On 12/9/2014 9:53 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
*From:*[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On
Behalf Of *Telmo Menezes
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 09, 2014 3:09 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: real A.I.
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 12:49 AM, LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8 December 2014 at 23:36, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
You can notice the subtle change in the meaning of being a "skeptic". The original
meaning is very close to "agnostic" but it has been slowly sliding into a strong
preference for common sense, which is to say, the belief of the majority.
Yes that seems possible, indeed likely. Also it gets kidnapped by "climate change
sceptics" and suchlike,
I would say that anyone who labels themselves as "X skeptics" are already missing the
point. Skepticism is a general attitude towards knowledge.
who are using it in the "postmodern" sense that loosely translates as "you
can't
prove X 100% therefore not-X is 'just as valid'."
Is this really the prevalent argument from climate change disbelievers?
It certainly seems so based on a sampling of their output. The MO of climate skeptics –
in my experience -- is to grab on to some anomaly or discrepancy in some dataset (or
some puffed up sinister sounding largely made up scandal, such as Climategate for
example). Giving them a toe hold to launch into an attack on the entire edifice of
climate science based on some cherry picked data. Often it is anecdotal data – say an
unusually cold winter… anything that can make good copy and sow doubt in scientifically
illiterate minds.
I see little scientific rigor, or intellectual honesty, operating within the skeptic
community; seems to me mostly made up of political operatives and PR marketing spin
types that only deals in convenient cherry picked facts (ignoring broad swaths of data)
and that often merely incestuously repeats baseless accusations that reverberate around
the many Kock brother funded archipelago of astroturf organizations. (An American
expression for fake grass roots organizations – e.g. astroturf being fake grass. Grass
roots organization, is another American expression for spontaneously rising broad based
movements arising as a genuine expression of the people’s will.)
Climate skepticism is more of a political phenomenon, funded largely by powerful fossil
energy interests that are acting to preserve the future value of their large carbon
holdings.
The Climate Denialists echo the same rhetorical tactics as the Creationists. As an
interesting aside, a decade ago there was a movement to make "critical thinking" part of
the public school curriculum. Sounds like something everyone could support doesn't it?
But when a few schools actually tried to implement it, the instructional materials they
were offered were critical of only one thing, evolution. Suddenly secular organizations
which had been advocates for critical thinking had switch sides and oppose these classes.
Brent
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