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Latest Leftest Lunacy: Science Can Say Which Speech Is Violent
Stream: The Latest Inanity: Science Can Measure Which Speech is Violent
If academic psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett is right, we should be able to find the precise combination of words to cause a destructive chain reaction of a person’s telomeres. Words can shorten telomeres, she says. And when your telomeres “become too short, you die.”
Telomeres are little bits of genetic material capping off your chromosomes.
“Words can have a powerful effect on your nervous system,” she says in the New York Times “Words can cause stress,” and stress shortens telomeres, and since shortened telomeres will kill you, “it seems that speech — at least certain types of speech — can be a form of violence.”
This has to be true. Every time I’m forced to listen to hip-hop, or to watch CNN carping about the super-duper double-secret machinations of Russia, or I’m made to read some asinine theory purporting to be science in a major newspaper, I can feel my life force ebbing.
Barrett is trying to find a way to scientifically measure which speech is violent and which is merely, in her word, offensive. She thinks science can tell us the difference. That’s how she arrived at the idea that hearing certain word combinations will chip away at your telomeres until you keel over.
I can see it now. We take DNA samples from some kiddies, then strap them into a chair while white-coated scientists holding clipboards read to them words suspected to be violent. As a precaution, the scientists will wear earmuffs. We then measure the kiddie’s DNA after and correlate the amount of life removed with the list. Words with high correlation will be banned by government.
It won’t be words with ‘k’ sounds. Those are supposed to be funny. Science says so. Kite, quacky, zebeck. Those words probably grow telomeres, especially zebeck, which has the benefit of a hilarious ‘z’ sound. She doesn’t know it, but Barrett might inadvertently have stumbled onto the secret of eternal life.
We have to be careful not to make combinations of words too funny, though. They can kill, too, as this clip scientifically proves.
Anyway, Barrett is sympathetic to the brats at elite American universities who find any opinion but their own to be “acts of violence”, a.k.a. “microaggressions”. Since these by-definition uneducated children never learned their math, they do not realize that it takes one million microaggressions to equal one aggression. That means that even if Barrett is right and words can be violently harmful to human health, these kids are going to have to hear about 250 speeches by Ann Coulter until even one of their telomeres are shortened, assuming each word in each 4000-word speech is laced with telomere-shortening power.
[…]
New Paper! A Volatile Discourse
Here’s the abstract from the peer-reviewed (so you know everything in it must be true and sworn to by every rational human being now and forever) paper “A volatile discourse — reviewing aspects of ammonia emissions, models and atmospheric concentrations in The Netherlands” by Jaap Hanekamp, WM Briggs, and Marcel Crok in Soil Use & Management.
In the Netherlands, there is a vigorous debate on ammonia emissions, atmospheric concentrations and deposition between stakeholders and research institutions. In this article, we scrutinise some aspects of the ammonia discourse. In particular, we want to improve the understanding of the methodology for handling experimentally determined ammonia emissions. We show that uncertainty in published results is substantial. This uncertainty is under- or even unreported, and as a result, data in national emission inventories are overconfident by a wide margin. Next, we demonstrate that the statistical handling of data on atmospheric ammonia concentrations to produce national yearly atmospheric averages is oversimplified and consequently atmospheric concentrations are substantially overestimated. Finally, we show that the much-discussed ‘ammonia gap’ — either the discrepancy between calculated and measured atmospheric ammonia concentrations or the difference observed between estimated NH3 emission levels and those indicated by atmospheric measurements — is an expression of the widespread overconfidence placed in atmospheric modelling.
Since that might be obscure to some of you, Hanekamp has written a popular article “The logic of scientific discourse and the ammonia debate in the Netherlands“. The article has a large header in Dutch; be sure to scroll down (if you are like me and your Dutch is sketchy) for the English. Hanekamp, incidentally, speaks better English than I.
My heart soared like a hawk when I read the following:
Empiricism and logic
Conversely, scientific arguments start from empirical premises and draw probabilistic conclusions prone to correction. What the empirical sciences produce are contingent propositions, not necessarily true or false: “chemical A interacts with protein X resulting in effect Y”; “the element thallium has the atomic weight of 204.38”; “the lethal dose of X for rats is Y”; “the consumption of this food adds to our health and longevity”.
These and many other propositions generated by the empirical sciences are all (as in all) conditionally true, given various facts and evidence. None of the four propositions above are logically necessary. It is logically possible for these statements to be false, say, due to measurement errors, mistakes in experimental setups, incorrect starting materials, the limitations of available facts, and so on.
Already well into the upper reaches of the troposphere, I ascended to the outer reaches with this:
Reification
The use of mathematics thus unearthed quite the errors in this discourse. And only one such paper is needed to do so. Obviously, mistakes can be made in mathematics, but such mistakes have nothing to do with e.g. contrasting empirical results that outnumber our paper. Reducing the former to the latter is a serious, yet much-practiced, category mistake.
Another issue that should be addressed is the reification fallacy, found in many environmental debates that rely heav-ily on modelling. Reification is a widespread and classical fallacy dubbed by Alfred North Whitehead (1925) as the ‘fallacy of misplaced concreteness’. Reification is making something that is hypothetical or abstract physically real. The ammonia gap is one such reification, where models to calculate national ammonia emissions or atmospheric concentrations, as if by magic, denote the concrete reality of actual emissions or actual concentrations that do not fall in line with physical measurements.
Not only that, but he tackles “Unquantifiability leads to begging the question”, “Wholesome skepticism”, “Scientism” and even “Epic scientism”.
Go there to read the rest.
Diversity, I.E. Mandatory Uniformity, At Universities
Regular readers will recall I lost one university job when I gave an incorrect answer to the two gentlemen interviewing me. The question put was, “Have you been involved in any Diversity initiatives?”
I said that since I was a one-man shop that therefore I was “maximally diverse.” There was a warm chuckle from my judges, and my application was forwarded to human “resources” with the box being unchecked. That was the last I heard from them.
This was for the best because, if hired, I would have refused to participate in any such “initiatives”, because, I say, they cause vastly more harm than any good they might do. And then I would have got fired, which would be worse than never having had the job at all.
This brings us to the now-unsurprising headline: “Universities require scholars pledge commitment to diversity“. The headline is inspired by a report from the Oregon Association of Scholars, an affiliate of the National group, “The Imposition of Diversity Statements on Faculty Hiring and Promotion at Oregon Universities.”
According to the news report:
More than 20 colleges have a stated requirement that faculty must show their commitment to the ideals of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” reports the Oregon Association of Scholars. The actual figure is likely much higher, however. A quick google search of a school’s name and “diversity statement” reveals that many institutions require such statements for entrance into PhD programs or application for faculty positions…
Similarly, the 10-campus University of California system implemented mandatory diversity statement for all new hires, and the specific criteria used to evaluate a candidate’s commitment to diversity includes whether a scholar’s research addresses “race, gender, economic justice or inequality,”…
So the only hires will be ideologues and those willing to fib—or lie—about their undying love and devotion of Diversity. A stimulating intellectual environment this will not engender.
Before looking at the Oregon report, let’s cast our eyes dimly back to the 2009. Then, Virginia Tech University “recently modified their list of tenure criteria to include (try not to be drinking anything as you read further) that professors demonstrate a ‘commitment to diversity.'”
The guidelines (then, I haven’t rechecked them) said “The university and college committees require special attention to be given to documenting involvement in diversity initiatives” before tenure is granted.
Ideological purity is thus nothing new.
The Oregon report emphasizes this. “As these new ideological litmus tests spread throughout the state, faculty will spend more time signaling their zealous support and making sure not to challenge students in ways that might be construed as a threat to this ideology.”
Lowlights from the report:
Universities today, including all major colleges and universities in Oregon, are pouring millions of dollars each year into “diversity training”, “diversity action plans”, and “diversity councils” even as student tuition rises…
Faculty are being coached by paid “diversity consultants” on how to survive the ideological minefield of the diversity statement, learning how to signal their zealous support for this ideology and how to write hyperbolic “contribution to diversity statements.”…
…diversity statements are a de facto tool to weed out non-left wing scholars… a former anthropology professor at the University of Oregon wrote that her diversity statement would include discussions of “how to keep the white students from dominating all classroom discussions”, how not to “thoughtlessly reproduce the standard white and Western model of legitimate knowledge”, and how to “reflect a commitment to queer visibility.” [Queer in the original meaning of the word, yes.]…
…A conservative who wrote a diversity statement that rejected victimization and entitlement narratives would make it easy for a typically left-leaning department “to determine whether you are going to be the kind of colleague the department wants to have.”…
The University of Oregon even insists with Orwellian candor that campus thought-police should implement measures that “incentivize the desired behavior while also consistently interrupting behavior that is inconsistent with equity and inclusion” so defined…
OHSU’s Diversity Action Plan introduces Orwellian requirements for unit leaders to “track and report individual and group participation in diversity events” among their staff.
Oh, there’s no point to going on.
Update Colleges Pay Diversity Officers More Than Professors, Staff. Golly.
Summary Against Modern Thought: The Soul Begins At Conception, Part III
Part III of three parts, showing life begins at conception. Like last week, do your homework and review first.
Chapter 83 That the human soul begins to exist when the body does (alternate translation) We’re still using the alternate translation.
30 Furthermore, if the knowledge of conclusions were as natural to the soul as knowledge of principles, then everyone’s judgment concerning conclusions, as well as principles, would be the same, since things natural are the same for all. But not all persons share the same judgment in respect to conclusions, but only to principles.
Clearly, then, the knowledge of principles is natural to us, but not the knowledge of conclusions. The non-natural, however, is acquired by us through the natural; thus it is through our hands that we produce, in the world of things outside us, all our artifacts. Therefore, we have no knowledge of conclusions except that which we acquire from principles.
Notes Of course, agreement on principles is also hard work.
31 Again, since nature is always directed to one thing, of one power there must naturally be one object, as color of sight, and sound of hearing. Hence, the intellect, being one power, has one natural object, of which it has knowledge essentially and naturally. And this object must be one under which are included all things known by the intellect; just as under color are included all colors essentially visible. Now, this is none other than being [ens].
Our intellect, therefore, knows being naturally, and whatever essentially belongs to a being as such; and upon this knowledge is founded the knowledge of first principles, such as the impossibility of simultaneously affirming and denying, and the like. Thus, only these principles are known naturally by our intellect, while conclusions are known through them; just as, through color, sight is cognizant of both common and accidental sensibles.
Notes The study of being, i.e. metaphysics, is the highest subject, and its relation to God the “Queen of sciences” (Newman).
32 And again. That which we acquire through the senses did not exist in the soul before its union with the body. But our knowledge of principles themselves is derived from sensible things; if, for instance, we had not perceived some whole by our senses, we would be unable to understand the principle that the whole is greater than its parts; even as a man born blind is utterly insensible of colors. Therefore, neither did the soul prior to its union with the body have any knowledge of principles; much less, of other things. Hence, Plato’s argument that the soul existed before its union with the body is without solidity.
Notes That the whole is greater than the parts is one of those things all know is true, but which cannot be proved (except in limited instances). This proves empiricism is false. Reincarnation is defined then disproved in the rest of this chapter.
33 There is also the argument that if all souls existed before the bodies to which they are united, it would then seemingly follow that the same soul is united to different bodies according to the vicissitudes of time—an obvious consequence of the doctrine of the eternity of the world.
For from the hypothesis of the engendering of human beings from eternity it follows that an infinite number of human bodies have come into being and passed away throughout the whole course of time. Hence, two possibilities: either an actually infinite number of souls pre-existed, if each soul is united to a single body, or, if the number of souls is finite, then the same souls are united at one time to these particular bodies and at another time to those.
And seemingly we would be faced with the same consequence if we held that souls existed before bodies but that they were not produced from eternity. For, even if it be supposed that the engendering of men has not always been in progress, nevertheless, in the very nature of the case, it indubitably can be of infinite duration; because every man is so constituted by nature that, unless he be impeded accidentally, he is able to beget another man, even as he himself was begotten of another. But this would be impossible if, given the existence of a finite number of souls, one soul cannot be united to several bodies. That is why a number of proponents of the doctrine that souls exist before bodies espoused the theory of transmigration; which cannot possibly be true. Therefore, souls did not exist before bodies.
34 Now, the impossibility of one soul’s being united to diverse bodies is clearly seen in the light of the following considerations. Human souls do not differ specifically from one another, but only numerically; otherwise, men also would differ specifically, one from the other. Material principles, however, are the source of numerical distinction. It follows that the distinction among human souls must be attributed to something material in character—but not so as to imply that matter is a part of the soul, because the soul is an intellectual substance, and no such substance has matter, as we have proved above.
It therefore remains that in the manner explained above the diversity and plurality of souls result from their relationship to the diverse matters to which they are united; so that, if there are different bodies, they must have different souls united to them. One soul, then, is not united to several bodies.
35 Moreover, it was shown above that the soul is united to the body as its form. But forms must be proportionate to their proper matters, since they are related to one another as act to potentiality, the proper act corresponding to the proper potentiality. Therefore, one soul is not united to a number of bodies.
36 We argue further from the fact that the power of the mover must be proportionate to the thing movable by it, for not every power moves every movable. But, even if the soul were not the form of the body, it could not be said that the soul is not the body’s mover, for we distinguish the animate from the inanimate by sense and movement. It therefore follows that the distinction among souls must correspond to the distinction among bodies.
37 Likewise, in the realm of things subject to generation and corruption it is impossible for one and the same thing to be reproduced by generation; for generation and corruption are movements in respect of substance, so that in things generated and corrupted the substance does not remain the same, as it does in things moved locally. But, if one soul is united successively to different generated bodies, the self-same man will come into being again through generation. This follows necessarily for Plato, who said that man is a “soul clothed with a body.” This consequence also holds for any others. For a thing’s unity follows upon its form, even as its being does, so that those things are one in number whose form is one in number. It is, therefore, impossible for one soul to be united to different bodies. From this it follows, too, that souls were not in existence before bodies.
38 With this truth the Catholic faith expressly agrees. For it is said in a Psalm (32:15): “He who made the hearts of every one of them”; namely, because God created a soul specially for each one, and neither created them all together, nor united one to different bodies. In this connection also we read in the work On the Teachings of the Church: “We declare that human souls were not created from the beginning together with other intellectual natures, nor all at the same time, as Origen imagines.”
Chapter 84 Solution of the prececding argument (alternate translation) We’re still using the alternate translation.
1 The arguments in proof of the thesis that souls have existed from eternity, or that at least they existed before bodies, are easily solved.
Notes Review Part I for these arguments.
2 As to the first argument, the statement that the soul has the power to exist always, must be granted. But it must be borne in mind that the power and potentiality of a thing extend not to what was, but to what is or will be; hence, there is no possibility with respect to things past. Therefore, from the fact that the soul has the power to exist always it can be concluded, not that the soul always was, but that it always will be.
3 Moreover, that to which a power is ordained does not follow from the power except on the supposition of the latter’s existence. Therefore, though the soul have the power to exist always, it cannot be inferred that the soul does exist always, except after it has actually received this power; and if it is assumed that the soul has received this power from eternity, the point that has to be proved, namely, the soul’s existence from eternity, will be begged.
4 The second argument, concerning the eternity of the truth which the soul understands, calls for a distinction. In one way, this eternity can be taken to refer to the thing understood; in another, to that by which it is understood. In the first case, the thing understood would be eternal, but not the one who understands; in the second, eternity would be on the side of the soul which understands.
Now, the understood truth is eternal, not in the latter but in the former reference; since, as we have already clearly shown, the intelligible species, whereby our soul understands truth, come to us repeatedly via the phantasms through the operation of the agent intellect. It cannot, then, he inferred that the soul is eternal, but that the truths understood are based upon something eternal; for, indeed, their foundation is in the first truth, as in the universal cause embracing all truth.
But the soul stands in relation to this eternal entity, not as subject to form, but as thing to proper end, since the true is the good of the intellect, and its end. Now, argument concerning a thing’s duration can be drawn from its end, just as the question of its beginning is arguable through its efficient cause; for, indeed, a thing ordained to an eternal end must be capable of enduring forever. That is why the soul’s immortality can be proved from the eternity of intelligible truth, but not its eternity. And what we have already said on the question of the eternity of creatures makes it quite clear that the eternity of the soul cannot be demonstrated from the eternity of its efficient cause.
5 The third argument, in regard to the perfection of the universe, is void of necessity. For the perfection of the universe envisages species, not individuals; since the universe is constantly receiving the addition of myriad individuals of pre-existing species. Human souls, however, do not differ in specific nature but only in number, as was shown above. Hence, it is not incompatible with the perfection of the universe if new souls be created.
6 And from this we see the solution of the fourth argument. For in the Book of Genesis (2:2) it is said at the same time that “God ended His work,” and that “He rested from an His work which He had done.” Hence, just as the consummation or perfection of creatures is considered in terms of species, not individuals, so God’s resting must be understood to refer to cessation from forming new species, but not new individuals, of which others specifically alike have existed before. Thus, since all human souls are of one species, and likewise all men, it is not inconsistent with God’s rest if He creates new souls every day.
Notes And, anyway, change still happens.
7 Now, it should be known that in Aristotle we do not find the statement that the human intellect is eternal; yet he customarily says this of those things which he thinks have existed always. But he does say that the human intellect is everlasting; and this can be said of those things that always will be, even if they have not always been. Hence, when Aristotle, in Metaphysics XI [3], excepted the intellective soul from the condition of other forms, he did not say that it was prior to matter, but Plato said this of the Ideas; and so it would seem that Aristotle might consistently have said something of the sort here about the soul; but what he did say was that the soul remains after the body.