Charlie's Diary

The amount of stupid in the world just doesn't get any less, does it?

Dave, sometimes I just want to hand back my citizenship papers in the human species.

I dunno about not amusing - if only in the "otherwise I'd cry" sense.

How comforting it must be to have such a simple world, one so unencumbered by little things like facts or reality ... Gah.

It's just so unoriginal. They never come up with something new, or even misunderstand something new. They just keep recycling the same old tired shit over and over again. I have the feeling that their main tactic is to just repeat and repeat and repeat until we're so worn down we just dont want to fight anymore. Like children.

Oh f*#!ck...you just had to pull my head out of the sand, didn't you? I had just put my good-citizen hat on and firmly told myself that I would not let the results of the last election stop me from participating in our democratic process this time around. Then you go and remind me that it's nitwits like these who are going to vote another Bush into office. I feel so damned helpless.

P.S. You're killing me with that Merchant's War (non)ending

Connie: if it's any consolation, I should pass the 40,000 word (out of 100,000 word) mark in "The Revolution Business" by Friday. On course to hand in both "The Revolution Business" and "The Trade of Queens" for publication in 2009. And, er, the "non-ending" in book #4 ends with a bang around 39,000 words into book #5.

(As for the nitwits, remember this: if you feel helpless, they win. So don't do that.)

I have to say, the needle on my irony meter takes a deflection on the acid-related one. The others, though... definitely not amusing.

On the other hand, are you sure this isn't just one of Mike Huckabee's internal monologues...?

I'd rather pretend these people don't exist. But if they are trying to dismantle science on the basis of logic, I wonder how they would feel if the same logic was applied to their faith.

#4 & #5: Even if you showed these folks unequivocal evidence of evolution, they still wouldn't (or maybe couldn't?) believe you (or the evidence).
There's a fundamentalist type where I work, and he seems to try hard at ignoring facts about our universe.

It's the last one that squicks me.

The others are stupid ignorance, but not the sort that most people need to know better than. You don't have to believe in Evolution to be a functioning human being. But the stuff about rape: that's almost a defining example of dysfunction. It's not about the mechanics of the world, it's about morality.

If there is anything in the universe the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to, it's the monotonically increasing amount of stupid (also known as "dim matter") in the universe. Luckily, I think the amount of brilliant is also increasing.

My very favorite of those quotes ia where the speaker does not recognize his own description of the sun. I figure this whole problem will ultimately solved; people this stupid will eventually weed themselves out of the gene pool.

The big problem is that people that stupid can't be argued with. You have to teach them science first.

This post reminds me of a bumper sticker that I saw a couple weeks ago. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was something like "DNA is Information and Information is designed,"

(twitch)

It's ironic that one of these guys even opposes the Big Bang, apparently unaware it supports a deistic interpretation (Cf Steady State). Hmm, maybe I shouldn't worry, he's obviously an idiot.

And yeh, the Sun (snigger...) It's amazing how much I hear the entropy one from 'agnostics'.

It takes several million years for a monkey to turn into a man; it takes one click for a True Christian to reverse the process! (and that's insulting to monkeys)

Just reading that made me tired, thinking of all the effort involved in fighting that stupidity in an election year.

I've had several fundamentalists use argument #2 on me to try and disprove evolution. Sometimes I can get them to understand the difference between a closed and open system...

A friend is fond of reminding me that the average IQ is 100, so half the population has an IQ of less than 100.

The bell curve extends in two directions.

Bruce at 13 states: I figure this whole problem will ultimately solved; people this stupid will eventually weed themselves out of the gene pool.

Aren't you making an unwarranted assumption that stupidity affects inclusive fitness? I'd like to think it does, but I'm not sure.

I dunno, it's the first one that I have a lot of trouble believing was meant seriously. On the other hand, just within the last week someone who thinks of himself as a serious political thinker was belligerently insisting that Mussolini is only spoken of as a fascist by some kind of historical accident. So maybe there really aren't any limits on the muddles that silly people can get themselves into.

From the other end of the spectrum, the 2008 Edge World Question Center edition is out. This year, the question posed to a number of 'interesting' people was, "What have you changed your mind about? Why?".

Their responses make for some really thought-provoking, insightful and fascinating reading.

there are no black swan's..
We(American's) CAN'T have another Depression, we fixed that.
House prices NEVER go down (on a nationwide average).

CJ-in-Weld @ 22

Well, it may only be anecdotal evidence, but I take heart in the Darwin Awards. Clearly some people are too stupid to live.

My favorite:

I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!

Most of these statements have one thing in common: they're evidence of ignorance backed by ego. Ignorance is one thing - it's curable, and if you have it, you can generally find the remedy if you look. But when ego gets involved, it can turn toxic, because ego is the bit which says "I have to be right all the time" or "my parents aren't allowed to ever be wrong" or "my religion isn't allowed to be wrong". Ego is the bit which makes it hard to accept the original explanations you received as a child weren't the *complete* explanations, but rather explanations which were necessarily incomplete, and thus incorrect.

So, for example, you have people not recognising that the Second Law of Thermodynamics was formulated through theorising about the behaviour of gas molecules in a closed environment. You have people not understanding that "acid" in chemistry is a term used for any molecule able to donate protons and/or accept electrons in reactions, or accepting there are varying strengths of acids - all the way from the mild ones like acetic acid up to the powerful ones like sulphuric acid.

Ignorance is curable. Ignorance backed by ego is harder to cure, and where the ego is of the stubborn, unshakeable type, it can be incurable - at which point it can be characterised as stupidity.

If we did evolve from monkeys then how come babies arent born monkeys

Clearly someone who is neither a parent nor knows anyone with a baby.

Just a quick note on 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - closed vs open systems is a bit of a red herring. You can locally decrease entropy in a closed system by moving it from one part to another. Obviously this uses energy which increases the total amount of entropy in the system. So just Earth and Sun as a closed system wouldn't work very well for decreasing entropy, but fortunately we have a huge black sky to dump our entropy (as infrared radiation) into as part of the system.

(I am amused about the people who think that scientists haven't noticed that different scientific laws and theories contradict each other - projection anyone?)

When I was 4 I wanted to be a monkey (possibly when I grew up but I don't think I was too clear on that process either at the time). Obviously it was disappointing to discover that I wouldn't ever grow a tail and live in a banana tree, but made the idea of monkey-like ancestors (and cousins) suprisingly attractive.

Hey Charlie;

I came across these at "http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/top100.aspx?archive=1" a while ago - a great example of utterances from those who chose not to take part in the reality based community.

I went back to have a look as I wanted to point to one that showed classic schizophrenic symptoms, but I couldn't find it as they continually update. Yup, this stuff is fresh and continually produced - from the archives they're picking up a few hundred quotes a month:

January 2008 74
December 2007 630
November 2007 592
October 2007 631
September 2007 336

I keep telling myself these people are a minority. Please, please let them be a very, very small minority.

@ (No, this entry isn't meant to be funny or amusing.)

I believe that's a profound error.

You can't argue, reason or confound with logic these idiots. The only rational course is laughter. Lampoon, satirise, parody. Yes, you can feel horror and fear at failures of humanity, but as you say @7, then they win. If their views are confronted with laughter, I believe there's a better chance of confusion, bewilderment and change in their minds - still infintesimal, but better than the angry defensiveness generated by confrontation with logic. More importantly the sound of laughter at their ideas punctures their arguments far better for the credulous who may otherwise listen.

Invoking history dangerously close to Godwin, what better antidote to Hitler and fascism is there, than The Producers?

Russ: What I find scary about the "Fundies Say the Darndest Things" website is that for me, I'd rate all of the items of the front page as 5/5. I know there are a lot of confused people out there, but I'm surprised to see how much there is that's so hilariously quotable. It suggests that this is drawn from a larger population of confusion than I would like to think possible...

The StupidFilter project has a function on their site that delivers randomly selected stupid from their db when you press a lever-controlling-the-electrode-in-your-head....sorry...button.

Meanwhile, I updated the BIOS on my laptop to get the acpi functions working with Mandriva Linux, which it did, but the KDE desktop has started hanging after login. Arse.

It's obvious there are people with some very creative ideas. So, a few seem "crazy" to us because we are educated and know better (I hope). BUT, anyone who has studied human psychology knows that this is Normal behavior for a large part of the human population. Without the ability to come up with really strange ideas (good and bad), we wouldn't have much in the way of a fantasy genre. It's the sword with TWO edeges, the duality of the human mind. C.S. you KNOW how to pluck the strings of this Harp: religion and politics. Why not pick on the Scientoligists next, and give a little history lesson about L.Ron Hubbard? Like shooting fish in a barrel. NOW, he was an SF writer that made lots of money with his nutter ideas. Come on Stross, invent a religion and see how rich you can become. Just say you "have visions."

Jonathan Miller: "Well, I wouldn't say I was a Jew. Just Jew-ish. You know, not the whole hog."

Feorag at 29: As a new parent, I can truthfully say the fundies are dead wrong on this. There is a reason I call my daughter the monkey.

Aargh, they're everywhere! I'm a non-believing Jew living in Colorado Springs, CO - home of New Life (mega)Church, F*cus on Family and 80some other evangelical orgs, which are not quite balanced with the many Tech businesses here. It's not just that their arguments show they didn't pass basic high school science, they clearly don't believe in spelling and grammar too. Having said that I'm 'praying' that mine is okay.

Having had a very religious upbringing myself (since lapsed) I find these quotes so depressing. Here are two which caught my eye recently.

"Deoxyribonucleic Acid, for example sounds impressive, right? But have you ever seen what happens if you put something in acid? It dissolves! If we had all this acid in our cells, we'd all dissolve! So much for the Theory of Evolution, Check MATE!"

"This one is so nuts, I decided to follow the link to the original posting. Whoah, nellie! Apes are just creatures twisted by Satan to mock Jesus by giving
EVILolition credibility. Further more they are naturally lust crazed for human women. Since they are not natural creatures they should be exterminated forthwith as the tools of evil they are."

There really isn't anything to say, other than that the Fundamentalists may have inadvertently outed themselves as the missing link thus decisively proving the existence of Evolution.

I've actually had a very devout 'Christian' tell me thar evolution states that "this stick can turn into a fish".

They said this, well aware of my background study of genetics and biology. And where it not for the fact they were a very close relation, I may have separated them into their component parts there and then.

Belief is blindness, but unfotunately must be tolerated - at least for me. As I strive to be the left to thier right.

Best answer to all of this is from Winston Churchill
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/773.html
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Meg Thornton@28, may I borrow that (with attribution) for use in class?

One thing I like about your writing is that you don't disagree that it's not only intelligence that propagates as information density increases.

I am not upset when young people are stupid. It's the old stupid ones (especially the ones in power) that bother me.

I suspect the second one (the Second Law of Thermodynamics one) may be the work of a parodist. He's just being too damn obvious about setting up a punchline. He might as well say, "I mean, wouldn't there have to be an ABSOLUTELY HUGE source of energy just, say, 93 million miles from our Earth, supplying this planet with heat? Have you ever heard scientists TALK about such a thing? And wouldn't you be able to SEE it in the SKY?..."

I was stunned the first time I came across the 2nd Law argument to refute evolution in a chat room. I cheated though, quoting the equation for the second law and asking the person to explain how that applied in this situation to an open system.

The argument devolved back to; "evolution is so a lie, so there, nah!"

It's up there with the "just a theory lot" or the people who think that pointing out that technical terms in specialist fields have specific meanings which are different to the vernacular usage is some form of evil sophistry.

I wasn't aware there was something wrong with sophistry either.

I agree with 8; the acid one seems a bit too good.

Try these: http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/ You may sleep better!

As far as the thermodynamic argument goes . . .

It struck me a while back that an adult is arguably more complex than a baby, and certainly more complex than a fertilized ovum. So if the fundamentalist interpretation of the Second Law were valid, it would be impossible for a fertilized ovum to develop into a human adult.

The fact that no fundamentalist ever draws this conclusion strikes me as evidence that they aren't interested in the logical implications of their arguments, not even enough to think about them at all. They just want something that sounds good enough to be superficially convincing.

OFF topic: C.S. may have mentioned this already, but Boing Boing posted some news about a new sf anthology, and there is a Stross piece included.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/17/100-futures-from-nat.html

And in news that Matthew McConaughey and his girlfriend are about to have a baby:

"We are stoked and wowed by this miracle of creation and this gift from God, and so excited for the adventure that will come in raising this child, being a mother and a father," he said.

McConaughey goes on to say, "Wish us the best, keep us in your prayers, and God bless evolution."

"Pokemon are slowly mesmerizing our children into believing that EVOLVING MONSTERS USE VIOLENCE AND POWER TO PREVAIL OVER THE UNIVERSE... Watch it for one show and you can see all the ways that it teaches children that overcoming others with violence is how to rule the earth."

Hum. Quite a good summary actually.

"Earl Adams said his 14- and 16-year-old sons were "greatly disturbed" after finding the book, titled "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book." Adams said the book caused "many sleepless nights in our house.""

No comment.

There's nothing wrong with being ignorant. Most of us are ignorant about most things in this multiverse, and part of the fun of living is discovering how much more there is to know. It is unfortunate but, as has beem remarked earlier, curable.

The problem isn't ignorance. It is pride at being ignorant. Perhaps addiction to ignorance is the most threatening addiction of all.

#10 ....
I have repeatedly tried to use the same logic on their "faith".
It doesn't work - they always revert to:
"You-can't-prove-god-doesn't-exist. Nyaah!"

Even when I go - I can prove the existence of something a small as am=n electron, why can't you show some evidence for something as big as god?

They just twist, and lie, and, most importantly, DECIEVE THEMSELVES.

Thanks to the hardworking tard miners at After the Bar Closes, there are many more examples I can copy and paste:

An example might be an unexpressed gene that would cause your brain to become disconnected from your spinal cord if it became active.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/the-design-of-life/ids-predictive-prowess#comment-163428

Or,
One predictions I have for ID is that nature holds the keys to advanced technology for us humans to unlock. In every living thing at lease one technological advancement waiting to be discovered. Properly understood and utilized, all the organisms that make up our eco-systems will propel human intellect to places we cannot imagine.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/the-design-of-life/ids-predictive-prowess/#comment-162976

Many more can be found in the various threads here:
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=478fcad7e493adbc;act=SF;f=14

People aren't really becoming more stupid are they? Or actually they are, but it's only temporary. There are probably more fundies today than there were ten years ago, but i think the embiggenment of the human race follows a sort of wavy curve upwards. Unless we rip this place apart before we get there, socialist utopia is inevitable. :)

Um, isn't the refutation to the '2nd Law of Thermodynamics doesn't work for evolution' argument, that 'more complex' does not mean 'better' evolution cares nothing for emotional views based on the fact that we are more complex so think we are 'better' and at the pinnacle of the evolution pyramid - more complex organisms are less efficient and waste more energy which is absorbed into the background radiation of the universe therefore actually contributing greatly to entropy. So Evolution DOES obey the 2nd Law, or have I got that one wrong?

Secondly the only people that say that humans descended from apes are religious fundamentalists. Evolution states that Apes and Humans had a common ancestor.

I don't think people are becoming more stupid. I think that the stupid now have more outlets to go public, they are no longer hidden away, out of sight and out of mind.

and...

...More Laundry please Charles!

The other stuff is all really good too, but I got me a special place set aside for the Laundry.

UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy

They don't get out much, do they?

Wow, that's farcical. Let's see, where could somebody indentify a giant outside source of energy for the Earth... hmm... three letters.... sounds like "fun"...

Nope, drawing a blank.

Martyn@51 - One thing I find most disheartening is the way many otherwise intelligent 'arty' (humanities graduate) types seem very proud of their ignorance in the sciences. I've heard some of my colleagues having one-upmanship contests: "I got a D in Maths" "Really? I got an F". Needless to say, they are universally contemptuous of science fiction.

David @56, of course evolution obeys the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, just like every other macroscopic process.

Note that the 2nd law of Thermodynamics isn't a (or indeed one hundred and eighteen) loosely worded statement(s) about order and complexity. It's one (or more) equations to do with work, heat and temperature. There's a solid Talk Origins page that has both the equations and the words if you're really interested, but essentially the answer to "Evolution violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics" is "No, it doesn't".

#52 said, "There's nothing wrong with being ignorant..."

Exactly. You could be the smartest man on Earth, and hold all the knowledge of the ages in your brain, but unless you've been everywhere, seen it all, done it all, then you only know a thin layer of what is. I'm proud of humanities ability to figure things out, but I'm also mystified at how a little knowledge is often confused with True Wisdom. Science + Satori: it's a more complete story.

Jeff Minor
"Time to go Dogma Hunting."

There are scientists who are YEC's or ID supporters. Undoubtedly many more than you think there are. The most famous one is a professor of Thermodynamics at Leeds University, Andy Macintosh. He is on record as saying that evolution breaks the 2nd law, and the propaganda is all carefully phrased so that you see "Professor Macintosh, BSC, PhD, CEng, etc etc, and thus are given the impression that it is a respectable academic position. Whereas in reality the good Prof is a YEC. Oddly enough he has not submitted any calculations showing how evolution is negated by the 2nd law to any peer reviewed journal. If supposed leaders in their field can suppress science in such a way, how are us normal people supposed to be any better?

One of my Chemistry lecturers at St Andrews is a 7th day adventist, and is against evolution. Nice bloke, but his religious beliefs mean he has to say stupid things like evolution is bunk.

Here in the UK the biggest active geographical area is Northern Ireland. YEC's are very busy there, especially Answeres in Genesis and other liars. They are busy brainwashing the locals with propaganda containing huge numbers of untruths and distortions of the science.
On the mainland, "Truth in Science", which has been featured on The pagan Prattle a few times, is very busy, although I have not heard from them in a while. THeir big stunt was sending a DVD of propaganda and lesson plans about evolution to schools, whilst missing out the small fact that they were YEC's and the propaganda was all carefully designed to throw doubt on evolution.

Typical tactics of fundies include this, taken from "UNcommon Descent", the ID website of Dr William Dembski (Who is he, I hear you cry? Well he's an intelligent person who seems to prefer spouting nonsense and getting paid for it than participating in the academic rat race):

DavidBrennan is no longer with us. His comments and responses to his comments were disappeared along with him.
- DaveTard

I love science and I hate what is being done to it through the use of despicable tactics to suppress open dialogue.

- DaveTard, 13 hours later

Davetard refers to Dave Scott, a zealous ID supporter with an entertaining habit of banning people who disagree with him from "Uncommon descent" and then complaining about science censoring ID.

Yes, he really is that stupid.

guthrie@61: "Truth" in Science's campaign did end up affecting government policy on the teaching of science in schools in England and Wales: it caused the Department of Education to state that the only place for ID in science class was as an example of pseudoscience.

G. Tingey@53: There is a distinct difference between scientific and philosophical (which includes discussion of a deity) reasoning. The examples Charlie game were of using philosophical reasoning to "prove" something in science. You're using scientific reasoning to "prove" something in philosophy.

They're both wrong, and it's trying to do this which causes a conflict, not science and religion itself.

Of course, we depend on something far more baroque, more intricate and more complex than evolution every day of our lives. It affects most things we do, and it fundermentally depends on belief.

The banking system.

Yes Feorag, but most of "truthiness in science", also known as the lying for Jesus UK branch, are YEC's, and it is well known that some schools are almost certianly teaching YEC stuff. Naming no names and all that...

Then there is NI, which doesn't seem to be getting any better.

Knock down straw men much folks?

As a person of faith I can assure you that there are other types or religous and spiritual people than ignorant and bigoted Fundies. In fact, the largest Christian denomination readily accepts the Big Bang and has had no trouble accepting Evolution (officially calling it "more than a theory"). They're called Catholics.

To paint us all with this overly broad Fundy brush (as is implied by this thread) is as insulting and prejudiced as the recent remark by a Florida poltician that Darwin was the true cause of the Holocaust. In fact, I could return the favor by equating all Atheists to nihilists and murderes by providing equally nasty quotes from the likes of Robespierre, Pol Pot, Nietzsche, Stalin, Mao, Sartre and Hitler.

Criticize religion and faith if you want (Lord knows there is plenty to criticize). But do so intelligently if you please.

Hi atlatl, nice to have you around!

Please note that the original caption was "fundamentalist wisdom", not "the idiocy of religion in general".

(It might also be useful to note that as I'm a British writer, and a writer of SF, I tend to attract an audience that is largely British and interested in SF, both of which correlate with atheism -- at least compared to the American non-SF-reading public. Actually, I'm quite surprised it took until comment #66 for someone to start defending religion and/or spirituality in general ...)

"..and where the ego is of the stubborn, unshakeable type, it can be incurable - at which point it can be characterised as stupidity."

True on both sides of the fence, from the look of these comments.

While I find the "fundie" position amusing, I can't help but be worried by talk of gene-pools and the (I assume) desired for removal of this fundie trash from same. Is this the dark side of eugenics rearing its ugly head? Darwins Obiwan to Galtons Darth Vader?

From the quoted posts it would appear that the fundie posters are not well educated - some kind of intellectual cannon fodder perhaps - and seem to be talking for the benefit of a closed audience; themselves and those like them. High fives all round. To be fair though, science is itself susceptible to fundamentalist beliefs - tectonic plates, cholesterol for example. It only takes a little education and you can be quite dangerous and start high-fiving with the best of them. Its easy to use reason for the purpose of shutting people up, but pretty hard to use it to convince unless the person is willing to be convinced. You are up against frightened people here. Unless scientists first earn respect; and they have to want that respect, they are not going to win; ever. You can't put a theory, however venerable, up against an unprovable belief. The theory will be superceded eventually by something better but God will only fade away.

End for now. Thanks for listening.

No! Come on! I know you SAY you didn't post this to be funny, but this one made me spit my morning coffee all over the keyboard:

"One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it."

So let's see if I understand this fellow's line of reasoning correctly. The Sun can't exist because if it did then "scientists would certainly know about it." You know: Scientists. The same guys who brought us evolution. Oh, but wait. Those evolution-spouting Scientists are wrong. And how do we know that they're wrong? Because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which was also discovered by ... you guessed it ... Scientists! Anyone else feeling a bit dizzy here??

Dizziness tends to go with the territory ...

All this goes to show how low our collective average is, and in some ways that's everybodies fault.

Anyway, maybe todays the day I get mistaken for a redneck and beamed aboard the mothership and taken to Arcturus.

I'm suspicious about the 2nd: That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.

and 7th: A woman wants to abort a rape child? She should have thought of that before she walked down that dark alley without a male prescence, not to mention she should have thought before putting on revealing attire.

They look like provocations designed to make believers look bad (especially the last).