Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issuewith any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:
What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?
I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutabilityis one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover,I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determinewhether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games.Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all youhave to do is commit to a criterion for testing.It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-mindedenough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?
Well, it was fun while it lasted. We no sooner defeated Fascism than we wentnose to nose with Communism during the Cold War. After the collapse of theSoviet Union in 1991, we had about a decade of rest before militant Islam becamea threat, before 9-11.
This is a war that shows no sign of ending for the foreseeable future. Theissue is not Communism or Islam. The underlying theme is that some elite grouppossesses knowledge that gives it the right to impose its rules on others. Afterwe defeat radical Islam, there will inevitably be some other theory thatpromises the final solution to the world's ills. It will, of course, requirecompeting ideas to be suppressed and will require that the elite ideology begiven special powers and privileges not available to everyone else.
Why does this sort of thing seem to be so distinctly a 20th centuryphenomenon? Because only in the 20th century was totalitarianism seriouslythreatened. Totalitarian movements are not revolutionary: democracy is. Withvery few exceptions, totalitarian governments prevailed throughout most of humanhistory. For the most part they never achieved the grim excesses of Nazi Germanyor Stalinist Russia, but even when they granted their citizens long leashes andsincerely ruled with the best interests of their citizens foremost, they still,in principle, had not merely the power but the right to dictate theirsubjects' beliefs and suppress dissent.
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Created 26 January, 2004, Last Update 24 May, 2020
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