And what about the millions of children who die from malnutrition each year and the million or so folk who commit suicide?

Hopefully they have gone onto a better afterlife and their lives didn't amount to that.

ADParker wrote:Yes homosexuality was classified like that; until 'science' (i.e. people of science) learned more about it, and drove that change of classification.

They invented the classification of it as a mental defect in the same way they misdiagnosed women with hysteria rather than challenging patriarchy.

The point is people shouldn't be defined by sciences latest theory. Scientists have spent an inordinate of time trying to explain homosexuality compared to the amount of time spent explaing heterosexual attraction. In the process leaving gay people feeling pathologised.

Scientists and biologists are not in the business of gay rights activism.

On the issue of homosexuality it has never been obvious to me why I should have been attracted to a woman simply because I was born in a male body and have never experienced that attraction

I think there is a danger of people theorising from a basis of false normality and not recognising the effect of personal knowledge.

Andrew4Handel wrote:No specific case encapsulates a world view as far as I can see.

Who ever claimed that it "encapsulates" the entire world view?!
It was one example of how it was the science that helped him, as was my example back on page 1 of this thread.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Some people prefer not to know what is going to happen to them during surgery for fear of frightening themselves. I think we are citing subjective personal responses here.

Of course we are. The article from the OP was all about how for some "a 'belief' in science and a rationalistic outlook" can help reduce stress and anxiety.

Some of us here understand that because we have experienced that very thing.

I know from personal experience that some do prefer to remain blissfully ignorant. Often times preferring wishful thinking (religious or otherwise.) And I have seen some of those same people get terribly upset when something goes wrong, or some medically expected negative result occurs, accusing the medical staff of not warning them and worse, due to that wilful ignorance coming back to bite them in the arse. Because sometimes choosing ignorance leaves one woefully unprepared for whatever consequences may occur.

Of course some prefer blissful ignorance, wishful thinking and/or fantasy no matter what. That isn't the point of the OP article though; that is simply that for some it is 'science' that sometimes provides emotional support. Because for some it is understanding the facts that means the most to them, at least in some situations. Sometimes the same situations in which others are instead comforted by religious beliefs. For some of us such beliefs offer us no such comfort, but our appreciation of the science involved can do so instead.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
Anyhow I cited evolution populariser Dawkins claiming the world is wracked with unimaginable suffering and has no good or evil or purpose in it and am failing to see how you could be comforted by that reality?

Red herring.
Nothing in the article suggests that every single consequence of every single aspect of science necessarily brings comfort in every single possible context and situation! Let alone to me specifically.

Not every aspect of any religion I know of provides that either.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I have suffered from depression for years now and it is a prolific condition. There are alot of issues which don't have scientific answers or that kind of framework for analysis that cause people serious anxiety such as recovering from childhood abuse, divorce/failed relationships, job loss, financial insecurity etc etc.

And what does that have to do with this topic?!

Andrew4Handel wrote:This whole realm seems highly subjective to me.

Well yeah, obviously.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Contemplating science doesn't automatically bring one comfort from my own experience of having studied it.

Nothing in the article suggested that it does. Nor has anyone here suggested anything of the sort either.

Andrew4Handel wrote: I know about various cell mechanisms, the nervous system, structures and functions in the ear like the hair cells and Organ of Corti, structures of the eye and other perceptual mechanisms. I haven't noticed myself being comforted as I have imbibed this knowledge. I get instantaneously more comfort from listening to Bach

That's nice...completely irrelevant, but nice.
Which would you value more in a situation when you had to seek treatment from an ENT surgeon I wonder.

Andrew4Handel wrote:And what about the millions of children who die from malnutrition each year and the million or so folk who commit suicide?

Hopefully they have gone onto a better afterlife and their lives didn't amount to that.

If such a fantasy makes you happy; whatever.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

ADParker wrote:Yes homosexuality was classified like that; until 'science' (i.e. people of science) learned more about it, and drove that change of classification.

They invented the classification {snip blah blah blah}

If you want to discuss that stuff; make your own thread about it. It has nothing to do with the topic of this one.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:I am not sure what the scientific consensus is on the usefulness and nature of homosexuality so I shall wait around until they tell me how I should identify myself then i can adopt the suitable stance.

Why would you do that? You can't derive an ought from an is. It doesn't matter what the ultimate explanation for the origin and persistance of homosexuality is, it still wouldn't tell you what you should do.

That is my point.

I can't turn to science to understand my nature as a homosexual.

It would be easier if I was straight and then could be convinced I was just around to mindlessly reproduce.

Why? It still wouldn't follow from the is (heterosexual) what you should do (reproduce).

You really, really need to learn this elementary fact.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Homosexuals are a genetic dead end unless they go against there true sexual instincts and sleep with the opposite sex.
I have never wanted to and have never tried.

And you don't want to have children either as you tell us every so often. WHy is this then a problem for you?

Andrew4Handel wrote:I am not on a sexual continuum.

Yes you are, you are on one end of the continuum that stretches from total homosexual attraction to total heterosexual attraction.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Of course all these interpretations of science and its role in these kinds of area is controversial. The WHO used to class homosexuality as a mental illness.

They don't no more.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Behaviour can be subject to a huge range of classification, medication and therapy and other various interventions based on a lack of medical consensus.

Yes, the world isn't perfect and some issues are hard to work out. That still doesn't mean one can't live a happy and fulfilling life.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Animavore wrote:
I can think of many other examples. If an earthquake happens I don't have to cower in fear of gods and sacrifice lambs to placate them and accuse people of all types of heresies and sins. I know it is the mere shifting of tectonic plates. I can pull up my sleeves an help out in the rescue unhindered by superstitious fear.

If the moon covers the sun I don't have to panic that the sun has been swallowed by a giant dragon and condemn a "witch" to be burned.

If a plague strikes I don't have to worry about being punished by gods for some undefined 'sin' and pray, terrified and forsaken. I would just take the usual precautions to avoiding illness.

And so forth....

Most religious people don't have these fears nor act this irrationally most of the time.

Wrong. It is only true in very secularized countries where general scientific litteracy has dispelled many of the more mundane and obvious myths and fables about what god does and is.

In poor and very religious contries, these things certainly are believed to a much higher extend, exactly because they haven't been inoculated by scientific understanding against much of the bullshit.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I don't see why you need a scientific theory of something to stop you from inventing mythical entities and bogus explanations.

Who knows why people need such things? The thing that matters in this context is that it demonstrably works, and we can understand why. Mythical entities and bogus explanations that appeal to the supernatural usually take the form of gap-reasoning and arguments from ignorance. They're placeholder explanations, band-aids people put in place to satisfy themselves when they don't know actual mechanistic explanations that can tell them how things happen.

When they learn the science behind it, then you understand that it cannot be that devils and ghosts are doing the work, but simple observable natural mechanisms. What you can see and measure and touch and smell is, after all, significantly easier to convince yourself of.

That's just how human beings work.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Are you saying you would be afraid of eclipses if you didn't have a scientific theory of them?

I myself wouldn't because I already know so much science and I have a very skeptical worldview, it would take a lot more than some recurrent but unexplained celestial phenomenon to scare me.

Had I lived 1000 years ago I would probably have shit bricks.

Andrew4Handel wrote:People are still frightened of earthquakes and die en masse in them.

There's a difference between being afraid of dying in or losing loved ones to an earthquake, and being afraid of natural disasters in general as tools for punishment from the gods.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I think you are still giving specific incidences and not a worldview. The bigger picture is questions like "Does my life have meaning or purpose" or "Is there a right and wrong way to live"

There is no intrinsic or outside source of meaning or purpose to your existence. There can't be, it is a logical impossibility. No amount of intentions inside the minds of external entities can infuse you with meaning and purpose. You simply have to make up your own. As I have told you now at least 20 times.

Yes, there's plenty of wrong ways to live. A life of depression, anxiety and time wasted searching for ultimate and cosmic purpose is a wrong way to live, because it will be wasted.

There's no one true right way to live, but in general, try to achieve some happiness. Go out with friends, spend time with family, whatever you need to do. And if you can't, seek help from a mental health professional.

Oh look, Andrews found another venue to express his confused depressed thoughts.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

ADParker wrote:Resorting to semantics now are we?
Of course that one example isn't the world view. It is however an example of how a "scientific worldview", the world view of the appreciation and understanding of science and its value etc., led to less anxiety and stress.

No specific case encapsulates a world view as far as I can see.

No, the scientific worldview encapsulates a worldview. The specific cases are just that, parts of a whole. You won't find the whole in a single case.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Some people prefer not to know what is going to happen to them during surgery for fear of frightening themselves. I think we are citing subjective personal responses here.

We are. People are subjective creatures, we have subjective experiences. People like different things. Some people can't find comfort in supernatural bullshit, some can.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Anyhow I cited evolution populariser Dawkins claiming the world is wracked with unimaginable suffering and has no good or evil or purpose in it and am failing to see how you could be comforted by that reality?

Because it's not the entirety of reality. You can make up your own purpose, you can alleviate the suffering of others and you can take pleasure and find personal rewarding experiences in doing so. We can, I dare say it, change the world. At least we can change how we view it for a time.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I have suffered from depression for years now and it is a prolific condition.

Get help, take action. It won't come down from on high. I'm serious and I'm not saying this to be mean or derogative. Take steps to alter your circumstances.

Andrew4Handel wrote:There are alot of issues which don't have scientific answers or that kind of framework for analysis that cause people serious anxiety such as recovering from childhood abuse, divorce/failed relationships, job loss, financial insecurity etc etc.

There'd be very little comfort to be found in any worldview if, for example, you're suffering from childhood abuse. Sometimes you have to reach beyond yourself to get comfort and help. This often involves getting help from other people and not just sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself and cursing the world.

Andrew4Handel wrote:This whole realm seems highly subjective to me.

It is intrinsically a subjective question how one finds happiness.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Contemplating science doesn't automatically bring one comfort from my own experience of having studied it. I know about various cell mechanisms, the nervous system, structures and functions in the ear like the hair cells and Organ of Corti, structures of the eye and other perceptual mechanisms. I haven't noticed myself being comforted as I have imbibed this knowledge.

There isn't much comfort to be found in engaging in extreme reductionism. Regardless, you've already been given examples of how people get comfort from their scientific worldview, so this just seems like some silly strawman you're making up to say Ha! I can't get comfort from that.
Well fuck, my relative has cancer but I don't get comfort from the crystal structure of Basalt either.

Not every scientific fact is a comforting one, most of them are just kinda boring facts about the constituents of macroscopic objects. You have to look at the bigger pictures and you have to look at social questions through them.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I get instantaneously more comfort from listening to Bach.

I've cried listening to Beethoven.

Scar wrote:Oh look, Andrews found another venue to express his confused depressed thoughts.

Yes, same shit as always.

Andrew4Handel wrote:And what about the millions of children who die from malnutrition each year and the million or so folk who commit suicide?

May I suggest you dedicate your life to doing something about it? How's that for a worthy purpose?

Something can be done, some of these people do go on to live better lives.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Hopefully they have gone onto a better afterlife and their lives didn't amount to that.

Hopefully...

So much we achieve by sitting around and just hoping really fucking hard. No, pick yourself up and do something about it if it bothers you so much. Who knows, you might even find some happiness from experiencing helping others.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

ADParker wrote:Yes homosexuality was classified like that; until 'science' (i.e. people of science) learned more about it, and drove that change of classification.

They invented the classification of it as a mental defect in the same way they misdiagnosed women with hysteria rather than challenging patriarchy.

Yes, old traditions and subserviences to religious culture had that effect back in the day.

Andrew4Handel wrote:The point is people shouldn't be defined by sciences latest theory.

It is true that one shouldn't hinge one's self-understanding on science if it brings you discomfort. The door swings both ways, you can't derive an ought from an is. It doesn't matter what scientific classification you find yourself fitting best to, it doesn't tell you what you should do.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Scientists have spent an inordinate of time trying to explain homosexuality compared to the amount of time spent explaing heterosexual attraction. In the process leaving gay people feeling pathologised.

And that was mostly a mistake of ill-founded adaptationist hypothesizing. They should have read Stephen Jay Gould.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Scientists and biologists are not in the business of gay rights activism.

Collectively no, individually there are plenty.

Andrew4Handel wrote:On the issue of homosexuality it has never been obvious to me why I should have been attracted to a woman simply because I was born in a male body and have never experienced that attraction

It isn't obvious to me either, because there is no reason why you "should have". I've already given you a non-adaptationist account of homosexuality, now stop obsessing over one.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I think there is a danger of people theorising from a basis of false normality and not recognising the effect of personal knowledge.

I think so too. I also think there's a danger of people thinking they can and must derive oughts from is's.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:I am not sure what the scientific consensus is on the usefulness and nature of homosexuality so I shall wait around until they tell me how I should identify myself then i can adopt the suitable stance.

Why would you do that? You can't derive an ought from an is. It doesn't matter what the ultimate explanation for the origin and persistance of homosexuality is, it still wouldn't tell you what you should do.

That is my point.

I can't turn to science to understand my nature as a homosexual.

It would be easier if I was straight and then could be convinced I was just around to mindlessly reproduce.

Homosexuals are a genetic dead end unless they go against there true sexual instincts and sleep with the opposite sex. I have never wanted to and have never tried. I am not on a sexual continuum.

Of course all these interpretations of science and its role in these kinds of area is controversial. The WHO used to class homosexuality as a mental illness. Behaviour can be subject to a huge range of classification, medication and therapy and other various interventions based on a lack of medical consensus.

Again, there are no roles in nature, nature just is.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
Most religious people don't have these fears nor act this irrationally most of the time.

Of course they don't. They, too, now know the causes of these things through science. A few hundred years ago they certainly did.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
I don't see why you need a scientific theory of something to stop you from inventing mythical entities and bogus explanations.

No. You're right. I don't need science to stop me inventing explanations for things I don't know like what happened before the big bang. I simply say, "I don't know." But it will be science which figure it out. There are people, though, who aren't satisfied with this answer and do invent mythical causes for the big bang. Can you guess who they are?

Andrew4Handel wrote:
Are you saying you would be afraid of eclipses if you didn't have a scientific theory of them?

I might. Fear of eclipses has apparently stopped a war in the past...

The final battle of a five-year war between Alyattes II of Lydia and Cyaxares of the Medes, the battle ended abruptly due to a total solar eclipse; the eclipse was perceived as an omen, indicating that the gods wanted the fighting to stop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Halys

Andrew4Handel wrote:
People are still frightened of earthquakes and die en masse in them. I think you are still giving specific incidences and not a worldview. The bigger picture is questions like "Does my life have meaning or purpose" or "Is there a right and wrong way to live"

These specific incidences make up a whole. I can literally list dozens of things. I picked three.
Those two questions you pose are not scientific questions. They are questions for philosophy. But science can inform me on those questions.

"Does life have meaning or purpose?"
Unlikely.
"is there a right or wrong way to live?"
Well going around causing waves, upsetting people, being a dick, injuring people or worse etc.. is going to find you falling out of favour with other people, going to put you at risk of retaliation, can the community getting rid of you through imprisonment or execution. So there's definitely a wrong way to live. Shit! I don't even need science to tell me that.

Rumraket wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:And what about the millions of children who die from malnutrition each year and the million or so folk who commit suicide?

May I suggest you dedicate your life to doing something about it? How's that for a worthy purpose?

Something can be done, some of these people do go on to live better lives.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Hopefully they have gone onto a better afterlife and their lives didn't amount to that.

Hopefully...

So much we achieve by sitting around and just hoping really fucking hard. No, pick yourself up and do something about it if it bothers you so much. Who knows, you might even find some happiness from experiencing helping others.

Andrew's more than amply demonstrated that he doesn't care one bit about helping people. He just wants to silence them permanently.

Animavore wrote:

I might. Fear of eclipses has apparently stopped a war in the past...

The final battle of a five-year war between Alyattes II of Lydia and Cyaxares of the Medes, the battle ended abruptly due to a total solar eclipse; the eclipse was perceived as an omen, indicating that the gods wanted the fighting to stop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Halys
.

Well surely the end of a war is a positive outcome of that belief.

Meanwhile we had two world wars in the twentieth century not motivated by superstition and dropped nuclear bombs. Are we more rational?

As I mentioned communism was a quasi scientific politics that lead to the deaths of millions and versions of evolution were used to justify genocide and eugenics and led to a Lysenkos failed crop theory that led to mass starvation in at least three communist countries without the supernatural being invoked. The disabled in German were killed in hundreds of thousands due to the idea they were doing the job of natural selection.

Belgian scientists in Rwanda measured the heads and other aspects of Hutus and Hutsis and issued identification cards based on racial superiority and we know where that led to don't we.

Maybe the whole of the last century is just a blur for you?

The obsession with physical appearance, aided and abetted by the Tutsi ruling class, led the Europeans to all manner of humiliating folly: measuring of skulls and noses and all the discredited junk of the race theorists who thrived in the heyday of African colonialism. One Belgian doctor wrote: [The Tutsi] ... have a distant, reserved, courteous and elegant manner ... The rest of the population is [Hutu]. They are negroes with all the negroid characteristics ... they are childish in nature both timid and lazy, and as often as not, extremely dirty.”

http://www.rwandanstories.org/origins/colonialism.html

Andrew4Handel wrote:
Well surely the end of a war is a positive outcome of that belief.

Neither here nor there. They still feared an eclipse which is all I said.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Meanwhile we had two world wars in the twentieth century not motivated by superstition and dropped nuclear bombs. Are we more rational?

Red herring.

Andrew4Handel wrote:As I mentioned communism was a quasi scientific politics that lead to the deaths of millions and versions of evolution were used to justify genocide and eugenics and led to a Lysenkos failed crop theory that led to mass starvation in at least three communist countries without the supernatural being invoked. The disabled in German were killed in hundreds of thousands due to the idea they were doing the job of natural selection.

Red herring.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Belgian scientists in Rwanda measured the heads and other aspects of Hutus and Hutsis and issued identification cards based on racial superiority and we know where that led to don't we.

They put the conclusion before the study. Does that sound rational and scientific to you? Sounds more like phrenology or homoeopathy to me.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Maybe the whole of the last century is just a blur for you?

I wasn't around for the whole of the last century

Andrew4Handel wrote:The obsession with physical appearance, aided and abetted by the Tutsi ruling class, led the Europeans to all manner of humiliating folly: measuring of skulls and noses and all the discredited junk of the race theorists who thrived in the heyday of African colonialism. One Belgian doctor wrote: [The Tutsi] ... have a distant, reserved, courteous and elegant manner ... The rest of the population is [Hutu]. They are negroes with all the negroid characteristics ... they are childish in nature both timid and lazy, and as often as not, extremely dirty.”

Dealt with above.

Animavore wrote:There are certain things which science can reveal which can change your outlook. Take evolution and biology, for instance. Instead of being this fixed, immutable, white Irish person I am part of a biological chain which stretches back billions of years. In some ways you can call all life on the planet one giant organism (not to take that analogy too far). When realising this certain boundaries, which are made-up concepts in the first place, are destroyed. It no longer makes sense for me to call myself white, Irish, Catholic, even a man, in some sense, when you understand male to female is a spectrum and sexuality with it. Even "human" becomes a convenient label and a transient biological state. Racism, sexism and homophobia dissolve and become meaningless in the biological menagerie. Teleology is completely destroyed and religion along with it making sectarianism also untenable. There can be no "Christ killers", there can be no, "God's chosen." There can be no, "Final prophet" or "enlightened one." The beliefs become laughable and their fighting over these beliefs merely obscene.

How might this type of understanding relive stress and anxiety? I'm not sure. I guess it would bring comfort to people who are marginalised and treated differently over bronze-age bollox written by superstitious people who knew fuck all when they accept that far from being disordered abominations living in 'sin' they are just another biological creature crawling over the face of tiny rock floating in the vacuum of space. A product of a long process of natural selection which knows no "normal", "proper", or "natural ends".

This is beautifully written, I'm positively surprised that it seems to be the prevailing sentiment on this forum.

I think seeing things in perspective as science as science allows us to do can be comforting. You don't have to be confused about your place in the world, or if there is any "higher" purpose laid out for you.

I love the two clips below:

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Animavore wrote:

I might. Fear of eclipses has apparently stopped a war in the past...

Andrew4Handel wrote:The final battle of a five-year war between Alyattes II of Lydia and Cyaxares of the Medes, the battle ended abruptly due to a total solar eclipse; the eclipse was perceived as an omen, indicating that the gods wanted the fighting to stop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Halys
.

Well surely the end of a war is a positive outcome of that belief.

Sure. Of course, it's a complete matter of chance what kind of outcome religious superstition produces. Under plenty other circumstances, religionuts have used storms, droughts and earthquakes to justify witchhunts and tribal fighting of all kinds.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Meanwhile we had two world wars in the twentieth century not motivated by superstition and dropped nuclear bombs.

And despite this, the world has overall changed to be more peaceful.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Are we more rational?

Depends. Still plenty of irrational doctrines around, with people delusionally clinging to arbitrary nationalistic, religious and cultural ideals and notions. However, in general, the world has changed for the better and still is.

Andrew4Handel wrote:As I mentioned communism was a quasi scientific politics that lead to the deaths of millions and versions of evolution were used to justify genocide and eugenics and led to a Lysenkos failed crop theory that led to mass starvation in at least three communist countries without the supernatural being invoked.

The disabled in German were killed in hundreds of thousands due to the idea they were doing the job of natural selection.

Belgian scientists in Rwanda measured the heads and other aspects of Hutus and Hutsis and issued identification cards based on racial superiority and we know where that led to don't we.

Yeah, all this amounts to examples that demonstrate that our cultures are imperfect. At least these conflicts and atrocities led to the establishment of various international bodies and institutions that are supposed to prevent such things from happening again. Nobody is claiming bad things doesn't and won't happen any more, the challenge is to learn from history. This is an ongoing battle, may I suggest you invest yourself in taking part in it?

Andrew4Handel wrote:Maybe the whole of the last century is just a blur for you?

Maybe the whole of the last century is not the entirety of history, and even more importantly, there happened a lot more during the last century than two world wars. Your examples do not constitute the entirety of the events that transpired in that 100 year period.







Is it a blur to you?