10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th, 20th C.

yitwail wrote:

as rap points out, "re-engineering" seems to require two different engineers. wouldn't you concede that the existence of two separate creators is at least as unlikely as evolution by natural selection?

seems to me that the concept of "a creator" must include a second creator. otherwise, what explanation for the existence of the creator of our universe ? the creator must have had a creator, right ? and the creator of the creator ? so on and so forth ?

it boggles the mind. and is a rather large question left unanswered by the major religions. and for good reason...

we don't know

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plainoldme wrote:

Brandon -- You're wrong. One of the threads here on A2K was just closed because of obscenities posted by Lash, a conservative. When we were on abuzz (you're an abuzz veteran, aren't you?), I spent some time recording which side (left or right) lobbed the first insult and the right was EIGHT TIMES more likely to insult than the left. Finally, other participants on this forum have noted that several of the righties here are on the attack. In fact, it was recently pointed out by a diligent reader when I was insulted on a thread.

Somehow I question your objectivity. Starting a thread by telling your political opponents a priori not to show bad manners itself indicates a bad attitude, although I'm sure that, as usual, you have a hundred reasons why you're right.

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Somehow I question your objectivity. Starting a thread by telling your political opponents a priori not to show bad manners itself indicates a bad attitude, although I'm sure that, as usual, you have a hundred reasons why you're right.

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Brandon -- Not at all. Telling my opponents not to show bad attitude shows:

1.) That my previous experience with the right has generally been one of the right shouting and being abusive.

2.) That I am willing to keep an open mind but will not tolerate rudeness.

3.) That I have self-respect.

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Who created the creator? A: Man

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Who created the creator? A: Man

ummm. i would agree with you if what you mean is, man created "god".

in my lifetime i've pretty run the course of speculation. from being raised with the idea that "god" is watching, then to thinking "god" must have a really wack sense of humor, to simply thinking that, there is no "god" (as in any higher being).

finally after spending, probably too much, time thinking about it, i came to the conclusion that while i fully go with the scientific ideas of what, when and how, including evolution, the one sniggling little detail i can't dismiss is that even the scientific realities that i, and perhaps yourself, acknowledge had to have a beginning.

whether or not that beginning is 1 creator, 2 creators or a whole race (or races ) of creatii (and if it is creatii, who created them ???), i don't know. nobody else does either...

are they physical ? pure energy, perhaps ? something else that we can't even comprehend ? maybe it really is george burns ??

okay. my brain hurts now.

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plainoldme wrote:

Somehow I question your objectivity. Starting a thread by telling your political opponents a priori not to show bad manners itself indicates a bad attitude, although I'm sure that, as usual, you have a hundred reasons why you're right.

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Brandon -- Not at all. Telling my opponents not to show bad attitude shows:

1.) That my previous experience with the right has generally been one of the right shouting and being abusive.

2.) That I am willing to keep an open mind but will not tolerate rudeness.

3.) That I have self-respect.

Not really. A mature, mentally normal person would simply have said, "People, keep your rhetoric respectful." I cannot know, but am beginning to strongly suspect that you have what is usually called an overwhelming false belief structure. An example would be a person who thinks he's Napoleon, and, upon being challenged, presents you with a thousand reason why his (nonetheless false) belief is correct.

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On the DDT subject, the problem with it is not just risk to birds or humans or other species of insects. Gungasnake has completely failed to address the fact that DDT is an ineffectual way to deal with mosquitoes because of a little thing known as "survival of the fittest." (Cover your ears, it's Darwinism!) It's well known that a poison like DDT only kills the susceptible individuals of a population, leaving behind those with a resistance to it. These survivors reproduce and their offspring then inherit the resistant genes. Thus, use of such pesticides creates a population of organisms unaffected by the poison, and doesn't actually solve the problem.

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dora17 wrote:

On the DDT subject, the problem with it is not just risk to birds or humans or other species of insects. Gungasnake has completely failed to address the fact that DDT is an ineffectual way to deal with mosquitoes because of a little thing known as "survival of the fittest." (Cover your ears, it's Darwinism!) It's well known that a poison like DDT only kills the susceptible individuals of a population, leaving behind those with a resistance to it. These survivors reproduce and their offspring then inherit the resistant genes. Thus, use of such pesticides creates a population of organisms unaffected by the poison, and doesn't actually solve the problem.

To the extent that mosquitos developed any resistance to DDT at all it was due to massive overuse of the stuff, i.e. use of it as a general crop pesticide, and even then what appeared to be resistance usually turned out to be avoidance. Of course, having mosquitos avoid the areas sprayed with DDT is still getting your money's worth and solving the problem the stuff is meant to solve.

One might also note that a mosquito which should somehow gain resistance to DDT would still be a mosquito and not a bird or a snake, i.e. all you're talking about in terms of Darwinism is still microevolution, which nobody disputes.

Of course, if you were to use the stuff rationally, i.e. to protect human habitats and destroy mosquitos in their breeding grounds, nothing would ever gain resistance to it.

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I don't know enough about it to know if you're correct that "rational" use of DDT would not cause populations of mosquitoes to become resistant to it, but I agree that the examples I was speaking of were cases of massive overuse. If, and this is a big if Wink

, people were to use such things in moderation, perhaps the harmful effects could be controlled, and perhaps the issue of resistance wouldn't come into play. However, moderation does not seem to be humankind's strong suit, so I think it's best to find other ways to control pests.

P.S. I'm glad to hear that nobody disputes microevolution at least-- although I bet someone out there does...

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Thomas wrote:

John Stuart Mill's On Liberty in the same top 20 as Hitler's Kampf and Marx's Manifesto. I guess that's what you get when the right-wing-nuts read ...

Oh, and Keynes made the top 10! I guess that explains why President Bush's last two chief economic advisers are both Keynesians.

I believe they are actually New Keynesians.

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Chrissee wrote:

Thomas wrote:
John Stuart Mill's On Liberty in the same top 20 as Hitler's Kampf and Marx's Manifesto. I guess that's what you get when the right-wing-nuts read ...

Oh, and Keynes made the top 10! I guess that explains why President Bush's last two chief economic advisers are both Keynesians.

I believe they are actually New Keynesians.

I wouldn't expect the difference to be big, but I believe you're correct.

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Don't Tread -- You are not alone in thinking god has a whacked sense of humor: I've come to that conclusion several times myself.

When I was at the University of Michigan, I had a brialliant friend -- majored in philosophy at Yale; did grad work at Ediburgh and was finishing his Ph.D. at Michigan -- who said that all the inclusion of god does is to move the questioning about creation one step back.

My current thinking is that this planet is giant game of Dungeons and Dragons, being played by superior, but not necessarily divine, beings. Unless, of course, they're divine teenagers!

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This is hardly the writing of a mature person:

Not really. A mature, mentally normal person would simply have said, "People, keep your rhetoric respectful." I cannot know, but am beginning to strongly suspect that you have what is usually called an overwhelming false belief structure. An example would be a person who thinks he's Napoleon, and, upon being challenged, presents you with a thousand reason why his (nonetheless false) belief is correct.

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On the exchange between Dora and Gunga --

It is interesting that while Gunga denies the very real and scientifically sound point that Dora makes, he calls for "rational" use of DDT while he previously wanted to spray around his tennis court with, I believe, five gallons of the stuff. This sounds like some animals are more equal than others. Wonder where gunga fits on Brandon's scale of mature and mentally normal people? i know that some of you see the contradictions.

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Thomas -- It doesn't make any difference whether the followers of Keynes are traditional or new. The problem is the right doesn't know what Keynes wrote anyway. The chop job they do on Keynes parallels the chop job on Friedan.

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I am sure that "Plainoldme"'s brilliance in the field of Economics would put all of us to shame but I am so far gone that I put my trust in Thomas Sowell( who I consider to be a near genius) when he wrote of Keynes---

"John Maynard Keynes argued that government spending could put more money back into circulation and restore the economy to full employment faster than by waiting for prices to fall into balance with the reduced amount of money in circulation. But Keynes never claimed that the economy had just produced too much. Nor is there any reason to believe that he would have been surprised to see several times as high a level of national output selling with no problems in later years."

I certainly hope that Plain Old Me doesn't disillusion me and tell me that even Dr. Sowell "doesn't know what Keynes wrote anyway">

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I am not aware that Milton Friedman has complained about any chop job conservatives have made of his economics. And unlike Keynes, Friedman is still alive and outspoken enough to do so if he saw a reason to.

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The list is stupid.
Under the circumstances, I must be a very very dangerous and negative person, since I have read 5 of the books, and taught 2 of them to university undergraduates.
Every book has its context. No book is harmful by itself.
Even "Mein Kampf" would make an interesting reading to understand the nature of the Nazi movement in its early years.
Mao's "Book of Quotations" had a very negative impact in China, yes, but it's interesting to realize how the quotations were put out of their original context by the so-call "Gang of Four", and used as a political weapon. I believe it is an extraordinary example of how originally bad ideas can be made worse by political activism.
The list of "Worst books" is an ordinary example of a bad idea turned into political activism.

I must add that putting Keynes on the list tells us lots about the ignorance of the American right. They would have gladly dumped FDR.
Keynes is not a man for today, as Copernicus isn't. We wouldn't be where we are if it wasn't for them.

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fbaezer wrote:

The list of "Worst books" is an ordinary example of a bad idea turned into political activism.

damned activist book reviewers.

you're right. the list is stupid.

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Thomas is apparently not aware that in the same comment made by Dr. Sowell regarding Keynes, which, I have noted has not been rebutted, Sowell comments that:

"Some economists, including Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, have argued that it is precisely government policies that kept the economy from recovering as quickly as it had before."

As the esetwhile professor who has "taught" Keynes has mentioned-"Keynes is not a man for today"--and a damn good thing he isn't.

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10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th, 20th C.

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