When people are allowed to say idiotic things unchallenged

WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-03-2011, 06:54 AM
Already included in a previous post. Originally Posted by I B Hankering
Well lets not forget the title of my post:

I thought guns did not kill people, I thought people did? So now science is to blame? WTF?
I B Hankering's Avatar
Well lets not forget the title of my post:

I thought guns did not kill people, I thought people did? So now science is to blame? WTF? Originally Posted by WTF
This is what I wrote: The Nazis engineered the Holocaust. Nazis justified their actions with modern sciences, e.g., phrenology and eugenics, not religion.. .The Nazis enlisted science and technology. IBM provided the means to document the “untermensch,” and their status, while IG Farben manufactured the gas - Zyklon B - to murder them. These, and other combinations of science and technology, enabled Nazis to murder on an industrial scale that was quite unimaginable with rifles and machineguns.

I did mention that guns alone were insufficient to suit Nazi purposes, so they enlisted science and technology, but I do not recall posting anything about the NRA.
WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-03-2011, 07:46 AM
This is what I wrote: The Nazis engineered the Holocaust. Nazis justified their actions with modern sciences, e.g., phrenology and eugenics, not religion.. .The Nazis enlisted science and technology. IBM provided the means to document the “untermensch,” and their status, while IG Farben manufactured the gas - Zyklon B - to murder them. These, and other combinations of science and technology, enabled Nazis to murder on an industrial scale that was quite unimaginable with rifles and machineguns.

I did mention that guns alone were insufficient to suit Nazi purposes, so they enlisted science and technology, but I do not recall posting anything about the NRA. Originally Posted by I B Hankering
Well I hate that you are having trouble with the analogy.

Let me be clearer, or try.

If the NRA says guns do not kill people, people do.

And you say science enabled the Nazi's to kill more people along with their philosophy.

I think my question has merit.

Yes you did not bring the NRA into the mix, I did.

That said, I am looking for consistency.

Is science bad?

This is what I wrote: The Nazis engineered the Holocaust. Nazis justified their actions with modern sciences, e.g., phrenology and eugenics, not religion.. .. Originally Posted by I B Hankering
eugenics is not a science.

This is why I started this thread.

People are having trouble understanding just what science is.

Science observes.

Just because it puts a name to what man does does not mean you can blame science for the actions of man.

People are making this into a Science vs Religion thread.

It is not.

It is a thread to understand science. Not put down religion. Or vise versa. It is not about any one person, though that person ego probably thinks so! (There Sisyphus, I did a double just for you)
well people say stupid things for the same reason people say mean and nasty things because they can and because there are more people who are of the like mindset who agree and encourage them. Sadly the chances of changing people with lack of common sense,manners etc is very unlikely....so those of us who are decent and possess intelligence and common sense have to put up with those who lack those qualities...
It does not matter what I believe.

If you understand just what science is, you know that it is not dogmatic. Period.
Just as if you understand the principials of math you know the answer to 2+2.
So yes, I believe the thread is warranted. That does not make it so. Originally Posted by WTF
politcal beliefs, personal desires, peer pressure and money have gone a long way to corrupting science..you want something pure..where is it?
This is what I wrote: The Nazis engineered the Holocaust. Nazis justified their actions with modern sciences, e.g., phrenology and eugenics, not religion.. .The Nazis enlisted science and technology. IBM provided the means to document the “untermensch,” and their status, while IG Farben manufactured the gas - Zyklon B - to murder them. These, and other combinations of science and technology, enabled Nazis to murder on an industrial scale that was quite unimaginable with rifles and machineguns.

I did mention that guns alone were insufficient to suit Nazi purposes, so they enlisted science and technology, but I do not recall posting anything about the NRA. Originally Posted by I B Hankering
FYI

Edit: Those who mistake eugenics for darwinism:

"Stalinists rejected the theory of evolution as a biological rendition of capitalism, and that they replaced it with their own ideologically driven, disastrous theory of Lysenkoism"

The notion that Darwin is responsible for the Holocaust untrue.

"It started with Paul Johnson's treatment of the theory of evolution in MODERN TIMES (page 5) assures us: "Darwin's notion of the survival of the fittest was a key element both to the Marxist concepts of class warfare and of the racial philosophies which shaped Hitlerism." Darwin never even mentioned "the survival of the fittest;" Darwin's notion was of adaptation to the environment by species variation. The phrase "survival of the fittest" was coined by Herbert Spencer, who was a philosopher, not a biologist. The phrase was quickly picked up by social Darwinists, who, in the pseudo-scientific climate of the nineteenth century, used it as a justification for exploiting peasants. Marx accepted evolution as an explanation for human consciousness, but "survival of the fittest" has never been part of Marxist doctrine. Obviously, it is the doctrine of industrial capitalism. As for Hitlerism, "intellectual" Nazis were far more likely to be influenced by Hegel's notion of natural spiritual progression than Darwinian evolution. Admittedly, the German and American industrialists who helped Hitler acquire power were quite likely social Darwinists. Obviously, one of the factors that made Hitler so popular with the Germans populace was his exploitation of their hatred of the Jews, a hatred propagated over many centuries by Christianity. Trying to blame Nazism on Darwin while completely ignoring the far more genuine influence of the uglier aspects of Christianity is just as blatantly dishonest as it is possible to be."
I B Hankering's Avatar
If the NRA says guns do not kill people, people do. Originally Posted by WTF
True. The NRA does say that.


And you say science enabled the Nazi's to kill more people along with their philosophy. Originally Posted by WTF
True. I said that, and I believe that. Plus, there is enough empirical evidence to prove it happened.


Yes you did not bring the NRA into the mix, I did. That said, I am looking for consistency. Originally Posted by WTF
Comparing a whole field of study to a type of machine? Consistent?


Is science bad? Originally Posted by WTF

Science observes.

eugenics is not a science. Originally Posted by WTF
“Eugenics -- Breeding a Better Citizenry Through Science”

“The interesting aspect of the eugenics movement is that it was mainstream science during the closing decades of the 19th Century and throughout the first half of the 20th Century. The Passing of the Great Race was reviewed favorably in the journal Science, by MIT geneticist Frederick Adams Woods. Every genetics textbook of the era advanced the case of eugenics, showing how genetics could be used to solve social problems, if we simply believe everything geneticists say, give them lots of money, and not worry too much about individual civil rights, and the poor training and track record of geneticists in that area.”
Taken from the educational pages of –
Jonathan Marks
Department of Anthropology
UNC-Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223-0001

http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/eugenics/eugenics.html

“Phrenology was a faculty psychology, theory of brain and science of character reading, what the 19th-century phrenologists called "the only true science of mind." Phrenology was derived from the theories of the idiosyncratic Viennese physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828).
“From Britain phrenology spread to America and France in the 1830s and in the1840s it was re-introduced to Germany. It became far more successful in America. Phrenology died away in Britain by the early 1850s but a new movement was re-introduced to Britain by the American "phrenological Fowlers" in the 1860s and 1870s. . . .
“Phrenology evolved into wider and wider cultural space over time, beginning with Gall and the highest scientific and social and cultural elites, from Goethe to the king of Prussia, to the British and American scientifically pretentious middle-class phrenological societies of George Combe. . . .
“During phrenology's first heyday in the 1820s-1840s, many employers could demand a character reference from a local phrenologist to ensure that a prospective employee was honest and hard-working. [Eventually the field of phrenology] degenerated into a sect of zealous extremists. . . . [T]he British Phrenological Society (founded by L.N. Fowler in 1887) was only disbanded in 1967.”

http://www.victorianweb.org/science/phrenology/intro.html

Is science inherently bad? Not necessarily. Is a gun inherently bad? Not necessarily. Is a gun dangerous? Yes! Is science dangerous? Yes! However, you are being completely facetious when you say, “Science [just] observes.” Science creates, and it changes belief systems. Hence, it is very dangerous. I can disassemble a gun and bury its various parts twelve feet deep in my back yard; thus, I’ve thereby rendered it fairly much harmless. I cannot do that with science. I can no longer claim the earth is flat without looking foolish. It is interesting to note that Shelley wrote Frankenstein as a metaphorical condemnation of unchecked scientific study and advancement. Even 200 years ago, people realized unchecked science was dangerous, and it certainly has not grown less so in the intervening years.

Let me end by stating that I do not believe nor have I ever believed that eugenics and phrenology are sciences as we understand the sciences today. I am emphatically not advancing that argument. I introduced these two fields into this discussion to show: 1) science is not immutable, and what passes for science today might similarly be discredited in the future (just as these were), and 2) these two “so called sciences” were used by the Nazis to justify their racial policies and the Holocaust; thus, demonstrating that science—like religion—can be used as an excuse and provide the tools to commit horrible crimes.

One can argue that these are not sciences, and I would heartily agree. Yet one cannot argue that these two fields were never accepted as science. That would be a fallacious argument.

People are making this into a Science vs Religion thread. Originally Posted by WTF
Your arguments beg the comparison.
I B Hankering's Avatar
The notion that Darwin is responsible for the Holocaust untrue. Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange
I never mentioned Darwin nor his studies!!??

Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's racially-based social policies that placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of their concerns. Those humans were targeted that they identified as "life unworthy of life."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics
WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-03-2011, 10:53 AM
politcal beliefs, personal desires, peer pressure and money have gone a long way to corrupting science..you want something pure..where is it? Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought
This is a great article, it tries to show where psychologists have trouble with science, the science of math.

http://www.arachnoid.com/is_math_a_science/

Let me ask a question. Did Dirac invent his equation, or did he discover it? If we claim he invented it, because nature subsequently obeyed Dirac's equation and in ways no one could have expected, this must make Dirac God. But Dirac isn't God, therefore he discovered his equation. If Dirac discovered his equation, where did he find it? He found it in nature. For the entire history of the universe, Dirac's equation lay as an undiscovered treasure in the bosom of nature, until Dirac happened upon it.
Conclusion? Nature is innately mathematical, and she speaks to us in mathematics. We only have to listen.
Because nature is mathematical, any science that intends to describe nature is completely dependent on mathematics. It is impossible to overemphasize this point, and it is why Carl Friedrich Gauss called mathematics "the queen of the sciences."
I decided to write this article after debating psychologists about the low scientific standing of their field. During these conversations it became apparent that many psychologists don't understand or have any use for mathematics and may not even recognize it as science. In a field like psychology, one that believes itself to be scientific, this level of ignorance represents a profound and crippling disconnect, and for individual psychologists to try to explain why mathematics isn't scientific can only reveal an astonishing degree of narcissism and arrogance.




One can argue that these are not sciences, and I would heartily agree. Yet one cannot argue that these two fields were never accepted as science. That would be a fallacious argument.

. Originally Posted by I B Hankering
No what you can argue is that the Nazi convinced themselves that they were superior. They did not convince the Jews that their science was in fact a science. You did not see the Jews saying , "Damn, good science there Hitiler!"

Damn, this is so simple, I can not believe I have to explain it to you. Just because people believe something, does not make it a science. You are confusing ethics with science.

Math is the utilmate science...who but Becky and wakeup are arguing that 2+2=5?
I never mentioned Darwin nor his studies!!??

Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's racially-based social policies that placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of their concerns. Those humans were targeted that they identified as "life unworthy of life."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics Originally Posted by I B Hankering
No I know you didn't I was throwing that out there..lol

Quite a number of people confuse eugenics with darwinism.
Facts do not change withtime or perspective. The tempreture today in San Antonio @ 11am was 25 deg. F. That is a fact forever more. Objective data is quantifiable and irrefutable (time, tempreture, weight, volume, etc.). Science is a tool to derive truth or facts thru observation and study. Interpretation of that data is conjecture and subject to bias. Opinion, even expert opinion, is still just opinion. That opinion over time may be repudiated or validated, but time and science will tell.
DFW5Traveler's Avatar
No I know you didn't I was throwing that out there..lol

Quite a number of people confuse eugenics with darwinism. Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange
It's actually a little hard to confuse the 2, Darwinism is "natural selection" eugenics is most definately un-natural. Thanks to the Progressives of the early 20th century and Margaret Sanger, Eugenics spurred a truly goolish movement.
This is what I wrote: The Nazis engineered the Holocaust. Nazis justified their actions with modern sciences, e.g., phrenology and eugenics, not religion.. .The Nazis enlisted science and technology. IBM provided the means to document the “untermensch,” and their status, while IG Farben manufactured the gas - Zyklon B - to murder them. These, and other combinations of science and technology, enabled Nazis to murder on an industrial scale that was quite unimaginable with rifles and machineguns.

I . Originally Posted by I B Hankering
that is not the whole truth. Nazis also entitled their action with religion and especially with the New Age stuff. Where do you think does their symbol the swastika come from ? there have been a lot of research on the base of their idols and where the "Aryan" comes from. Its a lot of New age BS. So to say only science and not models of religion or such has done the basement for their wars and their racial ideology and whatnot is an understatement.
The nazis used science to specialice and perfect their capacity to murder.
The catholicism especially was also a reason on the holocaust. They wanted to make an aryan race. and the aryan ideology is not genetically based but ideological new agey worship. The important "Zigeuner" (Gypsy-question) was based on that. Geneticall the gypsies were more aryan but somehow they had to find an excuse to kill them too. Besides a lot of nazis were gay too :-)
It was simple a cruel combination of new agey and catholic ideals with the worst things of science.
It's actually a little hard to confuse the 2, Darwinism is "natural selection" eugenics is most definately un-natural. Thanks to the Progressives of the early 20th century and Margaret Sanger, Eugenics spurred a truly goolish movement. Originally Posted by DFW5Traveler
darwinism is old news anyway in times of the Quantum leaps. Natural selection is a bit tough to come by when you don`t have so much time to develop the right genes when you get killed :-) so its not at all logical. there is something strange called Morphogenetic field, which is not all scientifically evaluated, but an interesting hypothesis nevertheless. Rupert sheldrake he is.
So if you think you can jump off a tall building and fly and I disagree respectfully or not, Do you think the truth(ful) Law of Gravity will save you or me?

Originally Posted by WTF
well :-=) he flies...til he hits the ground :-)