NOTE: There are so few Real scientists and medics, that the "debates" You hear about are fake

Considering that I spent my working life deeply engaged with science (especially evolutionary biology and human intelligence and creativity) and medicine (especially psychiatry and psychopharmacology); it may be surprising to some readers that I do not notice or comment on the debates about medical therapies or scientific theories that are spread across the internet. 

The reason is that I believe there are extremely few scientists and medical researchers who are real: that is who are strongly motivated by truth wrt the matter under consideration; which motivation (in a subsidiary way) means they become and are sufficiently knowledgeable and competent in the relevant matters being debated. 

There are still very few people who realize both that much more science used to be real; but now extremely little of what is called science is real while there is a truly vast amount of fake science - which is either generic careerist bureaucracy, or generic mass media manipulation. 

Indeed the public debates are themselves typically based on mistaken and false premises; such that they are fundamentally worthless, or indeed actively harmful. 

Unless you are yourself real with respect to that specific matter under discussion, then you cannot genuinely evaluate such debates - you are merely experiencing them as a gladatorial display, and one that is probably being staged with the aim of manipulating you, one way or another. 

And the unreal debaters may themselves convinced that they themselves are real scientists, and outraged by any suggestion otherwise - despite that their motivations are so obviously not-real!  

Real science and medicine is difficult, slow, and rare, especially here and now; and is not a public affair. 

For instance, it is nearly always very difficult to know whether or not a treatment is effective in a general way. 

Science never really has been a public affair; but happens between those few people who are real; and happens largely inter-personally. Same with its sub-type medical research, with added diffiulties of an inter-personal kind. 

**

(Although sometimes in the past the public "overheard" a real debate; and that may be genuinely interesting and enlightening! But now? The odds are overwhelmingly high you are overhearing a fake debate.) 

NOTE ADDED. Quite a lot of the "scientific" debates (and indeed many academic and scholarly debates as well) are in reality failures to clarify and acknowledge metaphysical assumptions. Examples include some of the debates of high-level physics theories (cosmology, particles, forces etc), the nature and origins of Life, and the validity of evolution by Natural Selection. Discussions of such matters need to grasp that science only operates within metaphysical assumptions; such that evidence and reason are secondary to these assumptions. Which means (inter alia) that debates of evidence and reasoning cannot in principle overthrow the metaphysical assumptions that govern a type of science. 

Which is the more Pathetic - to live for this Life only, or a future Life of Heaven?

To live towards a future life, an after-life: to orientate our mortal lives in the expectation of immortality in Heaven - is this good, or just pathetic? 

It is, in the West, is mainstream and normal for powerful, wealthy, high status, vigorous people to regard future-life orientation as dumb, crazy, dishonest, manipulative - but even at best it is pathetic, a behaviour which moves a compassionate Man to pity. 

The idea is that only someone who is Fundamentally A Loser ("retarded") in this world would have a Heavenly orientation. 

Yet the mainstream, normal attitude of living for this mortal Life is equally pathetic, pitiable, in that among those who regard-themselves as Winners, Life is seen optimistically. 

"This Lifers" believe that good times are just around the corner, seeds of improvement are sprouting, the pendulum is about to swing in the desired direction... that History is on the side of Progress. 

"This Lifers" may look at the sad fate, and desperate situations, of so many people around them; yet optimistically (as a matter of faith) believe that they-themselves will somehow be exempt from such a pathetic life. 

Is there anything sadder, more ignorant and insane - or more deviously manipulative - than constantly to be harping on a better future in this mortal life; and absolutely to need to believe in such improvement? 

If both can be seen as pathetic, according to perspective; who is the most pathetic: a this-Lifer or the next-Lifer? 

The answer (like all answers) depends on fundamental assumptions. 

If we assume that resurrected eternal Life in Heaven is real and possible - and from this perspective look back on human history and the experience of our own lives; then mainstream ideological optimism is just ridiculous, and to live by optimism for this-life and this-world is truly the most pitiable state. 

If instead we assume with materialistic-atheism, that this this world is the only world; that mortal Life - between conception and death - is everything; that Heaven is false, a day-dream or a manipulative lie... Well then; to believe in Heaven, and live for Heaven, is indeed pathetic: foolish or childish at best.

Because (such people still argue) by living in light of a false Heaven, we will presumably fail to make the best (or at least make-the-most) of this mortal life; and also by focusing on a fake afterlife we will fail to focus on improving the real world around us... 

Consequently; to live for Heaven is not merely regarded as the pathetic belief of a pathetic loser; but actually a belief that will materially-harm other people, and tend to sabotage the optimistic hope of a better life for me, and a better this-world for everyone*. 

The Heaven believer is then worse than pathetic: subversive, a saboteur, a public menace.  

*(Or, if future life is not better for everyone, then better for everyone that matters to me.) 

Yet materialistic atheism has zero basis for judging value objectively, interpersonally! 

So for mainstream modernity truth is ultimately no better than delusions, happiness no worse than suffering, success and failure are subjective distinctions without meaning. 

Subjectivity is all that is left; and personal preferences and emotions are transient, and externally influenced - hence ultimately meaningless.

And the terrible history of the twentieth century worldwide, and the ongoing artistic/ scientific/ cultural/ spiritual collapse of the West; demonstrates that a this-life atheist-materialist perspective actually does not lead people to focus on make the best and most of their mortal life and of human society. 

What, then, can be more arbitrary than the "confident" assertion that this mortal Life is all-there-is, and anyone who believes otherwise is pathetic?  

Mainstream modern materialistic atheism is a choice; and a choice that, rigorously pursued is itself a recipe for frenzied and psychopathic hedonism in the short term, and for despair and suicide in the long term. 

...As we see especially evident among the more powerful, wealthy, high status, vigorous people of the West - here-and-now. 

And if They think that We are pathetic compared with Them?

Well, I for one don't care what They think - except to avoid it!

 

Elevenses, anyone?

I haven't heard anyone talk about elevenses for quite a while, some decades; but the expression was at one time used almost daily. 

As far back as I remember in the 1960s, and continuing into the 80s; there was a mid-morning break situated roughly half-way between breakfast and lunch - during which people would also eat a snack. That snack was almost always biscuits. 

This applied whether at work - when it was either formally timed programmed in mass employment situations. Or informally a matter of convention in professional situations (such as laboratories). There was a mid-morning break for drinking tea or coffee, eating a biscuit or two - and conversation. 

A treasured memory of my mid-childhood and early teens was attending elevenses at the Bristol Dental School with my father; mainly on those Saturday mornings when I accompanied him to work to visit the nearby public library or bookshops. The event had a delightful atmosphere.  

Among my mother's circle there were "coffee mornings" for women neighbours, especially those with housewives with children, which went from house to house in an approximate rotation. As a pre-schooler, or duing school holidays; I was taken-along to these - but found them terribly boring, except for the biscuits (I was always hungry, and could never eat enough biscuits to satify this!). But for the housewives, coffee mornings were the main frequent form of social interaction. 

In those days in England; coffee was consumed almost entirely in people's homes - either instant coffee at elevenses, or ground coffee (invariably in tiny cups) after dinner in the late evening. The rest of the time, multiple cups of tea were normal. 

But coffee incrementally displaced, and sometimes replaced, tea; and was consumed more often in cafes; rather than at home or in "works" canteens. 

Later still, ground coffee replaced instant; and espresso displaced all other methods of brewing. 

During my working years, this practice of elevenses began as universal and much-valued, but diminished greatly - indeed it had altogether disappeared by the time of retirement.

This decline went hand-in-hand with reduced biscuit consumption; and a feeling that it was weak or wrong to eat anything - but especially anything sweet - between breakfast and lunch.  

The managerial-bureaucratic takeover also suppressed elevenses at work, when it suddenly and somehow became too expensive and/or inefficient to set aside a room for communal drinking and eating.