I've been watching this discussion...

John Shuey jshuey at TNC.ORG
Sat Feb 19 15:41:12 EST 2011


A lot of this discussion has to do with the poor state of science
education in the US (perhaps the only country where people will argue
without embarrassment that deism-based creation is a science).  Where
most people don't know the difference between climate and weather. Where
most people are unaware that the greenhouse effect is responsible for
this planet being habitable, and Venus being uninhabitable.   Where
statistical probabilities are so poorly understood that they are
dismissed if they don't align with personal biases. 

I'd guess that most people have never studied the basics of science
philosophy or heard of Carl Popper (not even a guess on this one) - that
the basic premise of science is that you can never "prove" anything,
just set up hypothesis to be tested to determine if they are not true.
A few people have heard of Occam's razor - but that doesn't stop them
from building convoluted if, and, or but arguments.  Nor are they aware
of the role falsified hypotheses play in refining theories (or even what
the differences between these two terms are).

These and other attributes of the US population (such as short-term
financial interests) synergize to create a population unmotivated to
explore the issue on their own - preferring to take the word of their
chosen experts - true for both sides of this issue. 

So it all adds up to cherry picking what one "expert" says to support
your views around here - because by and large, we are just too lazy to
actually learn about the issues in enough depth to draw our own
conclusions....

John Shuey


 
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