Really?
“Project aims to release hundreds into lochs and streams after centuries of habitat loss and exploitation”https://t.co/erICwa0IVs
And this is their excuse…
“She likens the task of preserving invertebrates to keeping a plane flying safely. Even if their exact value…
— Alan Fahrner (@JegErAlan) November 25, 2023
Note: This post appears to have been stuck in draft mode…not sure when I originally composed it.
The article below is worth a read. Mentally, I think we tie “religion” to systems of belief hinging on the supernatural, but the Merriam-Webster definition shows it is far more inclusive:
“a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”
Your “religion” might not be supernatural…nor may it be politics as Leighton Akira Woodhouse discusses below…but I would suggest you almost definitely have a “system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.” Woodhouse discussed how previously politics brought people together in compromise, but the religion of politics does just the opposite.
Final comment (of my own): Worldviews that accept the supernatural are just as worthy of being in the public square as those that reject it. Let each make its case for each issue at hand and trust people to make a decision. Blind dogmatism and ideology are the issue, not a belief in there being more than what our five senses can measure.
”Trust in science” is a religious statement, not a scientific one. True science doesn’t trust anything. 🙂
P.S. Lest it come off otherwise, I trust science (or, rather, the scientific method), since it fully recognizes its limitations and encourages questioning, refining, etc. What I don’t trust are scientists, who are no more perfect than the rest of us humans.
Regardless of which side of the fossil fuel debate you come down on, this will help inform your opinion:
Although a lot of the article was “could be’s” masquerading as facts, it was interesting nevertheless:
And here is an example of a Tiktaalik-inspired meme:
Since I am poking the accepted narrative in the eye today :-), how about this about global warming?:
As I said in my post just before this one, we are not following the science.
Adding to it this time…
We are not following the science, we are following ideology.
When I read this article:
Which discusses how neutrinos just don’t want to behave the way we expect :-), I had a humorous thought:
What if God is thinkin’, “So, you think you are so smart you can figure out anything, try this!” (and then he makes a bunch of neutrinos disappear).
No, I don’t honestly think God is messing with scientific experiments…but considering how arrogant we humans can be with our finite knowledge, it’s a funny idea…and would be justice at some level. 🙂
There is a great line from professor Janet Conrad in the post:
I want nature to talk to me; I don’t want to tell nature what to do.
Although Conrad might disagree with where I would take that, it aligns with my view that true science follows the evidence wherever it leads; it does not presuppose any preconditions or limitations. (For instance, that there is no supernatural.)
The linked article isn’t a short read, but well worth your time. I cannot help but wonder if the issue with unexpected nuetrino behavior is because we cannot prevent interference with certain quantum measurements. I get a sense of scientists flailing a bit to explain what’s up, and appreciate that there are those trying to keep imaginations in line:
The challenge now is how to access the hypothetical dark sector given that it’s, well, dark. Inventing undetectable particles, Pauli advised, is something no theorist should do.
“Inventing undetectable particles” does seem a “wave of the hand” appeal to magic, eh? 🙂
Do you have five minutes to see if mathematics is an argument for God?:
Notice I said “argument,” not “proof.” 🙂
P.S. You can read a paper William Lane Craig refers to in the video, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” here.
What is it is not there, because God created everything His way?
P.S. BTW, I don’t see the Big Bang at odds with a traditional Christian view of creation.
I was listening to a Richard Feynman audio book on the drive to Goodland, Kansas today, and this gem came over the speakers:
I would now like to turn to a third value that science has. It is a little more indirect, but not much. The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize the ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty–some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.
That description should help you distinguish between someone applying a scientific approach versus a political or totalitarian one.
Bonus: I enjoyed this earlier quote too:
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy–and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he will sound as naive as anyone untrained in the matter.
Think about it. It is far more applicable than just with scientists…
Maybe some of Amazon’s complaints against SpaceX are legit, but they sure seem like a whiny baby:
My question for Amazon: What is SpaceX doing that is preventing you from launching your satellites?
Given this article, I am more scientific than Scientific American:
Allison Hopper damns creationism. It’s not that people have an honest, religious belief. Instead…
I want to unmask the lie that evolution denial is about religion and recognize that at its core, it is a form of white supremacy that perpetuates segregation and violence against Black bodies.
At it’s core, Christian religion is about Jesus, nothing more, nothing less.
Later, the author writes:
Read More
ZUBY’s thread is worth reading:
20 Things I've Learned (Or Had Confirmed) About Humanity During The 'Pandemic' (THREAD):
1/ Most people would rather be in the majority, than be right.
— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) July 5, 2021
Hat tip: Not the Bee
P.S. This is a good reminder that we are all human:
17/ Politics, the media, science, and the healthcare industries are all corrupt, to varying degrees. Scientists and doctors can be bought as easily as politicians.
— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) July 5, 2021
And that just ‘cause we aren’t that way, that doesn’t mean we should discount how evil our leaders might be:
Bonus thought:
21/ Most people are fairly compassionate and have good intentions (this is good)
As a result, most people deeply struggle to understand that some people, including our 'leaders', CAN have malicious or perverse intentions (this is bad).
— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) July 5, 2021
Update: Kudos to LinkedIn for reinstating Dr. Malone’s account. Also, my son’s reaction to the second shot turned severe.
Original post:
I post this as my 13 year-old is dealing with, luckily, a relatively minor reaction to his second Pfizer shot yesterday:
LinkedIn zapped Dr. Malone’s personal account without explanation.
Since they have not explained, there is no way to know for sure, but it’s likely because he thinks that right now the risk/benefit ratio for children isn’t there and said so on the platform. What is ridiculous about the push-back he’s been getting is that he was the inventor of mRNA vaccines (or, at least, significantly involved in their invention).
There are real-world consequences to stifling the conversation.
“Open debate is especially important during a public health emergency when many important public health question[s] do not yet have a known answer,” [Harvard Medical School epidemiologist] Kulldorff wrote in an email. “To censor and silence scientists under such circumstances can lead to many unnecessary deaths,” which is why LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube should “restore all suspended accounts.”
If you think Dr. Malone is wrong, prove it, but without falling to the argumentum ab auctoritate (appeal to authority) logical fallacy. (E.g. using “consensus” or “the CDC says” would be appeals to authority.)
Final note: My wife and I weighed the pros and cons of my son getting vaccinated, and felt it was worth it. Trying to prevent us, however, from having all the information available for that decision is, frankly, evil.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I’m interested in people’s thoughts about this discussion of studies that were the genesis of microaggression discussions:
Please base your responses on the article’s merits, not whether you believe microagressions exist, are harmful, etc. I don’t think the post is attempting to argue one way or the another about that.
The scientific method is important to defend.
This tweet is a good reminder…
Scientists acted more like politicians over the lab-leak theory and even threatened violence for dissent and exposing their financial conflicts of interest, but the science is totally settled on climate change. pic.twitter.com/B6d88OPpy9
— Razor (@hale_razor) June 3, 2021
…that scientists are human too.
And if you argue that somehow the scientific method is “self-healing,” thus impervious to a systemic level of corruption, you are creating a new priestly class, ignoring the impact of outside influences, and ignoring the obvious lessons of the evidence otherwise.
“Science” (or the scientific method) itself may be “pure,” but its practitioners are not. “Christianity,” I would argue, itself is “pure.” But, how long did it take for children abused by priests (its practitioners) to get some modicum of justice? Did Christianity’s purity result in self-healing, or was protecting those evildoers institutionalized? Would anything significant have happened if outside forces hadn’t pushed the Catholic Church, ultimately in court?
You cannot tell me that a system whose practitioners often deny God is somehow more immune to humankind’s evil than one that supposedly was based on listening to a loving, Absolute Moral Authority.
Especially when current “science” appears to embrace one of the most effective corrupting forces ever created by mankind:
Politics.
Update:
Leighton Akira Woodhouse’s article, which I just found, is more eloquent and comprehensive than mine:
A small excerpt:
“I believe in science” has come to mean, “I do not question expert authority,” which is as antithetical to the scientific spirit as you can get. The more gravely the line is intoned, the more Orwellian it becomes.
Okay, now a longer one… 🙂
The scientific establishment, like the political establishment, is a human institution. It’s not an impartial supercomputer, or a transcendent consciousness. It’s a bunch of people subject to the same incentives and disincentives the rest of us are subject to: economic self-interest, careerism, pride and vanity, the thirst for power, fame and influence, embarrassment at admitting mistakes, intellectual laziness, inertia, and ad-hoc ethical rationalization, as well as altruism, moral purpose, and heroic inspiration. Scientific experts deserve the respect due to them by dint of their education and experience, and they deserve the skepticism due to them by dint of their existence as imperfect actors functioning in complicated and deeply flawed human networks and organizations. If you “believe in science,” you don’t bow to their authority.
the irony of neil’s tweet is that by framing science itself as “true” he’s influencing people to be more skeptical of it in a time of unprecedented misinformation. science is an ever refining process to find truth, not a dogma. no matter his intent, this message isn’t helpful https://t.co/sf4zLm33Jm
— Steak-umm (@steak_umm) April 13, 2021
