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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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lunarchick - 02:26pm Dec 24, 2002 EST (# 6994 of 7000)

Religion - Thinking of (Wilson/Angier)

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/24/science/social/24CONV.html

Wilson

"" Religions and other social organizations may preach kindness and cooperation within the group, but they often say nothing about those outside the group, and may even promote brutality toward those beyond the brotherhood of the hive.

That has been the dark side of religion. But it is not an inevitable side of it. I don't want to come across as naïve, but there's no theoretical reason why the moral circle can't be expanded to ultimately include everybody. Nor is there any reason why we can't take a surgical approach to religion, and keep what is positive about it while eliminating the intolerance. ""

~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Raises the question - when is religion a social usage for 'the old guard' to maintain power and an economic stranglehold over an economy with little regard for the welfare of 'others' external to it's viewpoint.

Is this happening in some pipeline economies?

rshow55 - 03:19pm Dec 24, 2002 EST (# 6995 of 7000)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

That is a very good question - in a powerful article that raises many important questions.

The Origin of Religions, From a Distinctly Darwinian View By NATALIE ANGIER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/24/science/social/24CONV.html is superb!

Dr. David Sloan Wilson, a renowned evolutionary biologist, proposes that religion evolved because it conferred advantages on those who bore it.

These articles are wonderful, too:

Primordial motivations for war , cited in lunarchick 12/14/02 7:08am set out cynically but entertainingly by Phillip Adams -- For Men, War is Swell http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5673211%5E12272,00.html

and primordial motivations for peace , set out beautifully, and with great erudition, too, by Natalie Angier -- Of Altruism, Heroism and Evolution's Gifts in the Face of Terror http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/health/psychology/18ALTR.html

Human reason serves both these motivations. But is both better and worse... and it is not disinterested and disembodied reason - a point made by http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/24/science/social/24CONV.html and many other fine articles by Angier, including this one, from October 10, 2000: A CONVERSATION WITH / Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich On Human Nature, Genetics and the Evolution of Culture By NATALIE ANGIER

WASHINGTON - Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, a professor of biology and population studies at Stanford University, believes in evolution - or, more precisely, in evolutions. He believes in Darwinian evolution, of course, and the premise that life evolves through genetic mutations coupled with the crucible of natural selection.

But more important, he believes in the power of cultural evolution - all the nongenetic changes that human societies and individuals undergo, from decade to decade and moment to moment, including changes in language, technology, ethics, behavior, alliances, enmities, schemes and visions.

- - -

We're building some truth - and may soon have a "full deck" of all the logical patterns people can really use.

That's hopeful - but there's plenty of reason to fear that the truth, again, can be "somehow too weak." Krugman raises that concern today.

Maybe not this time.

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