Energy and Climate – Abu Dhabi and Europe.

[iconoclast]

TAT, i do not have the internet at home and have to use the library and i-cafe. i'm not going to be able to look at all the links you provide i'm sorry to say - but i am aware of another side to this debate. whether this is true or not I agree with Aedes: right or wrong - (and it's 12c in Feb here in London) fossil fuels are defintately finite. they will run out, and nations armed with nuclear weapons will be brought into conflict for ever decreasing reserves. we have to sort the energy crisis - and a technology compatible with a stable climate accords with the precautionary principle.

it's interesting tho' that there's a debate around a theory gleaned from astrophysics - absolutely uncontraversial when employed to explain the high surface temp of Venus, highly contraversial when applied here on earth.

further, it entirely accords with my overall theory that there should be such a controversy. where religion, nation and capitalism form the bases of analysis, scientific knowledgde is denied, distorted and abused as a matter of course, to paraphrase myself, used as a tool and ignored as a rule for the conduct of human affairs.

furthermore, i don't think freedom is the virtue it's made out to be. because it's an ideological concept, for many people liberty means economic slavery, and the unaccountability of government and buisness. the rich are enjoying enormous liberty while the poor enjoy the freedom to work for peanuts or starve.

where the Financial Times says 'Freedom, not climate is at risk' consider the source. i'll keep these links and check them out a bit at a time - with my spare few minuets after replying to you. that so, even if i were convinced, iot wouldn't change my philosophical approach or calls for a sustainable energy basis for human civilization.

if your concern truly is for the planet we all share and enjoy surely you don't want it be nuked to oblivion by nations depserate for oil, do you? maybe you think it's our fate - and would be amused by the look on St Peter's face when we all turn up at once!!!

fond regards, iconoclast.

[iconoclast]

Aedes, i'm really sorry for not replying to your post of the 29th. Yet. i have put it on disk again and will look at it at home tonight. promise, iconoclast.

[Aedes]

Take your time

[ThouAreThat]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

fossil fuels are defintately finite. they will run out...

"Question everything they say" - Krishnamurti

I like to keep an open mind, even as I look at widely accepted but unproven theories.("Fossil" fuels)

Could it be that Russellian science is true and suns and atoms are created by divided invisible light opposites centripetally projected toward each other? In one way it explains the sheer inexhaustible radiation of light as it is forced outbound from the constantly replenished center of gravity.

About the earth, could not the earth have the same modus operandi, where invisible divided light is projected into the polarities only to coalesce into inert gases of the octaves and forced through the crust upward?

I am putting these questions down as a possible link to the below quote:

From:
Ausubel, J.H. (2007)
‘Renewable and nuclear heresies’, Int. J. Nuclear Governance, Economy
and Ecology, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp.229–243.

Partial quote:

Oil and natural gas use may peak in coming
decades but not because Earth is running out of them.
Not only do I reject the doctrine of resource exhaustion, I also reject the very notion
of fossil fuels. The prevailing theory among Western scientists is that petroleum derives
from the buried and chemically transformed remains of once-living cells. This theory
relies on the long unquestioned belief that life can exist only at the surface of Earth.
In fact, as the late Thomas Gold of Cornell University showed, a huge, deep, hot biosphere
of microbes flourishes within Earth’s crust, down to the deepest levels we drill.
Consider instead an upwelling theory. Primordial, abiogenic carbon which we know
abounds on other planetary bodies enters the crust from below as a carbon-bearing fluid
such as methane, butane or propane. Continual loss of hydrogen brings it closer to what
we call petroleum or coal. Oil is very desirable to microbes, and the deep hot biosphere
adds bioproducts to the hydrocarbons. These have caused us to uphold the false belief
that the so-called fossil fuels are the stored energy of the Sun. They are not the stored
energy of the Sun but primordial hydrocarbons from deep in Earth. And they keep
refilling oil and gas reservoirs from below. The alternate theory of the origins of gas,
oil and coal will revolutionise Earth sciences over the next two or three decades, lift
estimates of resource abundance, and reveal resources in unexpected places.

http://phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/HeresiesFinal.pdf

[Aedes]

You say you "question everything" and you "like to keep an open mind", yet you selectively seek references from skeptical websites and selectively quote soft literature with an "antiestablishment" bias. So does this mean that you're not really questioning everything? Have you really taken the time to look at primary scientific literature on both sides of the issue, or are you just picking whichever consensus statement or review suits you?

The reference you've quoted above is irrelevant to the issue that our timeline of petroleum consumption vastly exceeds its production by the earth. So fine, it isn't finite, but if it will take 20 million years to replenish it doesn't really help us. It doesn't matter if oil comes from broken down peat swamps, if it wells up from the core of the earth, or if it falls to earth on a meteor, so long as we are dependent on it and we're using it up far faster than it's produced.

Furthermore, the dependance of certain microbes on petroleum is vastly overstated. One of the major areas of research in industrial microbiology is to create microbes that can, actually subsist on petroleum products. That would solve some of our major problems with hydrocarbon wastes (especially plastic and rubber). Thus far we don't have any bugs that can do it.

Your reference that you quote is absurd. Every oil company on earth is drilling for oil and natural gas in the ocean. That's what they're doing in the North Sea, the Gulf of Guinea, the Carribean, Alaska, etc. There's no mystery about oil deposits existing in the ocean. It so happens that for most of the history of life on this planet life only existed in the oceans, and it's also widely known that life exists on the periphery of deep sea vents. So what? That doesn't tell us anything new, so why use it rhetorically as if it does? They then cite Thomas Gold, who put forth this argument in a 1998 book -- but Prof. Gold did not "show" anything about a biosphere in the crust, because he didn't do any experiments.

Here is an article of his on the subject in PNAS:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...4&blobtype=pdf

Neither his text nor his references show that there is a "deep hot biosphere". They only propose it. But even if he's right, it still doesn't address the finite nature of petroleum relative to our consumption, the already existing political and economic problems it has created.

Finally, you haven't addressed issues of pollution related to the burning of fossil fuels and the disposal of plastic and rubber products (and I refer to issues unrelated to the global warming discussion).

[iconoclast]

Aedes,

Sorry about the delay in replying. As I said, I don’t have the internet at home and have to go back and forth to the library and e-café. That’s why I tend to post these long essays few have the attention span to read – and then am barely able to keep abreast of the subsequent discussion.

As it’s my purpose here to communicate a fairly simple but also quite subtle philosophical premise I’m afraid I must persist – for while it’s clear that you understand my words, and understand my arguments in your own terms, it’s equally clear that you do not quite grasp my meaning.

It’s my premise that the problems we face in the world have a common root cause in false ideas. I adduced ‘nation’ as an example – hoping to make a distinction between concepts that are supported by scientifically valid knowledge, and those that are not – in order to show that action in relation to false concepts has false consequences.

You say: ‘I do acknowledge that idea, but it's not as simple of course as the artifice of national borders.’ That’s so, but it is as simple as false ideas underlying our social, political and economic behavior. If you’ll bear with me I’ll explain.

Given a scientific basis of analysis, and therefore an evolutionary conception of the human being, it seems most likely that God was invented by man to explain his existence in the world – and that this concept was employed by primitive societies as an absolute authority for law. It might therefore be considered a hopeful hypothesis, but it’s not a factual basis of analysis.

All the people of the society held this idea of God, and as it was an authority for law, it was asserted as an absolute truth and great taboos were formed against questioning it. But people with other ideas of God do just that. Thus, while the idea of God is in one sense an inclusive idea, it’s also exclusive of others.

Thus you are correct where you say that a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishing of European nation states, but this sense was fundamentally religious in character – and a double-edged sword. Any sense of togetherness fostered by religious identification was matched by a sense of separateness from human beings not of that group – and this was a very important justification for European imperialism/colonialism – a Christian ‘civilizing mission’ that did enormous damage around the world.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, considering the development of the concept of nation, we must go back to the Treaty of Westphalia (1650) – which ended the religious authority the Holy Roman Empire and brought into being the first nation states. Admittedly, these were absolutist monarchies – whereas it seems you’re talking about the founding of secular authorities – so far as I can tell from my fairly brief research of the dates you mention.

The signatories to the treaty were feudal kings – and of course the feudal system was founded by, and headed by the Church of Rome. The signatories took power unto themselves on the basis of the divine right of kings – a religious law dating back to 751 A.D., ending a century of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. (That’s why to this day the French are mostly Catholic, the Germans and Dutch mostly Protestant.)

Thus, even if you say a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishment of nation states, it does not confer legitimacy on the concept for the inclusive/exclusive dynamic was the result of religious ideas, and religion is scientifically groundless. We might reasonably hope that God exists – but asserting this as an absolute truth, and acting in relation to this ‘truth’ has false consequences – and not only is this at the root of all our problems, but addressing this is necessary to the solution.

Similarly, capitalism is scientifically groundless. The main features of capitalism were put in place by religious authorities to pay mercenary armies to fight in the crusades. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations – if one considers that a founding document, draws upon these religiously conceived ideas. It’s an ideology that acknowledges nothing but the factors of production – not the limited nature of resources, not environmental or human welfare – just the monetarily conceived inputs and outputs of the production and distribution of goods and services.

Just as, acting in these terms nations create these problems, nations cannot cooperate to address the extinction threats posed by the energy crisis, climate change and environmental degradation – just as they could not fulfill the promises they made to Africa and elsewhere in the MDG’s. It’s not insufficient commitment per se – though that’s a consequence. The root cause is that it would be to act in contradiction of these scientifically groundless ideological concepts – religion, nation and capitalism.

Now here’s the important part – the root cause of the energy crisis, climate change etc, is the same root cause of farm subsidies in the US and Europe. It’s the same basis of analysis that ties us into dependence on oil, and that does not allow us to implement a sustainable energy basis for humankind, or reduce GG emissions to address climate change, that encourages the US and Europe to subsidize farming to such an extent they can dump grain onto the world market impoverishing billions of people.

You say: ‘I think we do have a huge moral debt to the poor places in the world, because more than anything else it's been our policies that have exploited them (and continue to exploit them).’

But it’s important always to remember that these policies were formulated to further national and capitalist economic interest – and will continue to be so while these ideas remain, they will act to benefit those on one side of the line on the map, irrespective of the effect upon those on the other side.

In these terms, from where you and I stand, Africans are not voters, workers, tax-payers or consumers – so on what basis do you suggest we owe them anything? If you uphold the validity of the line – as it seems you do where you say a sense of togetherness pre-dates the European nation state, Africans are not included. Surely you will argue that we owe them a moral obligation because they are human beings our self-serving actions have severely disadvantaged. I don’t disagree as such, but you have to draw upon another basis of analysis: morality, in order that they get their due as human beings.

Not only is this philosophically unsatisfactory, but while moral obligation is a sufficient premise to send food aid, and to give to charity, it’s not a sufficient premise to require developed nations to act in direct contradiction of their ideologically conceived interests on such a massive scale – as failure to meet the MDG’s attests.

I’ll give another example of the same dynamic: the supermarket I go to has a plastic-bag recycling box by the door, but behind the till there’s shelf after shelf of goods brought in from all around the world, double-double wrapped in plastic and presented for sale. Do you see? They can only ever be tokenistic because it’s contrary to the their core rationale – to buy, parcel and sell goods to the consumer.

It’s only if we rid ourselves of these false ideas, and recognize that we are a single species occupying a single planet that these people are included. Maintaining these ideas, any action to help these people will only ever be a token of regret that our ideologically conceived interests have such disastrous consequences for them.

But if we accept science, we don’t have to draw moral condemnation down upon ourselves for doing what is only rational – only recognize that action in relation to false ideas has (had) false consequences. The obligation is to the human species as a whole, to accept science and put aside these scientifically groundless, false and divisive ideas, for all our sakes. It’s the ideology that must change – surely you see this. If not I will persist in explaining it.

high regards, iconoclast.

[iconoclast]

TAT, im all for you proposing these mad theories - scepticism and imagination are vital to science.

'could not the earth have the same modus operandi, where invisible divided light is projected into the polarities only to coalesce into inert gases of the octaves and forced through the crust upward?'

if i knew what that meant, i could answer, but let's not confuse this wildly imaginative speculation with the real practical science underlying technologies we need to apply to prevent the human race becoming extinct.

that's the issue here.

[Aedes]

Iconoclast,
Thanks for taking the time and efort for this post.

Originally Posted by iconoclast

It’s my premise that the problems we face in the world have a common root cause in false ideas.

This gives philosophy far too much credit. The same problems arise within disparate governments, philosophical systems, and cultural systems. So if this is your premise, we've already diverged before what follows. And as you'll see, in this professional domain of mine, I find my experience, communications, and work to be very much at odds with your ideas on the subject.

Thus you are correct where you say that a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishing of European nation states, but this sense was fundamentally religious in character

That's not true. The unification of Italy and of Germany in the 19th century were secular movements, the French Revolution was secular, the American Revolution was secular, the Russian Revolution was secular, and the Spanish revolution was secular. The nationalistic states that existed at the outbreak of WWI were also openly secular, including France, England, Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary, Tsarist Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. Imperial Japan, later on, was also secular. In fact I can't think of a single modern example of a nation state that was remotely, let alone fundamentally religious.

and this was a very important justification for European imperialism/colonialism – a Christian ‘civilizing mission’ that did enormous damage around the world.

Colonialism and Imperialism were economic, military, and political movements. These did FAR more damage than the missionary aspects, which were little more than an afterthought. The export of 20 to 60 million African slaves was purely economic (and part of a greater economic system), the in situ genocide of 15 million Congolese under King Leopold was purely for the rubber trade, and the artificial divisions within Africa also had nothing to do with religion.

Thus, even if you say a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishment of nation states, it does not confer legitimacy on the concept for the inclusive/exclusive dynamic was the result of religious ideas, and religion is scientifically groundless.

I am not legitimizing the nation state. That's not my aim. The point is that the nation state (in modernity) is a function of national identity, i.e. the idea of being French rather than Burgundian or Norman, the idea of being German rather than Bohemian or Prussian, etc. And this national identity subsumed many religious and ethnic subdivisions. But this nationalism did NOT exist in Africa in any concert with the boundaries that were drawn. Senegalese did not see themselves as Senegalese before France got there -- they were Wollof and Mandinka and Peul and Jola, etc. And religion had nothing at all to do with these boundaries that were drawn, because most of Senegal (for instance) is Muslim but a small part of the south is Christian. Somehow it got lumped in there.

We might reasonably hope that God exists – but asserting this as an absolute truth, and acting in relation to this ‘truth’ has false consequences – and not only is this at the root of all our problems, but addressing this is necessary to the solution.

While I'm fully atheistic, I don't see this as the root of any of the problems you're bringing up. It's just not.

Similarly, capitalism is scientifically groundless.

No, actually, it's not, because it mirrors Darwinian competition.

just as they could not fulfill the promises they made to Africa and elsewhere in the MDG’s. It’s not insufficient commitment per se – though that’s a consequence.

Considering I know several authors of the MDGs and one who recently died was a friend and mentor of mine, their feeling is it's specifically insufficient commitment. And they have plenty of evidence to back that up. We've been talking about the MDGs at the ASTMH and IDSA meetings for as long as I've been attending. To attribute their failure to "ideas" is groundless.

The root cause is that it would be to act in contradiction of these scientifically groundless ideological concepts – religion, nation and capitalism.

I'm sorry, and I appreciate your long and thoughtful effort here -- but this statement is baseless.

In these terms, from where you and I stand, Africans are not voters, workers, tax-payers or consumers – so on what basis do you suggest we owe them anything?

Neither are babies. Neither are prisoners. Neither are pets.

If you uphold the validity of the line – as it seems you do where you say a sense of togetherness pre-dates the European nation state

Line? I'm not following what you've said here.

Surely you will argue that we owe them a moral obligation because they are human beings our self-serving actions have severely disadvantaged.

AND because we continue to worsen their disadvantage...
AND because they are so disadvantaged that they cannot do it without external help...
AND because it is in our vested interest to help them...

I don’t disagree as such, but you have to draw upon another basis of analysis: morality, in order that they get their due as human beings.

It doesn't take moral analysis at all, I completely disagree. It takes a rudimentary and honest economic and political analysis to plainly show how they are victims of our policies, and they continue to die because of them.

But if we accept science, we don’t have to draw moral condemnation down upon ourselves for doing what is only rational

Morality only works as a motivational tool. As long as human suffering is universally considered bad, and widespread suffering is extremely bad, then we will always have a way to condemn ourselves for the policies of ours that create widespread suffering.

only recognize that action in relation to false ideas has (had) false consequences.

Don't give science too much credit. Science is constantly a work in progress, and you cannot build a society on it. The last people who thought they were doing that died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945.

The obligation is to the human species as a whole, to accept science and put aside these scientifically groundless, false and divisive ideas, for all our sakes.

So what does science tell us about the housing market? Or about how to stabilize Iraq now that we've made a mess out of it? And what about where science is grossly at odds with ethics? I mean why not just go and sterilize all the carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene -- that would eliminate CF, the most common genetic disease of white people, from our society. Of course that would mean sterilizing 1 in every 25 people, but who cares about morality when we have a scientific answer to how to eliminate CF?

It’s the ideology that must change – surely you see this. If not I will persist in explaining it.

Everything is an ideology. The practice of science itself is a method, but the implementation of science can be an ideology just as much as anything else.

Best,
Paul

[iconoclast]

Aedes,

The same problems arise within disparate governments, philosophical systems, and cultural systems.

Please. The whole world is religious, nationalistic and capitalist - so, what disperate systems? But even so, none of them honour a scientific undertsnading of reality and are therefore all false to valid knowledge of reality.

The unification of Italy and of Germany in the 19th century were secular movements, the French Revolution was secular, the American Revolution was secular, the Russian Revolution was secular, and the Spanish revolution was secular.

Secularism upholds the right to religious freedom. Secularism is in no way atheism - and athiesm is not necessarily scientific.

Colonialism and Imperialism were economic, military, and political movements.

JUSTIFIED as a Christian civilizing mission.

The point is that the nation state (in modernity) is a function of national identity...

This is all very Hobspawm, Bruely and Gelner, but i come from a different perspective. My project is essentially epistemological. the nation state is a development on a religious theme, and feudal kings continued to employ religious justifications for thier power. see Adrian Hastings 'The construction of nationhood.' or Andersons 'Imagined Communities.'

Senegalese did not see themselves as Senegalese before France got there -- they were Wollof and Mandinka and Peul and Jola, etc. And religion had nothing at all to do with these boundaries that were drawn, because most of Senegal (for instance) is Muslim but a small part of the south is Christian. Somehow it got lumped in there.

When did this happen? It's got nothing to do with the development of the concept, but it's imposition by one religiously defined national group upon another.

While I'm fully atheistic, I don't see this as the root of any of the problems you're bringing up. It's just not.

It's about epistemological approach - valid knowledge isn't accepted on merit, like knowledge of climate change for example. It's distroted and abused, and the electorate can't see the insanity of this because they've got a head full of religious lies.


No, actually, it's not, because it [capitalism] mirrors Darwinian competition.

If you want to make this socio-bilogical analogy (which i find wholly disingenuous) fundamentally, there's a cooperative strategy for survival underpinning all life on earth - the incorporation of mitochondira into cells - allowing them to produce energy internally and live in the true sense of the word. there's a whole raft of cooperative and symbiotic relationships in nature that are not reflected by Herbert Spencer's adage 'survival of the fittest' - so it's not even truly Darwinian. it certainly has nothing to do with the neo-darwinian synthesis of evolutionary theory and genetics.

their feeling is it's specifically insufficient commitment.

(i'm sorry about the death of your friend.)

but why is there insufficient committment? why make these promises and then just not act upon them? insufficient commitment i acknowledge is a consequence, by why are they insufficiently committed? did they forget? changed thier minds? they care, and know, and recognize the moral argument, the need and the opportunity enough to make the promises, but then failed to deliver. why? there must be a reason - and i suggest the reason 9they are insufficiently committed) is that it's a direct contradition of the ideologically concieved interests.

AND because we continue to worsen their disadvantage...
AND because they are so disadvantaged that they cannot do it without external help...
AND because it is in our vested interest to help them...

again, not disagreeing - but again, why?

It doesn't take moral analysis at all, I completely disagree. It takes a rudimentary and honest economic and political analysis to plainly show how they are victims of our policies, and they continue to die because of them.

But if not for moral reasons, why is this wrong? the point is that for systems based on religion, nation and capitalism, the moral is an externailty then cannot commit to and cannot deliver upon.


As long as human suffering is universally considered bad, and widespread suffering is extremely bad, then we will always have a way to condemn ourselves for the policies of ours that create widespread suffering.


But why should we Aedes? are we bad people? do we want these people to suffer? NO, we are not bad epople, just deluded in the ideas we uphold as absolute and unquestioned truths.

Don't give science too much credit. Science is constantly a work in progress, and you cannot build a society on it. The last people who thought they were doing that died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945.

Are you calling me a Nazi? Has science moved on since 1945 at all? Is yours a totaly specious - and actually quite offensive comment?

So what does science tell us about the housing market? Or about how to stabilize Iraq now that we've made a mess out of it? And what about where science is grossly at odds with ethics? I mean why not just go and sterilize all the carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene -- that would eliminate CF, the most common genetic disease of white people, from our society. Of course that would mean sterilizing 1 in every 25 people, but who cares about morality when we have a scientific answer to how to eliminate CF?

It seems you are. I'm not having that:


It’s an accepted philosophical premise that one cannot derive ‘ought’ from ‘is’ – no matter how many ‘is’ type facts are gathered they never add up to an ‘ought’. But we do it all the time. I see a car coming, and a woman and child stepping off the pavement into the road. She’s distracted by the child and doesn’t see the car. Should I stop her? Of course I ought to, but why?

My philosophy begins with an understanding of evolution as the accumulation of function, and in these terms conceptualizes human beings, showing how abstract conceptual thought, the defining characteristic of human beings, arose from unconscious, instinctual behavior as another level of function.

Abstract conceptual thought allows for the formation of conceptual schemes, employed to reconcile perceptions in non-contradictory relation to form understanding. These conceptual schemes are basically ideas – but in fact neurological structures developed by practice in relation to experience. Perceptions are limited, but accurate to reality. Thus, when I perceive the scene of the woman, child and approaching car – these are initially just perceptions devoid of meaningful content of any kind.

These are the ‘is’ of the philosopher’s argument – but are never actually experienced. As Talcott Parsons assures us in ‘A Theory of Social Action’ – ‘all talk of raw sense data or the unformed stream of consciousness is methodological abstraction, legitimate and important for certain purposes, but nonetheless abstraction.’

Raw sense data, (or limited, accurate perception) is gathered, but processed before it’s experienced – and processed in a manner that imbues the data with meaning. The perceptions are reconciled in terms of conceptual schemes, that stimulated by perceptual data imbue perception with meaning.

Because these neurological structures are developed by practice in relation to experience – including inner reflection – the individual would have to be massively deranged by experience to experience the meaningful content of these perceptions as an imperative to watch these people get run over rather than an imperative to call out a warning.

Is it impossible that someone might be just so deranged? Perhaps not, but there’s no stipulation of abnormal psychology in the ‘ought’ from ‘is’ argument. Indeed, we’d expect to be dealing with normal reason.

In the course of a normal life, the individual will experience many situations that are in some way like this. Observation and practice make for the formation of the neurological structures that imbue these perceptions with their ought-ness. Only hugely abnormal experiences (not conducive to individual or social function) could result in neurological structures that would reconcile these perceptions in such a way that the individual experience an impulse to watch them die.

The philosopher, by abstracting the ‘is’ from the ‘ought’ – makes for a false distinction, ‘…legitimate and important for certain purposes…’ but not these. The ‘is’ is not experienced in absence of the ‘ought’ and it’s intellectual masturbation to suggest otherwise.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

Please. The whole world is religious, nationalistic and capitalist - so, what disperate systems?

North Korea is neither religious nor capitalistic. The Vatican isn't nationalistic; for that matter neither is the Sudan, which has had a civil war from pure lack of nationalism for a generation. Scandinavia and Japan aren't religious.

But even so, none of them honour a scientific undertsnading of reality and are therefore all false to valid knowledge of reality.

I am somehow not able to visualize this utopian state you're proposing. Say it exists -- how will it use science to respond to Pearl Harbor or 9/11? How will it use science to respond to an economic depression? How will it use science to respond to charismatic religious leaders who appeal to people's fears and superstitions? I don't think it's possible, nor should it necessarily come to pass.

Secularism upholds the right to religious freedom. Secularism is in no way atheism - and athiesm is not necessarily scientific.

They didn't uphold religious freedom in secular Soviet Russia, secular China, or secular Nazi Germany.

JUSTIFIED as a Christian civilizing mission.

No, they were not. Even in the most egregious example of missionary activity, i.e. the Spanish colonization of the Americas and Carribean (which happened during the Inquisistion), "Christian civilizing activity" was a rhetorically minor justification (and in practice a minor activity). Colonialism was all about military power and access to resources.

My project is essentially epistemological. the nation state is a development on a religious theme, and feudal kings continued to employ religious justifications for thier power.

Feudalism was gone long before the era we're discussing here.

When did this happen? It's got nothing to do with the development of the concept, but it's imposition by one religiously defined national group upon another.

Nonsense. It had to do with where the French military met the British military, which controlled the River Gambia, and where the Portuguese military controlled the area south of the River Casamance.

It's about epistemological approach - valid knowledge isn't accepted on merit, like knowledge of climate change for example. It's distroted and abused, and the electorate can't see the insanity of this because they've got a head full of religious lies.

Again, I disagree. The political rhetoric is mostly non-religious, and the root problem is in our crappy education system. Our education isn't compromised (much) by religion -- it's compromised by crappy schools, crappy funding, and extrinsic constraints (like the idiotic no child left behind act).

but why is there insufficient committment? why make these promises and then just not act upon them?

Because the people writing the goals are not the people spending the money. Simple as that. Just as we can write and adopt conventions about genocide, and yet fail to uphold them EVERY time there has been a genocide since then. If you gave polio experts the money that it takes to build one F-14 fighter, polio would be eradicated from the planet within 1 or 2 years. But the subject experts don't have the funding -- they simply appeal for it.

NO, we are not bad epople, just deluded in the ideas we uphold as absolute and unquestioned truths.

Like which ideas?

Are you calling me a Nazi? Is yours a totaly specious - and actually quite offensive comment?

huh? where did you read that? Don't internalize this, I'm not talking about you.

Has science moved on since 1945 at all?

Yes, but science was pretty good in the 1930s and 1940s, and bar none the MOST scientifically advanced country in the world at the time was Germany. The best physicists, chemists, psychologists, and some of the best philosophers came from Germany (and Austria). The Nazi state prided itself on science, and their appropriation of science became the template for their racial and diplomatic policies. And in fact Germany would have had a nuclear bomb had Hitler not abandoned the program in 1941 or 1942. The point is that science can easily become a rationalization for all the **** we do to one another, and since it has no moral voice it cannot stop us from doing this ****. The human mind has all its emotional and irrational prejudices speaking in louder voices than its reason; but we worship our reason enough to convince ourselves that our irrational processes are actually reasonable.

My philosophy begins with an understanding of evolution as the accumulation of function

Well, you're in diametrical disagreement with evolutionary biology, then. Evolution is not accumulation of function -- it's genetic change over time, which includes loss of function.

and in these terms conceptualizes human beings, showing how abstract conceptual thought, the defining characteristic of human beings, arose from unconscious, instinctual behavior as another level of function.

And yet doesn't necessarily have supremacy over subconscious thought. They work in parallel and they come into conflict.

Raw sense data, (or limited, accurate perception) is gathered, but processed before it’s experienced – and processed in a manner that imbues the data with meaning.

Some of it. We have many many senses that are processed unconsciously or subconsciously as well, and these indeed may inform our consciousness in ways that are inaccessible to abstract consideration.

The philosopher, by abstracting the ‘is’ from the ‘ought’ – makes for a false distinction, ‘…legitimate and important for certain purposes…’ but not these. The ‘is’ is not experienced in absence of the ‘ought’ and it’s intellectual masturbation to suggest otherwise.

And so would the scientist, by abstracting an 'ought' from an 'is'. I can tell you that "you ought to stop smoking to avoid heart attacks", but what I'm really doing is merging two concepts: 1) "there is a statistically substantial risk of heart attack observed in smokers compared with nonsmokers, and this risk is mitigated by quitting smoking; and 2) I assume that you, as a fellow human being, share the common feeling that we want to avoid painful, debilitating, and potentially lethal illnesses, and therefore you ought to behave in a way that achieves this.

But medicine isn't pure science, and I can relay many examples from my own experience in this field. So do you want scientists running the world, and unable to use the "ought"? Or do you want people who understand and apply science, like doctors or engineers, running the world, and incorporating the "ought" in order that we actually do something? If so, then we've got all the emotional and irrational baggage that enters into the "ought", and religion is just one of many influences on that.