...a general philosophical position, also called logical empiricism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle on the basis of traditional empirical thought and the development of modern logic. Logical positivism confined knowledge to science and used verificationism to reject metaphysics not as false but as meaningless. The importance of science led leading logical positivists to study scientific method and to explore the logic of confirmation theory. www.filosofia.net/materiales/rec/glosaen.htm
Positivism was a school of thought which originated in the 1920s and 1930s which essentially held that all propositions, whether metaphysical or physical, are meaningless unless they can be empirically verified (the verification principle ). However, the idea was a self-refuting proposition since it could not be empirically verified itself - ie logical positivism , like other propositions, could not pass the test of empirical verification. www.apologetics.org/glossary.html
The philosophy of the Vienna Circle, according to which any purported statement of fact, if not a verbal truism, is meaningless unless certain conceivable observations would serve to confirm or deny it. highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/076742011x/student_view0/chapter13/glossary.html
positivism: the form of empiricism that bases all knowledge on perceptual experience (not on intuition or revelation) wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Logical positivism (later referred to as logical empiricism) holds that philosophy should aspire to the same sort of rigor as science. Philosophy should provide strict criteria for judging sentences true, false and meaningless. en.wikipedia
Man, where are all the "DUNCAN HUNTER IS A RINO!!!!" threads then?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
you might be interested in this. I don’t know if you still have the pinglist or not
Evolution has no bearing on Constitutional governance. This is all meant cast conservative candidates under the wheels of PC denigration.
For Presidential candidates, the emphasis should be that it is not the Federal government’s place to be involved in medical research of any kind. If the candidates are conservative, that is ...
NO cheers, unfortunately...
Popcorn thread
What many may miss, if the fireproof pajamas take over here, is how deep into the debate the slimes has to go to “find” a (candidate) rift...and they still have to sell it as such.
Chris Matthews’ questions, including this subject, were often intended to nothing more than goad one republican into slamming another one.
“Do you believe in evolution” is an insufficiently supported question for that setting...unless of course you knew that the definitions necessary (macro vs. micro, etc.) help play into the sensationalist’s hands.
Someone (Gilmore did it once) needed to put Chrissy in his place.
It seems to me that a more appropriate question (rather than "do you believe in evolution?") would be, "do you understand evolution?"
Frankly, I don’t think a presidential debate is the place to settle the issue of Darwinism. If (entirely contrary to fact) I had been one of the candidates, I probably would have dodged the issue.
Or perhaps I would have said briefly what I really believe: That I have no religious problems with evolution, as such, but that I have considerable scientific and rational problems with a purely materialist theory of general evolution. Also that when Darwinism turns into what has been called Social Darwinism, which in fact it has recurrently done for 150 years, then it becomes dangerous.
“Survival of the fittest” all too easily becomes “exterminate the weak, the lesser races, the handicapped, the useless eaters.” We saw that with the nineteenth century racists, we saw it with the Nazis, and we see it with today’s eugenists and family planners.
But those are pretty complicated ideas to put forward in a debate mainly concerned about other issues. So it might be easier just to dodge the issue and say something noncommital.
It seems the New York Times is trying to drive wedges between conservative Republicans...
Whodda thunk it!!??
It might be noted that Goedel destroyed the basis of Logical Positivism and Bertram Russell later admitted it is bunk.
The technocrats, he charged, wanted to grab control from “ordinary citizens ...so that they alone could make decisions over “controversial issues such as sex education, partial-birth abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and global warming.” ... For some conservatives, accepting Darwin undercuts religious faith and produces an amoral, materialistic worldview that easily embraces abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices they abhor. As an alternative to Darwin, many advocate intelligent design...
***Hi AG and BB. I don’t like to admit it, but the NY times expresses how I view this issue quite well. Would you two care to chime in?
Oh, and don’t let me pass up this opportunity to plug your book.
Announcing a New Book by Alamo-Girl and betty boop [Update at #329]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1738139/posts
This is a New York Times devide-the-conservatives, horse-shirt article.
Why fall for it?
Leftists have their own split on Darwin. They accept only half of Darwin's theory, the wild natural selection part, and reject Darwin's Descent of Man. Darwin explained that mankind descended from tribal warfare, that man is by nature a war making animal and owes most of his intellect, morals, and physical properties to their advantages in war. Man is the most genetically and culturally evolved animal to ever exist on Earth and it cannot be explained by natural selection alone. Creationists have a point that for humans natural selection does not add up. But if you include Darwin's ideas in The Descent of Man it is more plausible.