(dare I say these are similar to biological evolutionary pressures?)
Very much so!
One classic example of this is the rise of Qutbi-inspired terrorism. The end of the cold war was defined by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction: no superpower would actually invade another superpower because the only possible outcome was everyone's land completely destroyed and everyone dead. When the Soviet Union ended, with one superpower left, it was inevitable that any new opposition force would have to be immune to MAD. That meant it had to have no land or property to destroy, and no fear of death.
You go back more than a hundred years (and definitely before Darwin) and people really didn't know how old the world (or universe) was.
Contrary to popular belief, science didn't start with Darwin. Darwin supplied a mechanism which explained common descent; common descent was already a popular theory. Geologists before Darwin knew that the Earth had to be at least a few hundred million years old (but no older than that, because the core would have cooled down; this wouldn't be settled until well after Darwin and the discovery of nuclear processes).
As science has revealed that the earth is far older than the bible would have you believe, so Christians (and I presume some others from other religions) have become less comfortable and started to become more vocal.
I direct you to my previous post on the topic. Non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1 has always been the mainstream position among Christian theologians. What you're seeing is a distinctly US-style evangelical fundamentalist phenomenon, and a distinctly recent one.
The strains of thought that make up modern fundamentalist Christianity are significantly older than that: John Calvin (from the 1500's) in particular is responsible for a lot of that worldview [...]
I think it's correct to say that modern fundamentalist Christianity evolved from Calvin et al. However, consider that Calvin lived at a time when the new science of astronomy was conclusively showing that a hyper-literal interpretation of Genesis 1 made no sense.
Here's what he has to say about it in his Commentary on Genesis. (Note that it was commonly believed at the time that Moses wrote Genesis.)
Moses describes the special use of this expanse, to divide the waters from the waters from which word arises a great difficulty. For it appears opposed to common sense, and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven. Hence some resort to allegory, and philosophize concerning angels; but quite beside the purpose. For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. Here the Spirit of God would teach all men without exception; and therefore what Gregory declares falsely and in vain respecting statues and pictures is truly applicable to the history of the creation, namely, that it is the book of the unlearned. The things, therefore, which he relates, serve as the garniture of that theater which he places before our eyes. Whence I conclude, that the waters here meant are such as the rude and unlearned may perceive. The assertion of some, that they embrace by faith what they have read concerning the waters above the heavens, notwithstanding their ignorance respecting them, is not in accordance with the design of Moses. And truly a longer inquiry into a matter open and manifest is superfluous. We see that the clouds suspended in the air, which threaten to fall upon our heads, yet leave us space to breathe.
Would you ever see a modern US-style fundamentalist admitting that the natural world only gives the appearance of intelligent design to "the unlearned"?
Clearly you didn't read it. The argument is that they see this not as an attack on their beliefs, but an attack on their values and their friends and their community and their country.
The ironic part is that their brand of fundamentalism is not a traditional belief at all; it only dates back to the 1950s or so.
There is some evidence that there is a loose confederation of well-funded lobbyists and influence-mongers who have a vested interest in casting doubt on science in general, the so-called "merchants of doubt". The same organisations tend to be behind denial of acid rain, anthropogenic climate change, and the danger of tobacco.
Denying evolution indirectly helps the bottom line of tobacco companies, fossil fuel companies and so on. Why wouldn't they help out the cause?
There's no "right" to teach your child creationism.
There kind of is: freedom of religion.
(Yes, it disturbs me that in the 21st century there are still religions and denominations that teach creationism. Thankfully they're a small minority worldwide, and at least as far as Christian denominations are concerned, largely confined to the United States.)
Also, the variation is measured relative to the reference ellipsoid rather than a sphere.
Only Google Earth thinks that the reference shape for the Earth is a sphere. Unfortunately, everyone wants their systems to work with Google Earth, so everyone has basically copied the mistake. Lars is thus responsible for effectively undoing 400 years of geography.
If you happen to have an equally powerful government on your side, fighting a proxy war against the same government that you are, then that does change the effectiveness of the strategy. I don't think France is up for it right now, though.
Heck I'll ask right here, is there one single person reading this who would leave the evidence for the cops to show up and find if they got notice they were coming?
Surely that would depend on the situation. If the plan was to challenge a bad law, I'd put the evidence in plain view and tip off the authorities myself.
If you had received a bunch of rape threats for expressing an opinion about the design of a banknote, it would seem to you that there are a lot of people who are willing to send people rape threats running about.
There are a lot of people. Even a tiny proportion of a lot of people is usually plenty of people. It only takes a tiny proportion to ruin it for everyone.
It's worse when it comes media selection bias. Sensible, well-reasoned, nuanced opinions rarely get airtime.
Ultimately, you're right, you don't know the statistics. Neither do I. Until we do, we don't know.
In the mean time, qualitatively speaking, it's fair to say that society has a general problem with sex, with body parts, with gender relations, and so on, and it goes both ways.
This is, quite frankly, complete and utter bullshit.
There is no such thing as freedom in the sense that you seem to think. There is no such thing as honesty in the sense that you seem to think. You have decided that these terms denote precisely nothing, and hence are content-free.
It reminds me of a story that Daniel Dennett tells about a friend who was writing a book on the history of Indian street magic. When asked what he meant by "magic", the friend said, "you know, conjuring tricks, illusions, sleight of hand". To this, he would often get the reply "oh, you don't mean real magic: thaumaturgy, spells, and so on".
Apparently, real magic is the one that doesn't exist. If that's the case, then the very word is useless.
There are different kinds of mathematical logic because there are different kinds of real-world situation that need to be modelled. Here, you are trying to squeeze Pierce-style universal quantification to a situation which it doesn't accurately model, and ending up with a nonsense conclusion.
Look, I get it. Neal Stephenson famously pointed out in The Diamond Age that it's human nature to want to judge people and feel superior to them. In an era where there is no universally agreed-upon standard of conduct or morality, the only option is to catch them out as not living up to their own ideals. The upshot is that hypocrisy is the only sin that we have left, so we try to find it everywhere.
But you know something? Any ideal worth living up to is impossible to live up to perfectly. If they were, they wouldn't be "ideal". All principles and virtues must be weighed against what is actually possible in the real world. That is a true connection to reality.
Adult behavior includes not having your head so far up your ultra liberal ass as to not realize your tastes and preferences do not represent the entire world.
Which is identical to not having your head so far up your boorish ass as to not realize your tastes and preferences do not represent the entire world.
Maybe, just maybe, the solution is that people generally avoid sticking their heads up their asses altogether, and just play it safe in a professional setting.
Tolerance is exactly what the GP described it to be: not objecting in any way to something.
It is not. The very notion of "tolerance" presupposes the existence of something that you believe to be abhorrent.
If you speak out against racist speech, and also speak out against governments who would seek to outlaw racist speech, then you are tolerant of racist speech.
I agree with almost all that you say, but I do have to pick a nit.
Correct, its about the completely lack of professionalism, and offending half the population.
It's not about offending half the population. It's about excluding and alienating half the population. You usually can't predict what will have the effect of offending someone, but you usually can predict what will have the effect of excluding them.
Short answer: the blackout. Now is the perfect time to reveal bad policy, because a) you can claim it was announced before the election, and b) your opponents can't call you on it in advertising.
NASA's portion of the budget is absurdly small for any such arguments to hold up.
Precisely this.
Wasteful government spending is not measured in units of NASA. It used to be time-in-Iraq (e.g. this government program would cost 32 days in Iraq). Then it was bank bailouts. I'm not sure what the current unit is; I'm guessing that the NSA might be the next calibrated benchmark, if we ever find out what the budget actually is.
Slashdot Mirror
Very much so!
One classic example of this is the rise of Qutbi-inspired terrorism. The end of the cold war was defined by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction: no superpower would actually invade another superpower because the only possible outcome was everyone's land completely destroyed and everyone dead. When the Soviet Union ended, with one superpower left, it was inevitable that any new opposition force would have to be immune to MAD. That meant it had to have no land or property to destroy, and no fear of death.
Contrary to popular belief, science didn't start with Darwin. Darwin supplied a mechanism which explained common descent; common descent was already a popular theory. Geologists before Darwin knew that the Earth had to be at least a few hundred million years old (but no older than that, because the core would have cooled down; this wouldn't be settled until well after Darwin and the discovery of nuclear processes).
I direct you to my previous post on the topic. Non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1 has always been the mainstream position among Christian theologians. What you're seeing is a distinctly US-style evangelical fundamentalist phenomenon, and a distinctly recent one.
I think it's correct to say that modern fundamentalist Christianity evolved from Calvin et al. However, consider that Calvin lived at a time when the new science of astronomy was conclusively showing that a hyper-literal interpretation of Genesis 1 made no sense.
Here's what he has to say about it in his Commentary on Genesis. (Note that it was commonly believed at the time that Moses wrote Genesis.)
Would you ever see a modern US-style fundamentalist admitting that the natural world only gives the appearance of intelligent design to "the unlearned"?
Clearly you didn't read it. The argument is that they see this not as an attack on their beliefs, but an attack on their values and their friends and their community and their country.
The ironic part is that their brand of fundamentalism is not a traditional belief at all; it only dates back to the 1950s or so.
That probably isn't the whole story.
There is some evidence that there is a loose confederation of well-funded lobbyists and influence-mongers who have a vested interest in casting doubt on science in general, the so-called "merchants of doubt". The same organisations tend to be behind denial of acid rain, anthropogenic climate change, and the danger of tobacco.
Denying evolution indirectly helps the bottom line of tobacco companies, fossil fuel companies and so on. Why wouldn't they help out the cause?
Speak for yourself.
Awww, thanks!
No way I'm making it visible.
No, it's not.
All of them?
There kind of is: freedom of religion.
(Yes, it disturbs me that in the 21st century there are still religions and denominations that teach creationism. Thankfully they're a small minority worldwide, and at least as far as Christian denominations are concerned, largely confined to the United States.)
Also, the variation is measured relative to the reference ellipsoid rather than a sphere.
Only Google Earth thinks that the reference shape for the Earth is a sphere. Unfortunately, everyone wants their systems to work with Google Earth, so everyone has basically copied the mistake. Lars is thus responsible for effectively undoing 400 years of geography.
If you happen to have an equally powerful government on your side, fighting a proxy war against the same government that you are, then that does change the effectiveness of the strategy. I don't think France is up for it right now, though.
Surely that would depend on the situation. If the plan was to challenge a bad law, I'd put the evidence in plain view and tip off the authorities myself.
If you had received a bunch of rape threats for expressing an opinion about the design of a banknote, it would seem to you that there are a lot of people who are willing to send people rape threats running about.
There are a lot of people. Even a tiny proportion of a lot of people is usually plenty of people. It only takes a tiny proportion to ruin it for everyone.
It's worse when it comes media selection bias. Sensible, well-reasoned, nuanced opinions rarely get airtime.
Ultimately, you're right, you don't know the statistics. Neither do I. Until we do, we don't know.
In the mean time, qualitatively speaking, it's fair to say that society has a general problem with sex, with body parts, with gender relations, and so on, and it goes both ways.
This is, quite frankly, complete and utter bullshit.
There is no such thing as freedom in the sense that you seem to think. There is no such thing as honesty in the sense that you seem to think. You have decided that these terms denote precisely nothing, and hence are content-free.
It reminds me of a story that Daniel Dennett tells about a friend who was writing a book on the history of Indian street magic. When asked what he meant by "magic", the friend said, "you know, conjuring tricks, illusions, sleight of hand". To this, he would often get the reply "oh, you don't mean real magic: thaumaturgy, spells, and so on".
Apparently, real magic is the one that doesn't exist. If that's the case, then the very word is useless.
There are different kinds of mathematical logic because there are different kinds of real-world situation that need to be modelled. Here, you are trying to squeeze Pierce-style universal quantification to a situation which it doesn't accurately model, and ending up with a nonsense conclusion.
Look, I get it. Neal Stephenson famously pointed out in The Diamond Age that it's human nature to want to judge people and feel superior to them. In an era where there is no universally agreed-upon standard of conduct or morality, the only option is to catch them out as not living up to their own ideals. The upshot is that hypocrisy is the only sin that we have left, so we try to find it everywhere.
But you know something? Any ideal worth living up to is impossible to live up to perfectly. If they were, they wouldn't be "ideal". All principles and virtues must be weighed against what is actually possible in the real world. That is a true connection to reality.
Which is identical to not having your head so far up your boorish ass as to not realize your tastes and preferences do not represent the entire world.
Maybe, just maybe, the solution is that people generally avoid sticking their heads up their asses altogether, and just play it safe in a professional setting.
Similarly, it's a safe bet that most people don't freak out over a half-second wardrobe malfunction on TV.
It is not. The very notion of "tolerance" presupposes the existence of something that you believe to be abhorrent.
If you speak out against racist speech, and also speak out against governments who would seek to outlaw racist speech, then you are tolerant of racist speech.
That same society also sends rape threats to people for the crime of expressing the opinion that putting Jane Austin on a banknote is a good idea.
Nor (I hope) were you ostracised by someone telling a joke that was in poor taste, or treating you as a stereotype.
I agree with almost all that you say, but I do have to pick a nit.
It's not about offending half the population. It's about excluding and alienating half the population. You usually can't predict what will have the effect of offending someone, but you usually can predict what will have the effect of excluding them.
Short answer: the blackout. Now is the perfect time to reveal bad policy, because a) you can claim it was announced before the election, and b) your opponents can't call you on it in advertising.
A factoid is unverified or of dubious provenance, and not necessarily incorrect. In this case, twenty years ago it was a fact. Today it is a factoid.
Yes, I am aware of the difference. Yes, I was careful with my wording.
Precisely this.
Wasteful government spending is not measured in units of NASA. It used to be time-in-Iraq (e.g. this government program would cost 32 days in Iraq). Then it was bank bailouts. I'm not sure what the current unit is; I'm guessing that the NSA might be the next calibrated benchmark, if we ever find out what the budget actually is.