Santorum Calls Democrats 'Anti-Science' 1237
ndogg writes with news that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has counterattacked those critical of conservative views on science, saying that they're 'anti-science' themselves. From a CBS report:
"In his remarks Monday, Santorum went beyond his usual discussion of the importance of increasing domestic energy production to deliver a blistering attack on environmental activists. He said global warming claims are based on 'phony studies,' and that climate change science is little more than 'political science.' His views are not 'anti-science' as Democrats claim, Santorum said. 'When it comes to the management of the Earth, they are the anti-science ones. We are the ones who stand for science, and technology, and using the resources we have to be able to make sure that we have a quality of life in this country and (that we) maintain a good and stable environment,' he said to applause, and cited local ordinances to reduce coal dust pollution in Pittsburgh during the heyday of coal mining."
So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Santorum Calls Democrats 'Anti-Science'
Not only is he from the party that brought you Intelligent Design, he is the candidate that epitomizes anti-science.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unnamed Democrat: Rick, you are anti-science.
Rick: You're anti-science!
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Santorum himself is one of the biggest of the ignorant loudmouths on the Republican side at this time. The only place he is not anti-science is some alternate fantasy land, and I really wish he'd either go back there, or at least honestly pass a grade school science class and leave his religious beliefs both out of politics and science as it has no place in either.
Let's hope this fool goes back to whatever toilet he crawled out of, and soon.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Insightful)
We're talking about a party whose latest gimmick is "sonogram bills", a new method of "slut shaming" that involves forcing a woman to go through a completely unnecessary procedure in which a dildo-like object is wrapped in a condom, covered in cold nasty goop, and forcefully shoved into her vagina before they'll let her have a completely different, unrelated, completely legal medical procedure.
"Science" doesn't enter into their discussions on any level.
Santorum also got into "I'm more christian than you" bullshit when he insisted that Obama "follows a different theology" the other day... from where I come Republicans are the nonchristian ones. They certainly don't love their neighbors, they don't give a crap about the poor and needy, they're not remotely interested in creating fair legal systems (something the OT is pretty damn big on, Deuteronomy 27:19, Leviticus 19:15 as starters) and as near as I can tell, their religious ceremonies involve the worship of wealthy old white men and the pursuit of money...
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Informative)
The sonogram happens either way, and it is not intervaginal except during a very specific week of gestation, otherwise the external one is used.
What is being required is that the sonogram be shown to the patient before the procedure.
See below for the Virgina Planned Parenthood's own FAQ:
âoePatients who have a surgical abortion generally come in for two appointments. At the first visit we do a health assessment, perform all the necessary lab work, and do an ultrasound. This visit generally takes about an hour. At the second visit, the procedure takes place. This visit takes about an hour as well. For out of town patients for whom it would be difficult to make two trips to our office, weâ(TM)re able to schedule both the initial appointment and the procedure on the same day.
Medical abortions generally require three visits. At the first visit, we do a health assessment, perform all the necessary lab work, and do an ultrasound. This visit takes about an hour. At the second visit, the physician gives the first pill and directions for taking two more pills at home. The third visit is required during which you will have an exam and another ultrasound.â
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
They foolishly think that opinions can change reality.
No, they correctly think that if you can change opinions in your favor, then reality doesn't matter (or at least is someone else's problem).
The reality of AGW is irrelevant as long as they can sow enough doubt that they never have to take substantive action. Which has pretty much already worked. Reality loses.
Canute (Score:4, Insightful)
It's depressing that the "we can define our own reality" bullshit has crept in so far. The only way to directly change physical things is to do physical things
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, but Science fared a lot better during the Islamic Golden Age [wikipedia.org].
Isn't history great?
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Q8UvJ1wvk [youtube.com]
Science funding goes up under republicans, and down under Democrats.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because funding comes from Congress that is usually the opposite party of the president?
Re: (Score:3)
If you disagree with the popular findings in this field then you must be against all science.
I prefer C# over Perl. I must be anti open source.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Except, of course, Intelligent Design is officially denied by the Vatican [catholicnews.com] in favor of something called "Theistic Evolution" which basically is evolution combined with the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics, with God as the Observer/Creator (because God's observing the universe, he's affecting the universe).
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Funny)
Not only is he from the party that brought you Intelligent Design, he is the candidate that epitomizes anti-science..
He wants to call Democrats anti-science, fine with me. As long as we are engaging in irrational nonsensical twisting of the language, I will call him anti-religion.
His anti-religious views seek to crush all that is true and good about God. Everything he says is Jeblasphmey (New word I just made up, from Jesus and Blasphemy) His Jeblasphmey is also santic (deliberate, not a spelling error) because he worships the anti-santa (also deliberate, spelling Nazis GTFO). May the good lord protect us from Jeblasphmey and smite this anti-religionist in his Santorum hole.
Conservative idiots have been befouling clear thought and rational language for decades now, why should this fuck-up be any different?
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, republicans are definitly the dumbest.
They're not dumb, they're just following an agenda that requires a bit of science denial now and then.
For global warming, it's because the rich assholes they toady to don't want to change the way they do business, even if it means destroying the nest we live in.[*]
For creationism, it's because there aren't enough rich people to win elections, so they have to con various flavors of fools into voting against their own best interests.
They will eventually deny the basic facts of chemistry, or that grass is green, if they think it will help the rich get richer.
[*] Related note, the junk food industry is fighting efforts to remove vending machines from gradeschools, because their profits are more important than the kids' health. It's "tobacco is harmless" all over again. We've evolved into a society where the haves only care about having more, fuck the consequences.
Never assume that a corporation, or their political pawns, will tell the truth if that would shave a few pennies off their profits.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was perplexed for the longest time how the republican party worked since all of their policies seem to be in favor of the rich. where did they get their votes? It finally clicked for me: they get their money from the rich (by favoring that segment in policies, taxes etc.) and the votes from the religious zealots (by appealing to the creationism, every-sperm-is-sacred etc. crowds).
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. - Seneca
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was perplexed for the longest time how the republican party worked since all of their policies seem to be in favor of the rich. where did they get their votes? It finally clicked for me: they get their money from the rich (by favoring that segment in policies, taxes etc.) and the votes from the religious zealots (by appealing to the creationism, every-sperm-is-sacred etc. crowds).
Yeah, it astonishes me that it took me several decades to figure out what the game was. I always wondered why unions support the Democrats - the average ironworker or longshoreman is hardly a liberal.
But liberal and conservative don't have diddly to do with our two-party system. It's all about money.
It finally clicked for me when the Republicans had control of the country in 2001-2006, and worked real hard to help the rich get richer, but only occasionally threw the social conservatives a bone.
For the short term the Republican strategy was a good electoral strategy, but now the turkeys are coming home to roost. The rich don't like seeing their party actually becoming what they've spent the last 50 years pretending it was just to garnish votes. I think we're building up to an ugly divorce between the "R-is-for-rich" Republicans and the "R-is-for-right-wing" Republicans, which have no common interest other than greed for power so they can run the country their way(s).
BTW, in addition to the bedding-down with religious zealots that you mentioned (starting in 1980), they had Nixon's "southern strategy", which was to play up to anti-Black bigotry in order to lure in the former Southern Democrats (making the Old South now the reddest part of the country), and they're now pushing what historians will call a "southwestern strategy", to lure in anti-Latino bigots.
The problem (other than the turkeys coming home to roost) is that these strategies keep alienating large and fast-growing minorities.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Funny)
> Intelligent design was brought to you by cavemen thousands of years ago
So what are you saying: that republicans and creationists are still at the intellectual level of cavemen ?
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
That about sums it up: emotion and aggression. Rush "Limbo" and similars often mention something along the lines of "trust your common sense". But this is a code-phrase for "you are as smart as subject-experts in their respective fields".
If "common sense" says the world is flat, then it's flat! This is how it worked in the cave-man era (unless the guy with the bigger club says it's a cube, then it's a cube.)
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Funny)
common sense tells me it's turtles all the way down
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Both "sides" often overdo things or make mistakes. The presences of mistakes does not necessarily mean everything resulting from an idea is wrong. But at least the left respects subject experts for the most part rather than think their gut feeling or "God's hand" is good enough by itself.
As far "permanent poor", you do realize that capitalism requires inequality? Inequality is the primary fuel of the motivational mechanism of capitalism. Also, other nations have reduced the percentage of poor better than we have without cranking up capitalism higher. Thus, "more capitalism" as the solution to poverty does not hold water to observation.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Funny)
So what are you saying: that republicans and creationists are still at the intellectual level of cavemen ?
Please stop insulting cavemen.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
So what are you saying: that republicans and creationists are still at the intellectual level of cavemen ?
Please stop insulting cavemen.
Indeed. Cavemen couldn't know better. We've had millenia of progress, and we have no excuse to dwell still on magical thinking.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Informative)
I've known many republicans in my time, having lived in conservative states, and just about all of them believed in evolution AND creationism (that's correct, they're not mutually exclusive, bible says why and evolution says how).
No, the Bible most clearly says why *and* how. It says God spontaneously created all of the animals and Adam, and then created Eve from Adam's rib - this all about 10000 years ago. *That* is creationism, and a terrifying 40% of the US population still believes that story. Yes, that is "strict creationism", and yes, it really is 40%. Before you think about debating that fact, go look up the statistics yourself.
True evolutionary theory starts with the idea that all life evolved over billions of years, starting with simple inorganic compounds that combined into some of the basic organic building blocks (amino acids, nucleotides, etc).
These theories are so far from compatible with each other a 4 year old can instinctively comprehend the contradiction. Unfortunately, society then spends the next 10 years teaching the child the obvious conclusion is wrong...
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the Bible most clearly says why *and* how. It says God spontaneously created all of the animals and Adam, and then created Eve from Adam's rib
There's an interesting story about that. Contrary to common Christian belief, the male skeleton does not have one less rib than the female skeleton. But male mammals, including apes, commonly have a bone in their penises called a "baculum" [wikipedia.org]. Whether that's related to the term "boner", I couldn't say. So one interpretation of the bible is that it was actually Adam's penis bone that God took to make Eve. And that the shame he gave them wasn't about original sin at all, but simply that he removed their bodily hair. And that's how man came from the apes, not by evolution.
Complete bollocks of course, but as good as any other twisted version of a stupid bible story.
That's no theory! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever the bible says about life, the universe, and everything, it is most assuredly NOT a theory in the true scientific sense. It a mix of myths and goatherder tales and is no different in that regard than creation myths from native americans, the incas, or any other religion.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is what differentiates most of the world's religions (perhaps even all of them) from science.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Interesting)
In college I reproduced an experiment that showed this was possible. Combine a few gases (nitrogen, CO2, methane) with water in an oxygen-free sealed container and expose to electricity with a spark gap, and a few days later you have a variety of amino acids in solution. Others have performed slightly more complex experiments to create nucleotides (the precursors to RNA & DNA).
So I guess this either means that I am officially a God, or it requires a "Supreme Being" to guide it about as much as a baking a decent chocolate cake. I'll take Occam's Razor, at least I can use it to cut the cake...
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
And your post was what we call a "straw man".
It did nothing to refute the actual point, and didn't even correctly represent what I was saying (which is 40% of the US takes Genesis literally, not allegorically, yet doesn't seem willing to admit the inherent contradictions with modern science that a small child would happily point out.
But anyway, thanks for sharing, other than the above you really contributed to the debate!
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Funny)
How dare you talk like that about Santa Claus!
I have seen Miracle on 34th Street several times, and it clearly says otherwise. It was written by someone who's name I don't know many years before I was born, so why would I have any reason to doubt it?
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Bible says...
evolution doesn't explain what happened before the beginning of time, or where all the mass in the universe came from in the first place.
Your point being what? The theory of evolution concerns the diversity of and relationship between life forms on this planet, nothing else.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Informative)
Roughly 2 billion people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups#Largest_religions_or_belief_systems_by_number_of_adherents [wikipedia.org]
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except most people who tick the "Christian" box do not believe in the bible: they just mix and match, and re-interpret to make it support what they want !
Re: (Score:3)
His argument isn't concerned with science. He's just saying that he is an example of a Christian who believes in both science and creationism.
Which is certainly fair enough. Let's face it, the universes and everything seems pretty improbable and the whole thing is "someplace" is it really such a stretch to believe it isn't all just math and physics?
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's face it, the universes and everything seems pretty improbable
Understanding statistics failure. You can't argue about probability based on a sample size of one.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
He's just saying that he is an example of a Christian who believes in both science and creationism
This, in a nutshell, is the problem: the view that believing scientific claims is in some way relating to religious faith. The entire point of science is to be able to verify claims, which is very much different from believing in the existence of deities that cannot be measured, verified, or tested in any way.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your belief system as you've defined it is not diametrically opposed to evolution. However, that does not mean your belief system is not diametrically opposed to science. It is.
You have faith that you know a truth about our universe despite your lack of scientific evidence, and there may not be any amount of scientific evidence that can make you change your mind.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, science does say everything you believe should be backed up by evidence. Science allows you to say "I don't know." It also allows you to say the evidence is weak, but the best theory is X. Science never says all you need is faith and/or an old book.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, science does say everything you believe should be backed up by evidence. Science allows you to say "I don't know." It also allows you to say the evidence is weak, but the best theory is X. Science never says all you need is faith and/or an old book.
Where the hell does science "say" anything of the sort? Science is a process by which we can reliably improve our understanding of the world around us. Nothing more, nothing less. Some folks might embrace beliefs and views not backed by scientific evidence, but science ain't gonna jump out of the bushes and tell them anything.
Science can obviously refute beliefs it can prove are wrong, but you're conflating that with epistemology -- e.g. the study of defining what "knowledge" is.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Informative)
I mean the scientific method when I say "science".
And when people embrace views not backed by evidence they are not being scientific, and science CAN say that your belief has no evidence backing it up. Furthermore, science then says you should give this belief with no evidence a very low probability of being true. The scientific method can be applied to any question that has real world effects.
I am not conflating science with epistemology. While many subjects in philosophy, including epistemology, are important, they are an interesting side show compared to the many real world result that we get from science every day.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
everything that can be tested. that's the point.
you can't test for the existence of God. therefore Science shouldn't waste it's time on it.
to think that there's people out there who think Science's sole purpose is to discredit religion is ridiculous. it's like saying that the sole purpose of cars is to make horses extinct.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
In science you accept postulates which can neither be proven nor disproven.
Only one: that we live in a logical and consistent universe. In other words, that if we reproduce the conditions under which a phenomenon was observed, then the phenomenon itself will be reproduced. This is not something that can be definitively proved (the next attempt to reproduce any experiment could always be the one that shows that the universe is not consistent), but if we lived in an inconsistent universe there would be no "truth" to speak of -- things would be true and false at the same time, and any claim that could be made would be true.
Beyond that, however, there is not much in science that goes without proof or evidence. That postulate is all that is needed for scientific experiments to be meaningful, because it allows us to draw conclusions from the phenomena we can observe, and it allows experiments to be reproduced by others.
it is a cardinal violation of science to believe in anything that can't be tested, then why is it acceptable to believe definitive in the inverse?
Except that there is more evidence to suggest that the Christianity's deity is the invention of human beings than that such a deity exists in the real world. The characterization of the Christian deity is dependent on the age of the particular story characterizing that deity, with the new testament painting a very different picture from the old testament, and with elements of the Jesus story being apparent in the mythology of those cultures that Jews had contact with in the early days of Christianity. Not quite enough evidence to say exactly what happened or to build a well-developed theory, but more than has ever been collected to suggest that such a deity actually exists (which is, "none at all").
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Informative)
Except that there is more evidence to suggest that the Christianity's deity is the invention of human beings than that such a deity exists in the real world. The characterization of the Christian deity is dependent on the age of the particular story characterizing that deity, with the new testament painting a very different picture from the old testament, and with elements of the Jesus story being apparent in the mythology of those cultures that Jews had contact with in the early days of Christianity. Not quite enough evidence to say exactly what happened or to build a well-developed theory, but more than has ever been collected to suggest that such a deity actually exists (which is, "none at all").
Anyone with two semesters of study in ancient Greek culture (language, literature, mythology, etc.) can plainly see that Christianity is just another Hellenistic mystery cult. With lots of Greek mythology grafted on.
Virgin birth? Miracles? Witty destruction of you're opponents' positions? Raising the dead? Executed by the state for "impiety", yet embracing that murder? Harrowing Hell? Taken up into heaven?
You can't make this stuff up... because it was all made up centuries before Christianity ever got started.
And continued to be made up: We know of a Roman citizen who was prosecuted for raising the dead.
Except for the supernatural bits, Jesus is just Socrates promoted to godhood.
A tiny amount of education can dispel a huge amount of superstition.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Canada's Tom Harpur, a (former?) Anglican priest and a very educated man, has written extensively of what he calls the Pagan Christ, showing how many pre-existing myths, some of Egyptian origin, were woven into the stories about Jesus, the immaculate conception, etc.
In my view, if you take the gospel story and subtract away all the miracles, wisdom sayings, and mythical archetypes, you're left with nothing but a collection of proper names.
Some of his most renowned sayings are on record from the mouths of wise and/or holy men from yet earlier times. Rabbi Hillel, who lived about a generation before the time Jesus supposedly lived, gave us a version of the Golden Rule. (And I don't think he was by any means the first.)
Even the theology is vague in the gospels; for all practical purposes St. Paul invented Christianity.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is an entity that can and does affect results in an intelligent way (let's call it god) it is impossible to reproduce any conditions completely.
Thus rendering the scientific process meaningless, because we may be at the mercy of a trickster who is carefully guiding the results of our experiments to ensure that we see what we are supposed to see, and nothing different.
Which only brings us back to the discussion about science and religion being incompatible with each other.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Informative)
bah. why do i bother?
it's folly to say there's _definitely_ no God, in the same way it's folly to say you're 100% sure there's no monster under my bed.
but 9 times out of 10 it's just the frigging dog.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you. I've been saying this for years. Being an atheist requires the same amount of faith as being a Christian, Muslim, etc.
Bullshit. Our species has had thousands of religions, none any more supported by evidence than the next. The only honest thing to do is to apply the same standard of evidence to all of them, with the result that you accept them all or reject them all.
But since most of them are mutually contradictory, the only honest + rational thing to do is to reject them all. No "faith" required.
How come everyone, regardless of their religion, can plainly see that every religion but their own is just some crap that someone made up, but can't see the same thing about their own?
[OK, some of us do... and that's when we ditch it and become athiests.]
On the other hand, agnostics are the ones left out of most of these discussions, even though they're the only ones with a provably reasonable approach to the question.
If you get down to cases, everyone is agnostic about everything. The sky *looks* blue, but maybe it isn't really.
At some point you've got to say screw the philosophical hair-splitting, and go with the reality you experience.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Funny)
Athens, yes, I'm certainly an atheist but I have no trouble believing in the capital of Greece.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem very simple-minded. It has to be true or false. Right or wrong.
Did this stop being a discussion about science? That is what science is about -- determining what is true, distinguishing truth from falsehood, and so forth.
All of the scriptures from all religions have nuggets of wisdom
Maybe so, but when it comes to determining what is true or false about the world around us, religion and especially religious faith offers pretty poor explanations compared to the scientific method. That is what this discussion is about: how we determine what is true and what is not true. If you want to find "nuggets of wisdom" to help you live your life, that's fine, but those nuggets will not be very helpful when you need to answer questions about the natural world.
You can make any claim you want. I make my own choices based upon my experiences as to how much weight I give to your claims
Which is not how the scientific method would be used to evaluate claims. That is why we are able to accept things like quantum mechanics, which makes all sorts of bizarre and counter-intuitive claims, while rejecting equally bizarre claims about space aliens.
I acquire knowledge wherever I can and accept nothing, not even science, on blind faith.
The great thing about science is that you can verify scientific claims on your own. You can get a telescope and observe Jupiter and its moons, you can get a prism and a thermometer and confirm the existence of infrared light, you can breed plants and animals and observe heredity, you can perform chemistry experiments, etc. Some experiments are expensive and hard to reproduce, which may present a problem for you, but scientists do publish their methods along with their claims. Reproducing experiments is crucial in science: it is how scientists can verify each other's results (and anyone can be a scientist, even for a short period of time, if they are following the scientific method).
Now, if you would rather discuss morality, or philosophical views, or any number of other subjects that cannot be subjected to scientific rigor or scrutiny, that is fine -- but let us at least be clear that we are doing so. I happen to study the torah on a weekly basis, but I would not delude myself into thinking that the torah will provide answers to questions about nature, or that the torah can help me distinguish between truth and falsehood (no, not even the sections about dealing with "false prophets").
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The faith in a creator is not diametrically opposed to accepting science.
You are free to believe anything you want about the universe, and you are free to squeeze your beliefs into the space where science has not yet demonstrated those beliefs to be false. However, faith is irrelevant to discussions about science. Science is a process for determining what is or is not true in a very organized way, which allows people to verify claims; faith is belief regardless of and sometimes in spite of the available evidence.
One of the major problems we have in America is the confusion about science. Science is the product of a particular philosophy, and that philosophy stands in opposition to most of the world's religions. Discussions about science are discussions that are restricted to the philosophy upon which science is built, and there is no room for faith in that philosophy (except, perhaps, faith that we live in a logical, consistent universe). This is the point that is generally lost on Americans: religious faith represents an entirely different way of thinking about the world than science.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Religion and Science are only at odds when religion or religious people dismiss strong empirical evidence as untrue because it conflicts with their story that some guy wrote down thousands of years ago.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4)
Yeah, the other guys was being a dick. I'm a Secular Humanist and you can believe what you will. I don't think there's any problem with belief in both creationism and science, as long as you're willing to wonder exactly how God created the universe and not leave it at "because it's in the Bible, thats all I have to know."
Call it the search for God's tools if you will.
IMO there's not any problem even if you *don't* ask those questions.
The problem arises when you start insisting on superstition as the foundation for public policy.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW, I'm a Christian who believes in both creation and evolution.
FWIW, that is also roughly the position of the Catholic Church [wikipedia.org] and has been for decades.
Santorum is a catholic but seems to be very much in the intelligent design camp. [wikipedia.org]
a granfalloon divided against itself cannot stand (Score:5, Interesting)
I take a more extreme view of faith as a form of solipsism. If you fully separate faith from science, faith becomes an entirely personal matter: you can only gain faith by some kind of mysterious internal light inaccessible to the methods of science. OK, fine. From this view there's no reason not to believe that God created the universe five minutes ago, exactly as we recall it to have been five minutes ago, replete with another 13.7 billion years of back story (which can be boiled down rather succinctly to the big bang, QED, and self-organizing primordial goo--for which the exact mechanism in the last case remain a trifle mysterious). For some reason, God loves the evolutionary back story. No creation is complete without one. Either way, evolution is the minimum description length account of what we observe as the history of the universe in rocks and oceans and nebulae. This is true whether or not evolution actually happened. Even if God created the earth and human kind a mere 10,000 years ago evolution is still the minimum description of what we observe in the fossil record and the genetic heritage of life (an exploding data set which poses a looming and insurmountable challenge to 10,000 year literalism).
If you feel the illumination of faith from within, you can show it by how you choose to live. If you inner glow so moves you, you can reflect honour on the divine creator by living your life to a high moral standard however you perceive this.
Where I tend to draw the line is when two people get together who each feel an inner glow, who then compare notes and decide that they believe in the same divine spirit. This consensus is not achieved through a scientific process. Faith is not amenable to science. How do you really know you believe in the same deity as anyone else?
Here's how the slight of hand works in organized religion. You posit a sacred text, and then attribute authorship of the sacred text to a unique and singular deity. Yesterday's TED talk on the Cyrus Cylinder [wikipedia.org] shows the Book of Isaiah attributing to Jehovah what had previously been attributed to the Babylonian god Marduk. One story, multiple originating deities. Fancy that.
I have a lot of problems when a group of 100 million people go around absolutely secure in the belief that they feel within themselves a sliver of the same divine flame, when most of them can't even agree on the right way to tie your shoe.
Santorum, to his credit, is not so secure: he views the Democrats as hewing to the wrong Christian god. Now let's repeat this bisection step until every believer is a faith until himself or herself. Faith as a personal matter. Wonderful.
I have no real problem with faith, but I have a deep problem with the aggregation of faith. Let's suppose Obama believes that he and Santorum both believe in the same god, but Santorum disputes this. How is such a discrepancy resolved? Remember, you can't use science. Faith is not amenable to science (or it wouldn't be faith). I guess you need a prophet of especially reliable connection to the Big One. Shades of Russell's type theory. And we agree on the nature of this prophet exactly how? Are we back to the aggregation of unique inner glows? I thought so.
There's no conflict between science and faith as such, but there is a conflict between science and the aggregation of faith (for some reason, faith tends to aggregate along racial lines, and never takes the last critical step to one world religion).
Message to Santorum: if you want to dis-aggregate the Christian granfalloon, by all means fill your boots.
Re:So says the religious guy. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the most meaningless comprison I've ever heard in my life.
In 2000 years time, if humans then discover the Harry Potter books, do you really believe that because they pinpoint then ancient London that that somehow has any bearing on whether the tales of magic and wizards contained within also hold any validity? Even Star Trek envisaged some devices which have now become reality, but in 2000 years time it'd be equally daft to think Star Trek really happened during this era based on the existence of those devices.
Most works of fiction have some real world inspiration. It doesn't make them true stories around which we should build our lives though. The Bible is absolutely no different, you've just been conditioned and/or fooled yourself into believing The Bible is somehow different to other works of fiction, that's absolutely not the case.
If this guy ever got in it would truly show ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... how stupid America really is ...
Re:If this guy ever got in it would truly show ... (Score:5, Interesting)
America deserves him at this point.
I won't enjoy being in the blast radius, but my country has so many idiots and superstitionists in it we deserve to suffer horribly for letting it get this bad.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
... how stupid America really is ...
"Half of me sees Rick Santorum and says, bring it on, he could never win! Other half says, Fuck, I don't put anything past this stupid country."
- Bill Maher
Re: (Score:3)
Re:If this guy ever got in it would truly show ... (Score:4, Informative)
That was Bush's first term.
His second term was due to a corrupt electoral system in Ohio.
Incidentally, in Florida in 2000, butterfly ballots and chads were merely a diversion. The election was really stolen when some 30,000-50,000 African Americans were misclassified as felons and denied the right to vote.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Please don't feed the troll.
Santorum claiming that.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Santorum claiming that.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they sitting this one out or something?
No, It's all they have left after twenty some odd years of trying to 'out do' one another on being the 'most conservative' as determined by a combination of scores given by various corporate funded 'think tanks' and random radio hosts. Even Ronald Reagan, the President who arguably made 'being conservative cool', would be graded as a RINO based on his record, which included some tax hikes, gun control and some compromises with the Democratic party.
Re:Santorum claiming that.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Which why I (maybe others have too...) coined the phrase: "Even Ronald Regan wasn't conservative enough to be Ronald Regan."
That's what happens to heroes - they become larger than life.
-CF
Re:Santorum claiming that.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually they are sitting this one out. The RNC doesn't want to win this election any more than they did the last one. Look, the economy isn't going to "recover" in the next four years. Oil prices are going to continue to increase whether Iran is in the picture or not. Formerly prosperous Americans will continue to have their wealth harvested by the global elite that cares about no country. Would you want to be the party in power while all this was happening? Much better to be the loyal opposition and keep those lobbyist checks rolling into those offshore bank accounts.
Absent of a Palin to poison the well, the best the RNC and SuperPACS can do this time is to promote a useful idiot like Santorum. Barely credible enough to be a candidate, but certain to lose to Obama. Keep him in the news. Leak (or create) enough bad press about Romney and it's a shoe-in.
Re:Santorum claiming that.... (Score:4, Informative)
I noticed you didn't mention Ron Paul. The mainstream media cringes every time they do; they try not to, but he's starting to gain momentum, especially among the patriots
I guess you haven't seen the results of the primaries. And this is the third time he's tried running for president.
Reality don't seem to register too well with libertarians.
Re:Santorum claiming that.... (Score:4, Insightful)
What a fucking lunatic, I can't believe this is the best the GOP can come up with. Are they sitting this one out or something?
Yes. Statistically, the incumbent wins something like 75% of the time. It's not like that means it's an automatic Obama win... but if you're a Republican and want to gain the White House and want the best chance to do so, then assuming Obama will win and basing your strategy around running in 2016 against a new Democrat maximizes your chances.
That's why we have the crowd we do, including the stunt-candidacies like Terrible Toupe and Godfather's Pizza Man.
Re:Santorum claiming that.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone know a nice pro-science, individual rights, fiscally responsible, small government oriented party out there? It would also be nice if they could also ignore gay marriage, contraception, abortion both pro or con, and also just about every other distracting hot button issue out there. It would be nice if they simply had a government that worried about balancing a budget for a change.
See: Clinton, Bill 1992-2000
Pots and Kettles (Score:5, Insightful)
Both political parties are willing to throw science under the bus when it suits their agendas. The more ideological the wing of the party, the more busses they find driving by.
By the same token, both parties are willing to embrace the infallibility of science, and the certainty of the consensus, when it validates what they already believe.
Science is in good company though; politicians will do the same with the Supreme Court, the Constitution, Religion, or anything else that they can get their hands on.
Re:Pots and Kettles (Score:5, Insightful)
Both political parties are willing to throw science under the bus when it suits their agendas. The more ideological the wing of the party, the more busses they find driving by.
By the same token, both parties are willing to embrace the infallibility of science, and the certainty of the consensus, when it validates what they already believe.
Science is in good company though; politicians will do the same with the Supreme Court, the Constitution, Religion, or anything else that they can get their hands on.
This.
It takes a remarkable human being to trust science over his or her own beliefs when the two are in conflict. It's one thing when we haven't decided what the right answer is--but when we've decided, God help Science if it's not on our side. We are more likely to question methodology, etc... if the result is not one that we like.
This is troubling among people conducting experiments as much as it is among politicians. Clinical trials where someone has made up their mind beforehand and so doesn't even bother to write down a patient symptom that the person conducting the trial believes is easily explained, for example.
Re:Pots and Kettles (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for you.
The fact of the matter is that most people who discuss science don't know jack shit about the science. Sure, they'll repeat what they hear. They will embrace the science if their party of choice embraces the science. They may even be right doing that but they care little about the science itself. Sadly, this will probably never change.
"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." -Carl Sagan
Re:Pots and Kettles (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it ideology, or is it just about saying what it takes to get the votes? To be an ideology there has to be some thought behind it, maybe not to the level of a manifesto but enough thought to integrate this view with the other political positions you have and be able to defend it, extrapolate, etc. However much of the voting public doesn't do this, their "ideology" is "the other side is evil, so anything they're for we're against, and anything they're against we're for." So clearly if Democrats are trying to do something about climate change is _must_ be some sort of liberal plot designed to make us pay more taxes and take away freedoms. You're not going to get these voters on your side by cogently discussing the issues but instead you need to take a strong binary position on every issue, it's either good or evil and there's no room for nuance.
If I wanted to get the presidential nomination for the Republican party you can be that I'd take these same tactics. Enough bozo quotes to keep the far loon base happy (I hate to say far right or hard conservative because they're not really on any sort of political spectrum), demonize the other side, promise tax cuts, criticize the other side's tax cuts as misguided pandering, denounce all regulations (to get Wall Street funding on my side), claim to do all sorts of things on the first day of office that would be impossible without dictatorial powers, and so on. Then when nominated I switch tactics and take a more moderate approach. Ie, I'd be Santorum or Gingrich during primaries and Romney during the general election.
Re:Pots and Kettles (Score:5, Informative)
That's all good and fine, but - if we accept it as true - all it proves is that the Republicans have more of their beliefs in conflict with science than Democrats. If you don't believe me, then sit down and add up the number of issues where Republicans are against the science, and then add up the same thing for Democrats. I recently heard a discussion where they were attempting to figure out the level of bias on the Left and Right and they needed an issue where Democrats are largely in conflict with the science. The best candidates for the left are anti-nuclear power (which is actually a left-wing in the 1960s, I doubt it has much traction now) and some of the organic food, anti-genetically modified food, and anti-vaccine movements. All of them look pretty small, though. I bet you'd have a hard time arguing that these are issues where a majority of the Left agree with any of them. On the other hand, creationism and anti-global warming are majority opinions among Republicans.
http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/September-October%202008/dunlap-full.html [environmentmagazine.org]
http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/majority-republicans-doubt-theory-evolution.aspx [gallup.com]
Re:Pots and Kettles (Score:4, Insightful)
True. But that's because, to paraphrase Bill Maher, the Democratic Party has moved into the right wing, and the GOP has moved into the insane asylum.
A single cell that's going to go in the trash anyway, as they're taken from fertility clinics? Vs a living, breathing animal made up of billions of cells that can think and feel pain? I suggest you and Pete Hoekstra [wordpress.com] get some clinical help for your laughably broken analogies.
Ah, let the outright sophistry commence. Nuclear power is opposed for entirely rational, scientific reasons - but you knew that already. Nuclear power plants are insanely expensive to build and run compared to other, greener sources of power. We'll be dealing with the radioactive waste they produce - from normal operation - for hundreds to thousands of years. And then there's the biggest flaws in nuclear power: human avarice and hubris. Oh, and the fact that regulatory bodies in charge of oversight have entirely succumbed to regulatory capture, where the same people shuttle back and forth between government and corporate positions.
Yes, we will note your word salad, and give it all the attention it deserves. Why, monied interests minimizing the environmental, societal or economic impacts of their money making schemes - that's never happened!
Obama is a good example of a Democrat willing to throw science under the bus. But no example of someone from the "left", given the fact that he's moved farther to the right than Reagan.
This guy is a joke (Score:4, Interesting)
Santorum's claim to have come "from the coal fields" is a stretch - by two generations. He has never worked in a coal mine. His parents' professions were psychologist and nurse, and Santorum is a lawyer who has spent all of his adult life in politics.
By that measure, I come "from the shipyards of Baltimore." I'll have to remember that if I ever go into politics.
I find this new definition of political science funny. Politicized science is what he meant, I guess. All these fools should just admit that they like science and regulation when it supports their preconceived notions about how the world should work, and when science and regulation contradict those notions, science and regulation are evil.
Santorum "Truth" (Score:5, Interesting)
I like Santorum. He says what modern Republicans are thinking, as wrong as that may be. He does not hide the crazy behind a manufactured persona like Romney. Ron Paul has too many heart felt beliefs that are antithetical to the GOP. Gingrich is a dishonest retread from a previous era, pushing the same failed policies.
But Ricky is a true reflection what Republicans are all about, and proud of it. If there is any justice, Rick will win the nomination where he faithfully campaign for what the GOP believes in.
And he knows this because..... (Score:3)
The bible says that man has dominion over the earth, and it is ours to do with as we please. And it is immutable, so nothing we do can affect God's work:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
What a crock of shit. Santorum's "science" is nothing but avarice and ignorance.
This is not surprising at all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is not surprising at all... (Score:5, Insightful)
If a creationist says that the Oort Cloud is unscientific, people mock them. But the reality is, it doesn't follow a single tenet of the scientific method. It exists purely because without it, the presence of comets in the solar system would prove that the solar system is too young. So a theoretical "comet-holding" cloud is invented out of thin air because long ages require it, not because of any sort of observation or because the facts led anyone there.
Yes they would be correctly mocked. The Oort Cloud is scientific: It is a hypothesis proposed to explain observations, it is consistent with the available evidence, and is currently waiting for further observation to verify its predictions.
That's the scientific method right there.
The falsification of this hypothesis would be quite intriguing, but "prove the solar system is too young" is an unscientific conclusion. That is one possible explanation, but that hypothesis would have to contend with all the other observations that suggest an old solar system. You would also have to investigate modifying our models of solar system formation to account for old star/planets and young comets. Or a source of old comets that isn't the Oort Cloud. Each would have different implications, and you'd have to look at the data before saying you'd colloquial-sense-"proven" any of them.
Hypocrits abound (Score:5, Interesting)
and cited local ordinances to reduce coal dust pollution in Pittsburgh during the heyday of coal mining."
A deregulationist citing the protection from local environmental regulations. That's rich.
The hypocrisy is double because Pittsburg is currently undergoing a massive battle over fracking regulations.
Pittsburg has banned fracking outright and PA Republicans were trying to pass a State law to nullify local regulations.
When that was deemed a politically untenable idea, they switched to a straight-jacket of State level regulations.
Read about it here: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/30/142948831/a-debate-over-who-regulates-gas-fracking-in-penn [npr.org]
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, the irony meter was destroyed in a freak explosion earlier today.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
According to Santorum's office, that was "an act of God".
WTF Just Not Enough (Score:5, Interesting)
It is rumored that if Santorum actually gets the nomination, the GOP will draft Gov. Christie of NJ for the Republican candidate. But he's one cannoli short of a heart attack, so not many will vote for him. Nobody wants Romney, either, because of Romneycare and the whole Mormon thing. And Paul, as much as he may appeal to some people, is one fall away from a hip replacement.
So here's an interesting fact? Jeb Bush and his father showed up at the Whitehouse back on the 27th of January [usatoday.com] for a long talk. (Oh, to have been a fly on THAT wall.) The other interesting thing is that Jeb's wife, Columba, has made it neuteringly clear that he's not available until 2016.
So! 3 completely unelectable candidates so far as the GOP is concerned. The party favorite-which is why they're sometimes known as the "Waiting For Jeb" party-isn't available either.
I'm going to guess that the "fix" is in, and Obama is going to be president for another term. Then after that, we'll have another Bush in the Whitehouse. So everything that's happening in this "election" is just a dog & pony show, just as it's always been.
A Breath of Fresh Air (Score:5, Funny)
It's good to see a heavyweight intellectual like Rick Santorum weighing in on a complex environmental question. I think we can call "problem solved" on this one.
Somebody ought to ask Rick about global overpopulation. I bet he could solve that problem too! He'll just say "It's God's will. There's no overpopulation." Another problem solved.
Maybe Rick can solve all our complicated problems for us--so we don't have to think at all!!
What is Santorum's definition of science? (Score:4, Insightful)
To begin: I would like to hear Santorum's definition of "science". How would he describe science, its methods, and its purpose? That should be good for a few yuks.
His opinion might fit perfectly with his understanding of science.
Calling someone "anti-science..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling someone "anti-science" because they advise restraint when using up natural resources and changing the environment, is like calling someone "anti-capitalist" if they refuse to spend all their money and go into debt.
Huh...I think I just figured out Republican fiscal policy.
Political Science Proves Darwin (Score:3)
Everyone, listen. I can explain this, as I have a degree in "political science". Through careful observation of the political cycle, we have learned that there is a percentage of the voting populace who know very little, who get confused by information, but have mutated to hold a few beliefs very, very, strongly. They have adapted from being ignored by the majority of Americans, who don't hold those single beliefs as strongly. At each extreme of each party, these single belief mutants compensate by participating very early in the election cycle, to try to kill off the common sense bearing candidates, much as a new male lion kills off the progeny of the previous pride leader. As the common sense candidates are killed off by filicide earlier and earlier in the caucus cycle, the remaining candidates evolve to express the same strong opinions of the early influencers. The majority responds by electing the opposite party (House ore Senate) from the executive party in order to balance out the risk of extreme legislation taking place. Some candidates try to survive the cull by camouflaging their beliefs (flip flopping), or allowing their own core beliefs to evolve very rapidly to meet the polling environment. It's all normal, move along, nothing to see here.
Rove would be proud. (Score:5, Insightful)
As would Orwell.
Attack your opponent with what your opponent should be attacking you on.
Turn the truth and the meanings of words completely around.
It goes so far beyond lying that I'm not sure that there's a word for it outside of a Newspeak dictioary.
Re: (Score:3)
Eh? A popular GOP politician, possibly the party's presidential candidate, make an absurd comment about science. Hence, it belongs on slashdot. You know, news for nerds and stuff that matters?
I'm sure many here would dread Santorum getting in to the whitehouse based on his science cred alone. That makes it somewhat relevant.
( beck is a nut, btw. If you can't see the distinction between slashdot and beck...well, you might be standing too close to that particular fire )
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Laffer curve is a theoretical idea. The data does not back it (or at least a very weak correlation). I looked at multiple Keynes-like stimuluses by inspecting the unemployment numbers with my own eyes, and stimuluses appear to help more often than not. There is usually a bulge of improvement within about 4 months after the stimulus starts to flow that lasts until about a year after the stimulus ends. If Laffer works, show us the data.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Any failing system can be made to look like a success by spending money just as a stone can be made to fly by throwing it in the air.
When the stone strikes earth you'll just say I didn't throw it hard enough... for the purposes of ideology lets ignore orbit... which isn't flying anyway.
Try it... find a crack head... an actual crack head... ideally he should be in withdraw but not cleaning himself up. Just shivvering and the picture of a human mess.
Then give him a billion dollars to start an industrial conce
Re:Both parties will ignore things they don't like (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it didn't work. Look, I have no problem with pumping a little money in to get an engine to turn over... the spark plug that fires the engine is fine.
But this isn't a spark plug issue... you're spending good money to fund systems that are running at a net loss.
it's like those fusion energy projects where they pour 10 megawatts of power into some chamber to get a self sustaining fusion reaction going. That's fine as a experiment. hell, maybe they'll get it working some day. But it isn't something you could use to actually power the grid.
Why? Because the net output from those reactors is always something like 9.5 megawatts... about .5 megawatts less then was put into them.
Look at your stimulus programs and see how much money was put in and how many jobs were saved.
In one estimate it was over 500,000 thousand PER JOB. In most cases it would have been more efficient to simply give each of those people half a million dollars.
Worse, it isn't even Keynesian. Keynesian economics requires that the stimulus money go to NEW and UNPLANNED projects that wouldn't have happened at all with or without the recession.
So for example, if you sent a manned mission to mars that would be Keynesian because it wasn't something we were going to do. But instead most of the money went to state budgets to retain EXISTING workers or to pay for projects that were ALREADY going to happen such as paving roads.
That isn't Keynesian. That's just a bailout with no particular plan. If you want a Keynesian stimulus package then you need to fund totally new projects and hire people that are NOT CURRENTLY EMPLOYED. You have to hire as many unemployed workers as possible.
Even a new war would be more Keynesian then what Obama did. Just pick some random country and attack it. Recruit a million people into the army... and have fun.
that was Keynes's argument. Your belief that you can just make everything work by throwing money at it isn't even Keynesian... it's just irresponsible.
Re:Both parties will ignore things they don't like (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody on the left has a bold scientific vision
The left? I thought you were talking about Democrats?