Monday, September 17, 2012
Operation Don’t Die: Update.
Still fat. But maybe not quite as fat. One colleague referred to me as ‘trimmer’, and more than one family member has commented favourably. Also started up the swimming and the walking again this week. It might actually be working. Might have to have a weekend off soon, though – feeling the wine withdrawal.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Some things hurt my brain.
Philosophy sucks. It hurts my head and finds annoying and unfair ways to win arguments. Arguments are won by being right. Being right is proven by being backed up by facts. Without breaking a sweat, philosophy can tell you that no fact is certain and that there is no possible way to prove you are not merely a brain in a jar being fed electrical signals. Or that some god created everything in the universe exactly the way it is five minutes ago. There is no comeback. However, instead of serving as a reminder not to make too many assumptions about your world, I find it just prevents me from winning arguments, although this might be due to my inability to debate orally in real time. Facts, no matter how irrefutable, become unstable. The certainty that the Earth orbits the Sun melts away a little, because that might be what the nameless scientists want the brain in the jar to think (I do wonder, however, why people who subscribe to this way of thinking don't leave for work via their bedroom windows, if not for the fact that they know they will fall and likely break something).
But that way madness lies, and it is no way to win an argument. The Earth does revolve around the Sun. It is irrefutable, and there should be nothing more than a minor concession to the vanishingly small possibility that we are brains in jars or the butt of a joke played by a bored omnipotent being. It pays to look at my atheism the same way – I don’t know for an utter certainty that one of the vast myriad of gods dreamt up in our history is actually real, but I find the possibility of me being a brain in a jar much more likely.
Sometimes, particularly online, this way of thinking, of disregarding the value of things we know to be true, has a more damaging consequence than annoying me. It creates an environment where a fact is relegated to the status of mere opinion. Where people who simply have a big mouth can command as much attention as genuine experts on a vast variety of subjects and issues. Worse, where those with an agenda are able to take misunderstandings in respect of things we know to be true (yes, yes, unless we’re all brains in jars or whatever) and deliberately use them to foster denial and mistrust and cause conflict. It is that time again, where I sigh wearily, bring out my tin drum and bang on, once again, about two areas in particular where this kind of thing happens: climate change and evolution.
A recent Koch-funded study defied skeptic/denier expectations, confirming that the data in relation to climate change (that it is happening, and that human activity is responsible for much of it) was not only accurate but that the IPCC may have in fact underestimated the effect in some respects. This year polar ice melt is at a record-breaking high. Do you think that this will have anything but a negligible effect on those determined to deny the fact of climate change? Or the Koch brothers themselves? Not bloody likely.
And as for the big E, the very same applies. The fact of evolution is very hard to deny without sounding like a fool. The culprit is usually either a mind enslaved to an outdated religious doctrine, or a determination to stick to a hastily made conclusion and neglecting to look any further. The old erroneous conclusions resurface again and again – if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes, if every living thing on the planet is linked by evolution, why have we never found evidence of a 'crocoduck', why are there no transitional fossils. The first two illustrate the same fundamental misunderstanding of the very concept of the theory – no one living complex species of animal in existence on the planet today evolved from another living complex species of animal in existence on the planet today; they all shared a common ancestor. The third point illustrates the lack of interest in confirming one's own conclusions – there are literally thousands of transitional fossils (fish to reptile). Thousands (reptile to mammal, reptile to bird). Some further reading gives a number of examples of human evolution, too, if you can be arsed to check before talking shite about 'missing links'.
Keeping in mind the philosophy bit, there is, obviously, like every fact, a chance that evolution could be wrong. About as much chance that the Earth doesn’t revolve around the Sun. About as much that all of physics is wrong. The theory of evolution is as sound as the theory of gravity, and like all scientific theories, it started as an idea based on observation. Over 200 years, further observation and testing has established a solid theory that explains, beautifully, the biological state of the world today. Maybe the philosophical brain in a jar approach isn’t responsible for the deliberate and wilful misunderstanding of facts and scientific theories, but it ain’t half an annoying way to bring an argument to a stalemate.
But that way madness lies, and it is no way to win an argument. The Earth does revolve around the Sun. It is irrefutable, and there should be nothing more than a minor concession to the vanishingly small possibility that we are brains in jars or the butt of a joke played by a bored omnipotent being. It pays to look at my atheism the same way – I don’t know for an utter certainty that one of the vast myriad of gods dreamt up in our history is actually real, but I find the possibility of me being a brain in a jar much more likely.
Sometimes, particularly online, this way of thinking, of disregarding the value of things we know to be true, has a more damaging consequence than annoying me. It creates an environment where a fact is relegated to the status of mere opinion. Where people who simply have a big mouth can command as much attention as genuine experts on a vast variety of subjects and issues. Worse, where those with an agenda are able to take misunderstandings in respect of things we know to be true (yes, yes, unless we’re all brains in jars or whatever) and deliberately use them to foster denial and mistrust and cause conflict. It is that time again, where I sigh wearily, bring out my tin drum and bang on, once again, about two areas in particular where this kind of thing happens: climate change and evolution.
A recent Koch-funded study defied skeptic/denier expectations, confirming that the data in relation to climate change (that it is happening, and that human activity is responsible for much of it) was not only accurate but that the IPCC may have in fact underestimated the effect in some respects. This year polar ice melt is at a record-breaking high. Do you think that this will have anything but a negligible effect on those determined to deny the fact of climate change? Or the Koch brothers themselves? Not bloody likely.
And as for the big E, the very same applies. The fact of evolution is very hard to deny without sounding like a fool. The culprit is usually either a mind enslaved to an outdated religious doctrine, or a determination to stick to a hastily made conclusion and neglecting to look any further. The old erroneous conclusions resurface again and again – if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes, if every living thing on the planet is linked by evolution, why have we never found evidence of a 'crocoduck', why are there no transitional fossils. The first two illustrate the same fundamental misunderstanding of the very concept of the theory – no one living complex species of animal in existence on the planet today evolved from another living complex species of animal in existence on the planet today; they all shared a common ancestor. The third point illustrates the lack of interest in confirming one's own conclusions – there are literally thousands of transitional fossils (fish to reptile). Thousands (reptile to mammal, reptile to bird). Some further reading gives a number of examples of human evolution, too, if you can be arsed to check before talking shite about 'missing links'.
Keeping in mind the philosophy bit, there is, obviously, like every fact, a chance that evolution could be wrong. About as much chance that the Earth doesn’t revolve around the Sun. About as much that all of physics is wrong. The theory of evolution is as sound as the theory of gravity, and like all scientific theories, it started as an idea based on observation. Over 200 years, further observation and testing has established a solid theory that explains, beautifully, the biological state of the world today. Maybe the philosophical brain in a jar approach isn’t responsible for the deliberate and wilful misunderstanding of facts and scientific theories, but it ain’t half an annoying way to bring an argument to a stalemate.
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