Interbane wrote:I question everything I believe.

Then you must, logically, question your own ideas in the areas in which you disagree with Stahrwe. Which means that you must allow the possibility that you could be wrong and he could be right.

Interbane wrote:On the other hand, the basis for disagreeing with Stahrwe has it's roots on a lower level of my belief system. Over the course of many years, my use of logic has shown inductively to always yield truthful results, if used properly. This is corroborated by the entire width and breadth of the intellectual community. When Stahrwe repeatedly and often commits logical fallacies, uses faulty logic, or non-sequitur arguments, there is not much room for uncertainty that he is wrong.

A sad reliance on logic and claim that it always yields truthful results, corroborated by the entire width and breadth of the intellectual community is clearly wrong. Perhaps he neglected to consider the heights. The Münchhausen Trilemma demonstrates it is impossible to prove any truth even in the fields of logic and mathematics. So, if Interbane always finds the truth with perfect certainty using logic, he must not understand logic. Additionally, one must understand that pure truth cannot be found using logic.

Squelch wrote:

johnson1010 wrote:A sad state of affairs./

It's only good to deny people the right to speak against science if you're really, absolutely sure that science has it 100% correct on the subject they're speaking against.

Kevin wrote: did anyone here (or on the clip which admittedly I only browsed through) actually advocate denying anyone the right to speak out? I just don't see what prompted your defense of free speech. It's one thing to say that so-and-so is foolish, stupid, backwards, and so on for not believing such-and-such in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I think this is what has been going on here. But it's a far worse thing to advocate banning stupidity!

kevin wrote:I appreciate stahrwe as much as the next person! He could be defending the continued use of harmful pesticides one moment and going on about how evolution is just a theory the next. A person can do worse than to think about these things! (He told me once that I made a perfect post!) ~ ~ and I do love me JS Mill ~ ~ but it's OK to say stahrwe is all wet!

johnson1010 wrote: http://gizmodo.com/5835389/the-republic ... es-science
Why do republicans hate knowing things?

Sam Biddle wrote:One of the two viable political parties in the United States has an institutional agenda against scientific fact. That's very bad.

The GOP's refusal to believe the world's smartest people isn't accidental. It's smart strategy. As the party of business, the GOP has to oppose scientific findings that threaten business. That means denying climate change—because the reform to fix it would cost corporations money. That means pushing for the abolition of the EPA—because environmental regulations cost corporations money. In order to fight for a society in which smokestacks flow freely and all slimy shit in christendom can be dumped into lakes, the science that says these things are bad and dangerous has to be suppressed. Or at least opposed and dismissed. It's a typical tactic across the GOP gamut, to wave off science as silly, contrived, made-up, voodoo, and various other demeaning adjectives. It's been this way for decades, but with the infiltration of Tea Party loons like Bachmann, the blinders are strapped on extra tight—and non-business worm-cans like creationism are popped open too.

By not having to take an issue seriously, the GOP can remain unengaged with the empirical world.