Ethics starts from that ethical judgments become conflicted, not from alleged ”ethical agnosticism”.

For example we don’t ponder whether theft is wrong somehow in general but how to solve situations where people have different ideas of theft.

Abstract: Philosophers customarily claim that moral questions are out of the reach of science. Michael Shermer argues that this is not the case. Moral claims are intimately related to two facts: what humans want and don’t want (e.g. avoiding slavery), and methods by which to satisfy these values (e.g. by institutions aimed at securing human rights). Both of these aspects have factual claims baked into them, and so, can be studied empirically. For example, social sciences have (or at least could) established that democracies are better than autocracies in protecting people against various forms of harm. To the extent that our fundamental values are out of reach from science, we can treat morality as a set of hypothetical imperatives (i.e. a set of if-then statements).

The problem is that "real communism" cannot exist, the methodology Marx prescribes is the absurd absolute rule of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" to achieve a stateless society. In reality the only thing that comes from this dictatorship is a dictatorship. Imagine that.

Summary: There are two worlds: the objective and the subjective. The objective includes mutually comprehensible reality and abstractions like math, science, language, logic, and ethics. The subjective includes conceptions of the good and our personal passions, like art, beauty, and love. These are two separate realms that some ethical theories inappropriately conflate.

The objective is publicly observable, articulable, and determined. The subjective is personal, unconscious, and the source of meaning. The objective has no authority over the subjective, since you cannot get an ought from an is. And the subjective has no authority over the objective since the subjective is not mutually comprehensible, and therefore, not justifiable to free parties.

Absolutely agree. Either way we can’t know which outcome it will be. All we can do is the best we can and hope that’s enough.

Edited the original answer.

> as it is already an abstract unachievable thing in the first place

Morality?

More generally, that's like saying eyes are moral things because morality uses what they see. Which is nonsense.

Science works having at the base of its foundation moral principles and also creates moral outcomes, and also helps in revealing a better moral system for humans, so it is very hard for someone to say that morality has little to do with it like you are saying. The "yes but it is not being perfect" as an argument has little to no value in most discussions, at least to me, as it is already an abstract unachievable thing in the first place.

No. I am arguing that science is an enterprise to improve human knowledge and understanding which is flawed by the drivers involved in it. I do not believe that even if it were perfect that would make it 'moral' under any rational interpretation of that term.

So, what are you arguing, that the outcome of science throughout the history was not moral, because of the financial aspect that tends to be involved? That would be ridiculous.

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Long & short: lie on purpose, wrong.

Make a mistake: oops; shit happens.

Willful misinformation is not forgivable, for a long list of reasons that only confuse those who can't imagine a world without lying.

What you're talking about is information verification, which is a different thing.

So... whatever makes ya happy.

The point is that socialism is based on socialisation and living as a society, capitalism is a parasitic system based on exploiting others to death, until you eventually die yourself because you can’t sustain yourself.

That’s also the difference between parasites and social organisms.

So saying all forms of life compete for resources is an utter nonsense, otherwise social species wouldn’t exist, including mankind.

Why are you not able to comprehend the difference between moral judgments regarding social justice and individual identity? This actually sums up the communitarian thinking that poses that the methodological neutral subject is both too thin and thick to make a theory. But if you deconstruct moral judgments regarding the division of property that are a political thing not part of individual belief, you don’t need to touch personal history or identity.

Although in some cases as in the idea of american citizenship some moral judgments are part of one’s identity. But this is like a poisoned well that only poisons its drinker farer and farer away from reality. Not good.

I agree that we’ve had a decent track record of solving problems. But a history of success is not a predictive model of the future. The overwhelming majority of species that have existed are extinct. We’ve failed to solve many problems but it just takes one apocalyptic event to break the trend.

What if dolphins don't have the concept of rape? What if to them it's just sex?

If someone publishes, their work is suspect. All work is suspect, no matter who says it or why - that's the whole point of the scientific method.

The only way to verify suspect information is using the scientific method, not through an interrogation of the author. The scientific method works just the same for true and false information and for claims made by good and bad people.

When a paper is published announcing a discovery or it happens to be the first confirmation of some theory, it isn't then touted as fact because the author has a track-record or does charity work and passes the vibe/integrity check.

Why would you demand things from sciences that you don't demand from religion or philosophy?

Can space, time and matter exist if no conscious minds are around?

I mean, 13.7 billion years of the universe and most of those billion years are without life, we know this because we measured it with our scientific instruments.

Gravity IS a thing regardless of what we "ought" to think about it, even without any humans around, gravity would still be a thing.

Are you saying all of time, space and matter cannot exist if we humans dont think about them?

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We must get back to our community based systems. The capitalist market is squeezing the collective of ppl dry. Homelessness is being criminalized as average rent in the city I’m in reaches $2500 and no, telling ppl to move isn’t the solution.

If someone lies, all of their work is suspect - regardless of whether it is incompetence or willful deceit.

>The identification of integrity as essential to information's validity is quite telling.

But is it? The information is either true or false, no matter who communicates the information.

>Science relies on accurate information to make actual advances.

That's true, but is the author's integrity important to whether the information is true or false? Is there a real difference between a bad actor reporting that 1+1=3 and a good-natured scientist accidentally reporting the same falsehood? From either source, anyone can run their own experiment to test the hypothesis. Information is the material of science, not the people making the claims.

From the article:

>"This important role of trust in science, however, is not new. Ever since the emergence of science, scientists had to rely on the work and the testimony of their peers and others in order to make progress... The production of scientific knowledge is not, and never has been, an individual, but a collaborative affair.

Equivocating 'trusting that a fellow scientist isn't fabricating data' to 'trust in science' is so infuriating. Those are two totally different things. The reason I trust in the scientific method is because it tests hypothesis, gathers data, conducts experiments, and reproduces results. I don't "trust in science" because Richard Dawkins is just a great guy who could never tell a lie, I trust in science because any Joe Six Pack could pick up the journal article, recreate the experiment, test the hypothesis, and confirm or deny the results. After so many confirmations or denials, who am I to distrust the science?