Egypt is an Inspiration

I've been watching Al-Jazeera to catch up on the Egyptian uprising link


The images are an amazing sight to behold because they're of regular men and women standing up in protest to change their government. They're persons that want freedom. They're an example of how people can bond together to affect political change, and it is change of this nature that the United States could benefit from. They want democracy. I am not against democracy. But our politics do not account for the political nature of economics, and as economic power becomes intertwined in political power this is a poor interpretive stance. The economic is the political. With this message in mind, everyday persons in the United States could bind together in a general union ran by workers. Those who stock shelves, wait tables, and tend bars could have a political voice. At present there is no labor-left party within the United States, not one with power. But there could be one. The images of Egypt, of regular persons wanting freedom for themselves, give examples of how regular persons can stand up against the social constructs to make a better tomorrow. It makes one think that political struggle isn't an entirely depressing affair.

Rationality

I've stated on here that I believe rationality ought to be part of politics. I go so far as to say that I am a sort of rationalist. I say "sort of" because "Reason", "rationality", and so on, don't mean the same thing to everyone. Not only do people disagree with the meaning and implications of rationalism, they also feel divided on the issue. My "sort of" is rhetorical: I mean to say "reserve your judgment for after you hear me out"

I believe that rationality can be summed up with a single, simple maxim: Find reasons for your beliefs which are logically consistent. When you can no longer do this, acknowledge this, but continue to reflect on this hinge proposition.

There are no appeals to a universal "making-sense-ness" within the heads of reasonable persons. There is no pointing at the unreasonable, or routing out the irrational, or exercise of epistemic chauvinism. That isn't to say that rationality can't or hasn't been used for these or other negative ends. It certainly can. However, rationality is, in the end, a loose position. It is this looseness that I wish to point out.

Suppose I claimed that I believed in God. If someone then asked why, I would say, "Because I experience his existence every day" If they retorted, "Why don't I experience this, if he is so wonderful?" I would reply, "I am ignorant. I wish he made this known to me, but I'm afraid that I can't say"

This is a rational position. It is a position I disagree with, but it is a rational position. It is epistemically rational. There is a difference between rationality and proof. Having reasons for your beliefs, finding warrant, and applying these constitently is all that is required to be rational. "Proof" is the deduction of a position from axioms. However, argument, and reasons for positions, are much more varied than deductive systems. One may only use deductive systems to justify their position, but it's not necessary for rationality.

I chose "God" because I'm mostly speaking to that group of persons who think that concluding that God does not exist is the only conclusion a rational person who is honest or not arguing for "Feel-good" constructs could come to. Rationality is not so restrictive that the atheist/agnostic/materialist/whatever world-view is a for-ordained conclusion. Beliefs as divergent as "There is no purpose in the world" or "There is a God" or "The World is nothing but Mind" can be justified underneath the rubric of rationality . We can rationally disagree and discover where, and possibly why, we diverge.

This doesn't reflect on the "truth" of either claim, or any claim within rationality. Rationality and "truth" are two separate issues: At base, if it were true that irrationality is "true", then rationality would be against "truth". All this is intended to do is point out that "rationality" really, really, really doesn't say that much, and that therefore theism, disagree with it or no, can be rational.

THE experiment of my undergraduate career

... is making a standard curve. Today I came into lab, and we were prepping yet another standard curve. I wonder to myself: Is this what Chemists do? Are we always interested in identifying either the identity or concentrations of some substance? Is this only specific to analytical chemistry, or does it translate elsewhere?

Not that I would really mind, if that were the case. I'm really good at it, now. R^2 values are regularly .999whatever. Standard deviations are regularly quite tolerable, and this is all by hand. But I also keep on thinking: What can I do with these tools? What can I explain within chemistry with this experimental-theoretical framework? Is there really much left in chemistry to pursue outside of explaining things outside of itself, or improving the apparatusus to be more automated, more precise, more accurate, but not novel?

At conferences I've seen a lot of interesting computer modeling projects, where the standard parameters determined experimentally are shown to be able to be calculated from basic quantum mechanically based algorithms -- stuff like the change in gibbs, enthalpy, or energy contributions from solvents, solvent structures, and other modular neatness. But I can't help but think that there has to be some greater theoretical project than simply increasing the resolution of our models, improving the efficiency for identifying substances, or making more accurate estimations of important physical parameters. These would be termed core chemical projects. All other projects seem to involve elucidation of other systems for some other purpose, whether it be interest in a biochemical system, or improvement of some industrial practice.

But I'm stuck as to where, or if I tried something new if it'd even be interesting or desirable to try; PhD's earned in respected fields are likely more marketable, after all. I suppose I could memorize a few more reactions, and what they look like, to be better prepared to identify oddities when I see them, or have a handle on unexpected events at a more intuitive level. But I wonder: What novel thing can chemistry do today?

For Accommodationism

There is a current amongst the atheist blogs I read regarding accommodationist vs. confrontationalist stances. This is my argument for accommodationism as the superior position of the two.

Confrontationalism lacks any credible epistemic basis to discredit religion at large, and this is, from what I can tell, what it tries to do. If it does not do this, then the following is incorrect. When I say religion at large, I mean all the predominant religious positions within culture today. We'll say Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism. Further, it lacks the moral basis to discredit religion at large. These are the two main issues brought against religion by confrontational atheists. I think that these positions are the product of arguing against weak positions, positions I also stand against, but when generalized to all religions then atheism is making too dogmatic a claim. At that point we're talking politics. If politics, then there are more important issues than atheism to discuss, like war, class, capitalism, genocide, health care, gay rights, science education, and so on. Further, there are religious allies to these political causes, and so if politics, then accommodationism is better for supporting these political points, as well as building a healthy pluralistic environment.


On epistemology: The central claim here is that religions are false. The basis that religions are evaluated to be false are scientific claims. However, there exist scientists who are religious. To relegate these scientists to the special, no-counter example corner of "Their beliefs are contradictory" is to play the no true Scotsman card. As such, I have good reason to believe that science does not prove religion false.

To know and to believe are two separate things. To know something requires an argument, whether it be a "negative claim" or not. On "Negatives":I can prove a negative, such as the square root of 2 is not rational. Negatives can be proven via the modus tollens inference, or the proof by contradiction. In fact, the often used problem of evil builds itself on the proof by contradiction. However, I don't think the problem of evil works to prove that God does not exist, but only that God is not in this exact way that some rationalist theists thought he was. But, for the major world religions, you didn't need such a proof by contradiction -- God's nature is explicated in far greater detail within the religious tracts than some simple, vague Three-O reference.

Lastly, there is an emphasis on evidence based claims. Why, and what does it even mean? If all we mean is, "Well, it's nice to have data", then I have no problem. If what we mean is ,"the existence of pH meters proves that God does not exist", then I'm claiming that this is a little senseless. The whole "evidence based claims" meme sounds great as a talking point, works fine against creationism, but could really do with a little more ground work to support it.


On moral claims: Atheists are personally moral, as are many theists. To point to the Catholic abuses of children, the crusades, and so on doesn't say anything. You need to show that religion is the causal culprit. Without a causal argument one must admit that atheism leads to mass murder, as the USSR performed mass murder. Clearly no one in the atheist community believes this, so one should admit that the correlation between theism and child molestation doesn't follow causally.

Further, if the atheists lack an epistemic basis to claim that religion is false, and continue to claim that religion is false for epistemic reasons, then the atheists are loosing moral credibility with respect to truth-claims in that they are demonstrating an inability to self-reflect, which is an important part of moral deliberation.


As neither epistemic or moral claims counter religion as a whole very well, we should get down to the brass tacks of politics. Accommodationism is a superior politic to confrontationalism because it's more honest about our epistemic certainty, it allows bridges to be built between the atheist community and theist communities who are friendly towards the same political end goals, such as gay rights and science education, and it plays a better PR role. In fact, accommodationism is the correct position, not the weak and scared position that's too afraid to "say anything". Accommodationists are skeptical of strong negative claims, and find things outside of metaphysical speculation, such as science education vs. thoughts on the existence of god, to be more important. As the confrontationlists have said, let us not mince words. Religion, at large, can stand on its own two feet, and atheists don't have a good basis to claim that it doesn't do so in its entirety. The confrontationalist position is poorly thought out, lacks self reflection, and the conclusions it purports to prove are simply wrong if it's swinging its rhetoric at religion as a whole. As such, accommodationism is the only position that is epistemically and morally worthwhile, whether or not confrontationalists are angry about this fact or not. While there are some religions that deserve scorn and derision, the claim that all major religions are false is simply an unsupported belief.

Weighing in on a national tragedy in an uncomfortable way

There has been much talk about the shooting of Representative Giffords and the death of innocent bystanders. Many causal sources have been proposed:

CSM reports that Europe believes that the political climate in general is at fault, and this is due to America's decline in power and its failure in two world wars. link
Sarah Palin and extreme Right-wing rhetoric link
Public School systems link
Ayn Rand, Mein Kampf, Das Kapital, and George Orwell link
Some "They do it, too!" from the right link
Some point to gun laws link


As long as we're weighing in political opinions, I might as well take a swing: the shooters actions are a clear indictment of capital. Capitalism encourages news sources to instead offer flash, fiction, and meta-commentary that conform to our predispositions -- this brings in a larger market share of viewers. The need for counter-factuals, scientific inquiry, and criticism is abolished. All that matters in every walk of life is profit. This drive for profit increases the number of persons, which, due to our limited capacity as thinkers, increases the number of sub-cultures which develop. Capitalism, in pursuit of the greater spectacle, further exacerbates these sub-groups so that they lose more and more common pragmatic rules of communication that are a necessary precondition for rational discourse. Each sub-group obtains its own epistemic values and assigns a differing distribution of weight to facts presented, which creates discontinuities between large groups of people. These discontinuities are further exacerbated when we attempt rational discourse, and noise is generated.

The internet is not to blame. This internet is to be praised for making this reality more apparent.

With noise, misinformation, confusion, political turmoil, meta-commentary, and economic hardship comes a climate that generates a person willing to shoot a politician for unknown, indistinct, un-rational reasons. And, for those thinking this a ridiculous causal hypothesis, I couldn't agree more. But I ask you this: Is this a better explication than anything offered so far?


If we were really interested in causal factors, then we'd likely wait on police reports or turn to the field of psychology. Everything offered in the news thus far has been sociology/politics. We're using the event to construct a narrative which argues for our politics -- we have a political axe to grind. I don't think this is even necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps we should reevaulate our rhetoric in light of having what that rhetoric means being shown to us. We should certainly reevaluate the role capitalism plays in everything complained of so far, such as irrational political discourse. However, as I am a proponent of rationality within political discourse, I think it best to understand that the news presented thus far has been political speculation -- like metaphysical speculation, but less structured.