Political Denial & Science: Right and Left

Procrustes Stretched

And you say, "Oh my God, am I here all alone?"
Dec 1, 2008
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Been following Michael Spector, author of Denialism ..how irrational thinking...

When did it become part of political ideology to be anti science?

We have the progressives spouting nonsense about big pharma and corporate farms and scientifically modified food...and we have right wing conservatives denying climate change (diff than global warming) and trying to stop stem cell research and believing some of the nonsense progressives spout.

We have the crazies shouting about vaccines and chiildhood diagnosis of a variety of syndromes including autism...scares about floride in water supplies...irrational H1N1 vaccine fears.

how many here are deniers of science, and WTF happened to critical and rational thinking in American politics?
 
+++and WTF happened to critical and rational thinking in American politics?+++

Could it be blind trust in the chosen one?.. yes...yes ..that must be it.
 
Been following Michael Spector, author of Denialism ..how irrational thinking...

When did it become part of political ideology to be anti science?

We have the progressives spouting nonsense about big pharma and corporate farms and scientifically modified food...and we have right wing conservatives denying climate change (diff than global warming) and trying to stop stem cell research and believing some of the nonsense progressives spout.

We have the crazies shouting about vaccines and chiildhood diagnosis of a variety of syndromes including autism...scares about floride in water supplies...irrational H1N1 vaccine fears.

how many here are deniers of science, and WTF happened to critical and rational thinking in American politics?


deniers of science ..you are joking...right ?
 
Reason and reason are often in the mind of the beholder. lol

Been following Michael Spector, author of Denialism ..how irrational thinking...

When did it become part of political ideology to be anti science?

how many here are deniers of science, and WTF happened to critical and rational thinking in American politics?

You answered your own question. You follow Michael they follow (fill in blank). Is he any more right than say Neil Postman or Lewis Mumford both quoted below. But I agree with the science approach although after much thought and exploration, I've come to the conclusion much of what we think is rational thinking isn't.

How is it that some of the European nations have better reconciled the inherent conflicts of the key ideologies, religion v science? faith v secularism? Or am I wrong here and they too are where we seem to be?

But today all reasons have followers and often the followers have sponsors whether partisan or corporate and so it seems that all things are up in the air. The options open to us far exceed the options earlier people considered.


"But in the end, science does not provide the answers most of us require. Its story of our origins and of our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, "How did it all begin?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." To the question, "How will it all end?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living. Moreover, the science-god has no answer to the question, "Why are we here?" and, to the question, "What moral instructions do you give us?", the science-god maintains silence." Neil Postman

"Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences." Lewis Mumford


[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Denialism-Irrational-Thinking-Scientific-Threatens/dp/1594202303/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262174130&sr=1-1]Amazon.com: Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives (9781594202308): Michael Specter: Books[/ame]

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-Postman/dp/0679745408/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262174634&sr=1-3]Amazon.com: Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (9780679745402): Neil Postman: Books[/ame]
 
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Phil Jones and the World's Greatest Scientific Hoax perpetrated by East Anglia have damaged the scientific communities ability to self regulate.

Moreover, real science would have to ask itself, "Is the contemptuous warming on Mars a sign that we are vastly overestimating mankind contribution to warming on Earth?" Nah. We're Warmers, fuck the facts
 
"WTF happened to critical and rational thinking in American politics?"

Talk radio, Rush, Faux, etx is what happend to rational discourse and bipartisanship in America.
 
What happened to it is Al Gore. He gave those who haven't a scientific cell in their body the impression that they can play at science, thus soiling it.
 
What happened to it is Al Gore. He gave those who haven't a scientific cell in their body the impression that they can play at science, thus soiling it.

Every one of my cells is "scientific".

Still some mysticism involved as we do not fully understand them yet.

Hence the "miracle of life".
 
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Been following Michael Spector, author of Denialism ..how irrational thinking...

When did it become part of political ideology to be anti science?

When the logical fallacy became critical thinking. There have always been those that deny science or only accept science to the extent that they see personal benefit but it is when we came to believe that the fallacies we spin are logic that science fell away.
 
Been following Michael Spector, author of Denialism ..how irrational thinking...

When did it become part of political ideology to be anti science?

When the logical fallacy became critical thinking. There have always been those that deny science or only accept science to the extent that they see personal benefit but it is when we came to believe that the fallacies we spin are logic that science fell away.
Agreed. And a red flag of such is when the rhetoric of logic and science takes a back seat to literary rhetoric. Science needs nothing more to be persuasive than logic and the science done.
 
Been following Michael Spector, author of Denialism ..how irrational thinking...

When did it become part of political ideology to be anti science?

When the logical fallacy became critical thinking. There have always been those that deny science or only accept science to the extent that they see personal benefit but it is when we came to believe that the fallacies we spin are logic that science fell away.
Agreed. And a red flag of such is when the rhetoric of logic and science takes a back seat to literary rhetoric. Science needs nothing more to be persuasive than logic and the science done.

The logic of the science done isn't enough. You also need logic to defend it. Gores fallacies have done more harm to the science of climate change than anything spun by Limbaugh.
 
When the logical fallacy became critical thinking. There have always been those that deny science or only accept science to the extent that they see personal benefit but it is when we came to believe that the fallacies we spin are logic that science fell away.
Agreed. And a red flag of such is when the rhetoric of logic and science takes a back seat to literary rhetoric. Science needs nothing more to be persuasive than logic and the science done.

The logic of the science done isn't enough. You also need logic to defend it. Gores fallacies have done more harm to the science of climate change than anything spun by Limbaugh.

Name the fallacies. Go ahead, name them.

Some exagerations, some interpretations of science that is not spot on, but, overall, a very cogent explanation of the science involved in global warming in laymans terms.

The Conservative anti-science stance is going to come back to them in ways that they cannot yet imagine.
 
Been following Michael Spector, author of Denialism ..how irrational thinking...

When did it become part of political ideology to be anti science?

When the logical fallacy became critical thinking. There have always been those that deny science or only accept science to the extent that they see personal benefit but it is when we came to believe that the fallacies we spin are logic that science fell away.
Agreed. And a red flag of such is when the rhetoric of logic and science takes a back seat to literary rhetoric. Science needs nothing more to be persuasive than logic and the science done.

Which, of course, demonstrates the validity of AGW.
 
What happened to it is Al Gore. He gave those who haven't a scientific cell in their body the impression that they can play at science, thus soiling it.

People like yourself are the ones that are soiling science. Substituting ding dong rhetoric for scientific arguement.

You claim that you work among scientists, but all I see is politically driven denial of reality from you.
 
Agreed. And a red flag of such is when the rhetoric of logic and science takes a back seat to literary rhetoric. Science needs nothing more to be persuasive than logic and the science done.

The logic of the science done isn't enough. You also need logic to defend it. Gores fallacies have done more harm to the science of climate change than anything spun by Limbaugh.

Name the fallacies. Go ahead, name them.

Some exagerations, some interpretations of science that is not spot on, but, overall, a very cogent explanation of the science involved in global warming in laymans terms.

The Conservative anti-science stance is going to come back to them in ways that they cannot yet imagine.
Christ, are you dense? The fallacy you keep presenting and you so idiotically hang your hat on has been demonstrated to you time and again. Such dishonesty from you.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, for one.

No good scientist will exaggerate and/or downplay or upplay results. They will depend on the science to speak for them. The fact that you minimalize that speaks volumes.
 
What happened to it is Al Gore. He gave those who haven't a scientific cell in their body the impression that they can play at science, thus soiling it.

People like yourself are the ones that are soiling science. Substituting ding dong rhetoric for scientific arguement.

You claim that you work among scientists, but all I see is politically driven denial of reality from you.
I must conclude that you are describing what you see in the mirror rather than me.

I do not confuse science with politics and activism. You do.
 
No one, or extremely few, actually deny science. What happens is when science has yet to determine something both sides claim their opinion is scientific when it is not and then a fight ensues.
 
Phil Jones and the World's Greatest Scientific Hoax perpetrated by East Anglia have damaged the scientific communities ability to self regulate.

Moreover, real science would have to ask itself, "Is the contemptuous warming on Mars a sign that we are vastly overestimating mankind contribution to warming on Earth?" Nah. We're Warmers, fuck the facts

"The scientific communities ability to self regulate??"

What an ironic statement from a right winger. Does he not know that there were ethical codes in medicine and sicnece before Jesus or Moses, for that matter, walked the Earth? Yet this same individual believes in unregluateld markets and scoff at the idea of regulated markets and such!!

Proof that science can not self regulate--more like this is proof that greed and profit has become a key component of the social fiber of Western Civilization!! I think it is called the "Profit motif", am I right?
 

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