Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Monday, August 08, 2005
Bill Hicks...now THERE was an intelligent design
There really isn’t a whole lot to say to the creationists. I don’t think their views have anything to do with religion, Mickey. They’re Lysenkoists. It’s an ideological war for them. Critical thinking undermines their authority scams.
Posted by Harry on from 08/08 at 05:50 AMI agree Harry.
I like to compare this whole intelligent (sic) design movement to the latest trends in style or fashion. In other words, it’s just the newest fad in the religious enterprise. And as with other products, a considerable portion of the public buys it.
“Did you ever notice how people who believe in creationism look really unevolved?”
- Bill Hicks, RevelationsPosted by RT on from Houston 08/08 at 07:57 AMi agree that there isn’t much to say to the creationists themselves - intellginet design theory is an intelligently designed theory in order to keep people in the religious fold..for political reasons.
if we are on this topic i must recommend ‘the blind watchmaker’ by richard dawkins. not an easy read but a very worthwhile one.
also, hicks was right about the scotland bit - that bullshit has kept an otherwise remote area swimming in tourist dollars for ages! (and they know it - why else do you think they keep it up?) occasionally you still get some idiot turning up with a sonar/radar/whatever equipped boat and driving about on the loch for months. when they don’t find anything they still try and convince themselves that the one ‘blip’ on the screen they had in a month must have been the monster but that they didn’t have the right equipment or some such nonsense. its a pretty good indicator of human gullibility and of peoples ability to convnce themselves that something is true simply because they want it to be true.Posted by michael on from scotland 08/08 at 10:03 AMI’ve actually met more than a few people who have made amazing turnarounds in their lives. From Orthodox Jew to atheist. From cattle rancher to vegan activist. I know these are rare, but some creationists, one way or another, will have a completely different worldview next year at this time.
If you met me in my 20s, you’d probably never envision me as I am now.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/08 at 10:11 AMyeah but i’ve seen it go the other way too. from left-wing activist to right-wing reactionary.
Posted by michael on from scotland 08/08 at 10:30 AMI believe that just proves my point, Michael. Since 180-degree swings are not unheard of, we can each play a role in inspiring swings that (we hope) will contribute to more justice.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/08 at 10:34 AMi agree. but its dangerous ground. at what point does advising someone or giving them information become brainwashing? i am not accusing anyone of anything here… just think its an interesting grey area. where is the line in your opinion?
Posted by michael on from scotland 08/08 at 10:40 AMI’m not sure there is one line to talk about...but for me personally, I try to disseminate information or opinions that are generally missing from mainstream debate and do so with the understanding that there both me and the mainstream should be viewed with equal skepticism.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/08 at 10:45 AMThe sentence about Roquefort cheese in a 20 year old essay by Isaac Asimov has stuck in my mind:
Creationists frequently stress the fact that evolution is “only a theory,” giving the impression that a theory is an idle guess. A scientist, one gathers, arising one morning with nothing particular to do, decided that perhaps the moon is made of Roquefort cheese and instantly advances the Roquefort-cheese theory.
Full essay here:http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/azimov_creationism.html
Posted by sk on from 08/08 at 12:03 PMBrainwashing requires significant degrees of control over the individual. Propagandizing requires less direct control. Both rely on deliberate distortion and accept only rigged debates.
I think the ethical line in persuasion is where you tell people to be very skeptical, commit no deliberate omission of facts, acknowledge those facts that are less supportive of your position if (or when) they’re presented to you, and make a good faith effort to include dissenting thoughts.
Posted by Harry on from 08/08 at 12:20 PMTo connect those last two excellent comments, it wouldn’t be brainwashing to encourage folks to not jump off a cliff even if they believed gravity was just a theory.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/08 at 01:01 PMI sometimes say, on those incredibly rare occassions when the conversation can reach all the way to the summit called “step two”: “Hey, please don’t take my word for any of this. Read Smedley Butler or Read Chomsky or Zinn or MickeyZ or Helen Caldicott or The Project For a New American Century. The facts are all right out there, take a look around and see what you think...”
Posted by joe on from Oregon 08/08 at 01:52 PMWhere is the logical inconsistency between Creationism and Evolution? One can logically assume Ultimate Causality ( creationism, God, or any other form of Ultimate Cause) and still accept the Law or Theory of Evolution. I don’t see them as being in conflict. In fact, one could argue, that Evolution is the logical result of the Ultimate Cause. It seems that sometimes, Evolution is used as an argument in support of atheism. I think that you can’t get there from here. If you want to argue in support of atheism, there must be a better argument presented than Evolution.
Posted by rosemarie jackowski on from we are all downwind 08/08 at 02:15 PMI agree, Rosemarie.
In my mind, evolution, the diversity of life and the wonders of the universe are proof of a power greater than ourselves.
I love Hick’s joke about Jesus and the disciples running into a dinosaur, by the way.
Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 08/08 at 02:28 PMOh yeah, and if the similarities between Bush and the monkey in the pics above don’t prove the theory of evolution to creationists, I don’t know what would.
Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 08/08 at 02:30 PMI’m not sure I understand the point being made by Rosemarie and James.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/08 at 03:58 PMMaybe the point that I tried to make was that not all evolutionists are atheists.....but here is another observation. I am starting to see a “worship” of science in our culture. The scientific method has helped explain the universe, more or less, but is it infallible and is it the only way to gain knowledge?
Posted by rosemarie jackowski on from we are all downwind 08/08 at 04:52 PMHmmm...where do I fit in? I certainly do not worship science and i’m not gonna pretend to know enough about evolution to speak authoriatively about it. But the earth is 6000 years old? You don’t need a lab coat to doubt that.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/08 at 04:57 PMSorry, Mickey. I did not mean to imply that you worship science and I don’t know where any of us fit in. Here is a quote from the article by Asimov as referenced by sk. .............. “...With creationism in the saddle, American science will wither. We will raise a generation of ignoramuses ill-equipped to run the industry of tomorrow, much less to generate the new advances of the days after tomorrow....”
My view is that maybe it would be good if we did not train our youth to “run the industry of tomorrow” and instead taught them critical thinking. Can’t you think of a lot of things that you wish could be uninvented? Many of these inventions are the products of the marriage between science and technology. Maybe it would be helpful to humankind if we put more emphasis on ethics and getting along with one another and less emphasis on science. And maybe it would be good if scientists opened their minds to the possibility that maybe there are other ways to gain knowledge about the universe and maybe it would be good if they all did not believe in the infallibility of the scientific method. It seems to me, in conversations that I have on an on-going basis with my scientist friends, that they feel threatened and cannot admit that maybe science will never be able to explain the origin of the universe. My argument is not with anyone here, but with the culture that has glorified science at the expense of other realms of inquiry.Posted by rosemarie jackowski on from we are all downwind 08/08 at 05:50 PMI guess that the “deification” of science, and not basic human values such as courage, compassion, imagination, love, honesty, self-less-ness, honor, etc. - would have to arise out of a society in which property ( STUFF ) always - always! trumps people, trumps Life, Itself. And, our society was deliberately designed to do just that…
Posted by joe on from Oregon 08/08 at 06:08 PMDitto to what Joe said.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/08 at 06:11 PMMickey,
thanks for again disseminating ‘information or opinions that are generally missing from mainstream debate’ with this post and .. thanks for the whole site! And I was quite a different person when I was in my 20’s - well I was slimmer for one ..
HelgaPosted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 08/08 at 06:18 PMOff topic with apologies...I think that within the past hour or so, more than 50 posts have been made on some other site about one of my articles that is on DissidentVoice. Most bloggers on that site disagree with me. The google reference is below............
New Rules for LiberalsNew Rules for Liberals · http://www.dissidentvoice.org ^ | August 6, 2005 | Rosemarie Jackowski. Posted on 08/07/2005 5:48:09 PM PDT by new yorker 77 ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1458852/posts - 34k - Aug 7, 2005 - Cached - Similar pagesPosted by rosemarie jackowski on from we are all downwind 08/08 at 06:29 PMI didn’t get to read all the comments, Rosemarie, but the bloggers didn’t seem to be too interested in serious criticism.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/08 at 07:17 PMRosemarie, I had a similar experience some weeks ago at another Left-ish site. Responses to my posts were as bizarre as they might have been if I’d been posting in ancient Greek… I followed your hyperlink and, all I can say is - stay away from them for a while. Soundly sleeping people get very irritable when you disturb them, however slightly. In fact, I learned just recently that sleepwalkers have some “plan” within their walk, and to attempt to intervene can cause them to become extremely violent!
This little excerpt from Dave Dellinger probably says what I’d like to say, far better than I can: “...there must be also an uncompromising practice of treating everyone, including the worst of our opponents, with all the respect and decency that he merits as a fellow human being. We can expect to face tear gas, clubs and bullets. But we must refuse to hate, punish or kill in return. We must respect the owners, policemen, conservatives and strike-breakers for what they are—potentially decent people who have been conditioned by a sick society into playing anti-social roles, the basic inhumanity of which they do not understand.
This is a diseased world in which it is impossible for anyone to be fully human. One way or another, everyone who lives in the modern world is sick or maladjusted...”And, so are the folks who attack you so mercilessly, when you deserve their praise…
-joe
Posted by joe on from Oregon 08/08 at 07:19 PMRosemarie, the theory evolution doesn’t presume to explain creation itself. It’s not all that broad, really. The Talk Origins FAQ defines it as:
Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.
The theory of evolution is not in conflict witrh religious belief, either. George Joyne, SJ, the Vatican astronomer wote this recently:
There appears to exist a nagging fear in the Church that a universe, which science has established as evolving for 13.7 x 1 billion years since the Big Bang and in which life, beginning in its most primitive forms at about 12 x 1 billion years from the Big Bang, evolved through a process of random genetic mutations and natural selection, escapes God’s dominion. That fear is groundless. Science is completely neutral with respect to philosophical or theological implications that may be drawn from its conclusions. Those conclusions are always subject to improvement. That is why science is such an interesting adventure and scientists curiously interesting creatures. But for someone to deny the best of today’s science on religious grounds is to live in that groundless fear just mentioned.
There is a tendency in our culture to glorify utilitarianism, call this rational and use pseudo-science to back it up. A good example of that is Taylorism:
Taylor, however, advocated achieving efficiency by close observation and control of the labour process. By breaking the production process down into its constituent parts and measuring the time required for each minute operation, observing and measuring every movement of the hand, the productivity of individual workers could be greatly increased. This meant, however, employing large numbers of supervisors and clerks, with up to one in four being employed in such supervisory tasks. Not surprisingly, the introduction of Taylorism into factories generates sharp opposition from the productive workers. Taylorism reduces the worker to an automaton and denies the worker any chance for relief or modulation of the pace of work and is enormously stressful and oppressive. The intense supervision means that any resistance or go-slow by the worker is responded to instantly. However, Taylorism’s regime iron discipline brings with it the possibility of buying-off workers by promoting individuals into the swollen ranks of supervisors and other white-collar workers. Since productive work is reduced to automatic activities totally lacking in skill, labour discipline is made easier by limiting recruitment for these roles to the poorest and most unorganised layers of workers.
There is also the degenerate form of science Mickey writes about so often, where the desired conlcusion is reached before any research even starts: corporatist science.
I wouldn’t place any stock in comments on the Free Republic site, by the way. It’s part of the Republican perception management machine. A good number of them are low level party apparatchiks. All of them are internets trolls.
Posted by Harry on from 08/08 at 08:48 PMHarry, have you any stories of / experiences with this local economy, community economy? I’ve not had an opportunity to return to that site, yet, but I’ve thought about it, off and on, all day… However it works, those involved would have to place relatively great trust in one another, if it was to work… or so I’d imagine. Otherwise, it would have to be founded upon some sort of contractual arrangement, which would seem somehow inimical to the point… Yes?
Also: Lysenkoism. I looked it up, but the site I found most “friendly” will still require that I read alot and ponder. Should I? Or, can you offer a quick, consice definition?
Your posts are great, Harry.
-joePosted by joe on from Oregon 08/08 at 10:04 PMI need to correct a bad typo first, Joe It’s “George Coyne”, not “Joyne”.
Lysenkoism, simply, is rejecting any and/or all scientific results that don’t conform to ideology. It goes beyond excessive skepticism because it can never, ever, accept being in error. There is no room for doubt.
An example of a nascent local economy that’s working would be the Ithaca Hours currency. It’s a democratic, participatory management incorporation, similar to an intentional community, open to all with chartered protections against being coopted by an elite. The structure allows for referenda on any agreements, with some basic prerequisites for joining. The incentives of keeping prosperity local appeal to enlightened self-interest. People inclined to abuse the largely trust-based structure are unlikely to join in the first place. But if, against all odds, they do, the community withdraws their trust in them. They spell out their plan to become to a full intentional community in the conclusion:
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS: gradually taking over certain govt functions on a nonprofit direct democratic basis; volunteers earning community equity replace taxes collected by force. To the extent govt approval has been mandated to establish, fund and regulate, it’s essential to have public officials and staff who welcome changes of these types. WISE seeks to elect citizens who will provide supportive interface with state/federal.
CONCLUSION: Through WISE investment, Ithaca becomes fully democratic intentional community where privacy and ownership are secured, while social spaces are plentiful. Most citizens participate as neighbors in mutual aid associations which entitle them to free and low cost health care, fresh local organic food, living in homes which are so well insulated that costs for heating and cooling are mild. Ithacans are able to get around town on foot, by bike, trolley, buses. Streets safe and quiet but for children playing. Mosaic sidewalks and murals. Cayuga Lake becomes so clean again that it’s full of fish for those who eat them.
Taken together, these will allow us to relax in a beautiful, exciting community, raising the standard of living while lowering the cost of living & setting examples for the whole country. Ithaca will become a vast satisfaction to residents and powerful example to the world.
Posted by Harry on from 08/08 at 10:35 PMThanks Harry, thanks much.
I spent a few days in Ithaca a few years ago. My friend Don grew up there - his father was a real mucky-muck at Cornell. We had dinner once or twice at the Moosewood, and wandered around pretty extensively. The gorges were remarkable -
I never knew one could find such things in New York. Though I must admit, upstate NY is very, very beautiful, for the most part.
The community reminded me very much of Saratoga Springs, very well educated, very interested, very interesting people. Lots of involvement at the local level, but I’d never heard of this program. What a wonderful, wonderful idea it is, or seems to be.
It’s definately “subversive,” on the face of it, even if the participants are primarily left-leaning but well-to-do folks, which I’d bet most are. I’ll definately read more, when I can.You’d have to wonder whether or not “the They” are pondering some way to make such programs illegal. If it were to become popular - and wouldn’t it be wonderful it it did! - it would be a severe blow to the Central Fascist Banks. I mean, The Federal Reserve.
Thanks again, Harry.
BTW - where are you? In Ithaca?
Don’t know why, but I had the feeling you were from somewhere farther west…Posted by joe on from Oregon 08/09 at 12:03 AMI live a few hours drive from Ithaca.
I’m planning a visit to the E.F. Schumacher Society, from my previous link, as soon as I can clear up some time. I want to do a full and serious report on that. Then head over to Ithaca to do the same. Reports mean more, I think, when they come from people you know. Mickey has good people here. My weblog co-authors and I do too. Maybe we can do something.
Another thing that interests me is the is the Ripple Peer to Peer alternative currency and payment system. An anarchist economy looks like it’s finally becoming viable.
Posted by Harry on from 08/09 at 12:58 AMbuenos dias!
dinosaurs? there were no dinosaurs?
confession: i used to believe in creationism/intelligent design once then I looked at the evidence for evolution, pretty convincing stuff the fossils the carbon-14 dating. I like the talk origins website. how to convince people that they shouldn’t teach intel design/creationism in school: It’s descrimination. They only want to teach “de t’ings dat yo li’ble to read in de Bible” (love that song, love the opera Porgy and Bess. (side: what was sportin’ life doing at the church picnic? i guess to sing that song.) view of creationism what about the spaceship religion view, the australian aboriginie view, the ancient mayan view. the intel design people also want 10 commandments covering every public space, prayers in school they want to create a 24/7 church. even the people who go to church don’t want to be there when i volunteer(ed) to go i’m thinking darn it why didn’t i stay home. just say “hey man do you want to be bombarded with church 24/7.” they’ll say ‘gee, i never looked at it that way.’The creationists believe that there was no evolution that some of the newer animals are a result of interbreeding. ‘look at the liger’ they say. I was thinking why not a zippopatamus (zebra and hippo). Alas, I found out that the hippopatamus (river horse) is not related to the zebra but to the whale. darn it i wanted to see a zippo! Hey, if a duck and beaver can interbreed?
I’m really not into science either if it came between talkorigins website and artcyclopedia.com i’d rather browse artcyclopedia.com. or read dostoyevsky. or listen to porgy and bess.
Posted by tm on from catfish row 08/09 at 01:42 AMthis is fantastic…
“Where does the idea of God come from? Well, I think we have a very skewed point of view on an awful lot of things, but let’s try and see where our point of view comes from. Imagine early man. Early man is, like everything else, an evolved creature and he finds himself in a world that he’s begun to take a little charge of; he’s begun to be a tool-maker, a changer of his environment with the tools that he’s made and he makes tools, when he does, in order to make changes in his environment. To give an example of the way man operates compared to other animals, consider speciation, which, as we know, tends to occur when a small group of animals gets separated from the rest of the herd by some geological upheaval, population pressure, food shortage or whatever and finds itself in a new environment with maybe something different going on. Take a very simple example; maybe a bunch of animals suddenly finds itself in a place where the weather is rather colder. We know that in a few generations those genes which favour a thicker coat will have come to the fore and we’ll come and we’ll find that the animals have now got thicker coats. Early man, who’s a tool maker, doesn’t have to do this: he can inhabit an extraordinarily wide range of habitats on earth, from tundra to the Gobi Desert—he even manages to live in New York for heaven’s sake—and the reason is that when he arrives in a new environment he doesn’t have to wait for several generations; if he arrives in a colder environment and sees an animal that has those genes which favour a thicker coat, he says “I’ll have it off him”. Tools have enabled us to think intentionally, to make things and to do things to create a world that fits us better. Now imagine an early man surveying his surroundings at the end of a happy day’s tool making. He looks around and he sees a world which pleases him mightily: behind him are mountains with caves in—mountains are great because you can go and hide in the caves and you are out of the rain and the bears can’t get you; in front of him there’s the forest—it’s got nuts and berries and delicious food; there’s a stream going by, which is full of water—water’s delicious to drink, you can float your boats in it and do all sorts of stuff with it; here’s cousin Ug and he’s caught a mammoth—mammoth’s are great, you can eat them, you can wear their coats, you can use their bones to create weapons to catch other mammoths. I mean this is a great world, it’s fantastic. But our early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, ‘well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in’ and then he asks himself a very treacherous question, a question which is totally meaningless and fallacious, but only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way. Man the maker looks at his world and says ‘So who made this then?’ Who made this? — you can see why it’s a treacherous question. Early man thinks, ‘Well, because there’s only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he’s probably male’. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , ‘If he made it, what did he make it for?’ Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, ‘This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely’ and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.
This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
http://www.douglasadams.se/stuff/sand.html for the full thing
Posted by michael on from scotland 08/09 at 07:45 AM
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