***** advisor discusses scientific errors in the "5,500-year history of our planet."

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, Lazycrockett, in his comment at Joe.My.God: Hillary Clinton: Russia Hacked Those Emails Because Vladimir Putin Carries A “Personal Beef Against Me”

The video is at the site. I can't link to it.

Phil Plait:

@BadAstronomer

https://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/809825504597606400

The entire universe in blog form Dec. 16 2016 8:45 AM

Trump Adviser Turns the Anti-Science Up to 11

By Phil Plait

I’ve made something of a career in debunking nonsense when it comes to science, from people who think the Moon landings were faked to hair-on-fire UFOlogists who think every lens flare and dust mote in a photo is the precursor to an alien invasion. ... So when I say that Trump’s adviser Anthony Scaramucci just let loose one of the more asinine streams of anti-science garbage I’ve heard, you must appreciate the scale of what I mean.

Scaramucci—who is on Trump’s Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee—was on CNN’s Wednesday edition of New Day, interviewed by anchor Chris Cuomo. The topic was global warming, specifically a recent and terrifying effort by Trump’s team to get the names of all Department of Energy scientists who work on climate change and have attended conferences on the subject. Given how anti-science Trump’s Cabinet nominations are, and Trump’s own predilection for harassing and attacking people, this move to collect names of scientists is extraordinarily chilling. It brings up visions of Joseph McCarthy at the very least.
....

Scaramucci’s statements here are nothing more than the zombies of climate change denial, the completely false claims made by deniers that reanimate over again no matter how many times you destroy them. ... But then there’s the pièce de résistance, this gem in the crown of Scaramucci’s anti-science (6:10):

CUOMO: But you don't accept the science. Let me just move on to something else, though, which is—

SCARAMUCCI: I didn't say that. I said I’m not certain about it—

CUOMO (talking simultaneously): You said you don't know. I'm saying the scientific community does.

SCARAMUCCI: But you're saying that you do, and you're saying the scientific community knows, and I'm saying people have gotten things wrong throughout the 5,500-year history of our planet.

<record scratch noise>

You might want to read that last sentence again. Yes, Scaramucci said the Earth is only 5,500 years old.

I’m not surprised by this, to be honest. A lot of the people Trump has enveloped himself in are creationists as well as climate change deniers; VP Mike Pence is one, Rick Perry appointed creationists to the Texas State School Board over and again, and Ben Carson said evolution is satanic and the Big Bang is a fairy tale.

[Else You Are Mad]

1. Oh. My. God.

I am just... speechless.

[gratuitous]

2. Every time; you have to shoot them down every time

Yes, it's boring and repetitious, and it doesn't make for sexy exciting must-see teevee: But every talking chucklehead on every reputable show has to shoot this bullshit down each and every time. When a dimwit like Scaramucci takes the dogma out for a walk, the host has to hit back - hard - on their know-nothing nonsense. Every one of these millionaires who are the gatekeepers of our public discourse have no excuse for not having a ready compendium of information, talking points, and court decisions (Kitzmiller was decided 11 fucking years ago, fer crissakes) to shoot these dumbasses down.

There's no "both sides" here. There's no "some people say" here. There's no "reasonable people disagree" here. There is actual, factual, science versus superstition and nonsense catering to the illiterate.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. But he's not a dimwit.

Tufts undergrad and Harvard law. He's well educated. Not, obviously, in the sciences. And that's the problem.

***** is putting well educated, but scientifically ignorant, people in charge of agencies that depend on scientific knowledge.

Full disclosure: I am not a scientist. In fact, I come from a RW family that has little use for science.

It hasn't been easy. I'm hoping I can get out of Christmas dinner.

[gratuitous]

5. If someone seriously asserts the earth is 5,500 years old, he's a dimwit

And I don't care if he graduated summa cum laude from Stanford; that kind of scientific illiteracy just can't be allowed to slide by.

I'm a member in good standing at my local church; but we know how to distinguish fact from fantasy, and how to handle the language of myth and metaphor. Once upon a time, that was a far more universal ability which too many people have forsworn in submission to an unsupportable authoritarian model.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. Will Rogers said, "We are all ignorant, just on different subjects."

Last edited Fri Dec 16, 2016, 05:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Clearly, Scaramucci's scientific literacy is, uh, a few fries short of a Happy Meal. If he's kept as far from anything involving making decisions that involve scientific research, then he can be ignorant on those subjects (though not globally ignorant) but harmless. He can run his mouth, but he won't be in a position where he can do any damage.

He can fetch Ivanka's coffee for her, something like that.

The problem is that the ***** crowd insists on putting the least qualified people in charge of these critical agencies. If Scaramucci were in charge of ... well, I don't know, he could punch his ticket and go away.

What we're learning with every passing day is that there isn't anyone, anywhere on the ***** team who should be running anything. Not a single person. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Here's the actual quote. I was close.

Will Rogers

Philosophy and style

After Rogers gained recognition as a humorist-philosopher in vaudeville, he gained a national audience in acting and literary careers from 1915 to 1935. In these years, Rogers increasingly expressed the views of the "common man" in America. He downplayed academic credentials, noting, "Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." Americans of all walks admired his individualism, his appreciation for democratic ideas, and his liberal philosophies on most issues. Moreover, Rogers extolled hard work and long hours of toil in order to succeed, and such expressions upheld theories of many Americans on how best to realize their own dreams of success. He symbolized the self-made man, the common man, who believed in America, in progress, in the American Dream of upward mobility. His humor never offended even those who were the targets of it.

[gratuitous]

11. Right

But if I were on a talk show and the subject turned to, say, particle physics, I'd clam up because I don't know anything about particle physics. That's what having intelligence and being able to apply it is all about. I might smile, shrug, and say something about Isaac Newton, but I sure wouldn't try to pretend to an expertise I don't have.

[StevieM]

4. I thought that Creationists believe that the Earth was created 6000 years ago. Is that not right?

Does anyone know if it is supposedly 5500 or 6000?

[Jim Lane]

10. That's mentioned at the link.

Plait's post includes a "Teach the Controversy" graphic that refers to the theory of the 6,000-year-old Earth. He gives it a caption: "Scaramucci even manages to get this wrong number wrong."

Incidentally, that graphic comes from a website with several satirical "Teach the Controversy" images. My favorite was the one with a flat Earth on the backs of elephants who are on the back of a turtle. Why shouldn't we teach that view, also?

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. By the time Trump leaves office...

It'll be 50 years

[BSdetect]

6. Its simply funny that they are so fact free

So how does he explain all the horror his god has made in just 5000 or 6000 years? Pretty angry god.

You have to be religious to accept this shit idea - or delusion.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. I was going with "tragic." NT

[longship]

9. The Bad Astronomer is bad ass.

Phil Plait is really turning up the critique on these idiots.

Highly recommended click-through.

R&

[briv1016]

13. "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."

[resistance2016]

14. I'm so glad I'm not an angry drunk

I want to be reborn as a rock or some other brainless object so I won't have to feel the things I do when I realize I'm a member of the same species as these people...

[etherealtruth]

15. we are effed