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Settle in folks, this is a long one (and not in the Rob sense of the word). First up, Powerline’s Steve Hayward (and the host of the Powerline Podcast available on the Ricochet Audio Network) drops by to discuss the inauguration and preview the Biden administration. Then, a segment we have been looking forward to for a long time. Avi Loeb is a Professor of Science at Harvard University and the longest serving chair of Harvard Astronomy Department. His new book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, posits that an alien craft visited our solar system in 2017. He makes a compelling and science based case for it, and if he’s correct, it’s one of the most –if not the most– significant scientific discovery in human history. You heard it here first, folks. Finally, Antonia Okafor is the host of the Speak-Easy podcast,one of our newest shows and one of our best. We talk to her about her passion for guns and the 2nd Amendment and why Kamala Harris becoming Vice President is significant to her, even though Antonia disagrees with almost all of Harris’ policy positions and politics. We urge you to listen to her 4 minute long solo edition of Speak-Easy on this topic. It’s enlightening and moving.
Music from this week’s show: Waiting For The UFOs by Graham Parker and The Rumor
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And it takes a lot of foolishness to defend someone solely based on his credentials, which is precisely what I was responding to. The sum total of Mr Lileks’s response was that this person was associated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Coincidentally, I was also associated with CfA; my third most cited paper dates from my time there, admittedly not my best work. However, that fact has no more bearing on the merit of a scientific argument that it does for anyone else.
In short, I was addressing @jameslileks and his reasoning. Get it?
Would you like me to list the half dozen or so segments we’ve done on this show on the election since November? Or the dozens of other shows, posts, and stand alone events we did on this topic?
We covered it. Extensively. That it didn’t produce the outcome you wanted isn’t our fault.
You stopped posts going to main feed. And said specifically it was because they were some sort of conspiracy stuff. Make Ricochet look bad.
LOL
I got it.
Yes, which is why this comment from you made me giggle:
Ironic!
(I’m going to get admonished now for being rude to customers.)
That wasn’t the point of my comment. My point was that you dismissed him without actually listening to him. And you did that solely based on his credentials and a stereotypical view of college campuses.
As someone who has worked at a major university (Stanford) for 12+ years now, I actually know something about this. Yes, there is some of that silliness, but the astronomy department is not the gender studies department. There is much less of that nonsense in the science, business, and law areas in academics.
Avi is a serious person and you are free to disagree with him. But the reasons you’re taking issue with him have nothing to do with his actual work. It’s just a cheap shot.
I know; not everyone is as quick on the uptake.
I was responding to the assertion that the show was turning into Art Bell, and noting that the qualifications of the guest exceeded those of Mr. Bell’s usual “experts.” As for “credentialism,” I don’t put much stock in credentials in the soft sciences, but yes, I am guilty of thinking that someone who chairs the Dept. of Astronomy probably has something on the ball. Are we to assume that academy is so completely corrupted by ideology that a structural engineer who got his degree from MIT is probably less suited to design a bridge than someone who watched a lot of YouTube videos on the subject?
If I’m reading this correctly, you’re responding to my appeal to authority with . . . and appeal to your authority?
Yes, I have studied this stuff before, and if you wish to believe the Science is Settled! that’s your right.
Not yet, but if you think Engineering and Science are refuges free from politics, you are wrong. For example, here is more than you want to know about Engineering Education Dean Donna Riley at Purdue, from a column Rod Dreher wrote when she got the job:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/queer-engineering-purdue-social-justice-warriors/
Rod ends with
And these:
What if we are one of their colonies, and they’re just checking on our progress?
If the academy keep going that way.
But for the moment, I’ll take the opinions of an astrophysicist over a laymen with regards to astrophysics. However, the astrophysicist has about as good a chance of being crazy about everything else as a regular Joe on the street.
update: Excuse me, Headedwest was way ahead of me.
No one —including Avi Loeb— is saying he’s right about this. It’s a theory. So how about debunking the theory rather than going after his hard won credentials and his employer? Yeesh.
Also, if you actually listen to the segment rather than dismiss it with a sneer and a stereotype, you will hear that the skeptical viewpoint is well represented in this discussion. That was a deliberate choice.
I booked Avi (actually started corresponding with him last summer) because I thought this would be a fun, apolitical topic for a week that I know disappointed many on our audience. I guess I should have known better.
🤷♂️
We’re getting there. The physical sciences and engineering are being infiltrated by the Wokerati. No, it’s not Art Bell… yet, but it’s headed that way. The biological sciences are already pretty far gone.
Read my comment again, then point out where I “dismissed him [the guest] without actually listening to him.” At the risk of repeating myself, I was responding to Mr Lileks’s use of credentialism, as he admits.
Read better.
I’m fine to do an entire series of shows on wokeness in academics. I could do it with one hand tied behind my back, given the number of people I know who can speak authoritatively on the topic. But that’s not what this segment is about.
What an interesting and thoughtful discussion about examining evidentiary anomalies without prejudice. So glad they don’t just write off evidence from professionals in their respective disciplines, following those threads wherever they might lead.
“The only way I will back down is if another shows me a better interpretation of the data.”
“If you don’t allow people to speak about it, nothing will be found.”
Should have had him on in November.
James: “What is the data point, the undeniable fact that will finally tell people that this stuff is for real?”
Hahahaha.
I am a little like Peter in that I have never really cared much about life beyond our planet. I guess I have too much to worry about in my own little neighborhood where I was disturbed to find a used hypodermic needle on the road while out running! But I still thought it was an interesting show with a nice mix of politics and something a little more alien. (Get it? Get it?)
Plus the guy was charming, as was noted.
Does it make me super pedestrian that I kept wanting someone to ask him if he likes reruns of The Big Bang Theory?
I mean… that’s where I thought Rob might go… ;)
I loved the segment. More like it please. Honestly I think some commenters are sneering and dismissive is because Loeb joked about “Take me to your leader!”
You called him a crank solely based on his credentials and his employer:
Is that not dismissing him? And nowhere on this thread have you indicated you’ve heard one second of the segment. If you have, then maybe…
write better?
I wanted to have him on last summer, but he asked me to wait until his book was published.
No I did not. That is a misrepresentation of what I wrote, viz.,
That is not an assertion that he is a crank. Rather, I merely pointed out that being a Harvard professor does not exclude the possibility that he’s a crank. I stand by that claim. Credentialism would be a claim that he can’t be a crank because he’s a Harvard professor. Are you making that opposite claim?
Again, you have failed to grasp the point, as stated in plain language. Mr. Lileks got it in one.
No, the man’s credentials were put forth as a reason to take him seriously and listen to what he has to say. He’s got a hypothesis and proposes trying to get a satellite fly-by if possible to better see what this thing might be.
Please relax. I really like all the alien stuff and the charming and informative guest. Feel free to start a whole podcast series about aliens if you want.
Then God help us.
Well at least they haven’t tried to wipe us out yet, unlike The Engineers (Alien: Prometheus).
Some bugs are so big and ugly I don’t want to step on them.
But if we’re their colony, presumably we look like them.