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December 7, 2009

Things Morgan Knows

144. In what deserves to be called “science,”

you save the drama for your mama. People debating science, getting angry and testy about the skepticism from others, are advancing and defending what would more properly be called “religion.” -- House of Eratosthenes
[The entire file of All the Things I Know is worth your review. You'd be surprised how many of these things you know too.

"True wit is nature to advantage dressed,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."
-- Pope]

Posted by Vanderleun at December 7, 2009 7:39 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

I've known actual scientists to yell at each other in arguments. I've also heard a story of two physicists at SLAC stepping outside to duke it out. What is a bit off is for this crap to be organized and for the arguments to be of a moral sort -- "denialist","sceptic" etc. -- rather than about science. It's all rather embarrassing, like a couple having a scream fest at a party.

Posted by: charris at December 7, 2009 7:06 PM

I've not been keeping a diary of what events have inspired these Things I Know, and perhaps that is a mistake. If memory serves, #144 was inspired not by the whole climate change debate, but by ID/evolution...

Anyway, thanks for the link.

Posted by: Morgan K Freeberg at December 7, 2009 8:10 PM

At supper tonight, I announced that the EPA announced, no, decreed, that CO2 was officially a TOXIC POISON. My 12 year old laughed out loud, and then held her sarcastic little breath....so as not to further pollute the dining room. Good times....for now.

Dead people do not exhale, and therefore do not emit CO2, and thus decrease their carbon footprint, so that the true believers may enjoy the paradise, ummm, reality, they have legislated.

Posted by: Jewel at December 7, 2009 10:05 PM

I'm telling you the scientific method is a sure-fire guard against any faith-based derailments. I'm also inviting you to the bridge sale I'm having.

Please. The scientific method doesn't, can't do away with those human vagaries known under the collective name of "bias". It merely drives them underground, shifts them into an underhanded form where they're harder to detect (so you get the worse deal in the end). An academic paper replete with correct citations, flawless studies and impeccable logic is within the capability of any phlogiston theorist. If Holocaust Deniers can, everyone can.

Sorry, but somebody needs to pour some cold water on that outdated 19th-century confidence, which is leaving us ill-equipped to fight menaces like Progressivism and Islamism.

Posted by: Richard Lund at December 10, 2009 11:28 AM

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