You certainly repeat what’s made up and spouted on Fox verbatim, far more than once, and you’re always in lock step with them except the blue moon when they tell the truth about Trump. If you don’t watch Fox, how does that happen?
I never watched cable news…that’s your fantasy you made up so you can discard what I say without ever researching it. I sometimes post cable news YouTube videos because they make a certain point well, or have footage I’m looking to post, they aren’t my sources. I research, I read, I watch multiple respected news sources to decide what to look into…but never cable news like all “conservative news*” (*for entertainment purposes only).

Not wasting time or pimping for Democrats, I’m entertaining myself bashing on and triggering know nothing fascists. I would likely be a Republican if only THEY would, but the responsible, honest, honorable, non hypocritical, law respecting, ethical, fiscally sound, champion of clean air and water, worshiper of democracy, believer in and supporter of science “Republican” I was raised to believe in didn’t exist when I was old enough to vote, and they’ve gone down hill on roller skates since Reagan.

Not blinded at all, but I do hate liars, and those that excuse lies from their allies/prophet.

Wait, you WANT me WOKE!?! 🤦‍♂️

The economy is doing far better than expected after the apocalypse Trump left, negative GDP, 15% unemployment, skyrocketing inflation, massively increased debt and deficit….still not healthy but off the life support it needed after Republican rule. It would be much better today if Republicans hadn’t removed established common sense bank regulations in 2018 causing today’s bank failures.

I’m a newtboy, not a sheeple. Learn your animals. 🤨


“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”


― Isaac Asimov

What was all that stuff they always babble on about freedom and fighting tyranny?.... The GOP is an extremist organization, no different than the Taliban- violent, misogynist, anti-intellectual and education, mono-religious, and antidemocratic. It’s high time that the US national security apparatus begin approaching it as such.

There is little difference between "Sharia Law" that repulses them and the fascist "Christian Nationalism" that they are hell-bent to install but to the Taliban's credit there is a slight difference between the GOP and the Taliban. The Taliban allows abortion if the woman’s life is in danger and in other situations.

Your assumption is incorrect. As I've stated repeatedly, I think people should be seen and assessed individually on the totality of their character. It's just that I see the inpracticality of that in institutional settings where a few people must assess tens of thousands of applicants in months. That necessitates putting people into groups and making assumptions, sometimes by necessity that's by race. Fund education better, they might screen better. Fund all education better, they might be able to abandon all criteria beyond past performance, but that just won't happen (but $12 billion for Trump's trade war's damage to soy bean farmers, no problem, who's next?).

Ahhh....but those discriminatory practices have, and still are encoded in the law against these groups in many forms. Some have been rectified, many not, and never has there been a reasonable attempt to make up the shortfalls/damages these policies have caused these groups over decades and centuries. If I beat you daily and take your lunch until 11th grade, then stop, it's still horrifically unfair of me to insist you meet weight requirements to be on my JV wrestling team and yet not offer you weight training and free lunch to help you get there. Same goes for groups, however you wish to divide them, that have been downtrodden.
Creating policies to address the damage done in order to get the long abused back to their natural ability level isn't bad unless they aren't ever modified once equality is reached. We aren't close yet.

Some won't, most do. You make a thousand little sacrifices for the greater good daily, one more won't hurt you. If your ability is actually equal to the poor kid trying to take your place, the advantages you have over them should make that point abundantly clear and your scores should be excessively higher. If they aren't, you just aren't taking advantage of your advantages, making them the better choice.

Time will tell, but I don't see this as political, I see it as rational realism vs irrational tribal wishful thinking.
My parents both worked at Stanford, and are Republicans, and both support giving less advantaged students more opportunities to excell, and both think diversity on campus benefits everyone to the extent that it merits using race and gender as points to consider during the application process if that's what it takes to get diversity.

Your main problem seems to be that it's decided purely by race. Let me again attempt dissuade you of that notion. Race is only one tiny part of the equation, and it's only part because they tried not including race and, for reasons I've been excessively sesquipedelien about, that left many races vastly underrepresented because they don't have the tools required to compete, be that education, finances, support of family, support of community, extra curricular opportunities, safety in their neighborhood, transportation, etc., much of which is caused by centuries of codified law that kept them poor, uneducated, and powerless to change that status. No white male with a 1600 and 4.0 is being turned away for a black woman with 1000 and 2.9, they might be turned away for a black woman with 1550 and 3.8 because she likely worked much harder to achieve those scores, indicating she'll do even better on a level field.

I don't see why Republicans care, they're now the proudly ignorant party of anti-intellectualism who claim all higher education is nothing but a bastion of liberal lefty PC thugs doin book lernin. Y'all don't want none of that no how. ;-)

Edit: note, according to reports I saw years ago, without racial preferencing FOR white kids, many universities would be nearly all Asian because their cultures value education above most other things so, in general, they test better than other groups.

I agree, our culture is barbaric, and getting more so. We're already discarding our culture's core pillar, that citizens have the right to believe in any religion they want....or none. I fully expect atheists to be the next targeted group, we're easy, a small (by comparison) group with little political power, and we're distrusted by the right, but not supported fully by the left, and we're an acceptable target for ridicule and distrust by almost all religious people. I ain't goin to no camp.

We (Americans) hold our prejudice tightly, and are worried about anyone different from ourselves, seemingly ignorant of the fact that we are (almost) al immigrants, and that our nation is built on the idea that different cultures together are stronger than any one.
We let Irish in while the IRA called for death to Brittan and tried to give it to them, without any extra vetting. What's different about these people....hmmmm? A different culture that, in your words, is barbaric? I guess you have an incredibly short memory, because until the mid 90's, terroristic barbarism was mostly reserved for Christians, yet no one suggested halting Christian immigration or extra vetting. Historically, Christian culture is far more barbaric and anti-intellectual.

"the world has always had a lot of gullible people who will buy anything".... says the idiot who gets his info on vaccines from google.

It's not the fault of the internet that truth is dead, it is the fault of anti-intellectual idiots who equate "smart" with "snobby".

Well that analogy doesn't hold up. No, I don't think detectives should have the moral latitude to dangle people off buildings.

But I'll tell you what the movement to police comedians' senses of humour really is: anti-intellectualism.

Like the parents groups who want to ban books with swearing, or sex scenes, or drug use from school libraries; like the SJeW vermin who want to dictate the design of videogames they don't have the skill to make for themselves; like the athenian jury who murdered Socrates: it's about idiots who are too stupid to understand or value art, and want anything they don't understand suppressed.

Many self professed feminists believe it is about hating men too, but I assume "no true feminist" would ever do that right?

I wasn't trying to wilfully misunderstand you, but rather to pursue my whole contention about any political/social argument:

Individual People and specific arguments over ideologies always.

When the reverse is true and ideology is placed before people or the specific merits of an argument, the result is dehumanising and anti-intellectual (even if by the slimmest margins sometimes).

That's not to say that, where mutual understanding already exists, ideological terms are completely useless. But the moment individuals disagree, those ideological assumptions are going to get in the way of a productive dialogue.

My whole point I guess is that this seems rather anti-humanist if you will pardon the irony of taking an ideological position.
If as a humanist one believes that the optimal way is for everyone to be judged only on the merits of their individual words, deeds and capacity.

Rather than by culture, race, gender or some other involuntary and/or irrelevant factors.

Assuming you agree in principle with that definition of humanism in terms of goals, then what we are arguing here really is collectivism vs individualism.

You are suggesting we can get better results by pushing the "right" version of said ideology and suppressing the "wrong", correct?

I am arguing ultimately that we seem to get better results in the long term, by encouraging free and critical thought and allowing all ideas (no matter how egregious) a fair fight.

This puts me contrary to many tenets of the various feminist ideologies and concordant with others. Sometimes wildly so.

If I want to try to be a good humanist, I have no choice but to try and understand each on their own terms.

When someone describes themselves as a "Feminist", that could mean anything from "kill all men" to "women should have fundamental legal equality".

It seems almost as redundant as racial and cultural epithets, it tells me very little really important about you or how you really think, to know you are Black, or White or Asian or Polish, Spanish etc. etc. It's just another excuse to put an idea above the person in front of you or to not have to think too much about ones own.

i.e. Collectivist thinking.

I think this may represent the very antithesis of intellectual progress.

However I am a Hegelian and I just defined a Thesis-antithesis relationship............ That means the next great breakthrough should lie in the synthesis of the two.......

................

Collective individualism! All we should need is a mass movement of free critical thought and.....bollocks.

It's over people, we have officially peaked as a species! I'm calling it

Understand, for people who have faith, faith is knowing the unknowable.

Example: I know that intelligent life exists on other planets. It is a 100% certainty in my mind. I am so certain of this "fact" in fact, that I think it's ridiculous that there are people who even question it. Yet, there is no actual scientific proof. Nothing published. Nothing discovered. I believe it though. I know it to be true. If someone were to tell me I shouldn't believe or talk about it, I would find it nonsensical and offensive. This is what faith feels like.

There's a difference between passively not believing in God and actively hating people who do.

If someone offers some bullshit as fact, and you know it isn't, welcome to every day on earth (or at least the internet). It doesn't matter if it's religion or not.

For example: (paraphrasing) 'Most people proselytize'.

Most of the (almost 6 Billion) people who believe in God go through their day to day lives without ever even mentioning their beliefs let alone trying to proselytize when they do.

And on that note I will say that proselytizing is not necessarily wrong either. You believe what you believe and they believe what they believe and everyone gets to express themselves (all proselytizing) and everyone can make up their own minds. Now, I'm talking about people expressing themselves, not entities who have an agenda.

Which brings me to my last point. None of this is to suggest that I disagree with Bil Nye. Kids should not be fed bullshit. Adults either. The real problem? It's not "money is the root of all evil". It's "the love of money". Greed is behind the majority of evil.

There are those who desire positions of power and pervert religion into a tool to achieve their own agenda. This is a very old story. And it is these people who "take God's name in vain". But that's just one hammer in their toolbag. Religion is one. Anti-intellectualism another. Manipulation through fear. On and on.

Science is truth but it is not the only "truth" in life. Art exists. Beauty exists. Love exists. There is more. Maybe all of that can be boiled down to some chemical reactions in the brain and sociological pressures, but I believe there is a greater truth.

Sorry for ranting. Don't take any of this personally please!

Because experts have already examined the evidence and found it sufficient. That evidence has been used in the development of medicines, and has used to make predictions later shown to be true.

You, on the other hand, want to overthrow the accepted worldview. So you better have some pretty extraordinary evidence as well as the understanding to back it up. I see neither from you.

The experts have only proven the idea of microevolution, and that is where the usable science comes from. You're telling me that you believe whatever they say on that basis. Isn't that anti-intellectual?

And there is tonnes of evidence of macroevolution. You and your ilk just misuse the term and ask to see a monkey to give birth to a human.

But that's just your lack of understanding.

How about just one piece of evidence for macroevolution? That would do nicely.

Of course it does. They're magic, they exist outside of time and space and can do whatever they feel like. It's the exact same "explanatory power" that god has, i.e. none whatsoever.

Yes, and there were good reasons to think thunder was gods fighting and rain happened when you danced. And now we know those are nonsense.

What you're doing is simply giving the teapot the same essence and characteristics of God, and then calling it something else. That doesn't exactly disprove the idea of God, does it? I think you are trivializing the subject without understanding it. There are good reasons, philosophically and scientifically, to believe that an all powerful being created the Universe. There are logically sound reasons for deducing such a being exists. Have you ever studied the history of philosophy? The subject is a little bit more indepth than you are giving it credit for.

Besides, you are conflating the origin of the universe with evolution. We have a pretty good idea about the origins of the universe, but it's kinda by definition a difficult question to ask. But we know that evolution is true to a ridiculously high certainty.

How am I conflating the origin of the Universe with evolution? So far, the best idea they've come up with is that nothing created everything. Not exactly encouraging, is it?

I really don't have to study it. You have to provide some evidence to back up your assertion, which I will then trivially disprove with 5 seconds on google.

Again, this is anti-intellectual isn't it? You dismiss the evidence against your belief while being totally ignorant of what it is. Worse yet, you rail on those who do believe it without understanding their positions. You have also said that if evidence were to be posed, you would simply seek out someone who agreed with your view and copy and paste their views on it. Where exactly in that process is your own brain being used?

You're not just wrong, you're fractally wrong. You're like a kitten who can't work out why he can't eat the fish on the tv. You would require significant education to even understand why you're so wrong.

I used to believe what you believe. I stopped believing it because of the evidence, not in spite of it. It's easy to dismiss me but if you actually do investigate the major claims of evolution you will find, not indisputable proof, but a pile of weak, circumstantial evidence.

(I also posted this reply on his profile not realising in case that causes any confusion)

My 1st post in that thread was intended purely to inform. Most people I meet who own dogs are painfully unaware of what I was describing and consequently foster futile behaviour and negative emotional outbursts around things their dogs do (the idea that everyone in that thread already knows about this is laughable). This is far from the biggest ill in the world but it's there and I saw an opportunity to present an alternative view of events in the hope that perhaps someone somewhere might learn something (or at least consider an idea rather than just mindlessly following social tradition). Where I learned that idea is irrelevant, it stands or falls on its own merits.

Your response garnered hostility because it was indistinguishable from saying "your spoiling our fun by trying to suggest that the animal might actually be terrified and confused and our fun is more important than someone/thing suffering". You didn't try to challenge what I said, you simply indicated some level of disdain for the fact I was even trying to say something intelligent, or because I didn't mindlessly jump on the "look at the terrified dog" bandwaggon like the rest.

Your damm right it was an emotional response, the attitude you displayed from my POV causes untold suffering throughout the world (and I don't just mean dogs which in the grand scheme of things is relatively harmless). If you read my reply again you'll see that at no point did I suggest you were disagreeing with me, I was insulting you precisely because you didn't even try, you just tried to indite me for trying to raise the level of the conversation. It was that and that alone that garnered my hostility, I'm happy to be proven wrong or even for people to switch off and ignore me but to give me flack just for trying I have little patience for.

You have clearly misunderstood my whole argument against you, if I were to take my own advice then I would either challenge your point (which I did) or accept that I didn't understand enough to try and counter intelligently.

What you did was insult me for just trying to make an intelligent argument. That is where the " little gem of "Fuck You"" came from.

Also it's no good getting on a high horse about me being "over sensitive" when you took the time to jump onto my profile and unleash a boatload of bile yourself. That argument would only have worked if you said it to yourself and got on with your life. But you didn't, you felt you had to give me a piece of your mind just like I did.
I'm not going to call you over sensitive, I'm just going to call you human because that's what you are, just like me ;-).

Edit: for the record that Bill Hicks quote refers to precisely the kind of anti-intellectualism I'm accusing you of. It was because an audience member objected to Bill trying to raise an idea above the trivial self interested level that they felt had been threatened. Or to put it another way Bill had spoiled their fun by trying to make an intelligent point rather than just wallowing in their own unconsidered ignorance. As far as I'm concerned it was entirely appropriate.

Ahhh, more Chingaleraese. It's so difficult to wade through the morass of disjointed thoughts you spout. I think that's your intention with your ramblings. That is typical of Texas rightwingers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqs9DYisSsg
Mixed metaphors and run on thoughts not withstanding, I left Texas because my family moved for business when I was 13, so I didn't 'run from' anything. I did quickly decide that moving back was not in my best interest, because I'm not an anti-abortion, anti-minority, anti-liberal, anti-union, anti-tax, anti-intellectual, anti-evolution, anti-science, anti-education, anti-nonchristian, right wing nutjob.
True, there is no utopia of freedom, but there are certainly far better examples than Texas. In Texas, you have complete freedom to do as they say, but not the freedom to publicly disagree. As someone who has lived in many states, I can say with authority that Texas is one of the most hard nosed, anti 'freedom' states I've lived in. They love to talk about loving freedom, but hate to give it to anyone that thinks even slightly differently from them...consistently. They're simply too stupid or dumb to realize that real freedom means the freedom to do the unpopular, and consistently outlaw the unpopular in the name of freedom and liberty. It's just sad.

Just read this quote from Robert Fripp and thought of your channel:
"One of the ideas that was important to me was that you could be a rock musician without censoring your intelligence. Rock music has a very anti-intellectual stance, and I didn't see why I should act dumb in order to be a rock musician. Rock is the most malleable musical form we have. Within the rock framework you can play jazz, classical, trance music, Urubu drumming. Anything you like can come under the banner of rock. It's a remarkable musical form ...

Is it just me or does this video not really say much? It seems like anti-intellectual claptrap. More opinion doesn't mean better. Truth, fact, science whatever you want to call isn't a democracy like everything else is.

>> ^qfan:

Side note: Being well respected doesn't mean his views are truth.

Agreed. On the other hand, the unassailable mountains of evidence for evolution means his views (at least on evolution) are truth. Or at least as much as it's possible to have any scientific "truth".


>> ^qfan:

Though yes, perfectly fine to have an opinion. I'm not disputing that.
What's in dispute is that he's telling parents not to share their beliefs with their own children. So we're not only telling creationists they can't share their views publicly in school, we also tell them that they can't share their views in private with their own children. It's extraordinarily dangerous thinking in the free world. These are private people who wish to raise their children with their own values. Bill is publicly preaching to parents (unlike those parents who are privately teaching their children) not to share what they believe in, all the while saying "When you're in love you want to tell the world about it." The man is amazingly hypocritical and sadly without an ounce of realisation about it.

He's not saying parents can't tell their children about creationism, he's saying they shouldn't. You can dance around the issue all you want, and believe in creationism, the tooth fairy or santa claus, but there comes a time when you have to grow up and accept reality. Right now, there's no debate about evolution, simply because there is no valid competing scientific theory that even comes close to matching the evidence. That I have to even spell this out is pretty sad.

>> ^qfan:

He says "We need scientifically literate people...". The thousands of scientists that believe in creation are also literate in science, even in the evolutionary aspects, except they choose not to believe in evolutionary theory. Science is a method. Nothing more, nothing less. Creationists aren't ignoring science at all, they are ignoring evolutionary theory.

There might be "thousands of scientists that believe in creation", but they represent a tiny percentage of the overall scientific community and almost none of them work in relevant fields. You wouldn't ask a plumber about aeronautical engineering, so don't ask a physicist about biology.

And if you ignore evolutionary theory, you are ignoring the science of biology. You are cherry-picking which evidence you accept because it doesn't fit your world view.

>> ^qfan:

Bill says "We need engineers, people that build stuff, solve problems...". The example of Wernher Von Braun puts this point to rest.

I have already conceded that you do not need to understand evolutionary biology to build rockets.

>> ^qfan:

You're confusing a lot of things here. First you say he ignored an area (evolution) that conflicted with his belief "because it didn't affect his work", then go on to say "You can be damn sure he benefited from the study of evolution".

If you're going to quote me, at least do me the courtesy of doing it fully and in context. What I said was:
>> ^ChaosEngine:

You can be damn sure he benefited from the study of evolution though, given it's the backbone of a lot of medical research.


I meant that Von Braun benefited from the study of evolution in the same way that every other human in the developed world did, through better medicines. It didn't really affect his work, but it did affect his life.


>> ^qfan:

Von Braun, "For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design,” “It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance." http://www.thespacereview.com/article/656/1

So what? He was wrong about evolution. Big deal. Newton was one of the greatest minds of all time and he got time wrong. Science marches on, and I'm confident that Von Braun if he had the time and inclination to really study it, would eventually have accepted the facts of evolution. And if he still chose to ignore the evidence because it didn't fit his world-view, well, that's sad, but it changes nothing about the truth of evolution.

>> ^qfan:

Bill says that denial of evolution is unique to the US (which is already a very questionable statement in itself), then goes on to say that the US is the most technologically advanced nation (with a grudging acceptance that Japan might be slightly ahead). Again, another questionable statement and slightly elitist I might add So if denial of evolution is holding the US back, why is it the most technologically advanced? You could word it another way... denial of evolution and technological advancement do not correlate with one another.


It's not unique to the U.S., but it's more prevalent than any other developed nation. What he's saying is that the U.S. should know better.

Denial of evolution in and of itself is bad, but it's symptomatic of the larger issues of anti-intellectualism and non-rational thought. The people who made the U.S. the most technologically advanced nation are not the same people that believe in a talking snake.

Besides, he's talking about potential. Maybe somewhere in the bible belt the next Alexander Fleming is having their future taken away from them because they are being lied to (intentionally or not) by their parents and/or preachers.

I don't have time to waste on your ignorance any more, but just a few quick rebuttals should be sufficient to discredit your credibility.

First off, I'm not sure what you're trying to prove by this abstract:
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.es.24.110193.001101

Quote: "Morphologists achieved much during that time, and none of their well supported phylogenies is overthrown by molecular data. So far, molecular sequences have contributed most significantly in areas where morphological data are inconclusive, deficient, nonexistent or poorly analyzed."

If anything it supports my point, but there are better sources out there. Which is why I chose to limit my literature sources to those that were at least after the year 2000. Why, you ask? Because the first bacterial genome was sequenced in 1995, about two years after that article. We've learned a lot since then, though, according to that abstract, even then they understood that molecular systematics were capable of elucidating many areas of the fossil record we didn't understand. Just read to the end of it.

I knew you would jump on the whole part where I conceded that it is not absolute agreement. Look, I took 30 seconds to write a sarcastic response on an internet forum. So what that I didn't bother to delve into the nuances of consensus trees and whatnot. Argue with the damn articles, not me.

You also just ignore it when I say that the fact that junk DNA has a function has nothing to do with it's evolutionary relevance and continue to claim otherwise without giving a reason. It is the relative mutation rates, not the functionality - maybe you didn't catch that the first time around.

Yada yada yada, I've got better things to do. Anyone who reads this little exchange can see your evident dishonesty and unwarranted extrapolation and that's all that matters. Because if someone is willing to plug their ears and yell loudly whenever something contradicts absolutely held beliefs like you are clearly willing to do, then there will be no convincing. This exchange is for those who are on the fence, and you're little display of anti-intellectualism speaks for itself even without all the scientific proof.

And trust me, I was a Christian. I was deriding salvation by grace as an arbitrary thing, doesn't mean I don't understand what you guys think.