# I Hate New-Agers More Than Creationists **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 16, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992 "2009-10-16T04:25:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/101 "2009-10-17T17:38:04Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > It’s pretty much bullshit to declare that you must be right unless someone else can disprove you in a specific method of your choosing. Although, that IS a pretty elegant summation of the ID mindset. ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/102 "2009-10-17T17:38:16Z")
Oh, just to answer the actual thread, I always assumed that their vegetarianism would make New Agers weak, and therefore less of a threat than creationists. On the other hand, if New Agers continue thin their own numbers this way, then all we’re seeing is evolution in action, and your descendants may be rid of them. Creationists, on the other hand, are breeding like flies and, as their principles against evolution only apply until one of them gets sick and needs a treatment developed by evil scientists that believe in evolution, we can only hope for education to overcome them. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/103 "2009-10-17T19:01:17Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > Why don’t you provide some sort of cite to your assertion instead? You’re the one making this claim, you prove it. It’s pretty much bullshit to declare that you must be right unless someone else can disprove you in a specific method of your choosing. To be fair, he’s responding to the assertion that it’s necessary to accept evolution in order to do anything even remotely related to biology. Of course, saying that 95% of biology can be done without touching on evolution goes a step beyond simply challenging an assertion, so. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/104 "2009-10-17T19:52:09Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union was imposed by force because the Communists didn’t like Darwinism. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Marx, Engels, and Trotsky were frank admirers of Darwin and his theory of evolution. Engels picked up a copy of _The Origin of Species_ when it first appeared in 1859 and had [this](http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/letters/59_12_11.htm) to say scarcely a month later: > [@](#): > > Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done. Never before has so grandiose an attempt been made to demonstrate historical evolution in Nature, and certainly never to such good effect. Two years later, in the middle of writing Vol. 1 of _Capital_ - a copy of which he sent to Darwin, inscribed “on the part of his sincere admirer” - Marx comments on Darwin [thus](http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/letters/61_01_16.htm): > [@](#): > > Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle. This was no passing fancy, either; Trotsky, writing on [dialectical materialism](http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/12/abc.htm) almost eighty years later in 1939, said: > [@](#): > > Darwinism, which explained the evolution of species through quantitative transformations passing into qualitative, was the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organic matter. And here is Lenin, at the [very beginning](http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1894/friends/01.htm) of his political career in 1894: > [@](#): > > …Darwin put an end to the view of animal and plant species being unconnected, fortuitous, “created by God” and immutable, and was the first to put biology on an absolutely scientific basis… Lysenkoism didn’t arise in the Soviet Union because of generalized Communist ideological antipathy to Darwin’s theories, but because Stalin was a fucking criminal and a BINO. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/105 "2009-10-17T20:41:46Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > In the interests of simplicity, why not just hate stupid people? Stupid people can’t handle complexity. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/106 "2009-10-17T20:45:45Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > I’m not sure this is the case. In my view, when people talk about needing to understand and accept evolution, they’re not talking about the whole specific science behind it, but the base concept, the paradigm if you will (my own paraphrase): “Over time, a species will change, usually with a predisposition toward survival.” That’s not the best summation possible, but it’s the best I can come up with. It is the concept that Intelligent Design disagrees with, and it is the concept that successful biological science is based on. > > Understanding that concept is what allows people to breed specific types of animals and plants and to breed for certain valued traits within them. It allows people to understand virii and how to combat them. It helped us get a hold on what uses specific body parts are for and thus allowed us to make informed choices on nutrition and medicine. > > Hell, if you want to stretch the concept it also provides insight into corporate culture, just as a non-biological example. In a culture that demands and rewards aggressive sales tactics, for example, you’re going to find that the successful employees are aggressive jerks who know how to push a sale. Timid or even merely relaxed, easy-going individuals will be unable to compete. Accepting that this is true is pretty much accepting evolution. > > Evolutionary biology is a pretty specific field and you can do good work without ever really touching on it. But the basic concept is what most people are talking about when they say much of science really can’t happen without accepting it. Similarly, you’re not going to get very far in the physical sciences if you don’t accept the basic concept of gravity, that two objects share an attraction. We would not have artificial satellites without that concept. Competition is only a part of Darwinian evolution. There is no mutation. It’s a very good analogy, though. I mostly agree with you. > [@lissener](#): > > Wow. That’s not even the point. Obviously I’ve participated in the hijack just as much as you. You still haven’t read the thread. I’m sure your mother loves you very much and hope you’ll have good supper tonight. > [@lissener](#): > > For what it’s worth, **Aji** , until you insisted on claiming credit for it, I thought _I_ had started the hijack. So every post you make is further evidence that you haven’t read the thread. > > And I’m ignoring your retarded challenge. The evidence that’s relevant to this discussion is objective and established. You can’t discuss the issue based on that, so you create some absurd “challenge” because the actual evidence is against you. Another perfect example of a complete lack of understanding of how the scientific method works. Any experiment to prove or disprove a theory–or, as you call it, a “challenge”–has to be suggested by, and relevant to, the subject at hand. Calling it a challenge and dictating by fiat that my refusal to take it up proves something doesn’t make it probative, or even relevant. > > Here’s a challenge for you: if you can stand on your head, and spin yourself around like a top, and sing “Stairway to Heaven” backwards, then I’m wrong and you’re right. > > Howbout you take my challenge and I’ll take yours? HIJACK: Whatever makes you happy. CHALLENGE: I detect the presence of domestic fowl. Your refusal doesn’t prove I’m right, it only proves your inability to rise to it even though you say it’s so essential to know evolution and I imagine you could put your money where your mouth was. Classic cyber-tough guy YOUR CHALLENGE: Sorry , first come first serve…poor thing, I’m crazy and retarded and you still can beat a very simple question. > [@waterj2](#): > > Why don’t you provide some sort of cite to your assertion instead? You’re the one making this claim, you prove it. It’s pretty much bullshit to declare that you must be right unless someone else can disprove you in a specific method of your choosing. It was a number with no expectation of real accuracy. I wasn’t hoping it’d get published in Science. A method of my chosing of course, but it’s so simple I didn’t think the brigth progressive minds could not rise to something so vrey simple. You can’t even accuse me of dodging. > [@Vihaga](#): > > Not really. Yes, it does mutate, but mutations that result in it becoming less responsive to treatment and therefore more likely to be alive after a treatment has been given, well, that’s natural selection. > > I’m a biologist, too, and without accepting the idea of evolution, or at least working within its rules while pretending it doesn’t exist, I can’t do shit. The comparative research we do on spinal cord injury is useless, because without evolution, rat spinal cords have no reason to be a model for human diseases. When I take neural stem cells and use developmental pathways that have been discovered in other species to replicate that development in human-derived cells, I’m using data that could not have been obtained if evolution weren’t true. It pervades nearly everything our lab does, from creating antibiotic resistant transgenic bacteria, to modifying viruses to survive and express the proteins we want in vivo, to the comparative behavioral studies we perform. > > Without the basic idea that pathways are conserved because of our common ancestors and that species are related to one another to greater or lesser degrees because of evolution, almost nothing we do makes any sense whatsoever. If my answer were “_God decided to make His creatures similar in many awe-inspiring ways to help us save lives_” I could see the point of the spinal-chord research you do without Wallace and stem-cell without Darwin. It’d not very scientific, but you would still do the resaerch and get the results. Your kind of research is the kind that accept Evolution as an axiom, but don’r really use it anymore. If you know that, say, guinea pig reitnas work like hyuman retinas you KNOW (because it’s tru) that common ancesntry and evolution give you the reason; but in the actual research you already know that so it’s no worry for you. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/107 "2009-10-17T21:23:01Z")
Dude. If you can’t address the specific, concrete issues relevant to the discussion, and instead invent some stupid, irrelevant challenge–“I can’t make my case, but here’s a hoop for you to jump through!”–WTF? And you’re the only one who doesn’t see that this only makes YOU look stupid? You refuse to understand the basic facts underlying this discussion: that practically none of the knowledge that a modern biologist has would exist without an understanding of evolution; that many of the processes he deals with require an understanding of evolution; and that there’s no way in hell to get far enough in your biological education to call yourself a “physiologist” without gaining an understanding of evolution. It’s exactly the same thing as asking if someone can be an engineer who builds bridges without “believing” in the laws of physics. Only by the most bizarre and retarded internet message board logic–“See, there’s the guy, he’s an engineer, he designs bridges, but see aliens zap his brain and suddenly he doesn’t believe in the laws of physics; can he still go through the motions of his job?”–that’s how retarded your position is. If people refuse to “rise” (if that’s the word; I say not) to your hilariously irrelevant challenge, it’s because it’s completely obvious that your “challenge” is nothing more than a distraction from the fact that you’ve painted yourself into a corner and your “argument” doesn’t have a leg to stand on. And what makes this all especially entertaining is that this all stems from your refusal to simply admit that you misread, or failed to read, a part of the thread. Unless you’re a troll and you’re just doing this as an exercise to see how long you can keep some idiot like me typing at you. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/108 "2009-10-17T21:33:44Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Sorry to burst your bubble, but Marx, Engels, and Trotsky were frank admirers of Darwin and his theory of evolution. And weren’t around when Lysenkoism became prominent. Ideologies do change over time, you know. > [@Olentzero](#): > > Lysenkoism didn’t arise in the Soviet Union because of generalized Communist ideological antipathy to Darwin’s theories, but because Stalin was a fucking criminal and a BINO. “BINO”? No; it arose because it fit the Communist ideal of the time that they were reshaping the people of the USSR into a new kind of human, “New Soviet Man”. Darwinism didn’t allow for the transmission of acquired characteristics, which meant reshaping human nature by manipulating society and propaganda wouldn’t work, at least not for a very long time. Plus, Gregor Mendel was a priest and Nazi Germany was into a twisted version of Darwinism; both tainted Darwinian evolution in Soviet eyes. So it was therefore declared against Communism. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/109 "2009-10-17T22:04:03Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “BINO”? I think it’s that stuff you take before eating cabbage so you don’t get gas. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/110 "2009-10-17T22:09:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And weren’t around when Lysenkoism became prominent. Ideologies do change over time, you know. > > “BINO”? After a few moments’ thought, I have deduced that that means “Bolshevist in Name Only,” in parallel to _RINO_–“Republican in Name Only.” Olentzero is one of those people confused about the purpose of written communication. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/111 "2009-10-18T03:22:05Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Stupid people can’t handle complexity. Tack on “the rest is commentary” somewhere and you will have done for all recorded human history what [Hillel’s synopsis](http://judaism.about.com/library/2_history/leaders/bldef-p_hillel.htm) did for Jewish laws. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/112 "2009-10-18T03:34:16Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > If my answer were “_God decided to make His creatures similar in many awe-inspiring ways to help us save lives_” I could see the point of the spinal-chord research you do without Wallace and stem-cell without Darwin. It’d not very scientific, but you would still do the resaerch and get the results. > Your kind of research is the kind that accept Evolution as an axiom, but don’r really use it anymore. If you know that, say, guinea pig reitnas work like hyuman retinas you KNOW (because it’s tru) that common ancesntry and evolution give you the reason; but in the actual research you already know that so it’s no worry for you. Okay, so let’s presume, for the sake of argument, that you’re right. (Not that you are, but I’d rather not touch that argument). Next question: why on earth would all the scientists be utterly incurious and apathetic about the question of biological development? They would have no reason to–if biologists are doing research that presumes similarities between animals (as _you_ specified), you’d better believe that they’d be investigating the underlying reasons as to why they’re similar in the first place! Even if evolution wasn’t necessary, it would still be discovered, and applied. What you are arguing for is, quite simply, the validity of a stupid hypotheicalLand. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/113 "2009-10-18T03:54:23Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > Okay, so let’s presume, for the sake of argument, that you’re right. (Not that you are, but I’d rather not touch that argument). Next question: why on earth would all the scientists be utterly incurious and apathetic about the question of biological development? They would have no reason to–if biologists are doing research that presumes similarities between animals (as _you_ specified), you’d better believe that they’d be investigating the underlying reasons as to why they’re similar in the first place! Even if evolution wasn’t necessary, it would still be discovered, and applied. What you are arguing for is, quite simply, the validity of a stupid hypotheicalLand. Who said they would be incurious? I said that, for a creationist, his curiosity would be satisfied. For that gigantically great super majority who are not creationsits they would continue their research. But even in the "worst"case scenario (i.e. most or all biologist suddenly become creationists) they would still be able to recognise the similarities and work with them. Are there creationists who deny the biological similiarites between living creatures? If I were doing research on a new organ transplant technique and I were using pigs to test it, and I saw in my practice and that of others that it worked, why wouls I need the knowledge (in purely practical terms) that humans and pigs evolved from a 200 million year old rat?). I’ve read my fair share of biological and medical research, and most of them didn’t mention evolution. Many of them ASSUMED evolution but really didn’t need it. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/114 "2009-10-18T04:43:39Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Competition is only a part of Darwinian evolution. There is no mutation. It’s a very good analogy, though. I mostly agree with you. Where do you think the competing strains _come_ from? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/115 "2009-10-18T05:14:41Z")
New Agers may be aggressively ignorant, but they seem pretty laid back about the whole thing. Great spirit? Crystal vibrations? Whatever! They’re also usually OK with drugs and loose morales in general. In other words, fun folk. At least in my experience. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/116 "2009-10-18T07:13:29Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Olentzero is one of those people confused about the purpose of written communication. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously! Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo! What’s so hard to understand about that?! You do deduce largely correctly, however; it was a small attempt at a joke playing on other Dopers’ usage of RINO and DINO. (‘Bolshevik’ instead of ‘Bolshevist’.) Trotsky was around (though not in the Soviet Union) when Lysenkoism arose, and to offer the praise of Darwin he did shortly before the end of his life when Lysenkoism ruled the USSR indicates, to me at least, that its acceptance was not a change in Communist ideology but a rejection of it. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/117 "2009-10-18T19:25:21Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Where do you think the competing strains _come_ from? I’ll go out on a limb…competition? * * * As to the OP, what I most hate about the New-Agers is how not only they ix from every philophy, religion and traditional medicine, but how the do it in sometimes contradictory ways, like using colours an candles to call Christian angels while praying to a Buddha statue. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/118 "2009-10-18T19:27:48Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > I’ll go out on a limb…competition? Wow. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/119 "2009-10-18T19:30:57Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > I’ve read my fair share of biological and medical research, and most of them didn’t mention evolution. Many of them ASSUMED evolution but really didn’t need it. Yes. BECAUSE evolution is assumed, they DON’T need to mention it. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992/120 "2009-10-18T19:55:46Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > Yes. BECAUSE evolution is assumed, they DON’T need to mention it. 100000000%agreed [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-new-agers-more-than-creationists/513992.md?page=7)