What I think Stewart was doing was assuming things like the existence of
antimatter - something which has been created at accelerators for a few decades
- were still unknown or still unproven when they aren't. If we (or he) were
talking about something a bit more theoretical - say superstrings or dark
matter - I'd be a bit more charitable.
Put another way, I think because Jon didn't or couldn't understand something in
bleeding edge physics he was inclined to think the scientific conclusion was at
the very least overblown, if not equivalent to assertions about the existence
of God. He's not as critical of a thinker as some consider him to be.
David
On Saturday, June 19, 2021, 4:46:28 PM PDT, Melissa P
<[email protected]> wrote:
Perhaps I don't understand you, because I assume you know how science works.
Substitute "still unknown" or "still unproven" for "faith" and I'd be okay with
what you wrote. The beauty of science is what we don't know and hope one day
to find out.
On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 11:22 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.
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