what is bob jones university?!

Tarhunt
Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:35:41 +0000

warblers:

Yep. Some things are confirmed by archeology. Others have become extremely unlikely but, since archeology can never “prove” a negative like religion can “prove” a negative, one can’t say they’re impossible.

General:

What Chuck has demonstrated to us is what should have been plain from the beginning:


Many, many, many Americans are completely ignorant of what science is and how it works. They cannot even construct a cogent argument on the subject because they don’t know enough to know where to begin. So, they provide links to others who are almost as ignorant as they, and they don’t even know how ridiculous those sites are.
Humankind has always been plagued with those who “know” the truth of things even though they have absolutely no clue what they’re talking about. When challenged, they build a wall of defense against the truth. We have Holocaust deniers who ignore mountains of evidence to believe what they want to believe. The pseudo-Christian religionists are the same in principle, and have been this way since the Roman Empire adopted Christianity. The pseudos have had people imprisoned and/or killed for suggesting that the Earth isn’t the center of the universe, or even the solar system, for instance.


Today, we have people denying global warming and its potential effects who have a vested interest in clinging to their belief that it is not true. Most of these people know nothing about the the fields they are attacking. So, they point to a rapidly shrinking minority of other “scientists” (many of whom do not work in a field that would qualify them to have an opinion) who disagree as “proof” that global warming doesn’t exist or, if it does, that it has no relationship to human actions.

Most scientifically trained people who know nothing about the fields involved in global warming (like me) have no opinion except for one of probability; that is, if 90% of the people who study the field say it’s very likely, then it’s a very high probability that they are right. People like Chuck have 100% certainty that they are wrong because, well, it isn’t important to actually KNOW anything to make up one’s mind 100%. All one has to do is say, “My opinion is just as good as anyone else’s.”

I’ll remember that next time I need brain surgery.


Those who “know” without actually having to learn anything have always been with us and they always will be, barring a change in the human brain. There is a part of the brain that seeks certainty, and it will always fight with the neo-cortex, which seeks data to determine certainty. In many people, the neo-cortex loses the battle. Only proper education can mitigate this tendency sufficiently, and then only with a portion of the population.


It is what it is.