There’s an atheist who thinks that Science! can answer moral questions. If you thought there was trouble from people enforcing their concepts of morality because of a religious certainty, just wait until people do it with scientific certainty. Someone could have a rounding error and think the most moral thing to do is strangle puppies in front of orphans.
Yes, I don’t think I’ll trust Science! with my morality; it’s already responsible for too many horrors in this world. Like clamshell packaging.
I’m always amazed how the hyperlogical can believe that science is more open-minded than religion. Especially after the ClimateGate scandal proved beyond doubt that scientists can be as intolerant zealots as the worst religions worldwide have to offer.
Global Warming fanatics vs. Muslim fanatics. Let’s see. Both are willing to do whatever is necessary to destroy anyone who disagrees with them in any way, despite the fact that what both are so dedicated to is completely fabricated. Both refuse to debate anyone who dares disagree with them. Both defy logic – with one, drinking and having casual sex are immoral, yet if you kill yourself while killing an infidel you are supposedly rewarded with alcohol and casual sex? With the other, record low temperatures are proof that the earth is warming? I’m not seeing much difference here between Muslim fanatics and “scientists”.
I couldn’t listen to more than a couple of minutes. He seems to be making what scientists themselves call “hand waving arguments” while bypassing one of the oldest disciplines on Earth: Philosophy. There is even the “Philosophy of Religion.” Don’t think we need this guy. We need real science (no “!”) and real morality derived from real Philosophy. (So I’m arguing that even God would admit to being a grand Philosopher.)
Besides, for clamshell packaging, Frank, I blame really bad engineers who flunked Science!
I gave up two words into the article.
What were we talking about?
I can definitively state that Dante’s Fourth Circle of Hell is reserved for people who design tamper resistant packaging. Without religion, I would not be able to support this moral construct.
It’s called the “is-ought gap.” There is no way to proceed from sheerly descriptive statements (“the ball is blue”) to a prescriptive conclusion (“the ball should be blue”).
Science by itself, which is limited to making observations, can never make a moral assertion of any kind, and any junior-level logician could have told you that.
Dr. Mengele – nuff said
I can definitively state that Dante’s Fourth Circle of Hell is reserved for people who design tamper resistant packaging.
It’s not “tamper resistant”, it’s thief resistant, they figure if someone tries to open it in the store, they’ll slice an artery and if they don’t die on the spot, they can at least follow the blood trail.
When are Atheists (it’s capitalized no less) going to be granted tax exempt status like all the other religions? I’m surprised they haven’t sued (yet).
Science shouldn’t get involved in morals. No good can come of it. I’m an agnostic/atheist, but this guy is a moron who gives atheists a bad name. Explain morals as logical opinion-driven conclusions to maximize personal goals, don’t go out and make conclusions based on the self-important need to convert people to atheism. Believe what you want is what I think, as long as in the end everyone’s beliefs turns everyone to conservatism. Seriously though, what an idiot.
It’s not “tamper resistant”, it’s thief resistant, they figure if someone tries to open it in the store, they’ll slice an artery and if they don’t die on the spot, they can at least follow the blood trail.
It’s not thief resistant, it’s return resistant. The package is designed so that you have to completely destroy the package, and very likely the product within, just to get it open. It’s supposed to guilt-trip you into not returning products that are sold with a generous return policy. Once I returned such a product, because it did not have the features I needed, and you can only imagine the look of disdain and disgust with which the store clerk regarded me.
We should add this to the list of the things we can do for “civil disobedience”: find stores owned by liberals, buy stuff with clamshell packaging, and return it to spite them.
I have a theory. I think Frank writes these Science! posts, as an excuse for yelling “Science!” at socially inappropriate moments. There. I said it. Thomas Dolby wrote Frank’s internal soundtrack, and he is embarrassed to admit it. Now that we know the truth, go ahead Frank. Let your 80’s British musical obsession run free. Science!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlHgbOWj4o
I don’t know that I’d call it Science! like monkey-boy Harris, but logic can give you a solid moral base. Just ask Ron Paul.
Science! will prove that it is immoral for beautiful women to withhold sex from scientists.
C.S. Lewis, The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience … We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as a neurosis. When this particular neurosis becomes inconvenient to government, what is to hinder government from proceeding to ‘cure’ it? Such ‘cure’ will, of course, be compulsory; but under the Humanitarian theory it will not be called by the shocking name of Persecution.
The one sentence scarier than “We’re from the Government and we’re here to help you.”?
“We’re from the Government and we’re here to ‘cure’ you.”
Science is already a religion to many. They have replaced a loving Heavenly Father with Charles Darwin and the Holy Ghost with the Scientific Method. This life is the be all and end all, so one must do whatever they want, ‘ cause this is the only chance they get.
If I had to believe that I’d be drowning in Kool aide.
@Dr. Mayhem – Junior level logician? How about someone with basic reasoning skills and knowledge of the definition of the word “science”?
This is why philosophy is a must for scientists, otherwise you end up with a bunch of people doing science who don’t understand what science is…
It’s not “tamper resistant”, it’s thief resistant, they figure if someone tries to open it in the store, they’ll slice an artery and if they don’t die on the spot, they can at least follow the blood trail……. …
“Hermetically sealed”…. conceived, designed & patented by the Marquis de Sade, who has his own special level level in Hell known as “The DMV license-renewal line” (originally named by ‘St. Dale The Earn-Hearted’ )
Frank, I was checking your work and found an error in your Science!. You misplaced a decimal. That equation should read “strangling orphans in front of puppies”. Science! is hard.
Sceince! as morality? Ask Carl Sagan.
Clam shell packaging nearly took out Rosie O’Donnell. It can’t be all bad. (Sorry, meanie conserative here. Maybe this will get on the Worst Persons list.)
you know science has gone too far when cfl light bulbs are individually encased in clamshell packaging. I use tinsnips.
when will science address the issue of slow loading comments in this blog?
First – Science! when written like that always reminds me of Hillary! Both are obviously inane or insane or both.
Second – bubble packaging has nothing, nothing at all to do with consumers. It was designed to aid manufacturers, to enable safe and cheap shipment of breakable things across the Pacific in cargo carriers, and to prevent kids from easily pocketing expensive items in stores without paying first.
Further, the bubble package has met its match in several types of package openers – an example of entrepreneurial genius equivalent to being given lemons and making not lemonade but a Slushy machine.
The only thing worse than clamshell packaging is when a new pair of scissors that you bought to open a clamshell package, is itself packaged in a clamshell.