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Conservatives VS Science VS Economics

Xerographica

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Here's part of my Medium response to a conservative[/URL]...

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Of course, in order to be a conservative, you must, by definition, have a natural aversion to science. Which is really strange given that one of the very best stories in the Bible is all about science. The Israelites weren’t quite sure whether Baal or God was the real god. So Elijah devised a simple test. He would pray to God, the prophets of Baal would pray to Baal, and whichever god responded with fire would be the real god.

Why did it matter whether Baal or God was the real god? It mattered because, if you’re going to make significant sacrifices to a god, you actually want even greater blessings in return. Otherwise, your sacrifices are simply a waste. The Bible isn’t a fan of waste. Nobody is a fan of waste. Even liberals aren’t a fan of waste. They hate getting ripped off just as much as the next person.

Nowadays nobody who is truly anybody debates whether God or Allah or Shiva or Buddha is the real god. Instead, the significant people, the people who actually matter, such as the Nobel prize winners, debate whether the Visible Hand or the Invisible Hand is the real god.

Do we get more blessings from the Visible Hand or from the Invisible Hand? Do we get more blessings when people decide for themselves how to spend their money or when that decision is made for them? This is the real question. But you really aren’t asking it. Instead, you’re going on and on and on about things that are entirely irrelevant to reality.

The reality is that we currently allow a small group of people (politicians) to spend a huge chunk of everybody’s money (taxes). This is the Visible Hand. Except, where’s the scientific support for the Visible Hand? There is none.

Are you willing to test your belief in the Visible Hand? If not, then you have a very big problem. Because even the prophets of Baal were willing to test their belief in Baal. At least they were willing to scientifically determine how well their beliefs corresponded with reality. As the story goes, their beliefs were unfounded and they were all slaughtered.

If your belief in the Visible Hand turns out to be unfounded then you really don’t have to be worried about being slaughtered. Science has made some progress since the Bible days.
 
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Conservatism is a political ideology, whereas Christianity is a religion.

They often overlap but, not all conservatives are Christian and vice versa.

Your title is kind of misleading for the content of your OP.
 
That Bible story is not science or even empirical evidence. Does the OP know what science is?
 
That story is more along the lines of "if I make this shot, the answer is yes" than science.

I'm very confused by this thread.

I was eager to berate conservatives for denying science and being obvious pawns of the fossil fuel industry.

I am now disappointed.
 
I'm very confused by this thread.

I was eager to berate conservatives for denying science and being obvious pawns of the fossil fuel industry.

I am now disappointed.

In the Environment subforum, there're a handful of devote and self worth vested deniers of various sort. Blog spam, self journal educated, flat-out CT vs the scientific and academic community... they got it all and you're a sucker.
 
Conservatism is a political ideology, whereas Christianity is a religion.

They often overlap but, not all conservatives are Christian and vice versa.

Your title is kind of misleading for the content of your OP.

...and there might be Christians that pompöse scientific progress als there are Atheists that do.
But never forget the liberals that are open minded. Even they can be cool.
 
That Bible story is not science or even empirical evidence. Does the OP know what science is?

Right now Netflix decides for subscribers how to divide their $10 dollars/month among the content. What, exactly, would happen if subscribers could decide for themselves how they divide their $10 dollars/month among the content?

In other words, what would happen if the Visible Hand was replaced with the Invisible Hand?

Right now you're a liberal. This means that you believe in the effectiveness of the Visible Hand. But do you know of any scientific experiments that have tested the effectiveness of the Visible Hand? No. You do not. The Visible Hand has has never been scientifically tested. Same thing with the Invisible Hand.

Therefore, you might know what science is, but you really don't know what science is good for. Science is good for minimizing the amount of BS that you carry in your head. If you don't mind the possibility that your beliefs are BS, then you are no true friend of science.
 
Honestly pretty confused after reading the entire thread.
 
Honestly pretty confused after reading the entire thread.

That's because your invisible hand just slapped the living crap out of your visible hand. Or maybe the opposite. It all depends on which hand was in the cookie jar.
 
That's because your invisible hand just slapped the living crap out of your visible hand. Or maybe the opposite. It all depends on which hand was in the cookie jar.

Nah, I don't think so but thanks for giving me ideas. :)
 
Religion is about the needs of self reliance. All your main religions evolved when the vast majority of humans lived in extreme poverty. There was no big brother to take care of you, so one needed to be self reliant and find your joy in little things.

Faith, is the belief in things not seen. It is about finding something good to believe in, when the external environment was not conducive to the same end. Faith helps to center one, as an individual, based on internal things, so they can compensate for lack of external prosthesis.

As an analogy, I can find my inner happiness. This feeling of happiness comes from inside and allows me to walk around and be happy . Or I can have a large number of people, like a bunch of yes men and sycophants, do this for me by pumping in shine shine. Both can create a state of happiness, but the latter is far more resource intensive. Beyond resource intensive, this same external prosthesis, may not make everyone, happy. Religion is about finding this on the inside; faith.

One difference between Democrats and Republican approaches is Republican believe more in internal inducement; self reliance. Democrat is more about inducement from the outside, which is far more resource intensive. The religious faith connection to Conservative values is what motivates the inner values approach. This is more in line with the long standing religious traditions of people needing to be self reliant, in spite of poverty. You are taught to find joy and love, in simple things, instead of needing a $1K iPhone to do this.

The visible hand attempts to do good, but the invisible hand of faith and self actualization can do it cheaper and result in people with a better inner center. If we lower taxes, the ego flattering entourage will get smaller, which may not make as many people happy from the outside. However, this gives amore resources to the individuals, to find themselves.

We can teach person to fish or we can buy them fish each day. Learning to fish is more self satisfying and is the goal of the inner hand. One needs depth to wish to fish. The outer hand prefers middlemen and a constant production of fish, for shallow people who don't go deep enough to find themselves.
 
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The OP said that "by definition" conservatives have a natural aversion to science.

I've tried to understand what he could be getting at with that "by definition". I think what he means is this: the practice of science tends to overturn established beliefs; conservatism is adherence to established beliefs. Therefore, science tends to overturn that to which conservatives adhere. (Question to OP: is this more or less what you were getting at?)

He might also have said: science, when applied to the economy, tends to churn the social order: new social strata are created, others go into decline, as new technology undermines established ways of making a living. Since conservatives tend to be happy with the established social order, they have an additional reason to be aversive to science: not only does it destroy their ideas, but it destroys the social order which supports those ideas.

(Let me make it clear that I'm not necessarily agreeing with this argument, just trying to state it in a very clear way so that it can be discussed.)

I'd like to address the first proposition, but first I would like the OP to affirm that I've understood him (and to correct me if I have not).

We could then have a possibly-fruitful discussion about conservatism and non-conservatism, science, social change, facts and morals, etc.
 
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The OP said that "by definition" conservatives have a natural aversion to science.

Look at you with your thoughts and eloquence and desire to have a "fruitful" discussion. You must be new to the internet.

Regarding aversion to science... yeah, conservatives are largely Christians, which means that they oppose Darwin. This is obviously a generalization. The other day some Mormons knocked on my door and tried to convert me. I brought up evolution and one of them said that it was great. Back in the day you'd be very hard pressed to find a single conservative who thought that evolution was great. None of my family certainly thought that evolution great. Conservatives are all different. This difference is what guarantees that they will evolve. The less adaptable subsets will be replaced by more adaptable subsets. I asked the Mormons about polygamy. Logically they immediately were on the defensive. Then I said that I'd be more interested in being a Mormon if polygamy was still encouraged. I really like the idea of applying the division of labor to multiple wives. One missionary said that the prophet can always bring back polygamy if God gives it a thumbs up again.

My main point in the OP was about people's willingness to put their most cherished beliefs to the test. Right now you believe in the effectiveness of allowing elected representatives to spend everybody's taxes. In other words, you believe in the effectiveness of central planning. In other words, you believe in the effectiveness of the Visible Hand. The question is... how willing are you to have this belief tested? How eager are you to make sure that this belief of yours isn't BS? How motivated are you to rid yourself of BS beliefs?

"The human makeup includes biological programs dealing with anxiety and flight that are older than the human species, and these comprise or engender at least the rudiments of the ritual pattern, correlating threat, alarm, pursuit, flight, and the trick of abandoning what can be spared." - Walter Burkert, Creation of the Sacred

The trick of abandoning what can be spared... this is a pretty good trick. There's only so much that you can physically and mentally carry. This means prioritization, which means carrying the most useful things, which depends on correctly determining the usefulness of things.

How do we correctly determine the usefulness of things? Information... and brainpower. More brainpower can process more information. What's tricky to appreciate is that a group, as a whole, will have more brainpower/information than any of its members. What's even trickier to appreciate is that markets are by far the best way to utilize a group's collective brainpower/information...

"We must look at the price system as such a mechanism for communicating information if we want to understand its real function — a function which, of course, it fulfils less perfectly as prices grow more rigid. (Even when quoted prices have become quite rigid, however, the forces which would operate through changes in price still operate to a considerable extent through changes in the other terms of the contract.) The most significant fact about this system is the economy of knowledge with which it operates, or how little the individual participants need to know in order to be able to take the right action. In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on and passed on only to those concerned. It is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order to adjust their activities to changes of which they may never know more than is reflected in the price movement. "— Friedrich Hayek, The Use Of Knowledge In Society

This is how market economies work. This really isn't how command economies work. Yet, we have a command economy in our public sector. Why? Is it because science has proven the usefulness of command economies? Nope. It really hasn't. Neither liberals nor conservatives see the point in using science to test the Visible Hand.
 
Xerographica: thank you for your informative reply. You raise a number of interesting points.

(1) I wasn't sure whether you thought I had correctly summarized your argument that conservatives are "by definition" opposed to science. You do make the argument that "conservatives are largely Christians, which means that they oppose Darwin".

Now in the first place, there are a lot of Christians, including pretty conservative ones, who do not "oppose Darwin". Public opinion polls on belief in evolution (in the US) over the last couple of decades have yielded contradictory results, although it appears that support for Darwin is growing among the younger generations. I think it's safe to say that 30-50% of the population reject evolution -- a figure that is surprisingly stable across many cultures and countries, and probably correlates pretty well with educational level.

But it's certain that many Christians believe evolution is compatible with Christianity. (However, it is true that at least some of these, while accepting the age of the earth and the gradual transmutation of species, believe that God had a guiding hand in this, or that evolution was just God's choice for creating living things [I believe this is the official Roman Catholic view]. Usually this belief is fairly nebulous, but -- as you no doubt know -- there is a strain of Christian/conservative thought that, while accepting Darwinian 'micro-evolution', maintains that long-term evolution shows evidence of 'intelligent design'. At any rate, I don't think it's helpful to making a clear analysis to lump all Christians, or all conservatives, together with young-Earth fundamentalists. )

In any case, however they accommodate their belief in a supernatural power with natural evolution, many Christians accept it:
"Molleen Matsumura of the National Center for Science Education found, of Americans in the twelve largest Christian denominations, at least 77% belong to churches that support evolution education (and that at one point, this figure was as high as 89.6%). These religious groups include the Catholic Church, as well as various denominations of Protestantism, including the United Methodist Church, National Baptist Convention, USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), National Baptist Convention of America, African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Church, and others. A figure closer to about 71% is presented by the analysis of Walter B. Murfin and David F. Beck."
[From the Wiki article on this subject, which, incidentally, contains a lot of interesting information about religions and evolution (although, curiously, omitting any reference to mainstream Islam, which is odd, since they feature the small Ahmadiya sect prominently). Source here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution]

As a further footnote: I don't think that 'accepting evolution' -- by which you mean, I think, evolution via natural selection of random variations, including the concept that living matter was originally created by accident -- is the acid test of rational thought. More generally, I personally don't find the idea that the perceived universe can be fully explained as the interaction of matter-energy in space-time -- that everything is reduceable to fundamental particles following definite physical laws -- is satisfactory. I think there may be more, of great significance, to be discovered. (Assuming we are capable of discovering it -- it may be, as the scientist JD Bernal once noted, that "the universe is not only queerer than we conceive, but queerer than we can conceive.) But this isn't central to the discussion.

(1) What "is" conservatism? and (2) What is "science", and is there any necessary connection between the two? More generally, is there any necessary connection between "science" and any particular political belief?

But this post is way too long already ... I can already hear the snores from where I am ... so I'll stop here and let you (and others) reply, if you wish.
 
Except for this footnote: I think arguments are "what 'is' X" or "Is X a true Y", are semantic minefields. It's much better to approach these questions with a slightly different wording, along these lines: "How do we use the word/phrase X?" and "To what extent should we say X is an example of Y?" ... this slight change of wording -- essentially, trying to avoid the use of the 'to be' verb -- can bring great dividends in the way of intellectual clarity, especially when we acknowledge that the same words and phrases are very often used in different ways by different people, especially when these people are separated in time and space.

So what I really would like to discuss is: How should we use the word "conservatism"? and "How has it been, or is it being, used (in multiple ways) now?" ... and the same for "science". (And you raise other interesting points too, in particular, can the rival claims of the free market vs state central planning be tested empirically, the way rival theories of, say, the Solar Neutrino problem can, in theory, be tested, and if so, how? But that perhaps deserves a thread of its own.)
 
Do you ever wonder by government "scientists" (ie bureaucrats) never accomplish anything?

Jim Hansen, the guy who invented global warming, and nary a prize at all?

What gives?

This guy launched trillions of taxpayer dollars for boondoggles and Nobel wont even give him a consolation prize .

I do like Ike's famous farewell address warning, especially the parts the socialists always try to forget:

In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
 
Would your argument extend to scientists (or 'scientists') whose work is funded mainly by government grants?
 
So what I really would like to discuss is: How should we use the word "conservatism"? and "How has it been, or is it being, used (in multiple ways) now?" ... and the same for "science". (And you raise other interesting points too, in particular, can the rival claims of the free market vs state central planning be tested empirically, the way rival theories of, say, the Solar Neutrino problem can, in theory, be tested, and if so, how? But that perhaps deserves a thread of its own.)
The word "liberal" in the old days meant something completely different than it means today. Words evolve, just like everything else.

Why are you a conservative instead of a libertarian? If you haven't read it already, this essay by Friedrich Hayek is good... Why I am Not a Conservative.
 
No, I don't think conservatives have a natural aversion to science. Politics and religion don't always overlap.
 
Soopairik: Absolutely. One of my best and oldest friends is a Presbyterian socialist. I know many atheist or agnostic conservatives. There's a rough correlation between religious beliefs and political beliefs, but only very rough. You won't find many hardcore conservatives among the congregations of Black churches, or among militant Muslims.

Xerographica: I would first say: I apply my advice to beware of the "to be" verb to political categorization. I had to put something down as my political leaning, and if I am pushed, in a which-side-are-you-on argument, I will definitely apply that label to myself, but if I have time to have an extended discussion with someone, I would rather talk about concrete issues, about how to try to understand human society and its evolution, and avoid labels that usually evoke knee-jerk reflexes.

So a couple of points: note that the words 'conservative' and 'liberal', as used by most Americans, just apply to politics in the US, since the end of WWII. If we look outside the American borders, we find the American 'liberals' and 'conservatives' are usually in broad agreement about the kind of societies they would like to see: thus both support the 'liberals' in Russia, in Iran, in China, taking, in those countries, 'liberalism' to mean adherence to the rule of law, toleration of matters that are personal choices, commitment to a government that is electorally beholden to its population. (Of course, there are tendencies on both the 'Right' and the 'Left' who don't believe in these things, but here I'm talking about mainstream conservatism and liberalism.)

I think it's more fruitful to try to look at politics from a trans-national and long-term perspective, to see if we can identify broad trends, of which 21st Century American conservatism and liberalism are just particular manifestations, shaped by national peculiarities.

So ... I believe you'll find, looking at most countries, that their politics are shaped by two very fundamental forces: racial/tribal/ethnic, on the one hand; economic, on the other.

A country with serious numbers of more than one tribe -- there doesn't seem to be a word that describes what I want here: "ethnic" comes closest, but wouldn't cover same-DNA-opposing-superstitions situations, as in Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia and the Muslim Middle East -- so I'll use "tribal" to describe the sort of kill-the-other identities that divide Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, Shi'a and Sunni, but which also include Greek vs Turk, Tamil vs Sinhala, Rohingya vs whatever-the-Burmese-majority-is, and even perhaps the Dalits and Brahmins in India, although in that country it's mainly Hindu/Muslim that drives the killing.

Anyway, in any country unfortunate enough to have serious tribal diversity, politics usually revolves around which tribe will dominate. It's a horrible situation, because it's not much ameenable to democratic compromise.

The least inhumane solution, if there is one, is probably some sort of physical separation -- "self-determination" -- as in Cyprus, most of Yugoslavia, Kurdistan -- but ... where the contending peoples are overlapped geographically, this cannot happen without massive population transfer, with all its attendant horrors: mass murder, impoverishment, etc. But such transfer is more common than many people realize: it's just happened to the Rohyngyas, but the Germans experienced it after WWII, as did Greeks and Turks after WWI, and Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks recently. We'll probably see it again in Iraq as the Kurds try to break loose and then drive out the Arabs and Turkmen from the areas they want to incorporate in independent Kurdistan.

But ... where politics does not revolve around this Devil's Divide, then it revolves around economics: roughly speaking, political parties can be divided into those who appeal to the Successful, and those who appeal to the Unsuccessful.

The latter always want to use the state to, in some way, redistribute resources, usually taken from the Successful, to the Unsuccessful. But they may also want various laws and customs which entrench the Successful in place, to be changed, usually to meet some abstract definition of fairness. (A commitment to fairness, at least among those one identifies as part of one's own tribe, seems to be a human universal.)

That is to say, where politics doesn't see one tribe pitted against another, it's usually a Left/Right divide.

However, there are always other things going on at the same time, and this brings us to the question of psychological disposition, to be taken up later.
 
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