Uses And Abuses Of Science Quotes

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[The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make ’em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
Harry Truman
You know what's wrong with scientific power?... It's a form of inherited wealth... Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual Guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to his with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of the getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it. But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step... There is no discipline... no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature... A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits.
Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1))
Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology. The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral sciences and “Know thyself” their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate, and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant form of tyranny.
Peter F. Drucker (Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices)
Survival machines could evolve to be completely selfish and self-centered, but there is something that keeps their pure selfishness in check, and that is the fact that other survival machines are inclined “to hit back” if attacked, to retaliate if exploited, or to attempt to use or abuse other survival machines first.
Michael Shermer (The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom)
From time to time our national history has been marred by forgetfulness of the Jeffersonian principle that restraint is at the heart of liberty. In 1789 the Federalists adopted Alien and Sedition Acts in a shabby political effort to isolate the Republic from the world and to punish political criticism as seditious libel. In 1865 the Radical Republicans sought to snare private conscience in a web of oaths and affirmations of loyalty. Spokesmen for the South did service for the Nation in resisting the petty tyranny of distrustful vengeance. In the 1920's the Attorney General of the United States degraded his office by hunting political radicals as if they were Salem witches. The Nation's only gain from his efforts were the classic dissents of Holmes and Brandeis. In our own times, the old blunt instruments have again been put to work. The States have followed in the footsteps of the Federalists and have put Alien and Sedition Acts upon their statute books. An epidemic of loyalty oaths has spread across the Nation until no town or village seems to feel secure until its servants have purged themselves of all suspicion of non-conformity by swearing to their political cleanliness. Those who love the twilight speak as if public education must be training in conformity, and government support of science be public aid of caution. We have also seen a sharpening and refinement of abusive power. The legislative investigation, designed and often exercised for the achievement of high ends, has too frequently been used by the Nation and the States as a means for effecting the disgrace and degradation of private persons. Unscrupulous demagogues have used the power to investigate as tyrants of an earlier day used the bill of attainder. The architects of fear have converted a wholesome law against conspiracy into an instrument for making association a crime. Pretending to fear government they have asked government to outlaw private protest. They glorify "togetherness" when it is theirs, and call it conspiracy when it is that of others. In listing these abuses I do not mean to condemn our central effort to protect the Nation's security. The dangers that surround us have been very great, and many of our measures of vigilance have ample justification. Yet there are few among us who do not share a portion of the blame for not recognizing soon enough the dark tendency towards excess of caution.
John F. Kennedy
While humans have the propensity to develop a suite of prosocial behaviors, they are also capable of developing antisocial behavior, engaging in substance abuse, experiencing depression, and bearing children at an early age...Young people who develop aggressive behavior tendencies are likely to develop problems with tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use; to fail academically; to have children at an early age; and to raise children likely to have the same problems.
Anthony Biglan (The Nurture Effect: How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World)
For example, maybe you grew up in a house where no one talked about their feelings, It wasn't encouraged and everyone else became uncomfortable if you tried. You learned pretty quickly that talking about your feelings was clearly against the rules. You weren't abused, you weren't traumatized. But, at the dinner table, you said "My best friend and I had a fight today and I'm really sad and angry," it would elicit a response of "That happens sometimes, dear, please pass the potatoes.
Faith G. Harper (Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers)
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are now used as primary treatments, with benzodiazepines used as adjuncts. Benzodiazepine abuse is rare, usually found in patients who abuse multiple prescription and recreational drugs.
Benjamin James Sadock (Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry)
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for us to reap from it the esthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture.
Aldo Leopold (A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There)
You know what's wrong with scientific power?... It's a form of inherited wealth... Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual Guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it. But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step... There is no discipline... no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature... A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits.
Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1))
Certainly the concept that human CO2 causes warming and climate change was based on unproven theory used by people with an ideology. They used instruments of state to dominate the science. They also attacked and abused anyone who dared to pursue proper science. The small group who controlled the IPCC were unlikely to change their tune. A pattern that was borne out by the release of IPCC Report AR5 in September 2013, which denied the fact that for 17 years global temperature declined slightly while CO2 levels continued to increase.
Tim Ball (The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science)
Reversive blockade: Emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth blocks the average person’s mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the “golden mean” between the truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this effect is precisely the intent of the person who subjects them to this method. If the counterfeit of the truth is the opposite of a moral truth, at the same time, it simultaneously represents an extreme paramoralism, and bears its peculiar suggestiveness. We rarely see this method being used by normal people; even if raised by the people who abused it; they usually only indicate its results in their characteristic difficulties in apprehending reality properly. Use of this method can be included within the above-mentioned special psychological knowledge developed by psychopaths concerning the weaknesses of human nature and the art of leading others into error. Where they are in rule, this method is used with virtuosity, and to an extent conterminous with their power.
Andrew M. Lobaczewski (Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes)
no matter how you look at the issue, prevention is a fundamentally preferable and more cost-effective way to promote health and longevity. Most people agree that we invest insufficiently in prevention, but they would also surmise that it is difficult to get young, healthy people to avoid behaviors that increase their risk of future illness. Consider smoking, which causes more preventable deaths than any major risk factor (the other big ones being physical inactivity, poor diet, and alcohol abuse). After prolonged legal battles, public health efforts to discourage smoking have managed to halve the percentage of Americans who smoke since the 1950s.19 Yet 20 percent of Americans still smoke, causing 443,000 premature deaths in 2011 at a direct cost of $96 billion per year. Likewise, most Americans know they should be physically active and eat a healthy diet, yet only 20 percent of Americans meet the government’s recommendations for physical activity, and fewer than 20 percent meet government dietary guidelines.20 There are many, diverse reasons we are bad at persuading, nudging, or otherwise encouraging people to use their bodies more as they evolved to be used (more on this later), but one contributing factor could be that we are still following in the footsteps of the marquis de Condorcet, waiting for the next promised breakthrough. Scared of death and hopeful about science, we spend billions of dollars trying to figure out how to regrow diseased organs, hunting for new drugs, and designing artifical body parts to replace the ones we wear out. I am in no way suggesting that we cease investing in these and other areas. Quite the contrary: let’s spend more! But let’s not do so in a way that promotes the pernicious feedback loop of just treating mismatch diseases rather than preventing them. In practical
Daniel E. Lieberman (The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease)
The Yogis possess great knowledge regarding the use and abuse of the reproductive principle in both sexes. Some hints of this esoteric knowledge have filtered out and have been used by Western writers on the subject, and much good has been accomplished in this way. In this little book we cannot do more than touch upon the subject, and omitting all except a bare mention of theory, we will give a practical breathing exercise whereby the student will be enabled to transmute the reproductive energy into vitality for the entire system, instead of dissipating and wasting it in lustful indulgences in or out of the marriage relations. The reproductive energy is creative energy, and may be taken up by the system and transmuted into strength and vitality, thus serving the purpose of regeneration instead of generation. If the young men of the Western world understood these underlying principles they would be saved much misery and unhappiness in after years, and would be stronger mentally, morally and physically.
William Walker Atkinson (The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath)
Although psychoanalysts, including Freud, tended to acknowledge sexual trauma as tragic and harmful (Freud, 1905b, 1917), the subject seems to have been too awful to consider seriously in civilized company. One notable exception, Sandor Ferenczi, presented a paper entitled “Confusion of Tongues between the Adult and the Child: The Language of Tenderness and of Passion” (1955), to the Psychoanalytic Congress in 1932. In this presentation he talked about the helplessness of the child when confronted with an adult who uses the child’s vulnerability to gain sexual gratification. Ferenczi talked with more eloquence than any psychiatrist before him about the helplessness and terror experienced by children who were victims of interpersonal violence, and he introduced the critical concept that the predominant defense available to children so traumatized is “identification with aggressor.” The response of the psychoanalytic community seems to have been one of embarrassment, and the paper was not published in English until 1949, 17 years after Ferenczi’s death (Masson, 1984).
Matthew J. Friedman (Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice)
Gods do not decide who goes to Heaven or who goes to Hell. That is for the Cosmic Forces to decide. You are as close to being like a God than you ever will be. Gods are the creators and if they are proud of their work they will remain as silent watchers. This isn’t like the ancient times when Gods would interfere in the affairs of man, or whatever creatures they created. They became arrogant and selfish in their deeds, only concerned with their own private agendas and using their creations as tools of blackmail and spite. It got so they were completely shaping the destinies of worlds just to seduce a sibling into practicing explicit acts of intercourse. They were incestuous monstrosities who were given far too many liberties, and they abused the power bestowed upon them. Eventually the Cosmic Forces intervened and limited the powers of the Gods. These days Gods are not born and they do not perform sex. The few that are left are merely prisoners of the Cosmic Forces, free to roam across the Multiverse and create, but unable to indulge in their own egotistical fantasies. They have become tortured souls, much like their creations.
Dale M. Chatwin (Underneath the Draconian Sky)
Where people are striving, busy and stressed, emotions are denied or derided. The head and heart then separate, and this allows people and governments to act with great cruelty, resulting in violence, abuse and war. Today, in striving discontent, we move the world forward with science and technology, but rape the Earth of minerals and oil and are careless of pollution. Where there is no reverence for nature, there is a feeling of separation from it, which makes people feel they have the right to change it, genetically modify it, clone it or damage it by chopping down its forests and polluting its rivers. Disconnection from the heart, and its consequences of cruelty, slavery and injustice, also took place when Atlantis devolved, but even in their most dire times they rejected the idea of using fossil fuel because of the damage it would cause to the planet. However, in the darkest days they did clone, genetically modify, and implant people and plants. Right-brain societies are inevitably child centred, for children are considered to be a gift to the community. In Atlantis, the little ones were loved, honoured and included, even in elementary decision making. It was considered to be a collective responsibility to pass on the traditions and wisdom to the next generation, for they had no individual wealth to leave as a legacy. EXERCISE:
Diana Cooper (Discover Atlantis)
If you can’t make a good prediction, it is very often harmful to pretend that you can. I suspect that epidemiologists, and others in the medical community, understand this because of their adherence to the Hippocratic oath. Primum non nocere: First, do no harm. Much of the most thoughtful work on the use and abuse of statistical models and the proper role of prediction comes from people in the medical profession.88 That is not to say there is nothing on the line when an economist makes a prediction, or a seismologist does. But because of medicine’s intimate connection with life and death, doctors tend to be appropriately cautious. In their field, stupid models kill people. It has a sobering effect. There is something more to be said, however, about Chip Macal’s idea of “modeling for insights.” The philosophy of this book is that prediction is as much a means as an end. Prediction serves a very central role in hypothesis testing, for instance, and therefore in all of science.89 As the statistician George E. P. Box wrote, “All models are wrong, but some models are useful.”90 What he meant by that is that all models are simplifications of the universe, as they must necessarily be. As another mathematician said, “The best model of a cat is a cat.”91 Everything else is leaving out some sort of detail. How pertinent that detail might be will depend on exactly what problem we’re trying to solve and on how precise an answer we require.
Nate Silver (The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't)
The history of another country, one Americans don’t much like comparing themselves with, illustrates the grave dangers of yoking political ideology to dubious science. In the 1930s under Joseph Stalin, the quack “scientist” Trofim Lysenko, who promoted himself through party newspapers rather than rigorous experiments, rose to prominence and took control of Soviet biological, medical, and agricultural research for several decades. Lysenko used his power to prosecute an ideologically driven crusade against the theory of genetics, which he denounced as a bourgeois affront to socialism. In short, his political presuppositions led him to embrace bogus scientific claims. In the purges that followed, many of Lysenko’s scientist critics lost their jobs and suffered imprisonment and even execution. By 1948 Lysenko had convinced Stalin to ban the study of genetics. Soviet science suffered immeasurable damage from the machinations of Lysenko and his henchmen, and the term “Lysenkoism” has since come to signify the suppression of, or refusal to acknowledge, science for ideological reasons. In a democracy like our own, Lysenkoism is unlikely to take such a menacing, totalitarian form. Nevertheless, the threat we face from conservative abuse of science—to informed policymaking, to democratic discourse, and to knowledge itself—is palpably real. And as the modern Right and the Bush administration flex their muscles and continue to battle against reliable, mainstream conclusions and sources of information, this threat is growing.
Chris C. Mooney (The Republican War on Science)
To understand why it is no longer an option for geneticists to lock arms with anthropologists and imply that any differences among human populations are so modest that they can be ignored, go no further than the “genome bloggers.” Since the genome revolution began, the Internet has been alive with discussion of the papers written about human variation, and some genome bloggers have even become skilled analysts of publicly available data. Compared to most academics, the politics of genome bloggers tend to the right—Razib Khan17 and Dienekes Pontikos18 post on findings of average differences across populations in traits including physical appearance and athletic ability. The Eurogenes blog spills over with sometimes as many as one thousand comments in response to postings on the charged topic of which ancient peoples spread Indo-European languages,19 a highly sensitive issue since as discussed in part II, narratives about the expansion of Indo-European speakers have been used as a basis for building national myths,20 and sometimes have been abused as happened in Nazi Germany.21 The genome bloggers’ political beliefs are fueled partly by the view that when it comes to discussion about biological differences across populations, the academics are not honoring the spirit of scientific truth-seeking. The genome bloggers take pleasure in pointing out contradictions between the politically correct messages academics often give about the indis​tingu​ishab​ility of traits across populations and their papers showing that this is not the way the science is heading.
David Reich (Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past)
Treating Abuse Today (Tat), 3(4), pp. 26-33 Freyd: I see what you're saying but people in psychology don't have a uniform agreement on this issue of the depth of -- I guess the term that was used at the conference was -- "robust repression." TAT: Well, Pamela, there's a whole lot of evidence that people dissociate traumatic things. What's interesting to me is how the concept of "dissociation" is side-stepped in favor of "repression." I don't think it's as much about repression as it is about traumatic amnesia and dissociation. That has been documented in a variety of trauma survivors. Army psychiatrists in the Second World War, for instance, documented that following battles, many soldiers had amnesia for the battles. Often, the memories wouldn't break through until much later when they were in psychotherapy. Freyd: But I think I mentioned Dr. Loren Pankratz. He is a psychologist who was studying veterans for post-traumatic stress in a Veterans Administration Hospital in Portland. They found some people who were admitted to Veteran's hospitals for postrraumatic stress in Vietnam who didn't serve in Vietnam. They found at least one patient who was being treated who wasn't even a veteran. Without external validation, we just can't know -- TAT: -- Well, we have external validation in some of our cases. Freyd: In this field you're going to find people who have all levels of belief, understanding, experience with the area of repression. As I said before it's not an area in which there's any kind of uniform agreement in the field. The full notion of repression has a meaning within a psychoanalytic framework and it's got a meaning to people in everyday use and everyday language. What there is evidence for is that any kind of memory is reconstructed and reinterpreted. It has not been shown to be anything else. Memories are reconstructed and reinterpreted from fragments. Some memories are true and some memories are confabulated and some are downright false. TAT: It is certainly possible for in offender to dissociate a memory. It's possible that some of the people who call you could have done or witnessed some of the things they've been accused of -- maybe in an alcoholic black-out or in a dissociative state -- and truly not remember. I think that's very possible. Freyd: I would say that virtually anything is possible. But when the stories include murdering babies and breeding babies and some of the rather bizarre things that come up, it's mighty puzzling. TAT: I've treated adults with dissociative disorders who were both victimized and victimizers. I've seen previously repressed memories of my clients' earlier sexual offenses coming back to them in therapy. You guys seem to be saying, be skeptical if the person claims to have forgotten previously, especially if it is about something horrible. Should we be equally skeptical if someone says "I'm remembering that I perpetrated and I didn't remember before. It's been repressed for years and now it's surfacing because of therapy." I ask you, should we have the same degree of skepticism for this type of delayed-memory that you have for the other kind? Freyd: Does that happen? TAT: Oh, yes. A lot.
David L. Calof
Humanitarian Industrialization Fourth industrial revolution my eye! We haven't yet recovered from the disparities produced by the first, second and third industrial revolutions. Morons keep peddling cold and pompous dreams devoid of humanity, and morons keep consuming them like good little backboneless vermin. Grow a backbone already! We always look at the glorious aspects of industrialization and overlook all those countless lives that are ruined by it. But it's okay! As long as we are not struck by a catastrophe ourselves, our sleep of moronity never breaks - so long as our comfort is unchallenged, and enhanced rather, it's okay if millions keep falling through the cracks. So long as you can afford a smartphone that runs smooth like butter, it doesn't matter if it is produced by modern day slave labors who can't even afford the basic essentials of living. With all the revenue the tech companies earn by charging you a thousand dollar for a hundred dollar smartphone, they can't even pay decent wages to the people working their butt off to manufacture their assets - because apparently, it is more important for the people at the top to afford private jets and trips to space, than the factory workers to afford healthcare, housing and a couple of square meals a day. And this you call industrialization - well done - you just figured out the secret to glory without being bothered by something so boring as basic humanity. I say to you here and now, listen well - stop abusing revolutionary scientific discoveries in the making of a cold, mechanistic, disparity infested world - use science and technology to wipe out the disparities, not cause them. Break free from your modern savagery of inhuman industrialization, and focus your mind on humanitarian industrialization.
Abhijit Naskar (The Centurion Sermon: Mental Por El Mundo)
Rape has been described by victim advocate and former police officer Tom Tremblay as “the most violent crime a person can survive.”10 Those who have not been sexually assaulted can perhaps most clearly understand the experience of a survivor by thinking of them as having survived an attempted murder that used sex as the weapon. Sexual violence often doesn’t look like what we think of as “violence”—only rarely is there a gun or knife; often there isn’t even “aggression” as we typically think of it. There is coercion and the removal of the targeted person’s choice about what will happen next. Survivors don’t “fight” because the threat is too immediate and inescapable; their bodies choose “freeze” because it’s the stress response that maximizes the chances of staying alive . . . or of dying without pain. Trauma isn’t always caused by one specific incident. It can also emerge in response to persistent distress or ongoing abuse, like a relationship where sex is unwanted, though it may be technically “consensual” because the targeted person says yes in order to avoid being hurt or feels trapped in the relationship or is otherwise coerced. In that context, a survivor’s body gradually learns that it can’t escape and it can’t fight; freeze becomes the default stress response because of the learned pattern of shutdown as the best way to guarantee survival. Each person’s experience of survival is unique, but it often includes a kind of disengaged unreality. And afterward, that illusion of unreality gradually degrades, disintegrating under the weight of physical existence and burdened memory. The tentative recognition that this thing has actually happened incrementally unlocks the panic and rage that couldn’t find their way to the surface before, buried as they were under the overmastering mandate to survive. But survival is not recovery; survival happens automatically, sometimes even against the survivor’s will. Recovery requires an environment of relative security and the ability to separate the physiology of freeze from the experience of fear, so that the panic and the rage can discharge, completing their cycles at last.
Emily Nagoski (Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life)
Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33 TAT: I see the agenda. But let's go back: one of the contentions the therapeutic community has about the Foundation's professed scientific credibility is your use of the term "syndrome." It seems to us that what's happening here is that based solely on anecdotal, unverified reports, the Foundation has started a public relations campaign rather than a bonafide research effort and simply announced to the world that an epidemic of this syndrome exists. The established scientific and clinical organizations are taking you on about this and it's that kind of thing that makes us feel like this effort is not really based on science. Do you have a response to that? Freyd: The response I would make regarding the name of the Foundation is that it will certainly be one of the issues brought up during our scientific meeting this weekend. But let me add that the term, "syndrome," in terms of it being a psychological syndrome, parallels, say, the rape trauma syndrome. Given that and the fact that there are seldom complaints over the use of the term "syndrome" for that, I think that it isn't "syndrome" that's bothering people as much as the term "false." TAT: No. Frankly it's not. It is the term "syndrome." The term false memory is almost 100 years old. It's nothing new, but false memory syndrome is newly coined. Here's our issue with your use of the word "syndrome." The rape trauma syndrome is a good example because it has a very well defined list of signs and symptoms. Having read your literature, we are still at a loss to know what the signs and symptoms of "false memory syndrome" are. Can you tell us succinctly? Freyd: The person with whom I would like to have you discuss that to quote is Dr. Paul McHugh on our advisory board, because he is a clinician. TAT: I would be happy to do that. But if I may, let me take you on a little bit further about this. Freyd: Sure, sure that's fair. TAT: You're the Executive Director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - a foundation that says it wants to disseminate scientific information to the community regarding this syndrome but you can't, or won't, give me its signs and symptoms. That is confusing to me. I don't understand why there isn't a list.
David L. Calof
he importance and influence of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection can scarcely be exaggerated. A century after Darwin’s death, the great evolutionary biologist and historian of science, Ernst Mayr, wrote, ‘The worldview formed by any thinking person in the Western world after 1859, when On the Origin of Species was published, was by necessity quite different from a worldview formed prior to 1859… The intellectual revolution generated by Darwin went far beyond the confines of biology, causing the overthrow of some of the most basic beliefs of his age.’1 Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin’s biographers, contend, ‘Darwin is arguably the best known scientist in history. More than any modern thinker—even Freud or Marx—this affable old-world naturalist from the minor Shropshire gentry has transformed the way we see ourselves on the planet.’2 In the words of the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, ‘Almost no one is indifferent to Darwin, and no one should be. The Darwinian theory is a scientific theory, and a great one, but that is not all it is… Darwin’s dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs than many of its sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even to themselves.’3 Dennett goes on to add, ‘If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I’d give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law.’4 The editors of the Cambridge Companion to Darwin begin their introduction by stating, ‘Some scientific thinkers, while not themselves philosophers, make philosophers necessary. Charles Darwin is an obvious case. His conclusions about the history and diversity of life—including the evolutionary origin of humans—have seemed to bear on fundamental questions about being, knowledge, virtue and justice.’5 Among the fundamental questions raised by Darwin’s work, which are still being debated by philosophers (and others) are these: ‘Are we different in kind from other animals? Do our apparently unique capacities for language, reason and morality point to a divine spark within us, or to ancestral animal legacies still in evidence in our simian relatives? What forms of social life are we naturally disposed towards—competitive and selfish forms, or cooperative and altruistic ones?’6 As the editors of the volume point out, virtually the entire corpus of the foundational works of Western philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes to Kant to Hegel, has had to be re-examined in the light of Darwin’s work. Darwin continues to be read, discussed, interpreted, used, abused—and misused—to this day. As the philosopher and historian of science, Jean Gayon, puts it, ‘[T]his persistent positioning of new developments in relation to a single, pioneering figure is quite exceptional in the history of modern natural science.
Charles Darwin (On the Origin of Species)
Great, but maybe you should mind your own damn business,” I snap. He’s standing there in his normal, causal stance with his hands in his pockets, his stupid sexy glasses hanging off his stupid sexy nose. “Wow, someone’s uptight this morning. Monday blues? You know, I know of something that can ease that tension.” God the nerve. How does he get away with it? I take a few menacing steps towards him, but he never drops that smile. “You know. You may have everyone fooled here. But not me. Ohhhh no! I see right through you. The ‘I’m just this nice innocent science teacher, who compliments old ladies’ cardigans and plays with baking soda and test tubes’. But nope. I know the real you. The condescending type. Thinks all highly of himself. With his big bad muscles and fake—” Peter grabs for me, pulling me into his classroom. The door shuts behind him and my back is thrown against the wall and his mouth is on mine. I spend a half-second thinking of fighting him off before I fight him in a different way, kissing him just as aggressively. God this is so hot. What is wrong with me!? His movement is quick and brutal. He doesn’t bother asking, but takes, as he spreads my legs with his knees, his hands hiking up my skirt. His mouth breaks from mine, his breath caressing my earlobe as he speaks. “We have exactly three minutes before that bell rings. Now you can waste it, or you can enjoy what I’m most definitely going to.” I don’t say a word, because his hand on my thigh is burning a hole through my skin. My silence is his green light, and he raises his hand, pushing my panties aside. The smirk on his face has a lot to do with the realization that I’m already soaking wet. He uses my juices to spread me open then pushing a thick finger inside. His mouth back on mine abusing my lips with his touch while his finger fucks me, in and out, the pleasure, heavenly. “Two minutes,” he says between nips and licks, his finger pulling out and two entering me. God, this is messed up, but so hot. I’m so turned on; my hands are pulling at his hair. “One minute,” he moans into my mouth and I find myself riding his hand thrust for thrust. It’s like I can hear the seconds ticking by, knowing that if I don’t come before that minute ends I will die. “Thirty seconds,” he murmurs across my lips and his pressure increases, his pumps wild, my back riding up and down the wall. He starts counting down from ten, the numbers getting louder and louder in my brain as he slams a third finger inside me and hooks, putting pressure on just the right spot. I explode. I squeeze his fingers so tight and come all over his hand, just as he grunts out the number one. We both hear the bell sound and he pulls out, adjusting my skirt. Taking his fingers into his mouth, he sucks off my juices, never taking his eyes off me. Before I can say anything, the doorknob begins to jiggle. Light appears from the outside and the door opens as a sea of children scatter in. “Thank you Ms. Gretchen, I will most definitely try out three finger servings of baking soda in today’s explosion experiment.” Smiling heftily at me, “But, you should really be getting to class now. The precious youth is waiting for you.” With that he holds his door open, and in a daze, I walk past him. What the fuck…
J.D. Hollyfield (Passing Peter Parker)
When admitting you are wrong, you gain back the control others took away from you when making you lose it. That's why you must say sorry. It represents a change of attitude but not really a change of personality; The changes on the personality come later on, when, by controlling yourself better, you don't express anger. Because saying sorry means nothing but anger means a lot. You should not want to be an angry person. When you get angry, those who make you angry, win; They win control over your emotional state, your thoughts, your words and your behaviors. They may then accuse you of always being angry and never apologizing, but that's not where you should focus your attention. The main point here, is that you’re living on the basis of instinctive reaction and not awareness or consciousness. So, when you say sorry, you are acknowledging that there is no excuse for losing control over yourself. You should not be sorry for being angry. That's an emotion; and you can't feel sorry for feeling. When you’re angry, you are feeling. When you insult, however, you are losing, yourself, your self-control, your self-respect, and even your capacity to use what you know. More knowledge, makes you more aware, more frustrated, having more and higher expectations on others, and more angry too, more often as well. But that's your problem! No other people's problem! They are just being themselves. Most people really think they are perfect as they are, and that the problems they experience are all outside themselves. And by realizing that, you say sorry as if saying sorry for not being who you really are. And when doing it, you get back the control another person took away from you. It is actually not good when someone needs to say sorry too often to someone else, especially if it’s always the same individual. But that someone else often likes it, as it makes them feel superior. That’s because their ego needs that. They have low self-esteem. Most people do! And that’s why most people's behavior is wired to their ego. Their likes and dislikes are connected to a sense of self-importance and a desperate need to feel important, which they project on their idols, the famous and most popular among them. They admire what they seek the most. When they think they are not important, they offend, to get aggression, which is a desperate need for attention; and to feel like victims of life, which is a deeper state of need, in this case, related to sympathy; and they then blame the other for what he does, for his reactions; and when that other says sorry, they think they have power over that insane cycle in which they now live, and in which they incorporate anyone else, and which they now perfectly master. Their pride is built on arrogance, an arrogance emerged out of ignorance, ignorance composed from delusional cycles within a big illusion; but an illusion that makes sense to them, as if they were succeeding at merging truth with lie, darkness with light. Because the arrogant, the abusive and the violent are desperate. God made them blind after witnessing their crimes against moral and ethics - His own laws. And they want to see again, and feel the same pleasure they once felt when witnessing the true colors of the world during childhood. The arrogant want to reaffirm their sanity by acting insanely because they know no other way. And when you say sorry, you are saying to them that you don't belong there, to their world, and that you are sorry for playing their games. That drama belongs to them only, and not you. And yet, people interpret the same paradox as they choose. That is their experience of truth and how they put sense on a life without any. And when so much nonsense becomes popular, we call it common sense. When common sense becomes a reality, we call it science. And when science is able to theorize common sense, we call it wisdom. Then, we wonder why the wisdom of those we name wise, does not help.
Robin Sacredfire
A man may have the right to criticize the Government, but I'm hanged if he has a right to brazenly use his free speech to attack our way of life. More and more we see men in science and profession and academy abusing their privileges of expression by crying that their real liberties are threatened by patriotism. Is patriotism above these men? Do they have a right to express their views, to carry on their work, to be free men unless they are patriotic to our society? I say no sir! Loyalty is one of the prerogatives of freedom
James Aldridge (The Diplomat)
Opioid Use Disorders There are several medications approved for use with opioid users. These fall into two categories: 1) blocking the effects of opioids, and 2) replacing the abused opioid with a different, longer-acting opioid for maintenance on that medication. Opioid replacement or maintenance therapy has a long and documented history of effectiveness and safety. Opioid blocking medications, while basically safe, have been poorly received by the client community. We hope that the effectiveness profile of blockers changes with the advent of new, long-acting (one-month) injectable blockers (Vivitrol), but evidence is still being collected. Blockers: Naltrexone/Vivitrol: This blocks opioid receptors (yes, the same naltrexone from the alcohol category, but used for opioids for an entirely different effect). Naltrexone is given daily and orally and therefore has compliance problems because people can simply stop taking the medication and get high within a couple of days. Vivitrol, an injectable form of naltrexone that blocks opioid receptors for one month, is showing promising results in improving compliance. This
Jeffrey Foote (Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change)
The human brain is, after all, the best example we have of an intelligent system. If we can learn its methods, we can use these biologically inspired paradigms to build more intelligent machines. This book is the earliest serious examination of the human brain from the perspective of a mathematician and computer pioneer. Prior to von Neumann, the fields of computer science and neuroscience were two islands with no bridge between them.
John von Neumann (The Computer and the Brain: Abused City (The Silliman Memorial Lectures Series))
I will tell you what I am talking about,” he said. "Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. "Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it. "But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. There is no discipline lasting many decades. There is no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature. There is only a get-rich-quick, make-a-name-for-yourself-fast philosophy. Cheat, lie, falsify-it doesn't matter. Not to you, or to your colleagues. No one will criticize you. No one has any standards. They are all trying to do the same thing: to do something big, and do it fast. “And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don't even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it. And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn't even conceive that any discipline might be necessary.” “I'll make it simple,” Malcolm said. “A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. And that is why you think that to build a place like this is simple.
Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1))
That attachment styles can vary based on type—for example, friendship or a romantic relationship. 2. That how a person behaves in one relationship—for example, with one specific friend—can spread to how they behave in other relationships of that same type—such as with other friends. This concept is important because it truly demonstrates the ability of the subconscious to store and replay beliefs based on repetition and emotion. Now that you understand the fluidity of attachment styles and why they lie along a spectrum, you can begin to discover your dominant attachment style in different areas of your life. Consider how you act and feel in your relationships, whether they are romantic, platonic, or familial. Examine the ratio of activating to deactivating strategies in your thoughts and behaviors. Recall that activating strategies are decisions that are made based on prior information and experiences. Deactivating strategies are actions that drive self-reliance and deny attachment needs altogether, pushing others away. If you have relatively more activating strategies, you may have a greater fear of abandonment and be on the Anxious side of the spectrum. More deactivating strategies may indicate a subconscious belief around complete autonomy, placing you more on the Dismissive-Avoidant side of the attachment scale. Keep in mind that this tool should be used in romantic relationships after the honeymoon phase is over, a phase that occurs during the first two years of the relationship. During the honeymoon phase, your brain has higher levels of dopamine in the caudate nucleus and ventral tegmental regions, according to Scientific American. These areas of the brain are responsible for, respectively, learning and memory and emotional processing. Consequently, your attachment style may be unclear to you in the early phases of your romantic relationship since your emotions, memory, and hormone regulation are atypical. Our experiences can also dramatically alter our attachment style. For example, if Sophie were to partake in certain forms of therapy and practices such as recurrent meditation, she may be able to better understand and re-equilibrate her subconscious beliefs. According to Science Daily, since meditation induces theta brain waves and activates areas of the frontal lobe associated with emotional regulation, Sophie could eventually bring herself into a more Secure attachment space without the help of a Secure partner. However, although it is common to express different attachment styles in different areas of life, the type of attachment you have in relationships ultimately tends to be the attachment style that you associate with the type of relationship. For example, you can be Dismissive-Avoidant in familial relationships because you experienced emotional neglect from parental figures, but you could also be Fearful-Avoidant in romantic relationships due to domestic abuse that has occurred. This illustrates that major events such as betrayal, loss, or abuse can alter our attachment style in different chapters of life, but that ultimately attachment styles are fluid and often dependent on the kind of relationships we are in. We tend to have a primary attachment style, most associated with how we show up in romantic relationships, that plays a large role in our personality structure. This essentially dictates how we give and receive love and what our subconscious expectations are of others.
Thais Gibson (Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life)
Presented in the mainstream discourse as stimulus-response-driven or genetically programmed automatons, who lack agency and experiential perspective, animals are the archetypal Other, inferior to humans and an object that can be exploited for work, consumer goods, entertainment, science, or killed and displaced at liberty. This instrumental relationship served as a blueprint for the subjection of Nature, which transformed 'fish into fisheries, forests and trees into timber, animals into livestock, wildlife into game, mountains into coal, seashores into beachfronts, rivers into hydroelectric factories' and converted the animals’ homes into resources for unlimited human use and capitalist profit.
Tomaž Grušovnik (Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze (Environment and Society))
in my view, no other variable has changed in the last twenty years that could possibly account for a tremendous rise in youthful ED and low libido. For example, unhealthy lifestyles, such as poor diet leading to obesity, substance abuse and smoking (factors historically correlated with organic ED) have not changed proportionately, or have decreased, in the last 20 years. Obesity rates in U.S. men aged 20–40 increased only 4% between 1999 and 2008[45]; rates of illicit drug use among US citizens aged 12 or older have been relatively stable over the last 15 years;[46] and smoking rates for US adults declined from 25% in 1993 to 19% in 2011.[47
Gary Wilson (Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction)
Griffiths’s paper and its reception served to reinforce an important distinction between the so-called classic psychedelics—psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and mescaline—and the more common drugs of abuse, with their demonstrated toxicity and potential for addiction. The American drug research establishment, such as it is, had signaled in the pages of one of its leading journals that these psychedelic drugs deserved to be treated very differently and had demonstrated, in the words of one commentator, “that, when used appropriately, these compounds can produce remarkable, possibly beneficial, effects that certainly deserve further study.
Michael Pollan (How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence)
Our technologies are complicit in the greatest challenges we face today: an out-of-control economic system that immiserates many and continues to widen the gap between rich and poor; the collapse of political and societal consensus across the globe resulting in increasing nationalisms, social divisions, ethnic conflicts and shadow wars; and a warming climate which existentially threatens us all. Across the sciences and society, in politics and education, in warfare and commerce, new technologies do not merely augment our abilities, but actively shape and direct them, for better and for worse. It is increasingly necessary to be able to think new technologies in different ways, and to be critical of them, in order to meaningfully participate in that shaping and directing. If we do not understand how complex technologies function, how systems of technologies interconnect, and how systems of systems interact, then we are powerless within them, and their potential is more easily captured by selfish elites and inhuman corporations. Precisely because these technologies interact with one another in unexpected and often-strange ways, and because we are completely entangled with them, this understanding cannot be limited to the practicalities of how things work: it must be extended to how things came to be, and how they continue to function in the world in ways that are often invisible and interwoven. What is required is not understanding, but literacy. True literacy in systems consists of much more than simple understanding, and might be understood and practiced in multiple ways. It goes beyond a system's functional use to comprehend its context and consequences. It refuses to see the application of any one system as a cure-all, insisting upon the interrelationships of systems and the inherent limitations of any single solution. It is fluent not only in the language of a system, but in its metalanguage - the language it uses to talk about itself and to interact with other systems - and is sensitive to the limitations and the potential uses and abuses of that metalanguage. It is, crucially, capable of both performing and responding to critique.
James Bridle (New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future)
Where is the counterpart to this closed system of will, goal and interpretation? Why is the counterpart lacking? . . . Where is the other ‘one goal’? . . . But I am told it is not lacking, not only has it fought a long, successful fight with that ideal, but it has already mastered that ideal in all essentials: all our modern science is witness to that, – modern science which, as a genuine philosophy of reality, obvi- ously believes only in itself, obviously possesses the courage to be itself, the will to be itself, and has hitherto got by well enough without God, the beyond and the virtues of denial. However, I am not impressed by such noise and rabble-rousers’ claptrap: these people who trumpet reality are bad musicians, it is easy enough to hear that their voices do not come from the depths, the abyss of scientific conscience does not speak from them – for the scientific conscience today is an abyss –, the word ‘science’ is quite simply an obscenity in the traps of such trumpeters, an abuse, an indecency. 109 On the Genealogy of Morality Precisely the opposite of what they are declaring here is the truth: science today has absolutely no faith in itself, let alone in an ideal above it, – and where it is still passion, love, fire, suffering, it is not the opposite of the ascetic ideal but rather the latter’s own most recent and noble manifestation. Does that sound strange to you? . . . There are enough worthy and modest workers even amongst the scholars of today, who like their little corner and therefore, because they like being there, are occasionally somewhat pre- sumptuous in making their demand heard that people today ought to be content in general, especially with science – there being so much useful work to be done. I do not deny it: I am the last to want to spoil the pleasure of these honest workers in their craft: for I delight in their work. But the fact that nowadays people are working hard in science, and that they are contented workmen, does not at all prove that today, science as a whole has a goal, a will, an ideal, a passion of great faith. The opposite, as I said, is the case: where it is not the most recent manifestation of the ascetic ideal – there are too few noble, exceptional cases for the general judgment to be deflected – then science today is a hiding place for all kinds of ill-humour, unbelief, gnawing worms, despectio sui,113 bad conscience – it is the disquiet of the lack of ideals itself, the suffering from a lack of great love, the dis- content over enforced contentedness. Oh, what does science not conceal today! how much it is supposed to conceal, at any rate! The industry of our best scholars, their unreflective diligence, heads smoking night and day, their very mastery of their craft – how often does all that mean trying to conceal something from themselves? Science as a means of self-anaesthetic: do you know that? . . . Everyone in contact with scholars has the experience that they are sometimes wounded to the marrow by a harmless word, we anger our scholarly friends at the very moment when we want to honour them, we make them lose their temper and control simply because we were too coarse to guess who we were actually dealing with, with sufferers who do not want to admit what they are to themselves, with people drugged and dazed who fear only one thing: coming to consciousness . . .
Nietszche
We moderns have no culture to call our own. We fill ourselves with foreign customs, arts, philosophies, religions and sciences: we are wandering encyclopaedias.” (Use and Abuse of History) The point is to assimilate the past, to use it in the making of our own life and culture. History is a dead weight on the present.
Laurence Gane (Introducing Nietzsche: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides Book 0))
Stimulus discrimination is a thinking thing, not an emotions thing. Which means it happens in the prefrontal cortex, and once the brainstem gets into freak-out mode, it’s really hard to get the prefrontal cortex up and running again. But we can do it. And we are going to talk about how we retrain our brain to respond in ways that better suit life as it is now instead of life as it was in the past. Our stimulus discrimination response is based on all of our past experiences and habits, and that response is even more ingrained if those experiences were traumatic ones. If a stimulus is attached to a strong memory, the body starts shooting off hormones and neurotransmitters to prepare itself for response. Brains don’t really have new thoughts so much as different configurations and mash-ups of old thoughts. This is why a military vet may freak out at seeing garbage by the side of the road, after being in Iraq and driving through areas replete with improvised explosive devices. This is why an individual who was abused may freak out by smelling a certain scent they associate with their abuser. The brain knows its history. It has been trained to do whatever it can to remain safe. It’s creating stories about your current experience or possible future experiences based on its past information. It doesn’t realize or doesn’t trust that you actually ARE safe.
Faith G. Harper (Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers)
The social system does not and never can exist which allows no harm to come to anybody. Conflict of impulse and desire is an inescapable fact of human existence, and where there is conflict there will always be losers and wounds. Utopian systems premised on a world of loving harmony—communism, for instance—fail because in the attempt to obliterate conflict they obliterate freedom. The chore of a social regime is not to obliterate conflict but to manage it, so as to put it to good use while causing a minimum of hurt and abuse. Liberal systems, although far from perfect, have at least two great advantages: they can channel conflict rather than obliterate it, and they give a certain degree of protection from centrally administered abuse. The liberal intellectual system is no exception. It causes pain to people whose views are criticized, still more to those whose views fail to check out and so are rejected. But there are two important consolations. First, no one gets to run the system to his own advantage or stay in charge for long. Whatever you can do to me, I can do to you. Those who are criticized may give as good as they get. Second, the books are never closed, and the game is never over. Sometimes rejected ideas (continental drift, for one) make sensational comebacks.
Jonathan Rauch (Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought)
All abuse power of politics to climb the social ladder. Be the benevolent crook and use it as social leveler.
Abhijit Naskar (Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth)
Sonnet of The Benevolent Crook Politics doesn’t mean affairs of the people, It is but a telenovela of sectarian histrionics. Democracy doesn't mean rule of the people, It means a new dictatorship of the charismatic. A paradigm born of selfishness and greed, Is no place for an honest and innocent person. But if politics is the path you choose for reform, Leave theories outside before entering the dungeon. When you are compelled to be crooked, Make sure it is not for any benefit personal. Be the Godfather of crookedness if needed, And manipulate the system to lift the people. All abuse power of politics to climb the social ladder. Be the benevolent crook and use it as social leveler.
Abhijit Naskar (Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth)