21–30 of 42 posts
This isn't wisdom. It's mere cynicism that's trying to pass itself off as wisdom. >But society isn’t a building. Its parts are people, not struts or circuits. That is why a humanistic education is far more useful to the policymaker (and by extension, the citizen) than a technical one. Of course society isn't a building. Who was arguing that it was? But many of our problems are technical in nature, or, at the very lea…
This isn't wisdom. It's mere cynicism that's trying to pass itself off as wisdom. >But society isn’t a building. Its parts are people, not struts or circuits. That is why a humanistic education is far more useful to the policymaker (and by extension, the citizen) than a technical one. Of course society isn't a building. Who was arguing that it was? But many of our problems are technical in nature, or, at the very lea…
> It is not valid if your premises (e.g. all species on Earth were created by a divine intelligent designer) have been proven false. Sigh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
I am aware of very few platforms that use the internet for what it's best at: giving everyone a voice. Things like http://liquidfeedback.org/ are only a start. I would bet that if the right tool existed, you could base a whole government on it.
This isn't wisdom. It's mere cynicism that's trying to pass itself off as wisdom. >But society isn’t a building. Its parts are people, not struts or circuits. That is why a humanistic education is far more useful to the policymaker (and by extension, the citizen) than a technical one. Of course society isn't a building. Who was arguing that it was? But many of our problems are technical in nature, or, at the very lea…
> It is not valid if your premises (e.g. all species on Earth were created by a divine intelligent designer) have been proven false. Sigh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is not valid if your premises (e.g. all species on Earth were created by a divine intelligent designer) have been proven false. Sigh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
How is taking one isolated sentence and pedantically linking to a Wikipedia that highlights a subtle error while missing or ignoring the obvious thrust of the entire argument in any way adding to this discussion? Come on now.
This isn't wisdom. It's mere cynicism that's trying to pass itself off as wisdom. >But society isn’t a building. Its parts are people, not struts or circuits. That is why a humanistic education is far more useful to the policymaker (and by extension, the citizen) than a technical one. Of course society isn't a building. Who was arguing that it was? But many of our problems are technical in nature, or, at the very lea…
Not to mention a blatant strawman argument.
The author never even bothers to defend his argument against the obvious counterargument that perhaps the same kind of politicians, and the same kind of political thinking, that has failed to solve (or outright caused) so many major national problems is perhaps not worth trusting to solve them in the future, and that maybe a more pragmatic approach is needed.
From reading through some of his other pieces, I'm fairly certain that he doesn't know his subject well here. Does he seriously think that engineers think in binary and idolize Mr. Spock?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is not valid if your premises (e.g. all species on Earth were created by a divine intelligent designer) have been proven false. Sigh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
How is taking one isolated sentence and pedantically linking to a Wikipedia that highlights a subtle error while missing or ignoring the obvious thrust of the entire argument in any way adding to this discussion? Come on now.
The entire middle third of the comment is the standard engineer's fallacy that because the laws of physics are absolute and not relative, people's values should be also, and all conflict could be avoided if people were just rational. The main evidence offered is this aside about "science" "proving" the non-existence of god, so its fallaciousness is highly relevant. (There's also the fun of pointing out a fallacious and therefore irrational arugment in support of being rational, I'll admit it.)
Every college student in a technical major who has to take a humanities class for general ed goes through this phase, it's understandable. But it's just as important to grow up and leave it. Values are not rational, but that doesn't mean you get to ignore them.
The great irony is that in writing this, he exposes the fundamental conceit of the "poli-sci" complex that has brought the USA to its knees. The things he quotes as the reason poli-sci-types and not engineers should be the ones running government is that they learn "that people have different but equally valid perspectives; that the truth is not necessarily hard and precise; that judgments of value cannot be reduced…