In defense of dangerous ideas
July 15, 2007
BY STEVEN PINKER

Do women, on average, have a different profile of aptitudes and emotions than men?

Were the events in the Bible fictitious -- not just the miracles, but those involving kings and empires?

Has the state of the environment improved in the last 50 years?

Do most victims of sexual abuse suffer no lifelong damage?

Did Native Americans engage in genocide and despoil the landscape?

Do men have an innate tendency to rape?

Did the crime rate go down in the 1990s because two decades earlier poor women aborted children who would have been prone to violence?

Are suicide terrorists well-educated, mentally healthy and morally driven?

Would the incidence of rape go down if prostitution were legalized?

Do African-American men have higher levels of testosterone, on average, than white men?

Is morality just a product of the evolution of our brains, with no inherent reality?

Would society be better off if heroin and cocaine were legalized?

Is homosexuality the symptom of an infectious disease?

Would it be consistent with our moral principles to give parents the option of euthanizing newborns with birth defects that would consign them to a life of pain and disability?

Do parents have any effect on the character or intelligence of their children?

Have religions killed a greater proportion of people than Nazism?

Would damage from terrorism be reduced if the police could torture suspects in special circumstances?

Would Africa have a better chance of rising out of poverty if it hosted more polluting industries or accepted Europe's nuclear waste?

Is the average intelligence of Western nations declining because duller people are having more children than smarter people?

Would unwanted children be better off if there were a market in adoption rights, with babies going to the highest bidder?

Would lives be saved if we instituted a free market in organs for transplantation?

Should people have the right to clone themselves, or enhance the genetic traits of their children?

Perhaps you can feel your blood pressure rise as you read these questions. Perhaps you are appalled that people can so much as think such things. Perhaps you think less of me for bringing them up. These are dangerous ideas -- ideas that are denounced not because they are self-evidently false, nor because they advocate harmful action, but because they are thought to corrode the prevailing moral order.

Think about it
By "dangerous ideas" I don't have in mind harmful technologies, like those behind weapons of mass destruction, or evil ideologies, like those of racist, fascist or other fanatical cults. I have in mind statements of fact or policy that are defended with evidence and argument by serious scientists and thinkers but which are felt to challenge the collective decency of an age. The ideas listed above, and the moral panic that each one of them has incited during the past quarter century, are examples. Writers who have raised ideas like these have been vilified, censored, fired, threatened and in some cases physically assaulted.

Every era has its dangerous ideas. For millennia, the monotheistic religions have persecuted countless heresies, together with nuisances from science such as geocentrism, biblical archeology, and the theory of evolution. We can be thankful that the punishments have changed from torture and mutilation to the canceling of grants and the writing of vituperative reviews. But intellectual intimidation, whether by sword or by pen, inevitably shapes the ideas that are taken seriously in a given era, and the rear-view mirror of history presents us with a warning.

Time and again, people have invested factual claims with ethical implications that today look ludicrous. The fear that the structure of our solar system has grave moral consequences is a venerable example, and the foisting of "intelligent design" on biology students is a contemporary one. These travesties should lead us to ask whether the contemporary intellectual mainstream might be entertaining similar moral delusions. Are we enraged by our own infidels and heretics whom history may some day vindicate?

Unsettling possibilities
Dangerous ideas are likely to confront us at an increasing rate and we are ill equipped to deal with them. When done right, science (together with other truth-seeking institutions, such as history and journalism) characterizes the world as it is, without regard to whose feelings get hurt. Science in particular has always been a source of heresy, and today the galloping advances in touchy areas like genetics, evolution and the environment sciences are bound to throw unsettling possibilities at us. Moreover, the rise of globalization and the Internet are allowing heretics to find one another and work around the barriers of traditional media and academic journals. I also suspect that a change in generational sensibilities will hasten the process. The term "political correctness" captures the 1960s conception of moral rectitude that we baby boomers brought with us as we took over academia, journalism and government. In my experience, today's students -- black and white, male and female -- are bewildered by the idea, common among their parents, that certain scientific opinions are immoral or certain questions too hot to handle.

more: (http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/469317,CST-CONT-danger15.article)

There may be a surfeit of unwanted adoptable babies, but the very idea of hitting the buy it now button on an EBAY auction for one *really* unnerves me.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

That's not a dangerous idea!

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

If babies are to be bid in open auctions, child molesters are going to have a field day.

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99 Gurkha with OM616 IDI turbo

2015 Gurkha with OM616 DI turbo

2014 Rexton W with OM612 VGT

I don't know how you Rat Worshipers do it but over here, some dog sellers are very picky about selling their dogs. A couple of mine have asked me for references from my vet and a couple of people. I would assume you could do the same for kids as a condition of the sale. IOW, you have won the bid but the sale is pending on background checks, etc, etc.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Assuming you're not a 15 year old kid who got pregnant and doesn't really care. Or that the buyer is not a proxy.

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1984 300TD

See when it comes to dogs, the situation changes, humans are trying to perfect the breed, but in case of a human child being sold to a molester, its an alltogehter different venue.

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99 Gurkha with OM616 IDI turbo

2015 Gurkha with OM616 DI turbo

2014 Rexton W with OM612 VGT

What about adoption? How do you know that the couple you let adopt your child isn't some sort of scam artist or child molester?

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

This makes me wonder why humans try to perfect the breed (of dog), but when it comes to their own kind, they rarely do.
Now some of you might say "waaait a minute....what about Hitler? - that is not what I am talking about...that is more of an institutional project, if you will. What I am talking about, is couples making well thought out decisions about having a child or children. About as close as humans come (as far as I know) is having some blood tests done, to make sure that there aren't any blatant mutations/medical conditions.

Well....I have a few more thoughts, but they are scattered right now, as it is past my bed time....I'm sure y'all will have a few cents to add.


As far as "dangerous ideas" - How do we know that these "ideas" aren't designer ideas....to see how far reaching they can be, their acceptance level, and their longevity? After all, if you're going to have a good propaganda machine, you need to run some tests to see what the public will swallow, and what they won't. Just like a good urban legend, you have to make a part of it plausible. Do you really trust your (or most other) government?

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It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

Absolutely, thats why the government now made it very difficult for overseas adoption, many European couples were caught running paedophile rings here disguised as missionary or humanitarian adoption agencies for couples overseas, when they got busted, things became difficult for adaption agencies, kind of sad as there are many waiting to be adopted but the red tape makes the situation worse.

Larry Delor,

Good point, have always wondered that myself.

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99 Gurkha with OM616 IDI turbo

2015 Gurkha with OM616 DI turbo

2014 Rexton W with OM612 VGT

I posed a dangerous question here before, and nobody answered.

In Compton average home prices are over $400,000. Why is there so much crime?

__________________
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

Because they have good stuff to steal?

__________________
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

The abortion rate may go way down as a result.