Straussian Reasons Not To Teach Critical Thinking to most folks

[Dave1001]

Perhaps a modified version of christianity (modified to make mass behavior more utilitarian, even if their belief structure remains as irrational) should be taught to most, and criticial thought taught to a subset of the population that has the threshold capacity to utilize it effectively? I'm not sure Strauss was wrong with that approach, even if neoconservatives may have used this approach to promote the interests of something less than the general welfare of America or the world.

[Foster Zygote]

Perhaps a modified version of christianity (modified to make mass behavior more utilitarian, even if their belief structure remains as irrational) should be taught to most, and criticial thought taught to a subset of the population that has the threshold capacity to utilize it effectively? I'm not sure Strauss was wrong with that approach, even if neoconservatives may have used this approach to promote the interests of something less than the general welfare of America or the world.

We could teach critical thinking to the Alpha and Beta classes and the "modified Christianity" to the "utilitarian" Gamma class. This utilitarian class could then more efficiently serve the superior critical thinkers.

Steven

[Dave1001]

We could teach critical thinking to the Alpha and Beta classes and the "modified Christianity" to the "utilitarian" Gamma class. This utilitarian class could then more efficiently serve the superior critical thinkers.

Steven

Though I love Swiftian humor (even at my expense) actually I wasn't implying just one "class" would be serving a utilitarian role, nor any sort of general superiority of those who have a threshold ability to utilize critical thinking effectively.

[Foster Zygote]

Though I love Swiftian humor (even at my expense) actually I wasn't implying just one "class" would be serving a utilitarian role, nor any sort of general superiority of those who have a threshold ability to utilize critical thinking effectively.

Who decides? What threshold for critical thinking ability should we use as the cutoff point? Do you not think that doing this would lead to a real class division in society? Who formulates this condescending religion of the masses, the critical thinkers?

Wouldn't it be better to increase the availability of the understanding of critical thinking and let free thinking people decide for themselves?

Steven

[Dave1001]

Who decides?

Experts in such matters, perhaps with some republican check on their powers to decide.


What threshold for critical thinking ability should we use as the cutoff point?

Once again, deferring to experts.


Do you not think that doing this would lead to a real class division in society?


I think that horse has left the barn. Also I'm not sure we should oppose informal "class divisions" per se, as long as there is not an efficiency cost or other non utilitarian elements to them.


Who formulates this condescending religion of the masses, the critical thinkers?


Once again, experts. Whether or not it's condescending, I'm not sure why we should care whether or not a religion for the masses is condescending, as long as its effective in advancing our collective (and individual) wellbeing.


Wouldn't it be better to increase the availability of the understanding of critical thinking and let free thinking people decide for themselves?

Steven

Maybe. But that may be economically wasteful and not in our collective interest. For example, is the best use of resources to publish 6 billion copies of The Republic and deliver one to every person on the planet? As for letting free thinking people decide for themselves, they may make decisions against our collective and even their own interest. This is obvious if we let people drive as fast as they like, but they can also cause us harm that results in real loss of life in less obvious ways just by reducing our global economic efficiency and by promoting resource waste. A modified christianity might cause folks to fear hellfire when they buy an SUV or fail to tithe to support basic biomedical research.

[CplFerro]

Maybe. But that may be economically wasteful and not in our collective interest. For example, is the best use of resources to publish 6 billion copies of The Republic and deliver one to every person on the planet? As for letting free thinking people decide for themselves, they may make decisions against our collective and even their own interest. This is obvious if we let people drive as fast as they like, but they can also cause us harm that results in real loss of life in less obvious ways just by reducing our global economic efficiency and by promoting resource waste. A modified christianity might cause folks to fear hellfire when they buy an SUV or fail to tithe to support basic biomedical research.

Dear Dave,

You're promoting an oligarchal, antihuman system whereby the masses are to be "handled" like beasts, manipulated by the sophisticated propaganda efforts of a governmental Department of Religious Engineering. It would be doomed to failure by assisting in the development of a new, full-blown Dark Age.

And, publish 6 billion copies of the Republic? I gather, then, that global Internet access is not on your menu either. What's the point in keeping all these people alive, anyway? They're all just "useless eaters" in a sense. I'm sure you have a Straussian answer to that one, too.

Cpl Ferro

[Jeff Corey]

Who is Strauss? Not Richard or Levi, right?

[JamesM]

Dave1001, meet BlakeHaydn. You have a lot to talk about.

[Foster Zygote]

What's the point in keeping all these people alive, anyway? They're all just "useless eaters" in a sense. I'm sure you have a Straussian answer to that one, too.

Cpl Ferro

Mmmmmmmmm... Soylent green.

Steven

[Foster Zygote]

Sounds like a horrifying ant farm to me. Since you've referred to this as a world wide system, how will these unnamed "experts in such matters" convince all of the various faiths to accept this generic religion without unimaginable bloodshed? Religion may be irrational but that doesn't mean that the religious aren't going to see through this transparent, condescending pseudo-faith provided to them as an opiate by a ruling class of elites.

Steven

[Dave1001]

Sounds like a horrifying ant farm to me. Since you've referred to this as a world wide system, how will these unnamed "experts in such matters" convince all of the various faiths to accept this generic religion without unimaginable bloodshed? Religion may be irrational but that doesn't mean that the religious aren't going to see through this transparent, condescending pseudo-faith provided to them as an opiate by a ruling class of elites.

Steven

Some might say we're in a horrifying ant farm right now, and the question is simply the most effective ways to reduce the most horrifying aspects of the ant farm.

It doesn't have to be one single religion. For example, slightly modified versions of all the major religions (and most rapidly growing non-major religions) can be promoted, that simply remove their non-utilitarian elements and replace them with more utilitarian beliefs and imperatives.

Sort of like how retroviruses can be modified and used to introduce healthy genes into subject.

[Apathia]

Just Great! The return of Walden II! LOL

[Dave1001]

Dear Dave,

You're promoting an oligarchal, antihuman system whereby the masses are to be "handled" like beasts, manipulated by the sophisticated propaganda efforts of a governmental Department of Religious Engineering. It would be doomed to failure by assisting in the development of a new, full-blown Dark Age.


I don't think this requires (although it doesn't preclude) oligarchal efforts by governmental departments. I'm talking about objectives that can be promoted in a variety of ways, including in a completely libertarian manner such as by by private enterprise, philanthropy, and organizing.


And, publish 6 billion copies of the Republic? I gather, then, that global Internet access is not on your menu either.


It was an example. Perhaps it's best to give all 6 billion high speed internet access and let themselves sort out whether they'll use it to learn philosophical principles or watch wrestling and trashy talk shows. That certainly would be an easy solution -but there may be tougher ones at the very least around the edges, where utilitarian needs bump up against certain social aesthetics (such as that it's better to convince people to fund basic biomedical research through persuasin than through grafting it as an imperitave onto a widespread or quickly spreading religious set of memes).


What's the point in keeping all these people alive, anyway? They're all just "useless eaters" in a sense. I'm sure you have a Straussian answer to that one, too.

Cpl Ferro

That's a fair question. But there's different ways to kill people. Directly, and indirectly, through action and inaction. For example, I remember reading (this is from memory, so some details may be wrong) about how many people died in Nigeria and neighboring countries because of a meme that Western malaria vaccinations were actually just a way for Western doctors to infect Africans with AIDS, rather than to truly vaccinate them from the disease of malaria. Perhaps if a competitor meme was consciously introduced, linking these vaccinations with other popular memes with this community such as anti-Western resistance, islam, etc. behavior could have been altered to be more utilitarian, and numerous lives could have been saved.

As for your generally, Swiftian proposal, I could craft a rationale about mutual social contract, about how it's in our interest to preserve all conscious entities, etc. but that would be a little dishonest an easy on my part. The truth is, I don't know. I don't know if the smartest 6,000 or so people in the world (a category I miss by a mile) truly need the rest of us, for genetic diversity or for anything else. But there's as little we can do about it as we can by the likely eventuality of us being destroyed, individually and collectively by innumerable future events. In the meantime we can have fun discussing this stuff on a message board. :)

[Foster Zygote]

Some might say we're in a horrifying ant farm right now, and the question is simply the most effective ways to reduce the most horrifying aspects of the ant farm.

It doesn't have to be one single religion. For example, slightly modified versions of all the major religions (and most rapidly growing non-major religions) can be promoted, that simply remove their non-utilitarian elements and replace them with more utilitarian beliefs and imperatives.

Sort of like how retroviruses can be modified and used to introduce healthy genes into subject.

Again, unimaginable bloodshed, how?

It seems implausible that the faithful will tolerate these "modifications" being forced on them by the elite, ruling class of "experts in such matters". You've stated in another thread that the idea of banning inquiry into the reality of the Holocaust violates free thought. Though I've never encountered a holocaust revisionist who didn't have anti-semitic ties, even if well hidden behind a facade of unbiased objectivity, I do agree with you on that note. The way to counter things like holocaust denial is with freedom of speech and truth, not prohibition of speech. Likewise, the way to counter ignorance and superstition is with education and tolerance, not by creating a bovine class of utilitarian gammas a la Brave New World.

Steven

[Jeff Corey]

Just Great! The return of Walden II! LOL
Did you ever read it?

[Dave1001]

Who is Strauss? Not Richard or Levi, right?

I believe his first name is Leo. Not Levi, although this might be an interesting example of the canoe-building element of society taking over the role of the shaman.

[Dave1001]

Again, unimaginable bloodshed, how?

It seems implausible that the faithful will tolerate these "modifications" being forced on them by the elite, ruling class of "experts in such matters". You've stated in another thread that the idea of banning inquiry into the reality of the Holocaust violates free thought. Though I've never encountered a holocaust revisionist who didn't have anti-semitic ties, even if well hidden behind a facade of unbiased objectivity, I do agree with you on that note. The way to counter things like holocaust denial is with freedom of speech and truth, not prohibition of speech. Likewise, the way to counter ignorance and superstition is with education and tolerance, not by creating a bovine class of utilitarian gammas a la Brave New World.

Steven

I suspect many if not most faithful are already incorporated into institutions managing the truths and imperatives of their faith led by elite, ruling class of "experts in such matters". The problem is that they don't seem to be engaging in much modifaction of their faith memes to more utilitarian ends. For example, John Paul II didn't seem to do much to modify Roman Catholic dogma to support using stem cells to cure the Parkinsons he suffered from, although that would seem to be in the realm of his power, and he would seem to be a heavy stakeholder in efforts for such a cure. Frankly, I'm not sure how folks with the social intelligence to rise to the top of such heirarchies don't perceive their vesting in turning their institutions towards towards solving the very real problems they face as individuals, at such moments where they would appear to have the wiggle room to do so without losing their institutional power. But I think it may be worth it to make such a case to them. I perceive the cardinals of the catholic church, and the leading clerical leaders of other faiths to be as vested in curing the major diseases of aging and protecting the earth from various cataclysms as the rest of us.

Finally I'm not arguing creating a new class of bovine gammas, but rather simply turning those folks who are already leading a bovine gamma existence towards more utilitarian behavior (for themselves and for society) in the most effective way, which may be by modified religion rather than by instruction in how to think critically.

[Foster Zygote]

I suspect many if not most faithful are already incorporated into institutions managing the truths and imperatives of their faith led by elite, ruling class of "experts in such matters".

They follow their leaders of their own free will. They choose their dogma of their own free will.

How many people among the "bovine gammas" do you suppose are truly incapable of critical thinking on a congenital level? Is the problem really that all those people lack the capacity for critical thought or is it simply that they've never been exposed to it. Wouldn't it be a far more effective and realistic task to reform the education system so that children are exposed to critical thinking in a comprehensive curriculum in the same way they are exposed to grammar and math? As it is now, most kids in the US are exposed to the idea of critical thinking using no more than a couple of paragraphs in the first chapter of a high school science book. Is it surprising then that they grow up with no understanding of science and reason? Is it really that they are mentally inferior to you or could it be, in many cases, that they've been failed by an education system that still for the most part tells them what to think but not how to think?

What if in your youth the "experts in such matters" had determined that you fell just short of the threshold to be granted an advanced education. You would have been robbed of the human right of self determination and denied the opportunity to prove them wrong. Few children screened in your proposed society would be bright enough to seek a grand unification theory but critical thinking itself is not that hard. I suspect that every child were screened for the capacity for rational thought you wouldn't have that many people left for your fake, state mandated religions. Given the huge resources that would be needed to implement your suggested system I submit that it would be much more efficient and humane to institute an education system for the world and let people exercise self determination rather than to view them as inferiors and try to figure out the most effective way to exploit them.

Steven

[BPScooter]

Speaking as one of the Experts (I'm a teacher) I do agree that there is boundless opportunity to create effects on a young mind--and I also acknowledge quickly that it's really hard to take a class of kids and interest them in the matter at hand. If they are not already interested in *something* it is hard to win over a class. If a teacher can figure out what they already know, provide a couple basic "I can do that!" moments, and frustrate them with a new problem...I will say that regardless of ideology, that is a Teacher.

Good Teachers are not easily found, and not easily made. Yet the dynamics I described above are in play with every parent. I would agree with some effort, comparable to the evangelists of religion, to get the young within their influence to think better.

[andyandy]

seriously Dave, you need to hook up with BlakeHadyn....:D

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=45740

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=60070

[Dave1001]

seriously Dave, you need to hook up with BlakeHadyn....:D

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=45740

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=60070

I read a couple of his posts. Seems like he wants us to stop making hamburgers and put us on a vegan diet, and I want to us to consider genetically engineer the cows to make the burgers so that they're fat free and vitamin-filled, but still taste like burger.

[Dave1001]

Good Teachers are not easily found, and not easily made. Yet the dynamics I described above are in play with every parent. I would agree with some effort, comparable to the evangelists of religion, to get the young within their influence to think better.

There's also an economic cost involved, even if we don't want to consider it to get "the young within their influence to think better". Those are resources that might be more effectively spent on Alzheimer's research, etc. It might be better simply to try to influence their opinion makers, such as James Dobson, Pope Bennedict, various Imams, etc. to reinterpret their religions so as to support social behavior that is obviously in their own self-interest (such as supporting stem cell research, et.). Doing so in part would probably have to involve assurances that we secularists (and competing religions) wouldn't use their position shifts to undermine their institutional credibility.

The closest indictions things like this may happen to a degree is the shift of the evangelical community to be concerned about human-made global warming. I think they are only embracing this concern because it feeds into their puritan aesthetic of judging people for their materialistic behavior, and I myself am a bit skeptical of human-made global warming as a near term threat to our existence. But in principle it does show that the elites of such faith communities can make major adjustments in the beliefs and imperatives that they promote, which I think is promising.

[BPScooter]

Is this a recipe? Wow! Cool!

I tried the old faithful of Salmon and Dill, put it on the propane grill, used only butter and fresh dill, a bit of chopped onion. It was delicious.

From what I remember from a couple years back on this board, posting recipes is a nice hint to somebody that they should use better manners. Does this apply here? I have no idea, but Dave1001 mentioned vegan burgers... fat free and vitamin filled...(Homer Simpson drool sound)

[BPScooter]

I hereby retract my recipe. Nobody here has been mean or rude.

[Dave1001]

They follow their leaders of their own free will. They choose their dogma of their own free will.

How many people among the "bovine gammas" do you suppose are truly incapable of critical thinking on a congenital level? Is the problem really that all those people lack the capacity for critical thought or is it simply that they've never been exposed to it. Wouldn't it be a far more effective and realistic task to reform the education system so that children are exposed to critical thinking in a comprehensive curriculum in the same way they are exposed to grammar and math? As it is now, most kids in the US are exposed to the idea of critical thinking using no more than a couple of paragraphs in the first chapter of a high school science book. Is it surprising then that they grow up with no understanding of science and reason? Is it really that they are mentally inferior to you or could it be, in many cases, that they've been failed by an education system that still for the most part tells them what to think but not how to think?

What if in your youth the "experts in such matters" had determined that you fell just short of the threshold to be granted an advanced education. You would have been robbed of the human right of self determination and denied the opportunity to prove them wrong. Few children screened in your proposed society would be bright enough to seek a grand unification theory but critical thinking itself is not that hard. I suspect that every child were screened for the capacity for rational thought you wouldn't have that many people left for your fake, state mandated religions. Given the huge resources that would be needed to implement your suggested system I submit that it would be much more efficient and humane to institute an education system for the world and let people exercise self determination rather than to view them as inferiors and try to figure out the most effective way to exploit them.

Steven

I don't think I'm suggesting exploitation. I'm talking about relatively efficient ways to encourage behavior that's in our individual and collective self-interests. There are externalities due to inefficiencies (SUV-driving, stem cell research voting-against, near earth object tracking underfunding, economic activity on instructing people in critical thinking beyond its economic return and problem solving value for society or the individual) that you may be ignoring, and one could argue that that is exploitive simply because you want to promote a certain social aesthetic more than you want to solve very real challenges that we face due to mass, non-utilitarian behavior.

[Foster Zygote]

I still agree with cplFerro. Please don't take this as an ad hominem but IMO the idea you've promoted in this thread is elitist. You've mentioned the "Anglosphere" a number of times so I wonder if your a fan of Bennett. His notions have been criticized as being ethnocentric as well as elitist.

Steven

[Dave1001]

I still agree with cplFerro. Please don't take this as an ad hominem but IMO the idea you've promoted in this thread is elitist. You've mentioned the "Anglosphere" a number of times so I wonder if your a fan of Bennett. His notions have been criticized as being ethnocentric as well as elitist.

Steven

I think I've mentioned the anglosphere (elsewhere) descriptively, not promotionally, as I think you believe Bennet's critics rightly criticize him for doing. But that does seem to be a bit off-topic.

I'm not intentionally following a rote strategy of turning each of your criticisms of me against you (exploitive, elitist, etc.) but I do think a good case can be made that a social aesthetic to pretend elites don't exist, or not treat elites differently than non-elites (even when it's in the utilitarian interest of both elites and non-elites) is itself elitist. And when one promotes this social aesthetic even when it's not in the interest of non-elites or society as a whole (from the perspective of survival and quality of life measures) it can be a non-utilitarian elitist social aesthetic. It's the possibly non-utilitarian and inefficient aspects (in a real world where such inefficiencies cost lives) of that social aesthetic that I find problematic, rather than the elitist aspects of that social aesthetic, which I think would be arbitrary if it had no chance of costing lives and quality of lives.

[ceo_esq]

I believe his first name is Leo. Not Levi, although this might be an interesting example of the canoe-building element of society taking over the role of the shaman.

When Jeff Corey wrote "Levi", I suspect he was thinking of Claude Levi-Strauss the anthropologist, not Levi Strauss the clothier.

[Dave1001]

When Jeff Corey wrote "Levi", I suspect he was thinking of Claude Levi-Strauss the anthropologist, not Levi Strauss the clothier.

Yeah, I think it was pretty obvious from my reply that I was referencing Claude Levi-Strauss too. Although if Levi Strauss the clothier wrote about canoe-building and shamanistic elements universal to human culture, I'd be interested in reading about it. I think he might have given greater primacy to loin-cloth manufacturers though.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Information [the data] and knowledge [how to collect, evaluate and interpret the data] are the best means of maintaining a free society. My preference is a free society. History has shown a free society to be the most productive and IMO certainly the most interesting.

So why would you want to have a few knowledgeable people and a bunch of followers? That's asking for Orwell's animal farm.

I see it as my mission to raise the collective consciousness about logical evidence based thinking. Eventually the whole of society moves forward. It may be slow but it still moves. Most people know the planet isn't flat. A lot of myths have been discarded.

We need to expose religious beliefs for the myths they are and teach kids what advertising techniques are interfering with their data base. We need to discuss with people using EMFs to measure ghost activity that EMFs have more rational explanations and so on and so on. Get at the basis for the non-logical, non-evidence based beliefs, don't just correct the data base. The more knowledgeable people the better.

[Dave1001]

Information [the data] and knowledge [how to collect, evaluate and interpret the data] are the best means of maintaining a free society. My preference is a free society. History has shown a free society to be the most productive and IMO certainly the most interesting.

So why would you want to have a few knowledgeable people and a bunch of followers? That's asking for Orwell's animal farm.

That's not what I want per se. But is pursuing a social aesthetic of trying to make everybody "knowledgeable" the best way to expend social resources to solve the challenges we collectively face (such as diseases of aging, near earth objects, etc.?) I'm not so sure that the answer is yes, and I think it's worth having an open and continuing discussion about it. Does it make more sense expending resources trying to convince those 10-30 million evangelical, creation-believing christians in America to embrace stem cell research funding for example, or would it be more effective to collaborate with their leadership cohort to incentivize them (or have them realize their interests) in telling their followers that Jesus clearly said in the bible that he wants them to support stem cell research. The latter approach may not match many of our social aesthetics, but it may be a far more efficent way to improve social realities than "athiest versus christian" debate nights and what not.

[Skeptic Ginger]

My choice would be to choose a stem cell argument that confronted their false logic rather than concentrate on the leader.

For example, which would you save from the burning building you were in: 1,000 frozen embryos or one child? Would you even risk your own life to get the frozen embryos out?

How many embryos were destroyed to develop in-vitro fertilization?

Why is it OK to toss the embryos out (which occurs by the thousands from what I understand) but not OK to make cell lines from them?

Why is it OK to kill children in Iraq with bombs to save other people but not OK to use the embryos to save people?

Where in the Bible does it say don't use science to help people or don't do stem cell research? I think one could dissect the passages supposedly claiming embryos are babies.

Do you know God made kangaroos (if that's what you believe) which can and do remove their fetuses and discard them in times of stress?

That'd be my approach.

[Dave1001]

My choice would be to choose a stem cell argument that confronted their false logic rather than concentrate on the leader.

For example, which would you save from the burning building you were in: 1,000 frozen embryos or one child? Would you even risk your own life to get the frozen embryos out?

How many embryos were destroyed to develop in-vitro fertilization?

Why is it OK to toss the embryos out (which occurs by the thousands from what I understand) but not OK to make cell lines from them?

Why is it OK to kill children in Iraq with bombs to save other people but not OK to use the embryos to save people?

Where in the Bible does it say don't use science to help people or don't do stem cell research? I think one could dissect the passages supposedly claiming embryos are babies.

Do you know God made kangaroos (if that's what you believe) which can and do remove their fetuses and discard them in times of stress?

That'd be my approach.

But is that based on a social aesthetic of how you'd prefer to affect behavior change to be more in our collective self-interest? What if our best evidence is that following this social aesthetic (when there are other options that might be far more effective, such as telling them that Jesus wants them to support stem cell research) will result in significant loss of human life due to the inefficiencies of trying to change their behavior in this way?

[Skeptic Ginger]

But is that based on a social aesthetic of how you'd prefer to affect behavior change to be more in our collective self-interest? What if our best evidence is that following this social aesthetic (when there are other options that might be far more effective, such as telling them that Jesus wants them to support stem cell research) will result in significant loss of human life due to the inefficiencies of trying to change their behavior in this way?
Is the goal here affecting social change in general or getting support for single issues?

If it's the former, then having dogmatic people follow your dogma assumes you can influence that dogma. Good luck since a number of the leaders are the most dogmatic of the bunch. Consider trying to talk some sense into the Jerry Falwells or Pat Robertsons of the world.

If it's the latter goal, you might just be wasting time getting congregation leaders to support or stop fighting support of stem cell research when you need to change the beliefs of many people in many congregations. With our current society, there is no single place to access congregation leaders.

Also, your idea assumes these leaders have homogeneous flocks that rely on leaders to interpret the Bible for them. The closet one comes to that is the Catholic church and clearly all Catholics don't follow all Catholic Church Doctrines.

Your scenario assumes a world of little Jesus followers following a leader telling them what Jesus wants of them. That's a fictional world.

In this case you have presented as an example, you are starting with the plan.

Science would first assess the "believers", find out more about them and define the groups within the groups. It would then assess why they believe what they believe. It would next develop and test means of affecting those beliefs. Science then implements the means of affecting beliefs and measures outcomes. (Outcome measures are also developed by science and tested to see if they indeed measure what you want to measure.)


So what have you done to assess the population you have made the assumptions about?

[Dave1001]

Your scenario assumes a world of little Jesus followers following a leader telling them what Jesus wants of them. That's a fictional world.


I'm not so sure that it's a fictional world. I think it may be an accurate description of a not insubstantial segment of the world.


In this case you have presented as an example, you are starting with the plan.

Science would first assess the "believers", find out more about them and define the groups within the groups. It would then assess why they believe what they believe. It would next develop and test means of affecting those beliefs. Science then implements the means of affecting beliefs and measures outcomes. (Outcome measures are also developed by science and tested to see if they indeed measure what you want to measure.)


So what have you done to assess the population you have made the assumptions about?

I haven't made assumptions about any populations. I proposed an alternate idea about a population to the idea that the best way to make their behavior more in their and our collective rational interest is to invest energy into trying to teach them to think critically. I agree it would be great to do all the scientific research that you're describing. For all I know it has already been done, and it would be great to see the results. My mind is open on this topic, but I'd like to see the best evidence and arguments either way.

In terms of what I've done personally, rather than conduct basic sociological research on topics I'm interested in, I've mostly made sure that I got decent grades these past 2 years of law school and maintained my small business to defray the costs of my education. Oh, and in my leisure time I've occasionally discussed different ideas with people on message boards, like we're doing right now.:)

[Skeptic Ginger]

What have you done to assess the population you have made the assumptions about? That doesn't mean what original research have you done, it means have you looked at anyone's research?

What do you base this statement on:

"I'm not so sure that it's a fictional world. I think it may be an accurate description of a not insubstantial segment of the world."

[BPScooter]

I'm curious about the term "social aesthetic" because it doesn't communicate clear meaning to me. Aesthetic is a term used in the arts, and philosophy, to connote "beauty" and such, as far as I know and I may be wrong.

Social behaviour, among animals and insects, is complex and differentiated yet somehow binding due to instinct of some kind. Again my own understanding.

Is a beautiful and amazing termite pile evidence of the "social aesthetic' of the termite species? I don't buy it.

I suspect that by "social aesthetic" one must be referring to a preference for human communal living that gains credence. I can see a situation where there are several of these that compete.

[Dave1001]

What have you done to assess the population you have made the assumptions about? That doesn't mean what original research have you done, it means have you looked at anyone's research?

What do you base this statement on:

"I'm not so sure that it's a fictional world. I think it may be an accurate description of a not insubstantial segment of the world."

I haven't read many, if any peer-reviewed scientific papers on this topic. Those I may have encountered, such as in college courses or when browsing the internet, I don't recall off the top of my head. As I've mentioned in other threads, my primary exposure to the state of enlightenment on these topics is popular science articles from the media and introductory science textbooks from school.

I base the statement you quoted on my own non-scientific observations of the apparent reality that we live in, and an openness to non-politically correct (as well as an openness to politically correct) descriptions of the state of the world and how it functions.

[Dave1001]

I'm curious about the term "social aesthetic" because it doesn't communicate clear meaning to me. Aesthetic is a term used in the arts, and philosophy, to connote "beauty" and such, as far as I know and I may be wrong.

Social behaviour, among animals and insects, is complex and differentiated yet somehow binding due to instinct of some kind. Again my own understanding.

Is a beautiful and amazing termite pile evidence of the "social aesthetic' of the termite species? I don't buy it.

I suspect that by "social aesthetic" one must be referring to a preference for human communal living that gains credence. I can see a situation where there are several of these that compete.

By social aesthetic, I mean that someone feels social arrangements should be a certain way, not because it has demonstrated maximum utilitarian value for human survival, but because it is a more "beautiful" (to use your word) way for humans to interact, in their opinion.

A possible example is that it may a lot of sense for Americans economically if we criss-crossed our country with high speed mass transportation networks. But instead, a lot of money goes to interstate high way subsidies, because we have a social aesthetic that values personal driving autonomy far beyond its utilitarian social value.

I think there may be a similar social aesthetic among the skeptic community that the best way to improve rational interest maximizing behavior is to teach the masses to think critically. But if it's behavior we want to see changed, their may be an inefficiency tax due to using an approach that corresponds more with our social aesthetic (that values people altering their behavior for the same internal reasons that we do) rather that with a far more efficient way to achieve an important goal (getting people to change their behavior so that we don't die from a meteor strike or a stemm cell research curable disease).

[Bruno Putzeys]

Well there you go. Your claim is that teaching critical thought to everyone is not the optimal solution. Go ahead and prove.

[Dave1001]

Well there you go. Your claim is that teaching critical thought to everyone is not the optimal solution. Go ahead and prove.

I don't "claim" that. But I'd like to see it considered, discussed, and debated. Time and perhaps even ability precludes me from being able to "prove" or "disprove" that statement for you at the present, at least as thoroughly as either you or I would like. But I welcome contributions to this thread on the topic from board members who face fewer time and/or ability limitations.

[Bruno Putzeys]

Is there at least any particular observation you have made that led to your hypothesis? I know a few people who are strongly attached to hypotheses that have not a single observation at their base. What's more interesting, they also would like to see their hypothesis considered, debated and even taught (not to mention enshrined in law).

[Dave1001]

Is there at least any particular observation you have made that led to your hypothesis? I know a few people who are strongly attached to hypotheses that have not a single observation at their base. What's more interesting, they also would like to see their hypothesis considered, debated and even taught (not to mention enshrined in law).

Sure, I observe that the core concepts of critical thinking have been around as long as the core concepts of evangelical christianity and evangelical islam, yet the christianity and islam memes seem to be much more effective self-propagators, at least among large swaths of the world's population. Attached to these evangelical memes seem to be at least a few behavior imperatives that don't seem to be directly attached to propagating the meme, such as facing towards Mecca when one prays, and eating a wafer as part of a religious ceremony. If these impressively self-propagating evangelical memes can carry extra memes not directly related to their propagation, they could be good vehicles for propagating utilitarian behaviors such as supporting stem cell research or sufficiently funding protections against near earth objects. I do think it's an approach worthy of discussion and debate. And I do think reluctance among critical thinkers to do so may be that such an approach, despite its possible utilitarian benefits, may go against their social aesthetics.*

*Quite a bit of the above is a repeat of what I've written before, so I italicized the part that most directly responds to your request.

[Bruno Putzeys]

Not every idea or concept is a meme. You can only call something a meme when it is copied quickly and reliably. Most thoughts get severely distorted very quickly when passing from one person to another. Memes have the special quality of being stable. They are the eigen vectors of the "hear-store-recall-tell" transformation, so to speak. The origins of religion is such memes getting amplified out of the cognitive noise. Consequently, the chance of any given idea to be transmissible as a meme is very low. This makes utilitarian use of memes impractical, if not impossible. More importantly, memes are not necessarily ideas that are factually true (most aren't). The ones that travel well are the ones where most people build the same mental image for a limited verbal input. The meme gets "reconstructed" every time, even though the verbal transmission is often very sketchy. As you are highly aware, factually true thoughts are usually very difficult to transmit accurately. Most internet forums would be useless if everyone accepted (not the same as "understood") factual truths easily.

I suggest reading Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained". It details which memes travel well and which don't (and explains the neurological basis for this), and how that gives rise to religions.

[BPScooter]

I admit I'm not up to speed on the way "memes" are now described, I'll just call them ideas or practices. I don't believe that the core concepts of critical thinking have been around as long as things like idol worship, kinship aristocracy, ancestor worship, feuds among clans, animism, ritual sacrifice. Really, I don't. What are the core concepts of critical thinking, anyway? We really need to recognize that human brains took a huge leap when they adopted things like written language, legal codes, numeracy, and then much later reasoning based on evidence, controlled experiment. This all seems premature, to look about us now and blame all that occurs on the bad industrialist or capitalist or scientist. I think some of the crap that is happening now is based on tribal thinking, vs. "modern" or critical thinking.

Perhaps the point would convice if we had a better idea what is being proposed. I have gone to otherwise innocuous Christian services where conservation or some other "modern" idea like recycling your aluminum was brought into it. It seemed like a rather shallow tactic to me, but it may have helped others sort their trash better. I doubt that even the biggest stretch of a parable would tell us that the speaker meant us to recycle cans, when the speaker was living in a pre-industrial age. Stewardship of the earth, OK, but where do you attach the aluminum cans to the text?

I'm really open to the idea of changing attitudes, but I'm just not sure that even if the biggest Pope or Imam got up and said "OK, stop doing this, and now do that" it would work (at least in the short term). Not only are these revealed religions, they have a huge backlog of interpretation on top of them. Maybe a super-inspired and very charismatic leader within the religion could rudder the ship. But an attempt from the periphery seems to me not likely to have much effect at all, except maybe create a new little schism and a new little church.