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Why Do They Pound the Table?
A brilliant post from last year wondered why Harrison Ford was so angry about science. Discussions of science are not generally emotional events and are often perceived as boring. Math is not thrilling – it’s just math – it adds up or it does not. There’s nothing to believe in. So there’s no reason to convince anyone of anything. But those who promote climate change very often attempt to use emotions rather than simple scientific explanation.
When I saw this picture of Greta Thunberg, I was reminded of that post, and of this quote from Carl Sandberg: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.”
It doesn’t bother me that the climate change promoters are wrong. I’m often wrong. What bothers me is that they clearly know they’re wrong. But they want power, so they pound the table.
Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio do not live like people who think that carbon emissions are important. Harrison Ford and Ms. Thunberg do not speak like someone who has the facts on their side. These are not honest mistakes. Ms. Thunberg is not an innocent kid sharing her uninformed opinions. This is being done not with innocence, but with malice. It’s not foolish, it’s vicious. This is scary stuff.
Published in General
For example?
I think “proven” is too strong. Certainly we’ve been able to watch micro-evolution (within a species) in simple organisms in the lab — fruit flies mutating with different eye colors, for example. But, the problem of getting from one species to an entirely new one is it relies on a very spotty historical fossil record and isn’t “testable” in a meaningful sense.
I will stand by evolution as the best theory for speciation so far.
“5.. 6.. 7.. 8..
Yyyyyyy M C A!”
“Oh great! The white dude in booty shorts just farted…. and I’m downwind. 🤢”
I’d agree that Thunberg is more table-pounding by proxy, in that she’s been coached what to do, but truly believes what her handlers, including her parents, have told her. The handlers are the ones who know they’re lying, but can get more people to promote their lies if they have a teen-age girl spouting it with total sincerity, because she’s totally bought into what she’s saying.
That makes her a bit different from 2018’s Absolute Moral Authority teen of the moment, David Hogg, who got his fame from saying the things the media wanted to hear after Stoneman Douglas, but also in the past year has felt free to opine in loud (and many cases, foul-tweeting) support for other progressive causes that have zero to do with gun control. He’s seen there’s power to be had from being the Spokesperson of His Generation, and you can even get into Harvard by doing it, even when your grades are at state school level.
Hogg doesn’t need any handlers to tell him to pound the table and likely will try to keep doing it through the middle of the century to remain in the spotlight. Thunberg with her Aspiger’s problems could face a lot of cognitive disconnect a decade from now, when she finds out nothing her handlers have told her would happen has come to pass.
If I snap those suspenders, I can say I was trying to pull him out of the way of a moving vehicle.
David Harsanyi is more generous to lefty adults than I would be:
https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/23/the-tragedy-of-greta-thunberg/
Is that like the guys who proved the bumblebee couldn’t fly?
I’m forgetting the term at the moment, but there is a chain of species of birds around the arctic where following the chain, most of them can interbreed with the variations to the east and west of them. But by the ends of the chain, the two types of birds at the far ends are too far apart genetically to interbreed. That is speciation through small, random genetic mutations. It’s right there on Earth. Yet, it can’t exist because it is improbable according to math? Perhaps these cats don’t understand math, especially probability. Probability does not tell us what can and can’t happen. It does not tell us what will happen. All it tells us is what is most likely, and the results are often based on assumptions fundamental to the calculations, such as rate of mutation.
From a book I read, there is a reference to why something is different, and the author posits through one of his characters, paraphrasing here, that organism could have been conceived on a patch of pitchblende. (Pitchblende is a radioactive ore.)
So, if their calculations say something can’t happen, and yet we have an example where it has, it means they need to examine their assumptions.
Hmm… I don’t think Harrison Ford knows that he’s wrong…
This I agree with. It’s just that I have found that most folks arguing against speciation through variation and natural selection usually have their heads where that cop should shove that bicycle. They tell us things can’t happen that are happening, in order to tell us that the theory isn’t valid, and their hypotheses for filling in the gaps usually amount to, “God did it.” God did it all. If speciation through variation and natural selection exists, it is because God created the universe that way. If other mechanisms exist, it is because God created the universe that way. But what are those other mechanisms? And are the gaps real? Or just imagined? Or based on false assumptions, like the math that says those birds I mentioned earlier can’t exist?
People have known the Earth was round(-ish) for thousands of years. There were estimates of its size by the ancient Greeks. We have even more proof now, and can describe the Earth’s shape much more precisely, yet there are still some people propounding the notion that the Earth is flat.
I believe there is a line between fact and supposition, theory, and hypothesis and that the scientific community needs to respect it and operate within it.
That is the point I’m trying to make.
And that is the proper scientific stance. As I have probably made all too clear, my problem is with people who point to what they see as gaps, yet have no coherent hypothesis to replace the present one. And when someone explains the gaps, they stick their fingers in their ears and say, “NYah, nyah, nyah! I can’t hear you.” This happens regarding speciation all the time.
Another place it happens is “climate science.” There is another hypothesis out there. The sun is variable in its output. It has both small (short) and large (long) cycles, and sometimes these oscillations align to give more or less output for a period of time, very much the way we have different levels of tides on Earth.
I’d love to see a mini Greta Thunberg on YouTube at some point.
Well, that’s your hypothesis, I guess. 😜
“Science” without a social justice narrative is just another word for mansplaining and “math” is just another word for rape. No wonder the planet has only a decade left and no wonder there are no federal funds for a trans woman to get a needed abortion. What has “science” got to do with my truth or with the rights of polar bears who cannot vote or file lawsuits while they drown? This thread is like so triggering…
Wow. I thought I drank too much…
“too many witnesses”
Best yet!
If Yer gonna go that route, You gonna quote the movie:
Where does this guy get those great clothes?
Oh, hi Chandler! Sorry, I didn’t recognize you from the front…
It was a RadioLab, one of their best. They replayed it a month or two ago.
Please define the line in vocabulary the rest of the world uses, please.
I’ll grant that many theories are so well-supported that they are treated as facts in daily life. Like Newton’s laws–they are perfectly fine for practically all earth-bound tasks.
But when such theories have flaws exposed, many other endeavors that treated them as facts may have to be revisited. That’s why there’s no real line.
Trying to remember, but I thought that the super-tiny glass shards were ejected high into the atmosphere and spread all around the world. Then as they fell, they disintegrated, giving off heat. The collective heat from all of them raised the surface temerature of the entire Earth to approx. 1300 degrees F, scorching everything like William Kristol nighttime dreams about Mar a Lago.
The lucky creatures who happened to be protected from that (and I’m sure Trump would have had it wired) survived, and we are all descended from those guys.
I am totally not doing it justice – it’s worth a listen.
My favorite:
Hey!! Where’d you get that?!
Yeeeeeeears ago, She posted a link to Their cameras when They were on the porch having cocktails. I caught a frame at the absolute most perfect time and have had it ever since. Yer facepalm reminded Me of it.
Dang, she does look distressed!
Sounds like something from the land of fruits and nuts. I don’t care to listen to a podcast, but I would take a look at their published paper on the subject, if there is one.