One Theory Proven (Outside The Laboratory)

I was going to write about this last night, but I was so tired, I used it to laugh myself to sleep instead:

Someone at The New York Times has written a smack down of the science bloggers, naming pretty much everybody worth mentioning but Orac (how in the hell did he get away?) for being a group of stupid libtards - a charge that (my sister blogger) Panda Bear, M.D. and I have leveled at them for some time now.

See, the science bloggers are all upset because their parent company, SEED, went and,...oh, who gives a shit? It's nothing - truly NOTHING - compared to what I felt after my ex-wife killed three people and the, oh, so compassionate science crowd dissed me for coming to them while emotional, so fuck 'em. They're a bunch of stupid assholes, with their priorities all fucked up, their politics fucking everything else up, and their heads stuck so far up their asses they don't know their experiments from their excrement.

If their little "community" of fallen NewAge liberal attack dogs is coming apart, then that's what they deserve, for being a bunch of dickheads when they thought nobody else was looking.

Now, excuse me while I go and have a Pepsi in their honor,...

A Decade From Hell: I Am The Winner, Part I

Now that we're in another of those periods when everybody starts doing a end of the year/decade round-up - and the verdict is in that this was (as I've always said) a "Decade From Hell" - I finally want to take a few posts to defend my (rightly) "negative" and mostly-unread-or-referenced little blog by saying, "I told you so". This is Part I:

The Scientific Mind: Clearly Defined

I think people first started calling me a "genius" when I was about 6 years old, but it never really became a big problem until around the year 2000. After that (like a child star discovering he ain't cute no more) it became quite obvious the designation of "genius" is a double-edged sword, because while, on the one hand, the word "genius" means I can be really smart, on the other hand it means A) I can get on people's nerves, and B) I have to spend the rest of my life with people I find to be over-the-top stupid. And unfortunately, for a genuis, "over-the-top stupid" describes almost anyone who accepts conventional wisdom - and, folks, there's a lot of really gullible, non-thinking and absolutely vicious idiots out there.

Oh - and I forgot to mention the worst, which is C) no matter how they try my patience, I'm expected to be "nice" to all of them.

Along with all that, what best defines "over-the-top-stupid" to me now'a'days is pretty much anyone who doesn't possess the ability to merely admit when they're wrong. Rush Limbaugh talks about this phenomena from time-to-time: how stupid people will seriously hate on anyone who knows something - not believes, but actually knows something - like I know NewAge. And those people will bring out the knives, especially, if the person that knows something doesn't have a college degree to back him up. (I think it was James Randi - hero to scientists, and critical thinkers, alike - who first said a PhD was merely a piece of paper that allowed idiots to pop-off at the mouth,...) One thing I've learned over the last 10 years: Groupthink, in the hands of the college educated - who, like gang members, are the most likely to engage in it - is a truly dangerous thing.

Of course, the ultimate symbol for this has to be the AGW "scientists", furiously doing anything - anything - not to be found out as being the fools and liars that they actually are. Oh, the conventional wisdom was so sure of global warming - based not on science but a belief. We saw millions of Americans, recently, willing to attempt wrecking the entire U.S. economy over it. (Think about that: they were willing to destroy the financial system of not only the greatest country on earth but the one they live in - without any real proof it was necessary. Now that's over-the-top-stupid.) Almost anyone who had a bumpersticker that read, "There's a village missing an idiot" during the Bush years (and there were a lot of them) is probably guilty of being a fool for the AGW scam. I talked to a lot of online scientists after I started this blog and almost all of them - Orac of Respectful Insolence, P.Z. Meyers of Pharyngula, and Mark Hoofnagle of the (just all together wrong) Denialism blog - all of them acted like idiots when confronted with my black ass, an actual skeptic. Every one of them - in defense of science, logic, and reason - was revealed by me to be an embarrassment to science, logic, and reason. But their supporters were even worse:

Not one of them questioned what these online "science" jokers were telling them. But rather, as a group, they were determined to bury anyone who questioned them - and they had a field day on me - or they'd refer me to one of those pre-approved climate websites, in the same manner that Michael Mann and Phil Jones did the "idiots" who questioned them. Very creepy - and cultish. They did the same thing regarding Barack Obama:

I'd ask them to explain his political platform, since they were so gun-ho behind it, and they'd either say what they hope he meant or refer me to his website.

They just couldn't admit (and probably still can't) that there is no "there" there.

That's, partially, what made this a "Decade From Hell" - there was no reasoning with supposedly-smart people. They were just like cult members: They'd cuss, and scream, and do anything else they had to, to sideline their critics - anything but to try and actually listen and understand. To discover it was happening offline, as well as on, was really disillusioning. (I've noticed Orac and Co. haven't said much, if anything, about the AGW scam since the East Anglia files were released - the true sign of dishonest cowards,....people should be on their asses for it.) It's just like when I told Orac (and Mark Hoofnagle) homeopathy was a cult, and Orac and his readers repeatedly gave me grief for it, only to see him adopt my language, later, without giving me a word of credit for his turn-around. No, the "scientific" way, now, is to ignore people who are willing to correct your findings, and there's no way Orac could appear to be fallible to his "followers". Better to pretend it never happened, or make it appear as though he came to the Homeopathy=cult conclusion on his own. (Yea, that's the ticket!)

What a Loser.

Why (now that I'm thinking about Orac and, that idiot, Hoofnagle) the online science community's behavior over the last few years, regarding me and science and what true skepticism means, has been a lot like what George W. Bush faced with a certain Islamic cult leader and his group,....at least the emotions were the same.

Jihad, Baby!

The Enemies Of Reason

I was going to do (what, for me, would be) a serious piece on this but, ultimately, I no longer want to waste my time:

As my readers know, because of my personal experience with occultism, I've become a (admittedly) strident voice against cultism, cultish-thinking, and the occult generally. My loud-and-proud way was, partially, inspired by the anger I see exhibited by such icons in the field as James Randi, Richard Dawkins, and many of the physicians in England and elsewhere. I thoroughly endorse this anger because I know, first hand, the corrosive effect these beliefs have on individuals and society. Unfortunately, except for Dawkins and a few others, it's become abundantly clear to me that one group that hasn't joined the fight - beyond chuckling about it - is scientists.

So I've spent some time on science blogs. But recently, because they don't like my questioning of their ethics, Mark and Chris Hoofnagle's lame denialism blog has decided to childishly "disemvowel" me (they take all the vowels out of whatever you write before banning. Of course, I left them with a message that'll be clear with or without a, e, i, o, or u.). Being banned by Mark Hoofnagle is like finding out a liberal, named Karen Doofendorfer, didn't want to go out with me. Or The Simpson's Comic Book Guy will no longer let me in the store to hear him pontificate on Star Wars. I shit you not. As a layman, I'm starting to find scientists to be one of the most lame groups of people I've ever encountered. It's no wonder new wagers don't trust them:

Like new wagers, they're too asinine to be trustworthy.

Any suggestion that scientists are fair brokers in public discourse and/or debate - even about science - has, for me, been thoroughly disproven by my own brief encounters with science blogs. Obviously, the Hoofnagle's are human beings with the same failings as everyone else (I can't even write their last name without giggling.) but, as supposedly-smart folks, I find scientists (with few exceptions) to be as big a bunch of Left-wing fruitcakes as, well, the big bunch of Left-wing fruitcakes I'm getting used to seeing out there. So, despite the shine of the many scientific discoveries I adore, it no longer surprises me so many scientists throughout history have ended up being seen as such idiotically cruel, unfeeling, idiots.

Take the whole "denialism" idea that the Hoofnagle's endorse. While they'll hide behind the idea the word's been around since the 1920's, they're more than happy to ignore the changing nature of words, and, especially, the Holocaust associations the word "denier" has had since World War II. Anyone that's offended by having the Hoofnagles throw the word at them, regarding Global Warming, well - as far as Mark and Chris are concerned - too frigging bad. Like someone claiming they don't understand anger over the word "nigger" - a word that's had many meanings over the years of it's existence as well - they're two geeky brothers who are delighted to be offenders, if they think it's in their interests, or for some greater good. (A greater good they alone decide, of course.) Now that it looks like Global Warming is no longer a problem - or, as I've always suggested, never was - they're just two offensive geeks.

Mark Hoofnagle, especially. He has spoken often of his Stalinist desire to "moderate" others behavior for GW. And he's said he isn't above allowing new wagers to spread "science's" Global Warming message, though, like people suffering from Irrational Bush Syndrome - as the president continues to beat the pants off Congressional Democrats - he, and his followers, say they regard new wagers as merely "stupid" rather than naively dangerous - a phenomena worthy of a laugh - as the occultists continue to kill through invading science and medicine with abandon.

And the scientist's debating tactics, regarding politics, are, often, exactly the same as the new wagers, relying mostly on a withering condemnation of their own government's tactics and behavior - because the government has Christians in it - as those outside our sphere are given a free pass by only having to endure a token covering fire from the likes of the Hoofnagle's. Think about it:

Is there a group like Scientists Against Osama?

I don't think so. But, I'm sure, they're lined up against President Bush. You can find any number of scientific groups, and science blogs, with an agenda to reel in their own government's efforts, which makes them no different than the other BSer's marching with dread locks and attitude. All serious criticism is directed at us, or the president - but not the enemy - like science will march on if a regime like the Taliban's ever gains power. I thought scientists were smarter than that.


But, then again - like their family name implies - the Hoofnagle's are sillier than most.