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Wesley J. Smith slams Steve Pinker’s defense of scientism

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Here:

Pinker thinks “science” leads to humanism:

This humanism, which is inextricable from a scientific understanding of the world, is becoming the de facto morality of modern democracies, international organizations, and liberalizing religions, and its unfulfilled promises define the moral imperatives we face today.

Quite the contrary, the so-called humanism of the Pinkers, Richard Dawkins, and the Peter Singers of the world tend decidedly toward utilitarianism, which in turn, leads to anti humanism because it established moral value based on capacities, not on equal value for all humanity. Add in Singer’s animals deserve “equal consideration” utilitarianism, and you have a prescription for the instrumental use of living human beings.

And the latest craze is plants are people too.

Like many fellow scientism adherents, Pinker goes back and forth between science and morality. For example:

Moreover, science has contributed—directly and enormously—to the fulfillment of these values. If one were to list the proudest accomplishments of our species (setting aside the removal of obstacles we set in our own path, such as the abolition of slavery and the defeat of fascism), many would be gifts bestowed by science.

Based on science, what is wrong with slavery? It’s just the powerful prevailing over and forcing their way on the less powerful–a common feature of the natural world. More.

See also: Darwinian materialist Steve Pinker reassures us that scientism is not the enemy

Comments
Scientism's Whence and Whither . What Holds In The Real World The Nobel Prize Committee Is Wrong. There is Definitely NO Higgs Particle. Gravitons are the elementary particles of the universe. Origin and nature of "may be gravitational waves" are continuously released gravitons since the last big-bang as singularity mass reconverts to energy. ============================ On The Essence And Matrix Of The Universe-Life The following three sentences are the shortest data-based TOE. Seriously. Very seriously. The clearer the shorter Natural Selection to Self-Replication is Gravity - Self-replication is the ultimate mode of natural selection is the essence and drive and purpose of the universe. Period. - The pre-Big-Bang singularity is the ultimate self-replication (SR) of the cycling mass-energy universe. Period. (mother of universal SR mode…) - Earth’s RNA nucleotides life is just one of the myriad modes of self-replication. Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century) http://universe-life.com/ http://universe-life.com/2012/11/14/701/ -The 20yrs development, and comprehensive data-based scientism worldview, in a succinct format. -The Genome is a base organism evolved, and continuously modified, by the genes of its higher organism as their functional template. - Everything in the universe derives from mass-energy duality, from the universe cycle between its two poles all-mass/all-energy. - The Origin Of Gravitons is the ONLY thing unknown-unexplained in the Scientism Universe. PS: Spoon feeding The universe is a (circa 20 hillion yrs?) cyclic affair between all-mass and all-energy poles. NATURAL SELECTION of a mass format mandates energy intake because since the big-bang the resolved mass is reconverting at a constant rate from inert mass to energy, to moving mass. The mass that reconverts to energy SELF-REPLICATES to mass, in black holes, for the eventual re-singularity. The energy-to-mass SELF-REPLICATION process is GRAVITY. All this is enabled and goes on and mandated by/due to the small size and shape and inter-attraction of the gravitons that enable zero distance between them to re-form singularity. I hope that now it is understood what gravity is and why it is the monotheism of the universe…DH ================================================= Black Holes Whence and Whither A. Black Holes Whence http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/345481/title/Cohabiting_black_holes_challenge_theory http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/351747/description/Milky_Ways_black_hole_pulling_in_gas_cloud From http://universe-life.com/2011/12/13/21st-century-science-whence-and-whither/ http://universe-life.com/2012/09/02/all-the-mass-of-the-universe-formed-at-the-pre-big-bang-singularity/ Galactic clusters formed by conglomeration? No. Galactic clusters formed by Big-Bang's fragments dispersion, the released built-in singularity’s stresses, evidenced by their Newtonian behavior including their separation acceleration. The big bang is the shattering of the short-lived singularity mass into fragments that later became galactic clusters. This is inflation. The shattering is the start of movement of the shatters i.e. the start of reconversion of mass into energy, which is mass in motion. This reconversion proceeds at a constant rate since the big bang as the resolution of gravitons, their release from their shatters-clusters, proceeds at constant rate due to their weak specific force due to their small size. B. Black Holes Whither http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/345421/title/Team_glimpses_black_hole%E2%80%99s_secrets From http://universe-life.com/2011/12/10/eotoe-embarrassingly-obvious-theory-of-everything/ A commonsensible conjecture is that Universe Contraction is initiated following the Big-Bang event, as released moving gravitons (energy) start reconverting to mass (gravity) and eventually returning to black holes, steadily leading to the re-formation of The Universe Singularity, simultaneously with the inflation and expansion, i.e. that universal expansion and contraction are going on simultaneously. Conjectured implications are that the Universe is a product of A Single Universal Black Hole with an extremely brief singularity of ALL the gravitons of the universe, which is feasible and possible and mandated because gravitation is a very weak force due to the small size of the gravitons, the primal mass-energy particles of the universe. This implies also that when all the mass of the presently expanding universe is consumed by the present black holes, expansion will cease and be replaced with empansion back to THE Single Universal Black Hole. Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century) =========================== The Universe, Some Updates What Big Banged To Produce The Universe From : http://universe-life.com/2011/12/10/eotoe-embarrassingly-obvious-theory-of-everything/ A commonsensible conjecture is that Universe Contraction is initiated following the Big-Bang event, as released moving gravitons (energy) start reconverting to mass (gravity) and eventually returning to black holes, steadily leading to the re-formation of The Universe Singularity, simultaneously with the inflation and expansion, i.e. that universal expansion and contraction are going on simultaneously. Conjectured implications are that the Universe is a product of A Single Universal Black Hole with an extremely brief singularity of ALL the gravitons of the universe, which is feasible and possible and mandated because gravitation is a very weak force due to the small size of the gravitons, the primal mass-energy particles of the universe. This implies also that when all the mass of the presently expanding universe is collected and stored at very low energy level in black holes, expansion will cease and be replaced with empansion back to THE Single Universal Black Hole. Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century) ==================== Universe Inflation And Expansion Inflation on Trial Astrophysicists interrogate one of their most successful theories http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/342219/title/Inflation_on_Trial Commonsense: Inflation and expansion are per Newton. Since the Big Bang galactic clusters loose mass at constant rate. Mass, gravitons, continue escaping at constant rate from their Big Bang fragments-clusters thus becoming energy, mass in motion, thus thrusting the clusters. Constant thrust and decreasing galactic clusters weight accelerate the separation of clusters from each other. Common sense. Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century) http://universe-life.com/Dov Henis
November 2, 2013
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I note he had to get in about slavery and fascism. If he's saying no right and wrong he knows , being a Jew, that it can be said why is fascism wrong? He's still being politically correct while trying to overthrow moral foundations. Just hopeless. By the way neither defeat was the highest thing for our species. relatively they minor things. In fact slavery was very minor and of less importance then the killing in the civil war. Fascism was about foreigners and not more important then our selves or mankind before or since. Its relative to humanity.Robert Byers
August 10, 2013
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OT: IQ 200+ | Smartest person ever (1 of 4) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mjIO5YVaxo Part one (of four) of a meta-analysis ranking of the world's 37 greatest geniuses, child prodigies, and thinkers ever said to have had an IQ of 200 or above, with a countdown to the #1 all-time smartest person ever:bornagain77
August 10, 2013
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As to 'Scientism', the belief that only science can give us reliable answers, I believe that the Materialistic Atheists have undercut their own reliance on science to give them reliable answers since our best science from quantum mechanics, especially with the violation of the Leggett inequality, now clearly indicates that the universe is theistic, not materialistic, in its most foundational basis,,,
Divinely Planted Quantum States - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCTBygadaM4#t=156s Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html
Thus, if atheists were consistent in their belief that only science can reliably reveal truth to us (scientism) then they should by all rights become theists now! :)bornagain77
August 10, 2013
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semi-related note: Darwin's Deeper Doubt Today: Theist Alvin Plantinga vs. Atheist Stephen Law - August 6, 2013 http://blogs.christianpost.com/science-and-faith/darwins-deeper-doubt-today-theist-alvin-plantinga-vs-atheist-stephen-law-17319/ Content and Natural Selection - Alvin Plantinga - 2011 http://www.andrewmbailey.com/ap/Content_Natural_Selection.pdfbornagain77
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