Why Hate Science?

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I'm not Paki hehe... I'm a mix Japanese/Native American/Caucasian. Indian pulao does not have goat fat and is commonly vegetarian, but there is biryani with meat! Pav bhaji is a south Indian dish made with a mix of vegetables.

I'm not too worried about it.

I think it the white robes, lab coats, gives them a cult identity. Most people see them on TV, pitching some product.

They did produce Tetra Ethel Lead, said it was safe, and cancer has been a modern thing that rose with the spread of electric power, but some guy in a lab coat said there was no connection.

They jump on the religion thing claiming all others are wrong, when asked a question about cell phone towers.

The Hired Gun, funded by someone with an interest, directed research, and we want results, gets results, and it will not be questioned till a lot of people die, grow up lead ret*d, or with flippers.

Religion has a less damaging track record.

It is the background, is the Republican or the Democrat lying? Both are.

Religion favors war, because Chaplins are Union Members.

Science will say anything that might get funded.

So we have people who want money, because they are important.

Viewed as a whole, they are not very productive, and defend it with stories of breeding peas, when the real artists were breeding flowers.

No amount of education can replace a natural talent for the work. Luther Burbank did some great works.

Science wants to turn an art into a job. They want the job even if they produce nothing, because they have a Degree, in test taking.

They all claim a pea farmer, but none claim Tetra Ethel Lead, and a thousand other products of science.

Science has not been an absolute good,

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

we need more teachers that have psychology degrees and that actually care about the kids, too. i had so many teachers that just didn't care. i even remember one calling us all "M_ther-f_cking wastes of time", then he walked out, and he never came back. "Mr. Kelly"... i was in 6th grade (US).

i was passed from grade to grade because teachers didn't want to deal with me for longer than a year, even though i didn't "get" the material we were studying. eventually that caught up with me, and in high school, i was finally admitted to a "Kidspeace" school that was arguably much worse than any inner-city steel-town school i can imagine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidspeace

i got stuck there mainly because i had drug/alcohol abuse problems and my long-running difficulties with socialization and school work. i was "restrained" (read: "sat upon") once by a very large security-guard/instructor by the name of "Tim" when i was 16. it was not fun, and i made sure it never happened again. the learning environment was awful too.. every classroom had a teacher and a therapist. the teaching was lax... at best... there was a reputation that the students were just bound for jail anyway, so what does it matter what or how they learn. i spent most of my time in there drawing or making goofy remarks with the other weird kids in the class. occasionally, we'd go out for day trips with the therapist... who would tell lude stories about sexual encounters and buy us cigarettes. i actually went back to my high school and begged to be let back in... it took a year for them to say "yes".

...so, having more teachers that are wise to what kids need, and teaching them to think rather than recite facts by rote is more accurate. i honestly don't feel that i learned much in school before going to college.

Once you take away the influence of conservative religious nutters and liberal progressive meddlers, the people left will be able to teach things the kids need to know, like reading, writing, maths, science, and critical thinking.

Instead, what we have is a mish-mash of Christian mythology battling it out with self-esteem programs while the teachers are saddled with bigger classes and more paperwork, at the same time that the bloated administrations seek to do more with less funding by reducing the number of teachers instead of cutting back on the bureaucracy.

I think school is more like daycare until you reach university. It goes on too long. Public education could easily end at Grade 11 - by that time you know if someone's academically inclined or not; Schools should spend more time teaching trades as well - they are undervalued in early education. We rely too much on schools to properly parent children; and most teacher's don't have training in psychology, which I think would be very useful.

That much I agree with. The rest of it ... not so much.

IMHO there's nothing to attack with science. Its a process that works and when right reveals the nature and workings in the universe.

The trouble is it's run by the human element, needs to be at this point and even would be if computer operated (ie. computers are still man-made and programmed, and by nature of the human element it is always prone to a priori and tautology. Unfortunately at the present time tautology and worldview is causing pseudoscience to overcome science - this time however in the name of reductive materialism. Panspermia is probably one of the most straight-forward and blunt examples of having elements of the scientific community molesting the name of science.

This I agree with, the rest, I don't understand.

Panspermia sounds plausible though (at least from the Wikipedia entry.)

What you call pseudoscience is the exact nature of what science is about. Science is evidence-based and nothing more. Spirits and souls and free will and all that do not add anything to the definition of science. On the contrary, they usually contradict it.

How does panspermia show that scientists are "moloesting science"?

Its a guess straight out of someone's backside.

i like the idea of "molesting science". sounds kind of hot, actually.

joking aside...



I am in agreement with you. you've also opened up one of my favorite subjects: the liberal anti-science movement. That makes people really angry when you bring it up.

...yes... they may not be exactly the same... but they are still believing in things that have no firm basis in reality, and passing those through channels up to people in power, where they can make the silly things that silly people believe in into silly law that we must live our now silly lives with.

...people say that the liberal anti-science lobby is less harmful than the right anti-science lobby. to a degree they are right: the harm from the left is not felt on the level of the harm from the right, but there is still harm. look at all of the postmodernist thinking in the social or "soft" sciences. this has all but ruined the names of some those sciences for a lot of people. Anthropology and Psychology, for example.

for that reason, i see no reason to let crystal-clutchers off the hook, only because they haven't yet produced a religiopolitical machine that has caused as much hurt in the world as the neo-conservatives have.

also Fnord,

... just want to know why it is you don't agree that teacher should be trained in psychology before getting their credentials. is it because of the pseudoscience in some psychology, or a different reason?

1. Pseudoscience in psychology.
2. The psychologist I dated was more manipulative than then alcoholic I married.
3. The subjective nature of the judgments made by psychologists.
4. The dismissive nature of the psychologists themselves - once you're labelled, that label follows you all through school.
5. Teachers should teach, not psychoanalyze. If a kid might have some issues, send him to the district psychologist; but don't waste valuable classroom time psychoanalyzing one kid while neglecting the others.

Its sanctioned creationism called something other than creationism. It also follows another set of what people would call god of the gaps logic from the standpoint of 'when current theories aren't working push it back further into unexaminable territory'. Its a game theists are constantly accused of playing by reductive materialists/Epicureans but it becomes a null point when Epicureans turn around and play the same game.

That's a big chunk of why I think 'science' needs to be a separate concept from the scientists themselves. Science is an ideal and in and of itself its not defileable, however when it comes to the human beings performing their own attempts at science the old maxim of garbage in garbage out is as true as ever.

I agree with point 5, but I think some basic training in spotting the signs of various disorders and illnesses should be given to teachers. Ideally they are there to teach, but in reality, they often become de facto parents. Not that the teachers should treat the problem, but they should be able to direct the child to the needed resources. (For actual treatment, I think a psychiatrist would be better than a psychologist.)

As to point 2, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of mental health specialists were manipulative - they've learned the necessary tools.