This is one of those things that seems so apt I start to suspect it’s fake. Spotted on Imgur.com, this purports to be an editorial cartoon from the 1940s. If it’s real and not a mock-up, it’s mildly terrifying how fitting it is today. My favourites are the “Faddist” and “anti-everything” – they really remind me of the anti-vaxxers plaguing the world right now.
You don’t have to know much about me to know I think climate change deniers are utter fuckwits. Science-denying, politically-motivated lying morons. I gave up even attempting to engage with these idiots years ago – it’s an utterly wasted effort. A mild example of their stupidity is this effort from Fox:
What global warming? Glad you asked, Fox. The fucking global warming that’s fucking happening fucking everywhere. “Winter” does not negate the science that proves climate change. I could try to explain the difference between climate and weather. Or I could just say fuck the fuck off you fucking fucks.
This is what passes for logic with these fools “it’s cold here at this very moment therefore climate change isn’t real.” I assume they also assert there is no hunger in the world while gorging on a huge meal and say there is no poverty while rolling around naked in piles of their Murdoch cash.
Seriously, those are things i assume they do.
It’s bad enough when media outlets vomit these lies. It’s worse when politicians do it. It’s far worse when politicians who have control over policy do it. Like US Republican senator James Inhofe who decreed that “Man can’t change climate.” Apparently only his magic friend who lives in the clouds can do that. Fuck science, he’s got an imaginary friend who’s really powerful. Oh, and he chairs the senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.
We are so fucked.
Hey, why not lighten the mood with this classic from 2008:
I have some good news and I have some bad news. First, the good news: Global Warming won’t cause the destruction of human civilsation. Now the bad news: we’re going to be wiped out before Global Warming has a chance to do us in. While there are a lot of competing Armageddon theories I believe I have conclusive evidence for mine.
Not many people will be surprised at the revelation that humanity will bring about its own destruction. There are even those who won’t be surprised when I reveal that it will be robots that exterminate us. What may surprise is how exact my evidence is. This isn’t a vague “one day the robots will get us” alarmism. This isn’t some offshoot of Singularity theory – the idea that one day computers will be smarter than us and will be able to build still smarter computers without our help. Actually, the robots who destroy us won’t be particularly intelligent.
For my evidence, let me show you three significant developments in robotics. First, the tiny SWARM robots. These are solar powered robots not much bigger than a flea. By themselves they don’t do much but they are designed to communicate via infra red and form a group capable of swarm intelligence that enables them to perform a range of tasks (much like ants or bees).
Then there’s the plasmobot – a biological robot made from slime mould that is capable of “solving complex computational tasks” and “It propogates and searches for sources of nutrients”.
My final piece of evidence is the horrifically named “EATR”, a battlefield robot designed to fuel itself with biomass that it gathers from the battlefield. It has been pointed out that this biomass could include dead humans. It has also been pointed out that a battlefield robot is designed to create its own supply of dead bodies.
Now, while the EATR alone could cause human extinction (or maybe it will keep us on farms so it has a constant supply of meat) I think our destruction will come from a combination of these three. The group intelligence of the SWARM robots, the biological nature of the plasmobot and the human harvesting tendencies of the EATR will combine. In fact we’ve already seen this: It’s the BLOB, people!
It’s the fucking blob and it will eat us all and we are in the process of creating it ourselves. It gets to the point where saying “nobody could have predicted…” really doesn’t hold any water. For supposedly smart people, scientists seem to indulge in some really fucking dumb behaviour. I’m not the first to say “haven’t these scientists seen even one scary science fiction movie?”
Filed under Science
How happy was I when I found an article saying that sarcasm is a favourable evolutionary trait. Science comes through for me again! It isn’t my fault if anyone was ever upset by me being sarcastic to them. Their problem is they aren’t evolved enough!
Filed under Science, Video Blogging
I’m beyond caring about people who insist on denying that there is any problem with climate change/global warming. Anyone who can continue talking shit in the face of so much science simply isn’t worth bothering about. Although I do still have fun taunting them.
I honestly have no interest in engaging or debating deniers because in my experience they simply don’t listen. For anyone who’s interested you can follow this link to get quite comprehensive refutations of every piece of drivel deniers like to spew forth. Not that presenting them with the truth will change anything.
Oh, and seeing as everyone’s piling on Al Gore again, here’s a link that provides a bit of perspective and sanity in contrast to most of the shit being said about him.
Filed under Science, Video Blogging
People who think the simple fact they profess to be atheists makes them automatically smarter than anyone who believes in god can shut the fuck up any time now. I’m not sure what pisses me off most about this attitude – the innate arrogance, the internal logical contradiction or the ignoring of objectively observable reality.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think religious fundamentalists are morons. I’ve been very clear that I think people who want to place their religious beliefs on an equal footing on science are evil and enemies of humanity. None of that means there aren’t atheists who are utter fuckwits. I can’t stand people who push the line “I think believing in god is stupid, I don’t believe in god, therefore I’m smarter than anyone who believes in god.”
My response is: shut the fuck up you egotistical, self-deluding simpleton.
Because this type of bigot reflexively accuses me of being a religious fundamentalist I’ll waste a little time explaining what my beliefs are. (I call this a waste of time because it’s no easier to reach atheist bigots than it is to reach any other sort of bigot. Who else but a religious nut would challenge their sacred belief is the superiority of atheism?) My take on the question “Does god exist?” is that it’s irrelevant.
The idea that any “supreme being” could possibly give a shit what us insignificant insects get up to is laughable. And the idea that said deity would punish us for eternity for not bowing down and offering out lifelong obeisance is fucking ridiculous. Those are human behaviours. Any being with those sorts of failings is a long way from supreme.
And I wholeheartedly reject every religion on the planet. No matter how humble and selfless the beliefs of any individual may be, religious institutions exist solely to exert power over other people. Fuck that. Besides which, all religions are working on the assumption that at least 95% of the planet is wrong (when it comes down to it, intra-religion sects hate each other more than they do outsiders). Why not go with the odds and assume 100% of them are wrong?
So if I reject religion, why am I telling hardcore atheists to shut the fuck up? Maybe you consider yourself a follower of science and rational, objective reason. Good for you. That doesn’t make you innately more intelligent than ANYONE. Atheism is a belief system the same as any religion. You can’t prove that god doesn’t exist any more than anyone can prove god does exist. You believe that your rational thought system is right and religious belief is wrong. But by itself, that isn’t a measure of intelligence.
Sure, you can point to insane bastards who reject conclusive science like evolution in favour of their literal interpretation of religious texts. Being able to point out complete freaks doesn’t define you as a genius. In fact, an arrogant belief in one’s superiority is usually a sure sign of lack of intelligence. Intelligent people are actually the most likely to say “I don’t know”. Something religious fundamentalists and atheist bigots have in common is an unswerving beliefs in their rightness – there is something essentially wrong with anyone who disagrees with them.
When someone says “My fundamental non-religious beliefs make me automatically smarter than someone with fundamental religious beliefs” I say “Shut the fuck up!” The fact that someone who would say that is too stupid to see the inherent logical contradiction would be funny if it wasn’t sad. Neither intelligence nor your worth as a human is measured solely on where you lie on the religion/atheism continuum. Unless the person doing the measuring is a fundamentalist zealot.
It really bugs me how atheist zealots argue they are more intelligent than religious believers in the face of objective evidence to the contrary. Saying that a belief in god makes you automatically stupid denies obvious things like the number of scientists and scholars who are religious. Not to mention the amount of scholarly work that has been done through the ages and continues to be done by religious groups.
Why are some atheists so scared to admit that they are following a deeply held belief rather than some objective reality? What the hell is wrong with belief? When you can admit you hold beliefs rather than some indisputable truth you’re saying that you’re still open to questions. You’re intelligent and objective enough to admit that there is always more to learn.
Of course you think your beliefs are right. By definition when you believe something you think you’re right. And it makes sense to defend your beliefs passionately and point out what you think is wrong with contradictory views. But a sure sign of an ignorant, anti-intellectual fuckwit is someone who’s convinced they have no more to learn and it’s impossible they will ever be proved wrong.
I’ve learned from experience that there is a certain (small) subset of atheists who are incapable of making the concession they could be wrong. In this they are every bit as much a fundamentalist as the most backward religious freak. Pressing them on this point tends to make them freak out. But I don’t give a fuck.
Atheist bigots need to shut the fuck up.
Filed under Science
Yesterday’s post was essentially my script for a YouTube video. I wanted to do a response to a video done by one of my favourite YouTubers who goes by the user name of JustA11en. In his video, Allen asked why so many anti-religion, pro-science people on YouTube were so aggressive and hateful.
Allen is a politically conservative christian from the southern USA. He’s also a damn decent individual. Open-minded, thoughtful, intelligent and always willing to listen. He’s also usually quite engaging and charming and quite often incredibly funny. No, I don’t want to have his babies.
I haven’t made any secret of my politics on this blog – it’s fair to say that I’m the polar opposite of Allen politically. Long time readers with good memories might remember that in the early days of this blog I went looking for some right-wing blogs that were also intelligent, even-handed and thoughtful.
I came up dry.
It seemed all the right wing bloggers I could find were loud-mouthed, ignorant, braying, hateful jackasses. Yes, I know many left wing bloggers are too. As a result I tend to not spend much time on overtly political blogs.
As an aside, if anyone thinks they know of some intelligent right wing blogs that don’t spend all their time spraying hate and bile, feel free to tell me about them.
Anyway, this is one of the reasons I like Allen. He’s conservative and I disagree with him on just about every substantive political issue. But I respect him. I respect his very human way of relating his views while rarely going for cheap shots. I’m quite a fan of cheap shots myself so I don’t mind that he indulges himself occasionally.
YouTube is renowned as a cesspool of the worst, most hateful behaviour on the internet. And that’s saying something. So the fact that this is where I found the first conservative commentator that I could respect is mildly ironic. It restores my faith in human nature somewhat that in the midst of the most juvenile morons on the planet I can find someone I disagree with, yet still respect.
Here’s the video version of yesterday’s post where I respond to Allen (warning: it’s about 10 minutes long):
Filed under Politics, Science, Video Blogging
Science is built on faith. I mean that in both the good sense and the bad sense.
For me, “faith” in the good sense means scientists believe in their results and those who choose to believe in science trust that people smarter than us are doing their best to come up with objectively verifiable data. The best scientists realise that there is unlikely to ever be a universal “truth” but through diligent work they add a few more pieces to the puzzle.
While I think it’s insane for a scientist not to have faith in their work and believe in their results, history shows us that many of the most dearly held scientific “truths” will end up being modified or completely invalidated by subsequent discoveries.
From a Joe Public point of view, it simply isn’t possible to have a deep understanding of how scientists come to their conclusions. These people spend years (usually their whole lives) specialising in their fields. Reading a 1,000 page book might give good insights into the science behind the latest theories and/or discoveries but you won’t understand it in the same way as the scientists doing the work. Anyone who says they do really understand it is either in 0.0001% of the population or they’re a wanker. Do the math and you’ll see what I think of people like this.
So basically by definition, if we say we believe in scientific principles we believe that based on faith. This isn’t intrinsically a bad thing, like most faith it depends how you apply that faith that counts. Personally, I apply it along the lines of “I believe the majority of scientists are acting in good faith; I believe their greater goal is to expand knowledge, not prove they’re better than everyone else; I believe the experiments conducted to verify important theories were rigorous, repeatable and peer-reviewed; I believe the best scientists are always asking questions because the currently believed answers might be wrong.”
So that’s my version of science=faith in a good way. Then there are, of course, those who express their faith in science in what I see as a bad way. I find it mildly amusing when people who claim to be pro-science and anti-religion aggressively attack religion in the name of defending science. Now, I understand the value of an angry outburst but when supporters of science want to argue that following a religion makes you stupid by definition then they’re falling into the same trap of zealotry.
I am all for aggressively fighting for the separation of science and religion. The idea that creationism should be taught alongside evolution to “teach the controversy” is utter bullshit. That goes double for creationism’s lying scumbag cousin “intelligent design” – I mean, fuck me, just admit you’re creationists. It all boils down to “magic man in the sky done it” which, frankly, doesn’t cut it as a scientific theory.
You shouldn’t “teach the controversy” in science classes because there is NO scientific controversy regarding evolution versus creationism. There is plenty of controversy within the details of evolution but that isn’t the same thing. If evidence ever comes to light that displays fatal flaws in evolutionary theory I’m quite confident that the unmitigated bullshit that is creationism isn’t going to magically become any less of a fairy story.
I actually understand the impulse to scientific zealotry. If you dedicate your life to learning about the natural world in what you see as an objective way and find yourself having to defend your views against people coming from a completely illogical position, well… Why not simply call them fuckwits and be done with it?
My personal belief is that fundamentalists of any religious stripe tend to be utter morons. Maybe they’re not morons in the literal sense of being unintelligent (although a hell of a lot of them most definitely are) but they sure seem keen on crushing knowledge that challenges their “magic man in the sky done it” view of the cosmos. But there is not a straight line of logic between “fundamentalists who try to undermine science are fuckwits” and “anyone who believe in god is an idiot.” It can be comforting to think so but it simply isn’t true.
Likewise, many supporters of science over religion are loud mouthed idiots who should sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. I’ve had the amusing experience (more than once) of having supporters of science saying that it isn’t possible to be stupid and support science over religion because you need to be intelligent to have a skeptical mind. This is a seductive line of reasoning but I think it has two major flaws.
First, as soon as someone tries to support a position with circular logic (it is what it is because it is what it is) I get suspicious. Second, it presupposes that the people who believe in science actually understand what it is they are supporting. It isn’t possible to understand current scientific thinking on evolution (for example) in any meaningful way without years of study. So the scientists dumb it down for us poor schmucks so we have an inkling of what they’re going on about.
It all comes back to belief in science being a leap of faith. I happen to believe it’s an intelligent leap of faith that respects the logical and rigorous application of scientific inquiry. I also believe that far too much religious teaching discourages and even punishes critical thought. But a lot of demonstrably stupid people champion science over religion. To pretend otherwise is to ignore a huge body of evidence.
My personal favourite is when you refer to scientific zealots and you get someone jumping all over you ranting about how there is no such thing as a scientific zealot. Show me a scientific zealot, they demand! Uh, you got a mirror handy there, champ? Actually, the level of narcissism on display with people who feel compelled to trumpet their intellectual superiority leads me to suspect they have many, many mirrors on hand. But actual self-reflection and introspection aren’t their strong points.
Interestingly, I’ve found you get the same response if you pick on zealous supporters of Israel, Apple and/or Agile software development methodology.
So the fact that I think science (as opposed to religion) is the way to discover the truth doesn’t change the fact that I’ve made that decision based on faith. I also believe science thrives on the questioning of its conclusions – an area where religious beliefs (or at least religious institutions) tend to not hold up so well. But I also think scientific zealots can be more deluded than religious zealots. At least religious zealots tend to admit what they are.
Angry 365 Days a Year 