The Cult Of Science, Politics & Religion

plenty of people have probably published online better reasons why that % of DNA in common with this or that species thing is dumb and that there isn't really much that can be infered from it. i'm sure plenty of people have already done it with better wording than i could, or what i did here, but i think i got my point across. it's a meaningless stat. it shouldn't be brought into the conversation about intelligence at all. if we actually 'share 50% DNA' with a banana, does that mean we are only '50% more intelligent' than a banana? no. so why did he suggest that we first think about how we are only 1% different from chimps yet so much smarter, and that we imagine a being that's 1% more advanced/smarter than us? it just doesn't make sense. if by 'waxing poetic' you mean 'spewing mad bullshit' then yeah, i agree. that's exactly what he's doing.

i can't edit my post so that last sentence should be- that's exactly what he's doing, in this case.

i like watching programs with him and others talking about science type stuff on occasion, so don't take what i'm saying here as anything more than a few criticisms that i think are OT.

I guess I really don't understand what the problem is. You don't like the inferences he's making? You think they're misleading? To me it really just sounds like he is taking a scientific factoid and using it as a springboard for philosophical postulation about alien intelligence.

But personally I find the idea of shared DNA rather beautiful and interesting (especially in the context of the evolution vs. creationism debate).

i just think that the fact of there being '99%' similarity between us and a chimp is ultimately meaningless and shouldn't be mentioned in a discussion about intelligence if we also share 99% dna with mice. its way oversimplified. you're talking about mountains of info in those DNA molecules, even just in that 1% that's actually different, so they are just reframing the math in a different way that seems to make their case better. it's like they are massaging the numbers.

  On 4/12/2013 at 3:31 AM, MisterE said:

i just think that the fact of there being '99%' similarity between us and a chimp is ultimately meaningless and shouldn't be mentioned in a discussion about intelligence if we also share 99% dna with mice. its way oversimplified. you're talking about mountains of info in those DNA molecules, even just in that 1% that's actually different, so they are just reframing the math in a different way that seems to make their case better. it's like they are massaging the numbers.

What case?

science has created or allowed for the creation of the most destructive forces in existence, besides the force of nature (some so unsuspectingly innocent and doe-eyed in appearance, that they become many times more powerful - others deemed necessary without question, irregardless of their negative impact on the world). politics has disproportionately centralized the power of man, diminished mans revolutionary spirit to that of watching television / computer screens and the pressing of button votes and has lead humanity into innumerable worldwide catastrophes. all religions have made laughing stock out of the foundational teachings they were based on and have set man against man for millennia, through the violence, guile, persuasion and hunger for power of its trusted, self-elected intermediaries, in what has continuously resurfaced as a worldwide piss contest, followed by forced entry.

i see no winner here

MisterE is right on this one. Th general public cannot even hope to actually understand the scientific knowledge produced nowadays, even specialist in different areas of the same discipline have trouble understanding each other. whichever tidbits that are dumbed down for a general audience are pretty much lies.

btw for one reason or another I am currently working with geneticists, misterE is also right on that account, a stat like -whatever- ammount of DNA is different is pretty much meaningless, since the genetic information itself is not the only thing that is involved on how organisms are differentiated, it's more about the processes that exist that make that information 'express' itself or not, these processes, while most of them are know, are very very complex because of the huge amount of interactions that involve. in the past months i had to throw everything i think i knew about dna to the trash.

  On 4/12/2013 at 3:50 AM, Redruth said:

science has created or allowed for the creation of the most destructive forces in existence, besides the force of nature (some so unsuspectingly innocent and doe-eyed in appearance, that they become many times more powerful - others deemed necessary without question, irregardless of their negative impact on the world). politics has disproportionately centralized the power of man, diminished mans revolutionary spirit to that of watching television / computer screens and the pressing of button votes and has lead humanity into innumerable worldwide catastrophes. all religions have made laughing stock out of the foundational teachings they were based on and have set man against man for millennia, through the violence, guile, persuasion and hunger for power of its trusted, self-elected intermediaries, in what has continuously resurfaced as a worldwide piss contest, followed by forced entry.

 

i see no winner here

Troon, this isn't meant to be sarcastic at all, are you a fan of Jean-Jacques Rousseau?

  On 4/12/2013 at 3:34 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 4/12/2013 at 3:31 AM, MisterE said:

i just think that the fact of there being '99%' similarity between us and a chimp is ultimately meaningless and shouldn't be mentioned in a discussion about intelligence if we also share 99% dna with mice. its way oversimplified. you're talking about mountains of info in those DNA molecules, even just in that 1% that's actually different, so they are just reframing the math in a different way that seems to make their case better. it's like they are massaging the numbers.

 

What case?

 

the case that we are really super closely related to chimps. because saying we are only 1% different sounds like being really close, and saying there are millions and millions of bits of info in the DNA that's different between us and chimps wouldn't make us sound so close.

and if we are 99% the same as chimps but also 99% the same as mice, then that makes it sound like there is the same amount of difference between us and both other animals, and there clearly isn't. it's obviously misleading. i don't know how else to explain what i'm trying to say here.

  On 4/12/2013 at 1:12 AM, messiaen said:

i read a pop science book on proving fermats last theorem a while a go, it stated that there is not yet such a thing as scientific proof, not proof as in mathematics.

certainly not, because mathematics is logical-deductive science. every other thing that claims to have a scientific approach will try (sometimes in vain) to construct mathematical models so arguments can be infered deductively (economics is i think the perfect example, among the social sciences). the problem is that those other sciences apply the scientific method (or 'attitude' as some might call it) to collect empirical data. that approach is a inductive one.

in very general terms, science employs the scientific method, which is a way to make the ellaboration of statements on 'reality' (whatever that is, depending on the discipline) as transparent as possible; any research by a particular scientist is open to the scrutiny of the scientific community around him. and that's, i guess, a difference between religion and science. both are based on the true/false dichotomy (as pointed out by MisterE), but science tries its best to revise and check "true knowledge" all the time.

of course there are difficulties: the methodology employed (that is, the way scientists collects data, that sometimes narrows things down too much, leaving other important aspects behind), political issues inside the scientific community (sometimes scientific change stagnates because of influence, power issues), the dependance between science and economic funds (in that way, economical interest captures scientific objectives), the use of scientific knowledge in other spheres other than strictly scientific/academic, etc., etc.

after all, science is a social enterprise, not so much in the way that the scientific community is a specific social system, but in that it's embedded in a broader social framework. it's so obvious but yet people tend to forget that.

awesome post and explanation

  On 4/12/2013 at 3:58 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

 

troon, this isn't meant to be sarcastic at all, are you a fan of Jean-Jacques Rousseau?

 

i am familiar with jean-jacques rousseau and have read a bit of what he has had to say. i would not consider myself a particularly big fan or follower of him no

how about American transcendentalists?

thoreau is an inspiration for me

ok. i'm finally getting the parallel here.

  On 4/12/2013 at 2:32 AM, MisterE said:

if we actually 'share 50% DNA' with a banana, does that mean we are only '50% more intelligent' than a banana?

we cannot prove the intelligence of a bananas

Wow, lots of anti-science vibes in here.

MisterE: I get what what you're saying. It sounds like you take issue with humans being similar to other species. Yes, there is alot of information packed into that 1%, but there's also alot packed into that 99% percent.

Redruth: I wouldn't say that science per se has, for instance, created the atom bomb (which I think was what you were hinting at).

Scientific knowledge (coupled with technological prowess) has enabled people do to and make some terrible things, yes. But science itself is passive, indifferent, amoral, apolitical, etc.

Gordo: I wouldn't say that all "dumbed-down tidbits" are essentially "lies." Yes they are inaccurate in this or that way but that's inevitable anytime you reduce or approximate something. "Lie" implies an intent to deceive, whereas the whole idea of dumbing something down intended to inform lay people not misinform them.

One thing I see quite often is people pointing to one of science's shortfalls in an attempt to discredit it on the whole. I can't quite tell if that's what's happening here...

One of my favorite Carl Sagan quotes:

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."

also, posting in a troon thread

this thread is weird. science isn't anything like religion. not even comparable.

  On 4/12/2013 at 5:21 AM, zaphod said:

this thread is weird. science isn't anything like religion. not even comparable.

but you just compared them derp derp

(I'm just playing, MisterE )

science isn't even a "thing". it's a method. that's what the scientific method is. there's various academic communities that might make up "science" in a social form, but it's so weird to act like science is some kind of faith.

i don't actually know what this thread is about, by the way, i just skimmed and replied without thinking. lol

Agreed. So people are heartless, deceitful pricks and you can't trust your TV, your priest, or your president; is this thread just for moaning and quibbling, or what?

  On 4/12/2013 at 5:44 AM, zaphod said:

 

 

i don't actually know what this thread is about, by the way, i just skimmed and replied without thinking. lol

that much i noticed

myself and others have pointed out some valid similarities between the two

science isn't just the method (if it were, why would the phrase 'scientific method' need to exist?), it's also refering to the knowledge itself. but it doesn't matter even if it were just the method. run of the mill people don't have access to a super collider, so they don't have access to the method for answering questions about reality. scientists do. they run their experiments, then they report to us what they just found out about reality. and the vast overwhelming majority of people have no idea what the hell they are talking about.

if you want to dellude yourself into thinking that there is absolutely no way a cult could form around that type of ignorance and blind faith in what scientists are saying, fine. go ahead. i don't have anything against science, i'm just pointing out valid comparisons. you can say 'yeah but there's more rigorous peer review with science' and ok that's fair and i know that. it's still not 100% above corruption. corruption HAS happened in science across history. it still does happen. and it will continue to happen. some of you people are talking like it absolutely cannot and i think you are making my point about blind unquestioning devotion for me, so congrats on that. give yourselves a nice pat on the back.

I didn't hear anyone say it couldn't happen. Few things in the world (if any) are impervious to corruption.

But with proper scientific rigor the results of a single experiment don't mean much. The experiment must be repeatable and always yield the same results (regardless of whom is conducting the experiment and whom is reviewing the results). This is why the cold fusion fraud didn't fly for very long.

The same essentially holds for observational study. Some aspect of the universe is meticulously observed and measured, and then scientists essentially try to find patterns in the data. There isn't much room for fraud as the process is rather transparent. Either the raw data has been fudged or the math doesn't add up.

Of course fraud are corruption are possible, but distrusting science on the basis of that fact alone is silly IMO.