Barry Belmont
This is from the Beyond Belief 2007 Conference, “Enlightenment 2.0.” It is an excellent source of views on secularism, atheism, religion, and science. The lecturers are world renowned and their lectures here are incredible – how they manage to squeeze so much information into such concise presentations is incredible.
This video (along with all the others) is intended for educational purposes and has only been released here on YouTube so that it might reach a broad audience ever hungry for knowledge.
However, that being the case, a lot of people worked very hard to make these presentations possible. I am, of course, referring to the members of The Science Network who deserve full credit for this. If you enjoy these presentations, consider purchasing them on DVD (http://www.beyondbeliefdvd.com/servlet/StoreFront) or simply donating to this wonderful institution (http://thesciencenetwork.org/membership).
The Science Network (to my knowledge) owns the copyright to this material and should they ask me to remove it, I will.
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Many thanks. Odd to hear Haidt, dismiss cognitive therapy as 'really hard work'. Surely anything worthwhile in terms of personal development proves to be, yes, hard work, but ultimately rewarding?
Is that Vilayanur Subramanian "Rama" Ramachandran I hear asking a question early in the video?
Excellent! I appreciate this video for the diverse opinions and the stimulating discussion. And I was pleasantly surprised to see Sam Harris make an appearance in this video (he's not listed in the tags). He made some excellent comments.
By the way, Sam Harris' comments begin at 21:22 minutes.
That sounded like V.S. Ramachandran to me too.
Their discourse is superb. The fact that they disagree on certain points and argue varous perceptions is another testament to their integrity in the pursuit of "truth", whatever that maybe.
Its a pity that less than 2000 of us have seen this on Youtube
Villain from the Green Lantern movie at bottom right at 31:31. :-p
@The Blushnine – I know this comment is old, but I think that everyone who claims to have an investment in seeking truth, solidarity and peace has to keep this conversation going on all fronts of life. For example, I don't just hash out these issues with myself, my family, friends and Internet community. I bring it up whenever casual conversation strikes at work or anywhere in public you just have to strategically filter it in and see if the individual will take it and respond accordingly. You'
Go David Sloan Wilson! Excellent discourse.
Enjoyed this panel A LOT!
Yep. Rama! 😀
Not too often do you hear a conversation in which 'illiberal' is a bad thing! 🙂
jesus fucking christ!!!!!! sam harris is the embodiment of idiocy, ignorance and insensitivity. retarded scum.
TheBlushnine
"All I can say is I'm so glad SOME PEOPLE are thinking about this stuff. I really think what we are watching is the only hope humanity really has. These people are tackling the toughest problems and doing it in the most honest way anyone could ask a human being to even try. To boot, they even tackle the toughest of all problems, self-criticism of their own discourse. After watching these I feel so one dimensionally flat out stupid. So discouraging to see the number of video views tallied."
Rofl, are you for real? The sycophantic and unsophisticated ravings of Shermer with his vulgar economics was just shameful. The rest is ok, but find some of the scientific papers of W.D. Hamilton or Robert Trivers are WASTLY more intruiging. Either way you see it, if you think an enjoyable panel dicussion is the difference between salvation and doom, then you are a part of the problem, I watch this kind of stuff when im not bothered to read articles, books and technical papers, thinking you only need a decent playlist on youtube and corresponding high view count shows the intellectual lazyness that is actually the problem.
20:11
About "Group Selection" and kin selection etc, probably the most annoying thing in this group so far is the total lack of understanding of evolution,and Haidt has the arrogance to say that they all have the factual assumptions in common, Dawkins is crying now. Group selection is just something that can exist superficially but is never itself a selection mechanism (though at times group distribution of characteristics can passively give benefits to certain kinds of phenotypes, and select against others, but as always, selection works at the "gene" level (not the geneticist view of a gene), but a string of DNA that have a better survival value over competing strings of DNA at that locus, it can be a promoter region, or a full cistron, granted its short enough to survive crossing over, or basically anything you want, a peptide chain alteration ie), kin selection is just genetic selfishness made obvious through the distinction of differential relatedness – not to be confused with reciprocal altruism.
Rofl at David Sloan Wilson complaining over Dawkins spending a paragraph at group selection in The God Delusion (which I guess he talks about, not read that book, I was a born agnostic) towards the end. Dawkins first book (from 1976 I think) was a attack on group selection and individual selection, and in The Extended Phenotype (1982) hes at times forced to reiterate arguments against individual and group selection once again, time has passed since that, and Dawkins have been vindicated. Gould and Lewontin lost, actually Lewontin later admitted that gene selectionism had to be the best explaination for the emergence, maintenance and development of animal characters. Rofl what a goof Wilson is.
Should be mentioned that Dawkins made the meme concept in 1976 based on another guys concepts of culture, Cloak's M-Culture and I-Culture (from 1975) (the information stored in the brain, and the phenotype), and Dawkins admit that he doesnt try to link memes to survival of genes or anything else, he considers it an emergent property with its own laws of transmission and survival.
One should consider though that a "jesus is real and come join our group" meme confers benefits differently on the individuals in that group, consider the prophet and "meme modifier and arbiter" and the power he wields Vs those that only adhere and accept that cultural influence.
The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us… -Nietzsche, BG&E
7:28 How fun to watch David Sloan Wilson discuss ideas in 2011 that were first recorded by Nietzche. I wonder if Wilson likes Nietzsche.
The thing that I see with Sloan Wilson and Haidt both is that they seem to not be working towards anything. They don't see an end to superstition as a goal. While I am fascinated by the research and perspectives of both, they seem to be taking a masturbatory approach. Haidt finds that conservatives confuse personal preference with morality, but interprets the data to say that they are "more balanced" than liberals. David Sloan Wilson has this elitist view that religion is wrong. I am sure he doesn't hold supernatural beliefs, but seems to think it is fine to leave the masses to their delusions. This is while those who are morally "more balanced" and deluded by religion are crashing planes into buildings and making life hell for everyone else.
Where does it say we are not a part of nature? I get the speciesist views of artifacts and artificial selection, but how is that different that a parasite using its host? How is it that no one seemed to notice the syncretism of Wilson with evolution and religion as if that isn't a bit of slight of hand? He used sophistry to get around what Harris asked him, and instead went on about someone who wasn't there to defend himself. Being new to all this, but having already read Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, Dennett, and others, including Atheist +, I have not once had the perception that any of the authors didn't recognize it as having served a purpose in the past, say, ritual placebos due to hyper active agency detection to keep form being killed, but once we sorted out agriculture, let alone city building, what excuse did ritualistic behavior, let alone religion, have going for it? Does it unify groups better than communist which were blown off? Blanket statements about it ignore Vietnam, Cuba, and a whole lot of social democracies that exist. The later all do much better than free market systems.
And just as a worthless anecdote, during a few too many brushes with mortality, some self inflicted, others not so much, if it was not for the brutal honesty of Hitchens, Hirsi Ali, Dennett, Harris, Dawkins, and others, I would have taken a nationalistic, and possibly very religious path of destruction as a so called moderate Zionist. I suppose if the sky daddy exists, he wanted me to have time to sit around in Jerusalem, debate with religious students and leaders, and contemplate what lay ahead of me as the recruitment center fumbled my files until I had no more means to support myself and had to go AWOL just to survive and make certain sure I didn't pick up a weapon for anyone who was so incompetent and full of narrative bullshit of their own. If I had experienced such ideas as a much younger person, I can only imagine how different my personal life would be, not to mention those who I grew up with, especially those who didn't get to reach the age of reason. So anyone who would not want to make such an attempt is the one doing the so called 'espionage' and would have to be considered the real adversary. Especially if we are to pretend that the idea of mutual destruction is deterrent enough to keep anyone from really testing the failed hypothesis of an afterlife en mass.
Wow! 17:33 Jonathan Haidt sounds like he's been watching my YouTube videos, I'm always promoting this idea of diversity by via voluntary division, what I call "divide and diversify" or voluntary nationalism. I think there should be a web site like a dating site where people can go and fill out profiles to identify people of like-minds to form separate societies. People really can't have the kind of freedom they need if there are universal values forced on all communities. I'm okay with communities that don't allow Christians, but would anyone reciprocate?
Harris is almost always the voice of reason. Shermer is also a constant voice of reason. Dennett doesn't have anything very relevant to contribute to the conversation anymore.
Full of sound and fury, fixing nothing.
Classical liberalism is really only for White countries. That's the only place it sticks.
Lol, didn't expect Sam Harris in the audience xD
that parapsychology guy is a wackjob
David Sloan Wilson…… is so full of shit. Blathering sanctimony…. accusations of bad science, but offers nothing in its place. He's just shit talking the new atheists, making half considered assertions….. no content at all….. when asked for it, he says he has a great discovery in the works. Total fraud. strikes me as total fucking creep btw.
And really….. Haidt is a Fucking creepy charlatan too…. he's this dude who thought up this intrusive thought experiment, and now thinks he has one up on anyone, morally, who makes a passionate argument, even if their moral consideration is perfectly spot on. All he has going for him is He assumes group selection is a fact….
These are two theories built on nothing. I say again…. nothing.
Or am I incorrectly competing!? 😂😂😂
They sound like a bunch fanatics discussing their "enlightenment" religion. Like its almost part of misson theology to spread liberal ideology, democracy and capitalism to the rest of the world.
I was active on YouTube when these talks were first uploaded. Recently I've delved into Haidts material and I see him on this decade old video. How did I miss him back then? Now I'm here checking out David Sloan Wilson.
David Brin impressed me. Wow!
The rather dim woman at 19:35 makes an attack of Haidt's position , disingenuously adding "as I understand it". She doesn't understand it, she mischaracterizes it, but that doesn't matter, because she has created the impression that we was wrong, which is enough for her. She also conflates endorsing an argument of Putnam's with treating him as an unimpeachable authority. Two straw man fallacies in under a minute, not bad.