House of Eratosthenes

…about the future, that is. Particularly with regard to the younger generation, currently being edjyoomakayted in our institutions of higher learning, readying themselves to take up the leadership mantle in the world of tomorrow.

It’ll cure your optimism about the present as well. Or at least Yahoo News will do that. Or Pew Research. Or whoever wrote this godawful summary paragraph.

From April 2008 to October 2009 the percentage of Americans saying there is solid evidence of global warming has fallen from 71% to 57%. A third of the country now says there is no evidence of global warming, up from 21% last year. Views of the evidence of global warming is related to how seriously people see earth warming as a problem. Interestingly, among global warming skeptics a third still sees it as a serious problem (10% very serious, 23% somewhat serious). Roughly two-thirds of those who do not say global warming evidence exists say it is not a problem. Among the 18% of the public who say there is evidence of global warming, but that it is caused by natural phenomena a majority say it is a serious problem, with 27% saying it is a very serious problem. Americans who say global warming exists and is man made (47% of the public) are unanimous in their opinion that earth warming is a serious problem (97%), with two thirds describing it as a very serious problem.

Here’s the issue I have with this: Carbon dioxide does have insulatory properties. And the “science is settled” on that. It is in our atmosphere, to the tune of some 385 parts per million, about a thirtieth of a percent. This unique animal species we refer to as “man” does put out some. All this is backed up with solid evidence.

The evidence is also united in saying something else: This is patently absurd. A whole lot of other animals emit CO2, there is a whole mess of other things in the atmosphere that cause this “greenhouse effect” and there are lots of other variables that factor into the mean temperature of the earth…and oh, by the way, there are lots of ways to measure that. All the solutions on the table have to do with shuffling money around. All the people plugging those solutions — minus the loudmouths on the innerwebs who just like to shoot their digital mouths off, that is — stand to profit from it. And they just got caught red handed bullying the real scientists, cherry-picking the evidence, and re-defining the “peer review” process to silence dissenting viewpoints.

Now take a look at the FARK thread. It is a textbook case of a little tiny bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing. In their first handful of comments, the FARKists’ “science” is settled quite nicely. A cold snap, a bunch of rubes out there thinking they can get a reading of the earth-mean-temperature by peaking out their trailer windows, and this accounts for the fourteen-point plunge in the “belief in global warming.” Not a syllable to be uttered about the ClimateGate scandal. Propagandize harder! The earth is at stake!

Or use sarcasm. With a lot of them, that’s the only way they can argue anything…and think of all the poor woodland creatures with the big sad eyes.

It could very well be that all the posters who’ve added content that fits the above — and this looks, to me, like about sixty percent — none of them go to college. I last paid some diligent attention to this when I first created my account, nearly a decade ago. And these things will always change with time. But my habit is to view FARK as a window into the universities…because college students are cheap, and many of them have access to the webs for free. On free hardware. The Mac Powerbook Whatever was just one more item in the mad scramble of Mom and Dad, junior’s education was so important.

That’s just my impression. The way these kids write their stuff, it’s like they live in a whole other society all their own…one that can only exist on college campuses. They’ve all got that “anybody who doesn’t agree with me is skullfuckingly stupid but I’m going to project that ignorant, obstinate attitude of mine onto everyone else” thing going on.

Here & there some brave souls step up to point out Climategate, that it might have something to do with the public’s change in perception. They are promptly called stupid and “shouted” down.

Behold, the educated minds, being readied to become the captains of industry in tomorrow’s world. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The problem with college is that while it (some of the majors, anyway!) may be great for imparting academic skill and “book knowledge,” the one thing college does not teach you is common sense, “street smarts,” or pretty much anything else. (It’s also kinda shy on hands-on experience in any subject other than agriculture, but that is another story.)

Common sense, which I would define as the ability to sort truth from falsehood, is something you either learned at home before heading to the university, or something you pick up yourself through the school of hard knocks.

In this latter category, I refer mostly to the kids on the lower 1/4 of the bell curve, the ones who finish high school and either wind up in the Army or working at menial jobs after graduation. Either of those experiences will teach you plenty about “the real world” that you don’t learn in a classroom or from a textbook.

I was fortunate enough to go to a university and earn a bachelor’s degree in an actual academic subject. I didn’t major in sociology, philosophy, english, or medieval studies. I learned my common sense at home before I went away to school – my dad taught me from an early age to think for myself and not to believe everything I read or heard. It’s for this reason that in school., I was something of an anomaly among my fellow students – a right winger…and even more extreme then than now.
- cylarz | 01/10/2010 @ 09:58
cylarz, I think you’ve got it re the origin of this idiocy. I went to college for awhile in the ’60s, and I couldn’t figure out why nobody else saw that it was mostly a factory for teaching acolytes to teach other acolytes, ad infinitum.

Since I was born into a situation where nobody taught me nothin, I’ve had to figure it all out by myself – and as everybody knows, the self-educated man has a fool for a pupil. What’s been surprising to me is that what I did learn at home, which was never to trust anybody, has stood me in good stead in the skepticism sweepstakes, and that my basic Conservative nature is apparently inherent to my personality.

What I think is, as you pointed out, that people who are destined to learn by experience are forced to put every new idea to the test of whatever common sense they were born with instead of constantly looking for a cheap way out. I’ve rarely regretted having to do it all for myself, particularly after having spent most of my life among the entitled.

Ignorance is curable; idiocy is chronic.
- rob | 01/10/2010 @ 10:38

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FARK Will Cure Your OptimismSunday, January 10th, 2010

FARK Will Cure Your Optimism
Sunday, January 10th, 2010