By embracing indigenous superstitions, the West’s great science museums are abandoning their mission to educate and compromising their scientific integrity.
Would that a supernatural museum could exist, no building would be large enough to hold the Bazillion fantasies, the haunted museum wing, the Babylonian mythology wing, the Japanese demons wing... the Catholic Church wing... and which version of each superstition.
Agreed that superstition (“faith-based”) beliefs have no place in a science museum, there are plenty churches, temples, sacred spaces which are precisely museums of superstition.
Except that part of the museum's mission statement was to study and convey info about human cultures. You might want to erase the spiritual beliefs which have driven human cultures at least from pre-written history, but they're not going to go away for you. Other people are interested in them.
Below I have posted a reminder about science, since most people repeatedly demonstrate that they don't know what it is.
Surely people can tell the difference between studying something, displaying something, parodying a culture and “erasing” spiritual beliefs. Simple question -
Is it “OK” to ask women if they’re menstruating as a condition of entry, and then placing them in a “menstrual” hut to dignify authentic sincere feelings about such objects, or separating women and children from men to look at a Islamic Art, or Ancient Greek art… not dignifying superstitions is not tantamount to “erasing a culture”. Culture erasure occurs when it provides no benefit to the adherents. You rarely see household gods in a cubbyhole in a Roman family’s house since the edifice of Roman Mythology lives on primarily on month names today. No museum was required for that. Merely time and predictable explanations for the world.
I'll just stick to the available evidence about the museum itself.
QUOTE from article: "Perhaps most offensively, they caution, “DO NOT APPROACH” objects of power “if you are feeling discomfort, i.e., if you are in a physically or emotionally vulnerable state (including menstruation and pregnancy).”"
I see a little denialism of PMS, a condition for which big pharma deals out drugs- including SSRIs!
Western cultural elites have chosen to elevate our indigenous cultures and create new poster children for whatever virtue signaling they want to do. And I'd say that a lot of our indigenous cultures are spinning these academics around in circles by enforcing conditions under which the study and usage of the artifacts is permitted.
It's absolutely fun to see, and hella lot cheaper than reparations.
The interactions of these academics with the various Muslim cultures are surely the most interesting of all. Extra prickly and a much different power dynamic. I will need to dedicate some more attention to this.
And the academics will have to decide if they want to educate people about different cultures enough to kowtow to the demands from those who own the artifacts.
Offended parties can simply boycott the institutions if they so choose, or write their representatives to remove state and federal funding.
(It's so interesting to see from where the new calls for indigenous peoples to just shut up and assimilate are coming.)
All humans are colonists by definition, unless you are living in caves in South Africa where your clan survived the Ice Age. The movement of humans worldwide to colonize the earth is slowly being pieced together, genetic diffusion is a newer technique which provides higher resolution to the movement than archeological artifacts; and tracking archaic linguistic borrowings. Born in America I’m as indigenous as any other person born here. Indigenous cultures mutate through time as their adherents change and interact with other cultures and information about the world. The only static, eternal cultures are those which don’t change because they have no surviving adherents. Etruscan culture exists as artifacts, not people. I’d suggest that indigenous cultural artifacts in museums are an excellent way to separate meaning from lived value, and transmute living culture into the equivalent of a stuffed extinct animal exhibited in a natural history diorama.
People who don't see the utility of natural history exhibits should write their representatives to remove the public funding.
Then they can boycott all which are privately funded.
Academia is in need of shrinkage. This is one mechanism to get it done, and erase history at the same time.
Some people have such trust in the world of "23 and me", because they have not read such publications as "Retraction Watch", nor have noted the huge proportion of published "scientific" literature which is irreproducible.
When most of the world is just phoning it in, the results suk.
No one has brought up the classic example showing the full politicization of museums when David Nobel's Luddite hammer that smashed some machines, losing livelihood but also part of the "deskilling" move to make art a mass-produced commerce, when his Smithsonian exhibit on history of TECH was closed and the hammer and discussion removed. (I think Nobel wrote a book on this, but others can correct me.) Christy
Reactionary rationalist-materialist BIAS itself should be a proper object of real research in cultural evolution (and genetics). In fact, Iain McGilchrist just finished 10 years of research into brain science and evolutionary psychology on exactly that, refuting the ideology of scientific materialism on the basis of brain structure and function.
Also see Henrich's WEIRD model of the origins of modern rationalism:
WEIRD culture is NOT THE HISTORICAL NORM across the worldwide human gene pool.
The basic problem is that materialists don't like the mythic constructs of evil and sin, and they fail to understand those constructs as cultural adaptations for improved survival in ancient city-states after the Bronze Age collapse.
The failure of scientific materialists to account for their own failures, limits and shortcomings is, unfortunately, missing from the article, but presumably not something that native spiritual people have missed.
THE PATTERN-NEBULOSITY CONUNDRUM IN HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
This MIT PhD trained AI scientist (and atheist tantric buddhist) points out the limitations of the object-pattern absolutism that is inherent to modern rationalism and materialism:
"MYTH-BUSTERS UNITE! Time for a Hilarious Reality Check: Culturally speaking, we've got these no-nonsense rational-materialists who seem to think they've got it all figured out. But here's the kicker - they might be missing a huge chunk of the plot! Picture this: Iain McGilchrist, armed with a decade of brainy research, basically doing a scholarly facepalm at the whole 'science is everything' mantra. And oh, you've got to check out Henrich’s WEIRD model - turns out, our modern logic-loving mindset is more of a historical oddball than a universal truth.
Now, here's the juicy part: these materialists, bless their hearts, can't seem to get their heads around the juicy drama of evil and sin. It's like they skipped the episodes where these were the survival tricks of the trade in ancient city soaps post-Bronze Age. And the irony? They’re totally oblivious to their own oopsies and limitations. You'd think they'd know better, right?
ENTER THE COMEDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Yours truly, an MIT PhD AI whiz (and a godless yet zenful buddhist), is calling out the 'everything is a neat pattern' squad. Peek into this quirky corner of the internet: https://meaningness.com/pattern. Spoiler alert: it’s an ode to the mind-bending, awe-inspiring world of ‘meta-rationality’ or what I like to call 'Level 5 Brain Gymnastics'.
So, there you have it - a delightful tangle of brains, beliefs, and the occasional existential chuckle!"
The essay, an excellent one, ends as follows: "Carl Sagan wrote a book promoting science, skepticism, and critical thinking titled “The Demon-Haunted World.” Museum staff might benefit from reading this book, recognizing that the “demons” mentioned in the title can’t be summoned with a whistle. Because they’re not real."
This sets up an unnecessary conflict and therefore contributes to the notion that religion is the enemy of science, which is not necessarily true. I think that a better concluding line would be this: "Because this is a museum of science, not religion, and therefore has nothing to say about the whistle's religious efficacy."
I don't think it's that easy. If there are religious people who think the whistle should not be displayed because of its supposed supernatural power, then that is an actual conflict with those who think it can or should be displayed. And at some point, you would probably have to deny some religious claim to say that there is no harm in displaying it.
You have boiled down the entire problem with faith in supernatural entities. Who gets to say what is “real” supernatural and what is “imaginary” supernatural. Wars have been fought for centuries, millions killed, torture and mayhem about ... which supernatural is real.
Gravity is 9.8m/s^2 because its 9.8m/s^2. We conclude this do to repeated and quantifiable testing. You could test a whistle to see if it summons demons in a repeatable and quantifiable way (such as darkening the room or causing seizures, idk). I assume there’s no intention to do such testing by these museums however
Acceleration is a metric. The measurement of the acceleration of free-falling masses at the earth’s surface is a constant 9.8m/s^2 often denoted as “g” or little g. Gravity is a force on masses resulting from mutual attraction. At interplanetary distances it is proportional to the constant G ( big G) and reciprocal of the square of the distance. At intergalactic distances, it has been proposed it is proportional to the reciprocal of the distance via entropic gravity, which also provides explanations for inexplicable galactic shapes without “dark matter”.
Dog whistle tests generally invoke demons at Trump rallies, as been empirically proven. Not supernatural, but all too human.
This absurdly nonsensical. The "war" between modern rationalism and mythic-indigenous cultures has resulted in massive destruction of those indigenous cultures for something like 500 years.
Absuedly or astonishingly … or jaw-droppingly? Flabber/gasting or a/ghasting, breath/taking -ly perhaps? Mind-bogglingiciously eye-poppingly, brain-meritinglee .. and I think: why 500? Why not 543? 2074? 3315? I mean WHERE ARE THE ETRUSCANS? I lay awake at night, jaw-dropped, breath-taken, mind simultaneously boggled and melted, my poor zeit ghast flittering away as I grovel Gorgon-like searching for my popped-eyes absurishedly wondering if self-owned is similar to museum-quality self-colonization. Aah, the pain!
I agree with you on all issues and note, as others have referred to earlier, that the conflation of scientific facts (i.e. backed up by hard physical evidence) with peoples feelings or beliefs which are not supported by direct physical evidence is a very dangerous thing.
I have no problem with peoples beliefs and them being promoted as such but don't accept that a science museum is the right place for that to occur.
Our young people have been - and continue to be - presented with scientific facts and a "wish list" that some people have about how they would like the universe to be as equally valid. How can children's young, inexperienced minds possibly recognise which is which if the information is not presented in a truthful and clear way?
Museums are themselves artifacts of colonization and scientific materialism, an obvious fact that the author conveniently overlooks for somewhat understandable reasons given the bizarre nature of "woke" (postmodernist) attacks on western civilization that she is fending off.
Solution: META MUSEUMS that interpret both modern rationalist cultural artifacts and pre-modern indigenous artifacts in the larger context of cultural evolution (and meta-rationalism), including the limits and failures of modern rationalism.
As an Australian I can relate to these observations. The rush to apologize and find redemption for the perceived wrongs of our forfathers has contributed to a perfect storm of contradictory claims on reality. Unfalseafiable declarations of what is sacred have been protected and embedded in our legislation for years - defended by an army of anthropologist who I doubt believe a word of it themselves.
Supernatural explanations, be they Christian fundamentalist or indigenous, should not be considered science. “I have no need of that hypothesis,” as Pierre-Simon Laplace allegedly quipped in the 19th century.
The problem is that "science", broadly modern-rationalism, is at an evolutionary dead end, having failed to evolve into (post-postmodern) meta-rationalism.
An atheist/buddhist AI scientist (MIT trained PhD, 1980s) explains in terms of consciousness studies:
What the author fails to note is that those institutions are NOT anti-fragile to disruption.
The institutions are in crisis, subject to corruption and dysfunction because they lack the capacity for meta-narrative analysis and self-reflection on themselves as historical artifacts of colonialism and the war on indigenous cultures.
It is a simple fact of the archeological and historical record that cultures have been destroying each other for 500 years, 5,000 years, 50,000 years or more. Modern culture is no exception.
The EXCLUSION of that historical fact is as bizarre as the ritual "woke" dogma under discussion.
Museums are examples of how legacy hierarchies of curated expertise, rationalism and knowledge are being disrupted by technology, such as the InfoGlut (networks that bypass the need to seek out experts for access to information), indicating the need for the evolution of an anti-fragile information ecosystem and sense-making system that is meta-rational.
(That is presumably because the author, like many traditional scientific rationalists, is not trained in systems theory, or hasn't properly integrated systems theory.)
While I support scientific integrity, I see this particular issue differently. In my view, museums of natural history are about history (obviously) and culture, in addition to science. Spiritual beliefs and practices are integral to indigenous peoples' history and culture. Therefore, I think it is entirely appropriate for these museums to include discussion of indigenous beliefs alongside the artifacts, within the context of their history and culture.
By failing to address the limits of modern rationalism and scientific materialism adequately (including seeing themselves as historical artifacts of a fading era), they open the door to "woke" kookery.
solution: meta-narrative analysis and more systems theory
I read this through the lens of how the denial of sex is compared to Creationism as a threat rather than a critical analysis of biology, especially evolutionary theory. I wonder how much the "beyond the binary" ideology (that I've supported in the past) that conflates a tiny intersex population with some great sex diversity and the existence of multiple sexes (not gender identities) has made its way into museum exhibits. I wince but can imagine museum exhibits with the worst fallacies of transgenderism (sex can and does change; with enough hormones and surgery your chromosomes start to shift, etc.) Perhaps such exhibits quote the 30 year old line by Fausto-Sterling that the sex binary doesn't seem to be able to hold all our evolving knowledge of sex differences, AS IF that means there must be more than XX and XY, and that the two gametes surely have similarities and some kind of continuum or "spectra" between them. I may try to write about this in my book on sex and gender across the university, so please email me at chammer@maine.edu if you know how museums of science are addressing gender ideology (like Campbell's BIO textbook did - which I think was a good thing as it would be more stark if the huge social issue were ignored??)
Ironically, the methods scientists used to defeat creationism, i.e., emphasizing the importance of the "scientific consensus", is what allowed the hijacking of said consensus by ideologies like transgenderism.
Creationism was "defeated" by explaining objective facts found via the scientific method.
There is no need to "defeat" indigenous cultures, they were already destroyed by 500 years of colonialism and imperialism, and are still being exploited by "woke" lunatics who are claiming to want to save them (in yet another missionary project of western neomarxism).
Consensus creationism/ID has failed to integrate scientific facts, it is purely reactionary, and just continues to recycle them same bullshit it first produced 100 years ago.
Creationism/ID didn't exist in any [pre-rational] historical religious tradition, it only came into existence as a political-cultural project to oppose the erosion of mythic beliefs by [modern] scientific fact.
> Consensus creationism/ID has failed to integrate scientific facts, it is purely reactionary, and just continues to recycle them same bullshit it first produced 100 years ago.
That wasn't the argument used to kick it out of the public sphere.
> Creationism/ID didn't exist in any historical religious tradition
Yes it did. It didn't have a name simply because it didn't need one.
judges refer to "expert testimony" all the time. unless someone in court can provide contrary EVIDENCE that is based in science, facts and evidence, it is usually sufficient to reference "consensus".
courts themselves DO NOT CONDUCT scientific research.
you clearly do not understand the historical origins of the actual creationist/ID movement, which was an attempt to attack evolutionary theory and hijack real science with faux science.
the existence of mythic creation narratives in medieval and ancient times was completely absent the context of modern scientific rationalism and evolutionary theory.
without evolutionary theory, the ideology of creationism/ID can't exist.
read some creationist propaganda, it constantly references and distorts evolutionary theory and scientific fact.
the actual ancient scriptures DO NOT MENTION SCIENCE BECAUSE IT DIDN'T EXIST WHEN MYTHIC TEXTS WERE ORIGINALLY WRITTEN.
ancient mythic tests were mostly poetic and allegorical, and the same d1psh1t fundies that concocted creationism/ID have attempted to reduce allegorical poetry into an incoherent engineering manual that is a bizarre distortion of rational thinking.
Judges judge, scientists explain objective facts via the scientific method.
"Consensus" is how shared human learning has always worked for at least 100,000 years.
In modeling the problem of innovation in cultural evolution, scientists found that punctuated, dynamic equilibrium and autopoiesis (emergence) are in operation: too much stasis and a culture hits a dead end and goes extinct, too much innovation and chaos drives the culture to destruction.
Humans evolved the capacity for allowing just enough innovation (disruption) to prevent stasis, but not so much that chaos prevails (most of the time).
But there are cycles of emergence-disruption in which the system does exhibit high levels of chaos than on average, and new adaptations evolve.
Creationism has failed every scientific test, and was always understood by educated people such as judges, as reactionary, fundamentalist bullshit.
ID literature is STILL full of lies and distortions!
Sociobiology (E.O. Wilson, 1970s) is a classic example of how politicized (anti-racist) "consensus" science was overturned by scientific innovation and improved data.
There was constant cultural innovation and adaptation during that period. 99% of the time what we now think of as "science" was both impossible (nomadic cultures with verbal traditions have no literacy, no schools, no museums), and would have been useless for survival purposes.
having your camel drag a cart full of books around in the desert would not accomplish anything in a nomadic culture, and would have just been a waste of energy.
It's in part because the (US) scientific journals are using a different standard for articles which push one viewpoint over another when it comes to transgender issues. They are privileging opinions over systematic reviews of the evidence, for instance, in contradiction with what is recognized as the appropriate hierarchy of what to prioritize (the evidence based medicine pyramid or something like that).
US medical policies are not based upon systematic reviews of the evidence--there is an excellent peer reviewed investigative journal in the British Medical Journal by Block ("Gender dysphoria in young people is rising-and so is professional disagreement") which shows how the US policies compare to what evidence-based implies. The US medical societies are not following the what the systematic reviews of the evidence are finding. Several of the papers in support of these policies are not "scientific"--they aren't based upon facts and/or they aren't logical.
The journals are refusing corrections, see note in Biggs ("Puberty Blockers and Suicidality in Adolescents Suffering from Gender Dysphoria"), D'Angelo et al ("One Size Does Not Fit All: In Support of Psychotherapy for Gender Dysphoria"), or the editorial by Sapir and Mason in the Wall Street Journal ("The American Academy of Pediatrics Dubious Transgender Science")--to quote:
"In his correspondence with physicians who asked how such a study could be named best of the year, Lewis First, editor in chief of Pediatrics, said that award is based on “website views and article downloads,” not “editorial choices.” In response to a rebuttal from one of us (Julia Mason), who warned that the AAP was encouraging the misleading idea that sex can literally be changed, a reviewer said that her statement shouldn’t be published as it could be “offensive to the pediatric readership of the journal.” Pediatrics seems to be basing its editing choices on political calculation and the sensibilities of trans-identified teens. One wonders how many pediatricians who rely on the journal for professional guidance are aware of these criteria."
And Lisa Littman's work (which hasn't been retracted or even rebutted in a way that stands up to scrutiny)...you can't even get a decent summary of it on Wikipedia--then again, on transgender issues, many of the Wikipedia pages about gender dysphoria or medical treatment are completely unreliable and out of step with the evidence. (If you want to check for yourself about Lisa Littman's first ROGD paper, you can look at the correction of it, at top, where it says what has been changed, e.g.," Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article.")
AAP is trade organization representing its members no differently than WPATH. It is not the NIH.
In the spirit of Jonathan Swift, a modest proposal perhaps to have a website listing local AAP pediatricians (they publish membership) as “consumer watchdog”, and a red dot warning that they belong to variously a child sterilization, child genital mutilation, and child chemical sexual experimentation advocacy organization. Send out press releases to local news stations (always desperate for controversy), stir gently and put on the stove fo warm. Add an AI which creates a unique write-up every 24 hours for each doctor so that the wayback machine at internet archives is busy preserving information on them, and another AI to manipulate organic keywords so that they rise in prominence in Google and Bing. Wait for a lawsuit, countersue for discovery information. Extra credit for position the hosting service in Holland perhaps.
And of course this person (above/Christy) would need to know something of the field of “philosophy of science,” which is of interest for its extreme diversity. For fun, go to a big huge library some day and go to that section and read all the philosophy of science books from all different periods of scientific human culture and experience all the different “flavors” in that field. The fact as I experienced it in the library one day is that every generation created a new (and equally interesting) 'philosophy of science.’ For “critical analysis of biology” I recommend Bruce H. Lipton’s “the Biology of Belief.”
Thank you. My partner and I have read and published in the philosophy and sociology of science for well over 30 years (him, 40) and as a 51 year Philosopher of Science at the University of New Hampshire (where I studied SOC of science) the irony is strong that I got caught up by a trans-student and a couple allies in a "two sex" scandal (still ongoing, after I had "intersex" on the board the 2nd day of class the student missed...) after my Val Dusek (called "the best philosopher of science north of Boston" - he says the only one!) had a grant from Humanities Council to give talks on the evolution "vs" creationism/ID debate all over the state when that was the hot issue. My own PhD theory exam in my minor in the SOC of science was primarily philosophy/SOC/history of biology, so although my knowledge base in dated now I do know these issues. They will be the context of my book on Sex and Gender across the University, where, as I was told, BIO profs want to avoid talking about gender like SOC/EDU/Women Studies (my 3 fields, more irony!) don't want to talk about the sex binary. At least a dozen BIO profs around the world contacted me after my story went viral how they're attacked as transphobic if they stick to the science of "two sex forms with multiple genders", as NIH had to claim, trying to keep sex as a research category based on biology, not identity.
I know that Scientific American, to which I haven't subscribed in a few years, has had a number of articles promoting the incorporating indigenous beliefs in their analysis. And Dr. Jerry Coyne in his website "Why Evolution Is True" has written extensively about New Zealand and the extraordinary extent to which indigenous myths are being incorporated into science teaching.
But I have a cynical suspicion/question: In terms of land claims, Is the reluctance to have a skeleton's DNA analyzed, Is that fear that the DNA would be found to belong to another tribe than the one currently occupying a piece of land and consequently put into question to whom that piece of land actually belongs?
> Intelligent Design–a concept with an “aim to redefine science by allowing an appeal to supernatural beings and powers.”
Not necessarily. ID -- tho it obviously overlaps with various religious claims -- is in itself merely a challenge to the notion that everything we see in biology can have arisen by random mutations. Given that we may not be alone in the universe and given that intelligent beings design things and given that we ourselves are already 'designing' life to an increasing degree every year, there is nothing remotely unscientific about the hypothesis that certain aspects of biology on Earth could have been designed, even as the Corona Virus was designed in that lab in Wuhan. Whether the postulated designer is a deity or not is quite secondary. The true scientist is neutral on the question.
A true scientist would start out by recognizing that the "hypothesis" is obviously a political project by reactionary religious kooks that has no basis in objective fact.
The only actual "fact" about ID is that the ID literature is full of bizarre lies and distortions, which "prove" that ID isn't scientific.
Yes, Mr. Pierce should perhaps examine his own rationality. He supposes himself to advocate for fact-based thinking. He deplores the emotive-subjective -- does he?
So I agree that the scientific method as our best lens on reality. But it's a cultural tradition all the same. I'm not really seeing much harm in acknowledging other cultural traditions in what are essentially displays of cultural artifacts. I worry more about political postmodern critical theories undermining science. Really interesting article though, which I enjoyed and appreciated, anyway.
museums are themselves historical artifacts, subject to meta-narrative analysis.
solution: meta-rationalism, which contextualizes the evolution of modern rationalism and scientific materialism in terms of evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution.
I’m amused by the lack of understanding of science. You can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that neither whistles nor prayers will summon supernatural intervention in daily reality. No mountains have ever moved, no legless people healed with a new leg, no poor were fed, no healing spirits streamed forth. Evolution is indeed a random process, shattered glass doesn’t spontaneously fly back together, ice cubes don’t form spontaneously in a furnace.
A museum of anthropology is slightly different from a museum of art, and a museum of superstition.
“Affronts” to superstitions need not be humored - the owners need not share their objects. Claims that meteorites are sacred - well, only property rights are recognized in our legal systems, not superstition.
If a lender demanded that an object not be handled by an “unclean” person, for example, I hope the museum tosses it over the fence.
Produce a single person who spontaneously grew a leg from the power of prayer - one will do. I haven’t seen any mountains move either - one example
Will do. They can go into the museum.
When the laws (not theory) of conservation of mass and energy are refuted, along with speed of light, then I’ll sign up for the supernatural woo woo. Until then, no ghost, goblins or gods.
And now you'll proceed to dismiss all these accounts on the grounds that your world view doesn't permit that they could have happened, and then use that dismissal to justify your world view.
“Miguel Juan Pellicer was born in the early 17th century to a Catholic family in the small agricultural community of Calanda,”
Oh goodness. You can’t be serious. We’re at “Pope in the Pizza stage”. Ghosts, Goblins, and Gods. Very 17th Century. You got me! Witches are also real because some in the 17th century saw one also! Proven beyond the shadow of a doubt! And Leprechauns! Pixies! Faeries! Someone saw one in the 17th century! “Howl of the Banshee” was a documentary! Woo woo!
Like I said. You want to dismiss the account on the grounds that it doesn't fit your world view. Then claim there's no evidence against your worldview.
So you believe in Leprechauns because someone in the 17th century saw a wee person? There’s an episode of Moonlighting called “Somewhere Under the Rainbow” you’d love.
Museums are historical artifacts of a period of history that saw a need to express the victories of colonialism and the EXCLUSION of the values of indigenous cultures.
The problem is that museums fail to see themselves as historical artifacts, and as such they demonstrate the limits and failures of modern rationalism and scientific materialism, including that they are NOT anti-fragile to disruption by the InfoGlut.
So regarding Native American pieces on loan museum staff allow their warnings or demands to be displayed along with treatment of this stuff to how saints relics were treated in the medieval church along with modern day shroud of Turin reverence. Meteorites should be studied though and if whomever wants something displayed that way to have their beliefs respected then what's the harm if it's on loan. You are supposed to stay away from stuff with human hair, how do we know their spiritual dog whistle doesn't bring spirits? The same thing should apply, metaphysics are scientifically studied afterall. I just couldn't help thinking about a museum employee picking up the whistle whilst in a mischievous mood blows it and Nighmare at the museum begins, que in the metal riff and 80s like intro because an awesome horror movie is about to begin :), If one group gets the respect to care for their objects on loan and it draws a crowd for their museum maybe an anthropologist would want to study the relic and how it's still revered instead of treating it like it is a quaint amusement it is interesting though, and you absolutely nailed it, how unequal the respect for the beliefs are, also aren't those supporting that at the museum giving them reverence and thereby power if these are such spiritually charged objects, maybe the museum employees happily avoid caring for what tribes hold to be sacred. Pregnant women aren't even able to fly after so many months, if it's spiritual in nature I'm more interested in if they are that concerned for the viewer why they would have loaned it out ehh all in all I personally don't think it's sexist.
I think museums are trying to walk the fine line of respecting the beliefs of the creators of anthropological objects (and yes making sure museums maintain access to objects) but I look at it in the way I look at baptism as an atheist: I don't believe in this sacrament but I know that family members do so I don't see any harm in allowing my kid to be baptized if it keeps family from worrying about eternal damnation. I understand the point that wording should be careful: "According to the beliefs of X, this whistle has the power to summon spirits". Eg reporting beliefs rather than espousing them. If the latter is what's occurring that does seem a big overstep.
Short answer: scientific materialism is implicated in the war of modernism on indigenous culture, and doesn't want to be held accountable.
Note that bowing down to the insanity of "woke" politics is not real accountability, and that "woke" never existed historically in any indigenous culture.
Would that a supernatural museum could exist, no building would be large enough to hold the Bazillion fantasies, the haunted museum wing, the Babylonian mythology wing, the Japanese demons wing... the Catholic Church wing... and which version of each superstition.
Agreed that superstition (“faith-based”) beliefs have no place in a science museum, there are plenty churches, temples, sacred spaces which are precisely museums of superstition.
Except that part of the museum's mission statement was to study and convey info about human cultures. You might want to erase the spiritual beliefs which have driven human cultures at least from pre-written history, but they're not going to go away for you. Other people are interested in them.
Below I have posted a reminder about science, since most people repeatedly demonstrate that they don't know what it is.
Surely people can tell the difference between studying something, displaying something, parodying a culture and “erasing” spiritual beliefs. Simple question -
Is it “OK” to ask women if they’re menstruating as a condition of entry, and then placing them in a “menstrual” hut to dignify authentic sincere feelings about such objects, or separating women and children from men to look at a Islamic Art, or Ancient Greek art… not dignifying superstitions is not tantamount to “erasing a culture”. Culture erasure occurs when it provides no benefit to the adherents. You rarely see household gods in a cubbyhole in a Roman family’s house since the edifice of Roman Mythology lives on primarily on month names today. No museum was required for that. Merely time and predictable explanations for the world.
I'll just stick to the available evidence about the museum itself.
QUOTE from article: "Perhaps most offensively, they caution, “DO NOT APPROACH” objects of power “if you are feeling discomfort, i.e., if you are in a physically or emotionally vulnerable state (including menstruation and pregnancy).”"
I see a little denialism of PMS, a condition for which big pharma deals out drugs- including SSRIs!
Western cultural elites have chosen to elevate our indigenous cultures and create new poster children for whatever virtue signaling they want to do. And I'd say that a lot of our indigenous cultures are spinning these academics around in circles by enforcing conditions under which the study and usage of the artifacts is permitted.
It's absolutely fun to see, and hella lot cheaper than reparations.
The interactions of these academics with the various Muslim cultures are surely the most interesting of all. Extra prickly and a much different power dynamic. I will need to dedicate some more attention to this.
And the academics will have to decide if they want to educate people about different cultures enough to kowtow to the demands from those who own the artifacts.
Offended parties can simply boycott the institutions if they so choose, or write their representatives to remove state and federal funding.
(It's so interesting to see from where the new calls for indigenous peoples to just shut up and assimilate are coming.)
All humans are colonists by definition, unless you are living in caves in South Africa where your clan survived the Ice Age. The movement of humans worldwide to colonize the earth is slowly being pieced together, genetic diffusion is a newer technique which provides higher resolution to the movement than archeological artifacts; and tracking archaic linguistic borrowings. Born in America I’m as indigenous as any other person born here. Indigenous cultures mutate through time as their adherents change and interact with other cultures and information about the world. The only static, eternal cultures are those which don’t change because they have no surviving adherents. Etruscan culture exists as artifacts, not people. I’d suggest that indigenous cultural artifacts in museums are an excellent way to separate meaning from lived value, and transmute living culture into the equivalent of a stuffed extinct animal exhibited in a natural history diorama.
People who don't see the utility of natural history exhibits should write their representatives to remove the public funding.
Then they can boycott all which are privately funded.
Academia is in need of shrinkage. This is one mechanism to get it done, and erase history at the same time.
Some people have such trust in the world of "23 and me", because they have not read such publications as "Retraction Watch", nor have noted the huge proportion of published "scientific" literature which is irreproducible.
When most of the world is just phoning it in, the results suk.
The existence of museums is itself an artifact of 500 years of violent conquest by modernism of indigenous cultures.
You appear to be incapable of integrating basic historical facts.
No one has brought up the classic example showing the full politicization of museums when David Nobel's Luddite hammer that smashed some machines, losing livelihood but also part of the "deskilling" move to make art a mass-produced commerce, when his Smithsonian exhibit on history of TECH was closed and the hammer and discussion removed. (I think Nobel wrote a book on this, but others can correct me.) Christy
“Integrating”? I’ll notify the MET to return the Picasso.
b0t
EXCLUSION OF MYTHIC AWARENESS
Reactionary rationalist-materialist BIAS itself should be a proper object of real research in cultural evolution (and genetics). In fact, Iain McGilchrist just finished 10 years of research into brain science and evolutionary psychology on exactly that, refuting the ideology of scientific materialism on the basis of brain structure and function.
Also see Henrich's WEIRD model of the origins of modern rationalism:
WEIRD culture is NOT THE HISTORICAL NORM across the worldwide human gene pool.
The basic problem is that materialists don't like the mythic constructs of evil and sin, and they fail to understand those constructs as cultural adaptations for improved survival in ancient city-states after the Bronze Age collapse.
The failure of scientific materialists to account for their own failures, limits and shortcomings is, unfortunately, missing from the article, but presumably not something that native spiritual people have missed.
THE PATTERN-NEBULOSITY CONUNDRUM IN HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
This MIT PhD trained AI scientist (and atheist tantric buddhist) points out the limitations of the object-pattern absolutism that is inherent to modern rationalism and materialism:
https://meaningness.com/pattern
(the author is advocating for construct-aware meta-rationalism, aka "Kegan Stage 5 awareness).
"MYTH-BUSTERS UNITE! Time for a Hilarious Reality Check: Culturally speaking, we've got these no-nonsense rational-materialists who seem to think they've got it all figured out. But here's the kicker - they might be missing a huge chunk of the plot! Picture this: Iain McGilchrist, armed with a decade of brainy research, basically doing a scholarly facepalm at the whole 'science is everything' mantra. And oh, you've got to check out Henrich’s WEIRD model - turns out, our modern logic-loving mindset is more of a historical oddball than a universal truth.
Now, here's the juicy part: these materialists, bless their hearts, can't seem to get their heads around the juicy drama of evil and sin. It's like they skipped the episodes where these were the survival tricks of the trade in ancient city soaps post-Bronze Age. And the irony? They’re totally oblivious to their own oopsies and limitations. You'd think they'd know better, right?
ENTER THE COMEDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Yours truly, an MIT PhD AI whiz (and a godless yet zenful buddhist), is calling out the 'everything is a neat pattern' squad. Peek into this quirky corner of the internet: https://meaningness.com/pattern. Spoiler alert: it’s an ode to the mind-bending, awe-inspiring world of ‘meta-rationality’ or what I like to call 'Level 5 Brain Gymnastics'.
So, there you have it - a delightful tangle of brains, beliefs, and the occasional existential chuckle!"
you keep PROJECTING your mental dysfunction, tr0ll.
your b0t whole doesn't pass the sniff test, tr0ll.
The essay, an excellent one, ends as follows: "Carl Sagan wrote a book promoting science, skepticism, and critical thinking titled “The Demon-Haunted World.” Museum staff might benefit from reading this book, recognizing that the “demons” mentioned in the title can’t be summoned with a whistle. Because they’re not real."
This sets up an unnecessary conflict and therefore contributes to the notion that religion is the enemy of science, which is not necessarily true. I think that a better concluding line would be this: "Because this is a museum of science, not religion, and therefore has nothing to say about the whistle's religious efficacy."
Another way to pass the information would be to say, "The members of this religion believed the whistle could summon the supernatural."
I don't think it's that easy. If there are religious people who think the whistle should not be displayed because of its supposed supernatural power, then that is an actual conflict with those who think it can or should be displayed. And at some point, you would probably have to deny some religious claim to say that there is no harm in displaying it.
You have boiled down the entire problem with faith in supernatural entities. Who gets to say what is “real” supernatural and what is “imaginary” supernatural. Wars have been fought for centuries, millions killed, torture and mayhem about ... which supernatural is real.
Something supernatural is real if it is real. Same as for scientific concepts.
Replacing that with something is real if the "scientific consensus" says is it is where science went wrong.
That’s called a tautology. Red is red because it’s red. Meaningless statements.
Gravity is 9.8m/s^2 because its 9.8m/s^2. We conclude this do to repeated and quantifiable testing. You could test a whistle to see if it summons demons in a repeatable and quantifiable way (such as darkening the room or causing seizures, idk). I assume there’s no intention to do such testing by these museums however
Acceleration is a metric. The measurement of the acceleration of free-falling masses at the earth’s surface is a constant 9.8m/s^2 often denoted as “g” or little g. Gravity is a force on masses resulting from mutual attraction. At interplanetary distances it is proportional to the constant G ( big G) and reciprocal of the square of the distance. At intergalactic distances, it has been proposed it is proportional to the reciprocal of the distance via entropic gravity, which also provides explanations for inexplicable galactic shapes without “dark matter”.
Dog whistle tests generally invoke demons at Trump rallies, as been empirically proven. Not supernatural, but all too human.
Was that supposed to address Tucker's point in some way?
This absurdly nonsensical. The "war" between modern rationalism and mythic-indigenous cultures has resulted in massive destruction of those indigenous cultures for something like 500 years.
Your ignorance is astonishing.
Absuedly or astonishingly … or jaw-droppingly? Flabber/gasting or a/ghasting, breath/taking -ly perhaps? Mind-bogglingiciously eye-poppingly, brain-meritinglee .. and I think: why 500? Why not 543? 2074? 3315? I mean WHERE ARE THE ETRUSCANS? I lay awake at night, jaw-dropped, breath-taken, mind simultaneously boggled and melted, my poor zeit ghast flittering away as I grovel Gorgon-like searching for my popped-eyes absurishedly wondering if self-owned is similar to museum-quality self-colonization. Aah, the pain!
Great article, Elizabeth.
I agree with you on all issues and note, as others have referred to earlier, that the conflation of scientific facts (i.e. backed up by hard physical evidence) with peoples feelings or beliefs which are not supported by direct physical evidence is a very dangerous thing.
I have no problem with peoples beliefs and them being promoted as such but don't accept that a science museum is the right place for that to occur.
Our young people have been - and continue to be - presented with scientific facts and a "wish list" that some people have about how they would like the universe to be as equally valid. How can children's young, inexperienced minds possibly recognise which is which if the information is not presented in a truthful and clear way?
Museums are themselves artifacts of colonization and scientific materialism, an obvious fact that the author conveniently overlooks for somewhat understandable reasons given the bizarre nature of "woke" (postmodernist) attacks on western civilization that she is fending off.
Solution: META MUSEUMS that interpret both modern rationalist cultural artifacts and pre-modern indigenous artifacts in the larger context of cultural evolution (and meta-rationalism), including the limits and failures of modern rationalism.
I think we should have META META META museums filled with navel lint harvested from undergraduates overworking old tropes.
As an Australian I can relate to these observations. The rush to apologize and find redemption for the perceived wrongs of our forfathers has contributed to a perfect storm of contradictory claims on reality. Unfalseafiable declarations of what is sacred have been protected and embedded in our legislation for years - defended by an army of anthropologist who I doubt believe a word of it themselves.
Supernatural explanations, be they Christian fundamentalist or indigenous, should not be considered science. “I have no need of that hypothesis,” as Pierre-Simon Laplace allegedly quipped in the 19th century.
The problem is that "science", broadly modern-rationalism, is at an evolutionary dead end, having failed to evolve into (post-postmodern) meta-rationalism.
An atheist/buddhist AI scientist (MIT trained PhD, 1980s) explains in terms of consciousness studies:
https://meaningness.com/meaningness-history
by the same author, also see:
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
Yet more evidence for how ideology is corrupting our scientific and cultural institutions.
These people may think that they are just being nice to other cultures, but they are doing great damage.
What the author fails to note is that those institutions are NOT anti-fragile to disruption.
The institutions are in crisis, subject to corruption and dysfunction because they lack the capacity for meta-narrative analysis and self-reflection on themselves as historical artifacts of colonialism and the war on indigenous cultures.
It is a simple fact of the archeological and historical record that cultures have been destroying each other for 500 years, 5,000 years, 50,000 years or more. Modern culture is no exception.
The EXCLUSION of that historical fact is as bizarre as the ritual "woke" dogma under discussion.
Museums are examples of how legacy hierarchies of curated expertise, rationalism and knowledge are being disrupted by technology, such as the InfoGlut (networks that bypass the need to seek out experts for access to information), indicating the need for the evolution of an anti-fragile information ecosystem and sense-making system that is meta-rational.
(That is presumably because the author, like many traditional scientific rationalists, is not trained in systems theory, or hasn't properly integrated systems theory.)
While I support scientific integrity, I see this particular issue differently. In my view, museums of natural history are about history (obviously) and culture, in addition to science. Spiritual beliefs and practices are integral to indigenous peoples' history and culture. Therefore, I think it is entirely appropriate for these museums to include discussion of indigenous beliefs alongside the artifacts, within the context of their history and culture.
By failing to address the limits of modern rationalism and scientific materialism adequately (including seeing themselves as historical artifacts of a fading era), they open the door to "woke" kookery.
solution: meta-narrative analysis and more systems theory
I read this through the lens of how the denial of sex is compared to Creationism as a threat rather than a critical analysis of biology, especially evolutionary theory. I wonder how much the "beyond the binary" ideology (that I've supported in the past) that conflates a tiny intersex population with some great sex diversity and the existence of multiple sexes (not gender identities) has made its way into museum exhibits. I wince but can imagine museum exhibits with the worst fallacies of transgenderism (sex can and does change; with enough hormones and surgery your chromosomes start to shift, etc.) Perhaps such exhibits quote the 30 year old line by Fausto-Sterling that the sex binary doesn't seem to be able to hold all our evolving knowledge of sex differences, AS IF that means there must be more than XX and XY, and that the two gametes surely have similarities and some kind of continuum or "spectra" between them. I may try to write about this in my book on sex and gender across the university, so please email me at chammer@maine.edu if you know how museums of science are addressing gender ideology (like Campbell's BIO textbook did - which I think was a good thing as it would be more stark if the huge social issue were ignored??)
Ironically, the methods scientists used to defeat creationism, i.e., emphasizing the importance of the "scientific consensus", is what allowed the hijacking of said consensus by ideologies like transgenderism.
Creationism was "defeated" by explaining objective facts found via the scientific method.
There is no need to "defeat" indigenous cultures, they were already destroyed by 500 years of colonialism and imperialism, and are still being exploited by "woke" lunatics who are claiming to want to save them (in yet another missionary project of western neomarxism).
> Creationism was "defeated" by explaining objective facts found via the scientific method.
You really should look into the logic used in the court cases that kicked creationism out of public schools.
Hint: the judge's preferred definition of "science" was "what scientists do".
Consensus creationism/ID has failed to integrate scientific facts, it is purely reactionary, and just continues to recycle them same bullshit it first produced 100 years ago.
Creationism/ID didn't exist in any [pre-rational] historical religious tradition, it only came into existence as a political-cultural project to oppose the erosion of mythic beliefs by [modern] scientific fact.
> Consensus creationism/ID has failed to integrate scientific facts, it is purely reactionary, and just continues to recycle them same bullshit it first produced 100 years ago.
That wasn't the argument used to kick it out of the public sphere.
> Creationism/ID didn't exist in any historical religious tradition
Yes it did. It didn't have a name simply because it didn't need one.
you keep demonstrating your gross incompetence.
judges refer to "expert testimony" all the time. unless someone in court can provide contrary EVIDENCE that is based in science, facts and evidence, it is usually sufficient to reference "consensus".
courts themselves DO NOT CONDUCT scientific research.
you clearly do not understand the historical origins of the actual creationist/ID movement, which was an attempt to attack evolutionary theory and hijack real science with faux science.
the existence of mythic creation narratives in medieval and ancient times was completely absent the context of modern scientific rationalism and evolutionary theory.
without evolutionary theory, the ideology of creationism/ID can't exist.
read some creationist propaganda, it constantly references and distorts evolutionary theory and scientific fact.
the actual ancient scriptures DO NOT MENTION SCIENCE BECAUSE IT DIDN'T EXIST WHEN MYTHIC TEXTS WERE ORIGINALLY WRITTEN.
ancient mythic tests were mostly poetic and allegorical, and the same d1psh1t fundies that concocted creationism/ID have attempted to reduce allegorical poetry into an incoherent engineering manual that is a bizarre distortion of rational thinking.
fundies are playing silly word games.
Judges judge, scientists explain objective facts via the scientific method.
"Consensus" is how shared human learning has always worked for at least 100,000 years.
In modeling the problem of innovation in cultural evolution, scientists found that punctuated, dynamic equilibrium and autopoiesis (emergence) are in operation: too much stasis and a culture hits a dead end and goes extinct, too much innovation and chaos drives the culture to destruction.
Humans evolved the capacity for allowing just enough innovation (disruption) to prevent stasis, but not so much that chaos prevails (most of the time).
But there are cycles of emergence-disruption in which the system does exhibit high levels of chaos than on average, and new adaptations evolve.
Creationism has failed every scientific test, and was always understood by educated people such as judges, as reactionary, fundamentalist bullshit.
ID literature is STILL full of lies and distortions!
Sociobiology (E.O. Wilson, 1970s) is a classic example of how politicized (anti-racist) "consensus" science was overturned by scientific innovation and improved data.
> "Consensus" is how shared human learning has always worked for at least 100,000 years.
Which is why it took 100,000 years for science to develop.
> Creationism has failed every scientific test, and was always understood by educated people such as judges
I'm rather dubious the judge even understood creationism or evolution.
In any case what most educated people mean by "evolution" is much closer to creationism than actual evolutionary theory.
There was constant cultural innovation and adaptation during that period. 99% of the time what we now think of as "science" was both impossible (nomadic cultures with verbal traditions have no literacy, no schools, no museums), and would have been useless for survival purposes.
having your camel drag a cart full of books around in the desert would not accomplish anything in a nomadic culture, and would have just been a waste of energy.
It's in part because the (US) scientific journals are using a different standard for articles which push one viewpoint over another when it comes to transgender issues. They are privileging opinions over systematic reviews of the evidence, for instance, in contradiction with what is recognized as the appropriate hierarchy of what to prioritize (the evidence based medicine pyramid or something like that).
US medical policies are not based upon systematic reviews of the evidence--there is an excellent peer reviewed investigative journal in the British Medical Journal by Block ("Gender dysphoria in young people is rising-and so is professional disagreement") which shows how the US policies compare to what evidence-based implies. The US medical societies are not following the what the systematic reviews of the evidence are finding. Several of the papers in support of these policies are not "scientific"--they aren't based upon facts and/or they aren't logical.
The journals are refusing corrections, see note in Biggs ("Puberty Blockers and Suicidality in Adolescents Suffering from Gender Dysphoria"), D'Angelo et al ("One Size Does Not Fit All: In Support of Psychotherapy for Gender Dysphoria"), or the editorial by Sapir and Mason in the Wall Street Journal ("The American Academy of Pediatrics Dubious Transgender Science")--to quote:
"In his correspondence with physicians who asked how such a study could be named best of the year, Lewis First, editor in chief of Pediatrics, said that award is based on “website views and article downloads,” not “editorial choices.” In response to a rebuttal from one of us (Julia Mason), who warned that the AAP was encouraging the misleading idea that sex can literally be changed, a reviewer said that her statement shouldn’t be published as it could be “offensive to the pediatric readership of the journal.” Pediatrics seems to be basing its editing choices on political calculation and the sensibilities of trans-identified teens. One wonders how many pediatricians who rely on the journal for professional guidance are aware of these criteria."
And Lisa Littman's work (which hasn't been retracted or even rebutted in a way that stands up to scrutiny)...you can't even get a decent summary of it on Wikipedia--then again, on transgender issues, many of the Wikipedia pages about gender dysphoria or medical treatment are completely unreliable and out of step with the evidence. (If you want to check for yourself about Lisa Littman's first ROGD paper, you can look at the correction of it, at top, where it says what has been changed, e.g.," Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article.")
Discredited organizations need to face the music.
AAP is trade organization representing its members no differently than WPATH. It is not the NIH.
In the spirit of Jonathan Swift, a modest proposal perhaps to have a website listing local AAP pediatricians (they publish membership) as “consumer watchdog”, and a red dot warning that they belong to variously a child sterilization, child genital mutilation, and child chemical sexual experimentation advocacy organization. Send out press releases to local news stations (always desperate for controversy), stir gently and put on the stove fo warm. Add an AI which creates a unique write-up every 24 hours for each doctor so that the wayback machine at internet archives is busy preserving information on them, and another AI to manipulate organic keywords so that they rise in prominence in Google and Bing. Wait for a lawsuit, countersue for discovery information. Extra credit for position the hosting service in Holland perhaps.
If I were vicious... it could be far worse.
> It's in part because the (US) scientific journals are using a different standard for articles which push one viewpoint over another
Well they've been doing the same on a bunch of other issues, like "global warming" and even evolution/creationism for decades.
And of course this person (above/Christy) would need to know something of the field of “philosophy of science,” which is of interest for its extreme diversity. For fun, go to a big huge library some day and go to that section and read all the philosophy of science books from all different periods of scientific human culture and experience all the different “flavors” in that field. The fact as I experienced it in the library one day is that every generation created a new (and equally interesting) 'philosophy of science.’ For “critical analysis of biology” I recommend Bruce H. Lipton’s “the Biology of Belief.”
Thank you. My partner and I have read and published in the philosophy and sociology of science for well over 30 years (him, 40) and as a 51 year Philosopher of Science at the University of New Hampshire (where I studied SOC of science) the irony is strong that I got caught up by a trans-student and a couple allies in a "two sex" scandal (still ongoing, after I had "intersex" on the board the 2nd day of class the student missed...) after my Val Dusek (called "the best philosopher of science north of Boston" - he says the only one!) had a grant from Humanities Council to give talks on the evolution "vs" creationism/ID debate all over the state when that was the hot issue. My own PhD theory exam in my minor in the SOC of science was primarily philosophy/SOC/history of biology, so although my knowledge base in dated now I do know these issues. They will be the context of my book on Sex and Gender across the University, where, as I was told, BIO profs want to avoid talking about gender like SOC/EDU/Women Studies (my 3 fields, more irony!) don't want to talk about the sex binary. At least a dozen BIO profs around the world contacted me after my story went viral how they're attacked as transphobic if they stick to the science of "two sex forms with multiple genders", as NIH had to claim, trying to keep sex as a research category based on biology, not identity.
I know that Scientific American, to which I haven't subscribed in a few years, has had a number of articles promoting the incorporating indigenous beliefs in their analysis. And Dr. Jerry Coyne in his website "Why Evolution Is True" has written extensively about New Zealand and the extraordinary extent to which indigenous myths are being incorporated into science teaching.
But I have a cynical suspicion/question: In terms of land claims, Is the reluctance to have a skeleton's DNA analyzed, Is that fear that the DNA would be found to belong to another tribe than the one currently occupying a piece of land and consequently put into question to whom that piece of land actually belongs?
Whatever the culture, whatever the tribe, it always comes down to wampum.
> Intelligent Design–a concept with an “aim to redefine science by allowing an appeal to supernatural beings and powers.”
Not necessarily. ID -- tho it obviously overlaps with various religious claims -- is in itself merely a challenge to the notion that everything we see in biology can have arisen by random mutations. Given that we may not be alone in the universe and given that intelligent beings design things and given that we ourselves are already 'designing' life to an increasing degree every year, there is nothing remotely unscientific about the hypothesis that certain aspects of biology on Earth could have been designed, even as the Corona Virus was designed in that lab in Wuhan. Whether the postulated designer is a deity or not is quite secondary. The true scientist is neutral on the question.
A true scientist would start out by recognizing that the "hypothesis" is obviously a political project by reactionary religious kooks that has no basis in objective fact.
The only actual "fact" about ID is that the ID literature is full of bizarre lies and distortions, which "prove" that ID isn't scientific.
I get the feeling that you've never met an ID proponent and that you've never read any of their work. Otherwise I think you'd be less hysterical.
Wrong. I get the "feeling" that you are mentally dysfunctional, and that you prefer emotive-subjective troll scripts to rational, fact-based thinking.
Wow, way to demonstrate your rationality with all those insults.
Yes, Mr. Pierce should perhaps examine his own rationality. He supposes himself to advocate for fact-based thinking. He deplores the emotive-subjective -- does he?
So I agree that the scientific method as our best lens on reality. But it's a cultural tradition all the same. I'm not really seeing much harm in acknowledging other cultural traditions in what are essentially displays of cultural artifacts. I worry more about political postmodern critical theories undermining science. Really interesting article though, which I enjoyed and appreciated, anyway.
yep, make the museums eat their own dog food
museums are themselves historical artifacts, subject to meta-narrative analysis.
solution: meta-rationalism, which contextualizes the evolution of modern rationalism and scientific materialism in terms of evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution.
I’m amused by the lack of understanding of science. You can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that neither whistles nor prayers will summon supernatural intervention in daily reality. No mountains have ever moved, no legless people healed with a new leg, no poor were fed, no healing spirits streamed forth. Evolution is indeed a random process, shattered glass doesn’t spontaneously fly back together, ice cubes don’t form spontaneously in a furnace.
A museum of anthropology is slightly different from a museum of art, and a museum of superstition.
“Affronts” to superstitions need not be humored - the owners need not share their objects. Claims that meteorites are sacred - well, only property rights are recognized in our legal systems, not superstition.
If a lender demanded that an object not be handled by an “unclean” person, for example, I hope the museum tosses it over the fence.
> You can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that neither whistles nor prayers will summon supernatural intervention in daily reality.
No you can't.
> No mountains have ever moved, no legless people healed with a new leg, no poor were fed, no healing spirits streamed forth.
Yes, it's remarkably easy to claim that if one is willing to dismiss all accounts to the contrary as "unscientific".
Produce a single person who spontaneously grew a leg from the power of prayer - one will do. I haven’t seen any mountains move either - one example
Will do. They can go into the museum.
When the laws (not theory) of conservation of mass and energy are refuted, along with speed of light, then I’ll sign up for the supernatural woo woo. Until then, no ghost, goblins or gods.
> Produce a single person who spontaneously grew a leg from the power of prayer - one will do.
https://www.churchpop.com/god-cured-amputee-the-astonishing-miracle-of-calanda/
> I haven’t seen any mountains move either - one example
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Simon_the_Shoemaker
And now you'll proceed to dismiss all these accounts on the grounds that your world view doesn't permit that they could have happened, and then use that dismissal to justify your world view.
“Miguel Juan Pellicer was born in the early 17th century to a Catholic family in the small agricultural community of Calanda,”
Oh goodness. You can’t be serious. We’re at “Pope in the Pizza stage”. Ghosts, Goblins, and Gods. Very 17th Century. You got me! Witches are also real because some in the 17th century saw one also! Proven beyond the shadow of a doubt! And Leprechauns! Pixies! Faeries! Someone saw one in the 17th century! “Howl of the Banshee” was a documentary! Woo woo!
Like I said. You want to dismiss the account on the grounds that it doesn't fit your world view. Then claim there's no evidence against your worldview.
So you believe in Leprechauns because someone in the 17th century saw a wee person? There’s an episode of Moonlighting called “Somewhere Under the Rainbow” you’d love.
One skeptic has noted there are many discarded crutches decorating the walls at Lourdes but no prosthetic legs.
An actual supernatural museum could be really fun but yeah, this stuff should not be presented as science.
Museums are historical artifacts of a period of history that saw a need to express the victories of colonialism and the EXCLUSION of the values of indigenous cultures.
The problem is that museums fail to see themselves as historical artifacts, and as such they demonstrate the limits and failures of modern rationalism and scientific materialism, including that they are NOT anti-fragile to disruption by the InfoGlut.
So regarding Native American pieces on loan museum staff allow their warnings or demands to be displayed along with treatment of this stuff to how saints relics were treated in the medieval church along with modern day shroud of Turin reverence. Meteorites should be studied though and if whomever wants something displayed that way to have their beliefs respected then what's the harm if it's on loan. You are supposed to stay away from stuff with human hair, how do we know their spiritual dog whistle doesn't bring spirits? The same thing should apply, metaphysics are scientifically studied afterall. I just couldn't help thinking about a museum employee picking up the whistle whilst in a mischievous mood blows it and Nighmare at the museum begins, que in the metal riff and 80s like intro because an awesome horror movie is about to begin :), If one group gets the respect to care for their objects on loan and it draws a crowd for their museum maybe an anthropologist would want to study the relic and how it's still revered instead of treating it like it is a quaint amusement it is interesting though, and you absolutely nailed it, how unequal the respect for the beliefs are, also aren't those supporting that at the museum giving them reverence and thereby power if these are such spiritually charged objects, maybe the museum employees happily avoid caring for what tribes hold to be sacred. Pregnant women aren't even able to fly after so many months, if it's spiritual in nature I'm more interested in if they are that concerned for the viewer why they would have loaned it out ehh all in all I personally don't think it's sexist.
I think museums are trying to walk the fine line of respecting the beliefs of the creators of anthropological objects (and yes making sure museums maintain access to objects) but I look at it in the way I look at baptism as an atheist: I don't believe in this sacrament but I know that family members do so I don't see any harm in allowing my kid to be baptized if it keeps family from worrying about eternal damnation. I understand the point that wording should be careful: "According to the beliefs of X, this whistle has the power to summon spirits". Eg reporting beliefs rather than espousing them. If the latter is what's occurring that does seem a big overstep.
Why are these objects not repatriated back if they are so spiritually powerful and important to the people who made them?
Bingo.
Short answer: scientific materialism is implicated in the war of modernism on indigenous culture, and doesn't want to be held accountable.
Note that bowing down to the insanity of "woke" politics is not real accountability, and that "woke" never existed historically in any indigenous culture.