'Science Set Free' Dept.
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Social commentary follows. Nothing mild about this one. :- ) As usual, we did make sure you also had pure baseball, one cubicle left. You're welcome. - Jeff
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Misterjonez sez,
Agreed regarding Hitchens' sophist tendencies. Too many times you see people construct self-defending arguments, and he was one of the worst at that. But there were times when he was discussing subjects relatively dispassionately (basically anything that was three steps removed from religion/theology) and he could produce thought gems at an impressive pace when doing so. When he got to rambling about his anti-theism positions, it really just became self-service and diatribe cloaked in pseudo-logic. Not saying he didn't have points buried in all the hate he was spewing, but I'm generally not interested in sifting through so much anger and vitriol when searching for wisdom.
Regarding posting here more often, I'm just a slacker :( Although in fairness I've had some pretty major network issues which often make it difficult to load the site from where I live in the Philippines. Sometimes it's been a Klat deal (it seems that is pretty much behind us now, thankfully) and more recently it's been a local ISP blockages.
But one of the biggest obstacles is that I'm just 33 years old and don't know anywhere near enough about so many subjects which get broached here. I'm generally content to listen to the 40- and 50-somethings who look to be cut from a similar cloth as myself provide perspective, but every now and then I think my opinion worthy of boarding the thought train ;)
Amazing community you've amassed here, Doc. It's a testament worthy of recognition as far as I'm concerned. I'll try to whip up a few paragraphs on a regular basis and start giving something back.
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Dr. D sez,
Ya you betcha. Get somebody off their personal hot buttons and they can be a completely different person.
What I mourn, is the impression that if you're a scientist or a member of the intelligentsia, then you have "learned" how to be unbiased. If I had to pick a single group on earth that was the most hardened in its bias, the most repressive of minority views, it would be biologists.
Who represent, for me, materialistic scientists who respond to unorthodox theories by suppression, rather than inquiry. They'll yell at Rupert Sheldrake to shut up, rather than conducting experiments that might simply disprove Sheldrake's theories. And they're very emotional about it.
Science is supposed to be about inquiry. Not "consensus" statements about what is possible or impossible. Science by vote is humankind at its worst, as any Galileo could tell you.
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"Amazing community we've amassed here" ... never thought of it in quite that way. You wouldn't need to type 200 words if you could type five like that ;- )
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Those interested in outside-the-box science, investigated by a great thinker, might be interested in Rupert Sheldrake's site at sheldrake.org. Though I disagree with his "Morphic Resonance" theory, Prof. Sheldrake has compelling scientific evidence on subjects such as:
- The sense of being stared at
- Dogs who know when their owners are coming home
- Telepathy in connection with incoming telephone calls
Sheldrake is a top-flight scientist and his experiments are sound (whether conclusive or not). He's also one whale of a nice guy - watch his vids and you'll find the most calm, reasoned man you've ever come across.
His enemies lay down a ferocious campaign to imply otherwise. In the big picture, Sheldrake is the world's leading protagonist for a scientific world that believes in settling debates through inquiry, as opposed to settling them by vote.
Cheers,
Jeff