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You are here: Home / Open Threads / In space ships, they won’t understand

In space ships, they won’t understand

by DougJ|  August 25, 20115:16 pm| 122 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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You probably saw today that Mitt Romney started walking back his librul beliefs about climate change. By January, he’ll likely be raving about teh “ClimateGate” and showing us pictures of icicles in Buffalo.

People used to murder each other because they disagreed about the science of transubstantiation, so it should be seen as progress that now they only lie about global temperatures to win primaries, but still I wonder: is science-bashing going to be a permanent feature of American politics? I’d like to think that a hundred years from now, people will wonder why politicians had to spew such nonsense to placate Republican voters (what Romney is doing is about placating Republican voters, not getting money from Exxon).

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122Comments

  1. 1.

    Tom Levenson

    August 25, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    Romney is entirely predictable. Given his willingness to abandon any position when a momentary electoral need appears to him, the only sane bet on how long it would be before his relative sanity on climate change gave way to witch-duck reasoning was to take the under.

    QED.

  2. 2.

    KG

    August 25, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    I would like to believe science-bashing won’t be a permanent fixture of American politics. But unfortunately, so long as science contradicts what somebody wrote down a few thousand years ago and said was the word of the Man in the Sky, I have a feeling it will.

  3. 3.

    redshirt

    August 25, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    Remember “Thundarr the Barbarian”? Yeah, that.

    “An age of super-science and sorcery..”

  4. 4.

    Hunter Gathers

    August 25, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    I’d like to think that a hundred years from now, people will wonder why politicians had to spew such nonsense to placate Republican voters (what Romney is doing is about placating Republican voters, not getting money from Exxon).

    No they won’t. In 100 years, we’ll nothing more than upright cattle to feed our intergalactic overlords, who easily conquered to planet in 2078 disguised as advertising executives.

  5. 5.

    Tom Hilton

    August 25, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    It seems to me that the Republicans should be a lot more concerned about global climate change. After all, it’s melting all the ice floes they want to put seniors out on.

  6. 6.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    August 25, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    OT: I’m not willing to watch the video because I don’t want to cry at work, but CNN has a video of a dog that stayed by his human’s casket. The man was a Navy Seal.

  7. 7.

    Violet

    August 25, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    Romney’s inability to know what he thinks without a poll telling him is what truly puts off voters.

  8. 8.

    handy

    August 25, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    Strokes reference? Is this a first?

  9. 9.

    Zifnab

    August 25, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    is science-bashing going to be a permanent feature of American politics?

    So long as I’ve got a billion dollar industry riding on the general public not believing a scientific fact, it will be my life’s goal to make sure as few people as possible believe that fact. :-p

    Romney wants to be President now. He’ll be dead and gone long before global warming could become a serious personal problem. Why should he give a rats ass about it?

  10. 10.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    August 25, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    Sadly, Doug, the anti-science only seems to be escalating. I’ve actually seen it seriously argued that ‘Global Warming/Climate Change Alarmists’ are really part of a giant conspiracy to force the temperature so low it kills off mass swaths of people, all so we can raise taxes and fill green coffers.

    Yes, Global Warming is really a plot to commit ice age genocide. Once you’ve gone that route, you know it’s only going to get more absurd and vicious.

  11. 11.

    samson

    August 25, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    @redshirt: @handy: Ariel, Ookla, RIDE!!

  12. 12.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    August 25, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    Does anyone remember this graphic novel put out by CD Comics about this boy who was going to grow up to be one of the most powerful heroes in the universe, and so a few of the people take him to show what will happen if he uses his powers. And one takes him to the far future, where humans are these green, thin skinned creaters and one of the boys talks about his grandfather bragging that they used to be able to catch three spiders a day. It ended with Niel Gaiman’s Death coming along right before the main boy was to be killed.

    I suspect our great grandchildren will be bragging to their kids about having a potato three times a day.

  13. 13.

    Big Baby DougJ

    August 25, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    @handy:

    I think I might have titled a post “Is This It” before.

  14. 14.

    celticragonchick

    August 25, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    I’d like to think that a hundred years from now, people will wonder why politicians had to spew such nonsense to placate Republican voters

    A hundred years from now, the voters will be too busy trying to survive in the Road Warrior wasteland we will have given them.

  15. 15.

    Comrade Dread

    August 25, 2011 at 5:34 pm

    I don’t know, I think in a 100 years, the survivors will be murdering each other over food and water and cursing the precursors who caused the nuclear/climate/viral/dystopian state apocalypse.

  16. 16.

    redshirt

    August 25, 2011 at 5:34 pm

    What’s darkly amusing about all of this is we are in perhaps the greatest era of scientific discovery in all of human history, right now.

    So we’ll see how it shakes out – there’s lots of money to be made in science too. Ask Caz – Fat Cat Scientists lining their felt pockets with that sweet, sweet grant money.

  17. 17.

    Samnell

    August 25, 2011 at 5:37 pm

    If present trends continue, in a century the mainstream of American politics will demand that lightning is the judgment of an angry god for women stepping outside the home without a male escort or, if they do that, that they failed to follow three steps behind him at all times.

  18. 18.

    Jenny

    August 25, 2011 at 5:37 pm

    Mittens just issued a policy paper stating “the earth is flat”.

  19. 19.

    NobodySpecial

    August 25, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    Science bashing’s been in vogue since the late 50’s, don’t know where you’ve been.

  20. 20.

    Violet

    August 25, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    @Samnell:
    Handmaid’s Tale. Substitute the Chinese for the Japanese in the story and we’re probably almost there.

  21. 21.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    August 25, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    The problem is the intertubes. They all go off and play some dumb game like World of Warcraft for hours on end and slowly get brainwashed magic is real because those virtual reality games blur the lines so much.

  22. 22.

    redshirt

    August 25, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    @NobodySpecial: 50’s? Keep going – you can go back to the beginning of our modern scientific era (Galileo).

    The “Scopes Monkey Trial” reads as if it could happen today – perhaps it is.

  23. 23.

    Danny

    August 25, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    Hey, it is a permanent feature already. Reagan tried to have tomato ketchup classified as a vegetable and liked to quip that “trees cause more pollution than automobiles do”.

  24. 24.

    Alex S.

    August 25, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    Well, lots of people don’t concern themselves about the political world. All this talk about the debt ceiling, filibuster, movement conservatism,etc… doesn’t matter to them. They will keep on working, researching and living without politics, maybe they’ll vote once every four years, but that’s it. They’ll discover new exoplanets, cure more diseases, grow better crops and invent new technology regardless of what happens on the frontpage of politico.com.

  25. 25.

    GR

    August 25, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    Uh, no. You should read Anti-Intellectuamism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter. If I had a copy near me I’d quote from it, but the short of it is that Sarah Palin isn’t remotely original, and neither is bashing of expert opinion. There were movements in American history that pretty much exactly parallel the current Tea Party. If anything, I’m surprised I haven’t seen this book brought up more today. Everything old is new again, I guess…

    So no, in a hundred years, we’ll still be arguing over whether or not we should do something about the hydrogen sulfide blooming up from our dead, acidic oceans…

  26. 26.

    Zifnab

    August 25, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    @Jenny: Sorry, but I have to ask. Did he hear that from a taxi cab driver?

  27. 27.

    Jenny

    August 25, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    “Carbon dioxide are people, my friends! They’re people!”

  28. 28.

    dedc79

    August 25, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    Given that it’s hard to go through a day without being confronted with some article/study/news item that is inconsistent with a belief in creationism, and that so many people believe in it nonetheless, I don’t have much hope.

    What would Michele Bachmann, for example, have to say about recent evidence showing that early humans likely interbred with neanderthals. Bachmann probably doesn’t even believe in neanderthals.

  29. 29.

    pragmatism

    August 25, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    all part of the victim status of the teabilly class. facts and knowledge are elitist and its hard to really know anything. belief is safe. not trying to educate yourself is safe. but if one of these people gets sick, there had better be an egghead scientist who can save him.

  30. 30.

    GR

    August 25, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    @Alex S.: But what happens on the front page of politico determines how much money they get to do those wonderful things. And given how things are going, I doubt our robber baron overlords will do much to fund basic science and engineering when the galtian government cuts the NSF and NIH out.

    I’m a grad student in physics, and it’s already stressful to think about where the money is going to come from when I graduate, or even next year. The current political climate isn’t going to do much to motivate the next generation. I keep hoping for a Sputnik moment…

  31. 31.

    John PM

    August 25, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    How much longer until Romney claims that he was never the Governor of Massachussets?

  32. 32.

    redshirt

    August 25, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    @dedc79: I am waiting to see how this discovery shakes out, since it says that it’s only folks of European and Asian ancestry that have Neadertal DNA. Africans are pure Homo Homo Sapien.

    One would think this might cause some Skinheads to spin.

    I suspect the result will be a popular re-evaluation of how awesome Neadertal really were, instead of the stupid cavepeople we once thought they were.

    Still superior, in other words.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 25, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    @dedc79:

    Bachmann probably doesn’t even believe in neanderthals.

    The evidence is strong she married one.

  34. 34.

    Culture of Truth

    August 25, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    100 years ago the Congress has passed the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators), an eight hour federal work-day, creation of a federal Children’s Bureau, creation of the Department of Labor, and campaign finance restrictions.

    Source: Ashland U.

  35. 35.

    Culture of Truth

    August 25, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    George Pataki is going to blow this race wide open!

  36. 36.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    August 25, 2011 at 6:01 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: So she believes in Social Neanderthalism.

  37. 37.

    Gustopher

    August 25, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    People used to murder each other because they disagreed about the science of transubstantiation, so it should be seen as progress that now they only lie about global temperatures to win primaries

    I think dooming all of humanity just to win a primary is worse than murdering people over transubstantiation.

  38. 38.

    mclaren

    August 25, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    Bonus points for mentioning transubstantiation as a cause of wars in times past. People actually used to murder one another and torture one another to death because they believed (or didn’t believe) in transubstantiation, or a tridentine deity (God the father, the son and the holy ghost, as opposed to just “God”). Armies would overrun villages and skewer husbands with swords in front of their wives, screaming “Take that, you tridentine transusbtantiationist!” The puritans cut the noses of Catholic women off to prevent new generations of heretics from being born.

    This is what happens when resources run out, kiddies. Earth is a great big island, as Buckminster Fuller pointed out, and we’ve now reached the point in the book LORD OF THE FLIES where the leader of the tribe is sharpening a stake at both ends.

    Peak Oil, global warming, overpopulation…

    Such escapades do not end well.

  39. 39.

    Samara Morgan

    August 25, 2011 at 6:07 pm

    @Tom Levenson: why is America so much worse than other western nations?
    AGW denialism and creationism are rampant here.

    i wunner…..could there be a correlation with…IQ cognitive ability?
    hahahaha

  40. 40.

    Alex S.

    August 25, 2011 at 6:07 pm

    @John PM:

    Hehe…

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 25, 2011 at 6:08 pm

    As others have indicated, this is all movement on Romney to the right in order to position himself against full bore droolers like Bachmann, Perry, Ron Paul, and the other clown car types.

    He’s got a short term problem that he’s obviously willing to screw up his long term prospects to address.

    Typical MBA behavior.

  42. 42.

    Samara Morgan

    August 25, 2011 at 6:11 pm

    @Tom Levenson: or could it be…the anti-intellectualism of Protestant America?
    or possibly…the negative correlation between IQ and religiosity?
    after all, the GOP is a white christian nativist party now….and while not all christians are teabaggers, all teabaggers are christians.
    :)

  43. 43.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    August 25, 2011 at 6:12 pm

    @Samara Morgan: To be serious, which I normally am not with you because our sentences don’t make much sense, I believe the answer is our relative isolation with respect to things like agression by neighbors, and our abundance of resources. Our sense of proportion is completely gone.

    Canada needs to start doing monthly raids south.

  44. 44.

    mclaren

    August 25, 2011 at 6:18 pm

    …I’d like to think that a hundred years from now, people will wonder why politicians had to spew such nonsense to placate (..) voters…

    I imagine 500 years ago, the Aztec ruler-to-be assured his subjects “I believe in Tlaloc. I have always believed in Tlaloc. I believe in motherhood, Tlaloc, and infant sacrifice, all the traditional values. When we get a drought, tradition teaches us that we must flay a ritual sacrificial victim alive and perform a sacred dance in his bleeding skin, and I believe in those traditional family values…”

    Humans are murderous primates, Doug. The human brain is a tiny little blob of frontal cortex on top of a great big mountain of lizard brain. 99% of human behaviour and beliefs are wildly irrational, and always will be.

    Robin Hanson said it best in his essay What is reasoning for?

    Human rationality did not evolve in order to solve differential equations. That’s an epiphenomenon of little consequence. Human rationality evolved in order to invent ingenious ways of justifying crazy primate behavior to the rest of the tribe of murderous primates.

  45. 45.

    Samara Morgan

    August 25, 2011 at 6:19 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): those are possibly components….but i suspect our continuing foreign misadventures are more closely tied to white christian evangelism, Pax Americana, Peaceful Democracy Theory, and the Bush Doctrine/COIN.

    no…while correlation != causation, i think we would see very high r2 values between creationism, AGW denialism, anti-intellectualism, and protestant high church evangelical christianity.
    probably ~1.
    :)

  46. 46.

    Samara Morgan

    August 25, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    @Tom Levenson: wasnt that gallup poll skeery?
    78% of americans believe in some form of creationism.
    Only 16% believe in ToE, the version absent a supernatural agent.
    And last year 51% of americans did not believe in AGW.
    i bet that number is higher this year, not lower.

  47. 47.

    Brachiator

    August 25, 2011 at 6:28 pm

    @Big Baby DougJ:

    but still I wonder: is science-bashing going to be a permanent feature of American politics?

    Well, yeah. Didn’t you read that Bachmann profile in the New Yorker, which talked about the stuff she reads that claims that the Enlightenment was an error because it demoted the deity to humans? Since science does not subjugate itself to religion, it is obviously an enemy of the religious people.

    This has been brewing since the Age of Dubya. Where science conflicts with sincerely held Christian religious beliefs, science must fall. And all of biology, to the extent that it does not acknowledge creationism, and all of astronomy and cosmology, to the extent that it does not accept a young earth and the deity’s benevolent guidance, is a serious moral error.

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    August 25, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    Romney started walking back his librul beliefs about climate change.

    Romney can’t possibly beat Perry in the deranged race to the bottom that constitutes the GOP Presidential nomination process. Why back a fake wingnut when you can get the real deal? At some point Willard will start to make noises to reporters about considering the VP slot under Governor Goodhair. He’s toast.

  49. 49.

    mclaren

    August 25, 2011 at 6:33 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    The assertion that America is significantly more irrational than the rest of the Western nations certainly doesn’t hold upto scrutiny.

    The European nations exhibit bizarre irrationality in different ways than America. For example, the German government heavily funds E-rays for medical treatment. E-rays are complete wackaloon twaddle, utter jabberwocky. Yet the German government wholeheartedly believes in it and puts serious money behind its practitioners.

    Speaking of those rational Germans, do a quick google check into Welteislehre. Among other doctrines, Welteislehre taught that the Milky Way is made of snowballs, and the earth is hollow and full of ice. Lecturers on quantum mechanics got shouted down in Germany in the late 1920s by audiences chanting “Welteislehre! Welteislehre!”

    I notice you restricted yourself to discussing European nations. Good thing. Did you know that the Japanese believe in an elaborate theory of personality types based on the four bood groups (A, B, AB, an O)? These personality types represent such a deep belief system that Japanese companies often make hiring decisions based on this superstitious crap. Huge internet dating sites in Japan exist solely to let people with the correct blood group hook up with one another. Complete lunatic gibberish.

    Here’s a list of crazy French superstitions. As the home of the Solar Temple Cult, the French have no more claim to rationality than any other nation. France remains a hotbed of paranormal beliefs, including such gems as “psychically magnetized water.” (Of course attempting to measure the psychic magnetism in the water creates an “inverse psychic field” which demagnetizes the water. Convenient, eh?)

    From the koro manias of Southeast asia to the feng shui delusions of the Chinese, I can’t think of any nation that’s especially rational. All nations wind up marinated in crazy irrational belief systems. America simply happens to have different crazy irrational belief systems — we regard feng shui as contemptible superstition, whereas 60% of American ridicule evolution and global warming. The Chinese, by contrast, hold Americans in contempt for our refusal to accept evolution and global warming, but the Chinese hold fast with devoutly sincere belief to crazy nonsense like feng shui.

    Potato, po-tah-to.

  50. 50.

    Dave

    August 25, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    And now Jon Huntsman is even more of a lock for the 2016 GOP nod. Every day the Tea Party douchebags push the Republicans closer to the cliff’s edge. After next November, there will be just one adult left in the room.

  51. 51.

    PIGL

    August 25, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    @mclaren: and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of critters.

  52. 52.

    Redshift

    August 25, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    @Tom Levenson: why is America so much worse than other western nations?
    AGW denialism and creationism are rampant here.

    Unfortunately, I’m inclined to think it’s more because of ingenuity — it was here that “manufacturing uncertainty” was invented as an effective method of science disinformation when science inconveniently conflicted with what was profitable. My understanding is that this particular form started with the tobacco industry and spread from there, but there could be some earlier precursor.

    It’s particularly unfortunate if true, because it means it’s not some flaw in our national character or history that makes this possible; rather, it’s a technique that can be learned, so we may see it spread.

    I hope I’m wrong…

  53. 53.

    Steve M.

    August 25, 2011 at 6:38 pm

    still I wonder: is science-bashing going to be a permanent feature of American politics?

    Only until the shooting war starts.

    Edit: And I see I’m not the first person to have that thought.

  54. 54.

    Redshift

    August 25, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    @Dave: Well, that’s assuming they actually go over the cliff by 2016 (and that anyone cares that he was an early supporter of not going off the cliff.) If predicting when the GOP would go so far they became unelectable were a betting matter, a lot of money would have already been lost based missed predictions.

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 25, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    protestant high church evangelical christianity

    That phrase is gibberish.

  56. 56.

    Violet

    August 25, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    At least those are actual words. That’s a step up on the gibberish scale.

  57. 57.

    PIGL

    August 25, 2011 at 6:49 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Not necessarily gibberish. It could conceivably refer to something like this.

  58. 58.

    Thoughtcrime

    August 25, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    The Mittamorphosis.

    “Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I! Insects don’t have politics…. they’re very brutal. No compassion…. no compromise. We can’t trust the insect. I’d like to become the first insect politician. I’d like to, but…. I’m an insect…. who dreamed he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake.”

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 25, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    @PIGL: In the context in which she is using it, it is gibberish. The Southern Baptist and related evangelical churches that she places at the center of the Protestant tradition in the US could never be considered high church.

  60. 60.

    mclaren

    August 25, 2011 at 6:57 pm

    @redshirt:

    Speaking of Thundarr the Barbarian, remember when the earth tumbled back into the dark ages according to that 1980s cartoon?

    1994.

    Yup. Nailed it. A 1981 cartoon nailed it.

  61. 61.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 25, 2011 at 6:57 pm

    @Steve M.:

    Only until the shooting war starts.

    As Orwell pointed out, the bullshit stops when bullets are involved. At that point, 2+2 MUST equal 4. The universe doesn’t give a rat’s ass what the Party thinks it should be.

  62. 62.

    mclaren

    August 25, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

  63. 63.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    August 25, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    SELECTIVE science bashing, Hell, selective FACT bashing is a feature, not a bug of the neo-con set.

    You’ll never hear those two-legged verrucas say they want to outlaw modern medical practices and go back to poultices and prayers when they get sick. (Limited Offer. Does not apply to those who make less than 100K a year.)

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 25, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    @mclaren: The problem is that she believes the statement has meaning.

  65. 65.

    steve

    August 25, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    @mclaren: post of the week

  66. 66.

    Thoughtcrime

    August 25, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    @The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:

    Global Warming/Climate Change Alarmists’ are really part of a giant conspiracy to force the temperature so low it kills off mass swaths of people, all so we can raise taxes and fill green coffers.
    …
    Yes, Global Warming is really a plot to commit ice age genocide.

    Actually it’s a plot to produce and easily store Soylent Green.

  67. 67.

    AA+ Bonds

    August 25, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    Grant Morrison’s new book says that people telling him to use compact fluorescent light bulbs represent the Anti-Life Equation, and then he told Rolling Stone that Siegel and Shuster’s families could go hang. It’s been a pretty disappointing August.

  68. 68.

    Southern Beale

    August 25, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    ….but still I wonder: is science-bashing going to be a permanent feature of American politics?

    Yes. This is part of the dumbing down of American culture, the trend that started 20 years ago to label stupidity as “populism” and thereby desirable, while slamming intellect as “elitism” and therefore undesirable. And so the masses become lazy and easily manipulated and the people who are trying to raise alarm bells become marginalized.

    Huzzah.

  69. 69.

    Samara Morgan

    August 25, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    @mclaren:

    The European nations exhibit bizarre irrationality in different ways than America

    .sry, that is irrelevent, and it has NOTHING to do with what im saying.
    im talking about two false beliefs, AGW denialism, and creationism and you are throwing radar chaff.
    for example, half of brits do not believe in ToE, while 78% of americans do not. as for belief in global warming, 68% in France, 65% in Japan, 61% in Spain and 60% in Germany say that is the case.

    America is the first protestant nation. and the majority protestants are republican– the religious right. catholics and jews vote majority democratic. protestants do not.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer thus got it right when he characterized American Protestantism as “Protestantism without Reformation.”
    __
    That is why it has been possible for Americans to synthesize three seemingly antithetical traditions: evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning. For Americans, faith in God is indistinguishable from loyalty to their country.

    Omnes get very excercised when i mention the anti-intellectual traditions of Calvin and Luther.
    i do not know if the anti-intellectual, anti-education tendency of the GOP derives from that….but i think its interesting.

  70. 70.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 25, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    America is the first protestant nation

    Um, fact fail right there.

  71. 71.

    Samara Morgan

    August 25, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    @Southern Beale: its temporary. the system is self-correcting.
    eventually NHC cauc percentage will drop to less than 50% of the electorate, and increasing secularism will kill off american “judeo-xianity”…its already just for old people.

  72. 72.

    Origuy

    August 25, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    Did you know that the Japanese believe in an elaborate theory of personality types based on the four blood groups (A, B, AB, an O)?

    Some video games produced for the Japanese market allow you to select the blood type of the characters you create. I don’t know if orcs and elves have the same set of groups.

  73. 73.

    Samara Morgan

    August 25, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: its the first nation defined by protestant thought in the absence of a strong catholic history.

    didnt you read the article?

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 25, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    America is the first protestant nation.

    Northern Europe would like to have a word with you.

    Omnes get very excercised when i mention the anti-intellectual traditions of Calvin and Luther.

    Given that the Reformation grew out of the fact that many intellectuals within the Church hierarchy were disturbed by the intellectual poverty and corruption of the late medieval Church, I tend to find your suggestion risible. FFS the intellectual capacity that went into the translations of the Bible, not just the King James, was staggering.

  75. 75.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    August 25, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    Aren’t some of you people David Lowrey fans?

  76. 76.

    Davis X. Machina

    August 25, 2011 at 7:35 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I just talked to Erasmus, and he’s very, very depressed.

  77. 77.

    MikeJ

    August 25, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): Nice! Buy them a beer from me if you see ’em around.

  78. 78.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 25, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ahem,

    BJ is a field lab for Assangian information theory and SBH.
idc if the c-57 BL/6s and balb/c’s doan liek meh.
your hatred of me is just stimulus/response.
    __
    more and more i think BJ is the leftside mirror of FOXnews.

    Our little dead girl should know from fundamentalism, because she speaks in tongues.

  79. 79.

    Cassidy

    August 25, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    The evidence is strong she married one.

    No she married a homo.

  80. 80.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    August 25, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    @MikeJ: I’ll do it. Maybe I’ll see em at the newly re-opened Georgia Theater.

  81. 81.

    jeffreyw

    August 25, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    Thread needs moar chili

  82. 82.

    sherifffruitfly

    August 25, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    is science-bashing going to be a permanent feature of American politics?

    As long as idiocy is a feature of the American electorate, yes.

    It’s not complicated, people.Every last problem America has, stems from an electorate that’s mean, stupid, and bigoted.

    Wanna fix America’s problems? Fix America’s electorate. All else is re-arranging the deck chairs.

  83. 83.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    August 25, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    @jeffreyw:Looks amazingly like a tostada!

  84. 84.

    Cain

    August 25, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    @AA+ Bonds:

    out of curiosity, why didn’t he just use fire.. why bother with incandescent at all? After all, it was good enough for the bible!

  85. 85.

    Constance

    August 25, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    Pretty doubtful humans will survive to 2111 to wonder about politicians who argued about science in 2011. Just wish we weren’t taking so many other species with us.

  86. 86.

    scav

    August 25, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    @jeffreyw: Funny. Read that as Thread needs more chill. which also works. Makes a good motto too.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 25, 2011 at 8:04 pm

    @Davis X. Machina: I would guess that he would have agreed with the broad outlines of my statement.

  88. 88.

    Southern Beale

    August 25, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    The cool thing about traveling is that one finds art in the most surprising places…

  89. 89.

    schrodinger's cat

    August 25, 2011 at 8:14 pm

    @jeffreyw:
    Actually the thread needs more kitteh. How are little Bitsy and not so little Homer?

  90. 90.

    burritoboy

    August 25, 2011 at 8:16 pm

    I actually think Samara is onto something. I would modify the sentence a bit to:

    “America is a particular manifestation of a Dissenting Low Church nation.”

    Northern Europe was (and is) Protestant. The difference is that northern Europeans are Protestants who had (or still do have) a state church. Established state churches have (or try to have) a uniform creed. That means that the Protestant states of 1530-1800 actually had to think out their Protestant theology. You can’t the ministers (who are state employees) just running around and preaching whatever nonsense comes into their heads. So you have to have a carefully thought-out creed, and, at minimum, it needs to adaptable to some form of science (because the Protestant princes were eager to get their hands on new technology too).

    America is a Dissenting Low Church country. Others, historically, have been South Africa and Scotland. But in South Africa and Scotland, while most of the population belonged to Dissenting Low Churches, the government ruling them had an official Anglican church.

    It’s interesting to note that the two Dissenting Low Church countries that did later become independent both had extraordinarily severe racial problems. Also, when England intentionally mixed Dissenting Low Church people with a Catholic population in Northern Ireland, the result was a tribal civil war that lasted for centuries.

    The Dissenting Low Church isn’t a problem when it’s a smaller minority sect. It rapidly becomes a problem when substantial portions of the population belong to Dissenting Low Churches. A Dissenting Low Church is essentially a disaster in the political realm if it becomes too dominant. Scotland got saved partially because they weren’t independent and because a large portion of the population became effective atheists in the 18th century.

  91. 91.

    zzyzx

    August 25, 2011 at 8:29 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    Yeah, that’s the first Books of Magic graphic novel by Neil Gaiman.

  92. 92.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 25, 2011 at 8:31 pm

    @burritoboy: You may be getting close to something with what you said, but that is nowhere near what m_c said. I would also point out that the Dutch were quite in sympathy with the English Separatists; the group who became the Pilgrims spent significant time in Leiden.

    I really take no issue with a suggestion that much of the formative thought behind the US came from English Puritans. Both the good and the bad. My issue with m_c’s “theory” is her presupposition that Protestantism is necessarily anti-intellectual and that it grew out of Luther’s and Calvin’s dislike for the intellectual nature of Catholicism. (I am paraphrasing things she has stated over the course of several threads).

  93. 93.

    J. Michael Neal

    August 25, 2011 at 8:42 pm

    @zzyzx: Putting my pedant hat on[fn1], it was actually a four issue limited series that was collected into a trade paperback.

    [fn1] Could you at least humor me by pretending that I sometimes take it off.

  94. 94.

    burritoboy

    August 25, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    Omnes,

    There is not a problem with Calvinism when it is the long-held state religion. That’s why I didn’t mention the Reformed Church in the Netherlands, but I did mention that very same denomination in South Africa. I would assert that apparently something very bad happens when a previously Dissenting Low Church effectively becomes (later on) the dominant sect.

    I am not only speaking of the Puritans. I’m pretty much talking about many of the denominations outside the mainline Protestant denominations (and the core of the mainline Protestant denominations are the children of Protestantism as a state religion).

  95. 95.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 25, 2011 at 8:54 pm

    @burritoboy: Your idea is interesting. I am not sure I subscribe to it, but it is something worth contemplation and reading. Our Lady of Many Names and Poor Spelling, on the other hand, is talking out of her posterior orifice.

  96. 96.

    zzyzx

    August 25, 2011 at 8:56 pm

    @J. Michael Neal: well yeah but it was easier to explain the other way :)

  97. 97.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    August 25, 2011 at 9:30 pm

    @zzyzx: Thank you. I remember reading it, but it was long enough ago that I only remembered the main gist of it. And then I mostly remembered, like everyone else, thinking how hot Death was and then realizing you only get one date.

  98. 98.

    Glen Tomkins

    August 25, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    “the science of transubstantiation”?!?!

    Everyone knows it’s consubstantiation, and only godless heretics beleive in that transubstantiation nonsense>

  99. 99.

    handy

    August 25, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    @Glen Tomkins:

    The Presence in the elements is serious business.

  100. 100.

    Someguy

    August 25, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    I guess we’re just going to ignore the CERN paper in Nature, about the strong role of cosmic rays in Global Warming? Ahh, fuck it. They’re not real scientists after all, they’re furrners, not like they’re the cutting edge of physics or anything. And Nature is just a right wing partisan rag. Can’t question the science, it’s settled…

  101. 101.

    suzanne

    August 26, 2011 at 12:28 am

    @Samara Morgan:

    America is the first protestant nation. and the majority protestants are republican—the religious right. catholics and jews vote majority democratic. protestants do not.

    Ever heard of a little place called Britain?
    Also, many mainline and liberal Protestant denominations vote primarily Dem. Protestantism is such a big tent in this country that it’s pretty useless to talk about it as a monolith.

  102. 102.

    suzanne

    August 26, 2011 at 12:36 am

    @Samara Morgan:

    Omnes get very excercised when i mention the anti-intellectual traditions of Calvin and Luther.
    i do not know if the anti-intellectual, anti-education tendency of the GOP derives from that….but i think its interesting.

    The anti-intellectualism is a perversion of the original American ideal of equality. People so blind to their own privilege that they think they’ve worked for every advantage in their lives deeply resent the fact that some people are more successful without what seems like as much effort.

    Once again, Luther’s primary problem with the Catholic Church was what he considered their corruption, not their intellectualism. Have you actually ever read these?

  103. 103.

    Azul_R

    August 26, 2011 at 1:37 am

    @Someguy:

    But the CERN paper in Nature doesn’t talk about there being a strong role for cosmic rays in global warming.

    Confession – I haven’t read the full copy yet as I prefer to read Nature in its dead tree version, which takes an extra day or two to arrive. But the extracts I’ve seen seem straightforward enough.

    There’s a confirmation of the role of aerosols in cloud formation (hence the cooling effect of things like sulfur dioxide pollution). Also as expected, cosmic rays increase the nucleation rate. The unexpected findings were that some controlled conditions gave lower production rates than observed in nature. Given that, there is plausible speculation that there may be additional trace materials in the real world that were missing from the simulation.

    So indeed, as we look more closely there are lots of bits of detailed science that are yet to be settled. But that doesn’t change the established big picture of AGW, which for one thing is constrained by paleoclimate data. That big picture says that each doubling of CO2 leads to a temperature increase of three degrees Celsius, plus or minus one point five.

    See for example Richard Alley’s presentation of the Bjerknes lecture at the 2009 AGU meeting,

    One last point is that for anything from CERN about cosmic ray influence on climate (and of course there will be some effects) to be relevant to current climate change, we would have to be seeing changes in the cosmic ray background. Which we don’t.

    It’s nearly a quarter of a century (a wasted quarter century in terms of doing anything) since Hansen’s testimony to Congress, where he made pretty accurate predictions of future climate. Scientists respect theories that have predictive power. The theory behind AGW didn’t just predict warmer (confirmed) but also more noticeable at night than day (confirmed), slight cooling of upper atmosphere (confirmed), more noticeable towards the poles (confirmed).

    In opposition, the motley crew of scientists who pitch alternatives have successfully predicted – what exactly? They don’t even have a consistent alternative theory (e.g Lindzen has a different approach to Svensmark, who has a different approach to Gray).

  104. 104.

    Anne Laurie

    August 26, 2011 at 4:11 am

    @burritoboy:

    It’s interesting to note that the two Dissenting Low Church countries that did later become independent both had extraordinarily severe racial problems. Also, when England intentionally mixed Dissenting Low Church people with a Catholic population in Northern Ireland, the result was a tribal civil war that lasted for centuries.

    A good 30 years ago, British humorist Allen Coren pointed out that the Dutch, in the days of William of Orange, shipped all their noisy troublemakers to England, where their descendants eventually dispersed to become Boers & Orangemen. (He was too polite to mention the Orangemen who would eventually colonize what is now the American South.) This, Coren said, is why the Dutch have been known as a peaceful and prosperous society ever since…

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 26, 2011 at 6:11 am

    @Anne Laurie: Of course, the Orangemen of Ireland aren’t Dutch in ancestry.

  106. 106.

    Anne Laurie

    August 26, 2011 at 6:42 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ssssshhh! Blame all the Calvinists, and let God sort ’em out!

    (Also note: Allen Coren, humorist, not historian.)

  107. 107.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 26, 2011 at 6:47 am

    @Anne Laurie: I got sucked into this whole thread last night fighting the historical and other inaccuracies of the Stalker with Many Names; you can’t really blame me for staying on pedant patrol, can you?

    NB: You can and probably should blame me for getting sucked into the vortex of confusion that m_c generates, but, once I was there, I should be absolved of, well, pretty much anything that happens.

  108. 108.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 26, 2011 at 6:49 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure you can buy an indulgence for that from some wayfaring priest.

  109. 109.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 26, 2011 at 6:59 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: As long as I don’t have to listen to his tales. They are so gruesome and depressing.

  110. 110.

    Samara Morgan

    August 26, 2011 at 8:29 am

    @suzanne: what the article i linked SAYS is that America is the first nation defined by protestant thought in the ABSENCE of catholic presence, not about actual contents of the pews in any country.
    i am just making a hypothesis about why 78% of americans believe in creationism and over 50% deny global warming, while other nations have much lower belief percentages in falsehoods like creationism and gw denialism.
    Britain is the closest to America, and perhaps this is because is a large protestant majority in the population today, like you point out suzanne.
    I understood Luther also wanted to break the guild monopoly on interpretation of the sacred texts that the catholic church had maintained for centuries.
    but perhaps that is just the catholic school talking. :)

  111. 111.

    Samara Morgan

    August 26, 2011 at 9:01 am

    @Azul_R:

    In opposition, the motley crew of scientists who pitch alternatives have successfully predicted – what exactly? They don’t even have a consistent alternative theory (e.g Lindzen has a different approach to Svensmark, who has a different approach to Gray)

    .well, isnt that strikingly similiar to the Discovery Institute’s clown posse of random ToE dissenters?
    @Omnes Omnibus: its just a hypothesis about American conservative anti-intellectualism. The GOP is white christian nativists now, and the majority denomination is protestant.
    this is obvious.
    do you disagree?

  112. 112.

    Samara Morgan

    August 26, 2011 at 9:08 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: it seems we were just talking about dominionism and end times mythology and the influence of those eumemes on the GOP base and thus the candidate field.
    Arent those evangelical protestant tropes?

    and you know how science works…come up with a different hypothesis, a better hypothesis.
    im all ears.
    :)

  113. 113.

    suzanne

    August 26, 2011 at 9:19 am

    @Samara Morgan:

    i am just making a hypothesis about why 78% of americans believe in creationism and over 50% deny global warming, while other nations have much lower belief percentages in falsehoods like creationism and gw denialism.

    I have a sneaking suspicion that those numbers aren’t accurate, not because of any poor methodology, but because people feel like they’re “supposed” to answer a certain way. The people who belong to churches that preach creationism experience a lot of social pressure to conform. But many of them don’t truly believe what they say. People also like to fuck with pollsters. I’ve done it. It’s amusing.

    As for AGW denialism, I think that has far less to do with religiosity and far more to do with just plain wanting it to not be so, because their Hummer-driving consumptive lifestyle would have to change. Anecdotally, the only people I know who deny AGW are atheist libertarians.

  114. 114.

    suzanne

    August 26, 2011 at 9:23 am

    @Samara Morgan:

    the majority denomination is protestant.

    Protestant is not a denomination. The many subgroups of Protestants can roughly be classified into three categories: evangelical, mainline, and liberal. Methodist, Southern Baptist, United Church of Christ, etc…THOSE are denominations.

  115. 115.

    Samara Morgan

    August 26, 2011 at 9:54 am

    @suzanne: corrected.
    the major affiliation is nominally protestant. even non-denominationals are nominally protestant. Please understand, there was considerable anti-protestant bias in the catholic girls school i attended….we didnt study them except to subtly discredit.
    @suzanne:

    those numbers aren’t accurate

    gallup polling. the other nations come from PEW polling. i linked the polls. you want to reject the results, go for it. rasmussen, anyone?

    but did you read the article?

    Protestantism came to America to make America Protestant. It was assumed that was to be done through faith in the reasonableness of the common man and the establishment of a democratic republic. But in the process the church in America became American – or, as Noll puts it, “because the churches had done so much to make America, they could not escape living with what they had made.”
    But now we are beginning to see the loss of confidence by Protestants in their ability to sustain themselves in America just to the extent that the inevitable conflict between the church, republicanism and commonsense morality has worked its way through the system of our national life.
    __
    America is the great experiment in Protestant social thought, but the society Protestants created now threatens to make Protestantism unintelligible to itself. Put as directly as I can, I believe we may be living at a time when we are watching Protestantism, at least the kind of Protestantism we have in America, come to an end. It is dying of its own success.

    i think political protestantism is doomed. but that will be a good thing, right?
    its unsustainable in a nation with separation of church and state.

  116. 116.

    Samara Morgan

    August 26, 2011 at 9:59 am

    @suzanne:

    but because people feel like they’re “supposed” to answer a certain way. The people who belong to churches that preach creationism experience a lot of social pressure to conform. But many of them don’t truly believe what they say.

    i would think from what i know about question bias and survey design, creationsism believers would be MORE inclined to reject creationism to the pollster, so as not to appear backwards and uneducated.
    There is a significant cultural stigma attached to creationism belief.
    i dont think the same is true of AGW denialism.
    at least not yet.

  117. 117.

    Samara Morgan

    August 26, 2011 at 10:30 am

    i do think 78% is pretty horrifying.
    explains a lot.

  118. 118.

    Samara Morgan

    August 26, 2011 at 10:44 am

    you see juicers…this is how The Doom Came to Sarnath.

    Protestantism came to America to make America Protestant. It was assumed that was to be done through faith in the reasonableness of the common man and the establishment of a democratic republic.

    but muslim common men and protestant common men believe ENTIRELY different things.
    In orthogonal things, actually.

  119. 119.

    suzanne

    August 26, 2011 at 8:31 pm

    @Samara Morgan: I’m not rejecting the polls or questioning their methodology. I’m saying that I suspect that people lied to the pollsters. Shit, I read some poll recently that stated that 40% of people believe they were abducted by aliens. I don’t genuinely think that 40% of people truly believe that they were abducted by aliens. I believe that 39.5% of people think it’s hilarious to tell a pollster that they think they were abducted by aliens.
    @Samara Morgan:

    There is a significant cultural stigma attached to creationism belief.

    In certain subcultures, yes. In other subcultures, especially those that are very religious, there is a cultural stigma against expressing ideas counter to the prevailing religion. You have to remember that coming off as educated is viewed poorly by some.
    @Samara Morgan:

    the major affiliation is nominally protestant. even non-denominationals are nominally protestant. Please understand, there was considerable anti-protestant bias in the catholic girls school i attended….we didnt study them except to subtly discredit.

    I think you should learn more about Protestantism before you make many of your assertions. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. There is far more variation and less centralization between Protestant denominations than there is between Roman Catholics. A Methodist is not a Quaker is not a Southern Baptist is not a Unitarian Universalist.
    Interestingly, the Presbyterian Sunday school my mother dragged me to every week when I was an angsty teenager taught a year-long course on comparative religions. I distrust religious institutions that pretend the outside world doesn’t exist.
    Yes, I did read your article. What the writer is calling Protestantism is more accurately called evangelical Protestantism. Liberal and mainline Protestants would see practically nothing they recognize in that article.

  120. 120.

    Samara Morgan

    August 27, 2011 at 9:53 am

    @suzanne:

    In certain subcultures, yes.

    lol

    like in contemporary american culture. you are serious trying to tell me that creationists are not mocked and sneered at in American pop-culture.
    you are earnestly trying to tell me that four out of ten CHRISTIAN americans are NOT young earth creationist?
    haw haw haw.
    you are just throwing radar chaff.
    a christian is someone who believes in the christ.
    fin.
    there is a huge correlation between self-declared xianity, republican voting patterns, white (NHC) nativisim, AGW denialism, and anti-intellectualism.

    im hypothesizing. if the model is the best fit it works for me. thats science.
    disagree?
    give counter data or a different and better formed hypothesis.
    idc which. but dont wave your hands and whine that i dont know what im talking about becaust you dont liek it.
    give links that disprove my hypoth.
    give data.

  121. 121.

    Samara Morgan

    August 27, 2011 at 9:56 am

    @suzanne:

    You have to remember that coming off as educated is viewed poorly by some.

    and we are back to my initial hypothesis. a “fancy” education is negative social capital for movement conservatives. who are nearly uniformly white protestant christian.
    Anti-intellectualism in action.

  122. 122.

    Samara Morgan

    August 27, 2011 at 10:18 am

    @suzanne: Orly?
    heres a question for you suzanne.
    what other nation made prohibition laws?
    the article SAYS that America is first nation defined by protestant thought in the absence of previous religious thought…a vacumn if you like.
    And what does America come up with?
    Prohibition.
    Slavery.
    DOMA.

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