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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13477 Posts

Posted - 09/04/2006 :  22:43:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message
The New Yorker article does not fawn over or side with Peter Singer, as I guess that Coulter suggests. It profiles him. In any case, while he might be speaking to the liberal community, he does not speak for the liberal community.
He is a strong ethicist and a seriously interesting guy…
quote:
From The New Yorker:
Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive;
he is certainly among the most influential. And this month, as
he begins a new job as Princeton University's first professor
of bioethics, his unorthodox views will be debated in America
more passionately than ever before. For nearly thirty years, Singer
has written with great severity on subjects ranging from what
people should put on their dinner plates each night to how they
should spend their money or assess the value of human life. He
is always relevant, but what he has to say often seems outrageous:
Singer believes, for example, that a human's life is not necessarily
more sacred than a dog's, and that it might be more compassionate
to carry out medical experiments on hopelessly disabled, unconscious orphans than on perfectly healthy rats. Yet his books are far more popular than those of any other modern philosopher. "Animal Liberation," which was first published in 1975, has sold
half a million copies and is widely regarded as the touchstone
of the animal-rights movement. In 1979, he brought out "Practical
Ethics," which has sold more than a hundred and twenty thousand
copies, making it the most successful philosophy text ever published
by Cambridge University Press.
Follow the link…

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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tw101356
Skeptic Friend

USA
333 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  02:07:49   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send tw101356 a Private Message
I'd never heard of Peter Singer until GK brought him up. Found an excellent site here with lots of links to book reviews, articles, essays, letters to the editor, etc. by and about him.

In particular, this article: Why Are We Afraid of Peter Singer? from The Chronicle of Higher Education explains some of his controversial positions and why he has evoked opposition from both the right and the left.


- TW
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GK Paul
Skeptic Friend

USA
306 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  02:32:52   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send GK Paul a Private Message
Coulter states on page 269 that upon first reading "The Origin of Species" Darwin's mentor from Cambridge, Adam Sedgwick, wrote a letter warning Darwin that he was "deep in the mire of folly" if he was trying to remove the idea of morality from nature. If such a seperation between the physical and the moral were ever to occur, Sedgwick said, it would "sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history.

Sedgwick, Darwin's mentor, must have been a genius because he predicted Singer, Hitler, and the Nazi scientists to a tee.


"Something cannot come from nothing" -- Ken Tanaka - geologist

"The existence of a Being endowed with intelligence and wisdom is a necessary inference from a study of celestial mechanics" --Sir Isaac Newton


GK Paul
Edited by - GK Paul on 09/05/2006 02:37:34
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  03:52:49   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
Cune said,in this post:

quote:
Dude, you're full of it!



Perhaps you meant to say "GK Paul, you're full of it!" ?

If so I'd agree with you.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  04:10:56   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
GK Paul, let me extend an offer to you. You go over to the Creation/Evolution forum here and start a thread. In this thread you can post an argument from Coulter's book that is anti-evolution.

I'll be happy to explain, in detail, the error of her claims.

You don't have to engage in any debate unless you want to.

Feel free to post as many of her claims against evolution as you like, or you can post them one at a time, however you want.

Just post the basic claim, use Coulter's own words (you can type in a short paragraph or two from her book as long as you properly cite it (author, title, page), the forum rules here allow that) or you can paraphrase her, just cite the book and page.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist

USA
4955 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  05:00:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Cuneiformist a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by GK Paul

Coulter states on page 269 that upon first reading "The Origin of Species" Darwin's mentor from Cambridge, Adam Sedgwick, wrote a letter warning Darwin that he was "deep in the mire of folly" if he was trying to remove the idea of morality from nature. If such a seperation between the physical and the moral were ever to occur, Sedgwick said, it would "sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history.

Sedgwick, Darwin's mentor, must have been a genius because he predicted Singer, Hitler, and the Nazi scientists to a tee.

This is nice and all, but why don't you respond to the discussion about Singer? After all, you brought it up! While Coulter has made him out to be a hero to the "liberal religion" it is clear that he is nothign of the sort. The "clergy" she cited did nothign but observe that he was influential-- something even Fox News would have to admit. But they also reported that he was controversial, and that large numbers of people (even at "liberal" universities) have protested him.

And, as has been suggested already, almost none of us had ever heard of the guy until you brought him up. How can he be some sort of liberal icon if a bunch of atheists and Coulter-haters have never heard of him?

Of course, since it's clear that Coulter is again bending the truth, it's easier for you to pick up some other half-truth and ignore this one...
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moakley
SFN Regular

USA
1888 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  05:21:51   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send moakley a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner

quote:
Originally posted by moakley

quote:
Originally posted by R.Wreck

When it comes to morality, your god is about as useful as tits on a bull.

That's interesting. In Indiana they were considered less useful when found "on a board." This provides an option I hadn't cosidered.

The Southern version I heard was, "tits on a boar hog."

Oh my. Could it be that the people I grew up with added a 'd' where none should have been. That the hoosier colloquiallism has been in error for at at least 40 years.

I wonder what impact there might be on the telling and retelling of much longer stories. What changes or embellishments may have been introduce from when an event may, may not, have occurred to when the stories were actually recorded. 30-50 years is a long time.

Life is good

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous
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pleco
SFN Addict

USA
2998 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  06:36:57   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit pleco's Homepage Send pleco a Private Message
It used to be funny how the subject would get changed once the lie was exposed.

Now it is boring.

GK Paul, just stop it. Or is it your intention to continue to throw out quotes from the book ad infinitum without ever backing anything up?

by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart.
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist

USA
4955 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  06:42:55   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Cuneiformist a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by pleco

It used to be funny how the subject would get changed once the lie was exposed.

Now it is boring.

GK Paul, just stop it. Or is it your intention to continue to throw out quotes from the book ad infinitum without ever backing anything up?

Well, I'll lock the thread at 15 pages, but he could start a new one. Indeed, perhaps he's trying to break the "Surface of the
Sun" thread record!
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pleco
SFN Addict

USA
2998 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  07:18:48   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit pleco's Homepage Send pleco a Private Message
quote:
Indeed, perhaps he's trying to break the "Surface of the Sun" thread record!


Now that would be something!

by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9688 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  07:25:56   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by GK Paul
Sedgwick, Darwin's mentor, must have been a genius because he predicted Singer, Hitler, and the Nazi scientists to a tee.

So did Nostradamus, according to his champions. That doesn't prove much.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
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pleco
SFN Addict

USA
2998 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  07:50:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit pleco's Homepage Send pleco a Private Message
From wiki:

quote:
Sedgwick's own geological views were generally catastrophic -- he believed that the history of the Earth had been marked by a series of cataclysmic events which had destroyed much of the Earth's life. In this belief he followed Cuvier, and he was opposed to Charles Lyell's models of slow, gradual geological change and a more or less steady-state Earth. However, Sedgwick was interested in the possibility that at least some of the "catastrophic" changes implied by the rock record might be shown to be gradual. He originally followed his colleague William Buckland in believing that the uppermost Pleistocene deposits had been laid down by the Biblical Flood, but retracted this belief after many of these deposits turned out to have been formed by glaciers, not floods. Sedgwick also did not object to evolution, or "development" as such theories were called then, in the broad sense -- to the fact that the life on Earth had changed over time. Nor was he a young-Earth creationist; he believed that the Earth must be extremely old. As Darwin wrote of Sedgwick's lectures, "What a capital hand is Sedgewick [sic] for drawing large cheques upon the Bank of Time!"

However, Sedgwick believed in the Divine creation of life over long periods of time, by "a power I cannot imitate or comprehend -- but in which I believe, by a legitimate conclusion of sound reason drawn from the laws of harmonies of nature." What Sedgwick objected to was the apparent amoral and materialist nature of Darwin's proposed mechanism, natural selection, which he thought degrading to humanity's spiritual aspirations.


And now the full quote that Coulter only snipped:

quote:
"This view of nature you have stated admirably; tho' admitted by all naturalists & denied by no one of common sense. We all admit development as a fact of history; but how came it about? Here, in language, & still more in logic, we are point blank at issue-- There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. Tis the crown & glory of organic science that it does thro' final cause, link material to moral. . . You have ignored this link; &, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which thank God it is not) to break it, humanity in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it--& sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history."


Emphasis mine. He states Darwin "ignores" the moral part...perhaps Darwin, as a scientist, knew that judgements on morality or religion had no place in a scientific investigation. Sedgwick could have learned something from this.

I eagerily await the next blurb from Coulter's book. It's like fishing with dynamite..

by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart.
Edited by - pleco on 09/05/2006 07:57:58
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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13477 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  09:12:01   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message
Well, so far it is clear by the quotes presented that Coulter subverted every quote she could get her hands on (Sartre). She cherry picked and drew hasty generalizations (Singer), built stawman arguments that heavily relied on emotional appeals (Hitler, the oldest trick in the book who she conveniently ignores was not an atheist) and attacks on evolution that are philosophical in nature and have nothing to do with the actual science, as though that means anything. Since we have only looked at a few of the “quotes” from her book, and interestingly, the ones GKPaul hand picked as being good quotes, my guess is that any review of other “quotes” from her book will follow the same pattern.

But I am willing to look at more “quotes” because this thread will soon come up in search engines and might provide some good information for those who are interested in “Godless” and Coulter in general. GKPaul, for his part, will never be convinced because Coulter talks to his worldview. He is willing to put blinders on for the sake of having his beliefs supported. I don't usually like this phrase but in this case “true believer” applies to GKPaul. He suffers from conformation bias and is a closed circuit in terms of understanding what has been presented to him.

“A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” Paul Simon from The Boxer

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9688 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  11:27:48   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
A google search for the terms: Coulter lies godless
Find this thread on Skeptic Friends at the bottom of the second page.

Edited to add: Sorry, I made a mistake. The search terms in this exact order puts us in the middle of page 1. Yay!

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 09/05/2006 11:30:19
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 09/05/2006 :  15:50:44   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message
quote:
Indeed, perhaps he's trying to break the "Surface of the
Sun" thread record!


There certainly seems to be enough bullshit in the book to do it.

Go GK Paul, Go!

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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