onegoodmove

The general feeling is that, even if a new technology would improve life and health and decrease suffering and waste, it might have to be rejected, or even outlawed, if it affronted human dignity.

Great, great! I think religion is a severe affront to human dignity.

I think the TV show Jackass is an affront to human dignity.

Folks want to suffer and die in waste? That's dignified.

When did Dzwonka come out of hibernation? And what ever happened to Mr. Becker?

"the work that goes into acquiring specialized scientific knowledge..."

"they're doing it for purely academic reasons with no economic payoff."

Well, academics do get paid. But the idea is that everyone has their price. Scientists are just Preachers of a different sect, different,but basically on a par with Lawyers, Politicians, Secretaries of defense, Presidents (the President's Council on Bogus-ethics). The Rush Limbaughs of the world use their own bogusness against their non-bogus targets by a queer process of transference/scapegoating. You can't trust anybody except the ones who tell you "you can't trust anybody except the ones who tell you "you can't trust anybody except the ones who tell you "you can't trust anybody except the ones who tell you ..."""

the mind boggles with echoing confusion.

Flagellatio, "Folks want (others) to suffer" on their cross.

Dignity! How medi-eval.

Pomp, how Medici-eval! Viva L'Chaim, but, under the circumstances, gradus ad pomp, pagan placebo/panacea (the florescence of Florence, heroic Hercules of the East, er, Erc... d'Este, of Ferrara ago, and long away). More pomp, less dignity.

To a body-boggling, post-human uber-future.

Religion is the projection of one's own ego-shadow giganticized by geometry, on to a blank wall: I like God, who likes me, mutual admiration society of One/one. Soul=shadow=show.

Cultural-jammers are dignity streakers.

"the work that goes into acquiring specialized, [OR generalized] knowledge..."

Is work that could go into mass-producing more goodies, housing developments, ego-inflationary gas-guzzlers, etc., busy buzzing, swarming, then...

Colony Collapse Disorder? It happened here (Florence) once, about 700 years ago.

I'm delighted to see the Steven Pinker article here, which is a characteristically well-argued and thoughtful piece by him.

On the ScienceDebate2008: May I just point out how screwed up our country is: The democratic candidates participated in a putative "Compassion Forum" on CNN (read: Tacit Religious Test for Public Office Forum), which was incredibly thorough. But of course, the some of the hard scientific issues, and even more basic ones with enormous real world implications, issues that have simply been ignored or distorted due to just the kind of lunatics that would demand a "Compassion Forum"--e.g. global warming, stem cell research, etc.--these can be comfortably ignored in the U.S. political climate.

I hope McCain and Obama agree to such a debate. Not just because I think it would be good for Obama, compared to know-nothing McCain. Even more, I think the fact of publicly recognizing the profound importance of some of these issues would itself be a small step in the direction of progress. And they should most definitely permit follow up questions from scientific experts when a candidate fudges with the facts, just as the so-called "Compassion Forum" permitted follow ups from ministers when a given candidate failed to say something extreme or ignorant enough.

The presidential candidates all "bring the stupid home". That is required in order to be elected. Sad, but true, and a fact that should be considered and dealt with.

Adam said:

May I just point out how screwed up our country is: The democratic candidates participated in a putative "Compassion Forum" on CNN (read: Tacit Religious Test for Public Office Forum

Again, this is the bullshit that all of our presidential candidates have to deal with... that, and dealing with issues of flag pins and patriotism. Welcome to the United States of America. This is where we live, like it or not, and these games have to be played, like it or not.

I don't like it, but I realize that the fucking game must be played.

U.S.A.! Aren't we the most wonderful people on the face of the earth and the most greatest people in the whole wide world?

"Compassion Forum" on CNN (read: Tacit Religious Test for Public Office Forum

I would have had one candidate say to even one question.

"I don't think Thomas Jefferson would have ever been president if he had had to answer this question and if it were not for men like him we may have had a King of America."

RedSeven said:

I would have had one candidate say to even one question.

"I don't think Thomas Jefferson would have ever been president if he had had to answer this question and if it were not for men like him we may have had a King of America."

Most Bill-O'Reilly-loving Americans wouldn't even know what the hell that means. ;)

84% also agree that scientific innovations are improving our standard of living.

"The general feeling is that, even if a new technology would improve life and health and decrease suffering and waste, it might have to be rejected, or even outlawed, if it affronted human dignity."

I don't think human dignity is stupid at all. It may not be a great guide for which biological modifications are morally right and which ones are morally wrong. But it does help us understand that making some people's lives easier, more comfortable, and more prosperous by getting rid of or neglecting the weak, less useful or dying is evil. Utilitarianism has a harder time defending this basic moral intuition.

There are some serious people like Peter Singer who reject the idea of human dignity. But I don't think he has anything to replace it, without being forced to accept the idea that basic rights are just another good that can be negotiated along with all the other things people happen to want or pains we may want to avoid. He's rejecting a basic pillar of liberalism.

"I think the TV show Jackass is an affront to human dignity."

In Germany the show Big Brother was not allowed to air for precisely this reason. As much as I hate to admit it, though, Jackass really makes me laugh. And cringe.

"I think the TV show Jackass is an affront to human dignity."

In Germany the show Big Brother was not allowed to air for precisely this reason. As much as I hate to admit it, though, Jackass really makes me laugh. And cringe.

Exactly my point, affronting human dignity is nothing for people to die over, and sometimes its funny.

Not that we should be doing gene therapy as a joke or anything.

Scientists know better than you? Some of the arguments in that article are absolute nonsense. The idea of "tacit knowledge" that can't be explained but gives scientists in a given field special insight is particularly nonsensical. This is precisely the same crap that religious authorities claim as their excuse for trying to run everyone else's lives. The whole article consists of a contrived set of arguments about what ideas one should be required to accept regardless of scientific debate. I prefer to make my own informed judgments.

Who decides what "human dignity" is?

That the crucifix-junkie who demands a halt to stem-cell research considers his infantile and ignorant religious superstitions a more important aspect of "human dignity," than say, curing Parkinson's disease.

And that person is the same idiot who insisted that Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod interfered with God's plan.

And that idiot is the same as the one who sat in a cave, insisting that only the gods should make fire...

"Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong"

First of all the Collins's attack on Dawkins is lame. "In our book we too criticize creationism's pretensions to be a science, but we don't treat it as a trivial problem." and then continues with a watered down version of things Dawkins has already said many times...

One of the problems with the public's perception of Science is the media: they constantly play on our fears and report on things such as,"Leading Dr.: Vaccines-Autism Worth Study", which sow doubt about the usefulness of getting your child vaccinated...

There are also scientists making a bad name for science, for example, S Korea cloning research was fake and Faking it: Where science goes wrong

The very "self-correcting" nature of science can mislead the average person to believe that Science often gets it wrong: The appeal to “science was wrong before”

Finally, in the US at least, religion. Who can argue with the Word of God? Well, you can - it's just pretty one-sided.

"I don't think human dignity is stupid at all."

"Dignity" in quotes is , as used by Bush's ethics pontificators, not dignity at all really. It is playing (your) God with someone else's life, hypocrisy.

Dignity meaning... human rights? How about the right to a place to take a shower (for the dignity-less homeless), or better yet, to a humble home, clean water, air, an uncrowded planet, an effective genome? Eugenics, progressivism, with or without an upside down flavor saver, and Dzwonka is right, belief in Jehovah, prostration before Allah, is undignified.

"Dignity" is not dignity.

"Greens tend to idealize the natural and demonize technology."

Not at all. Invasive species of weeds, including animal and human weeds (Europe, Umkrautunsauber Weedheimat) replicate disastrously naturally, whilst Green technology (solar powered, wind) is,well, green.

It is mindless cancer-like (cancer is natural) growth, rot that they oppose. Green vs. gangrene.