defacto7
defacto7's Journalone little added note
This is the proper title for this article:
Typical Straw Man Argument Used to Undermine Scientist's Credibility
Christmas or not, do we really need to try to undermine a scientist's credibility with common fallacy arguments that appeal to the unthinking? Whatever your religious or non-religious persuasion, don't you think we have undermined critical thinking enough? Articles like this are one of those slow creeping methods of promoting anti-intellectualism. It's one of those non-truths we complain about in politics that are there just to make a bad impression of the undeserving.
False arguments do not a "zinger" make.
I agree....
Anti-intellectualism has been part of the US culture since the 1860s. It has fluctuated over time, but it's a slow rot that is now exploding due to a culture of greed that has so easily used our expanding media information/misinformation machine to sell complacency and dull public interest in anything that can't be spread on toast. Living a life of luxury is the goal instead of making ourselves and our world better for having lived. Our collective intelligence has basically crashed in the last 150 years and most within the last 40. I spent many hours in my post-grad school archives reading personal letters and other communications of average as well as highly educated people from the 18th and 19th century's. The profound difference in language skills and sheer memory compared to the present can't be more evident. But the slow downward pace made it practically invisible to notice until now.
We are truly devolving.
I hear ya...
I could add several very disturbing nonpolitical issues to add to the mix and effect us all... but you don't need more on your plate it seems.
I have taken the position of active participant in moving the immovable wall just for the hell of it. I have given up on progress which isn't a factor to me anymore. I don't expect it, I don't require it, I don't hope for it. I just keep pushing that wall because it needs pushing and I don't intend on stopping. Maybe there will be enough who stick with it, and more are added to the ranks, and maybe some day that wall will fall.... maybe not.... but I just push. It deserves to be pushed.
The shrugging and ignoring
is a choice of an individual. Neither Romney nor Obama could make that happen. What Romney and those who control him would have put into play makes any complaint about Obama pale in comparison. And although I have plenty of criticism for some of Obama's choices, I have much more criticism and disgust for those who have empowered the right though their "shrugging and ignoring" which was their personal choice by right.
I could rec this a thousand times.
"in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken"
No one is trying to fix anything. It's a right wing plan to break it. Break the education system, turn it over to the private sector (Pearson and co.) and make the best education only available to those who can afford it. The rest become servants who are too stupid to know who to vote for and that voting even matters.
The plan is working.
There is nothing on earth more stupid than privatization of education. Standardizing education is to teach the mundane and undermine the advancement of society though the segregation of human abilities.
I do weep for America on this point, and I weep for the future of humankind.
I've posted this before and I'll post it again.
It's not what the public associates themselves with or disassociates with that counts, it's who's in control. If the people were in control of government like we expect it to be, then the logic of this OP may be reasonable. But we aren't in control anymore. It's the power of money, organization and national/international business interests that are in control. Remember the cliché, "possession is 90% of the law". We the people possess nothing.
To hell with both major parties as organized entities that represent certain factions of the people as well as the non-parties, the new parties, whatever... we the people have to take back our country, and if we have to sign a contract with the devil to do it, then that's what we do. The America we once knew or thought we knew doesn't exist anymore. Smoke and mirrors.
We have one more chance in 2016 just to start the process of forming a progressive America. 2014 is gone... done... over... we do not have 2014 as a starting point anymore. They have had 50 years of patience getting to this level of control. You want to shake your laurels of progressive agenda victories? Don't hold your breath. We are not in control... our little victories can be reversed with little resistance if the extreme right wing hold the power in the SCOTUS, Congress and the White House. If you think adolescent attitudes toward politics will win the war, then you think spitting in a grizzly bears face won't get you eaten. If you are young enough to think all those old guys up there in high political office are messing with your stuff.... they were you... and you will be them.
Associate with whatever entity has the possibility to grow strong enough, soon enough, to take back what we have lost to those who have bought us, brainwashed us and groomed us. Otherwise we'll just choke on that smoke and watch our reflection disappear in dreams of revolution that will never be.
If you can take it...
This is what I have been saying for years... to and empty room.
If you not able to handle the truth, that's OK, because that part doesn't matter....
What does matter is that we still keep trying because if there is a small light in the heart of humankind it must shine for as long as possible. We really won't be here for many generations, but what time there is left, those of us few open-minded, naive humans with illusions of agency will defy the destroyers of our kind, exhaling to the last winds of life saying that we were, and could have been.
The author is both right and wrong.
From my vantage point the assessment of our global infrastructure is on the mark, the assessment of sustainability is also within realistic bounds. It's also important to make necessary changes to "everything" if we want to survive as a species or even have a viable planet. The error is not in the assessment or the attitude, where it fails is in a reality that no one wants to face or admit; the proposed answer to the dilemma will never happen. The human race or civilization as we know it has reached a point where failure is imminent.
After a point probably in the 18th century or maybe in ancient times depending on your take, we were destined to die out and humanity will do that sooner than later. With our best efforts we can extend that demise to a point or maybe not. This is not to say we give up and die, that is not my point. We as a species fight to live and that is part of our evolution but it is also what makes us more redundant as an earth organism. We fight too much, we take and do not give back. Our brain probably developed too quickly for some catastrophic reason and we have never evolved to fit the scheme of successful animals. With the size of the population, the extremes in ideology, technology that is beyond our ability to control, inability to be part of the whole, and no global will to survive that trumps momentary greed, we do not have the ability to be more than a blip in global time.
The ocean is where life began and the ocean will reclaim us because of our shortsightedness. The ocean will destroy us just as it wiped out 99.999% of all life forms at least 5 times in earth's history through chemical changes. We have accelerated its normal meter and all we can hope and work for is an extension. But that hope and work is more an ideological attempt to apologize than realistic hope for revitalization of a planet that is virtually trashed to hell.
If this is too much to take, it's understandable. We are compelled to feel by left brain evolution that our human existence is eternal and for some that is a good way to find peace and to stay the course. But for those of us that want to see ourselves for what we really are and the planet for what it really is in the cosmos, this less than hopeful scenario is necessarily our lost game.
The Bible isn't even a work
let alone most important. It's a disjointed mishmash of mostly badly translated and hacked over crib notes from more writers and re-writers and medicinal fixers than any other work in history. In that, it is the most important example of bad literature ever. As far as influence, it can't be denied that such horribly written literature would have a great effect on centuries of societies that had either no choice but to use it under duress, use it as prime allegory for public response, or as a compass toward the non-divine.
From a literary standpoint, the Bible just may be the most interruptive conglomeration of anonymous writing that has caused so much anti-intellectualism over nonsense of all Western Literature.
I can agree with that.
I think most of US history has been a fight for control between the people and the powerful. The government most of us were taught about in 5th grade has in reality never exited. But as a dream of possibilities within any political system it was a gallant effort by those who had idealistic hopes for humanity and it could have been quite a strong and useful stepping stone toward freedom, peace, equality and justice. It could never have been the final structure of human culture and would have been superseded by better alternatives. But the direction we are going now is the product of greed and the intent of a powerful few. If it continues in this direction, our US version of democracy has failed.
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Name: Defacto7Gender: Do not display
Hometown: Portland, OR
Home country: not sure anymore
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Member since: Wed Aug 1, 2012, 01:44 AM
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