Dawkins' Atheist Bus

[poetix]

Many good quotations in that article, actually. Here's another:

Subsequently philosophers like Ernest Nagel further analysed the concept of goal-directedness in biology and by 1982, philosopher and historian of science David Hull joked[8] about the use of teleology and teleonomy by biologists:

"Haldane [in the 1930s] can be found remarking, ‘Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.’ Today the mistress has become a lawfully wedded wife. Biologists no longer feel obligated to apologize for their use of teleological language; they flaunt it. The only concession which they make to its disreputable past is to rename it ‘teleonomy’."

 

[poetix]

wrt atheism: Lacan...

 

[waffle]

Anyway, if you associate telos with consciousness, as is perfectly legitimate -- and a classical way of defining the term -- .

The concept of an inherent 'consciousness' is as boring and as dubious as the concept of 'immortal soul' or 'inner being/self': it just substitutes a humanistic fetish for a religious-divine one, which is why all neuroscientific research into it to date has been found wanting.

"Bo Dahlbom is right, in his 1993 critique of Daniel Dennett, to insist on the social character of 'mind'. Theories of mind are obviously conditioned by their historical context: Fredric Jameson recently proposed a reading of Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" as an allegory of late capitalism with its motifs of competition, decentralisation etc. Even more important, Dennett himself insists that tools, the externalised 'intelligence' on which human beings rely, are an inherent part of human identity: it is meaningless to imagine a human being as a biological entity without the complex network of his/her tools - it would be like imagining a goose without its feathers. But in saying this he opens up a path which should be foll0wed much further. Since, to express it in good old Marxist terms, man is the totality of his/her social relations, Dennett should take the next logical step and analyse this network of social relations.

wrt atheism: Lacan...

Quite.

 

[nomadthethird]

I spy an opportunity for disambiguation:

In 1958, C.S. Pittendrigh applied the term (teleonomy) to biology:

"Biologists for a while were prepared to say a turtle came ashore and laid its eggs. These verbal scruples were intended as a rejection of teleology but were based on the mistaken view that the efficiency of final causes is necessarily implied by the simple description of an end-directed mechanism. … The biologists long-standing confusion would be removed if all end-directed systems were described by some other term, e.g., ‘teleonomic,’ in order to emphasize that recognition and description of end-directedness does not carry a commitment to Aristotelian teleology as an efficient causal principle."

That might help settle people's scruples. Or it might not, depending on how much they enjoy entertaining them.

I appreciate your point, I understand what you're trying to set up, but I have huge reservations when it comes to the notion that processes (I'm not even sure which you're talking about at this point) are "end-directed."

Especially when it comes to being an apologist for evolutionary biologists who I think tend to overinterpret evolutionary processes to the point where they magically become "end-directed" despite there being little hard evidence for the fact that this is the case.

For example, and I'm not saying you do this, just that some do--I've heard well-meaning people try to claim that people are attractive because attractiveness signals good genes and so the evolutionary purpose of good looks is to ensure that people have more sexual encounters and are therefore more likely to pass on good genes.

This is obviously absurd, if you know anything about genes (or even if you know little), since good looking people can and often do have all sorts of genetic diseases or other genetically passed on health problems lurking under the pretty surface. Simply being good looking is no indication that someone is anything other than good looking--someone's cancer risk, for instance, can't be read on their face. Biologists know that human attraction has far more to do with hormones, pheremones/scents, and other covert biological operations than people want to believe (especially in this image-fetishistic society we live in.) I know anecdotally as a female that a man can look great, but if he smells or tastes weird I'm probably not going to be attracted to him. This is backed up by research that has found that scent gives off signals about the immune system, and women tend to be attracted to men whose scents signal that the man's immune system is different in key ways from the woman's father's immune system.

On top of the biological factors that affect attraction, there are the linguistic/representational/Symbolic/unconscious psychological factors.

 

[nomadthethird]

Good looking people are just accidents.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Biologists know that human attraction has far more to do with hormones, pheremones/scents, and other covert biological operations than people want to believe (especially in this image-fetishistic society we live in.) I know anecdotally as a female that a man can look great, but if he smells or tastes weird I'm probably not going to be attracted to him. This is backed up by research that has found that scent gives off signals about the immune system, and women tend to be attracted to men whose scents signal that the man's immune system is different in key ways from the woman's father's immune system.

Can't be arsed to look for it now, but some recent research showed that strippers/pole-dancers make bigger tips when they're on the fertile part of their cycle.

You can just imagine a bunch of behavioural psychologists in a bar 'brainstorming' for their next research grant proposal when one guy's eyes light up because he's just had THE MOST BADASS IDEA EVER.

 

[poetix]

Good looking people are just accidents.

Trainwrecks, quite frequently.

 

[nomadthethird]

Can't be arsed to look for it now, but some recent research showed that strippers/pole-dancers make bigger tips when they're on the fertile part of their cycle.

You can just imagine a bunch of behavioural psychologists in a bar 'brainstorming' for their next research grant proposal when one guy's eyes light up because he's just had THE MOST BADASS IDEA EVER.

Yup, but the reason why ovulating dancers might make more might also be due to the fact that researchers also found that women tend to dress more provocatively/fancily and wear more makeup when they're ovulating. Wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't just smell the progesterone, though.

Some researchers (males) don't realize that they're not setting controls on some experiments because they don't realize their hypothesis is based on totally cultural ideas about what "femininity" is. All researchers have blind spots like this I imagine...

 

[nomadthethird]

on the ogasmotron note: vagus nerve stimulation "is an adjunctive treatment for certain types of intractable epilepsy and major depression. VNS uses an implanted stimulator that sends electric impulses to the left vagus nerve in the neck via a lead wire implanted under the skin." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagus_nerve_stimulation

This is really interesting stuff, the show was a little disappointing because it focused more on just orgasms...

I have this problem where I faint at certain key times in my cycle (which is pretty disrupted and weird anyway) which my doctors tell me has something to do with vagus nerve hypersensitivity or overstimulation. I've fainted in class before and banged my head on the desks, I've done it at work. Luckily I can feel it coming on so now I know to sit down and be careful. I also take epilepsy medication for major depression/bipolar disorder, and I've noticed the fainting doesn't happen as much when I faithfully take the medication.

 

[waffle]

Some researchers (males) don't realize that they're not setting controls on some experiments because they don't realize their hypothesis is based on totally cultural ideas about what "femininity" is. All researchers have blind spots like this I imagine...

Their desires have desires on them.

 

[nomadthethird]

Their desires have desires on them.

Check this out, proof that our norms are totally biological through the magic of "numbers":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27596308/

For more fun with numbers follow the "sexual health" link.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yup, but the reason why ovulating dancers might make more might also be due to the fact that researchers also found that women tend to dress more provocatively/fancily and wear more makeup when they're ovulating.

Maybe so, but strippers are presumably dressing as provocatively as possible in the first place, right?

Wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't just smell the progesterone, though.

This is an interesting use of the word 'smell', though: do you mean it would be possible to literally smell it like you can smell a perfume, or that a man's olfactory receptors might notice the pheromones and send a 'surreptitious' signal to his sex centres, without him being able to smell it in the normal subjective sense?

 

[nomadthethird]

Yeah, I don't mean someone could say "There's a distinct scent in the room of early-post-ovulation levels of progesterone", it's definitely something you'd be picking up on unconsciously. There's tons of information we take in through our olfactory organs via pheremones (or is it pheromones, I don't remember) without really "smelling" them.

Strippers are already dressing provocatively, I thought about that, but there may be something to their performance having more energy that works, too. More makeup looks trashier, which seems to work well for men in general especially the types who go to strip clubs. There may be visual cues to the hormonal state as well. Dilated pupils are supposed to work, too.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Dilated pupils are supposed to work, too.

Quite - hence 'belladonna' as an alternative name for deadly nightshade.

 

[swears]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- You better watch out. There is a new combatant in the Christmas wars.


Nothing says Christmas like a wreath -- or the now perennial Christmas wars.

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington buses starting next week and running through December.

The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday.

In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas.

"We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," said Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group.

"Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of nontheists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."

To that end, the ads and posters will include a link to a Web site that will seek to connect and organize like-minded thinkers in the D.C. area, Edwords said.

Edwords said the purpose isn't to argue that God doesn't exist or change minds about a deity, although "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."

The group defines humanism as "a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism, affirms our responsibility to lead ethical lives of value to self and humanity."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/11/12/godless.holiday.ap/index.html

 

[poetix]

What could be more anti-rationalist than trying to spread rationality virally? You might as well try bribing people to think critically.

 

[IdleRich]

What could be more anti-rationalist than trying to spread rationality virally? You might as well try bribing people to think critically.

Sounds right, but the highlighted part of the quote doesn't seem to implausible does it?

"we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds"

I mean, it ought to be perfectly possible to make someone question something (in general) by use of an advert and they might well ask the same question of others so I think it's clear that that can be spread virally. Whether that questioning leads to rationality is another question but it's not totally beyond the pale to imagine that it could be a step in the right direction.

 

[vimothy]

There does seem to be an interesting element of religiosity here -- explicitly modelling an advertising campaign on other religious adverts -- you know, atheism as decision, as a choice or affirmation, and with (at least the beginnings of) a community of believers...

 

[poetix]

Shed those unsightly supernatural beliefs with New Atheism(tm)! (Self-)satisfaction guaranteed!

 

[vimothy]

I dunno about advancing any kind of critique of Dawkins et al. If this is no different to any other religion -- why single it out for attack? I'm more interested in the sociological aspects of the trend: the development of a shared identity, a community of belief (not coming down on whether atheism is a belief either, but it can certainly at least here seem to operate in similar ways), and the parallels to contemporary religiosity.