Fuck You Conservative Stupid-Making Machine

My father-in-law is not a stupid man. He is a highly placed engineer and aside from being a little too Catholic (he refuses to divorce even though they utterly detest each other) he has no real cognitive problems I know of.

Until today that is. My lovely wife is arguing on the phone with him as I write this because he has decided not to believe in Evolution. He used to.

This isn’t because of his religion, since even Catholics for all their problems accept evolution. But because as he gets older he breathes right-wing drivel so much he has become skeptical of it. And thinks both sides should be taught. Both sides. As if there is any evidence for the other one.

Fuck you right-wing of America, fuck you right in your puckered ignorant ass. You’ve turned an intelligent man into a fucking drone shambling around while vomiting your stupidity virus.

Here’s the thing, I think there should be conservatives in the debate. I think liberalism without a conservative check could go too far. But the right in America isn’t about debate any more. It’s about histrionics and brainwashing. Instead of debating what to do about Global Warming they pretend it doesn’t exist. Instead of debating what to do about immigration they stomp their feet and scream that no progress will be had until we have a fence. Instead of accepting science they deny it so it can lever in their bullshit, unconstitutional desire for a state religion.

Blergh. Tonight I mourn for a man who’s brain was once alive, yet is now, not so much.

This is why I mostly talk about the weather with my family.

It’s quite a technical theory when you look into it. If he knows nothing of mitochondria, or Mendal, or he hasn’t even read origin of the species, then he’s not qualified to have an opinion about evolution. You should impress that fact on him.

It’s like asking a 4-year old’s opinion on the relative merits of gas vs diesel engines - they may have an opinion or a belief, but why would you pay any attention to it?

Not trying to butt my big fat nose in your beeswax, Lobo, but how old is this guy? You could be a puppy Doper, and yer FIL would only be on the verge of later youth. Or you might be my age, and your father in law went to high school with God.

Just sayin’, maybe a word to the wife, keep an eye out for any other odd changes in mental behavior. Not that I know anything much, or have some expertise to rattle your cage with.

I don’t believe this is a very helpful way of looking at it.

I don’t believe, for example, that you need to have read the Origin of Species to have an informed opinion on the validity of the theory of evolution. I’ve read the book, but that was more to get some perspective on intellectual history and the rise of late 19th-century naturalism than to arrive at an understanding of evolution itself. Had i not read it, i’d still feel pretty comfortable, and not at all intellectually dishonest, believing in evolution.

Similarly, i’m well aware of who Mendel (i assume that’s who you meant?) was, and his significance in this debate, but i don’t think that this is necessary information to sustain confidence in the scientific support for evolution.

Let’s face it, the investigation of evolution has moved well past Darwin. I’d even go so far as to say that someone who has only read The Origin of Species, without following more recent discussions, is still a long, long way behind the cutting-edge scientific thinking on the matter. Part of the reason i’m comfortable with my position on evolution is precisely because the modern community of scientific scholars has concluded that it’s a valid way of explaining the development of life on our planet.

Yes, i know about Kuhnian arguments regarding the strictures of “normal science” and the revolutionary impact of new paradigms, and i’m well aware that science isn’t infallible, but when a theory or idea has as broad a scientific consensus behind it as evolution does, i feel reasonably confident in supporting that theory, even if i’m no expert myself.

Has it ever occurred to you that the right in this country is simply not allowed to engage in the debate?

For decades and decades the left has met conservatives and conservative philosophy, morals and lifestyle with scorn, ridicule, hatred and anger. Liberals are so convinced of the moral righteousness of their position, their intellectual superiority, and the stupidity and/or evil of anyone who disagrees with them, that they uttely cannot tolerate and don’t tolerate any sort of reasonable dialog. Do you have doubts as to the constitutionality of affirmative action or its consequences in the workplace? Then you’re a racist bigot! Do you dispute allegations that apart from reproduction, there is no difference between men and women whatsoever and no job exists that a man can do which a woman can’t? Then you’re a sexist bastard! Do you honestly feel that it is outside the proper role of government to redistribute income? Then you’re a greedy motherfucker with an “I got mine, you get yours” attitude! Do you honestly feel that private health care delivers a better and more immediate quality of health care than would a government-run system? Then you’re a heartless bastard who wants to see poor people dying in the street! Are you unconvinced about global warming and unsure whether it’s manmade or not, and whether if it is if we know what to do about it, and if it is and what we need to do about it will the rest of the world’s population go along and work to reduce it? Then you’re a greedy right-wing asshole more concered that industry make profits than about saving the world…either that or you’re just too stupid to understand the science. Are you middle-aged and decades away from school and completely divorced from the science involved in evolution? Then of course you’re just a stupid, backward, mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger!

There is simply no way to have a productive discussion with people of a liberal mindset on the national level (as opposed to somewhere like here on the Dope where it does happen on rare occasion). So in a very real sense, politics has become all out war where you choose your side, dig in deep and fight with all you’ve got…and may the best man win! This may be happening with your father; he may have just become so disgusted with the antics of the left that he’s found himself gravitating to the extremes of the other end just because there’s no place else to go.

And I would point out that you, Lobohan, are among the worst on this board when it comes to engaging in this type of behavior. There may have been times when I’ve seen you debate something with a conservative without calling him stupid and/or a moron, but I can’t think of one if I have.

So the result, as is usually the case when liberalism predominates, is one of unintended consequences. When you shut down debate and the give-and-take that goes with it, you create a atmosphere where the other side is driven to extremes in order to combat you. And then your side, seeing that extremism on the other side, reacts accordingly and we eventually arrive where we are today, where you basically have two sides that hate each other and have become determined to defeat the other at all costs.

Time and time again I watch clips of shows like William F. Buckley’s Firing Line and come upon comments wondering why we don’t have intelligent, dignified discussions of opposing viewpoints anymore, and in my opinion it’s the result of the name-calling, scorn and hatred which has been the standard operating practice of the left since the anti-war days of the late sixties, combined with an overall breakdown in societal mores also caused by the left and which I’ve talked about before.

So really, you have no one to blame but yourselves.

Spelling mistake - embarrassing.

I was up to date with the theory of evolution 15 years ago, when I was studying archaeology and biology (genetics) at university. I looked at it from many angles over a period of 5 or 6 years and was extremely comfortable with it.

I’m not so confident that I’m up to date with current theories though, so I rarely get involved in any high-level discussion of it. Anyway, what I saw in common with the evolution doubters was that none of them had ever studied it. They didn’t know anything - just coffee-table arguments they read in some book like The Neck of the Giraffe.

In any event, I’m not comfortable with people taking a position on something just because the weight of scientific opinion sways that way - they should read up themselves and make their own choice and until then they shouldn’t profess to ‘believe’ or ‘disbelieve’.

That’s not a big leap.

“Much of what Darwin said is, in detail, wrong.”

Guess who?

Richard Dawkins

And Starving Artist, you’re a turd. I’m increasingly seeing conservatives making arguments that boil down to “yeah, we may be wrong, but we’re gonna dig our heels in and hold our ground anyway, 'cause we’ll be damned if we ever cave in to LIBRULS!”

Thank you.

No problem; I honestly mean it.

I don’t know if you’ve always been this much of a dumb asshole and I just never noticed you before, or you’ve recently turned it up to 11, but your posts have been showing a consistent lack of a grasp on reality lately, and you’re talking a lot of paranoid shit without backing it up. I wish I grew up in this fantasy world of yours where liberalism was the dominant hegemonic force in the United States. It sounds awesome.

I know that. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

Nah, actually I don’t post nearly as much as I used to. Nor are my posts generally as long as they used to be. I’ve cut back probably 95% or more from four or five years ago.

When you look at the drug, crime, STD, single-parent and abortion statistics, and at the way people dress, talk and behave these days, and when you look at the size and scope of government compared with just a few decades ago, there is no doubt whatsoever that liberalism has been the dominant hegemonic force in the U.S. over the last forty years or so.

It’s the only honest way of looking at it, though.

I respect my mother. She’s intelligent, reasonably well-educated, and has had plenty of life experience relevant to a host of situations. She is not, however, computer-literate by my standards. She doesn’t know anything about how device drivers work, or what DMA is and how it relates to bus mastering, or why the ARM ISA defines Thumb opcodes. I’m not competent to put in an IV, she’s not competent to implement a finite-state machine in Erlang.

A while ago, before she decided to just buy an iMac, she wanted to get Photoshop running on a Compaq we bought before anyone knew Steve Irwin shouldn’t go swimming with the manta rays. She was convinced that, since the box said it was compatible with Windows 2000, it would work on Windows Me because Me means ‘Millennium Edition’ and 2000 was the millennium. I actually had to argue the point with her; it came down to me saying “You don’t know enough to disagree with me about this.”

I was right. I’m still right, especially about that last bit: She doesn’t know enough about the history of Windows to debate whether a software package that says it’s compatible with 2000 but not 98 will work on Me, simply because if she did know enough there would have been no debate. It’s an objective fact that it can’t possibly work, and objective facts are not open to debate.

I’ll repeat that last bit: Objective facts are not open to debate.

There is something that follows from that: You need to know the facts to debate their interpretation.

That follows because if you don’t know the facts and refuse to learn them, you cannot possibly understand the interpretation. You end up creating straw men in your mind. When you’ve knocked those straw men down, you think you’ve disproven something but you’ve really just invented a nonsensical argument against something nobody who knows anything about the field would believe.

This is the root of the whole moronic notion of ‘Darwinism’, or the idea that evolution-supporters believe in Darwin in the same way Christians believe in Christ, and the notion that if they can poke holes something Darwin said over a century ago they’ve really taken the wind out of our sails. (This is related to the more troubling thing I think I’ve noticed: The inability to understand that some people live without faith. The people who really bang on the ‘Darwinism’ drum are apparently convinced that anyone who rejects their faith must be equally fundie in some non-Christian (i.e., Satanic) faith, never realizing that their faith-driven worldview is not universal.)

So, yeah, you do need to know biology to debate biological theories. You don’t need an expert’s knowledge to debate the basics, but you do need some knowledge to debate at all.

You say all this and don’t for one second acknowledge the other side. I’m an outsider looking in and from what I see and read there’s 2 of you in this. There is vilification of the GOP and the right by Dems and the left and vica versa but I’ve got the say that from what I’ve seen over the last 10-15 years it’s been your side that has been on overdrive with regard to this. The level of anger and sheer bullheadedness is quite something.

Your opinion is obviously different than mine but to not recognise that your side is at the very least been equal in blame for the current political climate of obstruction and vilification shows your complete one sided view with regard to politics and leads people to dismiss possible valuable input you may have.

No, no, I think you’ve missed his point.

You see, not only are your actions your fault, but their actions are your fault, too.

This is possibly the weirdest thing I’ve read on this subject. “You’re mean to us so we’re going to embrace illogicality, ignorance and stupidity.”

I’m an outsider, but if you look at the left/right debate in pretty much all other democratic countries, debate is still very polarising and can also be quite nasty, but the conservatives don’t seem to have embraced the lunacy that your guys have. Why doesn’t your argument stack up outside your borders? It almost seems like a smokescreen tactic - whenever debate arises, try to change the nature of the debate, like a freshman philosophy student trying to win an argument.

In the old days:

Liberal: all pibbles should be painted maroon!
Conservative: no, all pibbles should be painted umber!

These days:

Liberal: all pibbles should be painted maroon!
Conservative: do pibbles really exist? Is maroon even a color? Forget about umber - painting anything is immoral!

snip.

This is the telling passage right here.

SA you and I don’t agree on much, but I’m putting aside political stuff for this post. There are some things are objectively truthful and those things that are subjectively truthful. Science isn’t done by consensus, nor by political tradewinds. It deals in physical results that can be reproduced by anyone with the tools and knowledge to apply them in the proper manner.

That is the problem with certain conservative arguments on scientific issues. It either shows a gross misunderstanding of the nature of science and the natural world, or is a demonstration of ignorance, bullheaded stubbornness, and religious dogmatism. It isn’t up for debate, it really IS one or the other in this case. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for debate on issues like global warming, but it DOES mean that the debate has to be based in facts. The fact is that on average the planet is in a warming cycle. The debate is how much of that is due to our impact and what should we do about it. It is easier though, to deny the debate exists and radicalize the base because the debate is boring and difficult to most people. It isn’t about the facts, it’s about getting votes and selling shares. The left does this too, but when it comes to the sciences, they tend to side with the experts rather than relying on the college of “my ol’ dad always said” and the graduate school of “some bloke down the pub told me”. THe right often colours the left as intellectual ivory tower elitists, but if the elitists have the factual truth of the matter, then there isn’t really a debate. There isn’t a gentle way to correct somebody on stuff like this, and the natural reaction is to dig your heels in rather than admit ignorance on an issue. It is really, really, hard to not come off as condescending when correcting an adult on a scientific fact, particularly when it challenges a long accepted, but unproven notion.

If the right was making the argument that that evolution is a fact, but there is debate about its mechanisms and timelines and that should be taught, we’d be fine. That’s truthful, there is debate about that. If they were making the argument that alternative mythological answers be taught in social sciences I think most of us would be allright with that. That isn’t what they are asking for though. They are actively denying factual, provable reality and wishing to substitute it with a very specific set of religious myth. It isn’t about the issue for them, it’s about grabbing the religious vote. There is loads of room to argue politics without needing to make debate out of nothing. THAT is why this debate can become so rabid on both sides. On one side you have (generally liberal) people arguing for established scientific fact. On the other you have (generally right) people arguing smoke and mirrors to grab political power or insert unprovable religious myth as scientific reality.

No nukes! No nukes!

You, (and the conservatives) are right on that point. Nuclear energy us safe, and should be pursued. It is something on the Left that is held dogmatically, and should be changed. I never claimed the left didn’t have it’s share of stupid.

And yet even there the right is not on the money.

Maybe in the past but I looked at the evidence and it is clear that just on the number of people it kills in a year one should go for Nuclear power rather than Carbon emitting fuels.

The point here is that many leftists have drop the “no nukes” chant, there are indeed still some that remain but it is not in the numbers that where seen before and in a previous discussion it was clear that NIMBY was a bigger reason for the lack of development in nuclear power in the USA, the fact is that NIMBY needs more than just the ‘no nukes’ leftists to remain as a powerful opposition to new nuclear power plants, there are plenty of independents and right wingers that are also scared of nukes.

Now, there you go – this is a perfect example of the sort of intellectually dishonest quibbling that leads people to dismiss you (in both the specific and the general sense of the pronoun).

The simple fact of the matter is that, given the state of the evidence – not just today but at any time when a person currently alive might have been getting their basic education – rejection of evolution (which is not to be confused with uncertainty about this or that specific detail) is sufficient, ipso facto, to mark you as an ignoramus. Sensible people don’t pay any attention to the views of ignoramuses.