What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?

[Aimless]

http://edge.org/annual-question


Edge is this club where smartypants can be smartypants at one another without fear of physical violence. So, not very different from tWF in other words

Therefore I have hijacked their annual question for our pleasure:

James Flynn has defined "shorthand abstractions" (or "SHA's") as concepts drawn from science that have become part of the language and make people smarter by providing widely applicable templates ("market", "placebo", "random sample," "naturalistic fallacy," are a few of his examples). His idea is that the abstraction is available as a single cognitive chunk which can be used as an element in thinking and debate.

WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?

You can answer as many times as you like

[GGT]

How's that make people smarter? It would be handy in communication and debate, but that's a language tool, not a cognitive one.

(I didn't read your link aiminx, decided to start fresh here instead )

[Aimless]

Language and cognition are inextricably intertwined.

[GGT]

Then you'd need to define "smarter". Does that mean something like work smarter, not harder, or the new smart is speed, or something else?

[Illusions]

The Scientific Method

</thread>

[Aimless]

How do you mean?

[Lebanese Dragon]

Language and cognition are inextricably intertwined.

this is a profound relization. However, one in my view can not, and does not dominate the other. Concepts can be crafted that have no words attached to them.

However, your focus, your thought patterns the way you think is deeply shaped by your vocabulary.

I thought about posting what Illusions posted, if people just applied the scientific method when testing what they believe it would be much more orderly.

Or my more personal philosophy is to question everything, and assume nothing. A great way to learn; however, one must be pragmatic at times, and let our instincts guide us in ways our conscious reason cannot yet understand.

[GGT]

Uh huh, and how's that Occupy Wall Street thing goin'? As far as those widely accepted language templates, and cognitive chunks are concerned?

[Aimless]

GGT, I think you're in the wrong thread.

[GGT]

Why's that? Like I said, didn't click on your link, just went on your OP. But using "market" as an example led me to believe this wasn't just about science or scientific method, but anything related to cognition and communication. Plus your word everybody.

Sorry if I got that wrong. Probably something wrong with my cognitive toolkit. (Defensive anticipatory reply )

[Nessus]

Why's that? Like I said, didn't click on your link, just went on your OP. But using "market" as an example led me to believe this wasn't just about science or scientific method, but anything related to cognition and communication. Plus your word everybody.

Sorry if I got that wrong. Probably something wrong with my cognitive toolkit. (Defensive anticipatory reply )

There's no need to be sorry. But there is a special something, a thing that each man and woman of science holds near and dear to their heart. It's not always easy to articulate, like Minx is asking here, but there is something withing science that is above the markets, the greed and the injustice that governs men. Minx is asking, how might be incorporate these things into governing men, so we would have less greed and less injustice. It is a theoretical, altogether removed question from the reality of hungry US people, of those things we find so abhorrent with the "leader of the Free World".

Minx is a man who has skills, and knowledge, and would like to use these to help others. To lessen greed, and injustice. He is asking us for help. We can help in some ways, perhaps, but that way is not trying to shoe-horn this into a debate about current US issues.

[GGT]

There's no need to be sorry. But there is a special something, a thing that each man and woman of science holds near and dear to their heart. It's not always easy to articulate, like Minx is asking here, but there is something withing science that is above the markets, the greed and the injustice that governs men. Minx is asking, how might be incorporate these things into governing men, so we would have less greed and less injustice. It is a theoretical, altogether removed question from the reality of hungry US people, of those things we find so abhorrent with the "leader of the Free World".

Minx is a man who has skills, and knowledge, and would like to use these to help others. To lessen greed, and injustice. He is asking us for help. We can help in some ways, perhaps, but that way is not trying to shoe-horn this into a debate about current US issues.

Now I'm really confused, because that's what my comment meant (with a hint of sarcasm). If I was in the wrong thread for making social or cultural comments, and this was about Scientific Method for science's sake, I'll bow out.

"Occupy Wall Street" isn't a uniquely US affair, because there are "Occupy" protests in ~1,700 cities across the globe, and plenty of (cognitive) confusion about what they "mean", depending on whom you ask.

I should have asked more questions before I posted, but thought asking how to make people smarter was a good place to start.

[CitizenCain]

Minx is a man who has skills, and knowledge, and would like to use these to help others. To lessen greed, and injustice. He is asking us for help.

Looking to the natural world (ie, science) for ways to lessen "injustice" is rather like studying the lion for ideas on how to be a vegetarian. Equity and justice and the like are concepts that are completely foreign to nature, so why Minx would like to look to the study of the world for help in advancing those goals is beyond me.

'Course, I'm also in agreement with Fuzzy and wiggin and Dread that evolution/natural selection/survival of the fittest is the best selection for improving the cognitive toolkits of the filthy masses, though it seems to me that this would have the opposite of the desired effect. People might get a bit smarter and all, but a little more awareness about the way the world really works might not bode well for the government imposed "equality" you and Minx seem to hold so dear.

[Nessus]

Looking to the natural world (ie, science) for ways to lessen "injustice" is rather like studying the lion for ideas on how to be a vegetarian. Equity and justice and the like are concepts that are completely foreign to nature, so why Minx would like to look to the study of the world for help in advancing those goals is beyond me.

'Course, I'm also in agreement with Fuzzy and wiggin and Dread that evolution/natural selection/survival of the fittest is the best selection for improving the cognitive toolkits of the filthy masses, though it seems to me that this would have the opposite of the desired effect. People might get a bit smarter and all, but a little more awareness about the way the world really works might not bode well for the government imposed "equality" you and Minx seem to hold so dear.

Certainly, the purely logical universe that both the National Socialists and you Libertarians desire is that of "Social Darwinism", where constantly the faulty ones are culled and the "fit" individuals preserved for breeding; the differences lie in how the National Socialists and the Libertarians wish to elect the fits and the culls. You have insisted on your own intellectual superiority, that you've more knowledge of the way the world operates than I do. So be it, but I would posit one further consideration; the rather illogical sense of empathy, and the notion of "injustice" that follows from that. It was necessary, after all, for the machinations of Bolshevism to torture, rather brutally torture, and then kill over a hundred million people. To displace many multitudes of that number, for their vision of a logical way to run a society. There isn't, I don't think, a good scientific argument to be made for not harming others, or for feeding those incapable of feeding themselves. Yet there are trends in society, and societal upheaval, which to me suggests feeding the ones incapable of feeding themselves is a lesser burden in the long run over having them flail out in desperation. And what's more, it makes more "justified" sense to me that we feed them rather than gas them. Obviously you prefer the gas them option (or the Libertarian version, of allowing them to starve), and I can't really give you a scientific counter to that.

I would not ask a lion for help in being a vegetarian, and I am well aware of how much life as a concept must run counter to the Second Law. I must daily consume the flesh of the unliving to satiate my own need, to fuel the machinery of my body. But surely we can, as men of science and industry, work to comprehend the nature of suffering, and the nature of energy, to minimize the former and distribute as fairly as possible the latter?

[LittleFuzzy]

Looking to the natural world (ie, science) for ways to lessen "injustice" is rather like studying the lion for ideas on how to be a vegetarian. Equity and justice and the like are concepts that are completely foreign to nature, so why Minx would like to look to the study of the world for help in advancing those goals is beyond me.

'Course, I'm also in agreement with Fuzzy and wiggin and Dread that evolution/natural selection/survival of the fittest is the best selection for improving the cognitive toolkits of the filthy masses, though it seems to me that this would have the opposite of the desired effect. People might get a bit smarter and all, but a little more awareness about the way the world really works might not bode well for the government imposed "equality" you and Minx seem to hold so dear.

I don't know about best, it's simply one I think is definitely in the upper reaches on a usefulness scale, at least for me. I think any examination on the history/development of organizational systems *whether we're talking about search engines or the rise and eventual collapse of feudalism* can be reasonably interpreted, possibly best interpreted, through the perspective of competitive selection.

[Dreadnaught]

If we're not being so broad as to say "science" or "chemistry", I would argue evolution is one of the most foundational theories in the scientific world.

Evolution allows us to understand where we came from, as well as understand that nothing is fixed. The theory of evolution forces us to think in the long-term, which is something the world can benefit from on many levels.

[LittleFuzzy]

If we're not being so broad as to say "science" or "chemistry", I would argue evolution is one of the most foundational theories in the scientific world.

Evolution allows us to understand where we came from, as well as understand that nothing is fixed. The theory of evolution forces us to think in the long-term, which is something the world can benefit from on many levels.

Riffing off of that, I would like to say "natural selection." I don't think there is a better or more useful concept with which to approach or understand any adversarial or semi-adversarial framework or perspective.

edit: Oh, I see Wiggin's point number 2 already mentioned this.

[wiggin]

I can think of a lot of useful tools often used in science that should be used by everyone:

1) Statistical concepts. Not the nitty-gritty math, of course, but understanding the sources of statistical error (e.g. sampling/selection bias, publication bias, systematic bias, etc.), cherry-picking fallacies, type I and type II error, etc. The basic stuff will allow people to properly evaluate quantitative information that's shoved our way on a continual basis. While it's a bit more complicated, I think that Bayesian theory in general is good to understand - the very concept of a 'prior' and conditional probabilities are very useful tools for thinking about the world and the many models we use to describe it. A basic understanding of how regressions work would be useful as well - most 'studies' in medicine/nutrition and the social sciences use some form of regression, with wildly varying levels of success, so it's useful to understand how they work. Oh, and it's astonishing how many people haven't internalized the concept that correlation does not imply causation.

2) I wouldn't say that evolution is actually that fundamental (except to a biologist, of course), but the ideas of the selection mechanism are a very valuable insight into how many systems work.

3) Illusions is right, the basic ideas of the scientific method - of testing hypotheses through empirical observations of controlled experiments - is very worthwhile and poorly understood by most non-scientists.

4) Laws of diminishing returns: I think this concept is going to become more and more important to lay people as we start to see marginal returns decrease to zero from over-optimized systems. We're seeing it with things ranging from crop yields to engine efficiency to financial instruments - at the end of the day, there's a limit to how much you can improve a given system. (I'd say as a corollary that ideas of marginal utility and in fact the very idea of marginal anything are very important cognitive tools as well.)

5) Superposition principle: important from basic dynamics to quantum mechanics, it can apply to linear systems and allows us to easily deconstruct complicated systems into much simpler parts. While somewhat technical in nature, I think the basic idea of superposition can be more broadly applied, and allows us to simplify complicated systems. As an addendum, though, we should also have an understanding of nonlinear systems (e.g. synergetic effects of two variables in concert) and applications in the real world.

There's another idea I've got, but I'm not sure how to formulate it. Something along the lines of the law of unintended consequences, but more broad. We live in a world that is starting to bump up against the realities of extremely complex systems that defy simple modeling - whether it's the human body, the integrated global economy, molecular interactions, or public opinion. We can model little bits of it and form general rules for how those bits interact, but fully modeling the complete system is simply beyond our capabilities (and may always be beyond our capabilities) - at best, we can use only crude approximations. So we use these crappy models and try to make decisions on that basis despite the fact that we're ignoring things that are really important... and our actions never have quite the intended effect. Ways of internalizing the realities and dynamics of complex systems would be a very useful tool for everyone.

There's also something I wanted to talk about digital vs. analog; I think most people view the world in an analog setting and don't really understand digital phenomena. Moving some basic understanding of digital systems into the public consciousness would probably also be useful.

[Nessus]

2) I wouldn't say that evolution is actually that fundamental (except to a biologist, of course), but the ideas of the selection mechanism are a very valuable insight into how many systems work.

I would very much like to disagree, doctor. The great, late David Hume was able, almost, to perceive of a natural world without an invisible, guiding hand, without a deity. All else, even if a rigid Kantian clock-work universe, could be explained without a God. But us, we stymied him. Why are we here? Why is life running about? What the Hell put it all here?

The theory of evolution, the understanding of a system of selection among systems of machines all carrying the same long molecule, is what enables men to understand perhaps the most pressing point of mystery in the world around him; why is Life around? The idea of evolution, evo-devo biology, is the most fundamental piece of understanding humanity has attained since the theory of Relativity. Without it, our world-view would forever be incomplete, there'd always be that final refuge into shamanism and the cave-man.

The corollary to this is the Fermi paradox, of course, which I personally consider the most pressing outstanding question left to our sciences. But it doesn't diminish one iota the importance of our understanding of evolution.

[Loki]

I would say the use of the hypo-deductive method.

[wiggin]

Two things: First off, evolution actually doesn't deal with origin of life directly. Oh, there are some theories about molecular evolution/etc., but for the most part evolution gets us from bacteria to people. Secondly, the question wasn't 'what's one of the most important scientific concepts that has fundamentally changed our view of the world'. If it had been, I'd fully agree with you. But I don't think evolution itself is a 'widely applicable template' - frankly, other than its mechanisms, the idea itself doesn't have much applicability outside of biological systems. Oh, you could maybe make some arguments about geology or whatever, but that's stretching the point.

[Nessus]

Two things: First off, evolution actually doesn't deal with origin of life directly. Oh, there are some theories about molecular evolution/etc., but for the most part evolution gets us from bacteria to people. Secondly, the question wasn't 'what's one of the most important scientific concepts that has fundamentally changed our view of the world'. If it had been, I'd fully agree with you. But I don't think evolution itself is a 'widely applicable template' - frankly, other than its mechanisms, the idea itself doesn't have much applicability outside of biological systems. Oh, you could maybe make some arguments about geology or whatever, but that's stretching the point.

How could a corner-stone of an atheistic understanding of the Kosmos be anything but a "widely applicable template"? It is necessary for that purpose, the most important purpose science could have insofar as human society is concerned. Of course science as a whole tries to manage in spite of society, but we can offer something back to them, and this is it!

This and the magic of friendship I guess.

I know the origin spiel, don't give me that; what's important is that it allows me to explain all the birds, bees and what have you running around. I don't know what caused baryogenesis, either, but I'm quite happy to accept it as an axiom for the moment!

[Illusions]

How could a corner-stone of an atheistic understanding of the Kosmos be anything but a "widely applicable template"?

I'm not sure how natural selection/evolution would be a corner-stone of an atheistic understanding of the cosmos, but in the vein of this thread, where we're discussing scientific concepts that would improve everyone's cognitive toolkit, natural selection only really lets you understand the idea behind a handful of phenomena, and evolution an even smaller amount, but without other more broad scientific concepts in your cognitive toolkit, like the scientific method, you'd be accepting it on faith, rather than as a current best explanation of what has occurred, that can be either tested or observed by yourself.

As for the Fermi Paradox. Space and time are big, and sentient organisms need not necessarily possess the biological/technological/psychological desire or ability to locate and communicate with other sentient organisms, or may not even possess the ability to conceive of other alien lifeforms existing. Or in fact may be looking for the wrong thing, in the same way we're looking for Earth sized planets, a certain distance from a star, with liquid water, and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. An ammonia based species would skip Earth over, and unless they had already hypothesized about what it would take for a water based species to exist, probably wouldn't think twice about any data they'd have gotten from looking at Earth if they even bothered.*

* - Based on current methods employed by humans to observe other distant planets, not actually visiting them in a starship, or sending a probe.

I'm also going to add another one to the cognitive toolkit list, Skepticism. I've seen plenty of people, even those in the sciences, take as fact anything that someone with the right credentials, like doctor, scientist, etc. has stated without checking out whether or not it is actually true, and holds up to any scrutiny.

[wiggin]

How could a corner-stone of an atheistic understanding of the Kosmos be anything but a "widely applicable template"? It is necessary for that purpose, the most important purpose science could have insofar as human society is concerned. Of course science as a whole tries to manage in spite of society, but we can offer something back to them, and this is it!

I don't disagree that having further data to support a mechanistic understanding of the universe is relevant, but it doesn't help you much as a cognitive tool, just as cognitive information. You might argue that a useful cognitive tool would be that of a mechanistic universe, though - where for every effect there is a clear cause driven by natural laws that are never broken. I'd agree that it's a useful cognitive tool.

I know the origin spiel, don't give me that; what's important is that it allows me to explain all the birds, bees and what have you running around. I don't know what caused baryogenesis, either, but I'm quite happy to accept it as an axiom for the moment!

I was being a little pedantic, but it's an important distinction. Science does not aim to find an ultimate Mover or cause, because by definition science relies on an assumption that things are mechanistic - so you could never have a prime mover. For that matter, science will by nature not be able to prove the existence of something that doesn't fit into a mechanistic understanding, since data that cannot be reliably replicated will be discarded. The point is that if religion or some other belief system holds that there are non-mechanistic aspects of our universe (divine intervention, for example), and we can prove that said events can be explained, we've refuted that particular claim of religion. But in principle we can't refute religion as a concept because science is effectively blind to phenomena that can't be repeated and don't follow cause-and-effect.

So I don't think it's an indictment of science that we have yet to adequately explain the origins of life. It's a huge step that we can more or less explain and trace our origins from the earliest organisms to us with a chain of fairly solid reasoning and evidence. I'm fairly confident that with time we'll be able to simulate (or even replicate) the formation of life in a convincing manner, even if we haven't done it yet. But it also doesn't mean that science has 'disproven' religion or 'proven' atheism - rather, it has just advanced in the complexity of our understanding of the mechanistic universe.

I'm not sure how natural selection/evolution would be a corner-stone of an atheistic understanding of the cosmos, but in the vein of this thread, where we're discussing scientific concepts that would improve everyone's cognitive toolkit, natural selection only really lets you understand the idea behind a handful of phenomena, and evolution an even smaller amount, but without other more broad scientific concepts in your cognitive toolkit, like the scientific method, you'd be accepting it on faith, rather than as a current best explanation of what has occurred, that can be either tested or observed by yourself.

I think you underestimate the importance of selection as a way of understanding different concepts. It's useful as a way to understand biological processes, of course, like antibiotic resistance, but it also can be used as a way to think about any competitive process with rigorous selection criteria - say, a market for a good, or an athletic competition, or screening before you get into a job/army/relationship/whatever. These all employ selection criteria and the end result can often be predicted ahead of time. In fact, you can also use it as a tool - say, to randomly generate the best X using an accelerated selection process.

As for the Fermi Paradox. Space and time are big, and sentient organisms need not necessarily possess the biological/technological/psychological desire or ability to locate and communicate with other sentient organisms, or may not even possess the ability to conceive of other alien lifeforms existing. Or in fact may be looking for the wrong thing, in the same way we're looking for Earth sized planets, a certain distance from a star, with liquid water, and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. An ammonia based species would skip Earth over, and unless they had already hypothesized about what it would take for a water based species to exist, probably wouldn't think twice about any data they'd have gotten from looking at Earth if they even bothered.*

* - Based on current methods employed by humans to observe other distant planets, not actually visiting them in a starship, or sending a probe.

I think this a fairly poor critique of the Fermi Paradox (no offense intended). For one, we have only had the capability of looking to the stars for a few centuries, and we've only had sophisticated capabilities for about 50 years. The universe is nearly 14 billion years old. In all of that time, you don't imagine that one species - at least in our galaxy - would have progressed beyond our own technology, which has only existed for a miniscule fraction of that time? For that matter, we also look at non-Earthlike planets for potential life; we looked at the molecules on Titan, for example, there was potential prebiotic signs that we picked up even though Titan would hardly be considered Earthlike. In our short time as a spacefaring race, we've speculated about a variety of potential biochemistries of life. You don't think there would be at least one potential species out there with the curiosity we exhibit? For Fermi's paradox to work, all you need is one with a sufficient amount of time to colonize a good fraction of the galaxy.

Obviously, there are other decent resolutions to the paradox. They generally involve either dramatically decreasing one of the probabilities in the Drake equation (it is a big guess, after all) to make intelligent life much more unlikely, or to postulate that they're around but effectively invisible to our puny methods of detection. The problem is that neither approach is particularly satisfying. If I had to choose, though, I'd say it's much more likely that intelligent life is just much more rare than we think, and the galaxy is sparsely populated (if at all). I won't go so far as to say we're unique, just that our chances of running into someone else in the near future are pretty slim.

[Nessus]

I was being a little pedantic, but it's an important distinction. Science does not aim to find an ultimate Mover or cause, because by definition science relies on an assumption that things are mechanistic - so you could never have a prime mover. For that matter, science will by nature not be able to prove the existence of something that doesn't fit into a mechanistic understanding, since data that cannot be reliably replicated will be discarded. The point is that if religion or some other belief system holds that there are non-mechanistic aspects of our universe (divine intervention, for example), and we can prove that said events can be explained, we've refuted that particular claim of religion. But in principle we can't refute religion as a concept because science is effectively blind to phenomena that can't be repeated and don't follow cause-and-effect.

So I don't think it's an indictment of science that we have yet to adequately explain the origins of life. It's a huge step that we can more or less explain and trace our origins from the earliest organisms to us with a chain of fairly solid reasoning and evidence. I'm fairly confident that with time we'll be able to simulate (or even replicate) the formation of life in a convincing manner, even if we haven't done it yet. But it also doesn't mean that science has 'disproven' religion or 'proven' atheism - rather, it has just advanced in the complexity of our understanding of the mechanistic universe.

Oh, sure. One can be a good scientist and a faithful believer (did we ever discuss that part of the Rappaport dialogue? That might be fun some day), but the point is that the further back into the cave we can drive the mysticism of religion, the easier it is for everyone to accept a rational frame-work with which to comprehend and explain the world around them. I've read compelling arguments explaining why men turn to mysticism, why some facets of our developmental history drive us down that miserable path. I don't fault a person in that way for falling into the trap of religion and mysticism. But because it is my work, my life to try and explain the world around us, and further explain it in the scientific way, surely you can see why I'd be less interested in the dividing line between tool and 'information' or helpful crutch along the way. I think it's a universal human drive that we must have some explanation, some agency behind what happens to us and around us. I may be wrong on that, maybe some people are completely happy without any frame-work to explain their surroundings. But it suggests, to me, that the vast mythologies people machinate, both of traditional religion and "witchcraft" such as the Ouija board, the complex rules and regulations the "super-natural" must follow, that there is a fundamental need to comprehend.

Of course you are correct, science cannot prove negatives or disprove things outside its purvey. (Would you, by the way, agree to the corollary, that science exists above morality?) I don't mean to say that we'll ever drive out the last dark vestiges of mysticism; Hell, it brings some people profound happiness to believe in the "super-natural". But what I'm saying is, the greatest triumphs of science, of expanding our understanding of the workings of the world around us, must by their nature invade into the play-ground of the shamans and mysticists. That I delight in it is a personal aberration and need not be taken into account when discussing science. However, each new tool we bring to the common man (as it were) to explain the universe around him without the comfort of mysticism and shamans, these are all simultaneously victories in the cause of knowledge. Correlation isn't causation, but it is my firm belief that a more rational (yet emphatic) society would benefit us all.

[Illusions]

I think you underestimate the importance of selection as a way of understanding different concepts. It's useful as a way to understand biological processes, of course, like antibiotic resistance, but it also can be used as a way to think about any competitive process with rigorous selection criteria - say, a market for a good, or an athletic competition, or screening before you get into a job/army/relationship/whatever. These all employ selection criteria and the end result can often be predicted ahead of time. In fact, you can also use it as a tool - say, to randomly generate the best X using an accelerated selection process.

I understand the importance of natural selection and how it can be used, my quarrel with Nessus' statement was its importance to atheism, or lack of belief in God(s).

I think this a fairly poor critique of the Fermi Paradox (no offense intended). For one, we have only had the capability of looking to the stars for a few centuries, and we've only had sophisticated capabilities for about 50 years. The universe is nearly 14 billion years old. In all of that time, you don't imagine that one species - at least in our galaxy - would have progressed beyond our own technology, which has only existed for a miniscule fraction of that time? For that matter, we also look at non-Earthlike planets for potential life; we looked at the molecules on Titan, for example, there was potential prebiotic signs that we picked up even though Titan would hardly be considered Earthlike. In our short time as a spacefaring race, we've speculated about a variety of potential biochemistries of life. You don't think there would be at least one potential species out there with the curiosity we exhibit? For Fermi's paradox to work, all you need is one with a sufficient amount of time to colonize a good fraction of the galaxy.

My answer was mainly that the situation is probably far more complicated than we realize as to why we haven't detected a sentient alien species yet, and that it is unlikely that they just don't exist somewhere. However you're posing a very human centric view of what other intelligences could be capable of, and taking for granted that things like our curiosity, abstract manner of thought, creativity, and perhaps even the desire to visit the stars might be rare, or that all of the combo of things required for a species to achieve interstellar flight or even communication, from biological, psychological, sociological, technological, etc. aspects are in fact horrifically rare to be found all together. We don't even know if we'll be an interstellar species. Some of us hope we will be, others couldn't give a shit, and still others would like to see a vast majority of the planet outright murdered, and the remainder living under their rule.

Obviously, there are other decent resolutions to the paradox. They generally involve either dramatically decreasing one of the probabilities in the Drake equation (it is a big guess, after all) to make intelligent life much more unlikely, or to postulate that they're around but effectively invisible to our puny methods of detection. The problem is that neither approach is particularly satisfying. If I had to choose, though, I'd say it's much more likely that intelligent life is just much more rare than we think, and the galaxy is sparsely populated (if at all). I won't go so far as to say we're unique, just that our chances of running into someone else in the near future are pretty slim.

This answer seems to subconciously avoid the answer that simply becoming an interstellar species is rare, not that intelligence itself is rare, because that answer would mean that humanity's odds of becoming an interstellar species itself are dismal.

Edit: You seem like a pretty awesome and intelligent person wiggin, and I'm quite pleased to be having a conversation with you, and I am very sorry that my response is so brief and undetailed, however I just got off a closing shift at work, and I'm very tired and lack the appropriate amount of time to respond to you in a manner that would be better suited to this level of discussion (besides the fact that I just dashed something out because I noticed that I had failed to respond to you). My apologies overall.

[Nessus]

I don't rightly know how to impress this upon you, but there is a very specific threshold of understanding that was breached when we could explain why there are birds and bears, without a God specifically making a bird or a bear. There is still room for a deity in there, causing baryogenesis, setting off the big bang, creating the first long molecule, but he's no longer a necessary condition for these things to happen. An intellectually honest man, before the theory of evolution, had no way of explaining why a bear was different from a bird. We know that the Kosmos isn't a rigid, clockwork monstrosity of Kant and his ilk, but we do like explaining the mechanisms behind things, indeed that is the drive behind all science, to comprehend that which exists outside ourselves. The rest of the natural world seemed almost solved around the time Maxwell was doing his work (of course it wasn't, goddamn quantum!), but life was one phenomenon where there seemed no scientific alternative to a deity could exist. The work done post-Darwin, the many successes of evo-devo, have in a way reduced biology into another make-shift clockwork mechanism, where we're close to growing organs on a petri dish. But on the other hand, I can tell you more and more exactly what exactly goes on in there that makes that organ, why these organs manifest in birds but not in bears, yet how can they share so much of the long molecule among them? Explaining the marvel doesn't diminish it, it grants us ownership of it.

You are right about the scientific method, that it's no better to take on faith the teachings of evo-devo than it is to adopt Mohammedanism. The wonder of science is that I can always try it myself and see; I have never successfully contacted a deity. Of course this kind of intellectual rigour in the whole human body instead of just a select few 'experts' would be preferable.

Don't want to derail this thread into a debate on the finer points of the Fermi paradox, but I hope you don't mean to suggest you've solved it?

[Illusions]

I don't rightly know how to impress this upon you, but there is a very specific threshold of understanding that was breached when we could explain why there are birds and bears, without a God specifically making a bird or a bear.

I'm more of the mind that this is the same thing as lightning and vikings. Just because one group of people in a period of time couldn't scientifically explain why it wasn't a god performing magic doesn't mean that another group of people in a different period of time can't, which should have been the same stance they had taken. Just because they couldn't explain why a bear and a bird are different doesn't automatically mean the answer must be God, in the same way vikings lacking an explanation of lightning doesn't automatically mean the answer must be Thor. The way you've explained how they operated seems more either naivety or arrogance, as if they believed themselves to be at or near the epitome of understanding of the Universe, and that any answer they did not possess or readily see must mean that there is some Godlike explanation behind it.

You are right about the scientific method, that it's no better to take on faith the teachings of evo-devo than it is to adopt Mohammedanism. The wonder of science is that I can always try it myself and see; I have never successfully contacted a deity. Of course this kind of intellectual rigour in the whole human body instead of just a select few 'experts' would be preferable.

This is why I chose the Scientific Method above all others for prime inclusion in the cognitive toolkit. Without it, while you may have all the others like Wiggin mentioned, you're just accepting that they work. With the Scientific Method if ever in doubt, or a new situation arises, you can prove that they work (or prove that they don't in which case, moar knowledge!).

Don't want to derail this thread into a debate on the finer points of the Fermi paradox, but I hope you don't mean to suggest you've solved it?

No, just that is is very likely a question with multiple complex answers, instead of one simple one.

[Nessus]

I'm more of the mind that this is the same thing as lightning and vikings. Just because one group of people in a period of time couldn't scientifically explain why it wasn't a god performing magic doesn't mean that another group of people in a different period of time can't, which should have been the same stance they had taken. Just because they couldn't explain why a bear and a bird are different doesn't automatically mean the answer must be God, in the same way vikings lacking an explanation of lightning doesn't automatically mean the answer must be Thor. The way you've explained how they operated seems more either naivety or arrogance, as if they believed themselves to be at or near the epitome of understanding of the Universe, and that any answer they did not possess or readily see must mean that there is some Godlike explanation behind it.

We are as much a product of culture and upbringing as we are of our own; the main ideas about the Cosmos around the time of Hume, say, were either the half-finished mechanics that began with Copernicus and Galileo, and the line of the Church. Or at that time the Churches, I should say. In that "culture war", there was definitely the deistic side, and the side of reason. So long as the side of reason could not explain the entirety of the world, life as well as the trajectories of planets, they would need to defer to the deists, for theirs was the superior logical argument in addition to evoking the wrath of deities and irate Church officials. I don't fault them for doubting reason over faith, for there was not enough reasonable explanations around to explain the difference between a bird and a bear (or why the Sun continued to shine, for that matter).

[wiggin]

There is no specific scientific reason to restrict a line of research unless it will interfere with the results. (For example, one might argue that the psychological strain of torturing animals/people might taint the observer's objectivity, or whatever.) Otherwise, though, there's no scientific reason to limit a line of research.

That doesn't mean I think we can go do whatever we want willy-nilly; quite the contrary. It just means that we can't look to science to establish those guidelines.