Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Scientists
I’m not sure what a “neo-con” is, but I think I am one. I want Saddam Hussein’s head mounted on a wall. I want bin Laden’s head next to his, and Kim Jong-Il’s next to bin Laden’s, and the “I’m a dinner jacket” guy’s head next to Il’s. And then I want us going out looking for a fifth head. That would be a great start.
Not “machismo.” Just common sense.
Some would say if I want that, I should be enlisting. To them I say…whatever. Your point is off-topic. You think it isn’t, but it is. Here’s a great way of demonstrating how off-topic it is: If those psychopaths should be allowed to run around, don’t the people who argue and yell and bicker and fight to keep them running around, have the job of living closest to them? Shouldn’t they be taking the “yeah Hussein was a threat, but not to America, so that makes him all okay” talk and sticking it? Shouldn’t they be the ones living in Tel Aviv? Especially if they’re insisting people like me should be enlisting, or else shutting the hell up? Aren’t they the ones who are hypocrites?
Anyway.
There’s this theory running around among “neo-cons,” I’m told. The theory goes like this: Osama bin Laden took out the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon, because he was getting desperate and frustrated. He did the thing with the USS Cole, he did the thing with the Khobar Towers, and we didn’t give him any attention for it. And he ended up in this “What in the hell is it going to take” mode.
I got a theory of my own. I think this is the mode scientists are in. They come up with explanations for the things we can observe, which is their job…and then us little people take their hypotheses out of context, waggling our fingers in each others’ faces, intoning, “I am right because the scientists agree with me.” Which is a terrible misuse of science when you think about it. Scientists, when the rubber meets the road, don’t “agree” that “the evidence supporting evolution is overwhelming.” That isn’t their job. They don’t “agree” that “global warming is real.” And it doesn’t help that some unscrupulous scientists are out there, promoting the idea that science is an ivory tower, wherein “pristine” opinions are formed; opinions that the dirty, unwashed masses had better just co-opt as their own, or else if the dirty unwashed masses dare to disagree, then they become dirty stupid unwashed masses.
I think there are some slightly more scrupulous scientists who understand that’s a perversion of science, but are not above starting a “backburn.” And so they shake science up. Which is healthy in a certain way, because science serves truth best when it engages in a game of “King of the Hill” — the longer a theory stands, the more aggressive should be the effort to challenge it.
But it also helps to stymie this finger-waggling exercise. It makes it harder for us to waggle our fingers in each others’ faces, citing the proxy opinions of those oh-so-smart scientists, if the scientists change their minds every once in a while. And so the scientists — no, I’m not comparing scientists to bin Laden, but — are engaged in the “what is it gonna take” mode.
Alar on the apples. DDT. Oncoming ice age; no wait, global warming. Oops, we were wrong, oat bran doesn’t do anything to cholesterol. Pluto isn’t a planet after all.
If my theory has some merit, what is it we’re doing to get those scientists so agitated? I’m going to take a wild guess it’s probably this: Science says something, and the commoners think of themselves as engaging in “critical thinking” and “skepticism” if they — get ready for this — believe it. Those among us who ask bothersome questions about it, and show reluctance to believe it, are called “Bushbots” and “sheep.”
The definitions of “skeptics” and “sheep” are one-hundred-eighty degrees reversed.
If I was a scientist, that would bug the piss outta me. Well, I would try to discipline myself to not pay attention to it. But as a human scientist, I’d still be bugged about it.
Believing something, without reservation, because someone else says it is so, makes you a critical thinker?
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