Why People Believe Weird Things - Michael Shermer

Mr. Pessimistic

Yes...after reading your first two posts (the first couple of sentences actually), I can see this revived discussion reviving also our heated battles and ending up in even more angst than before.

So I think I shall pass...All you have done is try to reduce thier stance to that of dogmatism and you are simply wrong and, IMO, determined to do just that.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Edited by: misterpessimistic at: 11/30/05 4:31 pm

MadArchitect

Well, I'd be interested to read your thoughts anyway. How about this: you post in this thread what you think of Shermer's book, the more detail the better, and respond to any of the points that I made in my posts. And unless you invite me to do otherwise, I'll promise to not respond. At least to what you say in this thread -- I won't promise to not respond if you bring up Shermer in another thread, but I won't argue with anything you say in this thread.

Chris OConnor

MadArchitect

Yeah, I know he'll probably feel disinclined anyway, but I'd hate to see other people lose out on a potential discussion just because he doesn't want to talk to me about the book.

Mr. Pessimistic

The problem, Mad, is that you frame this as me not wanting discussion...but it is actually that any discussions we have had have never produced anything beneficial to me and end up in angst.

Reading your first post on Gould's intro pisses me off...because all you are doing is trying to equate debunking psudo-science with religion. You do this by coining your strawman phrase - "Psudo-religion". All this makes me want to do is relegate you to dupedom. For someone who fancies himself so deep, to pose this type of surface-scratch crap for discussion shows that you are dead set in drawing false analogies in order to support your own pre-concieved notions that science and skepticism are dogmatic endeavors and thus have equal credibility to religion...which is horseshit, IMO.

Do you really think that religion has a trademark on our "Dark side" or other concepts regarding human nature?? Religion has responded to human traits like "evil" and others, but just because certain phrases were coined by followers of religion, which dominated our early development, does not mean that referring to these concepts with those same words, which do well to help conceptualize the matter under discussion, suggest that there is a 'psudo-religious' fault in Gould's reasoning...or that religion is thus valid. Gould was never AGAINST religion anyway...he even wrote "Rock of Ages", a book about how science and religion can co-exist. So you relegate his attempts at inclusion to some sort of fault? hmmm...

It can also be said that the use of religious reference by Gould and Shermer may have a more sarcastic, 'right back at ya' meaning. I have noticed in the past that Gould and Shermer use religious, especially Christian religious words and ideas to refute the very same...by showing how ludicrous and misunderstood it can be. I for one love to see the words from the bible contradict what the mindless followers actually do with them and think they mean.

Anyway...you see where this will lead...so I ask: How can we/I proceed without this ending up in a mess again?

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

MadArchitect

misterpessimistic: The problem, Mad, is that you frame this as me not wanting discussion...but it is actually that any discussions we have had have never produced anything beneficial to me and end up in angst.

It seems to me that if you did want a discussion, you'd keep trying to make it work, even if it hasn't in the past. I'm trying to be civil here and encourage discussion. If you're not doing the same, how am I to interpret that?

Reading your first post on Gould's intro pisses me off...because all you are doing is trying to equate debunking psudo-science with religion.

Hmm. Here's the problem with my promising not to comment. Once you start making assumptions about what I've already written, there's not much I can do to defend myself or clarify what I was trying to do when I wrote my original posts. But a promise is a promise. No arguments here.

Anyway...you see where this will lead...so I ask: How can we/I proceed without this ending up in a mess again?

It's hard to tell when you're being rhetorical and when you're really looking for a response. I'll assume here that you really want me to answer. And I guess the answer all depends on the question of how things ended up "in a mess" in the past. Are we just trying to avoid pissing you off? If that's it, then the answer is probably not carry on a discussion at all, since you never seem happy with what I say unless we happen to agree. Are we trying to avoid misunderstanding one another? If so, then I think we just have to take it more slowly and not assume that we always know what the other person means. Are we trying to come to some agreement? I think that's pretty unlikely, but it never hurts to try.


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