[Silent One]

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@ least UPS is still rolling today...and I got my stuff from the Needle Doctor! 

Hopefully that means vinyl gear, and not supplies for flesh hook suspension or the like.

 

Actually, I got a vintage TT two Fridays ago, but didn't have any cleaning supplies or method to remove static. I was scrubbing records over the kitchen sink for a time, before I got hungry 

and decided to cook a midnight snack and ain't never looked back. The older records simply needed more care than I could give them by hand.

 

[rroseperry]

And where did Spencer get his idea?

"Herbert Spencer first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin's 
On the Origin of Species
 – in his 
Principles of Biology
 (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones, writing, "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."
^[1]
"

But Spencer was an idiot. He saw parallels because it suited his economic and social ideas. He looked at the world he lived in and used his (mis)understanding of natural selection to commit a naturalist fallacy. He didn't actually call it social Darwinism, though people have tacked the label on his work.

And yes maverickronin, Darwinism lives on as an epithet.

 

[DigitalFreak]

 

[eke2k6]

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But Spencer was an idiot. He saw parallels because it suited his economic and social ideas. He looked at the world he lived in and used his (mis)understanding of natural selection to commit a naturalist fallacy. He didn't actually call it social Darwinism, though people have tacked the label on his work.
And yes maverickronin, Darwinism lives on as an epithet.

 
 
Darwin's theory was basically that animals who were most adapted (read: fit) to the environment would survive and reproduce. It's not a concerted effort on the part of the species though. I think that's what gets lost in semantics.

 

[rroseperry]

Darwin's theory was basically that animals who were most adapted (read: fit) to the environment would survive and reproduce. It's not a concerted effort on the part of the species though. I think that's what gets lost in semantics.

You're right and the part that gets lost - that it's not directed or inevitable - is important.

Sorry about the tone, it's been a very, very long day.

 

[DigitalFreak]

I have only one thing to say about this video.....EPIC
 

 

[maverickronin]

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And where did Spencer get his idea?
 
"Herbert Spencer first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species – in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones, writing, "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."^[1]"

 
I guess most ideas must really be the same then since they'd probably converge quite a bit if we could trace all inspiration back to the beginning of conscience thought...
 
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But Spencer was an idiot. He saw parallels because it suited his economic and social ideas. He looked at the world he lived in and used his (mis)understanding of natural selection to commit a naturalist fallacy. He didn't actually call it social Darwinism, though people have tacked the label on his work.

 
This.  x1000

 

[warrenpchi]

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I'm usually not that big on our more minor holidays here in the US... but as it seems oddly fitting in this case, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Armistice Day. 

 
@ least UPS is still rolling today...and I got my stuff from the Needle Doctor! 

Hopefully that means vinyl gear, and not supplies for flesh hook suspension or the like.

 

Actually, I got a vintage TT two Fridays ago, but didn't have any cleaning supplies or method to remove static. I was scrubbing records over the kitchen sink for a time, before I got hungry 

and decided to cook a midnight snack and ain't never looked back. The older records simply needed more care than I could give them by hand.

 
Plus, you're now going to save loads of time as well.  Better to be cafe side than sink side.  As it turns out, seems like a lot of people worked today.

 

[lee730]

lmao!
 

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/12/college-humor-gay-men-will-marry-your-girlfriends-video_n_2117777.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

 

[jgray91]

i c wat u did ther

 

[mutabor]

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But Spencer was an idiot. He saw parallels because it suited his economic and social ideas. He looked at the world he lived in and used his (mis)understanding of natural selection to commit a naturalist fallacy. He didn't actually call it social Darwinism, though people have tacked the label on his work.
 

 
It was inevitable that the idea of natural selection would be applied on human society. Marx and Engels wrote their letters before Spencer's work Principles of Biology ( 1964). 
 
 
Engels immediately got hold of the Darwin's book and as early as Dec. 12 1859 wrote to Marx, “The Darwin which I am just reading is really stupendous. Teleology in one respect had still not been finished off hitherto. It is now. Moreover, there has never yet been such a magnificent attempt to demonstrate historical development in nature, or at least not so happily. Of course, you have to pass over the crude English method.”
 
Karl Marx wrote to Lassalle (Jan. 16, 1861), “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a natural scientific basis for the class struggle in history. One has to put up with the gross English mode of development, of course. Despite all deficiencies, not only is the death blow dealt here for the first time to ‘teleology’ in the natural sciences, but its rational meaning is empirically explained.”

 

[rroseperry]

It was inevitable that the idea of natural selection would be applied on human society. Marx and Engels wrote their letters before Spencer's work Principles of Biology ( 1964). 


Engels immediately got hold of the Darwin's book and as early as Dec. 12 1859 wrote to Marx, “The Darwin which I am just reading is really stupendous. Teleology in one respect had still not been finished off hitherto. It is now. Moreover, there has never yet been such a magnificent attempt to demonstrate historical development in nature, or at least not so happily. Of course, you have to pass over the crude English method.”

Karl Marx wrote to Lassalle (Jan. 16, 1861), “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a natural scientific basis for the class struggle in history. One has to put up with the gross English mode of development, of course. Despite all deficiencies, not only is the death blow dealt here for the first time to ‘teleology’ in the natural sciences, but its rational meaning is empirically explained.”

Inevitable doesn't make it right. People reach for validating analogies to bolster up their arguments. That it's commonplace doesn't make it accurate.

What's interesting to me is how they're applauding this as the end of a theistic approach to natural history.

 

[cheapfi]

I liked the video..  Its actually pretty funny.  If they'd ran it as a election ad I bet a lot of obama supporters would have voted for him just because of the epic-ness. j/k
 
I supported him, but that is still funny.
 
I wish they had done a similar one of Obama....  The Obama Gangam style videos they have are just dumb.

 

[MuppetFace]

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Would someone please tell me what the hell "Darwinism" is.  I know Dawkins like to use it a lot but I think it's pretty damn stupid since just about nobody on his 'side' uses it to mean what he means by it and to those on the other 'side' it just reinforces their misconception that it's some kind of ideology or religion.
 
There are really only 3 things I think you could call "Darwinism".  It starts with Darwin's original observation that the variability of traits within a species combined with environmental attrition and success in breeding can cause the average traits to change over time and create new species.  Later the discovery of genetics and DNA provided a separate line of evidence that confined his idea and was incorporated into it creating a theory sometimes called neo-Darwinian synthesis.  The latest continuation of Darwin's basic idea is to generalize the theory of evolution to other systems which include elements with imperfect replication and non-random 'survival' which based on their characteristics.  This includes things like evolutionary algorithms that already have practical uses in engineering and computer science as well as things that haven't quite gotten of the ground yet like memetics.
 
The last one is what Dawkins means when he says "Darwinism".  It might trace back to Darwin but since then other people have advanced these ideas far beyond his original work.  In philosophy, politics, art, or religion it might be more common to keep calling and idea by the name of the person who came up with it but that's a rarity in science.  If the things I listed qualify as ideologies then we might as well call F=MA Newtonism and E=MC^2 Einsteinism.  Does that mean nukes count as taking Einstein 'too far'?
 
So seriously, what do you mean by "Darwinism"?
 

 
 
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/darwinism/
 
Whether or not there's any merit to employing the term, there it is. C'est la vie.
 
You'll note I used scare quotes too, because I'm speaking in a more broadly reaching sense of various misappropriations such as "social Darwinism" and the like. The --ism suffix is basically denoting that the original content is being used as the direct foundation for a broader systematic worldview.
 
As for whether nukes are "taking Einstein too far," I'd actually say yes, that's a fairly reasonable thing to assert. Does that mean any blame should be hurdled at Einstein himself? Of course not. That's not what I was even remotely suggesting. In fact, I was suggesting the opposite: that people misappropriating Darwin's theses shouldn't be used to lambast Darwin.
 
As for "Einsteinism," there are actually plenty of instances of people trying to use Einstein's work as support for a philosophical idea that "everything is relative" and the like. Similarly, quantum mechanics has been bastardized by just about every other discipline (save for the culinary arts, perhaps?). Same with Newton, but those folks were called mechanists and are consigned to the past.

 

[MuppetFace]

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So what in your opinion Marx advocated? Excerptions from the Communist Manifesto ( by Marx and Engels):

 

 
 
First off, I never said Marx didn't advocate the use of violence. Secondly, I never said the Bolsheviks nor Lenin were innocent or justified in their actions. I do still find it curious you have yet to lay any blame at the feet of Stalin, however. 
 
Yes, my point is that what happened in Russia was not true fidelity to Marxism. At the outset? Arguably, yes. Marx advocated violent takeover, violence in revolution. However in the overall context of his writings it was a means to an end, not an end in itself. It was necessary of a transitional period that would ultimately result in what he felt to be a better society. In Russia however things eventually regressed into a system of pure domination and subservience, one in which the absolute reference point was loyalty to state party. It became the foundational absolute akin to the worst sort of authoritarian religion. So while you can argue that Marx served as an impetus and was part of the cause that lead to this, I don't think you can take the trajectory as a whole and say "Marx was the cause of the Russian peoples' suffering." Even moreso with Hegel.
 
Incidentally, I find it a bit ironic I'm defending Lenin's use of Hegel when I'm actually Eastern Orthodox. However I really dislike cherrypicking readings and oversimplifications. I'm fully aware Lenin was involved in the "disappearance" of many innocent people. I think Lenin was detestable human being, though he had some redeeming qualities compared to Stalin. I still maintain that communism hasn't actually been implemented as Marx envisioned it. That doesn't mean that certain historical facets weren't faithful to what Marx wrote, or that Marx was a saint who didn't call for violent upheaval.