"The World's Constitution" - your review?

[Salt n Vinegar]

Has anyone got a spare plot? Just asking, as this thread has completely lost one. 

However much room there is in the educational timetable, there's no room in it for intelligent design, or for that matter, for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, although interestingly there is equal evidence for both of them. 

[Scott Steiner]

11 minutes ago, Salt n Vinegar said:

Has anyone got a spare plot? Just asking, as this thread has completely lost one. 

However much room there is in the educational timetable, there's no room in it for intelligent design, or for that matter, for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, although interestingly there is equal evidence for both of them. 

Poor S n V - can't handle it that others can engage in reasonable discussion without resorting to nonsense.

I'm enjoying reading the discussion.

[TheNavigateur]

1 hour ago, Salt n Vinegar said:

However much room there is in the educational timetable, there's no room in it for intelligent design, or for that matter, for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, although interestingly there is equal evidence for both of them. 

While I agree that intelligent design and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are incorrect (and I have no fear of them catching on and convincing anyone in the face of darwinism, which I find would be far more convincing to anyone), minority opinion isn't always incorrect. How would you give a chance for such minority opinion to convince the majority if minority opinion is always blocked out from being heard by anyone, let alone the majority? Or do you not believe in such a thing as common misconception? Or if you do, do you not believe it to be a problem that requires any kind of remedy whatsoever?

Edited January 3, 2022 by TheNavigateur

[Salt n Vinegar]

9 hours ago, TheNavigateur said:

While I agree that intelligent design and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are incorrect (and I have no fear of them catching on and convincing anyone in the face of darwinism, which I find would be far more convincing to anyone), minority opinion isn't always incorrect. How would you give a chance for such minority opinion to convince the majority if minority opinion is always blocked out from being heard by anyone, let alone the majority? Or do you not believe in such a thing as common misconception? Or if you do, do you not believe it to be a problem that requires any kind of remedy whatsoever?

I am not a scientist but as I understand it the scientific method deals with the issue pretty sensibly in terms of science advancement.  In science, opinion doesn't matter, its what you can demonstrate to be correct that matters. It also rules out the influence of authority figures.  Put simply, if a suggested "theory" (theory being used in the strictly scientific sense, not the everyday sense) fails to demonstrate repeatable identical results, it is wrong and can be discounted. It wouldn't matter if it was me who suggested it, or the late Carl Sagan.  We will not be spending time or money pursuing cold fusion, at least not using the processes that were claimed by Pons and Fleischmann, not because they were or were not well known, or were or were not liked, but because nobody else anywhere could produce the same results. 

You also place far too much faith in the acceptability of your approach.  To this day, there are adults (eg in the USA) responsible for the funding, construction and upkeep of a Creation Museum, where humans are apparently shown coexisting with the great dinosaurs. Nutters still pursue school boards trying to impose the teaching of stultifying nonsense about religious/intelligent design origins of the world.  

Obliging schools or media companies to spend time and cash giving airtime to airheads? No ta! I've not noticed a shortage of nutter expressions worldwide from eg God/s promoters, vaccine deniers, flat Earthers, Royal Family lizard theorists, and worse. I've even watched a video clip from a religious sort who claims that the Earth doesn't rotate.  Sorry, but if anyone seriously thinks that such drivel deserves airtime I'd respectfully ask firstly about what their actual motives were and secondly what sort of media channel or show should be obliged to give it coverage? 

[coprolite]

15 hours ago, TheNavigateur said:

The idea is that a randomized process is carried out to select participants in each political programme. The programme maker must accept those participants from a public software application, on which the programme maker will have registered their upcoming programme for members of the public to apply to be heard on. The rule for that public software application is that the algorithm must be inspectable by the public, including the record of the algorithm against the candidate "IDs" so they can verify it was done correctly.

David would apply to be selected on the programme of his choice, and if selected he would be able to present his case. Bearing in mind that holocaust believers vastly outnumber holocaust deniers, his opinion would appear very rarely in comparison to those who believe the holocaust happened.

 

Given that these are currently fringe opinions when it comes to biology, then, the same as above, they would appear relatively rarely as a case being made.

 

Same as above.

 

Interesting take. I base my faith in people to select and agree with "correct" opinions on the same basis as proof itself: that correct opinions can be substantiated (i.e. be given compelling reasoning behind them) and are hence more convincing. In fact I believe that equal voice facilitates this maximally, by placing each person's opinion on the same "starting line" (like a 100m race) to see who is the genuine winner. What do you think would happen instead? And again, are you able to explain why and by what metrics you think this would be worse than what currently exists?

Thanks for the details. 

I'm a bit unclear as to the scope of your proposals. You start by referring to "political programmes".  I would usually understand that to refer to a self contained scheduled slot on traditional broadcast media (tv or radio) which has "politics" as its main subject matter. Is that correct? 

If it is, then i can't see how that applies to history programmes, school texts or social media posts. Do these different media (or different subject areas) require separate algorithms? Or is the scope of your proposal limited to "political programmes" 

Or have i misunderstood? 

[Salt n Vinegar]

Further to my earlier post I must refer back to my apparent ridiculing of the 'Royal lizards' viewpoint. 

A news broadcast reminded me of the so-called 'that can't be true because I don't sweat' sort of defence claimed by Prince Andrew. Then, I remembered that lizards don't have sweat glands.... .  Gulp. 

All hail our lizard overlords!

[TheNavigateur]

10 hours ago, coprolite said:

Or is the scope of your proposal limited to "political programmes"

Good question. The intended scope is those areas of the media currently used for political propaganda by those with greater power. Yes it's media that presents "political opinion" (opinions which affect the laws that are passed), although I'm not particularly offended if it extends further - would you be? And if so, why? And I'm still curious by what metrics you believe that equal voice, regardless of scope, would be worse than what currently exists?

[TheNavigateur]

14 hours ago, Salt n Vinegar said:

I am not a scientist but as I understand it the scientific method deals with the issue pretty sensibly in terms of science advancement.  In science, opinion doesn't matter, its what you can demonstrate to be correct that matters. It also rules out the influence of authority figures.  Put simply, if a suggested "theory" (theory being used in the strictly scientific sense, not the everyday sense) fails to demonstrate repeatable identical results, it is wrong and can be discounted.

Yes of course science can demonstrate validity which is one of the reasons I have absolutely no fear of people believing in creationism (or anything logically unsustainable) when they have understood darwinism (or anything given as the alternative that is demonstrable, logically or empirically) - as darwinism, for example, when understood, is self-evident in contrast to its alternatives. I happen to believe that creationists are the ones who have had opposing views blocked out and branded as "taboo", not the other way around.

But since you want to block out "unscientific" opinions, would you take the majoritarian view on what that means?

If so, then aren't we back to being unable to solve common misconceptions?

My understanding of science is that it never demands not to be challenged, but rather that challenging what we understand (including disproving incorrect hypotheses) is the very essence of science. I don't know if I'm missing your point in saying this though.

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by TheNavigateur

[Salt n Vinegar]

8 hours ago, TheNavigateur said:

Yes of course science can demonstrate validity which is one of the reasons I have absolutely no fear of people believing in creationism (or anything logically unsustainable) when they have understood darwinism (or anything given as the alternative that is demonstrable, logically or empirically) - as darwinism, for example, when understood, is self-evident in contrast to its alternatives. I happen to believe that creationists are the ones who have had opposing views blocked out and branded as "taboo", not the other way around.

But since you want to block out "unscientific" opinions, would you take the majoritarian view on what that means?

If so, then aren't we back to being unable to solve common misconceptions?

My understanding of science is that it never demands not to be challenged, but rather that challenging what we understand (including disproving incorrect hypotheses) is the very essence of science. I don't know if I'm missing your point in saying this though.

 

Couple of points before I bring my involvement in this thread to an end. 

Using the Darwin example, it seems to me that you have moved tbe goalposts a bit. You have introduced the notion that you "have absolutely no fear of people believing in creationism (or anything logically unsustainable) when they have understood darwinism".  (My underlining for emphasis. ) The folk who make the most noise about vaccine denial, evolution and the other hot topics that sweep social media every so often quite clearly have completely FAILED to "understand" what they are criticising.  The religious right have no interest in understanding anything that doesn't fit their bible.  So you get absurdities like Creation Museums, campaigns for intelligent design in schools, 'if we are descended from monkeys why are there still monkeys? "," floods are God's punishment for homosexuality". These members of the nutterocity already seem to have little difficulty in advancing their viewpoints, and claim to have evidence on their side as well as supporters. More airtime? Really? 

The debates widely available on the web between folk like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris with religious types can leave little room to believe that their opponents are remotely interested in evidence. Science teaches people HOW to think, religion teaches people WHAT to think.  Most scientists will be able to tell you what it would take to make them believe that they are wrong.  I've yet to meet an advocate for religion/superstition who will tell you what it would take to make them change their minds.  

Although I am not a scientist, I accept that your final point is correct... Science thrives on challenging the previously existing views, however the requirements for evidence, experiment, repeatability, peer review etc are not impediments to progress, they are essential for it.  I am not calling for certain opinions to be blocked out, what I expect is that Barry who believes that the sky is a tapestry doesn't get equal time on TV science programmes.  Trust me, if someone claimed to be able to power a city for a year from a piece of common non-radioactive material, and that process could be repeated everywhere, you would certainly hear about it. Fusion appears to be a real prospect, but if I said that I could make it work in 20 minutes using a school chemistry set, I wouldn't expect to be on telly until it had been proved.  Opinion is utterly irrelevant, proof matters. 

The prevalence of religions and the undeserved attention paid to their spokespeople's views on things like meteorology, volcanos and earthquakes are not minor considerations.  We confuse our children during their formative years by encouraging them to work on mathematics, history, physics, etc then some parents simultaneously tell them to listen to and respect individuals who tell them that rainbows are a message from God, or that if you say certain words over wine and crackers turns them into blood and flesh, and that the Earth is about 6000 years old.  I can see little value or reason in giving more attention to those sorts of viewpoints. 

Right, busy couple of days coming up so I'll maybe be back next week.  Have a good day all. 

[TheNavigateur]

1 hour ago, Salt n Vinegar said:

More airtime? Really?

I happen to think equal voice would give religious viewpoints less airtime, not more. I happen to believe that religion is (and always has been) an arm of propaganda by the powerful, when they have chosen to exert it. Even if it wasn't, religion is heirarchical indoctrination in of itself, which, at least theoretically, doesn't exist at all with equal voice. And so I think either way religious fervour would decrease in media and debates, not increase. I'd love to hear how (presuming you do) think I'm wrong, and how you think each step would play out instead.

I still have a concern about by what authority you would have "scientific" vs "unscientific" information be determined? Is it majoritarian and if so how would you solve common misconceptions? I suppose this question is procedural, since it seems we agree on the underlying information itself in the examples you have mentioned so far.

Edited January 4, 2022 by TheNavigateur

[Anonapersona]

11 hours ago, TheNavigateur said:

Yes of course science can demonstrate validity which is one of the reasons I have absolutely no fear of people believing in creationism (or anything logically unsustainable) when they have understood darwinism (or anything given as the alternative that is demonstrable, logically or empirically) - as darwinism, for example, when understood, is self-evident in contrast to its alternatives. I happen to believe that creationists are the ones who have had opposing views blocked out and branded as "taboo", not the other way around.

But since you want to block out "unscientific" opinions, would you take the majoritarian view on what that means?

If so, then aren't we back to being unable to solve common misconceptions?

My understanding of science is that it never demands not to be challenged, but rather that challenging what we understand (including disproving incorrect hypotheses) is the very essence of science. I don't know if I'm missing your point in saying this though.

 

Creationists are trying to peddle their religious views as science so they can infiltrate schools with their nonsense. It's scary how much power those loonies have with their belief that magic actually really exists.

[TheNavigateur]

3 hours ago, Anonapersona said:

Creationists are trying to peddle their religious views as science

That's why I'm trying to understand from Salt n Vinegar how "science" can be in the rules to filter out what people hear, because then everybody will label their ideas as "science" and then in the worst case the most powerful get to decide what that is and isn't, and in the best case it's majoritarian view, which renders common misconceptions unsolvable.

[welshbairn]

3 hours ago, TheNavigateur said:

That's why I'm trying to understand from Salt n Vinegar how "science" can be in the rules to filter out what people hear, because then everybody will label their ideas as "science" and then in the worst case the most powerful get to decide what that is and isn't, and in the best case it's majoritarian view, which renders common misconceptions unsolvable.

Wikipedia has a pretty effective if fallible way of doing it, if you state something as fact give a link to the evidence.  

[TheNavigateur]

5 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Wikipedia has a pretty effective if fallible way of doing it, if you state something as fact give a link to the evidence. 

This heavily slants the content in favour those with power (e.g. ownership), since they control publishing etc. to a much greater extent than those with less power (Wikipedia doesn't just accept a link to any web content, it requires it to be a published article or book by a "reputable" publishing entity), contributing to the self-increasing power by propaganda vicious cycle that currently exists.

Edited January 5, 2022 by TheNavigateur

[AlbionMan]

On 25/12/2021 at 11:48, TheNavigateur said:

The answer it would seem to me appears in the preamble? "to seek justice, to maximize the happiness for all and to minimize the suffering for any"

 

That's just a wish that pigs might fly