Which brings us to the next point: Looking at it from the perspective of hard science, religion and philosophy are the same thing. Neither of them are relevant to truth or scientific fact. That's not to say that philosophy or even religion can't bring to light these facts or assist in finding the truth. Where the rubber hits the road is when either makes a statement involving a truth or falsehood, and then we have something science can test. That's the metric we have in place. Until the scientific method can do its job and prove this truth or falsehood, well, then it either needs to wait until we can get around to it or it's simply not of relevance.
Unless you mean "whatever hippy lifestyle that doesn't want to call itself a religion" by "philosophy" you're kind of wrong here.
It's either true that the natural world of matter/energy is all there is, or it isn't true. It's true that morals are an objective part of the world we live in, or it isn't.
If you want to dismiss philosophy as bad science.mathematics, that's your prerogative but don't say it has nothing to do with what is, and isn't true.
Unless you mean "whatever hippy lifestyle that doesn't want to call itself a religion" by "philosophy" you're kind of wrong here.
It's either true that the natural world of matter/energy is all there is, or it isn't true. It's true that morals are an objective part of the world we live in, or it isn't.
If you want to dismiss philosophy as bad science.mathematics, that's your prerogative but don't say it has nothing to do with what is, and isn't true.
You must have missed this part: Looking at it from the perspective of hard science,
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep"chick", and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn't lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have Misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
"Hard Science" would have nothing to say on either.
If you drag a bunch of hokum and bunk into the mix, oh yes it would. Which is exactly what we're talking about here, if you knew what this conversation was about.
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep"chick", and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn't lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have Misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep"chick", and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn't lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have Misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
Richard Dawkins's comments.
I'm not sure what's worse, the joking (Dawkins was being sarcastic with this, right? Right?) misogny or the 'Muslims are inherently misogynistic' thing.
i'm only kinda half paying attention and doing other stuff, sorry if this annoys you so much
Yeah, I do admit that I find it annoying whenever I'm in the middle of a discussion with someone else and another person runs in like a jackass, making nothing but noise, and attempting to squelch the conversation without even having a single fucking clue what it's about -- and freely admitting to that, to boot.
Which you do on a regular basis. Have you always tried to be the center of attention your entire life, or is this a new development?
Not to disagree with you or trying to correct your assessment of her (and for the record, I know that you and others here are aware of her antics), but this is the same person who cried assault and wickedly disparaged a man because he asked her to join him for coffee while the two on an elevator, which achieved international attention for her and the poor bastard involved.
I actually had no intention of defending Rebecca Watson's talk or defending her as a person, and to be honest I'm barely aware of this whole "Atheism +" controversy; I'm not an atheist and I don't hang out on sceptic websites so it never really concerned me. It was only the claim that her brand of scepticism was 'pseudoscience itself' that I sought to contest, and only in so far as her criticisms were misguided rather than an abuse of scientific methodology itself.
I wasn't following the whole elevator controversy closely, but I understand the claim was that he followed her into an elevator at 4 in the morning and invited her back to his hotel room, and that she said it made her uncomfortable, not that it was an assault. I don't know what the man's tone or body language was like so I will draw no further conclusions.
Then, whenever Richard Dawkins of all people stepped in with a dose of reality, she and her online cronies turned their attack on him and she even went so far to declare his work and words to be null and void because science, logic and rationality all end where her feelings begin.
You mean this letter?
Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
Because to me that looks like petty mocking with the clear intent of belittling and silencing her complaints, incorporating the bizarre and disturbing suggestion that Western culture should be above criticism whenever another culture does something worse. Dawkins is a respected academic and should know better than to behave so immaturely and abuse his status as a public figure in such a way.
Yes, except you have to keep in mind that the entire scope of this situation fits entirely within the realm of hard science, where feminism (or MRA or Confucianism for that matter) has no place. Feminism is a philosophy, which does not diminish its value, but inserting it into an area where it simply does not belong diminishes both -- kind of like how mixing religion and government will damage and then eventually destroy each other over time.
Which brings us to the next point: Looking at it from the perspective of hard science, religion and philosophy are the same thing. Neither of them are relevant to truth or scientific fact. That's not to say that philosophy or even religion can't bring to light these facts or assist in finding the truth. Where the rubber hits the road is when either makes a statement involving a truth or falsehood, and then we have something science can test. That's the metric we have in place. Until the scientific method can do its job and prove this truth or falsehood, well, then it either needs to wait until we can get around to it or it's simply not of relevance.
I don't see why this should be the case. Watson made ethical and epistemological claims, the former of which clearly fall outside of science but do not contest it and can therefore comfortably coexist with it, the latter of which are entirely relevant to scientific method, if valid. (That her criticisms of evolutionary psychology were misplaced is not something I will dispute; they clearly were misplaced.)
though for clarification, me being overly disrupive isn't exactly a function of me being a huge ATTN HOAR, I guess it seems more like, at least in my experience, that this sort of conversation consistently leads to a rather unpleasant place, and it never really resolved, nobody changes their minds, and it just goes on and on ad nauseum until people get really nasty and everything blows up. On the other hand, nothing i do ever really seems to change that.
I guess the sensible thing for me to do when this happens would be for me to simply leave, but somehow that feels unsatisfactory to me, like it doesn't really....
Also, I don't think I complain nearly all that much.
eeeh, I can be kinda whiny about my home situation and my depression and school and whatnot, and I don't have anywhere else to express it so I can be kinda BAWWWWWWWWWWWWW sometimes.
It's a flaw of mine to be sure, and it's not one I'm making anywhere near enough progress on.
I'd frankly we rather not discuss such stuff in the first place. But then people complain that they can't talk about whatever they want.
idk, I'm trying to get some sleep here and I'm just worrying myself over you guys. Probably shouldn't be but yeah. I dunno, I really wish we could have discussions without the whole passive-aggressive sniping and people YELLING LOUDLY on the sidelines but it doesn't seem like we can.
I'd frankly we rather not discuss such stuff in the first place. But then people complain that they can't talk about whatever they want.
eeeh, it's not the discussion itself that bugs me, it's the fact that once everybody draws their lines in the sand nobody budges or anything and it either explodes or it just kinda simmers unpleasantly.
^ I do have reasons, but they aren't really big enough reasons to warrant all that whining IMO.
Doctor Who reference in Pokemon B2W2? Headcanon accepted.
It was only the claim that her brand of scepticism was 'pseudoscience itself' that I sought to contest, and only in so far as her criticisms were misguided rather than an abuse of scientific methodology itself.
It wouldn't such a big deal if there was a few errors in the presentation. This is only human and to be expected. However the entire presentation was about as fundamentally flawed as one can possibly get and that was the entire point of his critical article. Basically this is not the sort of thing you'd expect to see at such a gathering.
You mean this letter?
Yes, that letter. It wasn't pointed just at her, but also at the witch hunt already in progress. I welcome you to go read the entire thread that Dawkins posted this in, in that context it doesn't seem like a hateful or callous response at all -- especially the way everyone else was acting.
I don't see why this should be the case. Watson made ethical and epistemological claims, the former of which clearly fall outside of science but do not contest it and can therefore comfortably coexist with it, the latter of which are entirely relevant to scientific method, if valid. (That her criticisms of evolutionary psychology were misplaced is not something I will dispute; they clearly were misplaced.)
She did push much of what she was saying as fact, which is why this fellow took her to task. And to clarify my points above, I find this troubling and I'm not alone on this. My knowledge of evolutionary psychology is somewhere between jack and shit, and if I was presented with her flawed perspective of it unawares -- in a skeptic's gathering, of all places -- you can see how this is would be a problem.
I never actually meant to start an argument, much less take a hard stance on a particular issue or whatever. I was just giving my take on her reputation for character assassination.
Honestly, I feel bad for suggesting Watson's followers were even trigger-happy at this point, having seen what Dawkins actually wrote.
...see this kind of shit is exactly why I feel nervous when volunteering an opinion on anything.
I guess I started a flame war? I did not mean to do this!
I really don't know what happened up there, but I'm sitting here trying to have a discussion with you (which I'm enjoying, by the way) and I guess that doesn't sit well with other people.
It wouldn't such a big deal if there was a few errors in the presentation. This is only human and to be expected. However the entire presentation was about as fundamentally flawed as one can possibly get and that was the entire point of his critical article. Basically this is not the sort of thing you'd expect to see at such a gathering.
I didn't contest a word of the - very thorough, very intelligent, by and large very much agreeable - article, apart from what I thought was an extremely minor quibble with the bit about character assassination.
Yes, that letter. It wasn't pointed just at her, but also at the witch hunt already in progress. I welcome you to go read the entire thread that Dawkins posted this in, in that context it doesn't seem like a hateful or callous response at all -- especially the way everyone else was acting.
I assume it was here? I can't seem to see the comments section for some reason, sorry. I am having trouble imagining a context in which that response would not be unbelievably crass, though.
She did push much of what she was saying as fact, which is why this fellow took her to task. And to clarify my points above, I find this troubling and I'm not alone on this. My knowledge of evolutionary psychology is somewhere between jack and shit, and if I was presented with her flawed perspective of it unawares -- in a skeptic's gathering, of all places -- you can see how this is would be a problem.
Certainly. There was plainly a lot wrong with her attack on evolutionary psychology - although the conclusions she arrived at were not outrageous given her (bad) sources, which does point to a problem in media reporting on the subject. She might have had a point if she'd chosen her target with more care and been more cautious in the conclusions she drew, but I never made the argument that her speech as it stood was in any way a good one.
Or I guess if I were to boil my opinion on this whole debacle into a single non-horribly-lengthy post, it would be that there is reason to conclude that Watson did insufficient research before giving her talk and consequently founded her argument on an incorrect conclusion, but not that she or her supporters have been willfully intellectually dishonest.
One of these days I will figure how to express my views without the walls of text.
Doctor Who reference in Pokemon B2W2? Headcanon accepted.
Certainly. There was plainly a lot wrong with her attack on evolutionary psychology - although the conclusions she arrived at were not outrageous given her (bad) sources, which does point to a problem in media reporting on the subject. She might have had a point if she'd chosen her target with more care and been more cautious in the conclusions she drew, but I never made the argument that her speech as it stood was in any way a good one.
Sorry if it came off of me insinuating that you did, that certainly wasn't the intention.
I assume it was here? I can't seem to see the comments section for some reason, sorry. I am having trouble imagining a context in which that response would not be unbelievably crass, though.
Yes, and I can't access the comments anymore, either. However, I did find one other reply and Dawkins' explanation of his first post:
[to Dawkins:] Did you just make the argument that, since worse things are happening somewhere else, we have no right to try to fix things closer to home?
And that's when you tried to backpedal with a clarification, but just ended up digging your hole even deeper.
No I wasn't making that argument. Here's the argument I was making. The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that.
If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics' privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker. PZ didn't physically strike any Catholics. All he did was nail a wafer, and he was absolutely right to do so because the heightened value of the wafer was a fantasy in the minds of the offended Catholics. Similarly, Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
Muslim women suffer physically from misogyny, their lives are substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny. Not just words, real deeds, painful, physical deeds, physical privations, legally sanctioned demeanings. The equivalent would be if PZ had nailed not a cracker but a Catholic. Then they'd have had good reason to complain.
Or I guess if I were to boil my opinion on this whole debacle into a single non-horribly-lengthy post, it would be that there is reason to conclude that Watson did insufficient research before giving her talk and consequently founded her argument on an incorrect conclusion, but not that she or her supporters have been willfully intellectually dishonest.
One of these days I will figure how to express my views without the walls of text.
But now I am going to have dinner.
Don't worry about it, I love writing walls of text too. And I have homework to do.
Okay, Richard, if you want to say that that person nailed a wafer to demonstrate freedom of speech, which I agree she had every right to do, that's fine. But leave it there. Because you don't understand Catholicism.
Comments
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep"chick", and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn't lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have Misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
Richard Dawkins's comments.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Well, there's this song. And these songs. And this song about a song. And the video below, that is the song of the sirens
You should all listen to the song of the sirens.
HAVE NO STANDARDS
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I wasn't following the whole elevator controversy closely, but I understand the claim was that he followed her into an elevator at 4 in the morning and invited her back to his hotel room, and that she said it made her uncomfortable, not that it was an assault. I don't know what the man's tone or body language was like so I will draw no further conclusions. You mean this letter? Because to me that looks like petty mocking with the clear intent of belittling and silencing her complaints, incorporating the bizarre and disturbing suggestion that Western culture should be above criticism whenever another culture does something worse. Dawkins is a respected academic and should know better than to behave so immaturely and abuse his status as a public figure in such a way. I don't see why this should be the case. Watson made ethical and epistemological claims, the former of which clearly fall outside of science but do not contest it and can therefore comfortably coexist with it, the latter of which are entirely relevant to scientific method, if valid. (That her criticisms of evolutionary psychology were misplaced is not something I will dispute; they clearly were misplaced.)
I just want to throw out that you're both making enormous asses out of yourselves.
It'd be nice if you could both, you know, stop.
Whatever though, I'm going back to bed.
I guess I started a flame war? I did not mean to do this! Amen to that.
I haven't been around in a while but I don't remember you complaining very often fwiw.
Nothing, really.
I'd frankly we rather not discuss such stuff in the first place. But then people complain that they can't talk about whatever they want.
idk, I'm trying to get some sleep here and I'm just worrying myself over you guys. Probably shouldn't be but yeah. I dunno, I really wish we could have discussions without the whole passive-aggressive sniping and people YELLING LOUDLY on the sidelines but it doesn't seem like we can.
Honestly, I feel bad for suggesting Watson's followers were even trigger-happy at this point, having seen what Dawkins actually wrote.
One of these days I will figure how to express my views without the walls of text.
But now I am going to have dinner.
lol Ross and his wordless sound poems.
And that's when you tried to backpedal with a clarification, but just ended up digging your hole even deeper.
No I wasn't making that argument. Here's the argument I was making. The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that.
If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics' privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker. PZ didn't physically strike any Catholics. All he did was nail a wafer, and he was absolutely right to do so because the heightened value of the wafer was a fantasy in the minds of the offended Catholics. Similarly, Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
Muslim women suffer physically from misogyny, their lives are substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny. Not just words, real deeds, painful, physical deeds, physical privations, legally sanctioned demeanings. The equivalent would be if PZ had nailed not a cracker but a Catholic. Then they'd have had good reason to complain.
Richard