Imagine the following hypothetical situation. You are the new President of a large democratic country. The former President was a creationist and the country held a referendum on whether or not to remove the teaching of evolution. The results where unanimous, the people want to ban the teaching of evolution.

As the President, imagine that you now have two options:

(1) follow the voice of the people and ban evolution (you value democracy over scientific evidence)
(2) veto the referendum (you value scientific evidence over democracy)

What would you choose, and why?

Veto the referendum.

Fuck that Creationist wankery.

I voted science. If the majority of the population wants to legalize slavery, it doesn't mean that it's right.

Hypothetical situations are imo .. hypothetical - basically of no value, but .. democracy.

Hrm, the reality would be i would lose the next election to the guy that would promise to ban evolution.

tuco wrote:Hypothetical situations are imo .. hypothetical - basically of no value, but .. democracy.

So you believe that popular opinion decides whether or not evolution should be taught in a science classroom, as oppose to the intrinsic status of evolution as a science?

Yes, I believe that majority is to decide basically everything. Right - wrong does not even come to equitation.

Tortured_Genius wrote:It's a false dichotomy.

Had the teaching of evolution been banned then I sure as hell would have made the lifting of the ban a major plank of my election camapaign.

By voting for me the electorate would have voted to lift the ban (so the question is moot).

In this thought experiment, you got the results of the referendum after you where elected and lifting a potential ban was not part of your campaign.

It is a dichotomy to be sure, but it is a true dichotomy; do you veto the bill or do you not veto the bill?

tuco wrote:Yes, I believe that majority is to decide basically everything. Right - wrong does not even come to equitation.

So if the majority believed that the Holocaust never happened, does this, in your view, change the historical fact of the Holocaust? If not, why should majority beliefs regarding whether or not evolution should be taught as science change reality?

If majority decides I dunno to destroy the Earth so be it, who am I to tell them otherwise? Messiahs? And if majority believed the Holocaust never happened it does not change the fact, but again it is their right to live in denial, because who am I .. etc

tuco wrote:If majority decides I dunno to destroy the Earth so be it, who am I to tell them otherwise? Messiahs? And if majority believed the Holocaust never happened it does not change the fact, but again it is their right to live in denial, because who am I .. etc

I fully agree that if someone wants to deny the Holocaust, they are free to do so, but as you pointed out, this does not change the historical fact of the Holocaust.

This means that the fact that evolution ought to be taught as science does not change because lots of people believe the opposite. They are of course free to believe what they want, but they cannot have their own facts.

tuco wrote:If majority decides I dunno to destroy the Earth so be it, who am I to tell them otherwise? Messiahs? And if majority believed the Holocaust never happened it does not change the fact, but again it is their right to live in denial, because who am I .. etc

the majority deciding to destroy earth would infringe on the minority's right not to be destroyed, so that's a silly position to take imo.

This situation is more difficult because it's unanimous among the wider population, although clearly not totally unanimous because the president has the choice of not agreeing. The people have democratically given the president the power of veto too, and i think i'd have him use it to defend the rights of children not to be bullshitted to.

We'd need to know a lot more about the situation to make an informed choice however, like the volatility of the populace etc.

It goes beyond science versus democracy

its professionalism versus democracy

should a policeman or judge decided by a vote
should a teacher or doctor by decided by a vote etc

Personally if too big of the majority of a country are ignorant arseholes then intelilgent people are better of trying to get out

I decided to pick the pro-democratic 'ban evolution', for arguments sake.

Now, unless there is a clear violation of constitution or human rights (which would likely include secular education and thus would not warrant a referendum ban of evolution anyway), I see no reason why the president should override his people because he personally disagrees.

If a country want to be idiots, that's their choice, and they have to be big boys and girls and live with the consequences of their mistakes or principles, otherwise the country rests in the judgment of one guy..

Moridin wrote:Imagine the following hypothetical situation. You are the new President of a large democratic country. The former President was a creationist and the country held a referendum on whether or not to remove the teaching of evolution. The results where unanimous, the people want to ban the teaching of evolution.

As the President, imagine that you now have two options:

(1) follow the voice of the people and ban evolution (you value democracy over scientific evidence)
(2) veto the referendum (you value scientific evidence over democracy)

What would you choose, and why?

How would I veto it? Doesn't that add it to the constitution? It does here. It can't be ignored.

Moridin wrote:

tuco wrote:Yes, I believe that majority is to decide basically everything. Right - wrong does not even come to equitation.

So if the majority believed that the Holocaust never happened, does this, in your view, change the historical fact of the Holocaust? If not, why should majority beliefs regarding whether or not evolution should be taught as science change reality?

Your problem with this whole argument (which we begun in that other thread), is that you apparently want there to be an objective 'right' or 'wrong' answer. Your analogy of the holocaust gives this away as the holocaust can be objectively said to have occurred. But this isn't the case with your democracy/evolution question.

Man, why be shy about this? If I was you, I would phrase it like this: "Image you are Adolf Hitler, and but you had a bit of a democratic streak in you. So you decide to hold a referendum on whether Jews should be sent to the gas chambers. The results come back in favour of doing so".

So does this therefore make it "right" in the same sense that it is "right" to say that that mountain over there exists? Well this question can't be answered, because unlike physical reality, there is no objective "right" or "wrong" when it comes to actions.

But does it make it "right" in the same sense that it is "right" to not kill another individual without proper legal cause? Well the answer is clearly NO. But this is just a subjective assessment. My and your subjective assessments might be vastly different from other's subjective assessments.

how would the president of a pure democracy have the power to veto the vote of the ppl?

sounds like a monarchy

Science. The majority, the majority of uneducated masses in particular, do not get to decide what reality is. Any civilization that allows that to happen thing goes the way of Baghdad.