JS Mill, free speech, and creationism/global warming

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Killing people is disallowed equally for all messages.

Killing people can be an integral part of the message. See example.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ramo
It's favoring one set of assumptions that make up high school level math over the various others that one can come up with to create different logical structures. The issue isn't evidence, it's convention (i.e. consensus).

It doesn't speak to the truth of those assumptions (there isn't any inherent, of course), but their usefulness as tools.

[Drake Tungsten]

As a practical matter, allowing intelligent design to be taught in some fashion alongside evolution in schools is probably a winning proposition for evolution supporters, in the long term. By giving intelligent design a place in the curriculum, you take away the cachet it currently has by virtue of being banned by the authorities while allowing students to see for themselves the vast difference in the amount of supporting evidence between evolution and intelligent design. If you properly inform students and let them make up their own minds, it's hard to imagine that most of them won't choose evolution as the more likely scenario...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Killing people can be an integral part of the message. See example.

I'm not convinced by that example.

Regardless, I'll concede this simply because killing people (or any type of violent action, really) isn't integral to any of the messages we're discussing. You were directly comparing killing babies to teaching creationism in schools. That is a strawman.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


What would give you that impression? I've found these inconsistencies in my beliefs before and I'm sure I'll find them again. If you don't find them I doubt you're intellectually honest with yourself.

I don't freak out about them. I think for a while and resolve them. It's not that complicated, and this was one of the ones which occurred to me when I wasn't even a teenager yet.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


I'm not convinced by that example.

Regardless, I'll concede this simply because killing people (or any type of violent action, really) isn't integral to any of the messages we're discussing. You were directly comparing killing babies to teaching creationism in schools. That is a strawman.

No, I wasn't. I was saying that an absolutist statement on free speech is ridiculous for that reason.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I don't freak out about them.

Posting a thread asking for discussion constitutes freaking out?

I think for a while and resolve them. It's not that complicated, and this was one of the ones which occurred to me when I wasn't even a teenager yet.

It's occured to me before too, but I never cared enough to start a thread on it.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
As a practical matter, allowing intelligent design to be taught in some fashion alongside evolution in schools is probably a winning proposition for evolution supporters, in the long term. By giving intelligent design a place in the curriculum, you take away the cachet it currently has by virtue of being banned by the authorities while allowing students to see for themselves the vast difference in the amount of supporting evidence between evolution and intelligent design. If you properly inform students and let them make up their own minds, it's hard to imagine that most of them won't choose evolution as the more likely scenario...

Bull****. Most people are horrendously stupid.

[Ramo]

I want schools to start teaching that the Holocaust never happened. There's this huge conspiracy that prevents people from publishing about this truth in academic journals. ZOGGG

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Look, allowing people to speak is a good idea, but limits are required. If their speech violates some more important ideal then it must be limited. If your speech involves killing babies, or using a government soapbox to promulgate a crypto-religious viewpoint among a captive audience of children, then tough ****ing titties.

Killing babies is obviously worse than preventing people from using it as part of their speech. It's not obvious that the same is true re: teaching creationism. By juxtaposing them you're trying to say they're similar cases, which is absurd.

[Drake Tungsten]

Bull****. Most people are horrendously stupid.

Even horrendously stupid people can tell the difference between 'lots of evidence' and 'no evidence'...

[Arrian]

Bull****. Most people are horrendously stupid.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ramo
I want schools to start teaching that the Holocaust never happened. There's this huge conspiracy that prevents people from publishing about this truth in academic journals. ZOGGG

Are you going to post anything useful? As I've said, I've made the same goddamned arguments before. I know what they are. I don't see that they necessarily outweight the infallibility argument.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Bull****. Most people are horrendously stupid.

Even horrendously stupid people can tell the difference between 'lots of evidence' and 'no evidence'...

No, they can't.

[Ramo]

It doesn't speak to the truth of those assumptions (there isn't any inherent, of course), but their usefulness as tools.

It doesn't even address the assumptions (except, possibly, at higher level high school classes). What a terrible bias we're imposing on students...