StrangeSox

Maybe Fox News will give Vivian Schiller a $2M contract now?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:39 AM) Why are you taking my point and applying it to basic scientific principles? I'm not arguing how something like combustion works, we're clearly talking about unprovable theories such as creation. Combustion theory is an on-going science. All models are wrong, some are useful etc. There's nothing wrong with legitimate skepticism. That's not what the anti-intellectual, anti-science movement on the right engages in.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:39 AM) He'd probably never say it, because he's selling himself to a target audience which probably doesn't believe in evolution, at all...even if he does. There's the whole macro/micro crap these days. Even Answers In Genesis, one of the bigger young-earth creationist groups out there, argues for "evolution within a kind." Questioning the basic ideas of evolution and asserting special creation of individual species or kinds is still anti-science.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:33 AM) Fixed that for you. Well, sure. Read the Asimov link. All scientific knowledge is provisional. "Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful."

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:30 AM) Please tell me where I said this. You guys are being "purposefully ignorant" of my point. I've never said all science is garbage. I never said that religious belief is better or a more sound explanation. You equated proclamations from the Pope to scientific findings, or at least scientists. Sorry, there's pretty strong anti-authoritarian currents in science. And then you added that "science can only take you so far" and that you need faith to accept theories. That's equivocation between different types of "faith."

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:30 AM) Even if it's a well-established theory, it's still just a theory, and has yet to be proven as scientific fact. It cannot be proven right or wrong any more than the existence of God/Gods...and that's the problem. Scientific theories don't "progress" to become facts. Facts are simply pieces of data. Theories are explanations. And they can be shown to be the best known explanation for known data and a good predictor for future data. Proofs are left for mathematicians. That's how science works, and that's a little different than "is there a god?!?!"

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:26 AM) That's my point. It's stupid to question evolutionary facts, it's quite another to question theory. It's not stupid to question the frontiers of modern evolutionary theory. That's what professional scientists do. It is pretty ignorant to question the basic concept of evolutionary theory, though. And that's what the anti-intellectual movement on the right does. They're not arguing over whether there was a single out-of-Africa event or multiple ones, the details of the transition of dinosaurs to birds, etc. They're saying "Evolution is wrong and evil and responsible for Hitler and God did it all, possibly in 6 literal days 6000 years ago."

That and Sagan's "Dragon in my Garage" are pretty standard go-to's for me. There really is no comparison between belief in a well-established scientific theory and religious belief. It's equivocation at it's finest.

Please read Asimov.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:20 AM) This entire post is full of fail. It's rejection of the scientific method as the best tool for gathering and understanding knowledge, putting acceptance of scientific knowledge on par with religious belief in a bizarre equivalence (word of the day!). Which is a pretty good definition of anti-intellectualism.

Just....no. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 08:41 AM) At the money pricing, maybe a small chance on expiration day. Out of the money, three months from now? No. Never. The difference in risk doesn't allow for it. Realize that each penny change in the price of crude oil futures is worth $10. So to run the price of crude oil from $105.00 to $200 would be roughly $95,000 worth of price movement in each futures contract of the underlying. You aren't going to see that kind of risk all for an options contract worth a small fraction of that. Thank you for the explanation. I have a vague understanding of options trading at best.

"well-established facts" is a key point there. edit Galileo was also coming up with a new paradigm, and new understanding of the world. That's different than rejecting 150+ years of established research in favor of an older paradigm that contradicts known evidence.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:07 AM) Just like Fox doesn't believe Fox leans right. Nah, internal memos show they're unabashedly biased and without journalist integrity. Oh, to throw some more logs on the anti-intellectual fire, I'll just say:

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:03 AM) You should be hyper-sensitive to this country's terrible and current racist present. touche'

I'm watching Ken Burns' Civil War this week so I'm a little hyper-sensitive to this country's terrible racist past.

I want to add that the left has it's own forms of new age woo hippie anti-science crap (HuffPo loves that garbage), but it isn't a major policy point like it is for many Republicans.

Are we talking about Democrats or liberals? Important distinction! Again, one of the main tenants of American liberalism is anti-racism and pro-social-justice. Gun-toting racists don't really fit in that mold, but they do fit in the crazy fringe survivalist libertarian minarchy mold.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 09:44 AM) My point was this sort of garbage exists on both sides. There a lot of racist people that voted for Obama and love Obama for no reason other than he's black, they know nothing of his politics, nothing of his history, and care nothing of how educated he is. These ignorant types exist on both sides. Ok, even if I concede this equivalence to you, doesn't that just mean the gun-toting racists statement wasn't really all that bad, just a little hyperbolic and otherwise inconsequential?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 09:42 AM) This shows most of us are simply arguing semantics at this point. When people say intelligent vs anti-intelligent, I personally read that as the SAME as smart vs dumb. Who's saying that? You and jenks keep bringing in these terms.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 09:33 AM) There are gun toting racists that are Liberal Democrats, too. You just don't know any...but that doesn't meant they don't exist. I'd imagine that's a pretty rare duck since anti-racism is sort of a key part of being a liberal and being anti-gun is pretty common. But I'm sure there's plenty of racist, gun-toting Democrats. Look, it's not like everyone who disapproves of Obama is racist. But there are a lot of racist people pissed at Obama, and they get wrapped up in the main anti-Obama movement, which is the tea party.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 09:35 AM) Exactly what I said. And it's called ignorance. Ignorance implies that they aren't aware of the knowledge. Or that they aren't willingly and actively ignorant, choosing to remain uninformed instead of pursuing knowledge in an intellectual manner.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 09:33 AM) Nice, continue to define elitist for me. And you people wonder why there's such a divide in this country? And I don't listen or read any of those people you've mentioned, but I've never gotten the sense that they're anti-science generally, just against some particular set of issues. But regardless, that doesn't make the unintelligent. I didn't say it makes them unintelligent. But rejection of evolution is anti-intellectual. Period. It requires active denial of well-established knowledge in favor of emotional and religious beliefs. Throw that in with them always targeting science for cuts, mocking or ridiculing funny-sounding research programs and the routine derision of "elites" trying to tell them what's what when they can just follow their "common sense" and you've got a pretty strong base of anti-intellectualism. You don't need to be intelligent to basically rip off the plot of Network.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 09:26 AM) And slightly hyperbolic statements? Come on man, he flat out called a huge group of people gun-toting racists. There's a lot of gun-toting racists who hate the President and have adopted the Tea Party label.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 09:28 AM) I don't think calling them anti-intellectual is proper in this case. I know some VERY smart people who are very religious...it doesn't make them anti-intellectual as much as, IMO, it makes the purposefully ignorant, in that they are choosing to "ignore certain things", because, to them, their faith means that much to them. I think it is. Rejection of evolution and belief in creationism requires the rejection of the best-known system for understanding the world around us in favor of emotional beliefs. Keep in mind how many of them campaign to get evolution out of schools or, at the very least, creationism put in. It's anti-intellectual at its core. I didn't. I don't think, for instance, that Kurt Wise is a stupid man.