House of Eratosthenes

For decades, as most readers should now know, public health authorities condemned delicious, fatty foods on that plausible argument (all magic must be made “plausible” to convince) about clogging the arteries. Now they have quietly taken it back, without owning to the misery spread by their lies through several generations. They mounted collateral attacks on beer, wine, and liquors, which likewise proved false; and their continuing campaigns against tobacco depend on the same methodology.

What they have done is far more evil than this, however: for they have been exploiting the human propensity to guilt, which serves an irreplaceable purpose in the moral order. Compunction about sin and wrongdoing is distracted to meaningless dietary issues. The success of the nannying public health authorities has helped the principalities and powers to accomplish a complete moral inversion — in which abstinence and fasting to a spiritual end is now dismissed as silly, yet dieting for health is done with insufferably morbid gravity. We have, as a consequence, a society of obsessive dieters, deluded fitness fanatics, and low-calorie muffin eaters, who are utterly shameless in committing crimes contra naturam: that Culture of Death which Saint John-Paul identified with such harrowing accuracy.

It should also be noted, for the benefit of credulous materialists, that the time and money invested in gathering and analyzing inconsequential health statistics subtracts from serious medical research into suspected causes of disease — including the hard and focused epidemiology that can usefully assist. Resources for such work are always finite, yet almost everything I see flagged in the media is an example of resources bled away.

A deeper note needs to be sounded, however, against the consistent tendency of all this “pop,” or more precisely, “crap science.” The target will ever be some innocent human pleasure; genuinely sinful ones with direct and potentially grave health consequences (sexual promiscuity, for instance, or sodomy), are shied away from, for fear of the politically correct. Class is evident in each choice of target: typically some consolation, some little delight that makes life more endurable for the poor. (Smoking is a primary example.)

What is happening? What is changing? It is clear now that in the past several decades it is science that has been changing, with this vacillating “Let’s see if we can get away with saying it” two-steps-forward three-steps-back dance routine, partnered up cheek-to-cheek with a fawning and complicit media.

But that is effect, and not cause. What’s the cause? Could it be that, in these days of waning influence from the consumer on the nature of the transactions, when we uncover the motives of the suppliers we’ve found the root cause? Is the consumer that estranged? Somehow, I doubt it. I think the “crap science” holds an appeal it didn’t have before.

Being a child of the seventies, I’m not in any position to know that for sure. The seventies were pockmarked silly with trendy, coffee-table-paperback crap-science. If the decade of my childhood was anything relative to this, it was a high watermark. So this predates me, but from my reading of history I still have the impression this is a modern trend, and people do want it. Not the real science. Just the crap.

I see something over on the Hello Kitty of Blogging that caught my eye a couple hours ago:

The 5 Stupidest Ways People Try to Look Smart

Intrigued?

I like #5 a lot. But #1 is the best of the best:

#1. Refuse to Argue

The world has no shortage of foolish loudmouths vomiting forth their opinions in desperate attempts to seem wise, but I don’t need to tell you that. And I won’t. Instead, I’d like to focus on a different bunch of game-playing imbeciles who are just as omnipresent, but somehow escape condemnation: people who refuse to argue. Sure, some people aren’t worth arguing with, and some things aren’t open to debate, but employing silence or a simple world-weary dismissive phrase to shut down conversations is also a trick used by the intellectually feeble who are attempting to look smart.

Most opinions that can’t be debated aren’t worth having. If beliefs don’t stand up to cross-examination, all the raised eyebrows and silent eye rolling won’t suddenly make them legitimate. Eighty percent of the people who will not engage in an argument or go toe-to-toe with dissenting voices are not wiser, more mature or more sophisticated. Most are just incapable of explaining their own beliefs. Outclassed in the marketplace of ideas, they hope that silent indifference will be mistaken for quiet reflection.

And when they say, “Well, I’ll debate with the people whose opinions matter,” nine times out of ten all that means is “I’ll debate with my closest friends, who likely already agree with me.” Previously, I’d described a refusal to argue as a sign of arrogance, and it can surely be that, but just as often it’s a mask worn by someone incapable of defending their views who would rather be mistaken for arrogant than exposed as simplistic.

Theory: What is lately in ascension, and reaching a cresting point, is a fondness for winning arguments, paired up with a loathing for dealing with tiresome but necessary details. In short, looking at life as a chess match, people want to move ahead to the check-mate without dealing with all that junk about which-piece-moves-which-way.

Which fits in well with the “crap science” that has just come along, the solution in search of a problem.

Quoting myself, ONCE again…

Our “civilization”…is embroiled in a cold civil war…between people who refuse to define things, and people who MUST see to it that things are strongly defined before they can do what they do.

It’s just that simple. I think. It’s the simplest explanation, so far, anyway.

Related (3/8/15): This has been in my stack for a few days, it occurs to me that the best place to stick it in is right here…

When a researcher gets proved wrong, that means the scientific method is working. Scientists make progress by re-doing each other’s experiments—replicating them to see if they can get the same result. More often than not, they can’t. “Failure to reproduce is a good thing,” says Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch. “It happens a lot more than we know about.”

The problem is not that science reverses course now & then. The problem is the media-hype that occurs beforehand.

Seems to be a funding issue, as much as anything else. “More research is needed,” say the researchers, and the best way to ensure that happens is to make the public aware of what sort of new truths the researchers might have uncovered. It is outside of our collective ways of knowing about things that maybe the statement should be taken absolutely literally, and it’s way too soon to say why the initial tests came out the way they did.

I don’t know that it’s starting. If anything, it seems to be either ending, or finally coming to honest battles. Note that the dietary silliness happened decades ago, just after WWII, yes? There was no objection, no arguments. TOP MEN had spoken! That would never fly today. Witness the ongoing fight over the “Climate Change” fraud. Carl Sagan and his “Nuclear Winter” would get laughed out of the room, today. I think what’s going on is, when the TOP MEN are in charge, they have enough control to suppress and cover up any opposition, to a point. Enough lies and mistakes, and the “Mandate of Heaven” is lost, and things fall apart very quickly. This is a good thing. But the cracks were there all along……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 03/05/2015 @ 10:54
Well, according to AWARD WINNING (fill in the blank)….latest university studies show(fill in the blank).
“Smart” phones can be handy. I ask folks to “look it up” on THEIR smart phone (sometimes WHERE to look it up)and announce what they find. Wiki is banned for ANY “controversial” issue. As are “….opinions from unnamed sources (allegedly)close to the issue…”
- CaptDMO | 03/05/2015 @ 16:22
Right, it’s been going on since the public at large could catch on to the “argument winning power” of science. I would peg the origins of it, as we know it today, somewhere around the growing popularity of the Eugenics movement in the early twentieth century. Before that, there are many examples of actual scientists trying to win arguments with other scientists by saying simply, “It’s science, I’m pro-science so you must be anti-science.” But that’s the earliest example of which I’m aware, of the public-at-large doing it with other members of the public-at-large: Turning the science of horse- and dog-breeding, toward making a better human race. It’ science! Has to end well. Oh no, wait, I guess it didn’t…
- mkfreeberg | 03/06/2015 @ 04:53
somewhere around the growing popularity of the Eugenics movement in the early twentieth century

PLUS one other key ingredient: State-worship.

The eugenics movement in the United States had a weird-but-harmless side — Google up the “fitter family contests” they used to have at state fairs in the Midwest. (And, really, what’s wrong with voluntarily trying to improve the human race in the form of your own family?). It took “””Progressives””” getting a hold of the idea to make it scary and murderous. Because now it’s the state determining who should, and should not, reproduce, for the good of society.

The state said “trust us, we got this… and all the top scientists agree.” And nobody, then as now, seemed to realize that in practice always means: Student Council dorks now control your sex life.
- Severian | 03/06/2015 @ 06:10
WAITwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait…

CRACKED.com said:

Most opinions that can’t be debated aren’t worth having. If beliefs don’t stand up to cross-examination, all the raised eyebrows and silent eye rolling won’t suddenly make them legitimate. Eighty percent of the people who will not engage in an argument or go toe-to-toe with dissenting voices are not wiser, more mature or more sophisticated. Most are just incapable of explaining their own beliefs. Outclassed in the marketplace of ideas, they hope that silent indifference will be mistaken for quiet reflection.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

This is the SAME SITE that, when they put up something on gamergate, left an editor’s note of:

Editor’s Note: If you found this article from another message board and are about to leave a comment that boils down to, “I don’t condone the harassment, but let me explain why she deserved it!” please just take a deep breath, step away from your computer, and call your mother. Tell her you love her. Call a friend and ask if they need anything. Go outside, gaze up into the sky, take a deep breath, and really appreciate the fact that you’re alive and that you should make the most of it. Thank you.

And the boards are even less tolerant of dissent.
- Nate Winchester | 03/06/2015 @ 07:47
I would peg the origins of it, as we know it today, somewhere around the growing popularity of the Eugenics movement in the early twentieth century. Before that, there are many examples of actual scientists trying to win arguments with other scientists by saying simply, “It’s science, I’m pro-science so you must be anti-science.” But that’s the earliest example of which I’m aware, of the public-at-large doing it with other members of the public-at-large: Turning the science of horse- and dog-breeding, toward making a better human race. It’ science! Has to end well. Oh no, wait, I guess it didn’t…

Actually this now makes me wonder… is it something that’s “recent”? There is a debate. People need some way of settling it. One obvious method would be authority.

Older times, it seems the most obvious authority are actually the priests. But we’ve given up religion nowadays for science instead, but not the need for authority to settle disputes. So now instead of “the Church says…” it’s “Science says…” Now when authorities compete, instead of “Bishop Example is a heretic!” it’s “Scientist Random isn’t a real scientist!”

The longer I live, the more I think nothing’s really changed in life except the labels.
- Nate Winchester | 03/06/2015 @ 07:52
Nate,

Morgan had a troll infestation here a while back that loved to go on and on (and on and on and on) about the validity of appeals to authority. Fascinating stuff. No, really — because Science. “‘Shut up,’ he explained” is a subset of DISQUALIFY, a.k.a. point-and-shriek, a.k.a. the one and only tactic on the Left’s rhetorical utility belt.

That’s why we can’t even “agree to disagree” anymore. Leftists just can’t grok the idea that I see the facts, I understand the reasoning, but I still think the conclusion is wrong, and here’s why. This makes them feelbad, and since they also can’t grok that I give not one nickel-plated damn about their pwecious widdle feewings, the only option is to call me a racist and storm off in a huff. (And then go post on their MySpace page that they really took it to those wingnutz).
- Severian | 03/06/2015 @ 08:06
Severian, you REALLY want to anger leftists? Try being a “costitarian” sometime.

Well, that’s what I call myself (because “capitalist” is too loaded nowadays for people to get my point). Basically as my Dad says, “Everything’s a trade off” so my political opinion is generally one of “inform the voters of all the costs and benefits of a policy, let them make the choice of the cost they want to pay.”

(I have this whole metaphor in my head about two ice cream shops and paying with time vs money)

I’ve rarely seen anything drive leftists insane than pointing out their idea will have a cost (nope, per them there is NEVER any downside) and that, right or wrong, it’s not a cost I (or some other people) want to pay.

In fact, I’ve learned that you can peg someone on the left/right scale pretty accurately by how they react to the cost idea. The more harshly they reject the idea that costs even exist, the more left they are.
- Nate Winchester | 03/06/2015 @ 08:33
Severian: Leftists just can’t grok the idea that I see the facts, I understand the reasoning, but I still think the conclusion is wrong, and here’s why.

Evidence is always a valid argument to an appeal to authority.

Nate Winchester’s Dad: Everything’s a trade off

Quite so.
- Zachriel | 03/06/2015 @ 08:45
Nate,

see what I mean? You’ll also notice the connection between Leftism and Asperger’s Syndrome.

I like “costitarian” a lot! It’s a more succinct version of Sowell’s Three Questions:

–Compared to what?
–At what cost?
–What hard evidence do you have?

Vox Day’s scientistry/scientody distinction is useful here (though I wish he’d put up a damn glossary of all that group’s jargon). “Scientody” is what just plain “science” used to mean — a systematic method of investigating the world. “Scientistry” is this cult-like “Because Science!” thing the Left does when they want to shut down debate.* The consensus is settled. All the peer reviewers in The Peer-Reviewed Journal of Peer-Reviewed Journals say so.

*as far as I understand it. Like all long-running blogs, they have so many in-jokes it’s practically a private language over there sometimes.**

**I know, I know… guilty as charged.
- Severian | 03/06/2015 @ 09:08
I like “costitarian” a lot! It’s a more succinct version of Sowell’s Three Questions:

*looks over at bookcase with “Vision of the Annointed” and a few other Sowell books*

Yeah… funny that. 😉

And yes, Vox’s scientistry/scientody stuff is good and should be more widespread.

oh and further data for your point (and semi related to post). I was reading this and came across this image collection. Notice some of the posts by David Wong: “You can’t understand my position because you’re not in my position…” It’s like another version of the whole “privilege” argument. I’m still forming the details in my mind (thanks to your explaining academia series btw) but ultimately it all seems to boil down to: “You can’t argue unless you understand my point. Do you disagree with me? Then you don’t understand me.”
- Nate Winchester | 03/06/2015 @ 09:18
I think this is germane. (In The Guardian of all places!)

Here’s a good bit:

It has often been observed that Christianity follows changing moral fashions, all the while believing that it stands apart from the world. The same might be said, with more justice, of the prevalent version of atheism. If an earlier generation of unbelievers shared the racial prejudices of their time and elevated them to the status of scientific truths, evangelical atheists do the same with the liberal values to which western societies subscribe today – while looking with contempt upon “backward” cultures that have not abandoned religion. The racial theories promoted by atheists in the past have been consigned to the memory hole – and today’s most influential atheists would no more endorse racist biology than they would be seen following the guidance of an astrologer. But they have not renounced the conviction that human values must be based in science; now it is liberal values which receive that accolade. There are disputes, sometimes bitter, over how to define and interpret those values, but their supremacy is hardly ever questioned. For 21st century atheist missionaries, being liberal and scientific in outlook are one and the same.
- Severian | 03/06/2015 @ 15:06
From Voxday
14. It is my intention to give individual commenters two opportunities per post to criticize what I have posted there. Since I do not have any interest whatsoever in wasting time on futile attempts to explain things to the willfully obtuse, the intellectually underpowered, or the disingenuous, I will cease to engage with a commenter after he has committed two demonstrable errors of fact or logic in that comment thread. While I will identify those errors, I am not inclined to be drawn into tangential discussions of them. Attempts to claim that my refusal to further engage with a commenter whose arguments have repeatedly been demonstrated to be flawed are the result of cowardice or an inability to respond are false and will be deleted.”
Which is far from “refuse to argue” of course.
Personally, I also reserve the right to “refuse to reeducate”, or repair “broken” education, unless some sort of tuition is exchanged for my labor.
Something about….”OK, but where’s the omelet?”, as short hand, or more likely, a “children’s” version of
(above mentioned) Sowell’s :
–Compared to what?
–At what cost?
–What hard evidence do you have? (again, barring (ie) Wiki, or my OWN guilty pleasure-KNOWN Fables)
- CaptDMO | 03/07/2015 @ 05:40
[…] House Of Eratosthenes has wobbly science. […]
- Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove | 03/08/2015 @ 07:29

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When Science WobblesThursday, March 5th, 2015

When Science Wobbles
Thursday, March 5th, 2015