Re: [Phys-l] "To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler, " said the group's late founder, D. James Kennedy.

["John M Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Yes, Libertarians are probably more consistent in the conventional 
fashion.  But let us look at the science.  The evidence is now fairly 
clear that cooperation is more important in the human psyche than 
competition.  This has been shown by looking at games where 
cooperation can sometimes yield higher gain.  From the evolutionary 
point of view cooperation is often promoted by the "survival" 
principle.  Indeed the modern view of evolution is quite different 
from the "primitive" survival of the species by individual 
competition.  Incidentally, some experiments have also clearly shown 
that individuals are easily tranformed into monsters by puttin them in 
specific socaial setting.

So whether or not Hitler appealed to Darwin, Lysenko, Einstein, 
Christ, or any other "authority" is irrelevant to the validity of the 
ideas that have been promoted by those people.  The example that 
sparked this thread exposed the illogical thinking of some individuals 
in this regard.

But my comment was quite true.  I have not seen any Democratic 
candidates who have disavowed evolution.  At present the Republicans 
have gotten into bed with the antievolutionists and antiscinetific 
crowd.  So we do have a political split between the proscience and 
antiscience groups.  This is a fairly recent phenomenon.  It may 
actually be part of the natural development of a proevolution social 
mileau.  The percentage of antievolutionists has been decreasing 
during the last century.  So this has now become an issue, while 
previously the antievolutionists felt secure when they were in the 
majority.  This is precisely what happens when you have a scientific 
revolution, or any shift in the general paradigm.  There is disorder 
and savage fighting before the new paradigm is established.

We ignore the social aspects of science at our peril.  One reason why 
stem cell research is not controversial in Eastern cultures is 
apparently because the idea of reincarnation makes the fetus much less 
important.  The teaching of cosmology is impacted by the 
antievolution, young earth paradigm.  QM can be opposed because of the 
idea of randomness.

The social sciences and the instructors paradigm have a great bearing 
on teaching.  I have observed that there are some very influential 
mathemeticians who believe that the only way to structure teaching is 
by using logic to decide what you do.  This has resulted in the 
current poor state of math teaching because they ignore the education 
and psychology research.  What you do to get students to think 
logically does not flow from presenting ideas in a "to you" logical 
sequence.  Instead teaching is an experimental science.  Often things 
you do to improve teaching actually does the opposite.  Even a notable 
researcher like Priscilla Laws claims that her intuition is often 
faulty, so she has to rely on experiments rather than logic.

BTW if you look at Adam Smith he did say that the free market does not 
always result in desirable social goals, so even he was aware that raw 
competition is not always desirable.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> Comments like this serve as an example of why we should stick to 
> physics on this list and leave the political ramblings to the PHYSOC 
> list. Libertarians look to Adam Smith for guidance - but hardly 
> reject the science of Darwin. The only thing I find "curious" is your 
> rush to stereotype.
>
> Bob at PC
>
>
> It is curious that the same people who reject the scientific ideas 
> about
> Darwin will practice social & political "Darwinism" with respect to 
> other
> people.  Adam Smith is often their guru, and they ignore recent 
> research
> that shows that people tend to chose cooperation over competition. 
> It seems
> that cooperation is built into us.  And of course the Japanese do 
> not reject
> Darwin while also having an extremely cooperative view of society.
>
> John M. Clement
> Houston, TX