I'm sure there's a good dose of mods and rockers to the skeptic-proponent divide, but if skeps are content to put everyone else into the self-deluded and religiously indoctrinated camp, it's no surprise when people reply in kind. Look at the number of skeptics who portray themselves as misunderstood outsiders while materialism dominates political and cultural life to see a blatant lack of awareness. When a high table insider like Dawkins tries to identify with abused choir boys and young bible belt lesbian goths to promote his Orwellian master plan, I want to throw up.What Karla fails to see I think isn't the belief itself that causes the perceived derision it's the how and why people believe.
Sidenote from Karla an article she wrote for CSICOP a few years ago
I'm sure there's a good dose of mods and rockers to the skeptic-proponent divide, but if skeps are content to put everyone else into the self-deluded and religiously indoctrinated camp, it's no surprise when people reply in kind.
To do so would require an ability to juggle macroscopic philosophical concerns and microscopic data. Some of the smarter people on this forum can sustain both without ignoring either, but in general people want to make everything big picture, or divert discussions into the long grass where they can procrastinate about detail.It has to start somewhere. Why not right here on skeptiko?
To do so would require an ability to juggle macroscopic philosophical concerns and microscopic data. Some of the smarter people on this forum can sustain both without ignoring either, but in general people want to make everything big picture, or divert discussions into the long grass where they can procrastinate.
I believe the divisions are too sharp for consensus. Spiritual creatures on an earthly journey vs. meat robots living out a cosmic joke, wishful thinkers vs steely realists, does not suggest an obvious middle way.All I think we really need is the intelligence to recognise that the petty bickering gets us nowhere and a willingness to push past the hurt and really communicate.
I'm not saying that's easy - our instinct to prettily bicker is pretty entrenched - and different people are still going to engage on different levels of depth, but even the most superficial discussions will be more useful, and less harmful, with this approach.
I believe the divisions are too sharp for consensus. Spiritual creatures on an earthly journey vs. meat robots living out a cosmic joke, wishful thinkers vs steely realists, does not suggest an obvious middle way.
I'm offended by people taking offence when they're being offensive. As with the Blackmore case, she was winding people up then feigned surprise. That's politics, not science.When you say consensus - are you talking about consensus in meta-physical beliefs, or consensus about how we should interact with each other?
I'm offended by people taking offence when they're being offensive. As with the Blackmore case, she was winding people up then feigned surprise. That's politics, not science.
When you say consensus - are you talking about consensus in meta-physical beliefs, or consensus about how we should interact with each other?
Do you mean play nice? That relies on everyone playing by the rules. I perceive a general movement to limit the beliefs of someone like myself by the use of institutional scorn. I'm prepared to illustrate why I perceive that to be true, and am prepared to have that perception questioned. I'm not prepared to have my rights to those beliefs queried on an ideological basis. If people recognise the difference, they'll get no problem from me. What usually happens is blanket denial. Denial that skeptical materialism is ideological in nature, especially.I agreed with you that Blackmore shouldn't have been surprised that people were offended by her offensive remarks. But I was asking for clarification on your meaning of consensus in your prior post:
Do you mean play nice? That relies on everyone playing by the rules. I perceive a general movement to limit the beliefs of someone like myself by the use of institutional scorn. I'm prepared to illustrate why I perceive that to be true, and am prepared to have that perception questioned. I'm not prepared to have my rights to those beliefs queried on an ideological basis. If people recognise the difference, they'll get no problem from me. What usually happens is blanket denial. Denial that skeptical materialism is ideological in nature, especially.
Academic deference is behind us, thank God.
Why? Big Science seeks to maintain totemic ideas based on a single way of knowing. In the case of materialism it attempts to reduce other ways of knowing to the absurd, as Blackmore did here in such blatant style. The students rejected her notion of intellectual ascendency, which appears to have shocked her, or so she claimed.This sentence seems to run counter to almost every other post you have made criticising "big science".
I started a thread in the C&D forum. I'd link to, but for some reason I can't access that particular forum. Here's the link again.Why? Big Science seeks to maintain totemic ideas based on a single way of knowing. In the case of materialism it attempts to reduce other ways of knowing to the absurd, as Blackmore did here in such blatant style. The students rejected her notion of intellectual ascendency, which appears to have shocked her, or so she claimed.
A fascinating video that illustrates everything that's wrong with skeptical materialism. Science is no longer portrayed as a method, a set of tools, it wants to stamp its mark on every aspect of human life. It portrays its advocates as downtrodden and abused and elevates scientists - of which the overwhelming majority work in regular jobs - to guru status in possession of the only truths worth knowing. It even adopts words like denier to equivalence doubts about its thrall to the status of holocaust refusenik. Scientists have no special status, whatever their tutors insisted. They pick their feet and scratch their arse like the rest of us.I started a thread in the C&D forum. I'd link to, but for some reason I can't access that particular forum. Here's the link again.
I think these two caricatures of either end show perfectly that most of us are in the middle somewhere.I believe the divisions are too sharp for consensus. Spiritual creatures on an earthly journey vs. meat robots living out a cosmic joke, wishful thinkers vs steely realists, does not suggest an obvious middle way.
I mean a bit more than simply playing nice, but that's on the right track and I have more to say on it. But first I'm just trying to figure out if by consensus and middle road you were referring to what people believe about all topics vs. a particular consensus and middle road agreement on how we should converse with one another.
To do so would require an ability to juggle macroscopic philosophical concerns and microscopic data. Some of the smarter people on this forum can sustain both without ignoring either, but in general people want to make everything big picture, or divert discussions into the long grass where they can procrastinate about detail.
an ability to juggle macroscopic philosophical concerns and microscopic data
want to make everything big picture, or divert discussions into the long grass where they can procrastinate about detail.