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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Republican Senate Science Committee member Marco Rubio doesn't know how old the Earth is and says it's a matter of debate - for theologians. A person like that should not be in any official position where he gets to influence policy about science. You'd imagine that a person in such a position would be scientifically literate, but apparently that's not a requirement.
Not knowing that the Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old is almost as stupid as not knowing that water is composed of Hydrogen and Oxygen, or that things fall towards the centre of mass of the planet due to gravity.
Rubio also says that schools should teach alternative "theories" about the "creation" of the Earth. I hope he also supports teaching about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and how decreace in the number of pirates causes climate change.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.Did we both just read Krugman's latest
, Best Of?
"Views Differ on Age of Planet" — that's a perfect example of the Cult of Centrism at work. "We don't understand all this sciencey stuff, so y'all just make up your minds, 'kay?"
It's the same issue with poverty. People treat it as a moral issue or a personal responsibility issue or a cultural issue despite overwhelming evidence that it's an economic issue that can be redressed with the proper measures.
edited 19th Nov '12 11:07:11 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
They also put James Inhofe into that comittee. He's a board-certified global warming denier who thinks that 1 university is somewhow a representative sample of hundreds. No surprise that they would add another ignorant there.
edited 19th Nov '12 11:07:01 AM by SeptimusHeap
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanI saw a couple of Tweets about that just before Krugman Tweeted a link to his blog post, but I did read it, yes. (I'm following a bunch of famous secularists like PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins and Ricky Gervais on Twitter, so I usually see plenty of sources for the same stuff.)
I keep being surprised at a country that can appoint people as ignorant as Rubio to such positions while landing rovers in Mars.
Instead of being interested in, curious about, and proud of the achievements of science, the American Right seems to hold humanity's greatest front of progress in contempt.
edited 19th Nov '12 11:35:46 AM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.@Starship: Your argument is weak.
It basically amounts to you fucking over the lazy and entitled at the expense of the poor and needy. You do not want to actually do this, because you're subconsciously liberal, but you hold on to this view due to years of being manipulated by regressive ideals that have invaded the collective consciousness in the US.
Best Of pointed out how successful the Nordic Model
has been. Its lead Nordic countries to top the rankings in just about every aspect you can think of when thinking about a successful country (personally, If I could move to one of them, I'd prefer Norway, sorry Best Of). The supposed welfare queens that you think would arise out of this Mixed Economic model don't seem to have had much of an effect. The only logical conclusion you can reach is that center-left economics just. Fucking. Works.
@Best Of: I'm wondering why you're surprised, or why you even bother pointing it out if you're not. I figured you already knew we have nutjobs like this in office.
edited 19th Nov '12 11:15:57 AM by Ekuran
@Best Of: Again, that goes here
.
I don't know why you brought that up all of a sudden; we were talking about poverty.
Well, I brought it up here because I thought it was on-topic and relevant, not because of what it had to do with the topic at hand.
That said, though, I can barely imagine any way to dry up innovation and economic growth faster than the stagnation of science through granting power over it to those ignorant of it.
Also: The age of the Earth is not strictly the same as the "debate" between evolution and creationism, though obviously creationism has an opinion about the age of the Earth, too.
But anyway, I didn't intend to derail this to be about the age of the Earth; there's no serious academic debate about that. Instead, I wanted to talk about the scientific ignorance if people in public office and responsible for policy decisions that have to do with science.
edited 19th Nov '12 11:47:05 AM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.Politicians who are climate change deniers when all current scientific evidence points that way or unreasonably demand Creationism, a religious theory, be taught in a science class are going to do a lot of damage when they're on the Science and whatever committee. That's probably why Best of brought it up.
Science may not be an all or nothing proposition, but that doesn't give us leave to ignore it entirely when it goes against a politician's or business's interests not to heed the warnings. The fact that this guy has the ability to affect how our students are educated is incredibly bad, because it means our children will be taught complete shit.
How did we shift topic from poverty to evolution? I thought we were talking about ideologies on economic policies and government-individual relationship.
The science of natural history is not related to the science of economics. That's like saying every evolutionist is a Keynesian, which simply isn't true. You can find Austrian economists being evolutionists.
Sometimes random shifts occur. It's not too far off the topic of the thread, as what our politicians believe affects what they do to and for us. So yeah, stop complaining about that.
And hey, what you just said isn't happening with our politicians. Our politicians that lean to the right are the ones denying climate change, and because of that are blocking progress on things like solar energy and attempts to build light rails in favor of subsidizing the oil and coal interests. Which can potentially damage our economy later down the line and definitely isn't good for our environmental well being.
That's not to say that what you just said can't happen, it's just that it's not currently. Like, at all. That is not our current reality.
edited 19th Nov '12 11:58:14 AM by AceofSpades
![]()
We were discussing the economics of poverty, but this is not a single-issue thread. Best Of found a relevant topic to discuss and brought it up.
Plus, this. Science denialism and economic aristocracy may not have the same foundation, but they are being espoused by the same people and it is therefore reasonable to look for ideological reasons why that might occur.
edited 19th Nov '12 11:59:11 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"no one shifted topic, it was a story linked early about a member of the house science committee that said he "isn't sure" about evolution. its politics
edited 19th Nov '12 11:59:42 AM by vanthebaron
Untitled Power Rangers Story@Ace
There's nothing wrong with making connections in itself. But I'm explicitly arguing against that connection.
And sure, many GOP politicians may form that clique of common economics/religion/etc. But our discussion was about policies and not politicians. Policies, meaning, how far should we have to help the poor and how far uphold capitalism. Don't assume that all of us form the same cliques as GOP.
@Fighteer
I still think discussion should be moved to the proper thread. But mainly I'm saying that discussing what Best Of brought up means we're past the welfare issue.
edited 19th Nov '12 12:02:14 PM by Euodiachloris
Yes, but how does this hypothetical Keynesian Creationist vote, hmm? Republican or Democrat? Seems like a conflicted soul.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
x3 Drawing connections and looking at the core philosophy of a major political party is a very broad, meta-level talk. We can talk about that, but we should keep it at that theoretical meta-level, and not get caught up in specifics that are better debated in the designated On-Topic threads.
x2 We can talk about politics of science, but we should keep it to political effects. If that debate reduces to talking about the science itself, and we already have a topic for it, it's appropriate that we move it there. Otherwise we derail the talk.
I'm upset about this because we're normally adamant about staying on-topic, and I see it's being violated.
Oh yes they do. They're just not as loud as GOP, as we all know.
edited 19th Nov '12 12:08:01 PM by Trivialis
ANYWAY. about what Marco Rubio said, if you don't believe in one on the main FACTS (evolution is not a theory its fact) of reality, how can you hold office. People are being represented but morons and they don't even know it.
Untitled Power Rangers Story

Statistics, not anecdotes, Maxima.
If you can show me numbers that point to a measurable DECLINE in worker productivity over the past decade or so due to people not taking their jobs seriously, then that would be an impressive feat.
But I don't see any evidence of a lazy virus going around. Far from it - I see women more career-dedicated than ever before, I see a black man in the White House, I see countless applicants for every measly job opening, no matter how meager, no matter how little it pays.
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.