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Penny Arcade - Comic - Dropping Science
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For most that falls under the "a species can adapt but remains the same species" AKA "microevolution" umbrella.
In the Navy we use satellites for communication and positioning all the time. The sailors in charge of that specifically have to take in to account time dilation involved with satellites. A junior officer I knew that was in charge of making and verifying calculations simultaneously acknowledged that it was necessary and also refused to believe that it was true. It was mind boggling to the rest of us.
The point is, most people that don't want to don't try to explain it in good faith. They have their belief and that's it. Even when they literally use the things they say are impossible.
"God will provide" usually at the end too.
If god wants you to live you live.
What a shitty trade off.
A lot of people prefer deliberate, conscious cruelty over random chance for some reason. I never got why being in the clutches of an omnipotent sadist seems to be such a seller, but then again, I never got why people write love letters to serial killing pedophiles either. As far as I can tell, a large segment of our species is functionally retarded.
A god, or small number of gods, can be imagined and possibly influenced through deeds and prayer, or at least defiantly stood against. It's impossible to do the same to "the entire universe", except at such a high level of abstraction as to essentially reduce it to a single entity.
The same impulse, IMO, drives a lot of conspiracy theory. Some people would rather believe that there is some conscious agency directing things to ill ends, some organization that can be conceptualized, than accept the possibility that it's all a bunch of complex interconnected systems beyond the ability of even very smart people to fully grasp, yet alone meaningfully affect - that we are all, in essence, riding helplessly along in a big out-of-control bus whose course is a product of inertia slightly modified by the aggregate of the riders leaning or hurling themselves against the sides.
Related is the notion that one is special, informed, and worth the attention of the conspiracy, rather than utterly powerless and insignificant outside the small circle of one's family and acquaintances. The latter line of thought leads easily to feelings of depression and irrelevance, even though that level is - by definition - where almost all of our interaction takes place, where our lives are lived.
Turns out our monkey minds are really really bad at scaling up to the realities of modern global society, and this is becoming more and more of a problem. We literally aren't smart enough, and some argue that we can't be due to the limits of our brains, even before you get into not fully using them due to bad education, etc.
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I suspect this is related to the rise of mass violence and terrorism, since enacting any sort of change, or just being noticed in the massive throng of humanity is impossible for most people, leaving a violent lashing out the only option. It's far from the only cause or anything, but I'd be surprised if it doesnt atleast affect the issue. Ironically, despite the desperate need to prove oneself to be a powerful and capable individual, people also have an equally strong desire to be subsumed in a group of likeminded. The human brain is basically a self-destructive patchwork of tribalism and social rivalry.
Maybe not the best choice of words, eh?
If someone had told Usenet-using-17-year-old me that in 20 years time writing exactly the same Evolution vs (Religion/Aliens/Woo) posts on the internet would be something I could turn into a paid career, well, I would have been excited.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
This is getting into a major thematic component of the first season of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series from the early-mid 2000's. If this subject matter interests any of you, you might want to check it out.
I wanted to post a version that properly animates the rotating Salinger quote, but they're all way over the size limit for the boards.
I don't know if you had this from before or wrote it on the spot, but this is probably the best way I've ever read of explaining this principle so simply. Thank you!
I know in a general sense I shouldn't be in awe of this person's cognitive dissonance, but I sort of am.
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Not to argue FOR god or anything, but I just wanted to point out something that most people don't realize: the current science is that bacteria probably evolved its antibiotic resistance millions of years before man was even on the scene. It turns out when we get things from nature to make into antibiotics, we're picking things that bacteria already had to deal with a long time ago (or different versions of it).
The theory is that there are these antibiotic resistant bacteria already floating around out there. It's just that in the absence of antibiotics, their resistance doesn't really give them much benefit. But when you dose a larger population of antibiotic resistant and non-resistant bacteria with an antibiotic, they most definitely have an advantage. Suddenly, the % of resistant ones are much greater. But the real problem is that bacteria are so horny. They swap DNA like it's going out of style. Not only through conjugation, but also via viruses and by just sucking up random DNA they find floating around like the world's least discerning hoarder.
What that means is that if you don't take all your antibiotics, not only do you increase the ratio of the original resistant bacteria, but you leave behind some non-resistant ones that then fuck themselves immune. So, umm, yeah, take all your antibiotics if you absolutely have to have them in the first place.
All of this was just to say that antibiotic resistance isn't the mutation-fest that we used to think of. Those mutations probably happened a long time ago. Now it's just all about the shareware.
Still, the best case for evolution is the London Underground Mosquito, a genetically distinction species of mosquito that split off from the above ground population because of the unique environment of the London tunnels.
Catholicism has actually kind of been under the gun in America from the beginning. It took JFK to calm the worst of the suspicions that every Catholic was just a sleeper agent, waiting for a hot slice of papal bull to take up arms and seize everything for Rome. Not that they're gone entirely, mind you.
Creationism isn't a "screwball hardliner" position. It's a "we want to keep our privileges" position, taken by the mainstream preachers and followers of many Protestant denominations. They're advancing the long-debunked idea that the Bible has an unambiguously literal interpretation so they can own other people as property at least stop normal people from marrying property people tell you to agree with them or go to Hell, so that Uncle Sam never takes away their precious tax-exempt status.
Again, I'm not arguing against either mutations or evolution. Just to be clear. I mean, how else would those resistant bacteria I talked about have gotten the resistance genes to begin with, sans some sort of non-scientific creationism explanation. But those resistant bacteria are already out there, so it would seem like it's much more efficient for the non-resistant bacteria to simply get resistance from them instead of via the slower process of mutation.
Thanks for the reply, btw. It made me interested in looking up more of this stuff. I always wind up going down rabbitholes when posting stuff like this outside of my field, as I did before posting the other one. This time I found a neat paper that talks about mutations and horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Apparently, ALL tuberculosis resistance is purely from mutation and not from HGT from existing resistant bugs. So I definitely should have caveated my other post. Again, it's not my field so even with trying to fact check before posting, I can likely be talking out my ass.
Uh it hurts if creationism is being taught as science in school (or actual scientific fact is being semantically weakened, like in the comic). More widely accepted anti-science beliefs mean more anti-science attitudes and policy, e.g. "hurr, global warming isn't real because winter exists, jack up the carbon emissions!"
Telling someone that they're factually wrong, even if you do it in an asinine or smug way, does not in any way, shape or form equate with bigotry.
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To add to what KalTorak said, it hurts everyone because often policy needs to be based on science. If, instead, you say that belief in an unscientific alternative is somehow on equal footing, you undermine that approach. You start basing policy on, basically, someone's opinion. The current administration is a prime example of that, and it's not going well.
It's smug to insist that schools teach the truth?
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You're not talking out your ass at all, what you say is true in a great many cases, bacteria are really good at horizontal gene transfer. But bacteria are also incredibly good at reinventing the wheel. Short generations, and there's a hypothesis (unproven as far as I know) that they have worse transcription enzymes than eukaryotes so generate more mutations.
Repeat that process often enough, and with overuse of antibiotics meaning more bacteria are exposed but not successfully targeted, and you reach the point where 'the weakest' are now resistant or have reached the point of immunity to common antibiotics.
Evolution in process.
There's nothing wrong with wanting your tax dollars to go to an education that doesn't undermine the validity of science in the pursuit of not hurting someone's feelings. Also Bill Nye has contributed to the Boeing 747, Mars rover and has helped better educate millions of kids. Not sure how he is smug, but he can be as smug as he likes with those credentials.
Because eventually these people vote? And breed?
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The comic is about unscientific beliefs being given equal treatment to scientific theory in science curriculum, but an individual's beliefs can absolutely negatively affect you when they are a decision or policy maker. It's hardly pathetic or pedantic to be vocally concerned about STEM education being eroded by attrition.
Well, no. It's basically the same problem. Not caring if others believe it or if it is taught in school is the problem. This needs to be taunt in school to students as a fact. Details of which can change over time, but students need to leave school believing in (and understanding) evolution.
As others have gone into detail about, the lack of comprehension/belief in science is causing real-world problems today.
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I came here to ask a relatively simple question, but after reading five pages of this stuff, I gotta say:
1. It boggles my mind that this discussion even a thing.
2. A BIG part of the problem is that schools, in general, don't teach people how to think. The bulk of our education is based on rote memorization. Understanding is not required. Kids aren't (initially) taught how multiplication works, they are given a "times table" and told to memorize it. I distinctly recall that in second grade that my classmates thought I was a Wizard or something because I could figure out multiplication with numbers larger than 12 - our scholastic "times table" only went to 12x12=144 and anything beyond that was arcane Black Magic (tm). Of course, they completely failed to connect the dots we were actually taught how to multiply - I had already been flagged as the "smart kid" and thus it was to remain for my entire scholastic years. When understanding a concept is "too hard", many people simply allowed to fall back on the rote memorized simplified versions that are, by their very nature, incomplete and inadequate to be used in real-world situations. People often say "I'm not good at math", and yet those very same people might be working in a billing department or a Tax Service. Because their simplistic (memorized) Math Rules are "good enough". Heck, when actual math mistakes are made, people often fall back on "Well, I'm not a mathematician. How am I supposed to catch/fix/resolve that error?" The same thing happens All. The. Time. in multiple disciplines. "I'm not a scientist, but..." and "I'm not a meteorologist, but...". And yet if someone were to say "I'm not a priest or a clergyman, but..." very few religious people would accept that!
3. The actual question that I wanted to ask was this: Has anyone head of the rules for the "Toblotto" variant of Toblero? My google fu has failed to find anything and as a non-beer drinker I'd like to introduce this game at our next Game Night.
I wish Montessori education was more embraced in this country. I'm fortunate to be able to shell out for my kids to go to one that goes through junior high. They teach kids to think and figure out the answers for themselves. They also teach math in a very practical, visual way with beads chains, squares, cubes, and just a whole lot of other stuff that'd blow you away if you look it up. It's hard to believe that most of it was designed over a century ago.
My 6 year old doesn't have homework (well, he's supposed to help make his lunch and read). He doesn't get grades or take tests. He just learns how to learn.
Of course, in this country we could probably fuck up trying to make Montessori the standard curriculum.
I think they went into it at one point in the latest Acquisitions Intoxicated video.
Honestly, I can admire that he put all that into words, but I just don't bother the moment somebody goes, "I am this smart and have this degree and have read books," because at this point they're not really listening to you. You can sensibly point that this is all an appeal to authority, but at that point, the other guy is just comparing statuses and that just feels like an exhausting and pointless uphill battle.
That's not bigotry.
And one of my major pet peeves is that people feel that belief is fashion. But not just any kind of fashion. It's a sacred and inviolable expression of your individuality and may as well be your immortal soul.
It's a really fucking shitty attitude, and I hate it. Belief shouldn't be something you adopt because it makes it easy to get accepted into social circles or because it makes you comfortable. It should be adopted because it's informative.
Since you treat it as the former and not the latter, you leap right to the accusation of bigotry. To you, it's an identity and you demand respect for belief's own sake. Not on any provable merit.
*sigh*
There was a time when I would have said "Hey, man, sure. Whatever you want. Your life; your choice. Believe the hell out of that nonsense."
Now my tolerance for ignorance has manifest itself as a looming thunderhead.
I feel like I'm ice-skating uphill trying to explain reality to people who don't live in it.
"You're just trying to belittle my choices and my faith."
No. No, I'm not. I just wish religious people approached faith with the same scrutiny that the scientific community holds for its theories. Unfortunately it's the purview of many religions to encourage blind belief with the consequence for questioning faith being some variety of eternal punishment. Lovely.
It's especially ironic considering they loudly demand "tolerance" for their own beliefs, which in reality translates to demands to be the sole deciders of social policy, while also insisting that allowing people of other religions, sexual orientations or in some extreme cases, skin color, to even exist in their vicinity is intolerance towards them. Willfull ignorance is not a civil right, but whenever you point this out to anyone, they just use one of the theocratic hellholes in the third world or Middle East as examples of how much worse it could be, like it's an accomplishment to be slightly less horrible than you could be.