Domain: amphilsoc.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to amphilsoc.org.
Comments · 7
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Re:Science, morality and ethics
scientists can't get by ignoring the moral/ethical considerations
Actually, if you look into it, that's exactly what J. Robert Oppenheimer actually did. This paper provides some compelling reasoning to back it up: The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
From the link you gave:
He believed that he had a job to do; that he should do it only because it was his job and not because he was intent on obtaining any particular result; and that following these principles would bring a saving measure of serenity into his profoundly discontented existence.The fact that he had to concoct such a rationalization to complete his work speaks volumes about what he, himself, knew about the moral/ethical implications of that work. The further fact that he was able to dismiss his own concerns, whether easily or not, is why the moral/ethical implications should not be left up to the scientist or team and should at a minimum have a higher review.
Again, with the quote, I'm sure the guards involved with the Holocaust had a similar thought process.
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Re:Science, morality and ethics
scientists can't get by ignoring the moral/ethical considerations
Actually, if you look into it, that's exactly what J. Robert Oppenheimer actually did. This paper provides some compelling reasoning to back it up: The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
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Artillery shell trajectories for the win!
Von Neumann wrote the first stored program to calculate trajectories of artillery shells based on military algorithms and the EDVAC was the first computer to store programs in memory so that instructions did not have to be input repeatedly. So as long as this algorithm is still being used in war, somewhere on the planet, it is the oldest piece of code still running.
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Re:Polio / Middle-class diseases
A lot of people like to think things are related. That's why we have scientists and statistics. In this particular case, scientists sampling water supplies of the middle/upper classes actually discovered for a fact that polio was less prevalent in the cleaner water supplies of the middle/upper class, and that reduced exposure in early infanthood or through the mother's immune system led to more crippling cases (the greater severity of polio infection after infanthood was also well researched and understood).
Here are a couple of resources:
http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/n/nycpolio.x ml
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/disea ses/polio.html
So now you don't just have to like to think they were related, you can just say the link was scientifically proven. -
Traditional encyclopedias are extremely limited.
My point was that no one actually read the books. For one thing, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is boring. It is heavily edited to fit on the amount of paper EB wants to afford, and that usually kills the interesting detail. In actuality, traditional encyclopedias have always been extremely limited, and in some cases actually destructive.
I tried searching for Nobel Prize winning genetecist "Barbara McClintock" in Microsoft Encarta 2000 encyclopedia. There were four (4) sentences which do not at all give the impression that her work is extremely relevant to the very best science of today.
The Britannica article about Barbara McClintock is less antiseptic than the Microsoft article, but still doesn't give an accurate impression of her as a scientist or person. The online Britannica has, at least in the past, been limited to articles written and edited for printing on paper.
There is the thought among scientists today that when we fully understand the phenomena of the movement of genes which Barbara McClintock first discovered, we will understand the chemistry of evolution. Genetic mutations due to destructive forces such as X-rays are generally destructive mutations. But the movements or transpositions of genes which Barbara McClintock discovered "are more likely to improve the evolutionary fitness of a species", says the Microsoft encyclopedia.
There is a document on the web which discusses Barbara McClintock's work. It says at the top, "Papers, 1927-1991, 70.5 linear feet". Neither of the traditional encyclopedias gives the impression of such prodigious dedication.
In her Nobel acceptance speech, Barbara McClintock said that "rapid reorganizations of genomes may underlie some species formations". It is now 79 years after she began this work, and still the average person has been taught that evolution is caused by millions of accidental blind mutations, most of which kill the organism, but a few of which are improvements. Barbara McClintock's work indicates that evolution may be far more sophisticated than most people think. For an example of this sophistication, consider the following paragraph from her Nobel acceptance speech:
"The conclusion seems inescapable that cells are able to sense the presence in their nuclei of ruptured ends of chromosomes, and then to activate a mechanism that will bring together and then unite these ends, one with another. And this will occur regardless of the initial distance in a telophase nucleus that separated the ruptured ends. The ability of a cell to sense these broken ends, to direct them toward each other, and then to unite them so that the union of the two DNA strands is correctly oriented, is a particularly revealing example of the sensitivity of cells to all that is going on within them. They make wise decisions and act upon them."
Chromosomes which are so sophisticated that they almost seem to be intelligent? Her works require 70.5 feet of shelf space? These interesting facts are left out of the traditional encyclopedias.
The traditional encyclopedias are actually damaging, because their bland, boring presentation may convince the reader that the world is a bland, boring place. -
No!!! to quicker means to psych test us all
How convenient that a "simple blood test" has been found to test for such subjective mental states as anxiety disorders and depression. The President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health "recommends" psychological testing for all Americans, and wants to ensure by law that every school-age child has been offered such an exam.
History time and again records governments continually abusing the power accorded by such sweeping initiatives, interpreted as mandates by sycophantic minions. Why should modern government be any different?
The real questions are: Who determines what is to be considered a mental illness? Which authorities control who is tested for mental illness and how? What will be done to the mentally ill under the aegis of treatment? Who stands to profit from it all?
The Columbia University TeenScreen Program is the pilot program mentioned in the report as the model program to administer such a CBT test. Their pilot test is already being given to kids in at least 27 states, in at least 69 schools.
At the Teenscreen website, under the "Setting The Record Straight About TeenScreen" page, the group argues that the language in the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, couched in terms of "universal screening" does not mean "mandatory screening."
Yes, Teenscreen does not advocate forced psychological testing at their website. However, Teenscreen can only vouchsafe for itself.
Teenscreen may indeed be an organization of integrity; the question is not how are the recommendations of the President's Commission being tested, but what will be the future of the initiative advocated!
Governments do not have a good track record being trusted to endorse and administer psychological testing of the citizenry. More than plaintive appeals as to Teenscreen's integrity are needed to dispell the fact that governments in both the distant and recent past have used official definitions of "mental health" as a means to control, imprison and torture citizens. The more wide-spread such programs become, the more likely they will be used nefariously. American forms of eugenics are alive and well.
Teenscreen cannot speak for the aims of government, nor for what government does with the information once it is collected by organizations such as Teenscreen. Presumeably such information will be subject to government review.
With the acknowledged surveillance of all network communications by Navy operations it is doubtful that client-professional privilege could be maintained, even if private organizations were to retain some semblance of separation between their testing of individuals in public settings and the government's pervasive snooping.
For more, see: www.inforwars.net -
SAM MORTON RIDES AGAIN!
I didn't see any mention of which graves were robbed to get all these skulls, but I have a suspicion....
In the early 1800s Samuel George Morton built a huge and famous collection of skulls. These skulls were garnered by his correspondents (Morton being an eminent naturalist of the day) from all over the world, but according to this site were mostly native american.
One of the previous posters was decrying the way some tribes object to the pillaging of their graveyards - in Morton's day, similar objections were made to the way the Indians resisted having their heads chopped off. Benighted savages, how dare they resist the progress of science!
A retired friend of mine was once the curator of the Morton skull collection (aka "the American Golgotha"). Originally housed at the Academy of Natural Sciences, it has since been moved to the University of Pennsylvania, where it still comprises over a thousand skulls despite an unknown amount of pilfering.
Everybody's got a theory of where the Amerinds came from; but Morton went a bit beyond that. He used his skulls to prove that middle-aged caucasian males (which, oddly enough, was a group containing Samuel Morton) were the pinnacle of evolution - the smartest, most bestest people of all!
The debunking of Morton's conclusions was completed by Stephen Gould, in his essay "The Mismeasure of Man". I highly recommend Gould's early works, incidentally, although his recent stuff is tedious.
Morton's infamously flawed racial ladder of intelligence, based on his measurements of humans skulls, were a part of the justification for Nazism and many other racist movements. Even today there are those who insist that measuring skulls can give meaningful insights to guide current events. I think the measurements, and especially the conclusions drawn from them, say more about the researchers than they do about the objects measured.
If you are really into the interpretation of dimensions of crania, you must visit the phrenology website.
--Charlie