House of Eratosthenes

Evidence: It might in fact be quite sturdy and convincing. But, annoyingly, it leaves some wiggle room for a responsible and curious mind to entertain some skepticism, if only as a formality.

Boogeyman: We’re being overrun by teeming hordes of crackpots, idiots, psychotics, sociopaths, schizoids, dirtbags, jerks, lunatics, luddites, et al who I hate so much because their minds are not conclusively made up by the evidence I have presented. I have given them their instructions about what they’re supposed to think, and goldang it I know I was clear about it, but they’re not obeying.

Indictment and Abdication: And here is what I’m calling out. Ready? Here it comes, drum roll please…I am all done discussing this because those dirtbags listed in the paragraph above will never be convinced, ever, by anything. You are hereby instructed to regard these people you have never met, who might for all you know not even exist, with the same visceral level of sneering contempt I have just shared with you.

I’m seeing this arguing style in a lot of places and I don’t think I ever saw it before just a few years ago.

Obama was born in Hawaii.

The “global climate” is warming and we’ve got to do something about it.

Evolution explains every little characteristic about every species and disproves the existence of God.

There are more examples to add to this list, but at the moment I cannot see the point of adding them. But my problem with the argument is actually two problems: One, the certainty with which an assertion has been “proven,” is not affected by quantity or quality of people who accept it, reject it, question it…nor by any of their characteristics…whether those people are real or imaginary.

And two — it is a mighty tall order to “prove” something, to such an extent of certainty that one embarrasses oneself simply by continuing to question the conclusion after reviewing the supposedly unquestionable evidence. That is a mighty tall order. This is the age of Photoshop. It’s also the age of the Dan Rather memos. Anything can be falsified, and the incentive is clearly there.

I just think when we toss around that word “science” so freely, “skeptic” shouldn’t be a dirty word. If it is, you’re probably applying that other word “science” to something that isn’t using the scientific method and therefore isn’t really science.

Amen, and amen.

The likelihood that someone will go through that litany of argumentation is in direct proportion to their distance from actual scientific and logical methodology.

The person most likely to defend “global warming” will not be able to define water vapor, explain photosynthesis, barometric pressure, or radiation or convectional heating. Most meteorologists don’t believe in “global warming.”

People who believe in evolution don’t know much about the Second Law of Thermodynamics or microbiology which pretty much destroy the theory of evolution as being a silly hoax. I’ve stood toe to toe with folks with doctorates and got them to admit that they believe evolution is true IN SPITE of the incredible problems that those two subjects present.
- Moshe Ben-David | 03/21/2011 @ 02:33
Dear MMGW hysterics:

No, as a matter of fact, you aren’t going to convince me that establishing draconian controls on job-creating entities and ceding our sovereignty to international bodies is a good idea…no matter how compelling the evidence may be that the Earth is getting hotter or how convincingly you demonstrate that man has anything to do with it.

Even if I agreed with your premises – and if I did, you’d still have to convince me that it’s got anything to do with rising sea levels or that a warmer climate would be otherwise undesirable – my likely response would be that technology would eventually solve these problems on its own without mandates from government. Think – a century ago, industrialized civilization was largely dependent on coal for power – dirty, filthy stacks spewing soot all day long. Cities a century ago were dirtier, not cleaner. There are more examples.

Technology has already brought us a cleaner environment than existed even twenty years ago. Public demand will continue to accelerate this trend.

The fact that developing countries – especially China, India, and Brazil (and I mean the ones that are actually modernizing, not just using that word as a polite way of saying “poor”) are paying no heed to any of these hysterics, tells me all that I need to know. China has already surpassed the US as the world’s biggest polluter – and presumably, the largest emitter of so-called “greenhouse gases.” It has stated publicly, more than once, that while it will hear the arguments of MMGW advocates, it’s not interested in any measures which will dampen its economic growth. I also doubt very much that China is interested in being told what to do by the UN or any other supra-national organization, no matter how well-formed the “consensus” among climatologists or members of the international community.

This should have been the US’s policy from the get-go, and it’s a shame that our leaders in America have less spine than the gaggle of communist dictators running Red China.

Sincerely, Cylar Z.

Dear advocates of evolution:

Regardless of what you learned at the university, Darwin’s theory DOES have some problems, the most important of which is – it cannot explain how nonliving matter gives rise to living matter. This miraculous event, supposedly a product of random chance, has not been duplicated by intelligent scientists working under controlled conditions. Until this problem is addressed, all other questions related to the Theory are moot.

Secondly, even if the Theory could be proven conclusively – and it can’t, for it is an explanation of what supposedly happened in the past, not a repeatable scientific experiment – it does not and cannot disprove the existence of Creator, who, at worst, could be said to have allowed evolution to happen or even intentionally guided the process along.

You have already invested far too much of your personal emotion and scientific credibility in propping up this theory, all apparently for the nefarious end of dispensing entirely with the idea of a Creator to whom we are all morally accountable, like it or not. That right there is what this entire debate has been about from the very beginning. It is not about the origins of life on Earth; it never was. It was never about “science” or which theory fails the test, or which theory deserves to be called “science.” It was and is about pushing an agenda of an atheistic universe, in which nobody could be told what he could or could not do, much less be told that he might suffer the consequences in the next life.

Sincerely, Cylar Z
- cylarz | 03/23/2011 @ 16:46
[…] It won’t change minds, because whoever isn’t convinced in the moment I’m typing this, will never be convinced. This one did startle me, I must say. I would have thought the entire nation got its fill of this […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 05/05/2011 @ 18:47

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Saturday, March 19th, 2011