With regard to myself, I am always hesitant to be quick to my own defense. Every other person (or, nearly so) is prone to allowing their blinders, and in fact I just finished a conversation on the existence of a maximal set of truths where my own inclinations stopped me from seeing what should have been an obvious inference. So, I'm not really sure what to make of the claim that I see the natural explanations for evolution as being far stronger than they are--that saying the theory of evolution is a well founded and demonstrated as heliocentrism is somehow wrong. Part of the problem is that I used to be an Old Earth Creationist, and it was the evidence of evolution that swayed me away. Did the pendulum swing too far in the other direction? I can probably never answer that objectively. However, I do take it as a personal responsibility to question my own views as well as those of others, and to change my views when reliable evidence opposes them. Isn't that part of the heart of being a skeptic? For now, I'll consider myself probably innocent on that particular charge. For those inclined to disagree, please use this thread to talk about skepticism and/or me generally, and let's keep lengthy comments about evolution specifically in the above-linked thread.
Meanwhile, at Martin Cothran's discussion of atheism and logic on vere loqui, an old contention about atheism and morality that I'm not interested in re-arguing today, find inserted this interesting little ditty (any distortion of the meaning by my snips is strictly unintentional).
There were, in fact, moral beliefs before Christianity came along. There are two kinds of virtue: the cardinal (or classical) virtues: Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Courage; and the theological (or Christian) virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity. The first four, the cardinal virtues, not only can be sustained without explicit religious belief; they in fact were. They arose in a world, not without religion, but without religions that said much about morality.
The cardinal virtues have also been called the “practical” virtues. They had mostly to do with getting along in life. The most familiar examples of this were Aesop’s Fables.
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All these cases involve sheer self-preservation. This is of the essence of pagan morality: it is exclusively self-preservative or at least self-gratifying (and usually applied only to other members of one’s tribe or race).
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But there is nothing in Aesop like the parables of the Good Samaritan, or the Lost Sheep, or the Prodigal Son. The theological virtues are completely different from the practical or classical virtues in this: there is literally no practical reason for them.
It turns out this is just plainly false. For example, in this version of the Serpent and the Eagle, there is no virtue more appropriate to describe the action of the man, or the eagle, than Charity. Neither expects to gain a direct benefit from their behavior. Of course, Cothran probably did not bother to actually research all of Aesop's fables before his comment. He knew of a handful, and they confirmed his previous bias that there is some sort of real difference in the notion of virtues between non-Christians and Christians. why should he bother to do any research to see if it was true? Of course, that's a theme skeptics see all the time from the credulous of all sorts.
Meanwhile, from Edward Feser's blog, we are treated to an article where, while trying to disprove “Having a thought with the content that P is identical to, supervenient upon, or otherwise explicable in terms of having a sentence with the meaning that P encoded in the brain", Feser begins by making a comparison to musical notes and numbers, saying that "... the point is that the relationships between notes are clearly not reducible to or entirely explicable in terms of mathematical relationships." Feser seems to have a habit using counter-to-reality claims (in other posts, we see a discussion of the notion of simultaneous cause-and-effect, which has no physical example). On a typical piano, there are seven "B" keys, each of which is exactly described by a number of Hz.
Finally, on the Maverick Philospher's blog, there is a brief post objecting to the term Islamophobia. For a person that prides themself on such a precise use of language that they are careful to distinguish between single quotes for non-direct quotes, and double quotes for direct quotes, this is just an embarrassing oversight. My guess is that it comes from the usual persecution complex we see among the religious, the automatic assumption that any term must be implying the worst possible meaning. While many times phobia indicates fear, the term is also used to indicate dislike or aversion. No one thinks you have to be scared of French or English people to be Francophobic or Anglophobic, similarly, you don't have be afraid of Muslims or Islam to be Islamophobic. It's quite correct to use the term Islamophobic (or homophobic) to describe people who just dislike Islam (or homosexuality). I think Dr. Vallicella needs to stop being "a dumbass PeeCee" conservative, and just accept this is what he is.
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Eric, on an intellectual level you are sophisticated about the limits of logic, the limits of empiricism, etc., but, on a practical level I think you often overlook, or fail to apply, certain insights and distinctions that you have no trouble seeing abstractly.
With some thought, I could probably recall a number of instances where I thought this was the case in our past discussions, but let me confine it to a particular current case.
Take the difference between methodological and "philosophical" (ontological, metaphysical, whatever) naturalism (materialism, reductionism-- in Woese's terminology, or whatever). There is an important distinction to be aware of here. But "being aware" of the distinction does not help one much if one simply advances the distinction as meaningful in the abstract, without regard to the case at hand.
Methods are distinct from the theories which employ them. A supernaturalist can employ naturalistic methods and a "naturalist" can employ what is essentially supernatural methodology.
A point I have tried to make is that neo-darwinism may well employ naturalistic methods, but that does not exempt it from the charge of incorporating philosophical premises into it's theoretical premises. Nor is it just a "matter of choice" as to which perspective (ontological or methodological) one prefers to take. If a theory incorporates "philosophical" assumptions into its main axioms one does not change that by the method he chooses to employ in assessing it.
Evolutionary theory has always encountered resistance from certain segments of society. As a counter-measure, scientists decided to "take the offensive" and repeatedly proclaim that their assumptions were "fact." This was often coupled with ridicule of any "naive" person who did not take them at their word. Decades of this have led many to unquestionably accept the demonstrated "truth" and indubitability of neo-darwinism. Many scientists have themselves admitted to succumbing to the power of such an omnipresent confident assertion of certainty by the respected scientific authorities.
I have a feeling that this rhetoric tactic influenced your acceptance of the "scientific" orthodoxy as much as, or maybe more than, the "evidence" itself. Just guessin, of course.
Eric, on an intellectual level you are sophisticated about the limits of logic, the limits of empiricism, etc., but, on a practical level I think you often overlook, or fail to apply, certain insights and distinctions that you have no trouble seeing abstractly.
That's certainly possible, but I do work to avoid it. On the other hand, it's quite possible that we simply disagree on the what the proper limits really are. For example, the existence of a supernatural influence in rolling a die might effect the ontological nature of the randomness of the die roll, but the rolls may still be indistinguishable from random empirically. If that's the case, it's still proper to refer to them as random die rolls.
The rest will be responded to in the other thread.
One Brow said: "For example, the existence of a supernatural influence in rolling a die might effect the ontological nature of the randomness of the die roll, but the rolls may still be indistinguishable from random empirically. If that's the case, it's still proper to refer to them as random die rolls."
As a matter of equivocation, sure, but as a matter of substance I disagree. Such a roll would not be "ontologically" random, just epistemologically so. In the latter case the label of"randomness" is assigned due to ignorance, not knowledge. Many things that are strictly determined may well be totally unpredictable to us because we don't understand, or cannot effectively quantitify and compute, the underlying causes and determinants. Needless to say, only those with solipsistic inclinations tend to equate their lack of personal knowledge with the "truth."
This kinda reminds me of a discussion I (we) had with Densprun, where he suggested that the equal probability of heads or tails in a coin flip was due an inherent property of the coin. This is a mistaken view, and is not simply an aknowledgment of ignorance. It is an ontological claim.
It's been a long time now, but do you remember our exchange of posts concerning a statement made by a researcher (was it Gerholt, so some name like that?) about the "black box" of biological variation?
You immediately interpreted that as an ontological claim, the way I read you, while I was inclined to treat it as an epistemological claim, just because I didn't think a respected scientist would be that quick to incorporate metaphysical pronounments into his conclusions.
In the end, I had to concede that you could well be right about the researcher's intent. If you were, I still think the scientist was not talkin as a scientist, but rather as a metaphyscian.
As a matter of equivocation, sure, but as a matter of substance I disagree. Such a roll would not be "ontologically" random, just epistemologically so. In the latter case the label of"randomness" is assigned due to ignorance, not knowledge.
That's how it is always assigned. Take the case of a guy rolling the dice at a craps tables. There is not one ontologically random occurence that will significantly effect teh outcome of that roll. The muscle contractions, the way the dice bounce on the table, etc., are all ontologically non-random. The dice roll is only random epistemologically.
Many things that are strictly determined may well be totally unpredictable to us because we don't understand, or cannot effectively quantitify and compute, the underlying causes and determinants. Needless to say, only those with solipsistic inclinations tend to equate their lack of personal knowledge with the "truth."
On the other hand, some people seem to take the claim of something can not be predicted as the equivalent of saying that it is unpredictable at a fundamental level.
This kinda reminds me of a discussion I (we) had with Densprun, where he suggested that the equal probability of heads or tails in a coin flip was due an inherent property of the coin. This is a mistaken view, and is not simply an aknowledgment of ignorance. It is an ontological claim.
In the sense that an improperly balanced coin will not give an equal probability, except in very carefully orchestrated conditions, it is a true statement. Only balanced coins flip equally in relatively uncontrolled conditions. I agree that it is not a property solely belonging to the coin.
It's been a long time now, but do you remember our exchange of posts concerning a statement made by a researcher (was it Gerholt, so some name like that?) about the "black box" of biological variation?
You immediately interpreted that as an ontological claim, the way I read you, while I was inclined to treat it as an epistemological claim, just because I didn't think a respected scientist would be that quick to incorporate metaphysical pronounments into his conclusions.
In the end, I had to concede that you could well be right about the researcher's intent. If you were, I still think the scientist was not talkin as a scientist, but rather as a metaphyscian.
I don't recall that topic. I couldn't find it in a search. Today, I would agree with you that an onotological statement would be speaking metaphysically.
One Brow said: "I don't recall that topic. I couldn't find it in a search. Today, I would agree with you that an onotological statement would be speaking metaphysically."
When you say "today," you imply that I may be bringing up an exchange from years back. But it was relatively recently (probably in the first set of 200 posts on this topic in this blog).
The scientist used the word "random" or "randomness" in connection with a reference to the black box of variation. You maintained that he was referring to a ontological form of randomness, and apparently thought I was profoundly dense to think otherwise.
I took a look myself, and the following was posted on April 29 of this year in the Nagel thread. This is part of the exchange I was talkin about:
Me: "In response to this excerpt:Biologists from Havard and Berkeley (Gerhart and Kirschner), who advance a theory of "facilitated (non-random) variation, state that: "discoveries of gene regulation have opened the possibility of important evolutionary changes in nontranscribed DNA sequences, as well. Still, there are no “laws of variation” regarding its generation, only a black box of chaotic accidents entered by genetic variation and occasionally exited by selectable phenotypic variation," One Brow said "You realize this quote is actually promoting random change as a driver?"
Actually, it was April 27, but these old posts are hard to read because I think they got scrambled between two threads (including one pre-dating the Nagel thread). You did in fact acknowledge that it was a metaphysical claim at the time, but you imputed an ontological intent to the scientist (Gerhart). A few more excerpts, to refresh your memory:
No, I don't realize that, Eric.
How much more clear can "chaotic accidents" be on their positon?
Me: Why deduce so much from two specifically selected words? Why not at least put the words in SOME context? The entire phrase was "a black box of chaotic accidents." How, if at all, does the addition of the words "black box" modify or clarify the meaning intended, ya figure?
The term "black box" generally indicates an acknowledgment that the one invoking it has no idea at all about the internal workings which occur between input and output.
Gerhart is sayin he simply doesn't know what happens in the "black box," not that he knows the inner workings to be a function of "chaotic accidents."
He is admitting his ignorance, rather than proclaiming his knowledge, as you want to infer.
You: I guess we could assume that he used the terms "chaotic accidents" to mean "unable to see inside". It's certainly not what I would expect. If he genuinely had no opinion on the nature of the contents of the box at all, I would typcially expect to see it called a black box of unknown mechanisms.
Honestly, I see it as assmption more than knowledge....the use of the term "black box" does not disavow all opinions on the inner workings. Now, if you want to say that their presumption of chaotic accidents is a metaphysical assumption without proof, I'll grant you that.
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My point in bringing this up again now is to demonstrate that you yourself seem to impute metsphysical presumptions to evolutionary theorists.
One Brow said: "How much more clear can "chaotic accidents" be on their positon?
I said: "Such a roll would not be "ontologically" random, just epistemologically so. In the latter case the label of"randomness" is assigned due to ignorance, not knowledge."
You replied: "That's how it is always assigned.... The dice roll is only random epistemologically.
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I can't figure out what you're getting at unless it's just another attempt to define a word in an idiosyncratic way which leaves your interpretation as the only permissible one by defintion.
The concept of randomness certainly has an ontological meaning in every day language, and it is NOT confined to an epistemological meaning. Every dictionary I've looked at has something similar to this as it's first definition:
"adjective:
1.lacking aim or method; purposeless; haphazard
This definition says nothing whatsover about subjective predictability. On the other hand, it says something very definite about an objective lack of purpose.
"Admitting in Origin the difficulty of expecting “extremely slight and gradual” changes to come together to create so complex a structure as the vertebrate eye, Darwin noted: “I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at others hesitating to extend the principle of natural selection to so startling a length.”
Stimulated by the ID critics, the authors of the book being reviewed here, who we just discussed in the last thread, try to address the powerful criticisms of the IDers (which simply exploit long-recognized weak points in the standard orthodoxy) while simultaneously refuting ID:
"Kirschner and Gerhart begin where Darwin left off. How can novel, directionless variations add up to complexity? “Ignorance about novelty,” they offer, “is at the heart of skepticism about evolution, and resolving its origins is necessary to complete our understanding of Darwin’s theory...the authors conclude that life is indeed plausible by natural selection if the results of random mutation are biased toward useful variation, [and say]“The bias introduced by facilitated variation accelerates the process of natural selection by giving it more viable variation of a type likely to be appropriate to the selective conditions than it would have been if variation occurred in all directions.”
So the results of random mutation are biased toward "useful variation," and, presumably, life would be "implausible" if they weren't, eh? So they kinda throw the slow, random, "gene-by-gene" gradualistic element of neo-darwinism under the bus, it seems. Not to worry though, shades of Dawkins are comin up:
"The authors argue that this uniformity has only the appearance of design and planning...From this they assert that living things do not show design, as the same mechanism is used over and over by seemingly unrelated organisms. If living things were the work of a Creator, they ask, wouldn’t each organism be unique, built from its own particular and idiosyncratic plan?"
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=4752
As I said a long time ago, I look at the works of Denton, Behe, et al for a good critique of the generally accepted theory, not for a positive statement of an alternative platform. A rational, coherent critique of existing explanations constitutes "science" just as much as the theory being criticized. In this sense, ID theory constitutes "good science."
The fact is that ID theorists, aided by new findings made possible by new techniques, have stimulated a great deal of reflection upon, and new ways of thinking about, existing theory in (some segments of) the evolutionary community. They have thereby done a service to the advancement of science. These authors are professors at Berkeley and Harvard, so the "revolution" is hitting the top tier, I guess.
And, to their credit, these authors have the humility to admit that they have no explanation for the origination of the "evolvability" on which they base their theory of facilitated variation, saying: “The novelty and the complexity of the [prokaryotic] cell is so far beyond anything inanimate in the world today that we are left baffled by how it was achieved. . . . We can do little more than speculate.”
"From this they assert that living things do not show design, as the same mechanism is used over and over by seemingly unrelated organisms. If living things were the work of a Creator, they ask, wouldn’t each organism be unique, built from its own particular and idiosyncratic plan?"
A very weak (even if correct) argument, doncha think? For one thing, they purport to know the ways of a Creator, which I would otherwise think they would leave to the claims of the religious folk. For another, this just makes it that much easier for creationists to assert that God imparted a common plan applicable to all life as an explanation for such universal, yet easily evolvable, entities as hox genes. Furthermore the mysterious, complex, and poorly understood activities of GRN's (gene regulatory networks) could be argued to exhibit the existence of some kinda "elan vital" or self-directed internal "intelligence" of the type posited by ID theory.
Even hardliners like Mayr seem to have some sympathy with guys like Grasse and see the wisdom of scientists/philosophers like Noble and Woese with respect to (ontological) materialistic reductionism. To quote from Wiki:
Jöns Jakob Berzelius, one of the early 19th century "fathers" of modern chemistry, though he rejected mystical explanations of vitalism, nevertheless argued that a regulative force must exist within living matter to maintain its functions...Vitalism is now considered an obsolete term in the philosophy of science, most often used as a pejorative epithet.[5] Still, Ernst Mayr, co-founder of the modern evolutionary synthesis and a critic of both vitalism and reductionism, writing in 2002 after the mathematical development of theories underlying emergent behavior, stated:
"It would be ahistorical to ridicule vitalists. When one reads the writings of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch one is forced to agree with him that many of the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine…..The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable. But all their efforts to find a scientific answer to all the so-called vitalistic phenomena were failures.… rejecting the philosophy of reductionism is not an attack on analysis. No complex system can be understood except through careful analysis. However the interactions of the components must be considered as much as the properties of the isolated components."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
Also from Wiki on the topic of vitalism:
"A refinement of vitalism may be recognized in contemporary molecular histology in the proposal that some key organising and structuring features of organisms, perhaps including even life itself, are examples of emergent processes; those in which a complexity arises, out of interacting chemical processes forming interconnected feedback cycles, that cannot fully be described in terms of those processes since the system as a whole has properties that the constituent reactions lack...According to Emmeche et al. (1997):
"On the one hand, many scientists and philosophers regard emergence as having only a pseudo-scientific status. On the other hand, new developments in physics, biology, psychology, and crossdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science, artificial life, and the study of non-linear dynamical systems have focused strongly on the high level 'collective behaviour' of complex systems which is often said to be truly emergent, and the term is increasingly used to characterize such systems."
In contrast: "Anti-reductionism has been identified as a problem in psychology. Thomas (2001) states that "It is now generally considered that biology had to rid itself of vitalism to enable significant progress to occur. It is suggested that psychology will develop as a science only after it rids itself of anti-reductionistic, 'emergentism'." B.F. Skinner would be proud, eh?
I wonder which of these viewpoints is mere psuedo-science (philosophical supernaturalism) and which one represents "true science" (realistic pursuit of truth, without philosophical presuppositions)? Is is possible that both are equally "philosophical" in nature at bottom? Could both be equally "scientific?"
Oops...seems I kinda lost track of the thread I was postin in. I meant to put the last few posts in the "evolution thread" although they seem to me to be equally relevant to a thread discussin the effect of "world views" on thought processes and assessments of "objective reality," truth be told.
Too bad you refuse to listen to the Johnson video I cited, eh, Eric? I can't help but chuckle at the way he advocates the secular/materialist view with a straight face and apparent (if you didn't know better) sincerity. For example, to paraphrase (very roughly):
"Ya see, God just causes a bunch of trouble. That concept would just lead to a dogmatic biblical dictatorship, and we wouldn't want that. To suppose a God would be to suppose that there are limits on what we can do and what we can achieve. We rightly seek liberation from such authoritarian propositions and it is our duty to utterly destroy that kinda superstitious myth.
Gittin back to the one of the themes of this post, Eric, it seems to me that many (perhaps yourself included) self-styled "skeptics" are actually only "skeptical" in a very selective way. Many are, in fact, dogmatic partisans of issues relating to their beliefs system(s) and little more.
The left wing liberal, or example, will always be immediately and intensely "skeptical" about any claim by someone they perceive to be a "right-winger." They will they turn around and accept, without critical thought, just about any claim by their left-wing leaders.
The same thing is obviously true of many "right-wingers" when it comes to assessing claims of their perceived ideological opponents.
The dedicated communist, for another example, will be scathingly "skeptical" about any claimed beneficial aspects of "imperialistic" capitalism, but will perceive the tenets of communism to be virtually self-evident. These partisan types are, at bottom, very gullible, and not the least bit skeptical.
I said: "Such a roll would not be "ontologically" random, just epistemologically so. In the latter case the label of"randomness" is assigned due to ignorance, not knowledge."
You replied: "That's how it is always assigned.... The dice roll is only random epistemologically.
I can't figure out what you're getting at unless it's just another attempt to define a word in an idiosyncratic way which leaves your interpretation as the only permissible one by defintion.
The concept of randomness certainly has an ontological meaning in every day language, and it is NOT confined to an epistemological meaning. Every dictionary I've looked at has something similar to this as it's first definition:
"adjective:
1.lacking aim or method; purposeless; haphazard
This definition says nothing whatsover about subjective predictability. On the other hand, it says something very definite about an objective lack of purpose.
None of the aspects of that definition apply to rolling dice in a craps game. The dice rolls are done deliberately and with a purpose (to win money). On the other hand, we have definition 2 from http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/random:
Mathematics & Statistics Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution
The language of science is much more like to resemble the mathematical usage than the common usage. Note definition 2 is an epistemological definition.
Gittin back to the one of the themes of this post, Eric, it seems to me that many (perhaps yourself included) self-styled "skeptics" are actually only "skeptical" in a very selective way. Many are, in fact, dogmatic partisans of issues relating to their beliefs system(s) and little more.
It wouldn't be the first time a person has tried to assume a palatable label. Who did you have in mind? To throw out a few names, I would not classify Dawkins, P. Z. Myers, Dennet, etc. as being skeptics.
These partisan types are, at bottom, very gullible, and not the least bit skeptical.
I agree, and I do try to keep this in mind myself. I don't claim I am always successful. :)
One Brow said: "The language of science is much more like to resemble the mathematical usage than the common usage."
Ya think? I haven't seen many popularizers of evolutionary theory rely on strictly mathematical useage of everyday language, ya know? Nor have I seen one define the word "random," when used in connection with "mutation," talk about a probability distribution. The explicit meaning is always one of "purposelessness" with respect to the needs of the organism.
One Brow said: "To throw out a few names, I would not classify Dawkins, P. Z. Myers, Dennet, etc. as being skeptics."
I see you catch my drift very readily. I'm not too familiar with Myers (stikes me as a Dawkins type, though), but absolutely with respect to Dennett and Dawkins, as I see them. In many respects, they have all the attributes of those with an extreme degree of faith--at least within the realm of issues that involve with their personal belief systems. This is notwithstanding the fact that they are both obviously very bright, and can even present a fairly convincing facade of being completely "objective."
Eric, from my discussions with you, I get the sense that your "world-view," insofar as the "natural" world goes, could probably be more or less adequately summarized as beomg materialistic, mechanistic, reductionistic, and deterministic in general form.
Such a world-view (whether it is truly yours, or not) is a basic, unquestioned set of premises for those who adopt it. Once adopted and incorporated as a basis for all further thought and analysis, certain types of conclusions must necessarily follow. How one views what "facts" are, or can be, what "reality" is, what "freedom" (or lack thereof) and necessity are, and what conclusions they dictate, is somewhat "automatic" from that point forward (assuming they are consistent, at least).
As I said elsewhere, both dialectical idealism and dialectical materialism have the "power" to explain virturally all phenomena, but you will reach radically different conclusions with each.
Of course, we all have value systems that are often independent of our assessment of the "natural world." You have political views, social views, moral views etc., that are not totally dependent upon (altlhough not entirely divorced from) your view of the natural world too. I won't address those right now.
I will say this about myself. I do not share the materialistic mindset, at least not as a complete picture of "reality." For that reason, if no other, we are bound to disagree on many issues. On this score, my views are also "metaphysical" and color my interpretations of events, both ontologically and methodologically.
Ya think? I haven't seen many popularizers of evolutionary theory rely on strictly mathematical useage of everyday language, ya know? Nor have I seen one define the word "random," when used in connection with "mutation," talk about a probability distribution. The explicit meaning is always one of "purposelessness" with respect to the needs of the organism.
It is the ontological non-randomness of the mutations, in particular the causes and mechanisms of such mutations, that engenders the epistemological conclusion of being random with respect to the needs of the organism.
Eric, from my discussions with you, I get the sense that your "world-view," insofar as the "natural" world goes, could probably be more or less adequately summarized as beomg materialistic, mechanistic, reductionistic, and deterministic in general form.
Materialistic - broad term that covers lots of area. I am a natualist, but not a physicalist.
Mechanistic - no, I would not subscribe to either universal or anthropic mechanism. Much closer views would be dual-aspect monism or functionalism.
Reductionistic - on a methodoligical level, reductionism can be useful for the initial examination of any chaotic system, but I not believe you can always describe the whole picture using reductionist techniques, and reject ontological reductionism
Deterministic - the last I knew of, there were quantum phenomena which seemed to be ontologically random, as opposed to merely unpredictable, which makes material determinism impossible; but on the mind/body issue, the Theory of Evolution, etc., I would say determinism is a useful approximation
I will say this about myself. I do not share the materialistic mindset, at least not as a complete picture of "reality." For that reason, if no other, we are bound to disagree on many issues. On this score, my views are also "metaphysical" and color my interpretations of events, both ontologically and methodologically.
I agree that everyone does have their views colored by their outlooks, and I wouldn't change yours even if I could.
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