With Elizabeth Hasselbeck decamped for FOX, Barbara Walters wants a new generic and not conspicuously incoherent or offensive conservative to bring home that lucrative demographic of old, white, dumb and angry. You can come up with your own helpful ideas; I propose Noted Scholar (TM) and Friend o’ the Blog Charles Murray.
In audio obtained by the Burnt Orange Report, American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray can be heard explaining to an audience at the University of Texas that his views on women had not changed since a 2005 paper, in which he asserted that one or “maybe” two women had played significant roles in the field of philosophy.
When a woman at the event on Tuesday asked Murray if he still believed what he wrote, Murray quipped, “Who do you have in mind?”
Hard to think of anyone who could field the inevitable questions about pay equality bills with quite the same sophistication or tact.
muddy
Only if he wears a blond wig and a short dress.
schrodinger's cat
The View should hire Grumpy Cat.
schrodinger's cat
@muddy: Please no, he is fat and bald, do not want, either in a dress or a suit.
Cervantes
I know any number of women who were or are better philosophers than he is.
Oh, and that should be “Whom.”
kindness
Murray would be good only so far as watching Whoopie kick his ass every single show.
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: According to his Wiki page he is a political scientist, so why is he considered an expert on philosophy or economics for that matter?
Belafon
“There were very few significant African American thinkers before 1865, for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with white males.”
I’m pretty sure Murray would completely agree with that statement.
Tokyokie
@schrodinger’s cat: Because he says so. And who are you to question the authority of such an august figure?
Woodrowfan
@schrodinger’s cat:
“Because he’s willing to speak hard truths that our PC-addled society refuses to face.”
Translated from wingnut that means “Because he’s an while male bigot.”
Amir Khalid
The View, as I understand, is a television talk show with five women hosts. But is it among the political shows, that it needs to present a right-wing point of view? Does it present a left-wing point of view that needs to be counter-balanced?
schrodinger's cat
@Belafon: I am tired of the bigoted Chuck and Andy show. They are no better than the hooded thugs of the yesteryear, behind their sophisticated rhetoric lies an ugly mask. Any one who does not look like them is supposedly an intellectual dwarf. How convenient.
P.S. Some background; I am really pissed off with Sullivan’s assertion that scientific revolution happened because of Christianity in his response to the first episode of Cosmos.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: View used to have a right wing twit who left the show, they are probably trying to find her replacement.
Feudalism Now!
Charles Murray does not like the libertarian Ayn Rand? Or is she merely an authoress, and proper white males formed the philosophical underpinnings of her tawdry novels.
I am amazed at the amount of not-so-casual misogyny and racism that surfaces everyday. I still miss a lot of it as a white male and I am overwhelmed by it.
Cervantes
@Feudalism Now!:
It has been around for thousands of years:
Charles Murray can go take a long walk off a short pier.
Quaker in a Basement
Sounds like a job for a Palin to me, if only for about six months or so.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
If anything, scientific revolution happened because of the schism in Christianity after Martin Luther freed people up from the fear of being persecuted as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church. There’s a reason Galileo’s books were published in Protestant countries like Germany but officially banned from publication in his home country, which was controlled by the Catholic church. Galileo was even kept under house arrest for his “heresy” of discussing the possibility that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
It’s incredibly simplistic to attribute the scientific revolution to “Christianity,” but Sully is incredibly simplistic about pretty much everything, so I’m not surprised.
Ben Cisco
You misspelled “racist-ass misogynistic Bell Curve proponent and Sullivan fellatee.”
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Also, what about scientists/philosophers who were/are not Christian at all. Do their contributions count for nothing? There is nothing inherently Christian (or Hindu or Jewish) about science.
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
He has no honest expertise in political science, or philosophy, or economics, or even basic English grammar. He is a cheap demagogue, nothing more.
Schlemizel
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, the show has a couple of women who lean slightly left. Well, Whoopie maybe more than slightly. In order to deflect criticism Babs wants a raving wingnut. They have gone through 2 of them now, light-weight, air-head, nearly drooling baboons, they have been a better argument for the left side than the two ‘lefties’.
schrodinger's cat
I have not watched the View since Lisa Ling left, that was a long time ago. I cannot stand Baba Wawa, besides I am usually busy working or commenting on Tunch’s blog at that time.
Bill B
ABC is the network that felt compelled to bring in Ann Coulter to provide a “well-balanced” voice to the Sunday news shows.
bemused
David Brooks is a member of the Murray fan club as I recall.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Their discoveries didn’t happen specifically within the time period that Sullivan likes best (Renaissance through the Enlightenment) and in the area of the world that he identifies with (Europe) so therefore they don’t exist.
Out here in LA, the Huntington Library had a semi-permanent exhibition called “Beautiful Science” that had all kinds of books from their collection on display. (They’re doing major renovations right now, so it’s in storage at the moment.) Sully’s tiny mind would have been blown by the wide range of texts they had on display, not just from Europe, but from Asia and the Middle East.
ETA: Shorter me — you really have to work to stay deliberately ignorant of the history of science and the contributions of non-Europeans and non-Christians, but somehow Sully always manages to keep his ignorance intact.
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
You’re still reading him?
Where did he make the assertion?
TomInNOLA
I like how everyone regards his remark as prima facie sexist, misogynist, etc… yet no one has even attempted to answer his critique….
/trollingwellmeaningliberals
Cervantes
@TomInNOLA:
Nonsense. For a basic response, look here (and at the linked article).
There are other responses in yesterday’s thread on the subject.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: I remember all the statements that money, and progress, and the greatest Renaissance art, migrated from Italy, north to The Netherlands, Germany and England. Probably not all an accident.
Of Course, France remained staunchly Catholic, and Catholic Spain owned much of the Netherlands, but nevermind. Narrative!
Paul in KY
Needs to be some poncy-sounding brit. Sorta like Cesear Flickerman from Hunger Games (except with British accent, natch).
Villago Delenda Est
@kindness: The problem is, after about a week, he’d quit, as he’d have so little ass left to be kicked.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub: Actually, France had some serious difficulties during the Reformation. The regime remained Catholic (one of the reasons that anticlericism was so strong during the French Revolution, and remains so to this day in France) while large swaths of France wanted to be Protestant.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
How about Ann Althouse? If Ann’s drunkeness is a problem, maybe Peggy Noonan? If Peggy’s advanced age and clear dementia is a problem, how about Megan McCain?
schrodinger's cat
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: How about the Himalayan salt Megan?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@schrodinger’s cat: How about the corpse of Jeane Kirkpatrick to appeal to the demographic beyond Barbara Walters?
They could prop her up in a rocking chair and hang a Reagan sign around her neck.
Alex S.
Oh Lord, obviously they couldn’t find an acceptable female conservative (are they all too …emotional?) Maybe they’ll add Ross Douthat.
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: This is from his blog a few weeks ago. I read him may be once a month.
This was block quoted approvingly by Euro centric Sullivan:
lf-help book, Lost in the Cosmos. Sagan’s may have been as wince-inducing as Tyson’s version – and for the same reasons:
What does this even mean?
My review of the latest episode of Cosmos is here
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, for one.
schrodinger's cat
Thread needs a kitteh.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: That is more frightening than Godzilla and Mothra combined.
If that kitteh gets loose, kitty treat futures will go sky high.
Epicurus
@schrodinger’s cat: It means that Andrew Sullivan is a fraud with a poncey accent. Just cuz you went to Oxford/Cambridge doesn’t make you automatically the smartest guy in the room. Methinks young Andrew is simply working out his own inadequacies and pretending that he’s “objective.” Can’t we send the little shite back to Blighty? Keerist, he’s tiresome.
schrodinger's cat
@Villago Delenda Est: I want to snorgle that fuzzeh belleh!
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Megan McCain is a fine idea, thought leader.
Emma
@TomInNOLA: http://www.women-philosophers.com/ Enjoy!
And this one: Susan Haack.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: Fine review. Enjoyed reading it.
Lurking Canadian
@schrodinger’s cat: I have seen some historians make the argument that you need monotheism before you can have science. The idea is that in order to have a reasonable expectation that experiments performed under consistent conditions will have consistent results, you have to be free of the conviction that the gods are prone to fucking with you for the hell of it. If some imp, or succubus is going to come and monkey with your petri dish each night, there’s not much point leaving it out. Also, just because my household gods allow my experiment to work in my lab, doesn’t mean your household gods won’t ordain something else in your lab.
Monotheists, on the other hand, are used to thinking that the same principles might apply universally, so the kind of mental leap Newton needed to make in order to conjecture that the same laws that applied to falling apples might also apply to orbiting moons becomes possible.
Even so, saying you need monotheism is not the same thing as saying you need Christianity. The Zoroastrians should have had the same cognitive framework, unless they were afraid Ahriman was the one monkeying with the petri dishes.
Mike in NC
Or as I call them, my neighbors.
schrodinger's cat
@Paul in KY: Thanks!
Emma
@Lurking Canadian: That’s an interesting view. These guys would be surprised.
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Ancient-World-Encyclopedia-History/dp/1851095349
schrodinger's cat
@Lurking Canadian: God is not necessary for science, what does it matter if there is one powerful deity or many, who are not subject to the laws of nature.
Citizen_X
@schrodinger’s cat:
In Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond discusses the first scientific journal, founded in the 16th century, called the Royal Journal of Forestry or something. It’s Japanese. (It predated Proceedings of the Royal Society by some 50 years.)
NonyNony
@Lurking Canadian:
I’ve seen those arguments, and they’re almost universally crap. They’re arguing from the world we know exists backward to make an argument that it’s the only world that could exist.
It also completely ignores the fact that for most of its history Christianity has not, in fact, been monotheistic except in the most pedantic sense of the word. It’s been monolatrous for most of its existence in that there is only one god in the system that you are supposed to worship (and even there it fudges since that One God is also Three Gods), but there have been since its birth a shitton of lesser gods (angels/demons) and demigods (saints) that hover around the edges. The same argument that says “you can’t know if the gods aren’t fucking with your experiment” also says “you can’t know that Satan isn’t fucking around with your experiment”.
It’s crap. What you need for science is the ability to say “the world follows certain rules that were set down by God/the gods, and we can discover them if we work at it”, and then you need a culture that values that kind of discovery. That’s pretty much it – the Greeks were doing it in an overtly polytheistic society for centuries before the Romans came in and put a stop to it (because they didn’t care about that kind of discovery, and valued a “shut up and don’t make waves mentality”). That the Caliphate picked up on Greek progress centuries later was due to the fact that the culture valued those kinds of discoveries, not their monotheism (which is why it wasn’t until the Reformation that science in Christian Europe really started to thrive – because suddenly there was a culture that valued that kind of discovery where before there was a culture that valued a “shut up and don’t make waves” mentality”. And by that point science in the Middle East had waned because the culture had shifted to one that valued a “shut up and don’t make waves” mentality).
Lurking Canadian
@Emma: Yes, historically there have been many intelligent people who knew many things. Nevertheless, most people consider The Scientific Method to have been developed once, in one time and one place. This does not invalidate the work of philosophers or mathematicians working in the past and it doesn’t mean they were stupid. (Well, except for Aristotle. Maybe he was good at philosophy, but as a physicist, that dude was just stupid.) It just means they had not yet arrived at the particular mix of inductive and deductive reasoning that we call “science”.
@schrodinger’s cat: There is a difference between me saying “some historians think this”, and “I think this”. In principle, I agree with you. The key is not expecting caprice on the part of your gods. It doesn’t really matter if it’s one or many, as long as you expect them to keep their nutty hands to themselves most of the time.
Paul in KY
@Lurking Canadian: Interesting idea, but certainly some ancients (like Archimedes & others) rose above that.
Maybe, if you really believed that stuff (and there were many who thought it was hokum back then), then it would interfere in the ways you wrote about.
schrodinger's cat
@Lurking Canadian: I was not criticizing you, just those unnamed historians! My comment was unclear, sorry.
The Other Chuck
@Cervantes:
No it shouldn’t. Always fun to tweak people with it though.
hilts
Barbara Walters is a goddamn fucking disgrace to journalism. It’s an outrage that this clueless asshole’s career has lasted as long as it did.
Emma
@Lurking Canadian: but as a physicist, that dude was just stupid. From Wikipedia:
As Martin Heidegger, one of the foremost philosophers of the twentieth century, wrote:
Aristotelian “physics” is different from what we mean today by this word, not only to the extent that it belongs to antiquity whereas the modern physical sciences belong to modernity, rather above all it is different by virtue of the fact that Aristotle’s “physics” is philosophy, whereas modern physics is a positive science that presupposes a philosophy…. This book determines the warp and woof of the whole of Western thinking, even at that place where it, as modern thinking, appears to think at odds with ancient thinking. But opposition is invariably comprised of a decisive, and often even perilous, dependence. Without Aristotle’s Physics there would have been no Galileo.[1]
Perhaps we shouldn’t be so dismissive. By our understanding, he was wrong. But he was sure as hell influential.
And this guy didn’t have a problem being a scientist.
Cervantes
@The Other Chuck:
Why not?
schrodinger's cat
@Emma: Three really bad ideas can be attributed to Aristotle
1. Geocentric solar system
2. And his views on motion,
-his rejection of inertia
-and that weight affects falling bodies.
It took more than 1000 years to overturn his views.
Lurking Canadian
@Emma: Yeah, I am unjust to Aristotle. For about a thousand years, at least in the Western European tradition, “Thinking==Aristotle”. If I knew something about biology, I think I’d be impressed with his work on classification.
I can even forgive the notion that bodies naturally tend towards rest. Any terrestrial experiment he could possibly have run would have had that result, and it takes a real intuitive leap to say, “OK, but in a vacuum where no other forces are acting…” But I just can’t get past the falling bodies thing. I mean, lean out the window. Drop two rocks. Listen. This is not a difficult experiment to conduct.
Cervantes
@Lurking Canadian:
I’ll say!
His teacher, Plato, held that to understand the world, reason sufficed. Aristotle, by contrast. insisted on the importance of the senses (i.e., data). At the time, in his world, this was a radical innovation! Where would we be today if Plato’s view had persisted?
You may not think Aristotle was a sophisticated physicist, but that’s as much a function of your (incorrigibly!) modern expectations as it is of his ability as a philosopher.
@schrodinger’s cat:
That’s true but it seems unfair to blame him for that! Those who followed him tried to reconcile his views with those propounded by other forces in their world (e.g., the Catholic church). To the extent their conclusions were “wrong,” hold them responsible if you want to — but why blame Aristotle? Why is it his fault that his intellectual descendants weren’t more modern than they were?
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: In case it was not clear I am only blaming Aristotle for his conclusions, not what his successors did.
Plato’s view is alive and well among conservatives and the greater wingnuttia. Including “sane” conservatives like that idiotic Andrew Sullivan.
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
Then I did not understand your point about something taking a thousand years.
You find these people overly dependent on reason, do you?
noabsolutes
Yeah, he’s the guy Paul Ryan was talking about who had all those good ideas about the spiral of culture in the “inner city” with generations of men not even thinking about working. People claiming that Paul Ryan wasn’t whistling Dixie when he cited him in that interview will probably have a hard time shaking him off Greg Abbott, too.
Cerulean Spork
cmon nobody posted the charles murray / salon non-interview (bc he bailed on them , bc they were gonna be mean to him 0_0 ) yet ??
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/08/tramp_stamps_racism_and_icky_pronouns_8_new_life_tips_from_bell_curve_author_charles_murray/