I always think it is interesting when a guest speaker whose material has been presented in the course comes in. It provides a setting to ask questions that can give more context to their argument and a better understanding overall.
I thought that the first part of Professor Saad’s talk about truth was fascinating as it can relate to contemporary politics. He said that it is important to always pursue the truth. Then defined consequentialists. This group are individuals who believe that it is justified to lie in order to spare the feelings of others. When he said this, it made me think of how politicians sometimes will not be completely transparent as their main goal while in office is to be re-elected. Therefore, they will spare the feelings of their constituents in order to get votes.
Additionally, I found his research on evolutionary psychology applied to markets and consumer behavior to be interesting. Being a biology major, I have taken many courses that focus on evolution and the connection to survival. I think that it is interesting that he takes a concept that is strongly evidence based to apply to human behavior and particular decisions.
Another part of his talk that gave me a new perspective was the part about the homeostasis of victimology and non-falsifiability. The two examples that he provided with the graduate student wear a hijab for a week and the Israeli soldiers gang raping women highlighted this concept. When these individuals started they had a particular hypothesis and then all the evidence gathered over the course of the experiment did not support it. Instead of concluding that the evidence did not support the hypothesis, they changed how they interpreted the data. A researcher having this type of bias in their work can perpetuate negative stereotypes. I think that this partially relates back to the first point of pursuing the truth vs. consequentialist. The results of the two examples he provided, these researchers lied in order to spare their own feelings of admitting they were wrong. This relates to the general theme of the course of intellectuals. Intellectuals pursue the truth. However, they do so objectively, thus not factoring emotions into the truths they discover. I think that it is always important to critically analyze if a truth is actually evidence based or the evidence is molded to fit a particular emotional idea that someone holds.
2 replies on “Blog Post for 10/19 Class”
I also talked about the homeostasis of victimology in my blog post. I claimed that this concept can be used as a defense mechanism against idea pathogens as offering a sense of immunity towards the individual. He describes the homeostasis of victimology as the mechanism in the human mind and body that tries to achieve an equilibrium state. Through reaching this equilibrium we are able to approach scientific data without biases or emotional influence. I think that if we embodied this homeostasis it would allow us to think properly and not allow internalized stereotypes to influence experimental designs or analyses.
Additionally, I also thought that Saad’s discussion of an utopian society was interesting. He talks about wokeism as a gnostic movement from the New Left whose goal is to achieve a utopian society. This utopian is not postponed until the supernatural worlds, rather they desire to achieve it in the reality of this world. This complicates things because New Leftists are trying to see visible progress being made within their lifetime, rather than waiting until when they die. Another interesting claim Gad Saad makes is that the concept of destiny is unfalsifiable and not within the scientific realm. Scientific research is not concerned with proving or disproving the existence of destiny because it is impossible to do so. The goal of social science is rather to produce empirical evidence about social phenomena within our world. We can then use these data to produce well founded hypotheses and rational arguments to share.
I also talked about his ideas on victimology. I found that whole section pretty interesting. I also was baffled by when research got to research something and what they find is the opposite, they find some way to explain it and basically keep their thesis the same.