The_Sage wrote:

Reply to article by: Stuart Grey <stuart.grey@nospam.comcast.net>
Date written: Sat, 01 Oct 2005 19:59:58 -0700
MsgID:<vcWdnWySForf0qLeRVn-iA@comcast.com>

What a sad, sad, sad, sad  joke!

A newly formed vested-interest organization known as The Campaign
to Defend the Constitution is sending a lettero all 50 U.S.
governors signed by Nobel laureates and other leading scientists,
calling on them to ensure that science classes in their states teach
evolution and do not allow any curricula based on intelligent design.

LOL! They're making an appeal to authority!!

How ironic. Of course, this is lost on most of you. Appeals to authority have been considered a logical error since it was shown that Aristotle, considered an absolute authority for centuries, was full of shit about many things. (Objects in motion come to rest, heavy objects fall faster than lighter objects, and so on.)

"Teach science! We're authorities, we say so!"

Scientists tried appealing to reason with believers but believers didn't want to
reason,

Many people don't want to or are incapable of reason. To be blunt, we are not long out of the trees and the small fraction of intelligent people dragged many stupid apes out of the trees too early; people who should have remained in the trees.

To be blunt in return, people never dragged apes out of trees to become people.
Modern day homo sapeins did not evolve from apes, they evolved from
neanderthals.

The theory is that humans and chimps had a common ancestor. The trees in which the proto humans lived died due to climate changes, and the new enviroment requires a lot of bipedal motion.

My point being that it was the high end of the bell curve that developed tools and rational thought.

so the scientists also tried an appeal to politics because believers
will listen to politics.

How was an appeal to authority (in the philosophy context) an appeal to politics?

It wasn't. It was an appeal, not an appeal to authority.

If I say "believe me because I am a scientist" that is an appeal to authority, even if I do it for political reasons.

Even if, why would people in the right listen to people on the left, just because the people on the left say they're authorities? They didn't listen to them the FIRST time. They are not going to start doing so now.

That's your opinion and not everyone has the same opinion you do.

I recognize that most people are not rational. However, that is besides the point.

But in no way, shape, or form are scientists using
their appeal to politics as an appeal to authority because it isn't a reason, it
is a plead.

That is irrational. They are not making an appeal to authority because it's not an appeal, it a plea that people should listen to them because they are scientist; that is, authorities.

That is ignorant of the facts. They are not saying "evolution is correct because
we are authorities on the topic", they are simply making a request for science
to continue to be taught in the classrooms.

They are saying ID is not science and that the ignorant masses should believe them because they are authorities. They appeal to their own authority because they don't care to spend the time trying to teach what is and what isn't science to a bunch of superstitious nitwits who hold science in contempt. I can't say I blame them. It would be a waste of time.

In science, there is nothing but reason. If they are making a plea based on anything else, then they are not being scientist. In the scientific world, you use reason. Anyone who doesn't use reason doesn't matter. In science, other people's opinions don't matter. Science is for reasoned people and not for the irrational.

You have no clue what they are doing.

Most people can't understand the concepts, and they don't matter. Like I said, they SHOULD teach ID in school.

You have yet to give an intelligent reason why it should.

I just told you.
1) The smart kids will learn not to take things on authority, because the authority is being irrational.
2) It doesn't matter what you try and teach the stupid ones.

It won't matter what the kids who can't reason think; they are never going to be rational.

Teaching the ID will only make it worse because ID is based on blind stupid
faith instead of reason.

People who cannot reason are not going to be better off with science. Leave them to religion; it's all they can understand.

There is a whole bunch of anthropology behind what I said that I don't expect you to understand.

The kids who can reason are going to say; "Hey, the teacher is full of shit. Having the authority of being a teacher doesn't mean that you're right. Authorities will tell you any number of irrational things due to their own hidden agendas."

What hidden agenda is behind evolution?

Generally, there is no hidden agenda behind evolution. Now, go back and look at what I said.

You have "authorities" telling you about God, and they have a hidden agenda.

You have "authorities" telling you about global warming, and they have a hidden agenada.

You have "authorities" telling you that racial diversity is good, and they have a hidden agenda.

The list goes on and on.

Sometimes, there is even a hidden agenda when people tell you the truth! However, they don't need to appeal to authority to do that, they can appeal to reason. Both the far left and the far right has used evolution to champion their causes, for example. These are cases of hidden agendas using something that's true.

It really doesn't matter since the believers are bound to lose, again, just as
they always have in the past ever since the Scope's Monkey Trial. The problem
just is that believers are sore losers so they keep trying to shove their stupid
nonsense down everyone's throat anyway.

 

Yes. We all have our stupid nonsense we're trying to shove down everyone's throat.

No. You do, I don't.

The right wants to tell us that evolution and physics is wrong, and that we were created by God in God's image.

What God?

You're kind of dense.

The left wants to tell us capitalism and freedom is evil, slavery to the state is the way to go, that all races have equal intelligence and thus any demographics that shows a lack of minorities in certain groups is proof of racism, and that the world is warming due to greedy capitalist.

The right lies to me to get me to feel better about myself, and the left lies to me to try and make a slave out of me.

What a bunch of paranoid and propagandistic nonsense.

Humm. No rational rebuttal, as I expected.

If I must be lied to, I'd rather be lied to by the right.

You must like be lied to.

I'd rather the Christian tell me that I'm God like (and please drop 10% of my income into the plate every sunday) than some socialist tell me my rights don't matter, I'm an evil white man, that the reason they gave the job I'm best qualified to do to a minority was that all races have equal intelligence distributions and that I and my boss are sexist and racist, and that we have to shut down the western world because of global warming and they ship my job off to some turd world nation.

Some liars are more vicious than others. Socialist are liars of the worst type. It seems when teh socialist tells lies, they are sticking the knife in your back. And that is something I really hate.

If religion is the condom against socialism, I'm all for it.