tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20937130.post6396006734057686156..comments2023-08-27T11:02:04.653-04:00Comments on Liberals In Exile: Evolutionary Psychology: The Non-Science?Melindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16138968066861006638noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20937130.post-90010309015248669352007-11-12T22:35:00.000-05:002007-11-12T22:35:00.000-05:00Actually, he DID have a point as a matter of law, ...Actually, he DID have a point as a matter of law, but I think it will be a while before we get that through the Supreme Court. <BR/><BR/>I think our take on separation of church and state are similar. Most focus on the protection of the secular state, which I also deem vitally important. But as a praticing Jew, I'm all too familiar with what crimes can be committed when the full power of the state is coopted for petty religious squabbles OR directed towards the destruction of any or ALL religion.Melindahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16138968066861006638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20937130.post-43223083573221377532007-11-12T14:40:00.000-05:002007-11-12T14:40:00.000-05:00Part of my arguement went without saying that ther...Part of my arguement went without saying that there is, as Aristotle would probably agree and Plato would underline, there is an Objective Truth out there, a Capital-T Truth. And if it is there, there should be a way to find it, even a the chances of finding it are on the order of my dating Jessica Biel.<BR/><BR/>My history leanings tend on the church's "two swords doctrine" Pope Gelasius I sent to Emperor Zeno: there are two swords, one spiritual one civil. With how French Revolutionaries and American REvolutionaries wanting Republics after reading Cicero in universities, I figured we were founded to not be a Papist state. And we'd reject Rome's pagan auguries and other divinations of Divine will since Christ said not to do that [as did Samuel when Saul tried it].<BR/><BR/>I mention the atheist's case simply because its merits were not decided, only standing. So he COULD have had a point as a matter of law. <BR/><BR/>as for teaching pseudoscientific claptrap, some do still mention poor old Lamarck and others who we know are now incorrect. AS Turtullian said on the idea of reason in religion and the mixing of the two, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" <BR/><BR/><BR/>And we still haven't figured out who finds the Objective Truth better --- Plato or Aristotle.Canardiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02792279996201488503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20937130.post-65080567129668098822007-11-11T14:33:00.000-05:002007-11-11T14:33:00.000-05:00Some good points. Thank you.Some good points. Thank you.Melindahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16138968066861006638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20937130.post-25078090588102611642007-11-11T10:10:00.000-05:002007-11-11T10:10:00.000-05:00How we do express what we see, feel or hear or exp...How we do express what we see, feel or hear or experience in some other way<BR/><BR/>In this study, the researchers constructed a computer program where one group of dots on a computer screen seemed to follow a single dot across the screen. They asked study participants to describe what they were seeing. Most responded with something like, "That swarm of dots is chasing this other dot, attempting to capture it." The researchers interpreted this to mean that the participants had assigned agency to an inanimate object, the dots, and that this was empirical verification of an agency-detection mechanism that was set so high that it would produce false-positives.<BR/><BR/><BR/>This quotation is taken from here.<BR/><BR/>Whoever was the scientist expressing this idea, well, he has got the right to say so, but most probably he or they are completely wrong. The proper view at what the tested persons said would be a different one. People try to describe what they experience as short as possible, mostly, and if they must describe something they have never seen before, they try to find similarities, and if the easiest similarity is ascribing some inanimate thing animate traits so they do it, but the purpose of it is the ease of explanation. It would cost them too much energy to think how to describe that phenomenon and not ascribing the animate traits.<BR/><BR/>This is a typical task, teachers face everyday, how to explain something what students have never heard of before. Usually, teacher uses some kind of example that pictures similar principle and is commonly known to students. Just take the typical model of money and goods flow, so called circular flow in economics. It was first described by a doctor who noticed the similarity of blood circulation and circulation of money and goods in society. <BR/><BR/>Of course no one in economics would come up with the idea that this doctor is stupid because he ascribes animate traits to inanimate things like money and goods and services.<BR/><BR/>Funny, that these so called scientists do not know something as easy as this explanation. People just choose explanation that is fast at hand, and it will be supposed that the other person knows this picture. If the other person would not know the picture / model, such description would make no sense, and the first person would try to find other ways of describing the experienced phenomenon.<BR/><BR/>A good thing to do in order to understand this is to read and listen to works and lectures of Steven Pinker, one of the best psychologists based on linguistic point of view that is how words, grammar and language as such influence evolution of humansDaliborhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10448397968391394418noreply@blogger.com