LostGirl

I just can't restrain myself from adding my two cents:

From what I understand of your argument, Long Winded Fool, it all comes down to this one thing:but I have to disagree here, and therefore with all of your arguments that stem from this premise.

Sex is not fundamentally for reproduction. The act of exchanging gametes is fundamentally for reproduction, and nature accomplishes this exchange in a whole variety of ways. Quite a few involve no penetration or even touching of the parent organism's physical bodies. So, speaking from a functional viewpoint, the function of sex is not reproduction. The act of depositing gametes into an area where the gametes can encounter each other has the function of reproduction. (Obviously, with contraceptive sex, there's no gamete deposition, so questioning its usefulness to society in terms of reproduction is bringing reproduction into an area where it doesn't apply.)

The whole shebang that accompanies the act of "gamete deposition" (ie, sex) has other functions which are more fundamental to its development as a behaviour/desire of the human race. One is that it facilitates pair bonding between two people. While this function may be unnecessary to create a pair bond in some cases, it's the facilitation of the pair bonding that is adaptive in that it increases the chance of successful reproduction. But be careful! It is a function of sex to facilitate pair bonding, and it is a function of the pair bond to facilitate reproductive success. It's not true that repeated acts of sex facilitate reproductive success, especially when the vast majority of sex acts do not result in successful reproduction.

It's the pair bonding adaptation with its extension of cementing social bonds that is the reason we find sex so pleasurable. If sex was linked solely to reproduction, primates would go into heat just like most other mammals. As a species, we have developed in a way that isolates sex from reproduction. We are driven (by lust, if you like) to indulge in sex because it's a social glue and brings us together.

And as far as this response to an earlier challenge in the same vein: Clearly, sex is not a way to cement familial bonds, because it doesn't serve to cement them. We aren't driven to use sex as a pair bonding device with family members because
a) we don't need to pair bond with family members in order to ensure that they'll stay around. Pair bonding isn't part of that kind of social bonding.
b) You misuse the notion of intimacy as it's used in the original question (where it's used in the framework of pair bonding) as intimate (where I think you mean closeness; feeling a strong sense of connection and understanding). The latter type of intimacy is quite appropriate to use in terms of family, the former is not.

as an aside:
How would you know that that person is racist or homophobic if their views are completely private and pacifistic? They equate to a non-racist or non-homophobic person because if their beliefs leak out even a tiny bit into the way they interact with the world, then those beliefs aren't private. I feel* that you can't really rehabilitate a racist or a homophobe; the most you can hope for is that they can accurately mimic a non-prejudiced person.

*yes, I 'feel' . . . this is an unsupported statement, and I admit it. However, if there are any reformed homophobes or racists out there, please prove me wrong!

Finally, in response to the OT (I'm assuming this means 'original topic' or something similar) which I feel we've moved away from:

Children and sexuality . . . whenever this topic comes up, I can't help but wonder at the millennia where humanity mostly lived in one roomed domiciles. Where did the parents have sex, if not in front of their children? If this is the place from which we developed, a place where sex is a known quantity for children, how can it be innately wrong for a child to understand the physical mechanics of the sex act?

long winded fool

I'm glad you shared your two cents. This was very though provoking. Do you mean to say that the act of reproduction is not necessarily the act of sexual intercourse? I agree. I don't, however, think that this has any bearing on my argument, save changing the variable of sexual intercourse for species that do not use it to reproduce. If human beings reproduced by the female laying eggs and the male fertilizing them, I'd say that the male ought not to fertilize the eggs solely for pleasure. He ought to determine whether or not the environment that the eggs are in is suitable to support babies and act accordingly. If he does do it for pleasure, he ought to view it as an instance of doing the irrational and he ought to recognize the consequences as undesirable. I think you have a post hoc, or "after the fact" fallacy here. Allow me to rephrase your reference in reverse chronological order. The function of sexual intercourse is pair bonding. The function of pair bonding is the exchange of gametes. The function of the exchange of gametes is reproduction. Therefore the function of sexual intercourse is reproduction. I don't see how this doesn't logically follow from your argument. While there are many, many other desirable and undesirable outcomes of pair bonding/gamete exchange/sexual intercourse, the function is reproduction whether it always occurs or not.

It's the pair bonding adaptation with its extension of cementing social bonds that is the reason we find sex so pleasurable. If sex was linked solely to reproduction, primates would go into heat just like most other mammals. As a species, we have developed in a way that isolates sex from reproduction. We are driven (by lust, if you like) to indulge in sex because it's a social glue and brings us together.

I disagree. We have evolved to experience pleasure from sex as a means of encouraging propagation of the species. The experiencing of lust in humans has the same function as going into heat does for other mammals. The early humans who didn't find as much pleasure in sex were out bred by the humans that did because they had more offspring. This is the reason sex is pleasurable. The fittest humans to survive, all other things being equal, were always the ones who engaged in sex the most, and we are all descended from these humans. The social bond is an outcome of sex, but the purpose of sex is and always was reproduction. The male with access to the most females has the most chances to reproduce and vice versa with the females. Thus the beginnings of society. Now that this human society is too big, this strong instinct has become detrimental. Luckily we are not solely reliant on our instincts for survival. (Well, we are not by default solely reliant on instinct, anyway. I've met some people who honestly think that they are. They're never happy people.)

And as far as this response to an earlier challenge in the same vein: Clearly, sex is not a way to cement familial bonds, because it doesn't serve to cement them. We aren't driven to use sex as a pair bonding device with family members because
a) we don't need to pair bond with family members in order to ensure that they'll stay around. Pair bonding isn't part of that kind of social bonding.
b) You misuse the notion of intimacy as it's used in the original question (where it's used in the framework of pair bonding) as intimate (where I think you mean closeness; feeling a strong sense of connection and understanding). The latter type of intimacy is quite appropriate to use in terms of family, the former is not.

Sex is not a way to cement familial bonds because it is detrimental to the propagation of the species. Inbreeding results in a higher risk of undesirable genes becoming fully expressed in subsequent offspring, therefore groups that practice incest tend to be less adaptable and have fewer successful births. If you mean to reproduce with another human being, then by all means you ought to have sex with them. (Consensual sex in a society where unconsensual sex is illegal.) If you don't then you ought not to have sex with them, especially if you have no effective natural predators. You don't need sex to bond in a loving relationship. You need sex to raise children.

How would you know that that person is racist or homophobic if their views are completely private and pacifistic? They equate to a non-racist or non-homophobic person because if their beliefs leak out even a tiny bit into the way they interact with the world, then those beliefs aren't private. I feel* that you can't really rehabilitate a racist or a homophobe; the most you can hope for is that they can accurately mimic a non-prejudiced person.

I agree. Is it therefore a good thing to be an entirely private racist or homophobe? Is this something that ought to be encouraged in people and taught as a desirable and healthy thing to our children? Is this celebrating a beautiful and natural instinct? It is, though you may disagree that it is beautiful. Why is it wrong? Just because you don't agree that it is beautiful, or because it is a human being failing to use his reason to control is instinct?

Finally, in response to the OT (I'm assuming this means 'original topic' or something similar) which I feel we've moved away from:

Children and sexuality . . . whenever this topic comes up, I can't help but wonder at the millennia where humanity mostly lived in one roomed domiciles. Where did the parents have sex, if not in front of their children? If this is the place from which we developed, a place where sex is a known quantity for children, how can it be innately wrong for a child to understand the physical mechanics of the sex act?

I was trying not to move away from the topic, but I felt the need to defend the logic of my premises. Interesting point. Children ought to understand the mechanics and evolutionary purpose of the sex act. They ought not be exposed to humans having sex for pleasure instead of for reproduction until they are old enough to understand the long-term consequences of sex for the sake of pleasure and not reproduction. Namely, the enslavement to an instinct and the abandoning of reason when instinct is inferior to reason. Such as in the case of an overpopulated species which continues to reproduce because it feels good and dies as a result. Predators (contraception/abortion) can slow the death of the species, but the true problem lies in the inability (or unwillingness) to reason. A truly reasoning species in total control of its instincts would eliminate its effective natural predators and theoretically outlive the natural age of the Earth. An intelligent species enslaved by its instincts would eliminate its effective natural predators while creating all new ineffective ones and would eventually destroy its home environment and any other environment it found. We can be a long-lived and environmentally balanced society of logical and reasoning human beings without obsolete instincts or predators, or we can be a cancerous horde of pseudo-reasoning non-sapient homo sapiens driven by artificially created predators and worshipping both intelligence and instinct while not recognizing the blatant contradiction between the two.
(Pardon the colorful metaphors! )

LostGirl

I think I can answer your rebuttal, long winded fool, however . . .
Curses! This lab report (30% for one measly lab report) for human genetics that's due on Friday is sapping my internet time. Just be patient, if you don't mind. . .


still extremely quickly, there is one point I'd like to raise as I meant to before:sorry, but that's just not right! We are certainly still killed and eaten by many other organisms on this earth. Just because it doesn't happen that often in this culture by predators larger than us, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.
And, the leading cause of death for humanity worldwide is due to a very real form of predation. Organisms breach our outer physical barriers, consume our bodily resources and quite often kill us in the course of doing so. In fact, it's interesting to note that some of the most virulent diseases known to man are transmitted primarily sexually, especially in areas of high population density and increased promiscuity. Gee, it's almost as if a natural barrier to unchecked population growth develops that takes advantage of the importance that sex has to humans and society.

long winded fool

Very true. Perhaps "without predators" was too strong. I should have said, "without sufficient predators." Locusts are still prey to predators. In the case of a plague of locusts, their predators are simply not efficient enough to control their population. I made an analogy to federally protected deer wiping out a national park. The deer were still a predated species. Humans just eliminated enough of their predators to keep the population from stabilizing, thus they overpopulated and killed themselves and their habitat. Humans are killed by predatory organisms quite often. They obviously are not killed often enough to prevent overpopulation and the environmental destruction that results. Therefore, to prevent environmental destruction, we must either introduce an efficient predator (an action that historically has been viewed as a horrendous evil) or prevent excess reproduction. The cause of reproduction is the instinct of lust, and/or a reasonable decision made by a man and a woman. If we limit reproduction to reasonable decision, we can prevent overpopulation. Encouraging acting on the instinct of lust will only result in more excess reproduction, even with the availability of contraception as long as said contraception is voluntary. I think the conscious decision to reproduce should be encouraged as the only rational motive for sexual intercourse. All other options in my opinion induce unnecessary suffering. Sacrificing excess pleasure to prevent excess suffering is preferable to, and far more reasonable than, indulging in both.

Feel free to answer my previous rebuttal at your convenience. Human genetics certainly takes precedence as far as your grade is concerned and I'm not going anywhere.

VivaHedone

Given good education and the option of contraception, most people would use it. This is why the population in rich, well-educated countries is stable, and the population in poor, badly-educated countries is expanding. Few people, when given an alternative, would choose to bring into the world a child that they cannot support. If we give people in developing countries that alternative, and address educational and cultural problems surrounding contraception, population will stabilise, and we will all be able to enjoy our bodies to the full.

I fail to see how people in developing countries will be influenced by our behaviour, anyway. How does us enjoying safe casual sex encourage others in far away lands to enjoy unprotected sex? It's like saying that us doing bungee-jumping somehow encourages Africans to jump off cliffs.

I see two options - either a campaign to ensure that everyone can enjoy the pleasure of sex safely without negative repurcussions, or a futile, pointless attempt to stamp out sex altogether, and with it a huge amount of pleasure and enjoyment from our lives.

long winded fool

Mostly true. Both education and the option of contraception will help reduce the expansion rate of world population. They will not, however, stop the increase in human expansion. Contraception is a good parachute, but even the best parachute only slows, it doesn't stop. No natural human instinct can stabilize the population. Only reason and predators can do so. It is arguable that contraception and education will slow the growth rate enough to give us time to find another environment to expand into. Given the current rate of growth and the current level of technology, it is extremely unlikely that we will find another environment before ours is used up. Rational abstinence might not be the catchall answer, but voluntary contraception is by definition less effective. Contraception will not stabilize the population. I personally doubt that involuntary, government-enforced contraception could stabilize the population, at least not for long. Education will, since rationality shows us that instinct above reason is detrimental to our species. Education which shows us that fear and lust are equal in purpose, equal in danger, and thus equal in lack of rationality will stabilize the population and prevent the disaster that befalls all plague species. This isn't impossible. There are plenty of human beings who abstain from sex. The discomfort is comparable to the discomfort of feeling fear and doing the rational thing despite the fear. The only difference is cultural. We get a pat on the back and encouragement when we demonstrate courage. We get uncomfortable looks, guilt-masking snickers, or at best, formal and dishonest compliments when we demonstrate abstinence. Courage often has an immediate reward. Abstinence often does not. They both have a long-term reward well worth the discomfort of going against our ingrained instincts. In a reasoning species, reason should always come before instinct if the goal is survival. When this occurs and the species has complete control of itself, it can overcome virtually any obstacle and thinking, reasoning beings could theoretically survive indefinitely.

I fail to see how people in developing countries will be influenced by our behaviour, anyway. How does us enjoying safe casual sex encourage others in far away lands to enjoy unprotected sex? It's like saying that us doing bungee-jumping somehow encourages Africans to jump off cliffs.

People all over the world are influenced by western culture. Our TV shows and movies show other countries who we are and what we think. When we glamorize sex we influence the impressionable to follow their instincts just as when slavery was widely accepted as a perfectly moral thing, it influenced other cultures to do the same. When we use contraception we send the false message that nothing bad will happen. Avoid STD's and unwanted pregnancy, but promote lust over reason and give humans who have nothing better to do in a sedentary lifestyle the go ahead to indulge instinct and forget about their ability to reason. The negative implications on population may be minimal at first, but even presuming a permanently stable population, the ability to reason will become a vestigial ability and no longer increase in potency. It will always increase just enough to keep the species alive. If it need not increase to keep the species alive, it won't. In other words, if we don't do something now, those of us that survive the collapse of civilization, a fate which has befallen every single society that has ever walked the face of the Earth, will have to do something later: that is when the population is back to being less than the maximum limit the environment can sustain. And remember that an environment stripped of resources can sustain far fewer individuals than a healthy one. The rainforest cannot be saved with pamphlets and children in third world countries cannot be saved by sharing food or contraception. Only the knowledge that instinct is always inferior to logic and reason, and that following instinct above reason is always in all cases harmful, can save the planet.

I see two options - either a campaign to ensure that everyone can enjoy the pleasure of sex safely without negative repurcussions, or a futile, pointless attempt to stamp out sex altogether, and with it a huge amount of pleasure and enjoyment from our lives.

The human race as a whole cannot enjoy the pleasure of sex for recreation without dire repercussions to our species and all others. Maybe you can and maybe I can, but we all can't. I can be a racist without negative repercussions, but if we all are racist there can be nothing but negative repercussions. Parading it as a completely rational and good thing is a step towards making us all that way. Glamorizing the indulgence of lust is equal to glamorizing the indulgence of fear. We've suffered the consequences of fear too many times in the recent past for the society to ever promote following fear above reason. It used to keep us alive, now it's a thorn in our side. We've yet to experience any really negative repercussions from indulging in the reproductive instinct as a society. It's allowed us to populate the four corners of the Earth, just as it allows locusts to populate the four corners of the farmer's field and lemmings to populate the four corners of the mountains of Norway. While some might consider the guaranteed outcome natural, being a human, I'd like to avoid it if I can.

I hope that other people can see the imminent logical repercussions of instinct over reason the way I can, but maybe we'll just have to learn this lesson the way we learned about slavery and racism, (i.e. the hard way,) and hope we survive this far more dangerous instinct to reproduce. (more dangerous as far as the species on the whole is concerned.)

Guillaume

long winded fool :

Like many, you seem to hold the false assumption that the world's population is exploding. However, any serious study of the matter shows the contrary : grow rates are rapidly decreasing, to the point of eventually endangering the human race. The “low variant” scenario of the United Nations, which assumes that birth rates continue to decline rapidly, is especially frightening : it sees global population topping out at only 8 billions around 2040, and then starting to shrink. This is because throughout the developing world, fertility rates are dropping rapidly. Already, some of the world’s most populous countries are at, or below, the replacement rate of 2.1 children per women. China is at 1.8 ; Thailand is at 2.0; Brazil is at 2.2. And they are still dropping.

The most popular explanation of this change is probably the growing empowerment of women thought the world. Effectively, as women get better educated and able to make choices on how much emphasis to put on career and how much on family, they invariably decide to marry later and have fewer children.

VivaHedone

What do you base this on? In countries where education and contraception are freely available, population is stable. In countries where education and contraception are not available, population is increasing. Therefore your cherished 'reason' would suggest that the solution is to make education and contraception freely available in all countries. If you educate people about the negative consequences of sex, and give them means to avoid these negative consequences, they will use them - why wouldn't they? This stands a far greater chance of success than atempting to teach universal abstinence.

I think you over-estimate the extent to which Western culture penetrates the third world - I doubt people in famine/HIV-stricken Africa get to go to the cinema that often. I doubt that even if the Western world collectively abstained from sex, this would have much influence on the developing world.

You mistakenly compare fear and lust. If you conquer an irrational fear, you will be ultimately happier, as fear is an unpleasant feeling, and you will be exposed to it less. Sex, on the other hand, is a pleasant feeling, and conquering 'lust' will lead to less pleasure and happiness. Conquering something irrational and unpleasant is good, but a pleasant act with no negative consequences, such as safe sex, is rational simply because it is pleasureable.

Sex is an act with huge positive and negative consequences. We can either act to eliminate the negative consequences alone, leaving the positive ones for us all to enjoy, or try and eliminate the sexual act altogether.

long winded fool

According to the United Nations, the population will reach 7 billion no later than 2015. We'll hit 8 billion before 2030 and 9 billion around 2050, assuming a continuing decrease in fertility. At a constant fertility rate, (no increase or decline) we'd be at 12 billion. (Double!) A declining growth rate is not a declining population. A declining growth rate is a good thing however in an overpopulated environment, but unless it declines so much that it stops the expansion all together, it only postpones the inevitable. The world population currently grows by almost 80 million people a year. 1 billion new mouths to feed in 16 years or less in an environment without enough food for the current 6 billion is a detrimental population explosion.

The population is definitely not declining in more developed regions in general by even the most conservative measure, and will not for the next decade at the very least. Developed regions are merely growing more slowly than less developed regions in general. http://esa.un.org/unpp/ Indeed, there is no population decline in sight for less developed countries without assuming the largest reasonable drop off in fertility. World population will not taper off before 2050 except by the most optimistic assumptions. When we reach the limits of the environment, the growth rate will of course taper out, simply because any new people won't eat. If we consume faster than the food is replenished, (and we do that already) eventually the population can do nothing but decline. My argument is to encourage the use of reason instead of relying on starvation to stabilize the population. We can only ever be as big as our environment. When it shrinks, we will too. I'd rather not have a shrinking environment or a declining population. Sharing contraception with less developed countries helps relieve the suffering temporarily and should occur, but I still believe it is a step in the wrong direction the same as sharing food with them is. If they consume all of their natural resources and need ours, we ought to encourage them to stop whatever behavior causes this if we care about them. They can have as much food and contraception as they need, but we should make sure they learn their lesson. Too much sex + not enough predators = too many babies. Too many babies + not enough food = famine, death, and all around suffering. We can't teach them this if we don't learn it first. Contraception and foreign aid only temporarily lessen the damage of the behavior. (And as such is, of course, as valuable a thing as aspirin is for the cancer patient.) The goal ought to be to someday no longer need the aspirin/contraception/foreign aid. We wouldn't need a padded cell if we'd just stop banging our head against the wall.

It would if we went over there and educated them on it. I'm not against foreign aid. I'm against foreign aid that relieves temporarily while doing greater harm down the road. We need to teach them how to fish instead of encouraging them to get fat on ours.

You mistakenly compare fear and lust. If you conquer an irrational fear, you will be ultimately happier, as fear is an unpleasant feeling, and you will be exposed to it less. Sex, on the other hand, is a pleasant feeling, and conquering 'lust' will lead to less pleasure and happiness. Conquering something irrational and unpleasant is good, but a pleasant act with no negative consequences, such as safe sex, is rational simply because it is pleasureable.

Lust is an unpleasant feeling as well and is just as strong as fear. That is why we go to such great lengths to rid ourselves of it, (i.e. have sex.) Does my blaming my problems and insecurities on someone else (racism) have negative consequences? Why? Because it harms them or me? Isn't it ultimately because I'm failing to learn to take responsibility for my actions and failing to subject myself to critical analysis? Is sex for pleasure any different? Don't we have vasectomies, tubal ligations, and use other contraceptives in order to keep from taking responsibility for our actions? How is this less harmful than promoting indulgence in fear? I agree that if sex for pleasure had no negative consequences, that it would be rational behavior. I disagree that sex is rational simply because it is pleasurable. Conquering lust does not lead to unhappiness any more than conquering fear does. They both, however, lead to less immediate pleasure. I hate giving speeches in front of people, but I force myself to experience the discomfort because I know the discomfort is not a bad thing. Being controlled by my fear is. Being controlled by lust is too. When fear is irrational, I try to conquer it. (And often fail.) When lust is irrational, I try to conquer it. (And often fail.) My failure to conquer my instincts does not make them rational. It makes me imperfect. Sometimes I choose pleasure over reason and that is always wrong behavior and should be recognized as such. Less pleasure is not a bad thing. Less reason is. More reason might lead to temporary discomfort but always eventually leads to less fear and lust and more happiness and contentment with who we are. More instinct leads to instant pleasure followed by a void that we feel needs to be filled with more pleasure. This is an archaic method of survival fit for non-reasoning prey animals but detrimental to reasoning human beings.

dk

Originally posted by Farren on March 7, 2003 06:07 PM
"Survival of the fittest" is a tautology. It means "Survival of those who survive". The term wasn't even coined by Darwin, to who's theories it is most often applied. Ref. Brian Goodwin "How the Leopard changed its spots" and anything by Stephen Jay Gould.
dk: Malthus published in 1798 his “An Essay On The Principle of Population” stating that “population must always be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence” based on

1. Hume and Adam Smith
2. the population bomb of 18th Century England, 6 million to 10 million people and
3. decline of agriculture output from 1765 to 1792

. In 1856 Darwin published "Origin of Species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life". Darwin applied Malthus’ Principle of Population to biology. Darwin’s cousin Sir Francis Galton published in 1869 his "Hereditary Genius, and Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences" to found the Eugenics Movement. The Eugenics movement meant to perfect humankind by eliminating inferior individuals and groups by systematically weeding out the bad eggs (and sperms) with biometric tools from the social sciences. They rationalized the systematic culling of populations would eliminate war, poverty, inherent suffering, pestilence and famine. Hitler activated the most aggressive eugenics program to sterilize and eliminate Germany’s mentally ill, physically handicapped, ethnic parasites and culturally deficient members. The liberating troops at the end of WW II found NAZI death camps so horrifying that the eugenics movements became political pariahs. Under the cover of the ensuing cold war, sexual revolution, racial tensions and the backlash to McCarthy hearings the eugenics movement resurfaced as population control, sexual revolution, women’s lib and family planning. And that’s how Gould’s Leopard changed his spots.

Originally posted by Farren
This massive bias towards the idea that evolution keeps producing "better" things emerges from the hostile environment the theory found itself in when first formulated. Since at the time it was (and still is for many) an a priori assumption that humans are "Better" in some way than everything else, the original theory of natural selection was couched in those terms.
-Goodwin has quite rightly pointed out that every other science, when using landscape analogies, describes areas of phase space a situation in likely to arrive at as "troughs" or "depressions", since this is where liquid or a ball would most likely flow to (for example Carl Sagan's illustration of gravity in the "Cosmos" TV series and book).
-Only in neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is the landscape analogy (snip)...(snip)
-Here we cannot agree on the ethics because our (not just yours and mine, but apparently yours and others here too) base axioms are so different. From a systemic perspective, I see the survival and prosperity of the biosphere, a single beautiful organism as the first good. If man were to to have less and less dominance of that sphere, but dwindle away to extinction happy and contented in each individual human life along the way, I would see no moral harm in that whatsoever.
dk:
The landscape of modals deployed to drive social policy through neo-Darwinian theory boggles the mind. You’ve mentioned mountain peak/valley distributions, superimposed value norms, Gaia kelp forests, artificially engineered biospheres, phase space niches, drunken bumblers, DNA gaming theory, and there are about 50 other popular and esoteric tales hatched from the hen house of scientific musings. Despite an impressive array of graphics, models and digital dreamscapes these hypothesis, models and theories collectively describe chaos assumed to converge with order where reality meets the human intellect. My question is simple, what social ills, substantive products or vital interests as this broad landscape of scientific modals produced, identified and/or resolved? The answer comes back, they have virtually identified millions of possibilities and possible problems, each solution one small step from utopia, and each problem one small step from apocalypse. If there is a consensus coming out of the philosophy of science it wobbles into the 3rd millennium directionless. Apparently, the masses have gouged themselves upon a panacea of scientific delights, but inexplicably digested the crap and excreted the substantive nutrients. For whatever reasons folk science supplants science and imbues the public with myopic ideas garnished in a garlic sauce steeped in cynicism.

The reason nobody agrees on ethics is because our societies have lost sight of morals because people have supplanted morals with the laws of social sciences using technology as an enabler i.e. substituting birth control for fidelity, abortion for freedom, working mothers for equality, no fault divorce for family commitment, social services for parental obligations, social engineering for socialization, forced integration for forced segregation, relativism for judgment and happy pills for happiness. People understand one another by the laws that govern them, and most people find the laws of science incomprehensible.

I haven’t touched on the idea of childhood innocence. Children are routinely monitored by armed guards, harassed by metal detectors, security cameras and no tolerance policies. Many children grow up in a world they can’t understand, raised by people they barely know, in an irrational world where you have murder/rape or become a victim to acquire a right to innocence, and then its only a presumption. Go figure.