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Science Proves Ayn Rand Wrong About Altruism and Laissez-Faire Economics – Evonomics

Human Nature By Denise Cummins Evolution clearly shows how altruism trumps selfishness. In a previous article, I described the disastrous outcomes of two real-world attempts to implement Ayn Rand’s principles. Among the over 1,300 comments on the article were complaints from Rand’s followers that her views had been misrepresented.

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Ayn Rand vs. Anthropology – Evonomics

Human Nature Did natural selection favor individualists or altruists? By Eric Michael Johnson Black-and-white colobus monkeys scrambled through the branches of Congo’s Ituri Forest in 1957 as a small band of Mbuti hunters wound cautiously through the undergrowth, joined by anthropologist Colin Turnbull. The Mbuti are pygmies, about 4 feet tall, but they are powerful and tough.

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Why Ayn Rand Was Wrong about Altruism, Selfishness, Evolution, and Human Nature – Evonomics

Human Nature By Eric Michael Johnson Rand would be surprised by the new science of selfishness and altruism “Every political philosophy has to begin with a theory of human nature,” wrote Harvard evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin in his book Biology as Ideology.

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Media, morality and the neighbor’s cow: When did Ayn Rand become the Republican Party’s bible?

This piece originally appeared on BillMoyers.com. If you have any doubts that the phenomenon of Donald Trump was a long time a’coming, you have only to read a piece that Gore Vidal wrote for Esquire magazine in July 1961, when the conservative movement was just beginning and even Barry Goldwater was hardly a glint in Republicans’ eyes.

The post Media, morality and the neighbor’s cow: When did Ayn Rand become the Republican Party’s bible? – Salon.com appeared first on Rationally Thinking Out Loud.

• Late news this afternoon,…Herman Cain is done, stick a fork in him.
• Herman Cain Denies New Affair Allegation – ABC News
• Breaking: Herman Cain may be sunk | The Zingularity
• First Read – Cain denies new allegation of affair
• Jeffrey Sachs: Fairness and the Occupy Movement Revisited
• Rep. Barney Frank retiring – The Washington Post.
• MittvMitt.com: The story of two men trapped in one body – YouTube.
  
• Despite GOP Claims, U.S. Health Care Nowhere Near ‘Best’ in the World | NationofChange
• GOP poised to raised taxes on the middle class
  

  Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Economics & The Economy

• The lessons of “Margin Call” | Felix Salmon
• Jared Bernstein: What Now?
• Ryan makes FP ‘Global Thinkers’ list – MJ Lee – POLITICO.com
• The Poor, the Near Poor and You – NYTimes.com
• Why Atlas Shrugged » New Deal 2.0  (the emphasis is mine)
  

  […] Real societal wealth is anything that enhances the lives of those in our society, starting with basics such as food, shelter and medicine, but also including almost any property a person can own or anything a person can experience, such as entertainment or greater convenience. Real wealth can be eaten, used, shared. or experienced.Profits cannot be eaten and they do not provide shelter. As a consequence, it’s essential to recognize that the creation of profits is often confused with the creation of real societal wealth. They are different. Profits are an accounting proxy we use for indicating whether wealth is created. But like all proxies, this one sometimes falls short. With regard to the financial industry, this proxy has failed the nation spectacularly.

  […]

• On Capitol Hill, Rand’s ‘Atlas’ Can’t Be Shrugged Off : NPR
• Eight Reasons Why Extending Unemployment Benefits Will Boost the Economy » New Deal 2.0
• A couple of posts from Brad DeLong’s blog:
• Christina Romer on the One Thing That Disillusioned Her: The Fiscal Policy Debate
• No, the Unemployed Are Not Happy

Climate & Climate Politics

• A tale of two climate articles | The Zingularity
  

  The funny thing about climate change — and I don’t me funny haha, more like funny eye/roll and groan — is the evidence is so powerful and easy for anyone to understand. Among creationist grifters one aspect of the fleecing is to demand evidence for evolution happening now, right now, and then reject any adaptations or speciations offered. It’s easy to do, the transitions day to day over the life of a person are not dramatic, imagine if they used the same tactics plate tectonics! But when it comes to climate change the evidence is simple, it is indeed happening now, right now, and since everyone has experience with thermometers and outdoor temperatures, it’s easy for the laypublic to understand that evidence.

  The climate change denial industry literally reduces to urging people to ignore their lying eyes and listen to the energy industry scientists and lawyers. One way to do that is to demonize climate scientists and that’s exactly what this story in the Daily Mail is attempting to do in a somewhat feeble manner….

• An unbelievable angry right wing rant from an ignorant science denier: It is “Global Warming Week” and the press will be full of it « The Greenroom
• RealClimate: Ice age constraints on climate sensitivity The paper being discussed and criticized here has been seen in the press lately with headlines to the effect that “Global warming much less serious than thought” or something to that effect. Maybe that’s not really the news the press should have been reporting (the emphasis is mine)…
  

  […] Unfortunately, the media coverage has not been very good. Partly, this is related to some ambiguous statements by the authors, and partly because media discussions of climate sensitivity have a history of being poorly done. The dominant frame was set by the press release which made a point of suggesting that this result made “extreme predictions” unlikely. This is fair enough, but had already been clear from the previous work discussed above. This was transformed into “Climate sensitivity was ‘overestimated’” by the BBC (not really a valid statement about the state of the science), compounded by the quote that Andreas Schmittner gave that “this implies that the effect of CO2 on climate is less than previously thought”. Who had previously thought what was left to the readers’ imagination. Indeed, the latter quote also prompted the predictably loony IBD editorial board to declare that this result proves that climate science is a fraud (though this is not Schmittner’s fault – they conclude the same thing every other Tuesday).

  The Schmittner et al. analysis marks the insensitive end of the spectrum of climate sensitivity estimates based on LGM data, in large measure because it used a data set and a weighting that may well be biased toward insufficient cooling. Unfortunately, in reporting new scientific studies a common fallacy is to implicitly assume a new study is automatically “better” than previous work and supersedes this. In this case one can’t blame the media, since the authors’ press release cites Schmittner saying that “the effect of CO2 on climate is less than previously thought”. It would have been more appropriate to say something like “our estimate of the effect is less than many previous estimates”.

• Nations Meet to Address Problems of Climate Change – NYTimes.com
• The Climate Scientists Who Wrote the Hacked Emails Explain the Cherry-Picked Phrases, If That’s Your Thing | ThinkProgress

Science

• “Great Dying” Lasted 200,000 Years found via “Great Dying” Lasted 200,000 Years – Brian Handwerk – National Geographic News – RichardDawkins.net

The post What I'm Reading Monday, November 28, 2011 appeared first on Rationally Thinking Out Loud.

“The Objectivist ethics, in essence,” said Rand, “hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself.”

If Objectivism seems familiar, it is because most people know it under another name: adolescence. Many of us experienced a few unfortunate years of invincible self-involvement, testing moral boundaries and prone to stormy egotism and hero worship. Usually one grows out of it, eventually discovering that the quality of our lives is tied to the benefit of others. Rand’s achievement was to turn a phase into a philosophy, as attractive as an outbreak of acne.

 

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