Someone just drew to my attention the latest addition to Yahoo Answers: the “Alternative” science section.
No kidding, there is now subsection for questions on “Paranormal Phenomena”, “Parapsychology” and many other ignorant, superstitious crap. And it all comes under the banner of science.
I’m speechless.
Whatever you do, never turn on your TV. I’m perpetually blown away by the number of supposedly science-oriented channels airing all of this paranormal bullshit too. “Fighting Ignorance Since 1973”? Hell, most of the country is actively embracing it.
I’m still naive enough to feel confused whenever Fox announces “Psychic Detectives” as a non-fiction show.
Unfortunately, science in the U.S. seems to have become largely relegated to the status of a topic for geeks only. Math, too – I meet plenty of people who are not only open about being bad at math but even seem to be proud of it, as if math were something for lesser classes. I’m always astonished by this. These same people would never boast of illiteracy.
I think part of it springs from the “I’m ok, you’re ok” generation. There is a strong belief that all ideas are equally valid. The notions of factual evidence and rigorous analysis are becoming quaint. I also blame Thomas Kuhn for some of the trend. I know a number of people who read Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions for a class in college and came to the conclusion that all explanations of the world are equally true because science doesn’t really know what’s going on and the scientific community just changes its mind periodically. (Obviously, these people didn’t read Kuhn very carefully or do any serious thinking about what he wrote.) So even among the relatively well-educated, the scientific method just doesn’t carry a lot of weight.
This is the same place that publicized the Irish perpetual motion machine a few months back. Yahoo is no bastion of intelligence.
I saw a segment on some channel about this. They investigated a haunted club in england. They measured air pressure changes in the basement, and electromagnetic fields near a door way. No findings, so they concluded that it must be haunted.
I notice there are zero questions in that section - that might be a good sign.
The local news just gave credence to ‘chemtrails’. :rolleyes: