Because if different educations is the explanation for IQ differences, then that means that without external differences, the twins will have basically the same IQ. That makes it seem like, as long as you control other variables, twin IQ matches - what could cause that other than the fact they have the same genetics, now that other factors have been controlled away?

But like you said, this could also be interpreted as indicating that education is the "sole" or primary determiner of IQ. This is what I mean by the right way to interpret these results being unclear.

Very cool, but hopefully nobody actually thinks this proves anything on the game optimization debate, right? It's not like Half Life 2 is the graphical standard most gamers expect nowadays. But if you are content with this graphics, I assure you even recent releases that look like that will perform great, so...

What's frustrating is that this seems like it could be twisted either way with respect to the real prize this research is after: the extent to which intelligence is genetic, or environmental. Am I wrong?

Yeah that's a fair point, it does have some of that wealth ogling going on. Although in that show since none of the characters are really that rich, it feels more like they're in the shadow of wealth rather than partaking in it. I give that a pass because, how could you tell a realistic modern story without having people in the shadow of wealth?

I'm not sure that The Bear really fits what you're complaining about here, but I love the complaint and agree with it in general, so upvoted your comment anyways. So much fiction nowadays is about rich people and "nepo babies", And life scenarios that are generally completely unattainable for most people. As if it wasn't already obvious enough that the majority of mass market fiction is created as some sort of escapist opioid for the peasants. The worst is the new "eat the rich" genre, that pretends to be criticizing, capitalism and wealth while simultaneously drooling over it the whole time.

Nobel prize lowkey pmo fr. Like who actually gives a shit about it? ESPECIALLY the peace prize, which has basically been a shiny version of being the Time person of the year since before I was born.

I think the biggest trickiness of this whole topic comes from the fact that it is indeed not so black and white. To clarify my stance, I cannot deny that there are people who did good acts in a way that can only be attributed to religion, and that they would not have done without religion. We have the following qualities: (good person, bad person) and how they're done (independently of religion/lack of religion, because of religion, because of lack of religion), and thus 6 total classes of people to investigate.

Just to quickly clarify an ambiguity here, I guess we could have more classes for "good ONLY because of religion" vs "good because of religion in reality, but hypothetically we expect they would have been good without it". But for the sake of simplicity it seems like we can lump that second type in with the "independently of religion" quality.

Definitely anyone who argues that the class of "Good Person Only Because Of Religion" is empty is being totally insane. There's a hefty amount of people in this category. I don't know all the people you listed, but I'm fine saying for sake of argument that they are all in it - although I imagine you'd agree some of them may have been good people and some things even if religion didn't exist? But I'd like to go in whatever direction you think makes your argument strongest.

Likewise, anyone who argues that the "Bad Person Only Because Of Lack Of Religion" category is empty is also being really biased. I'm sure there are plenty of people who have committed atrocities because "God doesn't exist so I can do whatever I can get away with", etc.

I think what's at stake here is, firstly, the relative sizes of these classes, and secondly, whether their relative size is a historical coincidence or an intrinsic result of something about religiosity.

If the stakes are right, I'm not really sure how to proceed "rigorously". It's really a job for sociological studies, since there are enough humans that we could both list individual examples for a very long time - I'm sure we both agree that all 6 classes of people I described have at least a million members alive even just right now. It seems like the best we can do is make persuasive type arguments.

I can think of a few directions of arguments to make, so forgive me in advance if I'm scatterbrained. I'll just write an idea of one:

Your examples of Good Because Of Religion people are outstanding, "great" people. Such people are not representative of the population as a whole. Perhaps for very outstanding people, religion is more likely to be beneficial. But when we look at how "the masses" (to use an elitist term) use religion to justify things, I usually see it for much more petty things like controlling one's children, as a justification for condemning groups they just don't like, as a justification for violence, etc. The role religion plays in the current American social situation is undoubtedly an example of this, and the same goes for the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and much of the perpetual conflict in the Middle East in general. I am not aware of similar situations in the world right now that are not largely based on religious zealotry. Even from historical concepts, it seems religion is often used as a tool to manufacture mass consent for these things.

Yeah it looks really disgusting, like it's shitting soft teeth

I love your comment, very rational argument that moves the discussion forward into more sophisticated territory. (Hopefully) respectful disagreement incoming.

"Bigot: : a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices

especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance"

So technically, bigot could describe anyone who treats members of a group with intolerance. For example, I am bigoted towards Nazis. This example demonstrates that "bigot" does not intrinsically equal "bad". It is probably a good thing to be bigoted towards Nazis. Given this definition, I don't think there's any way to claim these stances aren't bigoted towards religion, but the real question is whether that bigotry is a good thing or not. That sounds obviously wrong, but only because we're so used to hearing "bigot" as a synonym for bad. Given this definition I would proudly say, for instance, that I am bigoted against racists or sexists. And in a similar vein, if someone does a lot of good charity work in their city, and let's say they've even been a factual net positive for their city, but they're also deeply racist and sexist, I think it's fair for me to say "I hate them", even though they've done other good things. If I say "racism and sexism are evil", then I'm not really "ignoring evidence" of this guy being a good benefactor to his city. I'm correctly disentangling an irrelevant aspect (his social benevolence) from the relevant aspect (the intrinsic goodness or badness of being racist+sexist). Yes, there are racists who have done good things, good acts, good science even, etc etc. But that is not necessarily relevant to whether racism itself is good. It is obvious to most people that when the racist guy happens to benefit his city, say with a big charitable donation to the museum (and even all races of people in the city may benefit), that he did a good thing despite his racism and not because of it. This "despiteness" is hard to establish though, and I understand that this line of thinking easily leads to unfalsifiable claims, where every good thing done by a religious person gets attributed to non-religious causes and vice versa for bad things.

But in the case of the racist, it seems clear, doesn't it? All the good acts done by racists aren't really fair to count as evidence for "racism is a good thing". And to your point, all the bad acts done by racists aren't fair to count as evidence for "racism is a bad thing". If a racist cuts me off while driving without using their turn signal, I can't be like "this proves that racism is bad". We need to establish a causal link. My comment is getting long already, but to me it seems pretty clear that most of the good things done by religious people are things they likely would have done otherwise, since both atheists and religious people alike do plenty of good things, and the same sorts of good things. But there's a whole class of bad things (usually genocidal type things, but also human abuses, etc) that seem to almost exclusively exist under religious justifications.

Rare bloodletting W

Abode

What is it that you go to Reddit for that you don't get from Lemmy? To me, the only reason someone might look at Reddit instead is if Lemmy lacks the content they seek - do you think that's the case for you? Or maybe it's something else?