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balony. Most scientists do work that's not at all related to what the public knows about and talk about their work in ways that no one else can understand. You

balony. Most scientists do work that's not at all related to what the public knows about and talk about their work in ways that no one else can understand. Your claim that scientists are being "chased" from the Republican party is ridiculous. Unless, of course, you have data that shows they are?

jbooth 16y ago
Here's a small sample size: http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_relativity http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_relativity This guy free-associated the theory of relativity with "moral relativism" (ideological bingo word!) and apparently concluded that that means relativity is wrong. Article full of cites follows. If it's cited, must be true, right? He also liberally (heh!) re-uses the bogus arguments from below about how relativity research is funded by the government, therefore the researchers must be marxists, therefore they're wrong about relativity. For further reading, I'd suggest polls on the public's view of creationism, age of the earth, evolution, global warming, etc by political party.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  I'm a liberal, but even I can see that conservapedia represents the overall conservative/Republican base about as well as Mao represents all Chinese.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    Well, fine, that one was mostly for yucks. But the pattern holds - check out the AEI on climate change, or the Texas Board of Education on evolution. These aren't fringe institutions.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    As far as I can tell, Conservapedia is written by two actual conservatives of the nutty variety and about fifty left-wing trolls.
evgen 16y ago
Most scientists do work that's not at all related to what the public knows about and talk about their work in ways that no one else can understand. Yeah, because no field has jargon and standard methods that require a small amount of prior knowledge to understand... We use a ton of confusing and sometimes overlapping jargon in the computer industry, simplify complex systems using metaphors that are not really correct (e.g. the internet is a series of tubes...), and will often give vague answers to people who are not in the industry. It is not because we have anything to hide, but because we do not have the time or energy to give someone an introductory course on how computers work just to answer a simple question. If you had the time to learn and the necessary educational background you could in fact learn when they are working on and understand what they are saying without too much effort. Most of the public is too busy, too lazy, or too stupid to do this. As far as scientists being "chased" from the republican party, start with The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney, move on to Unscientific America by the same author, The Great Derangement by Matt Tiabbi, or Idiot America by Charles Pierce. Skim through Merchants of Doubt or Doubt is their Product to see some of the links to various corporate think tanks. The evidence is clear, maybe you should check some of it out.

jbooth 16y ago

Here's a small sample size: http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_relativity http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_relativity This guy free-associated the theory of relativity with "moral relativism" (ideological bingo word!) and apparently concluded that that means relativity is wrong. Article full of cites follows. If it's cited, must be true, right? He also liberally (heh!) re-uses the bogus arguments from below about how relativity research is funded by the government, therefore the researchers must be marxists, therefore they're wrong about relativity. For further reading, I'd suggest polls on the public's view of creationism, age of the earth, evolution, global warming, etc by political party.

potatolicious 16y ago
I'm a liberal, but even I can see that conservapedia represents the overall conservative/Republican base about as well as Mao represents all Chinese.
- jbooth 16y ago
  Well, fine, that one was mostly for yucks. But the pattern holds - check out the AEI on climate change, or the Texas Board of Education on evolution. These aren't fringe institutions.
- hugh3 16y ago
  As far as I can tell, Conservapedia is written by two actual conservatives of the nutty variety and about fifty left-wing trolls.

evgen 16y ago

Most scientists do work that's not at all related to what the public knows about and talk about their work in ways that no one else can understand. Yeah, because no field has jargon and standard methods that require a small amount of prior knowledge to understand... We use a ton of confusing and sometimes overlapping jargon in the computer industry, simplify complex systems using metaphors that are not really correct (e.g. the internet is a series of tubes...), and will often give vague answers to people who are not in the industry. It is not because we have anything to hide, but because we do not have the time or energy to give someone an introductory course on how computers work just to answer a simple question. If you had the time to learn and the necessary educational background you could in fact learn when they are working on and understand what they are saying without too much effort. Most of the public is too busy, too lazy, or too stupid to do this. As far as scientists being "chased" from the republican party, start with The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney, move on to Unscientific America by the same author, The Great Derangement by Matt Tiabbi, or Idiot America by Charles Pierce. Skim through Merchants of Doubt or Doubt is their Product to see some of the links to various corporate think tanks. The evidence is clear, maybe you should check some of it out.