Greenfield: Science is for Stupid People

Sultan Knish blog ^ | Tuesday, September 30, 2014 | Daniel Greenfield

[MrB]

Science is a rigorous way of making fewer mistakes. It’s not very useful to people who already know everything. Science is for stupid people who know how much they don’t know.

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The point of the article in one line ^^

[MrB]

I found it amusing that Marx had a reflexive defense for his ideas calling his opponents “unscientific”.
(Ref: “Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky”, Paul Johnson)

It’s funny that the left and the anti-theists do exactly the same thing today.

[NewHampshireDuo]

Great column.

Was there something specific in all of Tyson’s output that is reflected in Greenfield’s statement “Neil deGrasse Tyson’s defenders reacted to his basic errors by asserting that even if he had made a mistake, science, collectively, was right.” or is it just Tyson in general?

I don’t follow Tyson other than generally knowing that he seems to be a higher class of the Bill Nye sort.

[GOPJ]

Science, the magic of the secular age, is their church. But science isn’t anyone’s church. Science is much better at disproving things than at proving them. It’s a useful tool for skeptics, but a dangerous tool for rulers.

Greenfield boils down the complex to it's understandable essence... Amazing. Thanks for the ping.

[NewHampshireDuo]

This must be it:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3209404/posts

[Rebel_Ace]

Inflammatory and misleading title and rhetoric. The use of the word "stupid" is what is meant to grab the reader, and the author mis-uses the word repeatedly.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the principle meanings of the word "stupid" are:

(1) not intelligent : having or showing a lack of ability to learn and understand things
(2) not sensible or logical
(3) not able to think normally because you are drunk, tired, etc.

So, if a group of people are fundamentally incapable of learning or understanding things, science is not going to be of much help to them. Clearly, science is NOT for "stupid" people.

Now, of course, I get the author's intent, which is to say, "Science is for people who wish to understand things that they currently do not know, Science is NOT for people who believe that they already know everything with certainty."

Of course, it is not as attention grabbing to write:

"Science is for uninformed people seeking knowledge"

I just have a pet peeve about distorting the meaning of words.

[dead]

Thanks for the link. That provided the context I was missing.

[Sioux-san]

I don’t if this is what Greenfield is referring to about Tyson not admitting he made a mistake, but it does certainly illustrate the point very well.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3209404/posts#12

[Tax-chick]

To us, “science” is a set of procedures that help us to learn about reality. To the left, “science” is a set of dogmatic beliefs that are inarguable as long as they serve the Revolution, but not a moment longer.

[Albion Wilde]

The inability of Neil deGrasse Tyson and his defenders to acknowledge that he is wrong is a revealing look at the rotten core of the liberal elite which is incapable of admitting its errors, but sneers and smears its way out of a moral reckoning every time. Its ideology with its assumption of central control over lives and economies is too dependent on its own illusion of genius not to lie about its failures.... Tysonism uses ideology to determine the outcomes of science. That’s how we keep ending up with Global Warming as settled science no matter how often the actual science contradicts it.... Tysonism appropriates science without understanding it.

[jmacusa]

Great column. Boy I’m really getting slow on the uptake these days. I didn’t see as satire until almost the end of the article. Getting old sucks...

[Lurker]

Outstanding work. Thanks for posting it.

[DuncanWaring]

From Michael Crichton's "Aliens Cause Global Warming" speech:

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

And, for good measure, Rudyard Kipling from "Gods Of The Copybook Headings:

...

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[marktwain]

Neil deGrasse Tyson Errors Whitewashed

http://www.volnation.com/forum/politics/224890-neil-degrasse-tyson-errors-whitewashed.html

[Candor7]

I came away with the impression that these are remarkably stupid people with no effective understanding of the world.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You got it.The USA should shut the UN down and expel it from NYC. Its just a den for barbarians.

[GeronL]

1938- propellers are science and anyone advocating for jets are anti-science!

[GeronL]

There is one settled science I know of: A baby in the womb is 100% human.

[GeronL]

Parliament of Bores

[GeronL]

*face palm*

His point is....

From the leftist viewpoint and attitude, they are the intelligent ones and everyone else is stupid. They have to be stupid to think they are so intelligent that they cannot be wrong. Only a stupid person thinks that way.

True Intelligent people know their limits and know there is a lot they do not know. But these are the people that the self-annointed elites think are stupid.