atw: Re: How to Have a Rational Discussion
- From: Rebecca Caldwell <beckyakasha@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: tech writers group <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:36:55 +0800
"His argument was that the statement was also in engineering design document
that had been approved and so must be correct. So, all approved documents are
100% correct? No."
I have seen the same kind of thinking in a court of law - the person was found
guilty, therefore they must be.
Regarding Christine's observation of 'uneducated' people taking sides or seeing
in Black and white only; I couldn't agree more. One of the biggest pieces of
evidence on this is how people choose to vote (just overhear the conversations
at your polling place next time).
I am friends with a few people whom have had tertiary education, but still
think in this way. On pondering this further, I realised that they had gone to
university because they thought that it was what they MUST do, instead of
thinking about what they wanted to do. So, one or two useless fine arts degrees
later, they have the self esteem of a university graduate, but fail to
understand the importance of researching topics for knowledge or discussion. I
have a friend who still thinks microwaves contain radioactive material, and
that if I allow my skin to get burnt badly once by the sun, it will 'protect'
me from future damage.
These people HAVE been taught logic, but have a crowd mentality which means, as
was mentioned before will change their opinion of correct knowledge to the
percieved 'leader' of the discussion or the majority vote. Same thing happens
with religion and mob protesters.
Rebecca
Subject: atw: Re: How to Have a Rational Discussion
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:16:44 +0800
From: Terrence.Dowling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
I’ve recently argued with an engineer that an illogical statement should be
fixed to remove an incorrect double negative and rewritten to remove the
programmer and engineer speak to make it more easily understood by the people
who use it. His argument was that the statement was also in engineering design
document that had been approved and so must be correct. So, all approved
documents are 100% correct? No. Machine operators are qualified programmers and
engineers? No.
I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to eventually hone in on faith and religious
belief vs atheism to be largely related to brain structure.
There was a good article recently on research into liberal and conservative
brains and how they discovered ‘conservative’ people “with a big amygdala were
more sensitive to disgust and tended to respond to threatening situations with
more aggression”. ‘Liberal’ people had “bigger anterior cingulate cortices …and
… have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts”. Now, is brain
structure the chicken or the egg?
Howard, surely your argument could just as easily be turned on the religious?
Don't you love how rationalists/religious are so blind to their own prejudices?
I don’t know that rationalism is always good. I think it’s easy to build a
rational argument for eugenics, though few rational people agree with it. There
is a lot of compassion that comes from religious people, but there’s also
plenty of intolerance.
To me, there are a lot of times when compassion should override rationalism,
even in professional life. In the long run, it may prove more rational, too.
I found the quote I mashed last week:
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you
do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will
understand why I dismiss yours. -Stephen Roberts, database architect (b. 1967)
Cheers,
Terry
Thank god I’m an atheist. Aleister Crowley
Atheist – a person with no invisible means of support. Aldous Huxley
[The above attributions could be wrong.]
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