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Sxeptomaniac |
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#1
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Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Regulars Posts: 332 Joined: From: Fresno, CA Member No.: 3,542 ![]() |
I had really hoped they'd keep themselves under control after FeloniousMonk's desysopping a while back, but they appear to be back at it again.
Cla68 seems to have stirred them up by trying to add a "Scientific theories" category to the Intelligent Design article. Don't think it was a really good idea, but it doesn't justify the reaction. Now Hrafn has decided to tag various articles as being Creationism stubs, including James Tour, a guy who has specifically said that he's not an intelligent design supporter. He signed a petition, so therefore he's a creationist, even if he says otherwise, right? Never mind that he's done nothing else related to creationism, and all indicators are that he never will. Now Guettarda's gaming to try to keep the tag in (since when is the burden of evidence on the one removing material from a BLP?). I really did not want to get involved with these people again, but I'm not letting them go back to messing with BLPs like they did in the past. This post has been edited by Sxeptomaniac: |
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lilburne |
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#2
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Chameleon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Contributors Posts: 890 Joined: Member No.: 21,803 ![]() |
Back in the mid 80s I was the duty chemist in a chemical factory on the night shift. I had a young guy as an assistant which they used to call "Basher" as he could be found testifying in the shopping mall at the weekend and doing the same in the pubs in the evening. Nice enough kid and we sort of got on OK - until this one night when there was little to do, and he was bored and wanted something to read. Without thinking I gave him the latest issue of the "New Internationalist" to read, it was sponsored by Oxfam, Save The Children, and Christian Aid, amongst others.
Anyway he took one look at it, put it down, walk out of the lab and I never saw him for the rest of the shift, also he didn't speak to me for a month. The reason was that particular issue had articles on dinosaurs and fossils. |
Doc glasgow |
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#3
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Wikipedia:The Sump of All Human Knowledge ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Regulars Posts: 1,138 Joined: From: at home Member No.: 90 ![]() |
Back in the mid 80s I was the duty chemist in a chemical factory on the night shift. I had a young guy as an assistant which they used to call "Basher" as he could be found testifying in the shopping mall at the weekend and doing the same in the pubs in the evening. Nice enough kid and we sort of got on OK - until this one night when there was little to do, and he was bored and wanted something to read. Without thinking I gave him the latest issue of the "New Internationalist" to read, it was sponsored by Oxfam, Save The Children, and Christian Aid, amongst others. Anyway he took one look at it, put it down, walk out of the lab and I never saw him for the rest of the shift, also he didn't speak to me for a month. The reason was that particular issue had articles on dinosaurs and fossils. A long time ago a picked up a book on Creation Science - it sat unread on a bookcase among thousands of others. When studying in a liberal university, a friend was doing an essay on a related topic, and I offered to lend her the book for her interest. When I brought it in for her, I was seen with it in the common room. What happened next astounded me: liberal, broad-minded people, responded with scorn and anger to the very idea anyone would even read the book. It was book-burning anger. I am NOT (and never have been) a proponent of Creation Science, but it struck me that had I entered that same liberal common room with a copy of Mein Kampf people would have given me the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps even applauded a broad reading scope of even objectionable books. Intelligent liberals tolerate horoscopes, Scientology, new-age mantras, feng shui, and any other amount of unscientific mumbo-jumbo. Why is it that ID so causes their blood to boil? If they are so confident of the strength of the intellectual argument against it, why are they so bloody defensive? (Even here in the UK, where there is no history of interference with education.) Kelly is correct, if the anti-ID position is so strong, then gaming the article should be utterly unnecessary. |
Cyclopia |
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#4
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Abominable sociopath, kool-aid addict. ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Contributors Posts: 159 Joined: From: Cambridge, UK Member No.: 14,160 ![]() |
Intelligent liberals tolerate horoscopes, Scientology, new-age mantras, feng shui, and any other amount of unscientific mumbo-jumbo. Why is it that ID so causes their blood to boil? If they are so confident of the strength of the intellectual argument against it, why are they so bloody defensive? (Even here in the UK, where there is no history of interference with education.) Kelly is correct, if the anti-ID position is so strong, then gaming the article should be utterly unnecessary. Well, I personally do not tolerate horoscopes, Scientology, and almost all unscientific mumbo-jumbo. But you have a good point. The answer -at least for myself- is that while it is easy to show that horoscopes and Scientology are nonsensical BS, Creationism and ID instead dangerously disguise as science. And disproving their arguments, while easy for the scientifically educated person, is not so easy for an educated person but with a weak scientific background. They can look convincing. Often to disprove many of their apparently reasonable arguments you have to resort to very long explanation and introduce concepts which are not immediately trivial -and many people will prefer of course to listen to the easier,clearer (but deeply wrong) version. |
Jagärdu |
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#5
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Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Contributors Posts: 149 Joined: Member No.: 22,114 ![]() |
Intelligent liberals tolerate horoscopes, Scientology, new-age mantras, feng shui, and any other amount of unscientific mumbo-jumbo. Why is it that ID so causes their blood to boil? If they are so confident of the strength of the intellectual argument against it, why are they so bloody defensive? (Even here in the UK, where there is no history of interference with education.) Kelly is correct, if the anti-ID position is so strong, then gaming the article should be utterly unnecessary. Well, I personally do not tolerate horoscopes, Scientology, and almost all unscientific mumbo-jumbo. But you have a good point. The answer -at least for myself- is that while it is easy to show that horoscopes and Scientology are nonsensical BS, Creationism and ID instead dangerously disguise as science. And disproving their arguments, while easy for the scientifically educated person, is not so easy for an educated person but with a weak scientific background. They can look convincing. Often to disprove many of their apparently reasonable arguments you have to resort to very long explanation and introduce concepts which are not immediately trivial -and many people will prefer of course to listen to the easier,clearer (but deeply wrong) version. The answer is much simpler, and entirely political (at least in the United States). I'm a liberal myself, but I detest all the culture wars nonsense that gets pandered about by both liberal and conservative politicians and talking heads to rile up their constituents/consumers. A couple of years ago I recall arguing with a friend who was convinced that George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" forced schools to teach ID in order to get funding. Say what? The history of this "debate" in the United States is a political history. The only reason it appears in the conscious of the 90% of the population who aren't fanatical nutjubs on either side, is strictly politics. ID is utter nonesense, but it is also just as harmless as the tooth fairy. But liberals are made to fear conservatives and their ideas (and vice versa), especially the ideas that are less important when push comes to shove, because that's how you play the political game here. This post has been edited by Jagärdu: |
Kelly Martin |
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#6
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Bring back the guttersnipes! ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Regulars Posts: 3,270 Joined: From: EN61bw Member No.: 6,696 ![]() |
ID is utter nonesense, but it is also just as harmless as the tooth fairy. No, it's not. Teaching nonsense to children as if it were not nonsense is harmful, to them and to society, because it tends to result in people who do not know how to think. In a society in which the population is expected to participate in its own governance, it is essential that people are trained to think, at least to some degree. Of course, this itself exposes me as a liberal; conservatives, in general, prefer to have someone else do their thinking for them and tell them what it is they are to believe.This is one of the main objections commonly expressed at WR about Wikipedia in general, in fact: that Wikipedia is contributing to a dumbing down of society in general. |
Milton Roe |
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#7
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Known alias of J. Random Troll ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Regulars Posts: 10,209 Joined: Member No.: 5,156 ![]() |
ID is utter nonesense, but it is also just as harmless as the tooth fairy. No, it's not. Teaching nonsense to children as if it were not nonsense is harmful, to them and to society, because it tends to result in people who do not know how to think. Yes. I don't think children who believe in ID will actually be harmed unless they go into biology (or some health-care field) and try to do research. At that point, you find out what happens if a belief in the tooth fairy also entails the idea that god causes cavities so it does matter if you personally brush your teeth. The problem with ID in biology is that it turns off all question-asking activity, because the answer is always "God did it." Which generally means the old-white-guy-in-the-sky, the gaseous vertebrate who has a penis but no navel, did it. In the case of Pastafarianism, "the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it". The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) also has no navel, but does have two great big meaty balls (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif). Pastafarians believe that Moses was able to view the rear parts of the meatballs, after FSM emerged from the flaming bush, where he had been residing on "simmer." So anyway, in biology, if FSM designed it that way, what's the point of trying to understand cause-and-effect? This is especially true of behavior. When a male lion moves into a new pride, and drives the dominant male out, his next step is to kill all the cubs. Why? Because the FSM made lions that way, why; end of inquiry. When a human female with children enters into a second marriage, the new adoptive father is several times more likely to physically abuse the children from the first marriage, than non-adoptive fathers are. Is this related to lion behavior, or is this due to The Devil and some kind of Sin? Is human behavior a matter of biology at all? Or is it entirely driven by a war between God and Satan (and sometimes, a large and angry mass of levitating pasta). We got the FSM out of astrophysics at the time of Galileo and Newton, and astrophysics is poorer for it, because now students have to learn all kinds of difficult math, instead of much more interesting theological speculation, such as how seraphim manage to keep FSM aloft as he moves the crystal spheres of the planets, without getting all smeared with tomato sauce. Biology is the last holdout, now, as ID people struggle to tell a story that won't show humans as being some kind of extra-complicated really smart animal. (As though animals of other kinds were not something admirable and amazing). Are we going to let this happen? Or am I going to have to march down to the nearest K-12 school with a can of Chef Boyardee as a teaching aid? |
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