[ExI] Religious Idiocy Triumphs Over Science Yet Again

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 1:47 PM, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Maybe try and learn more about the universe by studying native Hawaiian
> religion.  Especially cosmogonies. I've found that religions around the
> world tend to retain a similar universal origin story that is very
> compelling, abstract, and similar to the scientific perspective.
>
> The humans of old studied the heavens and natural events for hundreds of
> thousands of years; I think that gives their protophysics intuition
> credibility.  Imagine you had a computer that, for a hundred millennia,
> recorded the position of the sun and stars, weather, natural selection of
> flora and fauna, geophysical processes, and how all of these interacted.  I
> wouldn't be surprised if that computer produced valuable insight.
>
> Back then when all there was to do was look at shit, have sex, and try not
> to die, everyone thought about nature all the time.  The stars were what
> they got instead of TV.  I think they were all probably smarter than the
> average American.  And they knew how to survive.  Unlike, I'm positive,
> most of us--but I wouldn't be surprised if Spike had some boy scout know
> how.
>
> Side question, I wonder, when did humans start having sex like
> today--passionately, and with with the pleasure of both parties considered?
>

There's a difference between learning about these cultures, myths, and
ideas and using particular edicts by spokespeople for those cultures to
decide specific policies or project. We can study cultures and the like and
still build a telescope on that mountain. (Of course, not building it there
does NOT stop the whole science of astronomy. There are plenty of other
setbacks and priorities that could equally end up going against telescope
construction there.)

Would you hold the same position, I wonder, if Christian or Judaic
fundamentalists wanted a fossil site to go unexplored because their sacred
books or traditions -- as interpreted by them, of course -- said the site
must remain untouched? Or take it to a further extreme, some disease
shouldn't be studied in an attempt to treat or cure it because it might
offend the gods or god?

Also, regarding these ancient cosmogonies, yes, they might code something,
but it might tell us far less about the universe and more about the human
psyche. That's not so bad, but one needn't, for the most, keep a particular
space sacred simply because of that. (It might be different if this were an
archaeological site, where the issue was destroying the site to build
something else, where other places might do as well. To be sure, Hawaii
isn't the only place to put a telescope.) This reminds me of things like
scapulimancy, where this does seem to tell us something about humans, but I
wouldn't want to base where I got my next meal on it. (See _The Statues
That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island_ by Terry Hunt and
Carl Lipo. They bring up how scapulimancy might have randomized hunting
game in a way that helped those practicing it survive -- because the
practicing group wouldn't over-hunt an area. Of course, if that's why it
worked, the practitioners were blissfully unaware of that. The same sort of
thing might apply to astrology: it doesn't really do what it says it does,
but it has other effects which make it stick around as something humans do.
This is probably how we should study those ancient cosmogonies.)

I can also see this being a money issue -- maybe intentionally so. Spike
raised this issue, but wouldn't it be good, as a politician, to have
warring factions one could play peacemaker for and charge a fee to? I'm not
saying that's what's happening here. Just tossing out the notion that it
might be what sometimes does happen.

Regards,

Dan
  Sample my Kindle books via:
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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