Posted on 02/20/2006 5:54:51 PM PST by jennyp
I just submitted a paper for a conference that criticizes the academic left's techniques of defending ID in the classroom. I tried my best to hide my own actual political views, but I have a feeling I won't have many friends left after I present it.
Perfectly consistent, though. The left continually fails to actually study or try to understand economics, international relations, or public policy, yet continues to criticize them and offer so-called "alternatives".
Evolution is indeed falsifiable, but nothing has been found that could possibly falsify it. Nothing short of finding real-life Shmoos would be enough to seriously damage it.
Yes and no. I don't have time now, as I have an aerobics class I need to get to, but if I have time, I will explain further later tonight. FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a rhetorical scholar, although my cognitivist worldview flies in the face of the constructivist one. So do my politics, needless to say.
I've pretty much stayed out of the other thread. Just too nasty.
60 years ago our Creo friends would have been Democrats and followed WJB down the primrose path. Whether the Democrats left them or they left the Democrats is a tough question, but the philosophical underpinnings of Creos and the left are remarkably similar.
- The appeal to authority
- The "I have the answer for all problems and any who disagees is evil" stance.
- Those who are right have the right to force those who are not or at least threaten them.
Is this an inherent problem with most religions, and especially Christianity?
Much better than anything else that's cooking now.
I am excited to see that you are a rhetorical scholar. That is also my profession. I think your statement is basically fair. That is the statement I keep reminding my creationist friends to keep in mind because I do get a sense at times that evolution is being revered more as a creed than a disclosure of the scientific process. If one is indeed open to the prospects of a theory of evolutioin being falsified, then it remains in a defensible domain of science.
In certain practical rhetorical functions it may necessarily be a creed but it is those functions that creationists, IDers, or various theist stripes are justly complaining about.
It didn't used to be this way. When did reason and the Left part company?
You will here.
the creos and the left both also push for affirmative action, and put their feelings above observation and logic.
I wonder how much Soros et al give to the DI?
Almost all religions; not especially with Christianity.
Nixon's "Southern Strategy" brought many big-government southern Democrats into GOP. At that time, the "litmus test" was anti-Communism. Political parties are temporary confederations, not ideological organizations (at least in the US; it's somewhat different in Europe.) There may be a few dozen or so policies of interest, but correlations among views held on issues are weak. This leads to the problem of "linkage" such that at the present time, being for tax cuts means being against evolution, (Before Dover, of course), or being for smaller government means supporting "no child left behind."
"Evolution is falsifiable."
All science is falsifiable - that's what makes it science.
Religion is indisputable.
In all my reading of American history, I can find only one constant that divides the two parties -- protectionism. We've always got a party on each side of that issue. All the other issues flutter around, and attach themselves to one party or the other.
Of course, the no tariff (or no-tariff) party usually has a degree of intellectual consistency, favoring related free-enterprise notions like less regulation, lower taxes, etc. And those issues tend to be popular in rural areas, where there's a lot of social conservatism, hence the accretion of such ideas into the free-trade party.
But trying to put all the issues of a party together into one coherent package is hopeless.
I think it has a lot to do with the theory that human nature is genetically hardwired to a degree and people's behavior can only be molded so far. This spells disaster for any type of social conditioning program that attempts to downplay the element of self-interest - an obstacle to the left's ideal world where everyone works for his neighbor's benefit.
Of course capitalism works because it has a realistic view of basic human nature and doesnt try to pretend otherwise.
Neatly put.
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