Hi David F.,

Apart from all the appeals to authority, and the winkling out of the odd quote, one has to wonder why you have to go back hundreds, thousands of years, to find atrocities in other societies comparable to those of ISIS. i.e. ISIS in 2015.

The Enlightenment has been slowly and painfully developed over the past five hundred years, particularly the last one or two hundred, with its focus on equality of all humans, compassion for the oppressed, the rule of law for all, the scientific method, reward for effort, striving towards an open society - all imperfectly worked out and implemented, but inexorably reaching more and more people and seeping, as it were, into their everyday ideologies: that's us with all our aspirations and mis-steps, which would be impossible to even contemplate under the dead hand of priests and imams.

But then there is the Counter-Enlightenment, back-tracking, a tacit harking back to the past, and as well, distortions and misuse of what humans have achieved over those few hundred years - as if every advance is countered by some perversion of itself.

Then there are the various Utopian ideologies of the counter-Enlightenment, which inevitably move towards fascism: the perfect as the enemy of the good, as Voltaire says. I now believe that Marx was in this category, as Popper 'deconstructed' his ideology.

There never will be perfection, and probably every advance can be misused or reacted against. But hopefully, we move forward, in baby steps.

I think that's what Popper was on about, incremental improvements in people's lives and the amelioration of their condition. From this point of view, there is something 'Utopian', in the worst sense of the word, in Mill's 'greatest happiness for the greatest number', with its implied abandonment of the 'least': Popper turns that on its head, that what we should be trying to do is more a matter of overcoming and eliminating evils rather than creating perfections.

Cheers,

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

I don’t have to go back thousands of years, to find atrocities in other societies comparable to those of ISIS.

You asked me to provide examples for my statement that religions speak of love and act hatefully. Due to the influence of the Enlightenment in western society religion in those societies has been largely tamed as they have been in some other societies.

The Holocaust, the genocides in Rwanda-Burundi, The 1965-6 mass killings in Indonesia, the American-Filipino War, Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia and the estimated 65,000,000 Chinese killed in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are examples of great atrocities in recent history comparable to those committed by Isis. However, I didn’t mention them since I was restricting my examples to those that were closely related to religion, and the secular state has done a good job in defanging religion.

I have also read Popper, and I agree with his preference for what he called piecemeal social engineering. You try a small change. If it doesn’t work you go back to the drawing board. If it does work then you try another small change in the same direction and see what happens. I prefer that to the undemocratic, utopian ideologies which mandate immediate great change.

I agree it is more reasonable to make small improvements than to aim for perfection.

Dear imacentristmoderate,

You wrote, “david f, wrong again & blinded by atheistic, left wing religion as usual.”

Immoderate name-calling is not reasonable argument.

Runner I have come to the conclusion you are seriously mentally disturbed and therefore I will be gentle so I don't tip you over the edge.

You keep referring to Global Warming and your stance relates to an inability to rationally understand science (peer reviewed science that is) and as such your "faith" has illogically drawn your mindset into a stance which blinds you to an alternate logic, in line with Sells irrational conclusions.

Perhaps you could attempt to read the entire contents of the following without your blinkers on and get back to me, here it is http://www.nature.com/articles/srep16784

Additionally, while you are at it perhaps you could also read the following which might help you to explain what is wrong with your rigid and unwavering reliance on belief of "your" Sky pilot syndrome, and yes it's pretty old but I think holds true in relation to your continuous irrational statements on OLO,
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html
Cheers Geoff

Just because I quote from an ancient tomb, just doesn't infer or imply that I agree with the premise of the saying/expression!

But in the case of folks who purport to stand in God's or Jesus shoes, and speak for either with all the authority of a virtual GOd, need to take a look in the mirror to see who they are and the very real limits of their claimed authority?

I say therefore,judge not and you shall not be judged.

In any event who gave Sells or any of his contempories, the right to decide what anyone can do?

The only real judge is indeed the man in the mirror, then only where it applies exclusively to our own behavior!

If only we all would own our own behavior/actions, the world would be a place we could all peacefully share!

I'm reminded that the fourteen commandments were carved on tablets of stone, by an all seeing all knowing God, in a language 99% of the target populace couldn't read, and with all such so called holy writing, needed to be interpreted by a few men who claimed the moral authority to know the mind of God.

As for those tablets of stone, if the Myth of the exodus is finally exposed as myth, fable,fairy tale, or just plain fraud, and the emerging irrefutable archaeological evidence is pointing that way? What happens to all those stories that rely on it actually being true?

Please make sure you understand what I'm actually saying before you start putting words in my mouth or translating what I'm saying or meaning!

I'm just like J.C. purported to be, a very plain speaking man given to candor, not riddles someone needs to interpret to confer a brand new never ever intended meaning!
Rhrosty

Geoff in Perth

if 'peer reviewed'science says that out of chaos came order then it shows how dumb some scientist really are. The manipilation of data is also not science and would not be needed if man made gw was a fact. Fraud abounds. If being rational in your mind is mentally disturbed so be it. Just don't be arrogrant enough to admit that many of the great scientist in history have been creationist, something that does not seem to fit your pig headed narrative. The gw alarmist have learned their tactics from evolutionist who mock and ridicule but have no substance behind them.

Hi David F.,

Yes, the Enlightenment process is like a path with side-tracks at every step - every innovative idea can be distorted and perverted, so it's often a matter of one step forward, two steps back.

As for piecemeal amelioration, slow and boring as it must sound to our impatient great-grandchildren, there is some wonderful stuff written by Richard Elmore, on policy implementation and its pitfalls. The usual bureaucratic notion is that you assemble a group of really, really expert experts, they seriously deliberate, deep and wise, and come up with a policy prescription, after which everybody can go home, it's all cut-and-dried. No, says Elmore, that's when the problems start. He advocates what he calls bottom-up policy implementation, not top-down policy formulation. After all, Murphy's Law.

Wildavsky also wrote a brilliant book on that Implementation to show how arse-up everything could go. Especially in the field of social policy, where there are so many uncontrollable factors, the process of implementation has to be very closely watched - that's where the policy work really starts - in a constant, reiterative process of modifying and re-assessing policy.

The point of this is to show that there are no sure-fire, shazam ! moments in the Enlightenment process, there are always wrong ways to go, and we keep finding them.

Thanks again, David,

Joe