StrangeSox

Here's an excellent article from Nature recently.

No, sorry, you're wrong. There's no other way to put it if you think it's the "healthy-skepticism" crowd instead of the "willfully and proudly ignorant" crowd. We are talking about the anti-evolution, "I'm not a monkey!" crowd here. We're talking about the "GLOBAL WARMING IS THE GREATEST HOAX EVER!" crowd here. We're talking about the significant portion of Americans who believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. There's a strong correlation between these groups and right-wing politics. It's apparent in their policies and their legislation. It comes up again and again with anti-evolution, anti-science bills in state legislatures. It's not about skepticism. It's about rejection of scientific theories because they conflict with pre-conceived notions of how the world works.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 11:33 AM) I'm not equivocating the word faith since i'm not equating the means in which the Pope arrives at his belief/faith and a scientist arrives at his. I'm merely equating the stubbornness of both sides to consider the fact that they could be wrong. But you can't deny that scientific theory still relies on SOME faith (or belief, whatever the word you want to use) because theories require guess work. Yes, it's educated and tested guesswork, but it's still a calculated guess as to the reason why something happens without knowing for certain. You have to have faith/belief that the unknown fact you rely upon to reach your conclusion is as you think it to be. It's not to the same degree as religious faith, but it still exists. Sure, that's why I posted the Relativity of Wrong and frequently mention provisional truth whenever this topic comes up. "A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing," which appears to be what you're advocating in this last post, isn't a defense for the anti-intellectual, anti-science crap from a good portion of the right. edit:here's a good link explaining provisional truth. See #3 and #4. http://www.ukskeptics.com/article.php?dir=..._and_reason.php

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:39 AM) In that the Pope and certain scientists are so hell-bent on their view of the world that they're completely closed off from any other possible explanation. Go read Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." There's some merit in saying that scientists become closed-minded to newer theories that supplant their own work. There's no merit in comparing that to the infallible Catholic Pope who claims to be speaking for his God. There's no merit in equivocating on the word "faith" and saying religion and science take equal amounts of it.

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.