Yeah, that’s an appropriate smiley. Thanks.

GdB - 20 November 2012 02:09 AM

TimB - 20 November 2012 01:07 AM

That was simply an aside indicating that it could be that no one would be interested enough in the topic to respond.

And therefore put it into philosophy? That is insulting again! Everything that is not interesting enough goes into philosophy.

No, the choice of subject was mine, thus failure to draw interest would be mine and not philosophy’s.  In fact, I am not sure why a philosopher would not be pleased with the thought that philosophy has things to say aboudt a breadth and variety of subject areas (as was my original intent for choosing philosophy as the heading).

(Note: I think you are kidding me, but I am playing along.)

GdB - 20 November 2012 02:09 AM

TimB - 20 November 2012 01:07 AM

That was simply an aside indicating that it could be that no one would be interested enough in the topic to respond.

And therefore put it into philosophy? That is insulting again! Everything that is not interesting enough goes into philosophy.

  Hell, Tim.  I think putting the subject in Philosophy was an insult to the topic, not to Philosophy. 

Occam

Guys, I do not have English as my first language obviously
and not being an academic and not into Political Correctness
the word bigot is something I would need to look up.

bigot means according to the FreeDictionary
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bigot

One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race,
or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own,
esp on religion, politics, or race

bigot - a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own

Oh so that is what the word refers to.
That is why Babies need to be socialized into the culture
that their parents wants the baby to belong to?

Here is my very biased example. Rebecca Watson joking about
how utterly bad science that Evolutionary Psychology produce.

Everybody happy to ridicule a whole diverse group of scientists
instead of realizing one can not condemn all of them based on
selected bad apples?

Should I see her as very bigot then? Or that she has a political agenda
to be partial and to be intolerant to other views than her own group?

The whole set up of Political Correctness is to look down on the bigots.
One can see PC as a literal usage or implementation of bigot practice?

What would a Humanist way be? To do reliable research on what it is
to be a Human. Jonathan Haidt try to do that. One don’t have to agree
with every nuance in his take on the result and if one see much flaw
in his research method then why not do better research and to present
the result from that one. I hope Haidt would welcome such competition.

To just dismiss him like some Politically Correct supporters do is to be bigot
in my biased view.

I where a strong supporter of Political Correctness from say 1955 up to 1975
when I noticed them went deep into bigot ideas about science being bad?

What we need is good reliable science not to dismiss all science as bad.

Fred, Thanks for your input. 

Social Scientists often have devised abstract concepts involved as variables in their research. To the extent that this is the case, in my opinion (IMO), we cannot as readily accept the validity of their results and interpretations as we can research in the hard sciences.  But if their methodology is sound and they have careful (rather than loose or over-generalized conclusions) we should give them serious consideration, even if we might have some personal bias against the findings.

IMO, it is important for us to search for what is really going on, and not let our pre-conceived or pre-programmed biases interfere.

Thanks Tim.

My naive take on the usage of the word bigot is that it fills the purpose
of shaming and ridiculing enemies. To put somebody’s reputation on line.

Politicians and journalism with an agenda and opinion leaders trend setters
that need to declare somebody as too low to vote on or to read they use such
terms for to tell others that don’t read or support this person because he is a bigot.

That seems to be the purpose of the word.
A kind of punishment for not agreeing with the right views.

The reason I like Jonathan Haidt is that he try to describe what is really going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt
http://people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/
http://www.moralfoundations.org/
http://righteousmind.com/

I am a nobody so I don’t have the formal knowledge to know if
Haidt has the best explanation but I have not found anything better.

Sam Harris is critical but I find Haidt to have better argument than Harris.

Hope nobody get me wrong now. I don’t dispute that some people
are narrow minded or them have deep seated prejudice or stubborn
bad views on others.

What I say is that the word bigot is used for to make these people demonized.
Sure we should make effort to make all those narrow minded open minded instead.
I don’t trust it helps to name them bigots. That would only teach them to shut up
and they still would have those narrow prejudiced views and feel for revenge on
those that gave them bad names.

FredW - 28 November 2012 04:45 AM

Thanks Tim.

My naive take on the usage of the word bigot is that it fills the purpose
of shaming and ridiculing enemies. To put somebody’s reputation on line.

Politicians and journalism with an agenda and opinion leaders trend setters
that need to declare somebody as too low to vote on or to read they use such
terms for to tell others that don’t read or support this person because he is a bigot.

That seems to be the purpose of the word.
A kind of punishment for not agreeing with the right views.

I agree that that can be a reasonable understanding of how the word “bigot” is used. But it is also commonly used, more explicitly, to denote a person who over-generalizes others, who have certain differences, as being intrinsically worthy only of disdain.  (Note:  When I used “Babies are Bigots” as the topic title, it was to draw attention to the thread.  I don’t really believe that babies are bigots.)

But the research that I had heard about, suggested that babies and very young children can be shown to have behaviors that are indicative of bias against others who are subtly different. They can even seem to have a pre-diposition toward behaviors that are actively unsupportive or even vengeful-like toward others.  So my thought is that if we are born with these kinds of pre-dispositions, then it behooves us, as a society, to take this into account.  Perhaps we should do more to identify the particular kinds of experiences that humans need early on, in order to become socialized in a positive way, rather than allowing them to lack such key experiences, in which case they might become someone who would fully qualify for the descriptive word “bigot”.

TimB - 18 November 2012 07:41 PM

Another thought that occurs to me, is that these studies might lead one to consider that humanists are made not born.

Humanists are made, not born.  It’s atheists who are born.  Atheism is solely a lack of belief in any god.  Humanism is a philosophical stance.  Babies are not born with a philosophical stance.

FredW - 28 November 2012 04:45 AM

The reason I like Jonathan Haidt is that he try to describe what is really going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt
http://people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/
http://www.moralfoundations.org/
http://righteousmind.com/

...Haidt has the best explanation but I have not found anything better.

Sam Harris is critical but I find Haidt to have better argument than Harris.

Hope nobody get me wrong now. I don’t dispute that some people
are narrow minded or them have deep seated prejudice or stubborn
bad views on others.

What I say is that the word bigot is used for to make these people demonized.
Sure we should make effort to make all those narrow minded open minded instead.
I don’t trust it helps to name them bigots. That would only teach them to shut up
and they still would have those narrow prejudiced views and feel for revenge on
those that gave them bad names.

Sure, I don’t advocate, as a rule, telling someone they are a bigot.

Regarding (re:) Haidt, I think that his work may have some value in our promoting understanding of morals, and in understanding cultural differences, with respect to morality.  It may even have value in helping us come to some conclusions re: what we should do to resolve some of the associated difficulties that arise.

However, I think that we should take research and its interpretations and conclusions, with a grain of salt, when that research relies heavily on abstract concepts as variables.  Haidt uses self developed constructs of morality as some of his primary variables in his research.  Such is the nature of a lot of social science research.  That does not mean it has no value or is necessarily invalid.  But it does mean, IMO, that it is more suspect than research that relies purely on actual observable variables rather than abstract constructs.

Did the piece use the term “bigots”?
Probably not I’m guessing. Your attachement of the word here adds tons of baggage that adds a certain thread pre-derailment.

VYAZMA - 28 November 2012 01:17 PM

Did the piece use the term “bigots”?
Probably not I’m guessing. Your attachement of the word here adds tons of baggage that adds a certain thread pre-derailment.

Yes, that has become painfully obvious.  I was going on the idea that controversy begets attention. Plus I wanted to highlight the idea that bigotry may have its actual roots in our biology (as opposed to the idea that it is something that we learn to become) and that we may, in fact, require learning in order to not become bigots.

It also occurs to me that my choosing to have put this topic under the heading, Philosophy, has been problematic.  Perhaps it would have been better under Humanism.

TimB - 28 November 2012 01:49 PM

VYAZMA - 28 November 2012 01:17 PM

Did the piece use the term “bigots”?
Probably not I’m guessing. Your attachement of the word here adds tons of baggage that adds a certain thread pre-derailment.

Yes, that has become painfully obvious.  I was going on the idea that controversy begets attention. Plus I wanted to highlight the idea that bigotry may have its actual roots in our biology (as opposed to the idea that it is something that we learn to become) and that we may, in fact, require learning in order to not become bigots.

Yeah the bigotry part does have roots in our biology.  See the latest response I gave your post in the Animals/Free-will thread.

Lois - 28 November 2012 09:28 AM

TimB - 18 November 2012 07:41 PM

Another thought that occurs to me, is that these studies might lead one to consider that humanists are made not born.

Humanists are made, not born.  It’s atheists who are born.  Atheism is solely a lack of belief in any god.  Humanism is a philosophical stance.  Babies are not born with a philosophical stance.

Ok, all truisms.  The point is that babies may be born with certain pre-dispositions that may be counter to them becoming “made” into a Humanist.  ,

Lois - 28 November 2012 09:28 AM

TimB - 18 November 2012 07:41 PM

Another thought that occurs to me, is that these studies might lead one to consider that humanists are made not born.

 

Humanists are made, not born.  It’s atheists who are born.  Atheism is solely a lack of belief in any god.  Humanism is a philosophical stance.  Babies are not born with a philosophical stance.

They are born however, with the personality traits that will determine which school of philosophy they are attracted to.

mid atlantic - 28 November 2012 06:05 PM

They are born however, with the personality traits that will determine which school of philosophy they are attracted to.

If you substitute the word “may” for the word “will”, I would be more inclined to buy into this assertion.