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Odd though that people only seem to doubt the evidence when they want to do something! Don't want to give up smoking, drinking, sugar, driving an SUV or runnin

Odd though that people only seem to doubt the evidence when they want to do something! Don't want to give up smoking, drinking, sugar, driving an SUV or running the AC 24*7 ? Then convince yourself that the scientist are divided on the health benefits/global warming. I've yet to see somebody say that scientists are divided on general relativity and therefore I don't need to worry about falling off this cliff.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
There are a number of issues where there is no action to take (certainly no personal action), and where people irrationally ignore scientific evidence. Consider, for instance, the distribution of human intelligence. There is quite a bit of solid data on this (how valid is the measurement of g, how g varies amongst different human subgroups), and yet most people want to ignore it. A much smaller subset want to exaggerate it. I can't see any action people could reasonably take based on this data (except for a very small subset of people, namely judges and HR departments).
btilly 16y ago
Odd though that people only seem to doubt the evidence when they want to do something! Creationists doubt the evidence for evolution, but what do they want to do? Similarly the Holocaust "deniers". (Most don't actually deny the Holocaust, they dispute the scale.) I've yet to see somebody say that scientists are divided on general relativity and therefore I don't need to worry about falling off this cliff. I have known people who denied Einstein's theory of special relativity. They don't seem to want anything other than to argue about it. In fact annoyance over that was why I stopped reading James P. Hogan. (This was before he expressed his more controversial views.) There are also a number of scientists who have doubted general relativity, and they are generally credited with moving the discussion forward by providing something concrete to test. GR has done well under those tests, but it was important to have reasonable alternatives presented. (It is worth noting that 2 of the 3 classical tests of GR match the first order predictions of any theory that reconciles gravity with special relativity, and gravitational redshift falls out of quantum mechanics. So the classical tests didn't actually test the theory very well.) Nobody sane doubts the reality of gravity though. People who are prone to walking off cliffs because they think gravity is not real generally end up dead or institutionalized for good reason.
- codeflo 16y ago
  > Creationists doubt the evidence for evolution, but what do they want to do? Teach Christian mythology in science classes.
  - frgbhnmnjh 16y ago
    Since it's all old testament stuff, they are teaching Muslim mythology as much as Christian - but really teaching Jewish mythology ! Has anyone told them?

yummyfajitas 16y ago

There are a number of issues where there is no action to take (certainly no personal action), and where people irrationally ignore scientific evidence. Consider, for instance, the distribution of human intelligence. There is quite a bit of solid data on this (how valid is the measurement of g, how g varies amongst different human subgroups), and yet most people want to ignore it. A much smaller subset want to exaggerate it. I can't see any action people could reasonably take based on this data (except for a very small subset of people, namely judges and HR departments).

btilly 16y ago

Odd though that people only seem to doubt the evidence when they want to do something! Creationists doubt the evidence for evolution, but what do they want to do? Similarly the Holocaust "deniers". (Most don't actually deny the Holocaust, they dispute the scale.) I've yet to see somebody say that scientists are divided on general relativity and therefore I don't need to worry about falling off this cliff. I have known people who denied Einstein's theory of special relativity. They don't seem to want anything other than to argue about it. In fact annoyance over that was why I stopped reading James P. Hogan. (This was before he expressed his more controversial views.) There are also a number of scientists who have doubted general relativity, and they are generally credited with moving the discussion forward by providing something concrete to test. GR has done well under those tests, but it was important to have reasonable alternatives presented. (It is worth noting that 2 of the 3 classical tests of GR match the first order predictions of any theory that reconciles gravity with special relativity, and gravitational redshift falls out of quantum mechanics. So the classical tests didn't actually test the theory very well.) Nobody sane doubts the reality of gravity though. People who are prone to walking off cliffs because they think gravity is not real generally end up dead or institutionalized for good reason.

codeflo 16y ago
> Creationists doubt the evidence for evolution, but what do they want to do? Teach Christian mythology in science classes.
- frgbhnmnjh 16y ago
  Since it's all old testament stuff, they are teaching Muslim mythology as much as Christian - but really teaching Jewish mythology ! Has anyone told them?