I’m afraid your mind reading skills need as much work as your expository skills. From your own source: “To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.” (Emphasis added to assist comprehension)
Oh, dear lord. I’ve encountered another one of those idiots brandishing his dichotomy sword, declaring that I must either worship science or despise it. The scientific epistemology has its purpose as does any tool. But it does not find truth and it does not solve problems. Man has the science and the technology to feed every person on the planet, and yet people starve to death every day. It is a man’s heart, and not his brain, that guides his moral decisions.
I’m afraid I don’t see where I have “bowdlerized” you. I quoted passages, unadulterated, here, here, here, , and [URL=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5770629&postcount=98]here. Please indicate where I have “skewed the content”, as you emphasize. I have disagreed with you, to be sure, but I have not bowdlerized, expurgated, suppressed, censored, or otherwise repressed anything you have written.
On the other hand, you seem to have not problem is twisting my statements to derive an intent which is not indicated, as with the first paragraph of this post, and continue (here, first paragraph) to conflate serious points I have made and take offense at a satorical quote despite multiple attempts to indicate that it was not to be taken seriously. You know, the one from those “obscure pop fiction novels” that have sold over 15 million copies and is shortly to be released as a major motion picture.
Actually, you established that dichotomy by stating, without qualification,
All I did was extend it to the logical conclusion, i.e. science and technology do not solve problems; therefore, one would be as well off isolated, naked, and toolless. In fact, science and technology have solved many problems that love, compassion, brotherhood, what have you, cannot solve alone. You are correct in noting that science, misapplied, can have negligent effects and that famine in the modern world is a shameful result of political failings, but neither good intentions, morals, or “scientific epistemology” (which would the study of the nature of scientific knowledge) will start a fire or cure an illness. That requires applied science and technology for a solution.
And I’m bewildered by your non sequitur in the last sentance of the above quote. War and disaster may yet very well wipe out humanity, but this hardly argues against knowing more about the universe, and more than you should avoid going to school because you will someday die.
The petty insults, by the way, do not add validity to your claims or make you appear more authoritative, either. Feel free to indulge in such if it makes you happy, but don’t labor under the impression that adding invective and vulgarity to the discourse contributes anything or makes you astute.
I’m not complaining about the dumb monkey task of copying text and pasting it inside vB tags, you invidious twit. Quite obviously, I didn’t misquote myself. I’m talking about your malforming my assertions in your responses.
Honestly, I am not a necessary entity toward having “not problem is twisting” your “satorical” quotes. You do a fine job on your own. Despite the laborious tedium of parsing the all-your-base-are-belong-to-us syntax of your posts, I believe I have been quite patient and diligent in my attempts to formulate them into something comprehensible and respond to them. Moreover, your dodge ball tactics only exacerbate the ennui. When proved wrong, you merely giggle and blush, demuring that you are joking. When caught plagiarizing, you declare that you are unaware of the board’s most famous pop culture reference. When challenged to provide epistemic or alethic evidence of your assertions, you dig into your favorites folder and paste links to pseudoscientific prattle about superluminal fantasies. And when called out for the sheer rudeness of your thread hijack, you feign insouciance, averring that “I can’t say that I care about you enough one way or the other to dislike you.” And yet, here you are, mustering all your canons and firing them in the dark, under the mistaken impression that you’re being besieged.
Nonsense. You morphed my “science and technology do not solve problems” into your “you should stop using a computer, strip down to skin, and live in forest as far away from any of that nasty, icky technology as you can.” You established that if I do not kneel at the altar of naturalism, then I must be Ted Kaczynski. A more stark — not to mention ridiculous — dichotomy can hardly be conceived.
Oh, what hand-wringing bullshit. Popcorn doesn’t solve problems either. Do you advocate that we round it up from all our homes and haul it out to sea to dump it overboard?
Nothing solves anything alone. Problem solving is a human activity — a praxis that is volitional. The hyspostatized voodoo doll that you call science is a laughable caricature.
Once again, your sloppy syntax and careless writing forces me to try to finish your sentence in an attempt to discern your meaning. Your remark that a scientific epistemology “would [be?] the study of the nature of scientific knowledge” is both pointless and amphibolous. Clearly, in the context I used it, the phrase means an epistemology of empiricism, as opposed to an epistemology of deduction, or of revelation, or of indution, and so on. This, I think, fairly summarizes your technique; i.e., forming an assertion into something that you believe is assailable, and then addressing the scare crow that you have built.
You monstrous slut. Does your unabashed misrepresentation have no limit? I have not ever argued against knowing more about the universe. I have, in fact, argued the opposite: “How about we all just have some basic respect for others and their property? We aren’t “discovering” anything. To be dis-covered, something must first be covered. Temper your zeal to explore **with greater knowledge ** about what effect your exploration might have.” (Emphasis added to assist comprehension).
Could you possibly be more hypocritical? Not only did you swoop in to defend the barbarians who slaughtered my ancestors, but you have painted me as the Unabomber — an unintellectual savage who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and needs to purchase a dictionary, who responds as though he is on the verge of a stroke, who has a Marsha Brady complex. You have engaged me as though you fancy yourself to be Neo, fighting one-handed with an air of quiet boredom against a hundred pathetic Agent Smiths. I believe it is time I stopped being nice to you, until you apologize with sincerity.
Before you spend too much time on a reply, Stranger On A Train, you should consider the bigger picture. Liberal doesn’t actually know anything much, and knows least of all about anything involving science, economics or logic.
His answer to you, in short form, reads “I know I am, what are you? Nyah nyah”.
It doesn’t realy deserve anything but a dismissive response from you.
Isn’t it just possible that humans could examine, explore, and learn without destroying? Not every exploration results in annihilation. The British explored Australia without using extermination. The French and British explored Canada without committing genocide. I doubt a little robot probe will decide to"sterilize" everything if finds like some sort of Vejur. I doubt we will be sending gunslinging cowboys out to kill everything they find.
Besides, this thread starts out talking about telescopes, not heavily armed Conquistadors. The distances involved, and the time it takes to cover those distances makes it moot anyway. We just can’t get to any really far off places. All we can do is point a scope at them and see how they were long long ago.
