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Trust No One, Trust Not Even Yourself
We are facing a massive crisis of trust in America, with good reason.
After vast amounts of lying and gaslighting by the media and government, along with plenty of sketchy news sources, we are in the realm where even people on the same side don’t have any common sources.
This goes beyond frustrating — trying to write a piece that challenges a status quo means lots of in-depth research, and it could easily be dismissed by “the study was faked” or “government officials pressured the authors.” Previously, I would say that was crazy talk, but now I’m not sure how to prove a source is actually trustworthy.
On the other hand, I find it hard to take seriously many of the reports I see from people I disagree with. In some cases, there are references, but that raises the time investment involved. There’s only so much time in the day, and I could be doing something enjoyable or beneficial instead of running down sources. Just dismissing people is so much easier, but it means I will never change my opinion.
It makes me wonder why am I spending time on Ricochet at all. How the heck are we supposed to persuade people outside of the conservative movement (such as it is) when it is this hard to persuade each other?
Published in Journalism
According to strong MAGA Attorney General William Barr, there is no evidence which would change the results in any state.
Talk to Kozak. The vaccines prevent deaths, and most hospitalizations. Are they perfect? No. Are they better than nothing? Yes.
No dog in this fight.
Ivermectin is a valuable alternative in countries that don’t have vaccines. It is better than nothing. But vaccines are better.
I think that this is nominally better than nothing. But I would rely on vaccines first, and ivermectin second.
There are biolabs in every one of the 50 states! When you are tested for COVID-19, where the heck do you think they send it to? Yes, a bio lab!
Jennifer Griffin has pointed out that the issue is “military biolabs” of which Ukraine has none. Another red herring.
Don’t let this get out of hand.
If Gary is here to learn things, he hasn’t succeeded.
Many of the things he asserted that members here pointed out to him were factually wrong, with links and quotes -these were things that can be pretty much proven, not opinions – were dismissed and ignored by him and later reintroduced freshly into later threads.
I’ve learned that his attempts to find common ground here, and his toxic civility, i.e. “my special friends” , “thank you for your kind words” in response to challenging his opinions, are not sincere, or at best are fleeting.
Amen!
I’ve benefited from watching some of the “leftists” you’ve linked before. As with Bill Maher, they can be very surprising.
It’s hard to come to grips with the fact that some people cannot be convinced no matter how persuasive the argument.
Just to reply how duplicitous the whole global warm shtick is https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/03/sea-ice-story-breaking-up.php
Here is what trigger Steve’s ire, but it is what I have know from my “insiders” @ NASA who know what the data shows is that this is gaslight operation by those never let a crisis go to waste even if you have to make it up. My “scientists” know that publicly stating the obvious will get you ostracized for attacking their funding sources. So mums the word, except for the few truly courageous.
With a minimum of 5 sources each, bonus if you include evidence from Australia or New Zealand.
After vast amounts of lying and gaslighting by the media and government, along with plenty of sketchy news sources, we are in the realm where even people on the same side don’t have any common sources.
Because of increased fossil fuel prices due to the Not A War Yet But We’re Sure Trying Hard, the per unit cost of gas lighting will increase at such a rate that it may consume the majority of the Federal Budget for 2022.
Because macroevolution has decades of continuous research in different countries in many different disciplines of biology and it all points one way. Alot of that other stuff is pretty new and humans often screw up when they do something for the first time.
[College philosophy teacher timidly raises hand, saying, “I, um, I think that’s sort of the point.”]
Preach!
Well they are leftists, declared socialists but very wise to government oppression. They are are savvy to the institutional overreach of the CIA, and they see it and the as an unchanging adversary. They are right.
And freedom of speech advocates and calling for truth? They reference Yemen, – I don’t wanna know right now – inundated with bad news – or racism whatever- and I am less prone to now dismiss their reporting in areas of which I know nothing. But that’s a win for them. Developing a reputation for reporting facts as can be subterfuge but I’ll take facts even if temporary.
That’s a good start. If we can be sure that those decades are all researching the same theory with results pointing the same way.
I don’t trust that narrative either. Add some Kuhn, some Gelerntner, some perfectly respectable arguments from Meyer that are unambiguously not arguments from ignorance, some of my own reflections around here, and . . . it would seem that concluding that one does not know such a thing to be true is also perfectly reasonable.
Appeal to authority. Not fallacious in and of itself, but entirely illogical in the face of the overwhelming evidence I have accumulated. Please stop beating this dead horse, or at least beat it in an appropriate manner by looking at the evidence for yourself.
As I’ve said before, my advice is to start with Mark Davis and work your way up.
Did I say otherwise?
In fact, I’ve said so myself. And I have also refuted arguments from Kozak about vaccines for young males.
And how do you know these things? Do you understand the evidence better than either Dr. Smith, who supports ivermectin or chloroquine, or Dr. Jones, who does not?
I think you’re missing the whole point of this little epistemological exercise. It is possible to know things, but our sources of information are worse than fallible: They are extremely fallible as well as propagandistic, political, and motivated by power and money. And you are some of those things, and so am I.
Bonus points if you know going in that whether it was Ukrainian or Russian forces, the chemical weapons almost certainly came out of the old Soviet imperial war stocks or labs, located in a number of places.
Trump.
I must admit that I am not aware of every ant-macroevolution argument ever. But everyone that I have heard of is utter trash thus far. Sometimes an explanation is the most popular because it is the most explanatory. In other words, what the Truth is still the Truth even if spoken by a socialist atheist.
An example or two of “utter trash” may be useful.
There is an idea that we are all the incest children of Adam Eve. There is no anthropological evidence that humanity originated from the Middle East and no genetic evidence that we are made from an incestuous couple.
Additionally, there hasn’t been any good explanation of why microevolution would never lead to macroevolution over time. Also, why we still have no idea how abiogenesis happened, saying that, “G-d did it because we don’t know about it yet.” is absolutely a G-d of the gaps argument.
Thank you. I am 600 driving miles from my books and notes so a more informed response may have to wait a couple days but my first reaction here is that the “would never lead to” position is not entirely accurate. I would go down the “nor enough time to result in” construct. But that’s just me…
Check out Dmitry Belyaev and his experiments with foxes. Change can happen quite faster than previously thought. I was surprised as well.
Yes. But macro-change? Also, a very controlled population and breeding structure vs nature? I think that “can happen” may be a bit misleading.
Are you aware of how scientists have explained the structure of a mammalian eyeball? Many changes over a long time can add up. Admittedly the foxes were not a perfect example of how evolution happens in nature but it seems to pretty accurately describe how wolves become dogs. Do you accept that dogs and wolves are different species?
I am aware (and fully on-board) and I accept that dogs evolved from wolves. (You may need to clarify your meaning of different species with respect to number of chromosomes, etc.) All of which makes for great discussion but remains a far cry from explaining the speed and diversity and magnitude of macro-change that the evidence indicates has occurred.
Yes, but evolution acts on each incremental genetic change. A genetic signal is changed, does that individual reproduce successfully (and how often). Evolution has to “show a profit” at each genetic step. For example, a photosensitive protein like Rhodopsin is not necessarily beneficial with a signalling pathway – it could actually be detrimental by causing cell damage
Everyone admits that there are huge gaps in our knowledge of much of biology. But it still appears like the god of the gaps theory.
How about I compare our current knowledge of evolution to Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics explains a hell of alot but Einstein needed to come along and build on what Newton did. Our idea of Macroevolution is undoubtedly in need of updating but the basics are still substantiated by overwhelming evidence.
If you guys want to have a lengthy conversation about evolution, you ought to write a post on that topic. You’re getting off track from the original topic of this post.
Your conclusion seems reasonable given your premise. The premise, however and unfortunately, appears to be unreliable given that the evidence suggests that you don’t know much about the characteristics of arguments.
Yes!
And . . . there we go. You don’t understand the argument from ignorance pattern, you don’t understand the arguments of people like Meyer, or both.
I have a post I might launch next week on this. Stay tuned, I guess.
A modest place to start would seem to be an example of the directly observed emergence of a different species through such rapid micro-change. Do we have an example?
Are we? I ain’t said a darn thing about what I think about macroevolution.
I have said that a person may rationally conclude that the currently dominant theories on the subject are things he does not know.