From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Rights for Rocks! (battle of the dogmas)
Date: 16 Oct 92 19:01:26 GMT
	<1bl7trINNike@gap.caltech.edu> <1992Oct16.150939.22099@vexcel.com>
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: dean@vexcel.com's message of 16 Oct 92 15:09:39 GMT

In article <1992Oct16.150939.22099@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:

   In article <1bl7trINNike@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
   >In article <1992Oct14.231139.7026@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
   >>But not among establishment economists.  They are very disconnected
   >>from the real world.  did you see how an American won the Nobel Prize
   >>for economics by showing that people include economic considerations
   >>when making a decision?

   >That was not the sole basis for awarding him the prize.  Furthermore,
   >demonstrating that *IS* important.  It means that at least *SOME* parts of
   >economic theory *ARE* related to reality.

   I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the newspaper simplified the reason
   for the award.  As I said, it is a shrewd probe into the depths of
   the obvious.  If a field of study considers a discovery that is
   obvious to most people a significant achievement, then I think it is
   pretty disconnected.  That this effort is needed is because 
   economics is so disconnected.

Actually, this is not obvious, as many people will say that their
actions in certain areas are not determined by economic factors
(I believe one of the examples was marriage and divorce). More
brutally, to bring back the slavery analogy, this suggests further
that slavery was indeed determined on economic basis and only
abandoned when made too expensive, not because of a major shift
in moral values. Depressing.

   >>>As opposed to conventional economics? That schisms exist does not
   >>>preclude dogma, nor does the fact the opposition is dogmatic
   >>>preclude the ecocentrics being dogmatic.

   >>True, but it does preclude it from being ossified, as you claimed.
   >>Some proponents certainly are dogmatic, but not all, so the
   >>philosophy is not dogma.

   >No, it does not preclude ossification.  It's quite possible to have two
   >opposing dogmatic camps in a field, both of them quite thoroughly ossified.

   If they are discussing the differences and consider each opinon to
   be part of the same philosophy, then it isn't ossified.  If they 
   called each other heathens or whatever, then you would be right.

No, Dingo, to go back to the rather useful religion analogy,
consider an atheist listening to a lutheran and a catholic
arguing over whether souls can do penance in purgatory or
have their time in purgatory shortened by prayers/gifts,
the atheist does not see the difference but the irreducible
assumption that there are such things as souls. In the atheists
context the whole discussion is meaningless as it is founded on
uncontestable, wrongm assumptions.

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
*  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
*  Just because there's a reason          			*
*  Doesn't mean it's understood              Specials, 1979	*