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Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

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Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#131

Post by Luc »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #126
Luc wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just an amateur physicist... but since you're a pro, I'm sure you don't really mean it when you say Einstein 'used a theory he didn't believe was correct (quantum mechanics) to derive conclusions he didn't believe were true'. I mean, that could be misunderstood quite easily as the pop-physics version of history, in which the aging old Einstein just can't hack it, staying stuck in the old ways of thinking. In real…

I mean, that could be misunderstood quite easily as the pop-physics version of history, in which the aging old Einstein just can't hack it, staying stuck in the old ways of thinking. This is totally the opposite of what I meant to convey. Einstein/Podolsky/Rosen were doing great work. They helped us understand an important implication of quantum mechanics - that if our configuration-space based theories are correct,…

Okay, cool! Though (and again I'm sorry for continuing to blab about this, but I don't often get the opportunity) I think it's actually a bit more tricky. When it was published, EPR showed that action by contact (the separation principle) and the _completeness_ of QM can't both be valid. At least, this was Einstein's intention with EPR - in letters to Schrodinger he expresses his chagrin with the way Podolsky, who wrote the paper, buried Einstein's main point in technicalities.

Now, when you say he derived conclusions he didn't believe were true, that's kind of wrong, since all he derived was a dilemma (completeness or separation, not both (but possibly neither)). He took this to show that if we maintain the separation principle, then QM needs to be viewed as a statistical account of objects with properties it can't describe (but he never took that to mean hidden variable theories like Bohm's were the answer).

So, my point is, he believed in the correctness of QM (just not in the completeness). He believed in QM being true - just not that is was the whole truth. He believed in the correctness of the EPR derivation and in the correctness of the dilemma at the end. When you say he used a theory he didn't believe was correct, I think that's wrong - he just didn't believe it was the finished article. And when you say he derived conclusions he didn't believe were true, I think that's wrong too, since he derived a dilemma that he very much believed in. In the end he chose the wrong side, but that's not relevant here.

You say Einstein believed this was a reductio ad absurdum - but that's flat out wrong I think. EPR relates to the completeness of the formalism (if the separation principle is taken to be true), not the correctness.

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#132

Post by bugsy »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #129
bugsy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The game's up for organized religion as soon as people see that there's more than one, and that those other believers aren't evil." OK, millions of people have known that there is more than one religion for thousands of years. But you are asserting that most people are not aware there is more than religion. This is completely contrary to reality. You also have a suggestion that after becoming aware there is more t…

> But you are asserting that most people are not aware there is more than religion. I'm not sure why you believe that. I did not write that anywhere in my post. > You also have a suggestion that after becoming aware there is more than one religion, people will then become aware that some of the adherents to the other religion "aren't evil". No. These are independent phenomena. I did not write that the one leads to th…

Your claim that I was analyzing is quoted at the beginning of my response. It is your statement:

"The game's up for organized religion as soon as people see that there's more than one, and that those other believers aren't evil."

By referring to "as soon as people see that there's more than one" clearly indicates you are asserting that people are unaware there is more than one. To claim otherwise is disingenuous as it leaves your entire argument without foundation.

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#133

Post by nika »

ekanes wrote: post #87
nika wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gay. If I were a politician, I would oppose laws (actually like Dawkins does here) that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation (as well as religion.) Would my thinking be suspect? Does that mean that I think that gay people shouldn't be hired or be able to get housing? From the common / popular "pro-gay" view my positions would be characterized as "anti-gay" and I would risk being demonized by GLAAD, etc.…

> Clearly, this gay person is choosing to discriminate based on religion. Not really. It's a subtle difference, but it's more like discriminating against someone for being a jerk. Or perhaps insensitive. a) If the person wasn't religious but said the same thing, one might discriminate the same way. (Therefore showing it wasn't because of religion) b) Alternatively, if someone was religious, but wasn't judgmental, pre…

You're right. What I should have said is, this is a situation where the discrimination could be prosecuted for being discrimination based on religion which is currently against the law. Of course in some cases where the discrimination is religiously based it may be hard to prove and in other cases, people could lose even when they weren't really discriminating on that basis.

In a way, making discrimination illegal is a form of a thought crime, as it requires determination of the thinking process on the person charged with discrimination.

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#134

Post by ekanes »

nika wrote: post #133
ekanes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Clearly, this gay person is choosing to discriminate based on religion. Not really. It's a subtle difference, but it's more like discriminating against someone for being a jerk. Or perhaps insensitive. a) If the person wasn't religious but said the same thing, one might discriminate the same way. (Therefore showing it wasn't because of religion) b) Alternatively, if someone was religious, but wasn't judgmental, pre…

You're right. What I should have said is, this is a situation where the discrimination could be prosecuted for being discrimination based on religion which is currently against the law. Of course in some cases where the discrimination is religiously based it may be hard to prove and in other cases, people could lose even when they weren't really discriminating on that basis. In a way, making discrimination illegal is…

> In a way, making discrimination illegal is a form of a thought crime, as it requires determination of the thinking process on the person charged with discrimination.

I never thought of it that way. It's about your biases but it requires some action to mean anything. (In the same sense as murder being technically a thought crime, acted out No action no crime.

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#135

Post by lukeschlather »

lutorm wrote: post #28
lukeschlather wrote: post #12

A good scientist should be agnostic. In some ways, believing something accepted to be false in the scientific community is preferable to actually believing what is accepted to be true in the scientific community. If everyone starts with the same assumptions then the same assumptions are propagated through the literature without critical analysis. And sometimes, it may even be worthwhile to look at Mars with the eye o…

So you think assuming a less likely position makes people better scientists? I'd like to see a calculation that a system of optimization that proceeds with that assumption actually does converge... Of course one should be open to other possibilities. However, ones openness to a possibility should be related to the likelihood of that possibility. If that's not the case, you are disconnected from reality.

>So you think assuming a less likely position makes people better scientists?

You're twisting my words. I think believing that certain assumptions which are required to support your work are false makes you a better scientist. The specific person Dawkins maligns hasn't taken any positions in their work that align with his personal beliefs. But I believe that his work is better for it.

Really though, this is more a question of diversity of opinion than of one belief system being intrinsically superior to another for the doing of science. We are all disconnected from reality in one way or another. If all of our scientists are disconnected from reality in a similar manner, it's going to drastically stunt their thinking. And this is equally true if all scientists have the same sort of atheist-agnostic belief that science is mostly right in its models or if all scientists are young-Earth creationists. (At least in a hypothetical world where all scientists are YEC and simultaneously produce rigorous work that makes YEC appear almost certainly false.)

So long as their work is rigorous and aligns with data, their personal beliefs merely serve to give them novel ideas Dawkins could never think of.

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#136

Post by ugh »

Helianthus16 wrote: post #99
jmillikin wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. The whole Science VS Faith thing is a false dichotomy, the two are not inherently incompatible except in the minds of unfortunate extremists on both sides of the argument. Faith is, fundamentally, the process of maintaining beliefs in the face of 1) absent evidence and 2) conflicting evidence. Science is the process of discovering evidence. While theoretically compatible, in practice,…

>Faith is, fundamentally, the process of maintaining beliefs in the face of 1) absent evidence and 2) conflicting evidence. This is the tired beaten horse of atheistic criticism, taking the general principle that one must make a leap out of indecision and doubt in order to achieve any sort of meaningful viewpoint and twisting it, torturing it into the statement "Faith is explicitly about not making sense." Faith _is…

I’m not really sure why I need faith to be fairly certain that the sun will rise tomorrow. I don’t need to be certain in any absolute terms, being extremely certain based on past evidence is good enough for me. I’m not plagued by doubt and suggesting that living without faith would leave one in doubt seems dubious to me.

I can work with not being absolutely certain.

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#137

Post by sirrocco »

jstrate wrote: post #92
jmillikin wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. The whole Science VS Faith thing is a false dichotomy, the two are not inherently incompatible except in the minds of unfortunate extremists on both sides of the argument. Faith is, fundamentally, the process of maintaining beliefs in the face of 1) absent evidence and 2) conflicting evidence. Science is the process of discovering evidence. While theoretically compatible, in practice,…

I agree that science and faith are theoretically compatible, but you intentionally omit that they have been compatible in practice for hundreds of years. I would say that the evidence that they are compatible is overwhelming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_s...

For that list to have any significance you'd have to put it side by side with a list of people who didn't have faith .

You would also have to remove many of the believers on the list because being a person without god in 1400 would probably have made you a witch and you'd probably burn at the stake or something.

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#138

Post by yummyfajitas »

Luc wrote: post #131
yummyfajitas wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that could be misunderstood quite easily as the pop-physics version of history, in which the aging old Einstein just can't hack it, staying stuck in the old ways of thinking. This is totally the opposite of what I meant to convey. Einstein/Podolsky/Rosen were doing great work. They helped us understand an important implication of quantum mechanics - that if our configuration-space based theories are correct,…

Okay, cool! Though (and again I'm sorry for continuing to blab about this, but I don't often get the opportunity) I think it's actually a bit more tricky. When it was published, EPR showed that action by contact (the separation principle) and the _completeness_ of QM can't both be valid. At least, this was Einstein's intention with EPR - in letters to Schrodinger he expresses his chagrin with the way Podolsky, who wr…

When it was published, EPR showed that action by contact (the separation principle) and the _completeness_ of QM can't both be valid.

Yes, that's the scientific conclusion. Actually, the history is a bit more muddled - EPR alone doesn't show this, strictly speaking. The EPR paper (1935) concludes with a statement that the authors believe a local and complete theory of QM is possible. We were not 100% certain it was impossible until the discovery of Bell's Inequality (1964, 9 years after Einstein's death). Einstein actually spent a lot of time searching for such a theory.

In addition to the scientific conclusions in the EPR paper, EPR also expressed some non-scientific beliefs. They believed that reality would eventually prove itself to be local and therefore that QM would be shown to be incomplete. From the original paper:

We are thus forced to conclude that the quantum mechanical description of physical reality given by wavefunctions is not complete [...] No reasonable definition of reality could be expected to permit this.

http://prola.aps.org/pdf/PR/v47/i10/p777_1

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#139

Post by pbhjpbhj »

sirrocco wrote: post #137
jstrate wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that science and faith are theoretically compatible, but you intentionally omit that they have been compatible in practice for hundreds of years. I would say that the evidence that they are compatible is overwhelming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_s...

For that list to have any significance you'd have to put it side by side with a list of people who didn't have faith . You would also have to remove many of the believers on the list because being a person without god in 1400 would probably have made you a witch and you'd probably burn at the stake or something.

>For that list to have any significance you'd have to put it side by side with a list of people who didn't have faith .

So you're saying that Newton, say (who incidentally wrote many theological treatise), no longer is a scientist [of any worth] if there were more people at the time who didn't have a faith in God?

The fact that there may or may not be scientists without faith is orthogonal to the fact that scientists with a faith in God produce worthwhile results, or do you disagree?

Re: Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)

#140

Post by pbhjpbhj »

lutorm wrote: post #71
knieveltech wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A Creationist can not perform what he thinks is correct science without performing what the rest of the world is incorrect science." I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. The whole Science VS Faith thing is a false dichotomy, the two are not inherently incompatible except in the minds of unfortunate extremists on both sides of the argument. Implying that they are ignores the fact that the vast overwhelming majority of sci…

You may think it's bullshit. I disagree. It's true that in many cases, there is no conflict. There is no conflict (currently, at least) between believing that God was responsible for the Big Bang and belief in cosmology. In the case of believing that the Earth is I don't see how one can argue with that without resorting to contrived beliefs that God set up a huge hoax by making the Universe seem to be 14Gyr old. (Tha…

>>A Creationist can not perform what he thinks is correct science without performing what the rest of the world is incorrect science.

>(That's not a disprovable belief, of course, so it could be the case.)

Do you see the inconsistency here. You're saying on the one hand "it's bad science" and other the other admitting that their isn't any scientific reason to declare the position as false. A "running start" theory appears to be unfalsifiable and thus outside of the realms of scientific result.

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