From: CurtAdams@aol.com
Date: Mon Mar 03 1997 - 17:07:20 MST
On Mon, 3 Mar 1997, Robin Hanson wrote:
> Most people are inarticulate about most of their opinions, and deeply
> ignorant of most everything.
I'd say *all* people are deeply ignorant of most everything. There's just
way too much to know. The problem is that most people do not realize the
depth of their ignorance and are unwilling to address it when emotions are at
stake. Strong emotions on weak information are a recipe for disaster; if you
can't get information perhaps it's the best you can do, but in our society
you can often get a lot of information about anything you care about.
A proper approach for a reasonable person uninformed about cloning but afraid
of it would be to research what it means. Fairly superficial research would
show that cloning is no big deal.
Another reasonable approach is to refer judgements to experts. Unfortunately
many people accepted as ethical experts are from the religious field, and
such people often see no need to consider reality when making their
pronouncements. After all, they do have a hotline to God, you know. Just
ask them and they'll tell you.
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