Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (47021)

2/21/2014 12:12:57 PM

From: koan

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 69300

It is easy to construct a questionnaire that will separate the two groups. All you have to do is ask about 15 yes or no questions like:

"Do you believe in evolution? (fact)

Do you believe pre school helps kids? (fact)

Is gay marriage a civil rights issue? (logic)

Do most PHD atmospheric scientist's believe in anthropogenic global warming? (97% do)

Do you believe in the literal translation of the bible?:

If you ask 15 questions like that it will be easy to see the two populations.

Take any common issue and then see if it falls within fact and logic or myth and script and it is very clear what red and blue folks base their belief on.

i.e.

<<"The Left's belief system is based on facts and logic.

The Rights's belief system if based on myth and script."

And that is fair if you define it that way! The problem is that "right" and "left" are a matter of opinion. If you are dividing people into either/or on your criteria, then you would probably do a very good job of separating those types. However, if people were voluntarily asked to enter the two camps....they would all step into the "facts and logic" circle--even the most superstitious and ill-informed! Now many of those would be irrational and in the wrong circle. But others would be in the right circle but perhaps not truly "left". Because "left" and "right" are not exact stances. They are defined differently by different think tanks, sociologists, individuals, etc. For instance, I have been called left and I have been called right. But I would not want to belong to either camp! As Groucho said, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.” ;-)

To: Solon who wrote (47021)	2/21/2014 12:19:21 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

Sure, as you say it is on a continuum. We are all living in an illusions and blind to our own blind spots. As well reality is a relative thing. But there is enough of a difference between red and blue thinking that I have been an unwavering yellow dog dem for 50 years (home of the liberals). And had I been alive the preceding 50 years I would have been a yellow dog dem then as well. I don't want a check, I just want to leave a few good ideas after I am gone. << Having said that...your division seems fairly reasonable if taken with a bit of salt. Actually, I sort of like it. But many people with myth and script have no deficiency of logic in many arenas of thought. They simply add the "myth and script" to their "logic". But there again...it is all on a CONTINUUM, isn't it? Because no-one is completely without bias, without script, or without myth. We are not pure thinkers. We rely on our senses which are all relative, and a huge factory of emotions and memories. You have seen the psychological experiments showing how the same person can "logically" do terrible things when tricked by the feedback of his environment. As Cialdini has pointed out, we are bombarded with information, which forces the great majority of people to make their decisions on generalizations. In fact, we carry so much RAM data around all the time in the anxious part of our mind that we are practically forced to generalize shortcut answers. So even logical people are imperfectly so. Or to put it in a way congruent with your neat phrasing: Even logical people are imperfectly left. <gg> "If so I want to be remembered for it-lol" You've entered your copyright to it on SI, so somebody might put it into a book and send you a cheque!