Comments on: Righting America: An odd book that you may like but that made me squirm

By: Wow

Wow — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 07:04:01 +0000

“the only book to read is the Bible”

To educate yourself about how gullible and stupid people can be?

By: Li D

Li D — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 02:13:25 +0000

#13 you orta try some Jared Diamond matey.
Just for some variety.

By: jimbob

jimbob — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 01:44:24 +0000

the only book to read is the Bible

By: Wow

Wow — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 20:18:03 +0000

The statement was: “started a big project where they “asked the question” without providing a single morsel of guidance. ”

Which reads very differently from your shorter cut.

By: Jonathan Thornburg

Jonathan Thornburg — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 19:43:31 +0000

Greg, could you provide a reference for your mention of a physics-teaching “big project” where the Mpemba effect was discussed “without providing a single morsel of guidance”? All the discussion I’ve seen in the physics-teaching literature have provided considerable context, and google scholar “Mpemba effect” certainly offers lots of published literature.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 16:48:40 +0000

“:Trump and a top adviser on Wednesday pushed back plans to overhaul the tax code, saying they wanted to prioritize first a renewed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.” … and honest broker.

Claude, you are almost certainly right.

By: Claude

Claude — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 14:53:26 +0000

Interesting review, but I’m pretty sure “dreck” has a”c”.
I would go with “dreckery”.

By: Matt G

Matt G — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 03:57:04 +0000

I realize they aren’t using an equal time argument, but this false balance (so popular among journalists these days) falls into the same category as so many other tactics: muddying the water, pseudo skepticism, teach both sides, hyping a minority opinion, etc.

By: BBD

BBD — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:54:30 +0000

I miss AA Gill.

He wasn’t perfect, but he was good.

By: Wow

Wow — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:12:57 +0000

No, asking questions, especially of other people, is one of the least useful things to do in science or any rigorous rational investigative endeavour.

Asking questions OF YOURSELF is FAR more effective.

It’s the basis if skepticism, the only real path to self assessed knowledge and far better for increasing your actual cognitive abilities.

Even better, though, IS ANSWERING THEM.

And I don’t remember a single case where anyone actually worked out a way to test, how the test could be corrupted or invalid, and how to avoid that, or detect it happening. Let alone the next step: carrying the test out.

Asking questions is a shit load easier than answering.

And you learn nothing if all that happens is questions are asked. You need answers to learn.

“I don’t know” is not a great science answer because it’s true, but because it leads to “how do I find out?”.

“Thats odd” is not a good science result of an experiment because you’re asking how it turned out differently, but because it leads to MORE ANSWERS.

“God did it” is a crap answer not because it is a non answer but because there’s no knew knowledge arising from it.