Black Wolf

This is a bit off topic, but do you really live in South Africa? I was wondering if there were many Objectivists there. Unfortunately, this kind of scientific elitism is dominant in the scientific community. People should be looking for knowledge from someone who is conceptually equipped to deal with a broad range of topics, not someone who specializes and sharpens only one skill. The example this guy provided in the video claiming I would look for a doctor that specializes is a bad example that's not even based on the right premise, because I probably wouldn't look for a doctor who specialized way too much. I would probably even ask a physician's assistant before anyone else.

I have heard of this incident, yes. I guess a quote by Ghandi is applicable here. First, they ignore you. Then, they mock you. Then, they fight you. Then, you win.

From what I remember, "Consciousness" is only the second properly basic/axiom of Objectivism. I have been studying Ayn Rand for about a year and a half now, and I've yet to come across anything that says that consciousness can't be magnified to chemical or physical reactions.

I think Karl Marx once complained that technology is bad because that would mean less labor for the working class. Obama could have only gotten such a crazy idea from him

The biggest problem with this argument is that volition, as has been observed in living things available to us, is in many ways dependent on physical motions. You would have to ask... "What caused the volition"?

There's an Australian former geologist on youtube that goes by the alias of "potholer54", to discuss what he believes to be the media's misrepresentation of science. His targets include creationists, evolution deniers, and global warming skeptics. I am generally impressed with the guy's attempts to be objective - In this video, although he seems to be implying that the low number of (what he considers to be) qualified climatologists disputing AGW means anything, he doesn't do what most people do and attack their sources of income. He even admits he's not an authority on this issue (despite this admission, however, he has no problem deeming other people as non-experts) But I'm having a lot of problems with this video still. This video promotes attacking someone based on their qualifications, based on their academic credentials, based on their authority. The problem I have with this video is the notion that any subject of climatology, a science that is dependent on many other sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, geophysics) requires dismissal by "authorities" on physics, chemistry, etc. You can have physics, chemistry, and biology without climatology, but you can't have climatology without the aforementioned three sciences. It sounds like a classic example of shifting the goalposts. Why exactly does there need to be an "authority"? Isn't there a better way of becoming scientifically literate without relying on the "Experts"?

Just trying to understand the argument, not attack straw men. Thanks for clearing it up. But it still seems to me that this contains the error of arbitrary assumptions. I assume that when you say "volition", in the context of a dichotomy between outside forces and volition, that means it moved by itself. What still remains unclear, is the difference between "The physical universe moved itself" and "An intelligent being set the physical universe in motion". I did read the posts between you and Ninth Doctor, by the way, and I'm still not convinced that the "intelligent being" is not an arbitrary extra step. Maybe you've had bad experiences with atheists in the past, but please don't accuse me of attacking straw men until it seriously seems like I am doing that. It makes it really hard for me to understand what you're arguing, and it'd be more helpful if you elaborated.

Erm, I meant that nobody actually believes "something came from nothing", ie: ex-nihilo. Hmmmm... The Argument of the Unmoved Mover. Wait.. but if someone claims that something can't be put in motion without something else putting it in motion, wouldn't an unmoved mover be contradictory to the claim that there had to be an unmoved mover? After all, if an unmoved mover is putting something in motion, is that not motion itself? So he is put in motion without being moved by something. The Argument of the First Cause. The claim that nothing can create itself, so there had to be a first cause. So God, in other words.. didn't have to create himself? Isn't Yhwh referred to as "the self-existing one"?

This is a straw man, as I'm sure will probably be addressed by posts that I didn't get to read yet. Most people don't actually believe in ex-nihilo creation, and I would go as far as to say that the people who say they do unwillingly fell into your trap. It's a false dichotomy. "Either this universe was created by an intelligent being, or it was caused by nothing". As far as "the infinite regress of causes is logically possible" Keep in mind that you are probably making assumptions that infinity in this context is being used in the context of absolute infinity. Also, if you could actually show me what Thomas Aquinas' proofs are, that would be nice.

This may count as "Mesopotamia", but I feel the list is not big enough. The Islamic Golden Age had many features of a golden age, and they were unrivaled by any other civilization during 800-1300AD.

Totally

It was apparently based on "objective criteria". Objectively, Gary Johnson would accelerate their demise/

This strikes me as something that you can't really "prove", it's just a matter of statistics. This conjecture is set up so that they will always be integers. What has to happen, in order for this number to reach 1, is that there must be a result that is a natural power of 2. Statistically, that is bound to happen if we're to do this to infinity.

That article was definitely atrocious. I'm honestly surprised that this wasn't addressed. "Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away. But ARE you letting them see what they're capable of, if you won't even let them decide what extracurricular activities they take? Well, in all fairness to the Mommy Dearest that wrote this article, the article was an excerpt from her book. She never claimed it was a "how to" guide, she just recalled memories of her parenting trips. She never actually admitted that she went way too far, but she said "I didn't want to lose my daughter". Kinda seems to me like another way of saying "Mistakes were made" - didn't want to actually say that she went way overboard, and sacrificed the happiness of her daughters for superficial success. I still think it's kind of disingenuous for her to entitle this excerpt from a book with "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior". She posted it in a way to make it look like she was seriously advocating this.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/05/19/obama.israel.palestinians/index.html

I saw this video. I felt that, although his praise of Ayn Rand was a nice change, I can't help but feel he doesn't fully understand Ayn Rand's philosophy. Ayn Rand was against the notion that helping people is a primary virtue, and I hope he doesn't get turned off by Objectivism by the time he understands it for what it is. But what crude video did he do about her?

I do believe he once went on RussiaToday to talk to Thom Hartmann. He might get less hostility from Kokesh.

I took one Sociology class. Guy was sort of a liberal, but since had a bit of an accent, I don't think he was ready to push an agenda too aggressively. Same thing with Political Science. You could sort of tell that she was a liberal. It's something you gotta be desensitized to. The worst class I ever took in regard to political bias was Early American Literature. The guy was very opinionated, and said many things that would offend people, and he was so over-the-top about it. He said that homosexuality only exists in Africa because Christian ministries would rape little boys, he said that "They murder people in the military", he said that the police is a conspiracy for white men to kill black people, oh God the list goes on. On the plus side, I made many friends over my mutual hatred for the professor. (I wonder what a guy look this would respond to reading Berliner's article on Columbus day) Thomas Sowell once said something about liberals being concentrated in institutions where ideas don't need to work. Unfortunately, these institutions where ideas don't "need to work" also churn out journalists and writers.

You know you're a muslim if you drink, smoke, and frequent strip clubs, but you won't eat pork.

There really isn't enough information given from what you provided whether or not it's biased. You should also avoid assuming that the textbook content is a reflection of how the teacher will teach their class

How do you conclude this from what I posted? How do you?

http://www.dianahsieh.com/docs/faq.pdf Diane Hsieh has written about qualia here.

I resent that someone has to have a "scholarly knowledge" of something, before making judgments. Especially if your standard of a proper evaluation of Islam, is that muslims clerics disagree. Muslim clerics are not trustworthy as an authority on Islam, because they will go out of their way to reconcile what it says in the Qu'ran, to what they want Islam to be portrayed as.

Kyle Olson just took his article down. He apologized.

I think this may be the first time in history that MediaMatters has defended an Objectivist teacher, and promoted him as a "teacher that allows opinions to be had in the classroom". I wonder if Media Matters even knows they're defending an Objectivist from BigGovernment.com This is very interesting. It's like the time when an article called Keith Lockitch a liberal