We here at Lifeguarding the Gene Pool think of this blog as our space to rant about bullshit. We do this, as best we can, using evidence derived empirically and solid reasoning (i.e. basic god damn critical thinking skills). See our page "The Basics" for more about that. We take solid methods of thinking and apply them to whatever bullshit heaves into our field of vision at any given time.
Now, bullshit comes in many different flavors and genres, and sometimes it may cross into territory that some readers may think should be off-limits to critical discussion. We take a different stance. Does it exist in the world? Can it be empirically measured in some way? Does it have effects that can be studied? Then it's damn well on-limits. There's plenty of bullshit in science (well, pseudoscience, really), and expect a large proportion of our writing to concern that. But there's also bullshit in politics, bullshit in the media, bullshit in TV, music, and movies...You get the picture. If we think it is bullshit, we consider it within our purview.
We certainly come at this with certain values, and values create biases. Those biases will likely become apparent to one who reads enough of our output. We try to be objective and take our biases into account, but sometimes an a priori value is what it is. We may take particular moral or ethical stances that derive from our worldviews, and our worldviews may simply be incompatible with those of other people, and any empirical and rational argument could stall because of the difference in axiomatic values.
For example, is the principle a law rests on the important factor in its goodness, or is it the results that come from enforcement of that law? How far do you skew to either end? Think of your opinion of the Drug War, or of piss tests for food stamp recipients. Likely you're coming at those legal and, yes, ethical issues from closer to one end of that spectrum than the other. And probably disagreeing on that first principle will derail any conversation we might have.
Not to say we can't have it, but it might go from being a talk about the ethics of putting nonviolent offenders in prison to a talk about deontology vs. consequentialism.
Now, we have a wide knowledge base to draw from over here on our end, but that most definitely doesn't mean we know everything. Nevertheless, we have opinions and we will not shy from them as long as we feel they are rationally based. And if you comment and we feel yours is not, we will tell you so. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion" is not equivalent to "All opinions are equal."
So welcome to Lifeguarding the Gene Pool. We hope you enjoy what we have to say, but if not, we'll probably keep saying it anyway.
