leave you two alone now.

I just wanted to get it out there, just like the religious believed their worldview was the end all be all, so science believes the same.

But I am human. I am person. I will not be categorized. I will not be minimized. I am life. I am above all you can come up with because without me, you can come up with nothing. I am, you are, we are all there is to come up with ideology. We can create our own world and this is not the world I want to live in. This is the not future I dream for myself. If I have a headache I dont wanna reach for asprin, I wanna reach for the reason the headache is there in the first place. Science is passive, it cannot think for itself, it needs us to think for it, it is at our mercy. And the longer we agry to be at its mercy the longer it will destroy us, until there is nothing life.

26. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127120 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:53 am

Sleep off whatever you're on, buddy.

Hey man, what I am on, if you can point to anything, is completely legal, completely available and completely sedentary. It's not the substance, but my mind, that you fear.

27. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127116 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:48 am

Ok, V

I will sleep it off after you answer me this...

Why the image? What does it mean?

28. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127112 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:43 am

Yeah, Ive read Terrance McKenna too. What happened to you, Diacanu?

I mean, what? You like the idea of anarchism, but you have an innate need for authoritarianism, or what?

I'm not concerned about Dawkins. Dawkins is of the 20th C. I am of the new. We are the future. I've read Dawkins rant against post-modernism. I noticed he didn't mention Foucault. But hey, thats another topic, right. I mean, I am limited to what I began here, right? Because that is the etiquette? Isn't that how that works, V?

29. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127109 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:38 am

You sound like you're going through your rebel without a cause or a clue phase.

Ahh yes, you scientists have us all pegged, right? If I am thinking these things I must be early twenties, going thru some sort of phase. I could not be in my 40s, because that would mean I am old and wise (and married, but I wont judge you for that). Categorize me, baby, if that makes you feel better. If that makes you understand what I am saying, if that is easier to disregard my arguments.

30. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127105 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:34 am

Lorien, I hope you can join Diacanu and myself in the bar. Because you seem fun too.

Diacanu, its 330 here. Are we close?

31. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127104 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:33 am

Cmon now, you know better than that.

If you are gonna fight, fight my arguments, not what you hope I am.

Answer me. Are we at the end? We have figured it out? It's just a matter of figuring out more?

32. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127101 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:30 am

tinfoil boy? ha. this tells me that i am close.

the answer is science. just like religion provided all the answers before science, now science provides all the answers before... what???? I don't know, do you think we are at the end? Is this it? Are we done... the end of history? You, and the PhD and Fukuyama? And Dawkins.

33. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127099 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:28 am

Goddamn Diacanu,

I could see us getting drunk in a some dive bar together and it ending in a fist fight.

Then I would truly feel alive.

Fuck Science, Fuck God. Both work, but so what?

34. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127096 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:25 am

Dicanu,

What is that institution that tells us everything about how we should think about the world?

35. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127093 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:23 am

So what's the fucking answer?

Diacanu, why does there need to be an answer? What are you looking for? God?

36. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127091 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:21 am

There, now it's stuck in your head too, enjoy.

And you, Diacanu, you should be ashamed as well (along with the FightClub moniker guy). To use an image of an anarchist and then proclaim allegiance with the most authoritarian aspects of our modern day society shows you know nothing about what you speak.

37. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127090 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:18 am

This discussion is revealing!

I guess the creationists are not alone

in their lack of a proper science education.

You are claiming a monopoly on truth (and being sort of a troll, but I'll overlook that). Read the history of the planet... do you really think we have come to "TRUTH" in these mere few hundred years??? I'm sorry, but if you do, I laugh in your face and claim you love yourself, and humanity, way too much.

38. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127088 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:15 am

I am with Dan on this one. I would rather be well than sick and alive than dead. Give me modern medicine anytime.

You are missing the point. It has been science, and the scientific method, that has got us to this point. Do you trust them to get you out? Because that to me is even more of a leap of faith than the religious perform.

39. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127086 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:12 am

Steve, this disappointed me too

Why does this disappoint you fellows? This is the way science works, and has worked thru the centuries; they claim they know all there is to know at the present moment and then proclaim themselves wise. This is science, for you to say otherwise is speculation and thus, not science.

40. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127084 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:09 am

I would seem that according to GSP and Maher that most of them should have been pretty healthy. Yet, their suffering was evident from pathogens they contracted, which according to some here, shouldn't have happened.

I assume you are still living in the social-darwinist days. Just because some group of people die because another group is entirely filthy does not in any way add value to the filthy group.

41. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127083 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:04 am

Thanks, PhD, but stay with me. I spanked you in one post, I can spank you in another. MMMmmm you like that dont you... (cmon, its just sex)

Ok, you sit there and tell me the radiological exposure created by scientists from the testing of nuclear weapons, their power plants, their satellites, etc., has a "negligible" effect on humanity and the rest of life....

Go on, I'm waiting.

42. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127082 by GSP on February 15, 2008 at 12:00 am

anyway, many otherwise decent and moral people are so adamantly against some or another public effort to take care of our society. This constantly baffles me.

Yes, government's know best. Nevermind the people, will you be my king?

Only some decades ago

yes, you almost have it! only some decades ago... since, what? the... cmon you got it... the creation of the scientific/industrio/political world view have we had the diseases we today speak of. Jesus, fucking Christ. Science creates your disease, and then sells them back to you. Are you Inuit? Because I have some snow I'm trying to sell.

43. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127080 by GSP on February 14, 2008 at 11:53 pm

cmon Tyler Durden. Take off the Fight Club monkier right away because you completely missed the point of the film.

Exactly whose "common sense" are you referring to? How do we measure "common sense"?

Get a fucking grip, man. Have you lost all touch with what it means to be human!? Who's commonsense? ummmm, yours! use it! dont believe what the authorities (ie, Dawkins) have to say. Believe your truth, you are almost there!

And global warming is happening due to the drop in the number of pirates around the world. It's true, look it up!

Ok, you sit there and tell me radioactive waste has nothing to do with creating disease in life... And you know what? Even tho I'm not gonna sit here and "prove" to you you are wrong, I'm just gonna say you are full of shit. And if you cannot except that fact, then seriously, take off the fight club image. Because its lost on you.

44. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125834 by GSP on February 12, 2008 at 6:21 am

Are you sure of this? Care to provide evidence? While I agree we are moving toward a fat bastard couch potato existance, I think some of these diseases you speak of are not such really, merely unfitness.

I will be the first to admit, it is hard to get data on the number of diseases now relative to before the beginnings of civilization. I would just say it takes little more than common sense to see that it is true. But this perhaps points to another limitation of science; the inability to believe an assertion unless it is proven true. But it would be anachronistic for me to say that I can have proof of the number of diseases around before the rise of civilizations, especially the industrial revolution, because science just wasn't there to study it.

As for my assertion that all it takes is some common sense: we have surrounded ourselves with poison! How can one argue that this would not have an effect on us? From the continent-sized "islands" of plastic floating in our oceans infecting the food chain, to the poison we put on our food, to the antibiotic-creating superbugs we put in our animals, to nuclear power and weaponry. A concrete example I can give is the dramatic rise in cancer worldwide with the creation of nuclear power. Not to mention the immense amounts of waste created by our lifestyle that needs to be put somewhere, and the disproportionate amount of disease and sickness brought to the people that are unfortunate enough to have to live next to these dumps.

45. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125700 by GSP on February 11, 2008 at 9:31 pm

You LITERALLY think doctors think they can eliminate ALL disease??

I believe the underlying assumption in modern Western medicine is the possible elimination of disease.


I wonder then if you would be interested in cutting back certain aspects of your lifestyle given that what I said was true: the majority of diseases are a result of lifestyle.

It seems as if you are concerned with eliminating the overall number of diseases so I wonder if rather than continue a lifestyle that creates diseases that then need to be "cured," people would be in favor of creating lifestyles that eliminated diseases.

46. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125695 by GSP on February 11, 2008 at 9:19 pm

Frankly, I want a garbage man who picks up everyone's trash every week, not one who goes "ah, well, there'll always be more trash anyway, fuck it".

You're missing the point.

To put it within the context of your analogy (since you insist on talking about garbage) I do too. I want a garbage man to pick up my trash every week, and not just say, "fuck it." My point is that the reason we have garbage is because our lifestyle demands it.

AND

LorienRyan,

'would you like some Hitler with that?'

Just because other's may take it and run with it in the wrong direction doesn't make it any less true.

47. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125688 by GSP on February 11, 2008 at 9:04 pm

Dicanu,

I have just finished applying my reasoning to law enforcement and trash collection. And the reasoning would be the same, IF law enforcement's goal was the elimination of all crime and trash collection's goal was the elimination of all trash. But I don't think either of these claims the elimination of their respective concerns as their goal.

48. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125684 by GSP on February 11, 2008 at 8:55 pm

Do you not support vaccinations and modern medicine?

My point is merely a criticism of what I believe to be modern medicine's goal: the elimination of disease. I believe a goal such as this is unattainable and hence the driving force behind the discipline is irrational.

As someone (similar to Maher) whom believes the vast majority of diseases are due to lifestyle (and by this I do not mean simply what we eat, but how we live, i.e., vastly overpopulated and processed, unnatural foods, etc.) I believe we should also recognize that as we poke fun at cultures believing irrationally that demons or whatever cause disease, we should also point the finger at ourselves for irrationally believing disease can be cured. We should understand that most of what we call disease is the result of the way we live and that consequently, the only reason we have to treat these diseases is because we create them. It is a battle we cannot win, figuratively and literally.

I believe I am merely pointing out the limitations of science and it gets some people, especially those on this site, riled up. But until scientific medicine changes their view away from the irrationality inherent within it, it cannot possibly live up to its goal. But if it did come to this conclusion, as I and others have, it would not necessarily be recognized as the same discipline as we today recognize as Western medicine.

I assume that you do know a large portion of illnesses are related to our genes

This is something I think about quite often, and illustrates what I believe to be an example of our lifestyle altering the natural rhythm of evolution in our species (you allude to this later in your comment as well). I would be one to argue that it is because we are so overpopulated and most anyone can today survive, whereas in the past they would be unable to, and with the help of modern science most anyone can have a child, etc., that the gene pool of our species is weakening. Now, without making any moral or metaphysical judgments on the virtues of strength v. weakness of genes and humanity, I would say that the disease caused by our (evolutionarily defective) genes is just one more example of lifestyle creating more diseases, and science responding by having to develop a new form of medicine known as gene therapy. Gene therapy, similar to its predecessors, also purports to be able to cure disease, and it someday may, I could be wrong. But as of today much of its claims, similar to those made about traditional Western medicine, have been largely unfounded.

49. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125628 by GSP on February 11, 2008 at 6:07 pm

we can cure leprosy

True, we treated and "cured" leprosy with dapsone in the mid 20th century, however, the disease began to evolve and become resistant to the treatment, until we devised a new treatment. If history and evolutionary biology is any guide, I fear leprosy will once again become resistant to this treatment as well. I would not call this a cure. But, agree to disagree.

prevention is better than a cure. Surely that is curing it too

Again, agree to disagree; I would not call the prevention of a disease a cure of that disease.

Yes - poor people where there is no healthcare, no funding to provide said healthcare, odd religious beliefs that seem to suggest a shortcut to their heaven.

We all know what happened when indigenous people, living relatively free of disease, first came into contact with the civilized; their cultures were nearly destroyed by disease alone.

50. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125623 by GSP on February 11, 2008 at 5:52 pm

Optimal for what purpose?

This is not a teleological question. I find it hard to believe you will not agree with me as to what it means to be a functioning body without a disease.

No, it came largely from scientific method, especially the study of sexual orientation by Kinsey.

As I am sure we both know, Kinsey was notoriously biased and unscientific in his research. Surely you are not suggesting that unscientific studies can be used as a scientific basis for knowledge.