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Showing posts with label Anti Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti Science. Show all posts

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Climate Cognitive Dissonance























As Chris Mooney has pointed out many, many times, nothing will likely get through.

On the off chance that it might, here's that link again for those of you that have requested the handy list of denier arguments and how to bury them with the peer reviewed science.

Monday, February 09, 2015

Science Should Never Yield To Freedom of Expression

Some Good Words...

A “view” differs significantly from a “view necessarily informed by evidence.” The problem with many climate-change naysayers is that they present their views as facts where they are not accountable to the evidence. They avoid having to address expert review. They dodge the systematic technical criticism that is essential to establishing scientific claims as trustworthy. 

In this case, they have failed to persuade the scientific community. Instead, they appeal directly to nonexpert citizens with shards of evidence or emotional pleas, trying to short-circuit the process of validation.

It's always about the short circuiting, isn't it? Why?

I think it comes back to that insecurity/inferiority complex thing again. They just can't stand the fact that there are leaders in our country that are smarter and more successful than they are. So, let's tear them down...somehow...someway...

Pretty fucking sad.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Thomas Jefferson's Bible

Conservatives love to heap adulation on the founding fathers and bloviate about how they were all Christians founding a Christian nation...at least their version of Christianity. Certainly, Thomas Jefferson, our nation's 3rd president, is one of those heroes who is held up as a champion of the Right and a defender of more local government power.

I have to wonder, though, what those same conservatives think about the fact that Jefferson created his own version of the New Testament.

Thomas Jefferson, together with several of his fellow founding fathers, was influenced by the principles of deism, a construct that envisioned a supreme being as a sort of watchmaker who had created the world but no longer intervened directly in daily life. A product of the Age of Enlightenment, Jefferson was keenly interested in science and the perplexing theological questions it raised. Although the author of the Declaration of Independence was one of the great champions of religious freedom, his belief system was sufficiently out of the mainstream that opponents in the 1800 presidential election labeled him a “howling Atheist.” 

In fact, Jefferson was devoted to the teachings of Jesus Christ. But he didn’t always agree with how they were interpreted by biblical sources, including the writers of the four Gospels, whom he considered to be untrustworthy correspondents. So Jefferson created his own gospel by taking a sharp instrument, perhaps a penknife, to existing copies of the New Testament and pasting up his own account of Christ’s philosophy, distinguishing it from what he called “the corruption of schismatizing followers.” 

In some ways, Jefferson had a point but I wouldn't go as far to cut and past my own version of the Bible nor accuse Christ's followers as corrupt. They were simply trying to understand something that was way beyond them which we can understand in greater clarity today. That's why I'm hoping that in a decade or two, we can leave behind the anti-science of the Right and start a new Age of Enlightenment in which we truly do "His works and greater than these." We can't allow angry, hateful, insecure, irrational people filled with fear to bully their way into being the "official" spokesmodels for God. He is much bigger than their petty obsessions with gay sex and lady parts which, honestly, is an extension of their own sexual hangups.

I wonder what would happen if Barack Obama did what Jefferson did with the Bible...:)

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Get In The Game

Michael Mann's recent piece in the Times is an excellent call to arms.

This is where scientists come in. In my view, it is no longer acceptable for scientists to remain on the sidelines. I should know. I had no choice but to enter the fray. I was hounded by elected officials, threatened with violence and more — after a single study I co-wrote a decade and a half ago found that the Northern Hemisphere’s average warmth had no precedent in at least the past 1,000 years. Our “hockey stick” graph became a vivid centerpiece of the climate wars, and to this day, it continues to win me the enmity of those who have conflated a problem of science and society with partisan politics.

The right wing blogsphere isn't scary at all. Threats of violence from men with titties don't mean anything. They are full of sound and fury and signify nothing. It's time for more scientists like Mann to recognize that and get into the game.

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

The Future Looks Fantastic

Remember Zach Kopplin? Well, home boy just made the big time by being a guest on Bill Maher last Friday and he as fantastic. In fact, he reminded me of many of my ex-students who are now around his age. Zach Kopplin is a young man who gives me a great deal of hope for the future of this country and is a stellar example of how smart the young generation is today despite popular misconceptions.

Check out this clip which someone in the bubble put up on YouTube in the hopes that would expose Kopplin as an atheist but it ended up exposing (ahem) something else...



Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Sunday, March 03, 2013

Daily Reminder

I need to remind myself more often that patience is all that is required when it comes to nearly all of the issues I gripe about on here. In the final analysis, reason always prevails.

For example, Oklahoma rejected SB 758 just a few days ago. This bill would have required teachers to address "controversies" like evolution and climate change.

In Arizona, SB 1213 didn't even make it out of committee. This bill would have allowed teachers to present creationism as a "balance" to evolution as well as right wing blogs in juxtaposition with the National Academy of Science.

And in Indiana, the Hoosiers rejected extremism again (remember Richard Murdock?) when HB 1283 died in the House. Check out the language in this bill.

“To help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the strengths and weaknesses of conclusions and theories being presented in a course being taught by the teacher.”

Funny, because they do that anyway. That's why evolution is settled science.

Of course, even if any of these bills had passed, it's not likely that any teacher would have used this leeway. While some of my colleagues are conservative, they haven't completely abandoned reason. They might believe in smaller government or have a different view of the Constitution but none of them would ever teach creationism in a fucking science class.

It's comforting to know that even in these deep red states, people can still be rational.


Sunday, June 03, 2012

Wednesday, February 22, 2012