Jul 01 2008
America May Tune Out This Election
I am getting the feeling this country is at a breaking point with hyper-partisan dribble. I know I am. Not everyone is worked up to a fevered pitch, but those who are too many times run on a nasty combination of arrogance and ignorance. Needless to say they are also running low on respect and tolerance.
I recently had it out with a conservative friend on the issues of science and politics. We were discussing how the green liberals have latched onto the mythology of global warming and denigrate those who simply note the data, the reality, is not supporting their theories (they are not facts by any stretch of the imagination). The reason we had it out is in the middle of this common ground debate they guy went off and hoped the ‘science’ of global warming would be an example for the demise of the true science of genetics and evolution. Needless to say this guy supports the unproven mythology of Creationism and Intelligent Design (something I addressed recently in this post).
When did a lack of education become the badge of expertise? I ask that because my friend has no clue what biology or genetic or evolution is about, yet he thinks science is all ‘opinion’ so therefore his ignorance is equal to everyone else’s ‘opinion’. You can probably tell this was a major dust up, but I use it as the conservative mirror image of the same crap coming from the Church of Al Gore. After a decade of flat or falling global temperatures, after two decades where temperatures maybe increased 0.2° C instead of the 0.6° – 1.0° C predicted by the Church of Al Gore, we have a similar combination of ignorance and arrogance ignoring reality on the far left.
As someone who knows a lot about science and the scientific method it saddens me to see so much ignorance being given credibility. It seems everyone needs a religion of some kind to wail against established facts for some reason. Why? I haven’t a clue.
For the left it is Global Warming. The Earth’s temperature has not been rising, and even the Priests from the Church of Al Gore recently admitted the current data shows another decade of falling temperatures to come. Yet ignorant and arrogant people run around with C+ High School science backgrounds and claim the science is settled!
For the far right, instead of seeing God’s hand and plans in the code he established to create life on this planet, people with C+ High School backgrounds in science and biology run around and claim evolution and genetics don’t really exist. Too bad they spent all those years with their mind’s eye closed to see the reality, but I can point to the common cold as proof of genetic evolution – those little viruses evolve each year. And there are millions of studies proving the force of evolution. The problem is most people run around with a cartoon level grasp of evolution, not a deep understanding to see the reality.
OK, enough on these two matters. Again, being someone with a science and engineering background the political fringes on matters of science are as silly to me as those who claim NASA faked the missions to the moon. Just another group proudly and arrogantly displaying their ignorance.
I understand most of these people have the best of intentions. But so did medieval ‘doctors’ who tried to bleed out the evil in patients or use slugs to suck it out. These people back then really, really wanted to save the sick. These people were trying everything they knew to save the sick. But the fact remains they were ignorant. They did not know that the blood carries the antibiotic forces to fight off illness, and in fact they were making things worse and killing patients who may have been able to tough it out. You don’t send surgeons to repair passenger jets, and you don’t ask a rocket scientist to do brain surgery. Even the most accomplished need to realize their limits, best intentions are not enough.
But this completely lost perspective on science seems to be evidence of a more universal problem. People are running around telling everyone else what to do, as if freedom of speech is freedom to nag and control others. You get these purity putsches on the left and right, running amok on wild theories and simpleton solutions to nagging problems generations have failed to fix.
We have the far left claiming democracy and freedom in Iraq and the Muslim world is impossible to achieve, while the far right claims we are being attacked through our southern border and all illegal aliens must be deported or forced to leave. Neither of these views is accurate or useful. But boy, do people scream a lot about how they will save America and world with this garbage.
Maybe it’s just me, but this election is turning into a real downer, a rehash of all the same liberal and far right paranoid delusions and fears we have been hammered with for decades now. We will lose the world’s respect by winning in Iraq, we are being overtaken by hispanics, the Earth is warming, evolution is a lie, we did not go to the moon and the Earth is flat. Ugh!
We need some fresh new ideas and we need to end the hyper-partisan dribble. And no, Barack Obama is not the answer. He’s just a smooth talking politician, real good at hiding his intentions and shifting his speeches to tell audiences what they want to hear. We need “genuine change“. We need the change in tone Bush has tried to impose and he himself has followed through 8 years of yapping idiots. We don’t need a smooth delivery, we need sincere respect and tolerance and pride in our country.
You’ve hit on something I’ve been worried about, which is this: what will be the real long term consequences when the global warming scare becomes acknowledged as false? The evidence already suggest cooling for the next 10 years; with the solar anomoly we are currently experiencing, that cooling could be dramatic. (caveat – that view is a working HYPOTHESIS, not a fact, and should be treated as any hypothesis should be.)
So how will people react? By Ghost Dancing.
I have a strong engineering and science background as you do, AJ (my original undergrad degree was chemistry) and it has dismayed me to watch the long slow slide into irrationality that we’ve been watching for years now. When it becomes clear that the entire global warming scare was a fraud, even though the scientific community apparently (and appearances are all that matter to public opinion) backed it completely, I think we will see a mass rejection of science and rationality and a shift towards purely fantastical thinking by a majority of the population. We’re already close to that now, and I shudder to think what the future holds when a majority openly rejects rationality. But when the champions of rationality have all been shown to be liars and frauds, who could blame them? Societies have made this kind of move throughout history when they’re under pressure; there’s no reason to believe we’re different. Ghost Dancing. The last chance when the rational world becomes too painful, when people no longer have the character to bear the weight of self honesty. The plunge into the wild abandon and joy of pure irrationality. Will leaders emerge to fight this, or instead will they fan the flames for their own ends? But ghost dancing always leads to self destruction.
Maybe new leadership can only arise from the ashes of the general societal and economic collapse we may be about to go through. I know that sounds extreme; I also know that if Obama wins that’s where we’re headed.
and in ’06 you said that republicans would pick up 3 seats in the senate. i don’t think your harry potter magic spells work so good.
Norm,
Potter is fiction, he is not real.
WWS,
Sadly I think we see that rejection now. Part jokingly and part seriously – take Norm as an example. Clueless to his core on science and engineering but without any shame he babbles on as if he could do brain surgery with one hand tied behind his back.
And when you make him face his OWN lack of comprehension he gets all snitty.
It is happening left and right, which means it has already started.
[…] I agree that the far left and far right have gone too far in their attacks on McCain (which folds into my post below on how the fringes are ruining […]
The loony left, with their Soviet nostalgia and cultish, maniacal embrace of Dear Leader Barack certainly represents a major swing to irrationality.
But the average American is too levelheaded to join them — he simply takes it in stride. He knows that AGW is probably a crock, that MSM is a propaganda leviathan and that he has it pretty well compared to most of the world.
I do not expect that cataclysmic reaction to AGW being proven bunk because most people already disbelieve it and sort of shrug it off. I think a well-publicized commission probing the failures of Hansen and Gore would do the trick, then everyone would go back to their lives. Their iPods will work as they had before, as will their broadband Internet; hence science will not be severely discredited.
I hope you’re right about the majority, JB, I truly do. But when I see polls that consistently give Obama a lead, in spite of his being a giant nothingburger, I have trouble believing that.
Michigan, New Jersey, and now Ohio are all states where majorities have taken leave of their senses and have voted in state governors that are driving those states into economic ruin, and yet there does not seem to be any change on the horizon for any of them. Detroit is a prime example of a city that is dying because of astoundingly bad leadership for decades, and it just keeps getting worse. (New Orleans is another) What’s the risk that a majority of the country could follow their example? Not everyone, just 51%? Uncomfortably high, I fear.
Zimbabwe. 9 million percent inflation. Mugabe just re-elected.
No food. An entire country can become crazy. I feel inclined to
turn my back on Africa unless and until Mugabe is deposed.
We each need to prevent the Zimbabweization of the USA.
The news media are worthless. All mainstream news organizations
are essentially walking dead. Even Fox is just a fluff piece for
Obama. Nothing to watch here folks.
We have our own communications and we need to use them every
day. Surprisingly, I don’t find that many people believe in global
warming. Their worried about polar bears because they think
that’s nice, but they don’t believe the scare stories. Common sense
goes unreported.
Also there is that strange poll over at AOL, the one that accumulates
about 500,000 votes over the week and unanimously awards all states
to McCain, even California. That is what I would expect but all the
mainstream polls favor Obama. I have to ask, are they corrupted too?
One more thing. It’s easy to get tired, that’s what the propaganda is
designed to do to you. The cure is just to switch off to it. Most days
you will not have to fight a jihadist personally. Most days you will
wake up and be safe. Remember to have a nice day, look at the
sky and the fluffy clouds, and try to be happy. Being happy ruins
the propaganda.
Exhaustion has taken affect, but give it time, around october you will see an uptick in intrest and generaly close polling.
I have, since commenting here a couple of weeks ago, attempted to educate myself about intelligent design. I’ve concluded:
1. Intelligent Design and Creationism are not the same. It slanders ID to lump it in with Creationism.
2. Intelligent Design is not antithetical to Evolution, excepting for the part of Evolution which postulates that life originated without purpose. ID allows for random occurance within a larger, purposeful design.
3. Intelligent Design calls itself science. I am not comfortable with that description at this time. I am still mulling whether ID can actually be science. Maybe, later, I shall be comfortable with that description. Or not.
A friend of mine has stopped watching the news. He says the nut cases have taken over politics and he just can not take it. The screamers on the left and the right are doing their best to drive normal people out of the process. I am beginning to think he is onto something.
For instance, the left is so wedded to defeat in Iraq that they literally hope for disaster. The right goes off the deep end because McCain {McShamnesty doncha know} supports a temporary worker program.
I mean this is just silly.
I think that Christians are completely within their rights to believe what they want, but if they say that ID is a valid theory, no different from the theory of evolution and push to have it taught in public schools..I think parents will fight it. If you want to send your kid to a private Christian school then you can have more control over the curriculum. But public schools are another matter.
wws:
I don’t know about those polls. For one thing, it seems to me that if Obama was all that confident in winning he would not be changing his positions on so many things. He would just sit and wait. Right now he lags behind the generic Democrat. I think this could be a Democrat year, but if they insist on ignoring majority opinion on all sorts of issues they might well blow it.
Just look at drilling and energy. Or gay marriage. I also read that in the key battleground states a solid majority support keeping troops in Iraq until the country is stable. When it gets closer and people start paying attention we will have a better idea what is going on.
aj…
i guess i need to remind you that it is you who refers to harry potter, and mythical videotapes, and posts images cribbed from vidoegames. i simply call you on the fact that this is the basis of your understanding of science and engineering. and as i said…it was also you who predicted a gain of 3 senate seats for the republicans in ’06. so i think we can also see who is getting snitty when faced with fact.
By fact….you mean your opinion norm?
[…] America May Tune Out This Election I ask that because my friend has no clue what biology or genetic or evolution is about, yet he thinks science is all ‘opinion’ so therefore his ignorance is equal to everyone else’s ‘opinion’. You can probably tell this was a major dust … […]