I would just make the point that nothing wrong with the idea that different people's cultures and traditions and lifestyles are equally valid; cultural relativity does make sense in it's own context (there's nothing inherently better about living in a small middle class suburb with 1.5 kids a dog and two cars). But just make the point that objective reality is not relative; when you're talking about the universe itself and objective reality, it is something that simply is. There was one great quote, "reality is that which continues to exist even if you stop believing in it".
That's really the key here; don't tell people that they're wrong for thinking that each culture has it's own value and that no culture or lifestyle is necessarily any better then any other, but just try to draw a hard line between that and the objective nature of reality and therefore of science.
That's really the key here; don't tell people that they're wrong for thinking that each culture has it's own value and that no culture or lifestyle is necessarily any better then any other, but just try to draw a hard line between that and the objective nature of reality and therefore of science.
Why should the attempt to draw that line convince anyone who doesn't care about the scientific project in the first place?
I'm at the moment reading "The Feeling Good Handbook" with is about Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Part of the exercises that the boo...
I'm afraid I haven't properly designed the Muggles Studies course I introduced at my local Harry Potter fan club. Last Sunday we finally had our second class (after wasted months of insistence and delays), and I introduced some very basic descriptions of common biases, while of course emphasizing the need to detect them in ourselves before trying to detect them in other people. At some point, which I didn't completely notice, the discussion changed from an explanation of the attribution bias into a series of multicultural examples in favor of moral relativity. I honestly don't know how that happened, but as more and more attendants voiced their comments, I started to fear someone would irreversibly damage the lessons I was trying to teach. They basically stopped short of calling the scientific method a cultural construct, at which point I'm sure I would have snapped. I don't know what to make of this. Some part of me tries to encourage me and make me put more effort into showing these people the need for more reductionism in their worldview, but another part of me just wants to give them up as hopeless postmodernists. What should I do?