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It seems that many partipants here agree that bickering and unsupported claims threaten the credibility and research opportunities of transhuman ideas. Is this a correct assumption?
Given the enthusiastic posting to the "Crackpot Science" thread, I am wondering if there is any interest in discussing and compiling a list of explicit criteria for evaluating transhuman ideas.
For example, some initial criteria might be that arguments should be:
1) Supported by studies published in peer-reviewed journals sucha s Science, Nature, etc.
2) Expressed in valid logic (see www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm for a description of logical fallacies such as attacking the speaker, slippery slope, etc.)
Thoughts?
Given the enthusiastic posting to the "Crackpot Science" thread, I am wondering if there is any interest in discussing and compiling a list of explicit criteria for evaluating transhuman ideas.
For example, some initial criteria might be that arguments should be:
1) Supported by studies published in peer-reviewed journals sucha s Science, Nature, etc.
2) Expressed in valid logic (see www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm for a description of logical fallacies such as attacking the speaker, slippery slope, etc.)
Thoughts?
posted by:
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Denver
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Fri, March 12, 2004 - 4:18 AMThis makes good sense if a mechanism is inserted to allow new ideas, even unpopular ones, a fair hearing even if peer review would stomp them into the ground before they can take their first breath. How to do this without getting sidetracked into searches for the science of Atlantis or such? I don't know. I'm not proposing any solutions (yet), just stating a problem -
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Fri, March 12, 2004 - 4:31 AMscience isn't a popularity contest. -
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Fri, March 12, 2004 - 6:09 AMDaniel,
It sounds like you and Korpios have a lot to say about what science is NOT and how ignorant the average person is.
Given that you claim to make a decent living contributing to the field of science, do you have more constructive ideas regarding how to steer clear of dubious, outrageous, impractical psuedoscience?
The original goal of this thread was to encourge discussion around acceptable criteria for answering this question. It has been my experience that you can judge the quality of a discussion by the ratio of arguments to assertions (including flaming). Ironically, it looks like these discussions have deteriorated into mostly flames about the weakness of others arguments.
Is anyone interested in getting on a different track? -
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Fri, March 12, 2004 - 10:51 AMNo, my point was that there isn't science that is popular and science that is unpopular. There is science that is right, and science that is wrong. Or as closely as we can tell, but truthfully much of claims the average (insert name for those that believe in homeopathy, magnetic bracelets and cold fusion) is stuff that is outright disproven.
Claiming it is just unpopular suggests that it is right when it is not, and scientists reject it because it is the current rage. This is not true, science is NOT a popularity contest.
So saying science is a popularity contest is flaming? Or is anybody that goes against what you say flaming?
Here are some sites about psuedoscience and critical thinking:
www.chem1.com/acad/sci/pseudosci.html
www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~shalli...udo.html
www.geocities.com/pseudosci....html#more
www.freeinquiry.com/critical-notes.html
There is a good start.
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Fri, March 12, 2004 - 10:58 AM*Given that you claim to make a decent living contributing to the field of science, do you have more constructive ideas regarding how to steer clear of dubious, outrageous, impractical psuedoscience? *
I just want clarify this point: In my other thread I said I was going to school to make a good living contribuiting to the field. There is a distinction. I am not a scientist yet, merely a student.
Try some of my links above for practical ideas on avoiding psuedoscience or dubious science.
Or another good one, though long, is here:
rucus.ru.ac.za/~urban/docs/baloney.html
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Fri, March 12, 2004 - 6:32 AMIt is difficult to create discussion guidelines without first deciding upon the shared goal of the group. The description of the tribe:
"For people who participate or have an interest in transhumanism: the intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason. The focus is on developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities."
My personal read of that is hard science only, but that's my bias. I imagine "applied reason" means different things to different people.
My personal take: I don't want pie-in-the-sky, daydreaming, or pseudoscience--I want something verifiable, that I can support in the real world. If an idea is put forth, I'd like to see some serious experimental data. -
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Fri, March 12, 2004 - 3:37 PMI agree with using applied reason and accepted science to discuss the technical path to transcendence, but there are also key non-technical aspects to transhumanism that should be a part of the discussion. Morality and its cousin ethical constraint become crucial as the physical power of an intelligent system increases.
But is there a way to keep a moral (and especially religious) discussion from devolving into speaking over each other's heads? The Singularity Institute has some interesting work toward this end: www.singinst.org/.
- JML -
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Wed, June 6, 2007 - 5:41 AMformal logic is my standard to determine whats crackpotted or not, but i think its fair to make that case slowly and
gently as a tribe, and i don't really know what the argument is over.
i think non crackpotted is where i have to stand, but then again, we don't need to toss out potentially useful paradigmal
information just because we need to draw a tight circle.
i like to see if theres good or bad in ideas and sort of find the good and toss out the bad.
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Wed, June 6, 2007 - 5:45 AM
My personal take: I don't want pie-in-the-sky, daydreaming, or pseudoscience--I want something verifiable, that I can support in the real world. If an idea is put forth, I'd like to see some serious experimental data.
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as long as you are the first person to attempt to run the search engine (as i often am)
that seems fair.
the best thing to do is take a walk through the crackpottery and sample some of it and get a taste for why its
crackpotted.
Then on over to introducing the folks to formal logic. What we don't want to do is give people stress for bringing
up something they heard of and thought was neat. serving the process of editing and evaluating while simultaneously honoring
each others contribtions can be difficult. -
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Re: Non-Crackpot Transhumanism
Wed, June 6, 2007 - 5:47 AMalso, i can run both ways with that. it doesn't bother me to hang in a hard science only room, but i can be a metaphysician.
so we should pick one side or the other probably via a vote or some such.
i can run an all around more general transhumanism tribe, or a hard science only tribe, but you let me know as a group
how you feel.
thanks.
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