“Well Artfldgr, you might enjoy this of Rupert Sheldrake. I first read his work in the 1980s. He too, has come to question evolution and is being drummed out of the “science” community.”

Thanks for the link.

You have hit upon two important points, one of which I will bypass. I’m going to remain agnostic on Sheldrake per se, and confine myself to another matter encapsulated by this remark from TED’s review board,

” According to our science board, Rupert Sheldrake bases his argument on several major factual errors … he suggests that scientists reject the notion that animals have consciousness, despite the fact that it’s generally accepted that animals have some form of consciousness … [and] argues that scientists have ignored variations in the measurements of natural constants …”

and,

“But, in truth, there has been a great deal of inquiry into the nature of scientific constants …”

Ok then, bracketing Sheldrake himself, here’s the real problem (following Neo’s links) just as laid out by Leon Wieseltier:

“The problem of the limits of science is not a scientific problem. It is also pertinent to note that the history of science is a history of mistakes, and so the dogmatism of scientists is especially rich. “

Or as Edward Feser recently wrote:

” … the liberal, who claims to favor intellectual pluralism in the public sphere, needs constantly to be forced to put his money where his mouth is. “

The popular term “goal post moving” has some particular relevance here. When politically motivated materialists are caught out deploying scientific rationales in their arguments which don’t withstand scrutiny, or are found to be based on outdated or suspect scientistic dogmas, their typical strategy is to immediately distance themselves from the line of argument they themselves or their comrades in social-war arms have just recently been seen deploying. Why, none of the best and brightest, those currently tenured at the best schools, are asserting THAT anymore!, they say.

But it is what they themselves, these everyday warriors have been arguing that is relevant.

Take for example this remark deposited with our friend Haidt.

Thus, Harriet Baber philosophy professor at the University of San Diego, on the average man and his sensibilities [preserved within a quote I had made, as she was later granted a mulligan by Haidt after she realized the likely effect of her unguarded outburst]:

“Why should we regard the moral universe of the lower classes and primitive people as a consequence of their ability to taste more moral flavors than those we poor WEIRDs can distinguish? … lower class people try to give a rationale in terms of harm for their gut feelings that sex between siblings, cleaning toilets with flag rages, etc. is bad by contriving scenarios involving harm. These poor, dumb, ignoramuses … I’m a liberal, one of your WEIRDs, and an academic. But I have nothing but hatred and contempt for working class Americans and members of non-Western cultures. And, c’mon Haidt: don’t you think that if these people get some education and financial security, they’ll become as WEIRD is us? The 6-dimension moral structure you describe is a defect–the illusion of stupid, unreflected, uneducated people. Our aim should be to dismantle their detestable shit cultures …”

Then there’s Alex Rosenberg of Duke [and the Duke rape case infamy]: laying down the rules which will explain to you why ultimately you had better not talk nonsense back to him about your natural rights and such,

” It’s fermions and bosons, and everything that can be made up of them, and nothing that can’t be made up of them. All the facts about fermions and bosons determine or “fix” all the other facts about reality and what exists in this universe or any other if, as physics may end up showing, there are other ones.”

Then there’s the scant-bearded little atheist warrior PZ Myers, on the modesty of his overarching aims:

“Science is our weapon, our god-killer. It’s the greatest tool humanity has ever invented –

… my brothers and sisters in atheism. We are not sheep; there are no shepherds here. I look out from this stage and I see 4000 pairs of hunter’s eyes, 4000 hunter’s minds, 4000 pairs of hunter’s hands. I see the primeval primate hunting band grown large and strong. I see us so confident in our strength that we laugh at our enemies. I see a people thinking and planning, fierce and focused, learning and building new tools to conquer new worlds.

You are not sheep. You, my brothers and sisters in atheism, are a fierce, coordinated hunting pack – men and women working together, and those other bastards have cause to fear us. So let’s do it: make them tremble as we demolish the city of god.”

Why shouldn’t they be granted mulligans, eh?

“DNV: Atheists fear death. Everybody does, but atheists fear it overwhelmingly, desperately, and need unhealthy, neurotic defensive mechanisms to cope with it. They use denial and suppression, and came together in herds to reinforce their elusive sense of meaning which they can not find in their empty souls. They became desperate when remain alone and need noble Cause and Sturm und Drung as a substitute for religion and serenity.”

I’ve said something same thing in words not too much different from your own: Saying that they probably suffer from an existential terror of insignificance, a fear of being a limited self of the kind which their worldview implies. Emotionalism, martial allusions, proclamations of cosmic unity, visionary agendas and social drama, themes of glorious self-sacrifice, or the sacrifice of others in the name of progress and brotherhood, etc., provides them with the distractions and antidotes they need to escape from depression and despair and to feel alive.

I still think the notion is partly accurate, and to some extent validated by their ever recurrent boasts that they have moved beyond any fear of death. They protest too much.

No doubt a vaunting self-asserting bronze age warrior, fearless of the inevitable, could also say “I don’t fear death.” as he drove his axe down into the skull of someone annoying.

The collective is not the step one is logically impelled to, by a recognition of, or supposition of, radical finitude.

By the way, many of you probably received this in your e-mail today, but in case you have not… http://www.livescience.com/27920-quantum-action-faster-than-light.html

thank you for making and proving the case that i put forth

you get a kewpie doll to show why the reason things are the way they are is because of a collective of people like you.

it certainly is not from people like me

i did not help erase the people who said things that they left desperately wants you to forget so they can use you…