During my morning news read, I came across this article in National Review Online. It got me thinking about the abuse of science by the legal system. This quote jumped out at me:
The second reason, a much more disturbing one, is that criminal trial lawyers tend not to be adept in evaluating scientific evidence.
Nor are prosecutors, judges and courts in general. Are there positive and negative controls? Of course not. Is the testing done double-blind with randomized controls and replications? Of course not. Is the lab being paid by the same people paying the prosecution? Of course. Is there an incentive for them to give the desired (by the State) answers? Of course. Can the jurors in a trial ask tough questions to determine the validity of evidence? Of course not. Can they even research for themselves what scientific basis is used for the evidence? Don’t be silly!
The criminal justice system is inherently corrupt and incompetent when it brings in “science.” And if one has any doubts about the way the “law” has determined what good and bad scientific evidence is, the courts will prevent any such skepticism from being allowed into the jury box. The upside is that the prospective juror will be dismissed and not be subjected to involuntary servitude. The downside is that the State’s carceral machine continues to hum along efficiently.
None of this was the focus of the March For Science’s outrage- their concern was solely “gimmee free stuff” and “let’s adopt Team Blue talking points as dogma.” Putting people in cages is good for the public employee unions funding Team Blue, so best not to even THINK about this.
Comments
322 responses to “Quick Take- What the March for Science Doesn’t Mention”
Second!
Nice
There was a small march for science in my smallish city. I would have completely missed it but for the few stragglers I passed while running errands. The biggest take away I got from this whole thing was that Bill Nye is some sort of savior figure and that Trump will probably rape science to death or something if the budget gets cut
It’s fitting that their icon for science is an actor.
I have a nostalgic place for Bill Nye in my mind ( grew up when his 1st show was a thing we watched in school). I trued watching his new Netflix show, figuring I could ignore the proggishness. Nope, it’s slathered on nice and thick. Couldn’t really make it through the first episode, tried the second, not as bad but still..
I’ll bet some of the old Don Herbert “Mr. Wizard” shows are lingering on YouTube. They were terrific, lots of gee-whiz, no politics.
Mr. Wizard was wonderful.
So was this Mr. Wizard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuvQRdDJtLA
And it was never the “look at what I can do!” show either. It was about encouraging young minds to grow their perspective of the the world. One example I remember was a demonstration of the laws of motion using a paper plate and a round marble. He cut the plate in half. Told the kid what he was going to do, which was to “energized” the marble to cause to to move around the inside inner edge of the the paper plate half. He then asked the kid what would happen next once the marble left the paper plate. The kid (and I) thought the marble would continue in a circle. Then he ran the demonstration, and we learned a little about the first law of motion.
re encouraging minds. That part can be annoying when misused. For example, a proggie acquaintance used to say about Neil de Grasse Tyson and Nye that they’re ‘making science popular and fun!’ Yeh well, I’m pretty sure if they espoused less proggie views he wouldn’t be singing their praises so much. If Nye was conservative you can bet your bottom dollar the fact he’s an engineer would come up.
De Grasse and Nye, one can argue, are doing their bit to corrode critical thinking with their ridiculous (and sometimes easily refutable or even unsubstantiated) claims when they wade into the philosophical and political realm. I mean, did anyone read the tenets in Rationalia? Can it be anymore arcane and inane in its vapid smugness?
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/neil-degrasse-tyson-trump-science-deniers-white-house-threat-democracy-a7696186.html
Don’t leave us hanging. What did the marble do????
Vaporized and then rematerialized in the exact same spot.
Uuuhh…sorry, the marble obeyed the first law of motion, or the first law of motion accurately depicts the actions of the marble absent that particular outside force. Well one of the two. Not really sure why they are called laws. Not like it requires intent to obey them.
I never had the chance to see those. Now I will. Thanks.
An apolitical science show for children of all ages.
“Every day, 6 tonnes of discarded teeth and bones are brought to Holdwick…”
GAH!
One of my all-time favorite shows
Meediibot.
I saw that and thought about trying it until I saw the first episode was about climate change. They could have led with any number of interesting topics to make sure we knew the show was about the science, but they chose climate change to signal that the focus would be political instead. I can’t say I blame Nye for cashing in, but I can’t make it through even 60 seconds of him talking about climate change. I still might try one of the later episodes, though. At least it looks like he’ll be taking the anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO crowd to task…
It strikes me that “science” in the courts is more scientism than science.
“Trump will probably rape science to death or something if the budget gets cut”
Always remember: cutting government funding for something (or declining to increase it) is the same exact thing as banning everyone else from engaging in that activity.
Stated axiomatically : Government spending on Good Things must never decrease.
Science is just one way of looking at the world–it’s a tool. It isn’t synonymous with reason or logic–there are plenty of things that are both reasonable and logical that aren’t science.
Political advocacy is an example of something that isn’t science. It can use reason and logic, but that doesn’t make it science. It isn’t unreasonable or illogical if it appeals to people’s emotions, expresses personal, qualitative preferences, etc. either–it just stops being science when it does those things.
Political advocacy doesn’t become science because scientists engage in it. If scientists generally prefer the taste of rocky road to mint chocolate chip, that may be a consensus but does not make rocky a scientific consensus.
If they’re saying that something that isn’t science, like justice, should be subject to scientific criteria, then they’re just as guilty of confusing the proper place of science as those in the justice system who are disregarding what science says out of hand. Public policy, likewise, should be informed by science–as well as the personal qualitative preferences of stupid people.
This can come down to framing again: The question of whether an adult should be locked in a cage for consuming cannabis isn’t properly a function of whether scientific tests can confirm that she consumed cannabis. It’s a question with a moral dimension that science can’t even attempt to answer through observation. Science has an appropriate role. So do twelve idiot jurors and the stink test.
“If they’re saying that something that isn’t science, like justice, should be subject to scientific criteria…”
Who defines these “scientific criteria”, and how scientific do you really think social justice warriors can be based on how dismissive they are of real science when it interferes with their agenda and talking points?
What they are engaged in is more a horrible bastardization of something quasi religious, which makes them far worse IMO than the people they call the science deniers…
Yeah, they abuse the word “science”, especially claiming that anything a scientist does–including political advocacy–is science if it’s don’t by a scientist. If a scientist gets down on his knees and prays to the Virgin Mary, does he do so scientifically, or is that not science?
Science involves testing hypotheses through observation, subjecting findings to critical review, revising conclusions when new data comes in that conflicts with what science knew before, etc. It’s findings are always tentative, and its purview is always limited by perspective.
Justice isn’t like that. It makes certain assumptions about people, their value, the importance of consent, the existence of rights and their importance, etc. No doubt, some of these assumptions can be supported through observation, but they’d still be important through other reasonable means even without that.
What is the scientific basis for the belief that criminals need to convicted beyond a reasonable doubt? If science told us that there would be fewer rapes in society if accused rapists weren’t allowed to cross examine witnesses against them, what difference would that make? Wouldn’t justice still require allowing accused rapists to confront their accusers anyway?
That’s what I was getting at, that even when science is properly defined, subjecting justice to scientific criteria doesn’t necessarily improve justice. Science isn’t any more rational than the principles of justice–but justice uses different, broader criteria. Change that criteria by making it scientific, and you don’t necessarily improve justice. You may just succeed in turning justice into injustice.
I think you are right it is not synonymous with logic or reason, but it is related. Science is the process of building consistent and predictive models of reality and the scientific method is really just a nice way to make sure your models remain both consistent and predictive. There is a certain amount of humor here considering the essence of progressivism is pretty much the polar opposite.
These folks are as “scientific” as progressives are “liberal”. It’s a word the kids heard their parents talking about and it sounds really authoritative. They will be sure to use it in their next melt down in the grocery store screaming for the piece of candy they want: “Give me the gum ! If I can’t have it, your not being scientific”
I marvel that they can carry signs about being with the “facts”. How about all the facts, not just the ones that are convenient ? The real difference is the response to inconsistency by scientific thinkers versus progressive thinkers. The real scientist zeros in on problems and inconsistencies. Any inconstancies are a sign you don’t really completely understand the problem and need to dig in. The progressive thinker thinks that facts creating inconsistencies belong in a shallow grave in the back yard so you don’t break the narrative.
Political advocacy doesn’t become science because scientists engage in it. If scientists generally prefer the taste of rocky road to mint chocolate chip, that may be a consensus but does not make rocky a scientific consensus.
Plus, mixing politics with science is like mixing dog shit with ice cream. The end result is going to taste a lot more like dog shit than ice cream.
How many of these people that “fucking love science” believe there are more than two genders, sex is a social construct, and there are no differences between the sexes?
I’m guessing lots.
The “I fucking love science photography” crowd
“I fucking love science!”
“You mean scientific studies showing GMOs are safe?”
“No, GMOs are bad.”
“Oh, so studies showing fracking does not pollute groundwater when done properly?”
“No, fracking is always bad.”
“Hmm. Studies showing that pesticide residue is minimal and harmless?”
“No, pesticides are definitely bad. Go organic.”
“Vaccine safety?”
“You kidding? My kids aren’t vaccinated, I don’t want them to get autism.”
“Um… global warming?”
“THAT’S THE ONE!!! YOU DENIERS HAVE TO STOP IGNORING THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS!!!”
It’s picking organic non-GMO cherries all the way down.
On a related topic:
“The journal Tumor Biology is retracting 107 research papers after discovering that the authors faked the peer review process. This isn’t the journal’s first rodeo. Late last year, 58 papers were retracted from seven different journals— 25 came from Tumor Biology for the same reason.”
—-Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/107-cancer-papers-retracted-due-to-peer-review-fraud/
Maybe cancer patients should have a march against science!
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/25/journal-accepts-paper-requesting-removal-from-mailing-list
The guardian, but still relevant.
The journal Tumor Biology
Man, that mag is a cancer on the scientific community.
I blame Big Tumor.
Yang Jianbin? What did he ever do to you?
“It’s not a tumah!”
As someone who publishes peer-reviewed research and also often serves as a peer reviewer for well-known journals, you wouldn’t believe the number of journals offering to ‘publish’ my work that I get emails from every day (most go into the spam folder, thankfully.) I have no idea why these publications even exist, they certainly are not reputable, and I can only guess that they make their money by charging authors for the privilege of being published in their rags. Even in an academic ‘publish or perish’ position I doubt that getting your work into one of these would even count in your favor. Also — daily invites (also mostly going into spam folder) come to give a presentation at some dippy conference in China or Australia that no one has ever heard of, please submit your abstract, and of course you’ll have to pay to attend the conference and cover all your own travel costs, distinguished professor sir.
They’re called predatory journals and they’re quite common
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open_access_publishing
Here’s a video of Rachel Maddow blaming the protests in Venezuela on Trump:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y43TQ1i7z_Y
Not that you should watch it. But if the left is willing to accept something so common sense absurd, marching for “science” is a bit rich.
Saw that after the fact, still can’t really wrap my head around it. Either she is too dense or too shillish to actually be in the news as anything other than a vapid talking head. How does anyone take legacy media seriously
Because they tell them what they want to hear and re-enforce their worldviews. They’re also too ignorant of the facts to know any different. They’re information bubble ensures they remain that way.
It’s just, I dunno, depressing, I guess. The idea that so many people are so easily swayed by talking heads. I know it’s not a new phenomenon, there was a reason that sophistry was an art in ancient Greece, but it never ceases to amaze me at his little people change. They are starving for knowledge when the libraries of the world and all the information that they could possibly want is an effortless search away.
I still remember as a teen (already pretty anti-authoritarian), AMD heading my grandmother say the President wouldn’t lie. I also recall back them that most people believed whatever came out of Cronkite’s mouth. My mother, who is a pretty smart woman, I know gets all of her political news from Fox and has no other real frame of reference.
And hearing. I HATE this phone.
Clearly the feeling is mutual.
Not that I was a fan, but apparently Fox had to fire the host of their most popular show because a bunch of weaksauce “sexual harassment” accusations. But NBC/MSNBC continues to forge edited videos, 911 calls, etc. and make ridiculous claims such as this, and nothing ever happens.
Fox also disciplined Judge Nap for saying he had been told that Obama probably received phone transcripts from the British, which would leave by fingerprints from US agencies, something which has now largely been proven to be true. But CNN runs a Trump/Putin hit list video, and makes all kinds of unproven Russian spying allegations, and that’s cool.
Seems like no one gave them the advice re: SJW social-media outrage: “Never give in, never apologize.” Fuck them.
I am really surprised that they didn’t learn the Trump lesson on this one. No matter what ridiculous gaff he gets caught in, he never backs down, not one inch. And people love him for it. Why Fox is kowtowing to these idiots is beyond me.
MSNBC et. al. have their own version…. when caught red-handed, react with righteous indignation go on an ad-hominem spree until something sticks and everyone forgets that whatever you got caught red-handed doing was the genesis of the whole thing. And it helps if you smirk at the camera when you talk about “what they think”.
Not to mention their reemoloyment of a known and disgraced liar (Williams) and him discussing the seriousness of Trump’s lies.
And I’ll not mention their use of tax evaders on air decrying the greedy Koch brothers and their exploitation of the poor by not paying their fair share.
Everyone needs a niche. The leftist mainstream media is so variegated that each brand needs to distinguish itself. Faux News, on the other hand, is more unique and probably has to cover its ass more.
It takes that guy 6 minutes to lead into the lie?
He has too much time on his hands.
What is a “Science cut”? Does the sign mean public funding?
Of course
I’m pretty sure Einstein would have something to say about the dangers of government controlled science
That it’s terrible when people like Trump control it, but great when people like Obama and Hillary are in charge?
+2 mushroom clouds
Because without public funding?
“Taxpayer-Funded Duck Penis Researcher Now Studying Whale Penises………
Patricia Brennan, a visiting lecturer at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, worked on the duck penis study that received $384,949 from the National Science Foundation, a grant that was funded through the 2009 stimulus package. The study looked at the differences in the corkscrew-shaped penises of ducks….
She is attending the “March for Science” this weekend as a political activist, even though what “she’d really like to do, is get back to the lab and take another look at that killer whale penis.””
http://freebeacon.com/issues/taxpayer-funded-duck-penis-researcher-now-studying-whale-penises/
Reminds one of the old poem about the guy with a corkscrew penis searching his whole life for a woman with a corkscrew vagina, which ended something like this:
“He found such a girl, but then fell dead,
For her corkscrew cunt had a left-hand thread.”
“Earth Day 2017: A look back at the fun prediction failures”
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/04/earth-day-2017-a-look-back-at-the-fun-prediction-failures/
More here:
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
This is disturbing.
Is there sourcing for this? Not that I doubt for a minute that some of these orgs are contributors but that is a fairly dense list.
None of those surprise me at all.
Surprise, suprise, surprise.
Southern Poverty Law Center? Aren’t they the group that labels right-leaning groups as “hate groups?” What a laugh.
It’s pathetic that they still are quoted in the msm as “experts”. I guess they always give them the answer they want.
Yes, and people still use their “hate group” list as if it means something.
SPLC has long been scandal-ridden and corrupt. It exists now only as a way to further enrich Morris Dees. If they say the sun is out, assume that it’s night-time.
Ha. Judge Greg Mathis.
lol.
What a dick.
I want to see Mills Lane beat his ass. “LET’S GET IT ON!”
Well, I’m sure some of them are the same people who also believe this: “Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well as thought. It is an academic discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles and researching specific cases.” I pulled that from Wikipedia. And I’m sure it’s nice for those people in those roles to think they are scientists. But here is Wikipedia’s definition of science, “Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.” The key is testable. While you can boil a pot of water an infinite amount of times and with all the other variables controlled you will get the same results. That can’t be said about the Social “Sciences” what so ever. You can’t ask people and expect to get the truth. So you devise tests that ask them to do one thing, while you are observing for another. They are not aware of what you are looking for so you get an “honest” response. The only problem with that is it isn’t repeatable. Once the subject has been tested their memory of the test will affect any subsequent tests. Making the test unrepeatable. Sure some of them are rigorous in their methods. But it isn’t science.
Rule of thumb I’ve mentioned before: if you have to include “science” in the name, it isn’t science.
Re: psychology, there are aspects which truly are scientific (e.g., sensory analysis, cognitive mechanisms), and there are aspects which aren’t. If I were a psychologist, I’d be annoyed that the two are lumped together.
What about Scientology?
I think that’s just Latin for “secretly gay”
Yep, I’ve worked in a psych lab that used fMRI to study behavior and developmental disabilities. Many of the hypotheses didn’t test out, but the general attitude was to see where the data takes you rather than the other way around.
I used to sit in on journal club meetings and lab meetings with the behavioral guys. After observing for several months, I began lobbying hard for an inter-departmental collaboration with the hard-science biology folk. The problems the behavioral guys were trying to address were so tough to approach that their experiments were usually rife with self-deceptions. They all meant well, but the state of the art in the field was just… poor. As far as I know, not much came of it. I did manage to get the director of the Center to agree that it was an issue and he pushed for other molecular guys to attend behavioral lab meetings (and vice-versa).
That field is just crazy-difficult to design an experiment that is properly controlled and easily interpretable. By the time you build in all the possible controls and do proper blinding and make sure that the result is directly aimed at answering your hypotheses, it is pretty common that you don’t have an experiment left that tests much of anything.
I suppose it is like building a skyscraper with tweezers. The tools just don’t exist to really move things quickly, but carefully applied, you can make some progress.
“The key is testable.”
That is certainty true of the scientific method, however there can certainly be theories made using math, physics, and current scientific knowledge that fall under the realm of science. Science begins before the scientific method takes place.
Is studying the origins of the universe or the origins of man science?
Yes. You make predictions about as-yet-unobserved phenomena, and the observations either confirm the hypothesis or do not. It’s a slower process than, say, predicting the rate law of the halogenation of an alkene, but if the hypothesis is falsifiable, it’s science. For example, the COBE observations re the Big Bang.
I disagree. I don’t think science should be defined strictly by the full scientific method. I think that it’s appropriate to use the term “science” for activities that consist solely of observation and hypothesis.
For example, let’s say I want to improve the chances of winning my next tennis match by observing and analyzing my opponent’s previous matches. If I just watch and get a general sense of how he plays, that’s not science. But if I statistically analyze his shot patterns or make predictions based on quantitative properties (e.g. his racquet has an open string pattern, so he probably uses a lot of topsin), then I’d call that science.
I don’t think I need to test my hypotheses by actually playing the match, nor do I need to refine them by playing multiple times. I think it’s sufficient that I applied theories (statistics and racquet design) that were formed through the full scientific method.
Well, what that gives you is raw input, which you can use for doing things scientifically (formulating hypotheses, then testing the hypothesis by experiment). That’s not really a coach’s job (or a player’s), it’s coaching (or playing), not science. A good coach will be happy to use any tools handy, and there’s a pretty objective figure of merit in sports competitions.
“…if the hypothesis is falsifiable, it’s science.”
‘Settled science’ is not subject to falsifiability.
Settled science isn’t science.
It isn’t even logos or rta or asha or whatever.
Settled science is dogma.
It’s religion, but it isn’t even really faith. Faith requires uncertainty.
“While you can boil a pot of water an infinite amount of times and with all the other variables controlled you will get the same results”.
That’s the essential observation of determinism. That people, like a pot of water, make choices that are a function of conditions under which those choices are made. Compatibilists will argue that free will isn’t incompatible with that observation–that because people’s choices are a function of those conditions doesn’t mean they don’t have a choice. But determinism springs naturally from the scientific observation–if the choices you make are a function of the conditions in which you made them, then you couldn’t have chosen otherwise any more than an electron can choose which way to flow in a circuit.
The questions arise from the ability to set up conditions. You can isolate the conditions that make current flow fairly easily. If morality makes observing the apparent free will of individuals more complicated and the observations less consistent, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t be studied scientifically, i.e., through falsifiable tests and observation. It just calls into question the level of certainty associated with your results.
All scientific conclusions are associated with some level of uncertainty–physics, psychology, all of them.
That uncertainty may come from the fact that unknown factors had an impact on observations. That uncertainty may come from the problem of induction–the fact that new observations made in the future that refute what we’ve observed in the past will change our conclusions. If someone sees something moving faster than the speed of light or isolates a graviton tomorrow, all bets are off.
Psychology, economics, anthropology, and other scientific disciplines may have a much higher degree of uncertainty associated with their conclusions, but if the testability of their claims are being clearly defined, if their conclusions are derived from controlled observations, etc., then they’re just as much of a science as physics. It’s just that their conclusions should be associated with a higher degree of uncertainty.
It’s always been amazing to me when I watch shows where archaeologist make these discoveries at ancient sites at how much speculation they do that they don’t acknowledge as speculation.
Science can require us to believe things that aren’t true based on the available evidence.
If alien archaeologists uncover the ruins of our civilization millions of years from now, science may require them to hold that we all worshiped a fat man in a red suit who supposedly hand delivered presents at night by climbing down our chimneys.
I think you are making one the same mistakes Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes in this video:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/04/21/neil-degrasse-tyson-unintentionally-makes-anti-science-video/
Science doesn’t require one to believe anything. Belief isn’t scientific. If I were one of those aliens, I would only be “required” to accept that there is evidence supporting that humans worshiped Santa Claus, not that it was a fact, or the only explanation of the evidence.
Let’s not get lost in semantics.
Point is that if alien archaeologists millions of years from now only have a small bit of data to go by, and it mostly consists of a fat man in a red suit that leaves presents sometimes around the winter solstice, then the available evidence will lend itself to the archaeological observation that we worshiped Santa Claus.
Again, science is limited by perspective. You can only draw conclusions from the available data. If the only available data leads you to a conclusion that isn’t true, then science, properly done, may lead you to the scientific conclusion that people in the 21st century worshiped Santa Clause.
You say science doesn’t require us to believe anything? I say because all scientific results are limited by perspective and the available data–and need to be revised if and when new data contracting what science led us to believe before becomes available–all scientific conclusions are to some extent tentative.
They’re all beliefs. They’re all believed against a backdrop of uncertainty.
Proper science is very much like market data. It reflects what is known at one point in time. Scientific knowledge is not truth. It’s tentative like market data is tentative. If you want to look at where the market thinks interest rates are headed six months from now, you can look at options and futures, and you can get the consensus opinion. When that opinion changes as new information becomes available tomorrow after the French election, next month after a slew of new data comes in, etc., that won’t mean that the market was functioning improperly. That will just mean that the market constructed certain beliefs based on incomplete data and amid uncertainty–like it’s supposed to do.
Science works the same way. The things it says now can and will be revised when new data becomes available that wasn’t available before. The things we believe about science now are tentative in the face of some level of uncertainty. Some things have more uncertainty associated with them than others. The theory that the climate is heating up and we’re facing a mass extinction event has far more uncertainty associated with it than the theory that the earth orbits the sun. That’s mostly associated with the amount and quality of scrutiny. The theory that the earth orbits the sun has been thoroughly scrutinized and survived that scrutiny (so far)–the imminent mass extinction theory much less so.
Markets work that way, as well. The Venezuelan government’s theory about how to keep people well fed wasn’t really subjected to rigorous market scrutiny and couldn’t survive what market scrutiny it was subjected to–so their government’s hypothesis about how to feed its people belongs in the shitter. It’s jut like science that way.
That Popper and Hayek were friends and admirers of each other’s work isn’t surprising. They essentially applied the same observations–just to different areas: one to the philosophy of science and the other to economics.
http://public.econ.duke.edu/~bjc18/docs/Popper%20and%20Hayek%20-%20Who%20Influenced%20Whom.pdf
It’s like on the old “X-Files” show, there inevitably came a part in every episode where Mulder starts postulating outlandish theories, starting every sentence with “What if…..” “and then what if…” which always ended up being exactly what was happening regarding the aliens or monsters or whatever was the villain that episode. It worked on a science-fiction show, not so much in actual science.
I think we agree. All I’m saying is that one does not have to accept the conclusion — because it’s tentative or uncertain. I could easily say that I want more evidence about this Santa Claus. In that video Neil Degrasse Tyson says “It’s not something to say, ‘I choose not to believe E=mc^2.’ You don’t have that option.” But you do have that option. And from everything I’ve read, Einstein would have agreed you have that option. Well, I don’t know enough about special relativity myself. But some future physicist could have new evidence or reach different conclusion that explains the evidence.
Really? He must know that he’s full of shit but the truth doesn’t fit his narrative.
It’s important to understand that science is not truth.
Science is a tool of discovery. Its conclusions are tentative.
There may not be a scientific basis to challenge any given scientific fact in the present.
There are still questions of relevancy. There are still questions outside the purview of science.
Whether we should be willing to sacrifice our standard of living to save the environment for the benefit of future generations is not a scientific question. No amount of scientific research can answer that question. It is a question of ethics. It is a rational question with rational answers, but the hypothesis that polar bears are more important than my standard of living cannot be refuted through observation.
If you want to challenge the scientific consensus that global warming is real on a scientific basis, go ahead. Please understand, however, that you’re limiting yourself to an irrelevant question from the perspective of this and other libertarians. I will not support authoritarian and socialist policies–regardless of whether AGW is real. I wish more libertarians understood that. I wish more environmentalists understood that.
In business, this is like spending all your time, money, and resources trying to solve the problem with the lowest sensitivity to your bottom line. If the our support for authoritarian socialist solutions is in no way contingent on the existence or non-existence of AGW, then why waste time, energy, and resources on opposing the scientific consensus?
Why not use that attention and those opportunities opposing authoritarian solutions instead? why not attack the authority of scientists to make authoritative judgments about other people’s qualitative preferences that are far outside the purview of science? Attacking scientific consensus isn’t the answer when the fact is that the scientists in question often a) aren’t behaving scientifically or b) are acting out of the bounds of science?
I’m fine with the “narrow” view of science, as long as we then agree as a society to stop putting it on a pedestal as the one true way to gain knowledge. If the social sciences are not science, they still add to the body of knowledge. Limiting it only to the subjects that can repeatedly control all variables (which isn’t really possible), limits but you too physics.
Limiting it only to the subjects that can repeatedly control all variables
That’s not a correct limitation. The distinction between science and non-science is testability and falsifiability of hypotheses.
I’ll give you that, but I think being able to control is necessary to the concept of testability. The experimenter controls for changes that the experiment is measuring.
Heisenberg says no control for you!
Simultaneously viewing it so narrowly and putting it on a pedestal is why we get IFLS mentalities and anti-intellectual marches like this. Its viewed narrowly in many respects, at many times, so its reputation (consequent of its results, i.e. technological and theoretical advances) grows duly strong, and yet the ‘putting on a pedestal’ imbues it (whatever ‘it’ is—I’d say essentially just the word and whatever people want to associate with it) cultish power. Motte & bailey doctrine again.
So I agree. Let’s not be so pedantic about language. ‘Science’ in one enduring respect just refers to our accumulated body of knowledge. Strictures in the actual carrying out of the relatively-modern methodology are valuable, but railing against language is an awful proxy for opposing the cargo-cultists.
George Carlin: Earth Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Miv4NHsDo
Minor quibble: the evidence reported in a trial isn’t “scientific”. I’m not sure what the best word is. Maybe “technological”, especially given the line in the following paragraph:
The evidence comes from technicians, not from scientists.
Multiple commenters have brought up the distinction between science and technology in this article and others, and they’ve pointed out that most of the IFLS crowd doesn’t know the difference. I’m not quibbling with you, OMWC. I know you know the difference. I just wanted to pile on.
Indeed, but even when done by a tech, it can still be science. For example, a prosecutor’s hypothesis is, “This blood splatter belonged to person X whom we have charged with a crime.”
Non-science: “Hey Mr. Tech, here’s a sample from a crime scene, here’s a sample from the arrested guy. Do they match?”
Science: “Here’s ten samples which include replications, known positives, and known negatives. Here’s ten other samples which include replications, known positives, and known negatives. Match anything from the first sample group to the second, and validate by identifying positive and negative controls.”
The latter example is more rigorous. I’m not sure that it’s more scientific though. It simply added controls. Even social “sciences” employ controls.
Controls are necessary but not sufficient. The former isn’t even vaguely scientific, the latter is.
Both people in this story are despicable:
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/04/18/boys-punching-girls-feminisms-big-win/
The alt-right is raising money to buy ice for his hand.
That’s your big threat: The alt-right.
The “antifa” Black Shirts showed up to do violence again but this time their were people waiting for them. Fuck them. She would have never been punched by him if she didn’t go after him. We’ll see if the Black Shirts and women like her learned anything. Don’t start shit, won’t be shit.
Good morning mammals,screw your science topic… I’m hungover.
Time to find that rock in the sun and dry out.
Hypothesis: Drinking alcohol the night before can make a certain feel hangover symptoms.
Science, bitch!!!!
A certain reptile
I hate this phone!
Given my current metabolic condition I sympathize with your plight against obstinant technology.
I see little to no difference between corrupt forensic labs, and government funded climate scientists with an axe to grind.
I guess the forensic labs just need better PR to be able to get people to scream, “97% CONSENSUS” and march in the street when they get caught falsifying evidence.
I see little to no difference between corrupt forensic labs, and government funded climate scientists with an axe to grind.
Because there isn’t any.
Hypothesis proved!!! We have consensus!!!
In a prior life, when I was stuck living in Oklahoma for some years, this woman was in the spot light.
She was never charged. They don’t charge their own with a crime. Very similar to how evidence of falsifying data in climate science gets shrugged off.
That’s why testing must be done double blind. Then to cheat, you have to rope three people into a conspiracy, which is harder to do undetected.
I have been arguing for years that police departments should not be allowed to have a forensics departments due to corruption. All forensics should be done by independent labs. Throw in double blind testing, and it would be a big improvement in the justice system. Probably more efficient as well.
“government funded climate scientists with an axe to grind.”
I’ve brought up the point that government-funded scientists might be inclined to give government-approved results, and the reply I got was a “tu quoque” about oil companies funding anti-CAGW information campaigns followed by a quick return to the “consensus” line.
Did you ask for the names of these oil company funded scientists? The couple of books I have read on climate “denial” (meaning doubt in methods) the dissenting scientists were largely at state institutions as well. Nobody claims the climate does not change, they just call bullshit on the fear mongers “science”. Micheal Mann being one of the biggest lying sacks of shit. His work is still taught in schools though.
I think the consensus line has been thoroughly debunked as well. Not that it matters to the true believers.
Yes, the consensus claims have been debunked and repeatedly pointed out as having overstated and skewed results, but that doesn’t stop the “97% of scientists agree” line from being repeatedly daily by politicians and on Op-Ed pages. But in my early days as a physician in the late 1980s, I’m certain that 97% of doctors would have agreed that stomach ulcers were caused by stress — and then a few years later, it was proven that the ulcers were caused by infections and stress had nothing to do with it.
Consensus of scientists doesn’t mean anything is a fact. Our past is full of textbooks with ‘factual’ claims later proven to be absolute bullshit.
“Yes, the consensus claims have been debunked and repeatedly pointed out as having overstated and skewed results, but that doesn’t stop the “97% of scientists agree” line from being repeatedly daily by politicians and on Op-Ed pages.”
Can you provide me with some of these links to use in the future?
I know there was some good stuff at Watts Up with That a few years back – haven’t gone to that site much though.
Basically, they sent out a couple polls to about 20,000 folks with “science” degrees (that is to say….pretty much anything with an ‘ology” at the end). They got back a few thousand responses, but of those, only a handful were actually earth sciences and even fewer climatologists – and most of those didn’t agree. But all the softer science folks who have no actual experience in the field all did agree with the poll questions….hence 97% of polled scientists who returned a poll.
Don’t worry though, the political system handles it just swell.
here’s a good editorial from @Reuters from a few years backabout the nexxus of science + politics, which seems to produce a corruption of both =
shorter = science can try and tell you what is; politics can try and tell you what you can do about it. too often people claim “science tells us what to do” about stuff, basically masking political arguments as scientific ones.
My own personal ax to grind regarding science and law enforcement-
Drug dogs alerting on vehicles. How sciencey is that. Dogs may be trained to smell contraband, but there are other factors in play. Dogs respond to their masters desires and the validity of their alerts is highly questionable to say the least.
https://www.wevideo.com/view/893523451
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Harris
I know. it doesn’t make it any more depressing.
less damn it.
I must be seeing things. The march looked like a march to throw more money at the EPA and the NIH.
i have paid zero attention to the whole thing. I assume the only things they complained about were “Climate Change and Abortion” (liberal hobby-horses), and they basically entirely ignored huge swaths of what the Federal regulatory infrastructure deals with, like drug-approval, or agricultural technology, or food labeling (warnings + claims), etc.
And immigration.
lol
how is immigration a ‘science’ issue?
Keeping scientists out of the country. Seriously. That is the argument. Look at the video I linked to below from the beginning.
The NYT has a feature-length story on the Comey/Lynch tug-of-war over the Clinton email investigation. The most-upvoted comment in the “NYT Picks” made me spit my coffee
I am sort of torn as to whether to be gleefully amused by the degree to which Lefty rhetoric has reached ‘peak delusional’…. or whether its a bad/dangerous thing that so many people are steeped in ridiculous partisan hyperbole that comments like this are not just “normal”… they’re wildly popular.
and there we have my first threading-fuckup of the day. An early start!
Well, it’s true that a man can cheat, swindle, lie, and assault women. If that man is Bill Clinton.
I’m confused, where did Trump commit treason in all of this?
By defeating Hillary. Everyone knows that’s treason.
Jesus Christ.
Case in point.
“Putting people in cages is good for the public employee unions funding Team Blue”
THIS CANNOT BE REPEATED ENOUGH. “Progressives” love to bitch about the evils of for-profit prisons, but they’d prefer that we ignore the fact that we have a for-profit prison system right now. The AFSCME (representing prison officers) and the SEIU (representing prison nurses, therapists, and admin staff) have a definite profit motive in having as many prisons as possible. Both AFSCME and SEIU donate vast sums of money – actually outspending Koch Industries by a large margin – and almost 100 percent of it goes to Democrats.
vis instapundit
*voted “Best Weed” for 30 years in US News college-rankings
Mass psychosis.
It’s getting difficult to actually feel sympathy for these people. It’s upsetting how they’ve been manipulated, but how do you argue anyone out of such intense delusion?
From the article:
“Lise Van Susteren, a psychiatrist and climate activist in Washington, D.C.”
This is former Fox anchor Greta Van Susteren’s sister, an absolutely full-of-herself obnoxious twit. We once had a run-in with her at the temporary ER we’d set up for working with evacuees from the Katrina hurricane. We volunteers had spent days putting everything together and helping hundreds of unfortunate individuals — and then all of a sudden Dr. Van Susteren showed up with TV cameras in tow, and stated she would now be in charge of all the psychiatric cases. The head Emergency Medicine doc (a great guy) interrupted her and asked to see her state license — and she didn’t have one, only one for her home state. He politely told them to turn off the TV cameras, and after that he told her to get the hell out of the ER, she was interfering with patient care and violating patient confidentiality.
Off Topic but somewhat related: A great piece about How people are bailing on the White House Correspondents dinner cause mean old trump crapped in everyone’s punch bowl, with a little bonus look into the metric fucktons of bullshit involved in the WHCA.
the whole point of the thing is to allow journos to act as though they and the political class are ultimately simpatico, and part of the same general public-interest
basically, the press want to be stroked and told how important they are, and to rub elbows with powerful people and pretend they have mutual respect. If the Top Toppest Men don’t show up to the party, it pops the bubble and they realize that “what the press has to say about things” doesn’t really matter all that much.
They hint at that in the article, but the official line is far far removed from that reality. Basically the major journos are screeching “muh first amendmunt!” and how Trump is stifling free speech.
I don’t get why lefties are so incensed that Trump is flipping the bird at the mainstream press like that. He just went through an election where there was literal, actual, no-shit COLLUSION with his opponent’s campaign. Why is he supposed to be all buddy-buddy with them?
You’re supposed to just take it because they’re the good-thinking people and you’re not. It’s the same when, say, Colbert did his dumb conservative parody character or Trevor Noah just flat out jokes that Republicans are racists, you’re supposed to just take their insults unquestioningly and laugh otherwise you’re being sensitive and don’t have a sense of humour.
Last i checked there was still a booming trade in Hitler-comparisons, and the first 3 months or so of his administration has been a near-constant flood of leaks from disgruntled former obama-admin bureaucratic flacks.
To my knowledge he hasn’t yet wiretapped the Associated Press, barred photographers from events, or thrown (unapproved) leakers in jail.
They talk about the massive glaring hypocrisy in the piece. Like I said it’s a great piece, if a bit long.
When will the media and mainstream politicians realize that Trump and his supporters don’t give a fuck what they think? Actually, they kind of do give a fuck because a major part of Trump’s appeal is that he pisses off all the people that they hate.
Journalists cozying up to politicians and lobbyists always rubbed me the wrong way, anyway.
I enjoyed the group photo w/ “Al Roker, Carson Daley, and Matt Lauer”
it really does sort of undermine the whole “Edward R Murrow”-pretensions of the thing.
This picture is in that article:
https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/462756691126550529/photo/1
Or, “how to look really bad: wear a comically undersized bowtie”
Oh, the whining gets much better.
If you strain, you can almost hear the world’s tiniest violin. Fuck your stupid circlejerk of a party and do better journalism.
The comments are entertaining. Most of them tell the journos “well you don’t have to cover the really”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/23/french-election-live-results-exit-polls/
Looks like Macron is taking the lead in exit polls but time I think will tell how he will do in a runoff
…
what
It’s France, if they aren’t being theatrical then they aren’t doing ti right.
C’est la Vie.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
Fun fact: If you argue that the partition ratio is incorrect on a breathalyzer test durning a DUI case, you are automatically found in contempt of court in California.
How long did the judge lock you up?
No DUIs for me. My wife’s professor was fighting this in law school.
(I was kidding) Did the professor prevail? That is some first rate bullshit not to be able to argue the settings on a breathalyzer. Have the Nazgul weighed in on this?
Huffington Post Editor Resigns In Shame Over Hoax Article That Said White Men Shouldn’t Get to Vote
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/huffington-post-editor-resigns-in-shame-over-hoax-article-that-said-white-men-shouldnt-get-to-vote/
Well, anyone that guessed that was satire, come pick up your prize.
Hidden in that article is a nut punch: The guy that originally submitted the article lost his job over it. WHAT THE FUCK!
Because classy HuffPo went to his work and harassed his employer.
Meh. Don’t have the biggest issue with that. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Another nut punch:
“South African press ombudsman Johan Retief found that the controversial blog post was both discriminatory and constituted hate speech….
“The ombudsman said that the article’s contents breached a section of the press code, which forbids the publication of material that is “inflammatory, discriminatory, and targeting a specific group of people.””
Shouldn’t that be aimed at the publisher?
Actually the angle on that which seems more interesting is that the “fake author” was fired from his completely unrelated job because… well, because Hoaxing popular left-wing outlets is totally not cool man.
he didn’t actually “go after” the Editor Verashni = she ended up hoisting herself by defending the piece in public.
Her defense should have ended her career whether the story were sincere OR whether it was fake. His hoax had nothing to do with Huffpo’s own absurd posture.
I think the scariest thing about this whole episode is that I truly believe that the only reason she lost her job is because it was actually a cis het shitlord that wrote the piece, and if an actual feminist had published the exact same piece they would still be defending it right now. It isn’t the message that fucked it up, it is literally the messenger.
I think that’s more or less right. the reason she got fired is not for attempting to defend the indefensible = it was for exposing the larger HuffPo brand as being unprofessional hacks who will publish anything sans any due-dilligence whatsoever.
It makes all their other content open to charges of “Who the hell writes this drek?”
the fact that they’ve published 1000 other absurd pieces by utterly-sincere and legitimate morons is basically not even noteworthy. In fact, the editor would have been praised for publishing such effective Click-Bait had it been a legitimate-crazy-feminst rather than a dude hoaxing her.
Professor Says Male Student’s Paper Was So Triggering She Had Trouble Distinguishing Him From Her Rapist
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/professor-says-male-students-paper-was-so-triggering-she-had-trouble-distinguishing-him-from-her-rapist/
“
I want to read the paper.
Sign me up.
“the professor described a lesson on rape culture she included in her gender class, saying she was frustrated with male students skeptical that it exists”
Um, that’s because it doesn’t exist.
There’s a consensus among women’s studies majors that rape culture is a very serious problem, therefore you’re wrong.
Is Bernie Sanders a tranny chaser?
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/bernie-sanders-defends-ann-coulter-slams-intellectually-weak-student-activists/
‘Women Lie and Are The Weaker Sex,’ Says Lawyer for Accused Rapist
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/women-lie-and-are-the-weaker-sex-says-lawyer-for-accused-rapist/
Raped on top of an American flag towel?
Still, what shitty defense.
Was he wearing a MAGA hat too?
Grab its motherfucking pussy.
Who the fuck taught this guy how to do closing statements? Archie Bunker?
I resent that
Zip it, meathead!
“The mayor of Berkeley, California, is a Facebook member of a leftist militant organization that has been linked to violent incidents in the city.”
https://heatst.com/politics/berkeley-mayor-is-member-of-militant-leftist-organizations-facebook-group/
This is my surprised face ()()
Oh wait, that’s my ass. Anyway, it sheds light on why he didn’t do anything about the police letting antifa commit violence.
MSNBC defends Maddow, blames caption. Those responsible have been sacked.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/was-really-rachel
“And now, today, Venezuelans are enraged anew by this brand new FEC filing from the White House which shows that interesting thing about the guy who got the meeting with the NSC officials and with Steve Bannon. ”
-Maddow
Yeah, that’s exactly how it happened. I thought they were mad about starving. Silly me.
I posted the video (#7) above.
Razorfist on the Syria bombing.
Short version: If it’s just a single strike for diplomatic purposes, we cool. If we’re starting regime change again go fuck yourself.
Multiple students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison recently filed complaints about a statistics exam question about a hypothetical border wall to the school’s Bias Response Team.
The question presented a hypothetical scenario in which the federal government was building a wall along the southern border to prevent kangaroos from repeatedly jumping over, which three students found “humiliating” and “insensitive.”
http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9084
I’ll take false outrage for $300, Alex.
Maybe the people offended were Australian?
Probably not these guys.
I read the article in hopes it would cite the exam question. It is probably the only statistics question I know the answer to, because I am pretty sure the answer is “Hitler”. Alas no question, but this derptastic idiocy was linked there.
Pretty clever, actually. Why not push the envelope as far as it’ll go? If the administrators give in, that’s on them.
Complaint: Teacher made students remove Christian cross necklaces, called them ‘gang symbols’
http://www.lc.org/newsroom/details/042017-teacher-bans-cross-and-forces-lgbt-agenda-on-students
In addition to being a jerk, I suspect she is also a shitty math teacher.
I *know* I’ve heard of this happening before, like a decade ago, in multiple school districts. Am I crazy?
(Well, I am, but I’m not sure if that has anything to do with this)
Looks like Macron and Le Pen win in the first round of French elections
Macron 23.7%, Le Pen 21.7% Melenchon 19.5% Filon 19.5%
They are already calling round 2 for Macron, at least the telegraph is. They’re probably right, but for one moment I had hoped to see the euro-facade crack a little wider.
Polling would have to be wrong on a level far beyond what it was for Brexit or Trump for Le Pen to have a shot.
At least the communist isn’t going to make it.
Global antisemitism drops 12%, but rises 45% on US college campuses
I’m shocked. So very shocked.
Thanks Trump!
Thanks Obama!
BOOOOOOOOOOSH!
(What came before that, you old mofos?)
The decrease in the number of all types of anti-Semitic incidents put together, as monitored by communities and governmental agencies, is most evident in France, where the Interior Minister announced a 61% decrease in all forms of antisemitism as well as in Belgium which witnessed a 60% decline.
What exactly created this recent decline? I was lead to believe that the primary recent increase in anti-Semitism in Western Europe was the product of certain immigrant communities.
yeah, i speculated on that below.
its sort of telling that the 2 countries that have had the most significant spike in islamic violence in the last few years have suddenly stopped reporting “anti-semitic” hate crimes.
“hate crimes” reporting has always been far more about the interest level of politicians in highlighting those events. They’ve ‘boomed’ when it was in prosecutors interest to be seen fighting those things, and they declined when pols and prosecutors want to downplay these events.
Well a lot of folks have been leaving France, etc. It’s possible there’s just fewer folks for them to harass since 2008.
Science.
Every time i see people citing statistics, my first thought is not “what this # says about reality” but what it says about the people making the claims, + the methods they choose to use to gather “data”… and all of the various factors affecting their #s which aren’t actually disclosed
e.g. one word i don’t see in that article is, “Hoax“
Now, now. Just because they chose an initial comparison point of “YOU KNOW WHO ELSE?” doesn’t mean it’s not valid.
Really, though, WTF does that even mean?
What does what mean? the claim that antisemitism is booming on campuses?
I’d guess it means that more and more jewish students are reporting things that Pro-Palestinian groups do/say as “hateful”.
Because colleges have lowered the bar so far as to what constitutes “speech-violence hate-crimes”, that students of any particular victim-group can claim oppression 45% more-easily than they did in years prior
meaning = growth in a number isn’t necessarily due to a growth in the underlying reality – it can always just reflect a growth in the methods for *collection + reporting*
As an example – The Cleary Act, which forces colleges to report on incidents of “sexual violence”, among other things, has provisions which require administrations to document every stage of reporting of an underlying incident. A single “event” can actually generate multiple ‘reports’. (depending on how many college officials are involved)
Back in 2013 when all these news media were making wild claims about an explosion of sexual assault on campus, much of the growth in the #s they cited was actually simply due to increased compliance with Cleary Act regulations. Fewer sexual assaults were simply generating more and more reports.
its similar to the claims made about a ‘boom in hate crimes’ in the UK following brexit. The “boom” was brought about by the introduction of an online reporting system by UK police, which in its first months was inundated with trivial claims of ‘online harassment’. No one in the media bothered to point out that the launch of this system came immediately before the Brexit vote.
What = the claim that “antisemitism drops 12%”
But touché—it means, ‘the way that the data is collected and analyzed indicates … ‘
i.e. a bunch of tosh. I’m just agreeing superficially and snottily (i.e. not helpfully): these statistics say next to nothing about reality, and rather much more about the claimant.
re: Falling incidents of antisemitism
they point out in the opening paragraph that the source of the so-called “decline” is attributed mostly to a small handful of locations
given the small number of overall incidents, these drops could either simply be normal volatility (“noise”), or they could reflect some changes to the way these countries choose to report certain kinds of incidents.
I would not be surprised if countries like belgium and france, currently inundated with muslim immigrants, have decided to curtail their reporting of certain kinds of low-level sectarian incidents as “hate crimes” and instead re-categorizes them as more-neutral misdemeanor conflicts.
its not so much that data says ‘next to nothing’ as much as it says a variety of things that often has nothing to do with the headline claims that the data-collectors want you to focus on.
e.g. Is anti-semitism really exploding in american colleges? Something tells me “probably not”. But what IS happening is that colleges are swamped with snowflakes who scream HATE CRIME at the drop of a hat.
I’m
grumpyPoppyI am.
Gilmore and Ken scare me. One cannot just post flippant remarks. Understand what you’re saying and be ready to defend it!
It’s a good thing overall
Shit, I’ve learned more from Gilmore then I have from most of the other information I use online.
http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/04/cissexist-say-never-date-trans/
I’m tempted to sign up for that “Healing from Toxic Whiteness” course they’re advertising just to laugh about it here, but I have enough derp in my life without that.
You can get it for free here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hszmPCxMu_4
Youtube comment gold:
For all were born misogynistic, and come short of the glory of diversity. -Feminism 2:23
Also, since the writer is trans, the whole thing smacks of “WAH! Lesbian women won’t sleep with me because I have a penis! It’s totally unfair!”
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/09/ways-feminism-changed-my-life/
So it is religion — instead of “G-d wants it that way” being the reasoning behind everything that happens, its society’s fault. She’s done nothing wrong, of course.
See, because when I first started discovering feminism, I realized how many of the bad things that have happened in my life, big and small, have been part of a larger social system
Yes, i can see how a gospel that teaches taht all your problems are the fault of society is so compelling. However lets not compare it to traditional religions, most of them accuratly point you towards trying to fix your own failings.
Jehovah’s Feminists: Have you accepted feminism into your life?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgbgxB9O6AM
Hahaha. You laugh, but my last semester in school i had to fulfill a diversity requirement (something i had been putting off). I took “Political Economy of Race, Gender and Class”. The class was total bullshit, had no actual coursework. At the end of one of the classes, the Professor went around looking at every student, asking them to commit to spreading the word of feminism.
I mean it was on the same level as evangelism.
I wonder if the diversity requirement is something every college has….. I’m gonna hate that if so.
At Berkeley there’s an “American cultures” graduation requirement. I took a popular music course to fulfill it, and I’ve never before or since heard the word “problematic” bandied about so much, with no supporting detail (what is problematic? why? It’s just assumed to be so). Apparently Amy Winehouse committed ‘vocal blackface’ because she reverently sang like Sarah Vaughan. (Way to shit on the recently deceased who did nothing immoral.) And white American men speaking softly and kindly to female Japanese pianists is misogynistic and racist.
Still irritated.
I’m still pissed off UNC-CH made me take a cultural diversity requirement. I guess living overseas for 12 years in 4 different countries and taking classes in multiple languages just wasn’t enough for them.
Don’t remember which class I did take. Something worthless.
And that was in ’98.
I wonder if the diversity requirement is something every college has….. I’m gonna hate that if so.
I think it is something that is fairly common. It was actually my second attempt at fulfilling the requirement. My first attempt was “The Chicana/Chicano Experience”. It was when i saw that the ethnic composition of the class did not match the composition of the school as a whole that i realized that the “Diversity” part of the requirement is a sham that itself is biased.
Looks like at some schools Foreign Language can satisfy it. Hope that’s the case where I’m going, I’m not sure I could handle a gender studies class without getting thrown out.
I didn’t have a diversity requirement for my liberal arts degree, and that was in the late 2000s. And my school was basically an activist campus, so maybe the rot hasn’t settled in the Canadian education system completely?
(I don’t know what it’s like now though)
I have no idea what any of this word salad is supposed to mean.
It means Shame on you
As near as I can tell, the author takes it as a given that it is possible to have a penis and be a woman at the same time.
And it’s totally OK if you don’t want to have sex with a penis-woman, but it does make you a monster.
Related.
So, drunken night in Bangkok = woke
“She told me it was a six inch clitoris.”
“She told me it was a six inch clitoris.”
Westernsloper lights the SugarFree signal.
Its the sound of coming full circle. Lesbians are not truly woke if they don’t also sleep with penises who say they are women. Its crazy how fast the whole Movment went from “Just let people pick who they prefer to love, and the kind of people they are sexually attracted to: “You must love the people that we say you have to love, because they claim to fit your ideal profile”
Remember the bit from the Wellesley college editorial?
“Despite having access to educational materials they refuse to change their beliefs.”
This is what it comes down to with the pinkos every time. Join the collective or we will beat you up. I am wondering how long before this guy or his ilk are coupling those arguments with threats and how long before they are out in the street punching not just secret nazis but lesbians too.
You dont get it Rhywun? Oh, C’mon, it’s simple; When the maestro around some onlooker daydreams, the tea party inside a swamp beams with joy. Indeed, a girl for a toothache learns a hard lesson from a wily onlooker. Toscanini, although somewhat soothed by a pocket near the dissident and a starlet, still admonishes her from another toothache, share a shower with her a hand with the bonbon, and bestows great honor upon the dark side of her maestro. An omphalos near the clock derives perverse satisfaction from the gonad.
Agile Cyborg is starting to make sense…
I just did what the author of that article did; copy/paste from an online nonsense generator.
After you wipe the tears away it is pretty clear that JB is correct. This is just some fruitcake dude who is upset that women wont sleep with him.
That is utter horse shit Suthen.
Everybody knows you don’t keep your omphalos near the clock regardless of what your gonads want to feel. An omphalis near a clock makes the stew taste like sagebrush and might even leave a rash on your gonads.
The Cotton Ceiling.
I honestly thought that site was parody until I poked around for a minute.
WUT?
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/woman
“Woman, female, lady are nouns referring to adult human beings who are biologically female; that is, capable of bearing offspring.”
Well, there are plenty of women who can’t have children and all women become infertile eventually.
I think the XX chromosomes definition is best.
There are women with XY chromosomes too, you transphobic cisgendered shitlord! Get woke!
Venezuela: Maduro arms militia, bans civilian gun ownership
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaukr6lifyI
But remember: people who want guns to protect themselves against govt oppression are just paranoid kooks
The 2nd amendment made all the other ones possible.
Wait, he just now banned civilian gun ownership?
I thought they officially banned it close to 5 years ago.
This is an extra double ban.
Yes, it was years ago.
I know i’ve posted this before, but it makes me laugh everytime: “You Liberals Say that now…”
Reminds me of this.
Governments only ever institute gun bans for civilians when they are sure they can win if a fight breaks out over it. What these bans are really saying is “submit or we will kill you.”
Remember Hillary’s promise of executive action on guns if congress wouldn’t act? That is exactly what she was saying and she was saying it to people like us and the rest of the deplorables. I wonder how many of those fucking idiots working for the other site voted for her. Actually I dont.
I don’t know what the requirements are for joining Venezuela’s socialist militia, but if he’s really looking to add 300,000 people, seems like an easy way for the populace to arm themselves against him.
I’m guessing your voting record has something to do with it.
From Wikipedia (and I didn’t find any citations, so take this with a grain of salt,)
Be a natural-born Venezuelan
Be between eighteen and thirty (30) years of age for men, twenty-five (25) years of age for women
Be unmarried; and for women not to have children.
Not having a case in court.
Possess proper identification cards
Not be disabled physically.
Not having a criminal record.
Not consuming any alcoholic beverage
That’s the requirement for military service in general, don’t know if there’s something extra for the militia.
It will be people known to proven loyalists; friends, family, etc. Known Maduro loyalists plus any thugs that can be bribed with food or just a chance to beat or kill people. These kinds of militias are for doing the dirty work that the official military cant be seen doing and to infiltrate communities to root out the opposition. They are composed of the worst of the worst kinds of people. I wont be surprised if he recruits from prisons.
Yeah, that makes sense there. I don’t know where the Venezuelan people who don’t currently have guns are going to get them (unless we start arming them,) but I’d be willing to bet that the cartels in Colombia and such will have a field day.
That’s how those shitbirds meet their end. The regime crumbles from the inside out.
Also, I think I predicted several years ago that Venezuela was headed towards the killing fields. Mass graves are not far now.
When someone is certified as an expert, they have privileges which ordinary witnesses don’t have. In particular, they can give hearsay testimony and opinion testimony. Before allowing a witnesses these particular privileges, the court needs to be sure the witness has expertise which makes his opinions and hearsay more valuable than that of Billy Bob the barfly.
The issue then becomes whom courts are willing to certify as an expert and why. Which becomes a politicized mess at times.
Messi is better than you.
At everything.
*Grabs apple from top shelf* Really? *Takes bite*
RM;DW
How many offside goals is he going to get?
That’s Ronaldo’s specialty.
“Antifa needs a major buff, they drop dead the moment they decide to fight something that fights back.”
(Also I forgot how good the original Rome Total War’s soundtrack was)
Rome’s soundtrack was amazing. That brings back a lot of good memories…
If I wasn’t going to hell before I am pretty sure laughing at that sealed the deal.
I think the Caps will win tonight, but it’s like a 55/45 thing.
Meanwhile Pittsburgh is sitting at home resting.
. . . conspiring, hating, conniving, sacrificing roosters, farting into their refrigerators, and resting.
We need some rest, too.
Let’s go, Caps!
Where my yinzers at?
Isn’t it true you all fart in your refrigerators for fun?
“So, to recap, the Democrats held a unity tour, supported a pro-life candidate, panicked that pro-aborts would stop filling their coffers, folded like a cheap suit, and now are the party of disunity. Also, officially the party of death.”
Robbie’s got a new method for his “[Insert anyone] is awful, but [said person] deserves the right to speak” shtick. Quote Bernie saying it.
Has Robbie filed for the patent on “[Insert anyone] is awful, but [said person] deserves the right to speak” method?
Bernie is woke bae
Watch how cops should react when antifa losers attack. That was instantaneous. Impressive.
I love how he was dumbfounded how anyone could find fault with his actions. “I punched a nazi, guys! Come on we all do it!”
They need to change that to “I tried to punch a nazi”.
“Nazi” should be in sneer quotes.
That was awesome. About time.
Niiiiiice.
“He assaulted me”!!! the dude tells the police.
Holy fuck those people are maggots. Hit someone and back away. Pathetic.
If you look closely, you can see the cop car was sitting across the street watching the entire time. It almost looks fake because it’s so perfect.
It is hilarious. Is that George Washington University?
Evidently. Under federal jurisdiction, so the dude is gonna have fun.
An assault record looks great to prospective employers. Not that he will probably ever do anything productive with his life. Probably professional activist or community organizing. That sometimes leads to the White House though. Who knows, he could become president.
Nice creepy chest tattoo….
Those cops also look the paragon of fitness.
and the beards. wtf. millenial cops?
In 2012, there was a NATO summit in Chicago, and the cops were out in force.
I saw 4 of them sitting together on the train. It looked they just put police uniforms on the first 4 people they found at Golden Corral.
I enjoyed this essay. Thank you.
Reign of The Troll-President = Trump Commemorates Earth-Day By Announcing Executive Orders to Loosen Drilling, Mining, Energy Development Restrictions on Federal Lands
He could have done this in January. Or February. Or March. But no… wait until everyone is singing Kumbaya and writing editorials about how the Planet is Going to Die…. then *strike*
What will secret Nazi president do next?!?!
In other news: Manatee steaks and clubbed seal tacos will be on the menu in the capitol hill cafeteria starting Monday.
Imagine the blubbering and screeching if he reversed some of Obama’s antiquities designations?
In case you’re having trouble finding swimwear that speaks “Me!”.
Hahaha. Props to that.
Free market is so problematic, amirite?
Some things, once seen, cannot be unseen.
And Rudi Gernreich is spinning in his grave since these people didn’t think of the monokini.
I saw nipple. I wish I hadn’t.
You were offended by the Wikipedia photo (warning; not safe for work)?
I am really not a “Me!” kinda person.
Yeah; I just look for a pair of monochrome swimming trunks that are comfortable and not too long.
^This
What the fuck did I just look at?
Back to the Future 2 tried to convince us that people in the future dressed like they were retarded and had no style. We could have had hoverboards.
The movie was right, wasn’t it?
Friends- Serbian version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Q_b-DBuww
youtube comment gold: Nationalism teaches you take pride in things you haven’t done and hate people you’ve never met.
Pretty sure that’s a Doug Stanhope quote.
No, nationalism teaches you to respect and cherish the values that built your civilization.
This quote is next to a display pic of a Gadsden snake with the ancap flag in the background. Youtubers are such morons I can’t even.
Bill Nye looks like a fucking retard. Maybe it’s because he’s a retard.
I see some people are already campaigning for Trump’s re-election:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvwr1TpKznk