So I get a sorta middling traffic in linkspam in the comments ‘round here. Generally find I have to clean up a few times a week, collecting a few dozen comments each time…
It’s usually the standard internet/organized crime crap. Presumably bogus pharmaceutical come ons, loan thingies that are just as probably fronts for phishing rings as anything else, gambling sites. Barely worth raising an eyebrow. Yes, there are people crooked enough to sell this crap. Yes, there are people stupid enough to buy it. Noted. Select all/delete…
But I did find myself marginally more amused when, over the past few days, there were a few links in there to various religious-type proselytizers. Two sites in particular, whose names I will in no way be promoting (no, dearies, I don’t do for free what your paid ‘search engine ranking’ service tries to do, any more than I’m gonna pay to host the droppings they leave)…
Yeah, amused. There is a certain appropriateness to it.
As in: they’re falling to the level they always belonged at, really. ‘Herbal viagra’ (yes, this phrase still makes me laugh), phishing schemes, online gambling, and religions…
Birds of a feather, after all.
Also vaguely funny: as with all these BS services, the model is: leave comments that might sound plausibly like they’re legit, find some excuse to put the link whose ranking you’re trying to pump in there somewhere… So they’ll frequently try to say glowingly lovely stuff they figure you’re unlikely to delete like ‘Nice post!’ or ‘I so agree!’… Which is especially amusing when they’re obviously just grepping on terms vaguely related to the topic of the site they’re pushing…
And so you wind up with a comment from a site pushing some flim-flam religion ‘n scarcely veiled Dominionism glowingly praising a post like This is me, bein’ all contumelious again down there.
(/Thanks, pal. Allow me then to reprint your kind endorsement on the dust jacket of my forthcoming book: Religion, spam, and why they both suck rocks.)
It’s usually the standard internet/organized crime crap. Presumably bogus pharmaceutical come ons, loan thingies that are just as probably fronts for phishing rings as anything else, gambling sites. Barely worth raising an eyebrow. Yes, there are people crooked enough to sell this crap. Yes, there are people stupid enough to buy it. Noted. Select all/delete…
But I did find myself marginally more amused when, over the past few days, there were a few links in there to various religious-type proselytizers. Two sites in particular, whose names I will in no way be promoting (no, dearies, I don’t do for free what your paid ‘search engine ranking’ service tries to do, any more than I’m gonna pay to host the droppings they leave)…
Yeah, amused. There is a certain appropriateness to it.
As in: they’re falling to the level they always belonged at, really. ‘Herbal viagra’ (yes, this phrase still makes me laugh), phishing schemes, online gambling, and religions…
Birds of a feather, after all.
Also vaguely funny: as with all these BS services, the model is: leave comments that might sound plausibly like they’re legit, find some excuse to put the link whose ranking you’re trying to pump in there somewhere… So they’ll frequently try to say glowingly lovely stuff they figure you’re unlikely to delete like ‘Nice post!’ or ‘I so agree!’… Which is especially amusing when they’re obviously just grepping on terms vaguely related to the topic of the site they’re pushing…
And so you wind up with a comment from a site pushing some flim-flam religion ‘n scarcely veiled Dominionism glowingly praising a post like This is me, bein’ all contumelious again down there.
(/Thanks, pal. Allow me then to reprint your kind endorsement on the dust jacket of my forthcoming book: Religion, spam, and why they both suck rocks.)
23/08: Somewhat à propos
SMBC modestly presents ‘The Law of Futurology’…
(/In honestly unrelated news, Kurzweil’s been making some noise of late… Say, just how old is that guy, anyway?)
(/In honestly unrelated news, Kurzweil’s been making some noise of late… Say, just how old is that guy, anyway?)
One Lynna, over on the thread that shall not die, quotes an old Oklahoma statute on ‘crimes against religion and conscience’:
… and there’s a reveal there, and as I also said there, and as I’ve also said previously (and me only one of the many). In that part of what’s such rot about the ‘new atheists’ label is really, there’s nothing so much new about it. Lots of us were roughly as directly rude long before certain book sales records set certain hollow-headed pundits off to draft a proper label for a certain groundswell of relative outspokenness and visibility… And we were far from the originals. Like by a few millenia, probably…
The statute’s a nice little reminder, too: not only were there people bein’ all contumelious about it quite some years ago, but there were also certain asshats trying to shush them, then as now. Tho’ then, of course, they did it with legal penalties. As opposed to using bullshit misinformation campaigns, smears, and drawers full of sockpuppets—the current strategy in certain corners of the blagosphere.
Either way, the thrust is the same ole’ same ole’. And the message is: shut up. Be invisible. Disbelieve if you must, but don’t go calling bullshit bullshit out loud. Nowadays, ‘round here, given that laws like that don’t always fly so well (y’know, ‘cept in the UK), a million reasons are given, instead. It’s dangerous. It’s pointless. You should be doing somethin’ else. Like painting your nails or somethin’, whatever. Hell, do anything else.
But it’s just the same ole’ schtick. Or much of it the same. And the main reasons are still probably mostly about hegemony, about power. And established social institutions with a thousand plus years of surviving purveying deliberate unreason got a million ways to protect themselves and their bullshit, and a critical one remains: keep the natural doubt (and even laughter) that spontaneously and continually arises invisible. However you must. Impress upon people even who don’t so much believe that you just don’t say these things, that it will cost you, that works, too…
My message, simply: don’t fall for it. Don’t buy it. Just keep laughing at them. Very out loud, when you’ve got a moment. Don’t gotta make it your life or nothin’—that could easily be just as large a waste, if you’ve another life you’d rather be living. But don’t shush. Let your laughter ring.
Mostly just because, honestly: you’ll need to. But also ‘cos, actually, it still works…
They’ll say stridency hurts you, see, too. But they say that sort of thing a lot, and ‘stridency’, you may well note, is just anything they don’t want to hear said out loud, really. Doesn’t matter how calm your voice is, how measured your observations, how nuanced your language: if you say something that cuts too close to the bone, suddenly, you’re ‘strident’…
Truth is: they lie a lot in general, and especially about things like that. It’s a funny thing, too, how you’ll see religious voices pulling that one out of their asses all the time: ‘Oh, you’re helping my cause by being so direct…’
Right. Sure I am. And you’re telling me this why, then?
The truth remains what it was when that law was written: calling bullshit bullshit directly mostly hurts those spreading said bullshit. And Clemens’ line about colossal humbugs also comes to mind. That, too, remains as true as ever.
Blasphemy consists in wantonly uttering or publishing words, casting contumelious reproach or profane ridicule upon God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Scriptures or the Christian or any other religion.(Original source here.)
… and there’s a reveal there, and as I also said there, and as I’ve also said previously (and me only one of the many). In that part of what’s such rot about the ‘new atheists’ label is really, there’s nothing so much new about it. Lots of us were roughly as directly rude long before certain book sales records set certain hollow-headed pundits off to draft a proper label for a certain groundswell of relative outspokenness and visibility… And we were far from the originals. Like by a few millenia, probably…
The statute’s a nice little reminder, too: not only were there people bein’ all contumelious about it quite some years ago, but there were also certain asshats trying to shush them, then as now. Tho’ then, of course, they did it with legal penalties. As opposed to using bullshit misinformation campaigns, smears, and drawers full of sockpuppets—the current strategy in certain corners of the blagosphere.
Either way, the thrust is the same ole’ same ole’. And the message is: shut up. Be invisible. Disbelieve if you must, but don’t go calling bullshit bullshit out loud. Nowadays, ‘round here, given that laws like that don’t always fly so well (y’know, ‘cept in the UK), a million reasons are given, instead. It’s dangerous. It’s pointless. You should be doing somethin’ else. Like painting your nails or somethin’, whatever. Hell, do anything else.
But it’s just the same ole’ schtick. Or much of it the same. And the main reasons are still probably mostly about hegemony, about power. And established social institutions with a thousand plus years of surviving purveying deliberate unreason got a million ways to protect themselves and their bullshit, and a critical one remains: keep the natural doubt (and even laughter) that spontaneously and continually arises invisible. However you must. Impress upon people even who don’t so much believe that you just don’t say these things, that it will cost you, that works, too…
My message, simply: don’t fall for it. Don’t buy it. Just keep laughing at them. Very out loud, when you’ve got a moment. Don’t gotta make it your life or nothin’—that could easily be just as large a waste, if you’ve another life you’d rather be living. But don’t shush. Let your laughter ring.
Mostly just because, honestly: you’ll need to. But also ‘cos, actually, it still works…
They’ll say stridency hurts you, see, too. But they say that sort of thing a lot, and ‘stridency’, you may well note, is just anything they don’t want to hear said out loud, really. Doesn’t matter how calm your voice is, how measured your observations, how nuanced your language: if you say something that cuts too close to the bone, suddenly, you’re ‘strident’…
Truth is: they lie a lot in general, and especially about things like that. It’s a funny thing, too, how you’ll see religious voices pulling that one out of their asses all the time: ‘Oh, you’re helping my cause by being so direct…’
Right. Sure I am. And you’re telling me this why, then?
The truth remains what it was when that law was written: calling bullshit bullshit directly mostly hurts those spreading said bullshit. And Clemens’ line about colossal humbugs also comes to mind. That, too, remains as true as ever.
23/07: Is this thing on?
… as long as they’re back, two from two of Sb’s surviving members:
PZ re Comic-con’s ‘counter protest’ to the Phelps’ clan’s silly placard parade-around…
Okay, so ‘parade’ is overstating, in the Phelps people’s case. I mean, that’s what, three signs? Pathetic. Are these guys even trying anymore?
And yes, the Phelps clan actually protested at a Comics-con. God also hates comic books, apparently, too. Guy’s got anger management issues, seems to me. But then, I guess, I’m not the first to say…
Still, do absolutely check out out the pictures of the ‘counter-protest’, if you haven’t already. Belly laughs to be had, there. And, speaking as someone who’s never been to such an event, I really have to say: these convention people clearly know how to do it. I may have to show up at such a thing, someday. ‘Cos that’s absolutely how you answer a loser like Phelps. Ridicule for the win.
… and Orac’s got a thing on a voluntary ‘retraction’ of a ‘dietary supplement’ by a merchant of woo that’s looks suspiciously like a marketing ploy…
Yeah, see, take this industrial compound, it’ll ‘chelate’ the mercury in yer body so it doesn’t give you autism or somethin’, trust us. And it’s a ‘dietary supplement’, not a drug, honest…
Yeah. All a little too standard for certain jerks of no conscience, still, but still absolutely worth noting. But I’d add—as something a little more germane to recent events: note especially Orac’s comments re the ads on ScienceBlogs of late…
You might have noticed, if you’ve been reading there at all, that they’ve been getting more and more flakey, of late. Bullshit flogging $cientology, creationism, it goes on. A bit jarring. Text in the middle: reality-based. Ads at the edge: woo-soaked.
I did a little comparing—nothing systematic, yet—at what turns up at the Discover networks blogs, and at the Nature people’s, and honestly, I saw nothing like that. Their stuff was rather more appropriate to what you’d expect from the subject matter. Geeky t-shirts, some in-house stuff.
Granted, the economic realities and staffing realities are probably very different between Sb and those guys. Sb’s a fairly small upstart, and honestly not doing much else, I’d guess, of late, since Seed magazine folded. Whereas Discover belongs to a freakin’ huge media conglomerate, and Nature to a journal publisher which is also a kingdom in its own right. Both can probably sell stuff in-house to neighbouring arms of the mothercorp, in a pinch, and if they’re not really pulling their weight in ad dollars in a given quarter, there’s a softer landing. Less so at Sb. And thus, on the woo-soaked web, the woo doth soak in. And it looks like the Seed people are mostly relying on ad syndication services, probably to make it easier on their probably very few (or no, I begin to imagine) in-house salesthingies. Whereas the bigger boys probably have better options.
Still, it’s a little sad. So call this a gentle urging to Seed and Co. to go along with Orac’s: find some folk to do ad buys who aren’t selling predatory cults ‘n brain-eating pseudoscience? Please?
I mean, I know times are tough. But this just ain’t pretty.
PZ re Comic-con’s ‘counter protest’ to the Phelps’ clan’s silly placard parade-around…
Okay, so ‘parade’ is overstating, in the Phelps people’s case. I mean, that’s what, three signs? Pathetic. Are these guys even trying anymore?
And yes, the Phelps clan actually protested at a Comics-con. God also hates comic books, apparently, too. Guy’s got anger management issues, seems to me. But then, I guess, I’m not the first to say…
Still, do absolutely check out out the pictures of the ‘counter-protest’, if you haven’t already. Belly laughs to be had, there. And, speaking as someone who’s never been to such an event, I really have to say: these convention people clearly know how to do it. I may have to show up at such a thing, someday. ‘Cos that’s absolutely how you answer a loser like Phelps. Ridicule for the win.
… and Orac’s got a thing on a voluntary ‘retraction’ of a ‘dietary supplement’ by a merchant of woo that’s looks suspiciously like a marketing ploy…
Yeah, see, take this industrial compound, it’ll ‘chelate’ the mercury in yer body so it doesn’t give you autism or somethin’, trust us. And it’s a ‘dietary supplement’, not a drug, honest…
Yeah. All a little too standard for certain jerks of no conscience, still, but still absolutely worth noting. But I’d add—as something a little more germane to recent events: note especially Orac’s comments re the ads on ScienceBlogs of late…
You might have noticed, if you’ve been reading there at all, that they’ve been getting more and more flakey, of late. Bullshit flogging $cientology, creationism, it goes on. A bit jarring. Text in the middle: reality-based. Ads at the edge: woo-soaked.
I did a little comparing—nothing systematic, yet—at what turns up at the Discover networks blogs, and at the Nature people’s, and honestly, I saw nothing like that. Their stuff was rather more appropriate to what you’d expect from the subject matter. Geeky t-shirts, some in-house stuff.
Granted, the economic realities and staffing realities are probably very different between Sb and those guys. Sb’s a fairly small upstart, and honestly not doing much else, I’d guess, of late, since Seed magazine folded. Whereas Discover belongs to a freakin’ huge media conglomerate, and Nature to a journal publisher which is also a kingdom in its own right. Both can probably sell stuff in-house to neighbouring arms of the mothercorp, in a pinch, and if they’re not really pulling their weight in ad dollars in a given quarter, there’s a softer landing. Less so at Sb. And thus, on the woo-soaked web, the woo doth soak in. And it looks like the Seed people are mostly relying on ad syndication services, probably to make it easier on their probably very few (or no, I begin to imagine) in-house salesthingies. Whereas the bigger boys probably have better options.
Still, it’s a little sad. So call this a gentle urging to Seed and Co. to go along with Orac’s: find some folk to do ad buys who aren’t selling predatory cults ‘n brain-eating pseudoscience? Please?
I mean, I know times are tough. But this just ain’t pretty.
21/07: We are amused
The Art of Quackery. Tell your friends.
(/Yes, given the Sb meltdown, I am now actually reading Twitter, which is what lead me to this. Send help. Or some chelated whole-earth chakra crystals with extra reiki-rific energy field elderberry detox action. Whichever.)
(/Yes, given the Sb meltdown, I am now actually reading Twitter, which is what lead me to this. Send help. Or some chelated whole-earth chakra crystals with extra reiki-rific energy field elderberry detox action. Whichever.)
As PZ has declared a strike, requesting ScienceBlogs fix a few things (no link, as this would be a bit of a mixed message), I’m pulling both the Sb links in my blogroll (his and Orac’s) for now.
It’s a bit token, as my traffic is a tiny fraction of what Sb gets. But it seems like the thing to do. And Orac, technically, hasn’t asked for such a thing, as of this date, for the record. But again, it seems like the thing to do.
Best of luck to PZ and Orac and all, whether at Sb or elsewhere.
ETA: A few non-Sb links to Sb folk and former Sb folk, for reference—call it insurance:
EATA: John Lynch has a longer list at his new home.
It’s a bit token, as my traffic is a tiny fraction of what Sb gets. But it seems like the thing to do. And Orac, technically, hasn’t asked for such a thing, as of this date, for the record. But again, it seems like the thing to do.
Best of luck to PZ and Orac and all, whether at Sb or elsewhere.
ETA: A few non-Sb links to Sb folk and former Sb folk, for reference—call it insurance:
EATA: John Lynch has a longer list at his new home.
07/07: Quoting myself
… ‘cos, y’know, I Am So Wise*…
So Ophelia Benson at B&W had a great comment the other day on yet another standard non-overlapping magisteria-type claim made by some Templeton shill. Commented on the same, myself. Quoting it here, for posterity, just ‘cos I figure it bears repeating:
Feetnotes:
So Ophelia Benson at B&W had a great comment the other day on yet another standard non-overlapping magisteria-type claim made by some Templeton shill. Commented on the same, myself. Quoting it here, for posterity, just ‘cos I figure it bears repeating:
Two additions to/expansions upon what’s already said. Both probably going without saying, but anyway:
1) Certain categories of supernatural claims can absolutely be investigated by science—and by empirical/rational methods generally. Anywhere they’re so careless as to make claims that have impacts upon the real world, they’re wide open. Randi has done great business taking such charlatans apart. As they so richly deserve. Here, the claim of ’science has no business…’ is obvious bullshit. It’s like the perp trying to tell the cop he’s out of his jurisdiction on no greater basis than the fact that he himself just painted a red line around the bank he knocked over and declared it his own country.
2) Certain other categories of woo (including the claims of many mainstream religions) which cannot actually be investigated by any empirical method are still subject to criticism on precisely that basis. Sure, they’ve attempted to rule themselves out of said bounds by carefully making vague, ineffable claims with exactly no discernible impact upon the observed world, but this itself is the very thing critics can (and absolutely should) be pointing out. You might argue this is less the job of scientists specifically than of alert thinkers everywhere, and folk versed in philosophical type pursuits especially, but it’s still a huge tell. And again, it’s as actionable as the bank job in the example above. It’s not that science has no province. It’s that you should hardly need a scientist to work out it’s bullshit.**
Either way, religion loses, as it has chosen to do. And non-overlapping magisteria my ass. But hey charlatans, with and without an established church from which to pontificate: if you really want to rule yourselves out of everyone else’s bailiwick, ‘cos you’re tired of having to defend your BS from people who’ve noted that’s what it is, well, chuckleheads, there is actually one effective way…
Just shut the hell up entirely. Should do the trick.
1) Certain categories of supernatural claims can absolutely be investigated by science—and by empirical/rational methods generally. Anywhere they’re so careless as to make claims that have impacts upon the real world, they’re wide open. Randi has done great business taking such charlatans apart. As they so richly deserve. Here, the claim of ’science has no business…’ is obvious bullshit. It’s like the perp trying to tell the cop he’s out of his jurisdiction on no greater basis than the fact that he himself just painted a red line around the bank he knocked over and declared it his own country.
2) Certain other categories of woo (including the claims of many mainstream religions) which cannot actually be investigated by any empirical method are still subject to criticism on precisely that basis. Sure, they’ve attempted to rule themselves out of said bounds by carefully making vague, ineffable claims with exactly no discernible impact upon the observed world, but this itself is the very thing critics can (and absolutely should) be pointing out. You might argue this is less the job of scientists specifically than of alert thinkers everywhere, and folk versed in philosophical type pursuits especially, but it’s still a huge tell. And again, it’s as actionable as the bank job in the example above. It’s not that science has no province. It’s that you should hardly need a scientist to work out it’s bullshit.**
Either way, religion loses, as it has chosen to do. And non-overlapping magisteria my ass. But hey charlatans, with and without an established church from which to pontificate: if you really want to rule yourselves out of everyone else’s bailiwick, ‘cos you’re tired of having to defend your BS from people who’ve noted that’s what it is, well, chuckleheads, there is actually one effective way…
Just shut the hell up entirely. Should do the trick.
Feetnotes:
* Yes, I’m quoting Nietzsche. And yes, I’m being sarcastic. And generally, you may assume when I’m quoting Nietzsche, I’m being sarcastic, but anyway…
** This is one of those things is mildly (he said laughing) controversial an observation in certain quarters, but it, too, bears repeating: religions regularly make such claims, and a related one: that you can’t get at our claims by your silly empirical/rational methods because we have (makes wiggly fingers) ‘special/other ways of knowing’ what we know beyond these—you have to use those. Like by saying ‘Om’ a whole lot until your head gets all wonky, then you’ll know… And, oddly, that’s the only way of knowing… strangely, this whole parallel cosmology of ours is completely gratuitous to the physical models you have of the universe, deflects no needle, nudges no oscilloscope, is beautifully, perfectly sans detectable, measurable physical consequence… Just works out that way, conveniently, for us. And I like to imagine how that kind of defense might work out in the trial of a guy up for a bank heist, too. Just as an exercise.
** This is one of those things is mildly (he said laughing) controversial an observation in certain quarters, but it, too, bears repeating: religions regularly make such claims, and a related one: that you can’t get at our claims by your silly empirical/rational methods because we have (makes wiggly fingers) ‘special/other ways of knowing’ what we know beyond these—you have to use those. Like by saying ‘Om’ a whole lot until your head gets all wonky, then you’ll know… And, oddly, that’s the only way of knowing… strangely, this whole parallel cosmology of ours is completely gratuitous to the physical models you have of the universe, deflects no needle, nudges no oscilloscope, is beautifully, perfectly sans detectable, measurable physical consequence… Just works out that way, conveniently, for us. And I like to imagine how that kind of defense might work out in the trial of a guy up for a bank heist, too. Just as an exercise.
22/06: Allrighty, then...
The following is posted as a public service announcement (with guitars)…
(NSFW, insofar as the unclothed nipples of persons with both sex chromosomes of the X variety are displayed; such are the cultural rules, apparently…)
(Oh, adding above the fold: the band just reposted it at Vimeo. With a directive to share. So share already.)
(NSFW, insofar as the unclothed nipples of persons with both sex chromosomes of the X variety are displayed; such are the cultural rules, apparently…)
(Oh, adding above the fold: the band just reposted it at Vimeo. With a directive to share. So share already.)
15/06: On the other hand
… mebbe it means there is a god, and it finds giant, fiberglass Jaysuses tacky, too.
Alternative explanation: said eyesore was obstructing some horny deity’s view of the specials board in the window of the (apparently undamaged, as one onlooker noted) sex shop across the street…
(/It’s an old principle, too often forgotten in this corrupt and disrespectful age: do not get between Bacchus and his porn.)
Alternative explanation: said eyesore was obstructing some horny deity’s view of the specials board in the window of the (apparently undamaged, as one onlooker noted) sex shop across the street…
(/It’s an old principle, too often forgotten in this corrupt and disrespectful age: do not get between Bacchus and his porn.)
Yes, I used the word ‘grok’. I hereby demands my geek cred. Anyway: take it away, Neil deGrasse Tyson:
He grinds about three axes I like to carry around myself, here. Enumerating:
1) Basic literacy in science, amongst its many values, can be awfully useful if you don’t want to get screwed by hucksters hawking pseudoscience and general woo.
2) There’s something slightly wrong with a society in which not knowing how the world actually works is somehow something to be proud of.
3) Related to (2), getting your hands dirty and making real things—and, further—learning new and real things—is something you do really need to get around to, now and then. And again: it doth on occasion seem undervalued ‘round these parts.
Expanding on a bit on each:
Re 1: Perhaps this is obvious, granted. And note that past basic literacy in ‘science’, the nut of the matter here could more generally be described as 1a) basic literacy in rigourous critical thinking and in 1b) at least the outlines of the larger theories that organize contemporary scientific thought—these are complementary, and are not the same thing, and interestingly, if you could only get one, take the first; the second you can get from it after all, and this is the better order, anyway.
And note that I’d add: this is a necessary but not necessarily sufficient condition—see also Randi on how sleight-of-hand can fake out even those who do exercise their grey matter with some rigour on the empirical but are also excessively naive about how easily the senses can be fooled, deliberately or not.
Note, in the same vein, also Tyson’s comment re our ability to fool ourselves and the frequently capricious nature of the senses and of observation. Words to the wise.
Additional thought beyond this: the question occasionally occurs to me that maybe there’s even slightly something wrong that we even consider ‘science’ as a separate entity from, say, ‘sanity’ at all. Or, rather: that if you think of what ‘science’ actually is (whether you use that word exactly) as something other people do, you’re in trouble.
Or somewhat more precisely/with less intent to be inflammatory: I would generally suspect our civilization at large would benefit from it being knit more intimately into our culture that being able to use empiricism and reason honestly and rigourously is not an optional credit.
Re 2: this being a comment on certain social settings in which flippin’ yer pretty little head like an 80s-era Bubblehead Barbie and sayin’ ‘Math is hard!’ is somehow actually not a way to get kicked out of the place. But again: physical reality. It’s what you live in.
Re 3: as opposed to, say, ruinously destructive abstract financial instruments creating deadly and deadly stupid economic bubbles. And airy-fairy ‘metaphorical’ systems in which the metaphor periodically likes to run away and pretend it’s more than an (actually potentially pretty bad) description. It’s a lovely and vital thing that are brains are capable of abstraction at all, and we wouldn’t get far without that ability. But it’s a facility we do need to keep an eye on, as it does like to become a little too full of itself… And in my more charitable moments, I wonder how many religions get started due to such brake failures…
(And in my less charitable moments, actually, I usually come back to: ‘Few or none. As most or all of them are probably actually started by deliberate con men who are more than aware that’s exactly what they’re doing.’)
Anyway. That’s all for now.
(/Via The Sandwalk)
He grinds about three axes I like to carry around myself, here. Enumerating:
1) Basic literacy in science, amongst its many values, can be awfully useful if you don’t want to get screwed by hucksters hawking pseudoscience and general woo.
2) There’s something slightly wrong with a society in which not knowing how the world actually works is somehow something to be proud of.
3) Related to (2), getting your hands dirty and making real things—and, further—learning new and real things—is something you do really need to get around to, now and then. And again: it doth on occasion seem undervalued ‘round these parts.
Expanding on a bit on each:
Re 1: Perhaps this is obvious, granted. And note that past basic literacy in ‘science’, the nut of the matter here could more generally be described as 1a) basic literacy in rigourous critical thinking and in 1b) at least the outlines of the larger theories that organize contemporary scientific thought—these are complementary, and are not the same thing, and interestingly, if you could only get one, take the first; the second you can get from it after all, and this is the better order, anyway.
And note that I’d add: this is a necessary but not necessarily sufficient condition—see also Randi on how sleight-of-hand can fake out even those who do exercise their grey matter with some rigour on the empirical but are also excessively naive about how easily the senses can be fooled, deliberately or not.
Note, in the same vein, also Tyson’s comment re our ability to fool ourselves and the frequently capricious nature of the senses and of observation. Words to the wise.
Additional thought beyond this: the question occasionally occurs to me that maybe there’s even slightly something wrong that we even consider ‘science’ as a separate entity from, say, ‘sanity’ at all. Or, rather: that if you think of what ‘science’ actually is (whether you use that word exactly) as something other people do, you’re in trouble.
Or somewhat more precisely/with less intent to be inflammatory: I would generally suspect our civilization at large would benefit from it being knit more intimately into our culture that being able to use empiricism and reason honestly and rigourously is not an optional credit.
Re 2: this being a comment on certain social settings in which flippin’ yer pretty little head like an 80s-era Bubblehead Barbie and sayin’ ‘Math is hard!’ is somehow actually not a way to get kicked out of the place. But again: physical reality. It’s what you live in.
Re 3: as opposed to, say, ruinously destructive abstract financial instruments creating deadly and deadly stupid economic bubbles. And airy-fairy ‘metaphorical’ systems in which the metaphor periodically likes to run away and pretend it’s more than an (actually potentially pretty bad) description. It’s a lovely and vital thing that are brains are capable of abstraction at all, and we wouldn’t get far without that ability. But it’s a facility we do need to keep an eye on, as it does like to become a little too full of itself… And in my more charitable moments, I wonder how many religions get started due to such brake failures…
(And in my less charitable moments, actually, I usually come back to: ‘Few or none. As most or all of them are probably actually started by deliberate con men who are more than aware that’s exactly what they’re doing.’)
Anyway. That’s all for now.
(/Via The Sandwalk)
