Utopia Through Science: Now Discover Cheats

It is an interesting juxtaposition to both our conversation on utopia over at Scott's blog, and to the previous two posts here concerning accuracy in published articles. There is an article in Discover magazine online that leads one to think that maybe utopia is here...or almost here. After all, consider the promo info:

The link to the Discover magazine article contains this enticement: "...science says war is over now". The article itself is titled, "Has Science Found a Way to End All Wars?" The DIGG promo suggests that science finds that sufficient food fixes everything. Is utopia here, thanks to science?

The actual Discover article quotes primate researchers who are convinced that humans should behave like bonobos, who resolve intergroup quarrels with, among other things, lots of sex. And a baboon troupe which lost aggressive males to disease was left with passive males, and a resultant unbaboon-like peace, suggesting, what... an elimination of all aggressive human males? The implication is that peace can be had, under certain conditions, with certain primates.

But researchers come in different levels of agreement, and so subsequent researchers disagreed with the first ones interviewed on the issues of food availablitiy and female empowerment as paths to peace(females hold a grudge longer, said one). Yet they all agreed on the ability of mankind to get along.

Steven LeBlanc is at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, where he serves as Director of Collections. According to the interview, he accused another researcher of promoting fairytales concerning humanity's propensity for peace. But then the article makes this absolutely remarkable statement:

"He [Le Blanc] notes that many warlike societies—notably Nazi Germany and imperial Japan and even the Yanomami, a notoriously fierce Amazonian tribe—have embraced peace. “Under certain circumstances,” he says, warfare “stops on a dime” as a result of ecological or cultural change. Two keys to peace, he believes, are controlling population growth and finding cheap alternatives to fossil fuels.

Even the most casual GED graduate will probably know that neither ecological or cultural change stopped either the Germans or the Japanese in WWII. It was the relentless bloody fight that took the war to Hitler; it was the threat of total annihilation through nuclear bombardment that took the war to Tojo. But this amazing statement is not the most preposterous to be made however, as the article continues:

"Despite the signs of progress against our belligerent side, all these scientists emphasize that if war is not inevitable, neither is peace. Major obstacles include religious fundamentalism, which not only triggers conflicts but also contributes to the suppression of women; global warming, which might produce ecological crises that spur social unrest and violence; overpopulation, particularly when it produces a surplus of unmarried, unemployed young men; and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

It is the use of the now entrenched epithet, "religious fundamentalism", that shows the underlying bias of the worldview being promoted here as science. It is now fashionable to lump all religions that have a fundamental premise (and they mostly do) into a single, hated, 'hate group'. They did not single out Muslims. Nor did they single out Buddhists. Nor Jains. Nor Christians. They are all condemned; they all "suppress their women". They are all responsible for war.

And of course Global Warming is responsible for war, as is Malthusian/Darwinian overpopulation (survival of the fittest), and WMD proliferation.

Now as far as I know, the hugely devastating wars of the 20th century had no input from Global Warming, nor from overpopulation, nor from WMD's -in fact the war in the Pacific was ended by WMDs, and the USSR was contained and dimantled under the threat of WMDs, which, by the way, were not used. Now if the concern actually is Iranian Shiites with WMDs, then they should have said so. Even so how is this a scientific proposition, not political?

The projected issues are not those of processed thought; nor are they of empirical data. They are projections out of a worldview, falsly presented as science.

Wrapping it all up is Harvard biologist, E.O.Wilson, who concurs that humans could live in peace, saying finally that,

"I think that once we face the problems underlying the origins of tribalism and religious extremism—face them frankly and look for the roots—then we’ll find a solution to those, too, in terms of an informed international negotiation system.” Wilson pauses and adds, “We have no option but optimism.” (emphasis added).

I suppose we needn't look too hard for the standard code words here, because they pop right out. Tribalism: code for anti-one-world-government. Religious Extremism: Code for any religion that thinks differently from the relativist elitists. Informed international negotiation system: Unless this is a proposition for negotiating from a position without authority and the attendent weakness, this is code for one world government.

Wilson and ilk think that a one-world government will look like the freedom that they now enjoy, only better, because the elites will be in control. But they believe - yes, believe - that Christians wanting freedom of religion (think Pilgrims, only modern) and Muslims wanting one world under Sharia are a single problem for them that must be made to go away.

Putting out enough food won't do the job. "Tribalism" and "Religious Fundamentalism" are not threats because of lack of food or fuel or cell phones or digital TV. They are threats because they are philosophically opposed to the control of their lives by elitists, especially elitists who have defined them as being a "problem".

So, philosophically, I am one of the problems for the elitist's dream of utopia.

Generally "researchers" will demand facts. The facts are, in this case, both historical and empirical.

Historically speaking, even the researchers agreed that the evidence of human history is not propitious for the end of war, much less the "scientific" end of war.

Empirically, anyone who has ever spent two minutes around a two year old knows what the human mind consists of before the rational part comes to be developed. It is not pretty; it does not go away just because the rational brain - frontal cortex - develops later on. The two year old is still inside each of us, albeit submerged; it frequently gets loose. Two year olds selfishly battle each other naturally. That part of our human nature is not going away.

Even ignoring our internal two year old, what evidence would convince us of the human potential to be totally rational and altruistic, 100% of the time? The researchers produce no evidence of this sort, only personal opinions.

The issues projected by these researchers are not those of processed thought; nor are they of empirical data. They are projections out of a worldview bias, falsely presented as science. And actual issues, such as well-known and documented human nature, are ignored, possibly because they are intractable and not soluble with sufficient food or material gratification.

So here again we have a sorry argument from worldview bias with science people talking opinion outside their domains, and which is promoted by fraudulent headlines and which in fact serves to spotlight a non-event concerning not-actual science.

Another day, another fraud.