Julian Baggini:  No one who has understood even a fraction of what science has told us about the universe can fail to be in awe of both the cosmos and of science. When physics is compared with the humanities and social sciences, it is easy for the scientists to feel smug and the rest of us to feel somewhat envious. Philosophers in particular can suffer from lab-coat envy. If only our achievements were so clear and indisputable! How wonderful it would be to be free from the duty of constantly justifying the value of your discipline.

However – and I'm sure you could see a "but" coming – I do wonder whether science hasn't suffered from a little mission creep of late. Not content with having achieved so much, some scientists want to take over the domain of other disciplines.

I don't feel proprietorial about the problems of philosophy. History has taught us that many philosophical issues can grow up, leave home and live elsewhere. Science was once natural philosophy and psychology sat alongside metaphysics. But there are some issues of human existence that just aren't scientific. I cannot see how mere facts could ever settle the issue of what is morally right or wrong, for example.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/09/science-philosophy-debate-julian-baggini-lawrence-krauss/print

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Philosophy has its place in giving us a guide in the decision we make in life... But scientific analysis is quickly filing in the blanks in our knowledge — blanks we used to fill in with beliefs — erroneous beliefs... Beliefs are the bane of curiosity and stop us from asking the right questions... Beliefs are simply wrong... Most of philosophy is not based on dogmatic beliefs but on the flexibility of the mind and of its other abilities — adapting this to manage relationships with others, with our self and with our environment. 

Science provides the tools of knowledge through being curious... But in the same way philosophy is not a panacea, science can have its problems, especially when "applied" science goes wrong... In this basket I place genetically manipulated crops, some of medicinal drugs, and science applied for warfare. 

The "morally wrong or right" is a floozy as it's often attached to "beliefs" rather than the physical pain and contentment values, on the individual, social and environmental levels. We know when we hurt... We should know when we hurt others and we should know when we hurt the environment. Science tells us why we hurt, science tells us when we hurt the environment but our empathy tells us when we hurt someone else... It's reflected in our level of care. And reflected in that level of care being beneficial for the most or us and our environment...

God, guns and greed cares about nothing much... only to a few beneficiaries — mostly merchants of whatever. God, guns and greed destroy the environment beyond belief... God, guns and greed lead yo grand carelessness... The present "debate' about global warming is only frothed up by the people who are strongly in favour of god, guns and greed... The concept that these can actually harm the environment by refuting that our industrious activities (guns, god, greed) are carbon based and refuting unscientifically these are harming our environment is a damn shame...

Is this what we want?...

Gus

from Crikey …

Marr on Abbott: nine things you didn't know about Tony

Margot Saville, a freelance journalist in Sydney, writes:

DAVID MARR, QUARTERLY ESSAY, TONY ABBOTT

From David Marr's Quarterly Essay, "Political Animal, The Making of Tony Abbott", here are nine things we didn't know about the man ...

Tony's Catholicism is of a recent vintage. His grandfather, Marr explains, "had made a bargain with God that were his family to survive a voyage to Australia in the early months of World War II they would go over to Rome. Untouched by torpedoes, the Abbotts converted with some fervour". This may explain why he burns with the zeal of the newly converted, unlike "cultural Catholics" who believe that if several generations of their family have regularly attended Mass then they don't have to (my husband).

As a teenager, he had a very odd attitude to s-x. "I was sorta wrestling with this idea of the bloody priesthood, and I kept saying, 'No, no! No s-x! Against the rules! Then I'd say, 'Oh, all right'." And this was in the 1970s?

When his girlfriend, Kathy McDonald, became pregnant, 19-year-old Tony was unwilling to marry her as it would rule out the priesthood. It would also mean he could not apply for a Rhodes Scholarship, as it was then open only to single applicants. The relationship broke down when she was seven months pregnant but he came to the hospital when the baby was born and held him for a few minutes, before he was adopted out. (Thirty-five years later, the son was found not to have been Abbott's.)

He is alleged to have physically intimidated and punched the wall next to Barbara Ramjan after she defeated him in the election for the president of the Students' Representative Council at Sydney University. Asked by Marr about it, Abbott said he had no memory of the incident, but put out a statement on Saturday saying that it had never happened. He said, she said ...

His views about homos-xuality are scarier than we think. At university, writing in uni paper Honi Soit, he takes the reader into the SRC Women's Collective, full of women who are "grim faced, overall-clad, hard, strident, often lustfully embracing in a counterfeit of love". Marr also quotes Abbott as writing to High Court judge Michael Kirby that he had trouble with the idea that homosexuality should be regarded as acceptable, rather than simply accepted; "especially when the overwhelming weight of tradition holds that it is in some sense sinful".

Abbott's sister, Christine Forster, has recently come out as gay, a decision Abbott is reported to have accepted. This may be an example of another Catholic trait - "to hate the sin but love the sinner".

On the first date with his now-wife Margaret Aitken, he explained to her the history of the Democratic Labor Party split. And she still married him! (Was this a way of ensuring there would never be sex on a first date?)

His handwriting is appalling. Even his numbers are illegible. When he was health minister, someone on his personal staff had to tell public servants what was actually scrawled on their submissions.

He is engaged in a strange war with his body. Marr writes: "He walks as though he has to will each leg forward. It's curious in a man who is so obviously fit. His face is skin and bone. He smiles but his eyes are hooded. The overall effect is faintly menacing, as if he's about to climb into the ring.

I've noticed that when talking to Tony, he often leans forward and bounces slightly on the balls of his feet, a bit like a kangaroo. Maybe he just has poor circulation and his toes are numb. For a few years, we saw a great deal of his taut torso, often clad in a pair of red budgie-smugglers. But no longer.

"His minders - and perhaps his wife - have said no to Speedos and Lycra," writes Marr. "Even so it can be said that never in the political annals of this country have so many seen so much of so little." All of this may explain why...

He loves physical deprivation. The essay contains an excellent anecdote from writer Peter Fitzsimons, who played rugby with him in the 1980s:

"Abbo never saw a scrum that he didn't like ... what he most loved, and I mean this, was doing it when the conditions were appalling. One night in June, 1989, it all came together. A howling wind, screaming imprecations at the devil. Sheets of rain without end. A whole quagmire of mud to work with. Situation perfect ... as we maddened muddy wombats staggered after him. Forty minutes in, as our eyeballs rolled with exhaustion, I dinkum remember looking at his own beatific countenance, all grin and ears, the rain pouring off his uncovered head and having this distinct thought: 'I think he’s a little bit insane - in a hugely likeable way.'"

In private, he opposed WorkChoices. According to Marr: "He thought WorkChoices harsh and bad politics: 'A catastrophic political blunder because it undermined the Howard battlers' faith in the prime minister's goodwill.' He and another Catholic warrior in the government, Kevin Andrews, contested the proposals in cabinet. Abbott was particularly concerned with the abolition of the no-disadvantage test, which had set a safety net under earlier workplace reform."

At the end of this excellent essay, Marr sums up Tony the politician in a paragraph:

"An aggressive populist with a sharp tongue; a political animal with lots of charm; a born protege with ambitions to lead; a big brain but no intellectual; a bluff guy who proved a more than competent minister; a politician with little idea of what he might do if he ever got to the top; and a man profoundly wary of change.

"He's a worker. No doubt about that. But the point of it all is power. Without power it's been a waste of time."

Lately I’ve been gathering information that has made me dislike the GOP more than ever. The Constitution Party (CP), which is a small-government, avowedly pro-Christian, and immigration restrictionist party that came into existence in 1992, is being kept off the ballot in the presidential election in many states thanks to costly Republican efforts. Republican operatives have lavished tens of millions of dollars challenging petitions that the CP and its candidates have submitted in various states. Indeed, Republicans have engaged in all sorts of nasty tricks to prevent a challenge to their candidates from the organized right.

What has typically happened, as occurred in my state of Pennsylvania, is that GOP lawyers have mounted complicated challenges to every name that appears on CP ballot petitions. The required number of names has been raised as high as 20,000 to scare away threats to our eternalized two-party American-style constitutional democracy. Under an able leader from Lancaster, Jim Clymer (who is also the national party’s vice-presidential candidate), the Pennsylvania CP raised over 35,000 signatures, in defiance of our media- and GOP-approved way of life. But since GOP lawyers are challenging most of the names on the submitted petitions, it’s unlikely the CP will be on the ballot this fall in Pennsylvania. Through persistent hard work and fundraising, however, the CP has gotten on the ballot in 21 other states, most recently Virginia.

Although Clymer, a distinguished local lawyer, has tried to deal with the challenges to the best of his ability, the cost of staying in the fight has become for his cash-strapped state party truly astronomical. When asked to raise another $100,000 to go on battling GOP obstructionists, Jim threw in the towel. Because of GOP muscle, which is every bit as despicably applied as that of the Democrats’ public-sector unions, the CP will see its prospective votes in Pennsylvania this November diminish to a mere trickle.

read more : http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-goode-fight/