In Sovyet Russia, Internet Wastes Its Time on You!

[mankoeponymous]

Had lunch with a coupla Birthers. They asked if the restaurant had any food. The waiter showed them the menu, but they insisted on seeing the original. These things can be easily forged, after all

Comments

[jaaron]

There's another annoying and dangerous trend mixed in with the current wave of homophily: the idea that mindless disagreeing with authorities is critical thinking. People seem to feel that claiming all the scientists in the world are wrong about their respective sciences is a meaningful contribution to the scientific discourse. It seems to be wrapped up in a lot of the anti-elite sentiment that's been flying around (which, IMHO, is also infuriating but I'll stay on topic).

This drives me nuts. I'm not a chemist, physicist, biologist, climatologist, or really any sort of real scientist (computer scientists are really either mathematicians or engineers), but I know that when the scientific community has a general consensus on something (like say, evolution) I should probably believe them even without understanding all the fine details, and if I really want to argue I should understand all the damn details. Sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling "no no no" is not argument.

[mankoeponymous]

Indeed. It's almost funny, the extent to which people who steadfastly deny the climate change evidence sound a lot like, um, me: we both feel strongly that OTHER factions need further education in basic reasoning. (And this time last year Snomageddon was being touted as "proof" that climate change was bunk, etc