Monday, January 27, 2014

More Fun With The Alternet Atheist Brain Rust

Note: In one of the stupidest, literally stupidest, things I've read recently a D. F. Swaab makes his grab for some of that neo-atheist attention and gold. I got into it on several different issues, here's one of them.


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                Can atheism really be declared amoral? All species have behavioral codes. Survival is contingent upon this and these behavioral codes have been hardwired into us through evolution. Atheists have merely discarded what they deem to be superstitious beliefs.

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                    I've had enough atheists declare it as amoral to me, not holding any moral teachings.
                    There 1. absolutely no scientific evidence that morality is related to "behavioral codes" there is no evidence that is "hardwired" into anything. There is no physical evidence of that at all. And there is absolutely nothing to keep any atheist who wants to from saying "where's the evidence" "prove it" or "that's as real as pink unicorns" when they decide they want to be as selfish and cruel as they might want to be. There is nothing in that evo-psy-neuro-psy stuff that is any more real than the once-upon-a-time called 'science' stuff that Freud got previous generations of materialists to buy, for a time, until they went for the equally unfounded ideas of behaviorism.

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                        Google ethics hardwired. Read!

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                            Oh, so whatever I find as a result of a google search is reliable? Because I can as easily find people who will say that line of pseudo-science is poppycock.

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                                One of the first posts that comes up is about a book on this subject published through Cambridge University Press. Even esteemed institutions of higher learning post information on the internet. Amazing isn't it. "In Hardwired Behavior the author argues that social morality begins in the brain, for without the brain there would be no concept of morality. Individual responsibility, therefore, must be reconsidered in the light of biological brain processes. The question of whether new scientific findings destroy the relevance of free will, placing it in the context of biological forces that may operate outside the conscious control of the actor, is one of intense debate. Hardwired Behavior takes this question and moves it into the open by clearly detailing neuroscience discoveries and explaining how the ancient precepts of "morality" that have guided mankind throughout its history must now be seen through the new lens of brain biology."http://www.cambridge.org/us/ac...

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                                    "Hardwired behavior" is a rather crude metaphor that is motivated and tied to a reductionist and mechanistic creed, itself motivated my materialist ideology. There is no real evidence that "behavior" is hard wired or that any particular aspect of human thinking of the kind that materialism and religion constitute, is "hard wired" nevermind the product of natural selection. No one knows if our pre-literate ancestors had thoughts remotely related to modern materialism or religion. Just as side observation, the dolt who wrote this article says that there are 10,000 religions, something often pointed to as if that debunks religion BASED ON THE DISSIMILAR FEATURES OF THOSE RELIGIONS. There is no, one "thing" that is religion so it would be absurd to theorize a genetic "hardwired" origin for this amazingly varied and constantly changing "thing" that is religion. Even among individuals, their religious thoughts are hardly fixed. I'm always reading atheists going on about how they "gave up faith" when it's obvious that all that changed is the name of the god they believe in. So many, especially among those who fall for this kind of evo-psy, neuro-sci clap trap now turn something the mistake to be "science" into a god to replace the one they used to profess belief in. Account for that as a product of "hardwiring". The "wiring" couldn't be all that "hard" if that were possible.

                                    • I've got to stop wasting time talking to idiots at Alternet.  That place is more likely to lose support for the left and lose elections than it will ever do anything productive. 

                2 comments:

                1. "In Hardwired Behavior the author argues that social morality begins in the brain, for without the brain there would be no concept of morality. Individual responsibility, therefore, must be reconsidered in the light of biological brain processes. The question of whether new scientific findings destroy the relevance of free will, placing it in the context of biological forces that may operate outside the conscious control of the actor, is one of intense debate. Hardwired Behavior takes this question and moves it into the open by clearly detailing neuroscience discoveries and explaining how the ancient precepts of "morality"

                  Um, seriously?

                  Love, let us say, begins in the brain (I'm not sure "begins" is proven, but if you want to limit the discussion to materialism, so be it). Why isn't love "hard-wired"? Why are some people incapable of love?

                  If behavior "begins" in the brain, why is behavior conditioned by culture? It it is "hard-wired," why does behavior vary by culture, individual, age, etc.? What definition of 'behavior' are we using, here?

                  Oh, and cheap shot, but still:

                  "One of the first posts that comes up is about a book on this subject published through Cambridge University Press. Even esteemed institutions of higher learning post information on the internet."

                  Isn't that simply a blatant "appeal to authority"? I thought the Enlightenment taught us never to do that again. I thought reason was supposed to be the only foundation for knowledge. If so, how reasonable is the idea that anything in the human behavior is "hard wired"? How reasonable, even, is the metaphor "hard-wired"? Yes, yes, I'm sure I'm being difficult, but this is how reason works: it asks difficult questions, and doesn't settle for silly metaphors as a substitute for thought. I remember learning in a psych class 40 years ago that there were no "instincts" in human behavior, and "instinct" is the very definition of "hard-wired" behavior (I don't think we had the metaphor back then).

                  So now neurology proves we have instincts after all? Poppycock. Define "Hard-wired" behavior for me, then give me an example of it. If it's not an instinct, I doubt it's hard wired. If it is, it ain't human behavior.

                  End of discussion (with your correspondent, not with you).

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                2. I also have to ask: what are "behavioral codes," and what do they have to do with "morality"?

                  I think your correspondent is confusing ethics and morality, which ain't necessarily the same thing.

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