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Topic: The Ancient Greeks
Najosz Thjsza Kjras
Lifecrafter
written Tuesday, February 27 2007 03:41 Profile #100
look at the American abolitionists, who had ridiculously unreliable grounds on which to consider blacks worthy of human dignity and who came to blows with a great many scientific minds of their day.
For those who didn't get as much US history in school and for whom Wikipedia is altogether too brief... could you elaborate? What were the grounds, and what did the scientists argue?[/QB][/QUOTE]
The grounds for the abolitionists were generally 'God says so', or more cynically 'my interpretation of the word of God found in the Bible says so'.
As for science? Anthropology was in its infancy before and during the American Civil War, and what little understanding whites had of non-whites was driven by a desire to catalogue and legitimize preconcieved non-white deficiencies.
The observations of the science- and philosophy-minded towards Africa, which had a fraction of the West's technological, industrial, and political power at the time, concluded wholly unfairly that Africans were some kind of subhuman race, or at the very least too indolent and barbaric to be worthy of anything like equality. The argument was seriously made that slavery was a 'positive good' not just to slaveowners and society but for slaves - because if it weren't for slavery, the theory went, the slaves would be left to their own devices, wherein they would ruin themselves.
Not good science, but at least based on observation of the world. (Better observation of the world would have taken into account contemporary Africa's disadvantage, but not everyone was gifted with the skill at observation that behooves great thinkers.) The abolitionist position (white abolitionists, anyway - black abolitionists are another story!) was mostly based on observation of the Bible.
Big difference. That big difference can be readily understood by a quick look at those who used that same Bible to justify slavery (blackness being the curse of Ham, various Biblical laws and codes about slavery) and those who would later use the Bible to support segregation (by that time, unfortunately, the neanderthals were in the majority among those using the Bible to support any social cause).
The moral of the story is that whether or not it's right now, rational observation will eventually prove right. While that's a slippery and Wikipedian approach to truth, it's unfortunately the best we can do a lot of the time.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Student of Trinity
Electric Sheep One
Originally written by Protocols of the Elders of Zion:
I agree. But I keep worrying about the other parts of the time, in which some of the emotional ravers are actually right, against the best available rational observations.
It's easy to recognize an idiot, but how can you recognize when an idiot is right?
We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
By Committee
Originally written by Student of Trinity:
When has an idiot been correct where rational observations did not ultimately validate his assertion?
[ Tuesday, February 27, 2007 11:34: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
written Tuesday, February 27 2007 12:55 Profile Homepage #103
That sums it up. We know the idiots are right when we can scientifically or rationally show that they are. If it's a moral judgment then we have to insert fuzzier moral judgments in there, but eventually idiocy is determined by who's right, and who's right is determined by popular opinion, and popular opinion hopefully comes from rational sources.
—Alorael, who incidentally intended to say in his original comparison of Darwin, Lamarck, and Aristotle that Aristotle wasn't a scientist. Lamarck's status as a scientist is debatable, since he changed his opinions based on observation but then essentially started making things up. Of course, Darwin's status is equally contestable, since he also observed and then hypothesized. His hypothesis just turns out to be accurate, so he's not one of the raving idiots.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Thuryl
...b10010b...
Originally written by Drew:
If any of them had been correct, we wouldn't know about it because we would have ignored them because they were idiots.
The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
wz. As
To expand on Alec's point of science being falsifiability, one theory (due to Popper) is that a theory is science if there is an empirical test that will prove the predictions made by that theory to be either true or false.
Any theory where that is not possible is pseudoscience, according to Popper. The examples given in class (I'm learning this stuff in Intro to Philosophy) were General Relativity as science, since it predicted certain things about light curvature and the orbit of Mars that could be easily measured, and Freudian psychoanalysis as pseudoscience, since pretty much all data can be made to fit with it (as explanations of repressed sexual urges, or whatever — I'm not an expert on psychoanalysis).
So an idiot is right when he/she makes predictions which are validated by experiments that could have gone the other way. Whether or not the idiot is right on purpose is another issue entirely.
5.0.1.0.0.0.0.1.0...
Posts: 508 | Registered: Thursday, May 29 2003 07:00
Dryth'tor
Originally written by Cryptozoology:
There is much truth in what you say.
You Shall Die Laughing: http://www.worfthecat.ermarian.net/converted
The Roost: www.roost01.proboards104.com. Birds of a feather flock together.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Thursday, July 27 2006 07:00
Originally written by wz. As:
Note that this isn't the only view of science; there are probably more scientists and philosophers of science who follow Lakatos than Popper nowadays.
(Which is not to say that making falsifiable predictions about the world isn't important, but it's not as simple as all that and it's not the only thing that matters.)
[ Tuesday, February 27, 2007 17:13: Message edited by: Cryptozoology ]
Agreed. And given the rate at which views of science change, things will probably be quite a bit different in another 100 years anyway.
upon mars
written Friday, March 2 2007 08:35 Profile #109
About hypotheses, measureless calculations and models by the time you have already finished the universe has changed.
So it's a theory or a way to see things that are very complicated. About 3 and a half billion years ago simple self-replicating molecules came to be, how can explain that? And can you explain how those early self-replicating molecules that process "nutrients" from the primitive ooze when lacking of nutrients became cells with different strategies to survive?
How can you say that evolution hasn't jumps?
How can you pose any cause for anything?
Since after A there is B how can you prove it's conected?
You can jump off a bridge, fire a gun in your mouth, drink poison,or going in to the tiger's pit but you will still end up dead it's a mater of time and how .
Posts: 312 | Registered: Sunday, November 26 2006 08:00