Yeah, scientism is a big issue for me, especially when people I think ought to know better (a particular vest-wearing astronomer comes to mind) partake in it. But those valid critiques require some nuance and more than a little context. Neither of which was present on Monday.
David On Thursday, June 17, 2021, 9:11:32 PM PDT, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: Yes, that is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. I agree 100% with what you wrote in your blog. None of that is to say that there are not important critiques to be made about scientism, about a tendency to give scientists unearned authority over non empirical matters, and about human hubris. It’s also not to say that we won’t find out one day that the corona virus did originate in a lab. But there was nothing in Stewart’s bit that captured the spirit or essence of what those valid critiques would look like. On Thu, 17 Jun 2021 at 8:22 PM 'David Bruggeman' via TVorNotTV <[email protected]> wrote: PGage's point reminded me of something I noted back when Stewart hosted The Daily Show. J-Stew interviewed author Marilynne Robinson in 2010 about one of her books. IMO, neither was particularly effective in articulating their points, but here's the interview: https://www.cc.com/video/87tj6r/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-marilynne-robinson Around 2:58 the conversation turns to what may still be Stewart's perspective, that at a certain level science seems to be relying on faith about as much as religion. He cites the inability to see antimatter as being comparable to arguments that God created everything. I don't know that it's exactly what PGage is driving at, but I think the way some appeals to scientific authority take shortcuts contributes to this skepticism of the reliability of scientific information. For what its worth, Stewart didn't strike me at the time as willing to do the work to check these claims, or maybe even in a position to know that can be done. I wrote about it here (as with any 11 year old internet thing, linkrot runs rampant in the post) - https://pascophronesis.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/failure-in-science-communication-jon-stewart/ David On Thursday, June 17, 2021, 7:40:59 PM PDT, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: Again, I really don’t think this was satire. I don’t think Stewart is an anti-science Trumper, but I think he is genuinely worried about the dangers he sees in science- driven elitism, and wants to set some other authority (humanism perhaps?) above science. This is not an uncommon position among certain kinds of liberals (e.g., those still losing sleep over genetically modified crops). What we needed was a transition from his comic bit (however successful or not it was) and at least a few minutes of serious discussion. On Thu, 17 Jun 2021 at 4:20 PM Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: . As I watched the Stewart rant I thought his problem is he hasn't done standup in front of an audience for years and his performance was off. He wasn't clear about the point he was making - I think his point was if you say "trust the science" it doesn't mean trust only the science you agree with. As he built his rant his beats were off and as he got up and walked to the audience he didn't pause to see if the audience was still with him. If he spaced the buildup more it would have come out more like satire and less like a right wing talk radio rant. As for Carvey, he must be some kind of acquired taste. So many people I respect in comedy talk about what a genius he is and every time I watch an appearance I don't find him funny. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/129401514.767475.1623991999974%40mail.yahoo.com.
