On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:17:18 -0700, Hawke
wrote:
On 10/26/2011 3:03 AM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:00:25 -0700, Hawke
wrote:
On 10/24/2011 5:56 AM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:14:31 -0700, "T.Alan Kraus"
wrote:
On 10/23/2011 7:04 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:45:08 -0700, Hawke
wrote:
On 10/22/2011 8:10 PM, wrote:
On Oct 22, 10:48 pm, wrote:
. Yet he's got millions believing everything he says is true
even to the point where, as you said, they disbelieve people with
doctorates and instead believe the word of a man with no education at
all. If someone told you that you wouldn't believe it.
Hawke
You should always believe what makes sense regardless of a person's
credentials. I am willing to believe someone with no education if
what they say makes sense. I am not willing to believe highly
educated people when it is obvious that what they say does not make
sense.
Do you believe everything that William Shockley said?
Dan
Bad analogy, Dan. I'm saying if a nuclear scientist tells you something
about nuclear energy and a housewife with a high school education tells
you that he's wrong which one of them are you going to believe? That is
the situation we have with Limbaugh most of the time. He's got no
training in any field and is an uneducated man. He espouses views that
are consistently opposed to those of highly learned people, and he
argues with these people about what is in their field of expertise.
No person with a lick of sense would take the word of a layman over an
expert. So what about you? Side with the layman, Limbaugh when he tells
scientists they are mistaken about the climate?
Hawke
Your hypothesis sounds quite reasonable until one considers that:
Until the 19th century, it was widely believed that trains could not
travel faster than about 50 miles per hour because of the immense
tornado-like winds that would be created along their paths. Some
British scientists predicted air would be evacuated from railway cars
at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, and all the passengers
would be asphyxiated.
Radio waves constructed as low-frequency light travel faster than
light. Ironically, physicists discovered this property of waves in an
ionized gas in the early part of this century, at the same time (1905)
that Albert Einstein was asserting that "velocities exceeding that of
light have no possibility of existence"
Some of the most enlighten philosophers of their times believed that
the earth was flat:
According to Aristotle, pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus
(c. 440 BC) and Democritus (370 BC) believed in a flat Earth.
Anaximander (c. 550 BC) believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with
a flat, circular top that remained stable because it is the same
distance from all things. Anaximenes of Miletus believed that "the
earth is flat and rides on air; Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 500 BC)
thought that the Earth was flat. Belief in a flat Earth continued into
the 5th-century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was
flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was
depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the
Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.
One could go on but it is apparent that the fact that an individual
has received an education is not necessarily a factor in their amount
of knowledge.
--
John B.
Yet Pythagoras knew the earth was a sphere and Erathostenes had actually
measured its circumference quite accurately using basic geometry. In
every period there is a prevalent scientific belief opposed by a very
small number. It usually turns out that the very small number of
opposing opinion eventually becomes the prevalent paradigm.
cheers
T.Alan
You are correct of course but I was replying to Hawke's apparent
thesis that graduating from collage somehow means that you actually
know what you are talking about. My thesis is that everyone has areas
of expertise and ignorance and while one may well be a demon
basket-weaver ( for example) the fact that one holds a degree in the
subject doesn't qualify him to discuss Quantum mechanics (to use
another example).
.
--
John B.
From your misunderstanding of my point you must have been one of those
people who doesn't know what they are talking about. To clarify for you,
I was talking about listening to someone like Limbaugh, who has no
education, training, or expertise in anything and disregarding people
who are experts in the area of the topic being discussed. That's a far
cry from believing that everyone who graduates from college knows what
they are talking about. Maybe now you can tell the difference.
Hawke
That may be what you intended to say but you actually compared a house
wife to a nuclear scientist. I only pointed that a university degree
did not actually prove or disprove what an individual knows.
I would agree with that. Like I said, plenty of college grads are no
better than the average. On the other hand, college grads in general do
better when tested than those with less education. So either college
means something or it doesn't. The evidence is pretty cut and dried that
college improves people.
True, but is it simply a matter of the diploma?
Is the improvement because of taking Basket Weaving 101 or because
suddenly one discovers (for example) that in order to have clean
clothing one has to take the laundry out; oneself? Sort of force
feeding maturity.
When I was working in Indonesia one branch of the company specialized
in USAID, W.B., U.N, etc., funded consulting projects and while it
wasn't my division still I was called on for advice from time to time.
It was my observation that young collage grads, usually with master's
degrees, were not especially adapt at actually going out and
accomplishing something concrete, although they were adapt at going
out and looking at something and writing a report about what was wrong
but in most cases very limited in finding a workable solution to the
problem. Articulate as hell though.
Specifically discussing some TV talk show MC, who I've never seen. But
I'd have to ask, as you seem to know quite a bit about him, why do
you bother to watch him?
Limbaugh is unavoidable for me. He's on the radio where I live and
there's not much else available if you have the radio on at all. I also
see him on other TV shows where they are quoting his idiotic statements.
When I was in college I even had a class where we were assigned to
listen to him as an example of conservative propaganda, which we used
when examining that subject. Not only that, you will hear people in this
group repeating Limbaugh's words verbatim. So I just find the guy hard
to get away from. Kind of like it was with Palin. Now that she's finally
admitted she's no longer interested in running for any office we aren't
seeing or hearing her day and night like we used to.
Hawke
It is my belief that anyone who listens to a politician is very much
like listening to the guys that sell aluminum siding or encyclopedias
door to door. The salesmen will say anything to make a sale and the
politicians are doing the same thing.
And probably the same percentages are disappointed in the politician
as are with their "life time guaranteed siding".
--
John B.