Bill Maher ID joke nails it
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Mycroft said:
An idiot on the internet? It can't be!
You know the old joke that if you put an infinite number of monkeys next to an infinite number of typwriters eventually one of them will write Shakespeare's plays?
Well, the internet has proven that that's not true.
Cain
Straussian
Mycroft said:
If I wanted to find an idiot, then I would have to look far beyond this forum. In fact, I could easily click on the membership roll and select a letter at random -- like, I dunno, 'm'. But enough about that, I thought Stewart's joke was funny.
Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
'Cept Copernicus had evidence.
He wasn't just standing up in the middle of science lectures and saying "Nun-unnnn!"
We didn't advance merely because people had alternate "theories". We advanced because people frigging figured out how the friggin universe was really built.
And. That's. Maher's. Joke.
And a damn good one, if you ask me.
Jocko said:
'Cept Copernicus had evidence.
He wasn't just standing up in the middle of science lectures and saying "Nun-unnnn!"
We didn't advance merely because people had alternate "theories". We advanced because people frigging figured out how the friggin universe was really built.
And. That's. Maher's. Joke.
And a damn good one, if you ask me.
Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
You know, I really tried to make a point and bow out, but since you bring this up...
Source (my emphases)
See, not only didn't he say "nnhnn," in fact he almost didn't say anything at all, and probably would never have amounted to so much as a footnote without someone else broaching a religious divide to see if there was something to his unexpanded theories.
So in a manner of speaking, it dovetails quite neatly with what I was saying, thankyouverymuch.
Figuring it out is half the fight. Communicating it is the other. Just one half gets you nowhere, as the anecdote above illustrates.
Motion is relative. So is humor. All I know is how it looks from here.
Silicon said:
You know, I really tried to make a point and bow out, but since you bring this up...
Source (my emphases)
See, not only didn't he say "nnhnn," in fact he almost didn't say anything at all, and probably would never have amounted to so much as a footnote without someone else broaching a religious divide to see if there was something to his unexpanded theories.
So in a manner of speaking, it dovetails quite neatly with what I was saying, thankyouverymuch.
Figuring it out is half the fight. Communicating it is the other. Just one half gets you nowhere, as the anecdote above illustrates.
Motion is relative. So is humor. All I know is how it looks from here.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
Not really. No. ID has no content, none at all; it certainly has no "theory." Its proponents attack evolution and its proposed mechanisms, and some will hold to a young Earth (there are some YECs in the ID movement). But they offer no theory about what did or did not happen billions or tens of thousands of years ago. The Discovery Institute's -- primary ID "think" tank -- George Gilder has explicitly insisted that ID itself has no actual content.
ID does, also, track YEC tactics and arguments, including mining the same quotes from evolutionary scientists to "prove" that evolution is a collapsing theory in crisis. (Which is the actual content of ID, namely, attacking evolution.)
The "fellows" of the DI understand there is no ID theory yet, so, rather than demanding that their (non-existent) theory be taught, they have switched to a demand to "teach the controversy." The controversy, as they see it, is between science's methodological materialism on the one hand, and the IDists deisre to introduce supernatural explanations on the other.
But they do not really mean even that. Science has long been able to test supernatural claims, after all. What the IDists want is for their supernatural explanations to be exempt from any requirements that their notions have predictive power, or be subject to falsification. In sum, they want to be able to simply assert that goddidit here and there, in this gap or that, and empiricists are to leave the assertion alone, because, they argue, to do otherwise is to unfairly privilege materialism.
Skeptic said:
Not really. No. ID has no content, none at all; it certainly has no "theory." Its proponents attack evolution and its proposed mechanisms, and some will hold to a young Earth (there are some YECs in the ID movement). But they offer no theory about what did or did not happen billions or tens of thousands of years ago. The Discovery Institute's -- primary ID "think" tank -- George Gilder has explicitly insisted that ID itself has no actual content.
ID does, also, track YEC tactics and arguments, including mining the same quotes from evolutionary scientists to "prove" that evolution is a collapsing theory in crisis. (Which is the actual content of ID, namely, attacking evolution.)
The "fellows" of the DI understand there is no ID theory yet, so, rather than demanding that their (non-existent) theory be taught, they have switched to a demand to "teach the controversy." The controversy, as they see it, is between science's methodological materialism on the one hand, and the IDists deisre to introduce supernatural explanations on the other.
But they do not really mean even that. Science has long been able to test supernatural claims, after all. What the IDists want is for their supernatural explanations to be exempt from any requirements that their notions have predictive power, or be subject to falsification. In sum, they want to be able to simply assert that goddidit here and there, in this gap or that, and empiricists are to leave the assertion alone, because, they argue, to do otherwise is to unfairly privilege materialism.
fishbob
Seasonally Disaffected
Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
Temerity to question is a good thing. Lying cheating slimewadliness is what rankles. By slimewadliness, I mean the fact that there is no theory to ID theory. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors and fluff and distraction and posturing and whining about evolution, but there is no evidence and no reasoning beyond 'we don't believe in evolution'.
ID as a philosophy is right up there with dowsing and communicating with the dead on national TV. A great place to make fast money from the gullible, but no basis in reality.
Jocko said:
Temerity to question is a good thing. Lying cheating slimewadliness is what rankles. By slimewadliness, I mean the fact that there is no theory to ID theory. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors and fluff and distraction and posturing and whining about evolution, but there is no evidence and no reasoning beyond 'we don't believe in evolution'.
ID as a philosophy is right up there with dowsing and communicating with the dead on national TV. A great place to make fast money from the gullible, but no basis in reality.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
Where do you get this impression?
Scientists love questioning accepted theories. They live for the day when they can overthrow an accepted theory and reap the accolades. Visit any scientific conference and see how firmly people argue with the flavor-of-the-month.
The problem is that the theory of evolution (in particular) is "accepted" because there's just so damn much evidence supporting it. Of course, there was also a hell of a lot of evidence supporting geocentrism (prior to Copernicus), the circularity of orbits (prior to Kepler), the wave theory of light (prior to Einstein and the photoelectric effect), the law of conservation of mass (prior to special relativity), and the idea that all of mathematics could be algorithmically proven (prior to Goedel). That's why we remember the names Einstein and Goedel today.
Why do you think scientists question all accepted theories except this one?
Jocko said:
Where do you get this impression?
Scientists love questioning accepted theories. They live for the day when they can overthrow an accepted theory and reap the accolades. Visit any scientific conference and see how firmly people argue with the flavor-of-the-month.
The problem is that the theory of evolution (in particular) is "accepted" because there's just so damn much evidence supporting it. Of course, there was also a hell of a lot of evidence supporting geocentrism (prior to Copernicus), the circularity of orbits (prior to Kepler), the wave theory of light (prior to Einstein and the photoelectric effect), the law of conservation of mass (prior to special relativity), and the idea that all of mathematics could be algorithmically proven (prior to Goedel). That's why we remember the names Einstein and Goedel today.
Why do you think scientists question all accepted theories except this one?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
Sorry, I did not mean to give the impression that it was unique to any particular issue. The status accorded to those who do overcome contemporary thinking, however, suggests to me at least that their exceptions prove a rule.
new drkitten said:
Sorry, I did not mean to give the impression that it was unique to any particular issue. The status accorded to those who do overcome contemporary thinking, however, suggests to me at least that their exceptions prove a rule.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
To get off copernicus --I'm not quite sure I get your point on him, but let's get back to your original point a bit.
Are you saying that we SHOULDN'T argue against people who think that teaching "both sides" is good science?
I think the best humor points out a truth, and I think Maher does that. But as I've said before, funny is in the bone of the beholder.
But do you think that the solution is to NOT treat ID'ers negatively because they are merely humble and honest questioners of accepted theory?
I don't recall any broad outrage or rankling among folks when a scientist, using the tools of science, challenged a scientific theory. I don't remember folks going crazy when Hawking recently reversed himself on Black Holes. Or when Robert Bakker started spouting off on warm-blooded dinosaurs. Such TIMERITY!!!
I think there IS a good deal of temerity involved, if one outright challenges a theory and AT THE SAME TIME refuses to offer evidence for their own theory. That's temerity. That's balls. That's chutzpah. I would go further and call it enormously egotistical, pig-headed and an outrage to modernity. I would call it the highest form of hubris. I would also call it an attempt to hijack both religion and science and shackle them to a political agenda, which serves noone but the power brokers. I call them willing liers. Snake-oil peddlers. Con-artists stealing power from the churchgoers to hand to the powerful corporate elite, and being funded by billionaires like Howard Ahmanson Jr.
After all, these "honest questioners" aren't toiling in the fields of science. They've got no research programs, and they don't study or teach these theories at universities or laboratories. Zero accredited universities teach ID classes. Even Christian universities don't teach it. You can't take an ID class at Pepperdine, Notre Dame, even BYU. Behe can't get his pet theories taken seriously at even Christian university science departments. That's how you can spot a crank, right there. Instead of working in the field and winning over scientists using the facts, They fight the battle among the uneducated. They do it at the ballot box and at the public school level. If they can't get universities to listen, they'll bypass the entire academic world. They'll win in the politics, and they refuse to play in the world of peer-review and independant verification. And that's why it's a political fight, almost solely.
And that's beyond timerity. It's fraud.
And that's what's objectionable to me.
Jocko said:
To get off copernicus --I'm not quite sure I get your point on him, but let's get back to your original point a bit.
Are you saying that we SHOULDN'T argue against people who think that teaching "both sides" is good science?
I think the best humor points out a truth, and I think Maher does that. But as I've said before, funny is in the bone of the beholder.
But do you think that the solution is to NOT treat ID'ers negatively because they are merely humble and honest questioners of accepted theory?
I don't recall any broad outrage or rankling among folks when a scientist, using the tools of science, challenged a scientific theory. I don't remember folks going crazy when Hawking recently reversed himself on Black Holes. Or when Robert Bakker started spouting off on warm-blooded dinosaurs. Such TIMERITY!!!
I think there IS a good deal of temerity involved, if one outright challenges a theory and AT THE SAME TIME refuses to offer evidence for their own theory. That's temerity. That's balls. That's chutzpah. I would go further and call it enormously egotistical, pig-headed and an outrage to modernity. I would call it the highest form of hubris. I would also call it an attempt to hijack both religion and science and shackle them to a political agenda, which serves noone but the power brokers. I call them willing liers. Snake-oil peddlers. Con-artists stealing power from the churchgoers to hand to the powerful corporate elite, and being funded by billionaires like Howard Ahmanson Jr.
After all, these "honest questioners" aren't toiling in the fields of science. They've got no research programs, and they don't study or teach these theories at universities or laboratories. Zero accredited universities teach ID classes. Even Christian universities don't teach it. You can't take an ID class at Pepperdine, Notre Dame, even BYU. Behe can't get his pet theories taken seriously at even Christian university science departments. That's how you can spot a crank, right there. Instead of working in the field and winning over scientists using the facts, They fight the battle among the uneducated. They do it at the ballot box and at the public school level. If they can't get universities to listen, they'll bypass the entire academic world. They'll win in the politics, and they refuse to play in the world of peer-review and independant verification. And that's why it's a political fight, almost solely.
And that's beyond timerity. It's fraud.
And that's what's objectionable to me.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
Does the status accorded to national championship athletes also suggest that their exceptions prove a rule? How about the status accorded to masterwork musicians who get to solo with the top orchestras -- or Hall of Fame rock musicians?
The status accorded to those who overcome contemporary thinking reflects the difficulty of that particular task -- after all, contemporary thinking is what it is precisely because contemporary scientific thinking is well-supported both by theory and a huge body of empirical and experimental evidence. In a sense, contemporary scientific thinking represents a collective "world record" of knowledge, and to transcend the existing world record, and to set a new one, is a task well worth celebration and status.
Again, where do you get this impression? What events can you point to that suggest that scientists are "hostile" to other scientists challenging accepted theories? What they are justifiably hostile to is non-scientists passing off non-scientific theories, fraudulently and without evidence, as science. But that's a different kettle of fish entirely. There are also records -- mostly historical, thank God -- of scientists objecting to the wrong sort of person trying to do science. (For example, the objections to "Jewish science" in Nazi Germany, or the sexist responses to Beatrix Potter's publication of the structure of lichens.) But again, that's a different kettle of fish -- it's not the belief structure that was being protected, but the social structure.
Demsky, a noted ID proponent, is a card-carrying member of the scientific establishment. Socially, there's nothing wrong with him. I have no objection to him on that basis. I also have no objection to his temerity in "challenging" the theory of evolution. I do, however, object to him as being a lying, fraudulent, incompetent, dishonest, manipulative cheese-weasel.
Jocko said:
Does the status accorded to national championship athletes also suggest that their exceptions prove a rule? How about the status accorded to masterwork musicians who get to solo with the top orchestras -- or Hall of Fame rock musicians?
The status accorded to those who overcome contemporary thinking reflects the difficulty of that particular task -- after all, contemporary thinking is what it is precisely because contemporary scientific thinking is well-supported both by theory and a huge body of empirical and experimental evidence. In a sense, contemporary scientific thinking represents a collective "world record" of knowledge, and to transcend the existing world record, and to set a new one, is a task well worth celebration and status.
Again, where do you get this impression? What events can you point to that suggest that scientists are "hostile" to other scientists challenging accepted theories? What they are justifiably hostile to is non-scientists passing off non-scientific theories, fraudulently and without evidence, as science. But that's a different kettle of fish entirely. There are also records -- mostly historical, thank God -- of scientists objecting to the wrong sort of person trying to do science. (For example, the objections to "Jewish science" in Nazi Germany, or the sexist responses to Beatrix Potter's publication of the structure of lichens.) But again, that's a different kettle of fish -- it's not the belief structure that was being protected, but the social structure.
Demsky, a noted ID proponent, is a card-carrying member of the scientific establishment. Socially, there's nothing wrong with him. I have no objection to him on that basis. I also have no objection to his temerity in "challenging" the theory of evolution. I do, however, object to him as being a lying, fraudulent, incompetent, dishonest, manipulative cheese-weasel.
billydkid
Illuminator
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2002
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- 4,917
Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
But it is not philosophy either. It is religion with no basis at all in reason.
Jocko said:Agreed. At best, ID is a philosophy and should be treated as such. But the impression I get is that it's not the religious angle that so rankles a lot of people, so much as the temerity to question an accepted theory.
Using your light example, for instance, it wasn't that long ago that scientists "knew" it was a wave and therefore believed the whole of creation was filled with an infinitely rigid material called the ether, so as to explain its transmission through vacuum. Of couse it was bupkes, and we now have a broader take on the nature of electromagetism.
So... invisible buddy in the sky, or invisible material covering the entire universe. - which sounds sillier to you?
But it is not philosophy either. It is religion with no basis at all in reason.
CapelDodger
Penultimate Amazing
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Maher ID joke nails it
ID has no place in such a discipline. It would demean it.
One example I find immensely gratifying is the way the scientific world has handled the accelarating expansion of the universe. The first evidence was treated very critically and sceptically, but as independent evidence came in old ideas were discarded and attention turned to working out the why. All within a few years. Science at its best.Silicon said:
ID has no place in such a discipline. It would demean it.
