“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority…
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Proof Points:
- A school district in California has dropped a mandatory course in Geography and replaced it with a course on “Diversity and Inclusion.”
- The left celebrates idiotic memes as “science,” real science, not quite so popular.
- The left treats science as nerd cosplay.
- Histrionic leftists force out AGW skeptic for heresies against the Dogma of Climate Change.
The left claims to be “pro-science.” They also claim to be “pro-African-American.” How well has that worked out for African-Americans?
Queers for Palestine- I guess they heard about the anal jihad approval http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/08/01/This-week-in-stupid-queers-for-Palestine
While Carl Sagan is often quoted to support Libertarian ideas, I just have a sneaking suspicion that when it comes to Manmade Global Warming he would not be numbered with the skeptics, and would be berating skeptics as “deniers”.
Sagan, who always saw the really-big picture, would have denounced so-call Manmade Global Warming as junk-science…which it is.
Mother is much more complicated and unpredictable than her idiot-admirers give her credit-for.
The progs are pro-science unless the science happens to bump up against PC dogma at which point the “Science!” calls are replaced by “Burn the heretic!” calls.
I’m not so sure that Sagan would have denounced AGW as junk-science. His thinking and that of Neil deGrasse Tyson is fairly similar. Both were at least agnostic if not atheist, despite the clear existence of things which physics and evolution cannot explain, such as love.
Here is another example of Tyson’s flawed scientific thinking:
“A few years later, jury duty again. The judge states that the defendant is charged with possession of 1,700 milligrams of cocaine. It was found on his body, he was arrested, and he is now on trial. This time, after the Q&A is over, the judge asks us whether there are any questions we’d like to ask the court, and I say, “Yes, Your Honor. Why did you say he was in possession of 1,700 milligrams of cocaine? That equals 1.7 grams. The ‘thousand’ cancels with the ‘milli-’ and you get 1.7 grams, which is less than the weight of a dime.” Again I’m out on the street.”
Were I the judge I would have asked him, “How many people can be killed by 1.7 grams of botulism toxin? The weight is irrelevant, and your question places a judgement upon the evidence before the evidence is even shown. Why did you see fit to alter the viewpoint of the other jurors before the trial had even started?”
He was out on the street for very good reason. Yes, he was right, but it was not his place to interpret the evidence before the jury retires.
A man who cannot see that may not see the corruption of science in AGW. Same with Sagan. Often his quotes are used to point out the flaws in Democrat tactics today, but back when he said it, he was CLEARLY talking about Republicans. Many is the person who condemns actions on one side that they later accept on the other, and change their reasoning to fit their advocacy.
Oh, also, cocaine is a drug, and pharmacological items are, legally, given in milligrams. Tyson, being a scientist, OUGHT to have known that, yet did not apply it here. So, either he did NOT know that, which makes me wonder at his clear scientific thinking (you don’t use physics when evaluating pharmacological data) or perhaps his attempt to actually tamper with the jury’s thinking before the trial.
If Tyson can make that error, I would not put it beneath Sagan. Remember Carl Sagan’s lawsuits against Apple for first, using his name as an internal code-name for a product, then, when Sagan gave them a cease-and-desist order because he was afraid it would be seen as an endorsement, changed it to BHA for “Butt Head Astronomer” and Sagan then sued for defamation of character? Yeah, Sagan wasn’t above being unscientific and petty.
OK lets stop worshiping Tyson and realize that he might be like Obama without a teleprompter. Ice T made millions speaking in the music known as rape, on TV he delivers single lines, but when hired to narrate a 35 page young adult short story that was scheduled for an afternoon, he required 2 extra days to read it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/ice-t-recorded-and-dungeons-audiobook_n_4738871.html
“Let me read some porno or something — a sex book — I know about that.”
meant rap not rape
Throughout history, there have been cycles of scientific boom and bust. Booms coincide with new innovations in technology, permitting expansion of scientific observation and inquiry. Busts coincide with human imagination outracing scientific ability. Metallurgy was a well-respected science in classical antiquity until some genius wondered if lead could be transformed into gold. And so was born the mystical bull crap-laden pseudoscience known as alchemy. It took over a millennia for what we now call chemistry to regain any semblance of respectability.