[MD] Debate on Science_ReligionToday

[Case]

Case, two points ...
You said [of Dawkins] I don't care about his snotty attitude and he
makes senses to me, he is aces in my book.

[Ian]
But you would agree that "attitude" counts for something if your
objective is persuasion and a change of mind in the people who
disagree with you ? Or does being "scientifically right" entitle him
to "nuke the bastards" :-) ?

[Case]
There are a lot of bastards that need nuking. I still don't see what he has
said that is objectionable. If what he says scientifically is reasonable
however he spins it attitude wise strikes me as irrelevant.


You also said
> But it all seems to me to stem from the difficulty of attempting to
> rationalize ethics. Ethics is about what ought to be and that is a tough
> thing to justify.

[Ian]
But surely that is what the MoQ is about; to "rationalize" ethical
values, without falling into the objectivist trap or blind faith trap.
Probem solved ? That's why I'm here anyway.

[Case]
If that it is aim, it has failed miserably. Witness the endless political
and economic debates we have here. Not to mention Pirsig's own use of the
sports metaphor to explain why this doesn't work. It would seem that in some
sense the approach taken in the first century had some merit. It certainly
succeeded in uniting the West for 2,000 years. I know it sounds odd to be
boosting Dawkins on one hand and hinting that ethics should be adopted on
purely pragmatic grounds on the other. But what the heck nothing else seems
to be working either...