Monday, December 21, 2009
spalinns and demagogues
Are spalinns essential to demagogues and demagogy?
The issue is not likely resolved by definitions alone. The interplay between lies, exageration and misplaced emphasis have to be understood in terms of the intentions of the speaker, the presumed opportunities and the presumed audience.
It is possible that a hopeful demagogue spouts "canards" and "howlers" with the intent of elicitiing an over-reaction by the outraged.
I am open to suggestions, clarification, rebuttals and alternatives: the aim is to understand the relationship between knowledge, science, falsehoods, the polis and power.
spalinns would not matter if demagogy were not a real risk in even a constitutional federal democracy. Recent events in Iran under Iranian theocracy would seem to prove that spalinns present as much a risk to welfare of the people in that context as they do in the context of liberal democracy.
The issue is not likely resolved by definitions alone. The interplay between lies, exageration and misplaced emphasis have to be understood in terms of the intentions of the speaker, the presumed opportunities and the presumed audience.
It is possible that a hopeful demagogue spouts "canards" and "howlers" with the intent of elicitiing an over-reaction by the outraged.
I am open to suggestions, clarification, rebuttals and alternatives: the aim is to understand the relationship between knowledge, science, falsehoods, the polis and power.
spalinns would not matter if demagogy were not a real risk in even a constitutional federal democracy. Recent events in Iran under Iranian theocracy would seem to prove that spalinns present as much a risk to welfare of the people in that context as they do in the context of liberal democracy.
spalinns and hubris
spalinns are not just hubris.
Perhaps hubris in science does go with arrogance and a certain naivete.
Take the example of behaviorist psychologists embracing the exclusions and strictures of logical positivism. Decades later we acknowledge that Pavlov's dogs and Skinner's pigeons were not automatons. Even lab rats left to their own devices revert to communal rat solutions to fascinating problems for any species living in colonies or in over-crowding or contending with other constraints. Perhaps what was missing was not a theory of consciousness so much as a theory of general anaethesia.
The belief in technique informed by science was certainly embraced by the American demagogues of the Technocracy movement and Stalin's technocrats. Only one had unfettered power for decades: the US Army Corps of Engineers was eventually restrained (in part through mandated peer review.)
Perhaps hubris in science does go with arrogance and a certain naivete.
Take the example of behaviorist psychologists embracing the exclusions and strictures of logical positivism. Decades later we acknowledge that Pavlov's dogs and Skinner's pigeons were not automatons. Even lab rats left to their own devices revert to communal rat solutions to fascinating problems for any species living in colonies or in over-crowding or contending with other constraints. Perhaps what was missing was not a theory of consciousness so much as a theory of general anaethesia.
The belief in technique informed by science was certainly embraced by the American demagogues of the Technocracy movement and Stalin's technocrats. Only one had unfettered power for decades: the US Army Corps of Engineers was eventually restrained (in part through mandated peer review.)
spalinns: a pronunciation guide
True "spalinns" are pronounced "spellin's" as in "There are no agreed spellings in science".
There is no singular. No singular idiotic denial of scientific research, data, theory or accepted fact consititutes "spalinns". The term 'spalinns' is never capitalized.
spalinns occur at the point where one bit of idiocy is only conceivable in active participation with another egregious moronic belief.
spalinns due not constitute a belief system.
spalinns are a result of the willingness to pretend that science is just a way of talking so as to pursuade people to accept a point of view. Any strident political discourse or theology is as good as any scientific culture, institution, discourse or movement.
spalinns result from the notion that nothing can be proven wrong, but that those who disagree with you are obviously wrong - and more so with repetition. twitter is the place to repeat.
The end of science in the medieval world of Islam was due to a fatwa likely inspired by a nexus of spalinns. Nothing is new under the spell of spalinns.
Doctor Johnson should not be blamed for English spellin's.
There is no singular. No singular idiotic denial of scientific research, data, theory or accepted fact consititutes "spalinns". The term 'spalinns' is never capitalized.
spalinns occur at the point where one bit of idiocy is only conceivable in active participation with another egregious moronic belief.
spalinns due not constitute a belief system.
spalinns are a result of the willingness to pretend that science is just a way of talking so as to pursuade people to accept a point of view. Any strident political discourse or theology is as good as any scientific culture, institution, discourse or movement.
spalinns result from the notion that nothing can be proven wrong, but that those who disagree with you are obviously wrong - and more so with repetition. twitter is the place to repeat.
The end of science in the medieval world of Islam was due to a fatwa likely inspired by a nexus of spalinns. Nothing is new under the spell of spalinns.
Doctor Johnson should not be blamed for English spellin's.
Evolution denials
The strongest objection used to be the age of the earth. The earth could not be several billion years old because the sun could not have been "burning" for even a few million years given its mass. Enter nuclear fusion, stage left.
Today the situation is different: it is now accepted that the moon formed following a disruption of the young earth - probably due to a collision (unless you deny that NASA went to the moon ... it was a Democrat's project ... and that those are indeed lunar rocks that the "paid" scientists are testing.) The moon has been critical to evolution on earth due to tidal action on the oceans: with tidal zones and tidal pools came terrestrial life.
But life itself? Where that topic is concerned, public recognition of scientific theory has been cruel. There were no Nobel prizes for either George Gamow or Fred Hoyle.
Today the insights of Gamow, Hoyle and others are the basis for stellar evolution and astrobiology. Science denials are often based on how often great scientists such as Gamow and Hoyle were wrong. Or focussing on disagreement rather than accepting the criteria by which agreement is eventually found.
Wait for spalinns on NASA wasting our money on dark matter detection or detection of amino acids on Saturn's moon Titan. Or mocking the longest-running NASA science project: the Gravity Probe B. Had the project been based in Alaska, it would have been shut down long ago - but fortunately national administrations have sometimes heeded national scientific opinion.
Not that a national scientific consensus cannot be wrong: for that see Boltzmann and atomism.
Denials: Chernobyl caused poison lichen for Laplander reindeer. No. Radioactive reindeer are just part of natural climate changge.
But if atomic testing had been done on the Aleutian Atoll ... or just across the Bering Strait ... or if mercury levels rise in Alaskan crabs ...
Today the situation is different: it is now accepted that the moon formed following a disruption of the young earth - probably due to a collision (unless you deny that NASA went to the moon ... it was a Democrat's project ... and that those are indeed lunar rocks that the "paid" scientists are testing.) The moon has been critical to evolution on earth due to tidal action on the oceans: with tidal zones and tidal pools came terrestrial life.
But life itself? Where that topic is concerned, public recognition of scientific theory has been cruel. There were no Nobel prizes for either George Gamow or Fred Hoyle.
Today the insights of Gamow, Hoyle and others are the basis for stellar evolution and astrobiology. Science denials are often based on how often great scientists such as Gamow and Hoyle were wrong. Or focussing on disagreement rather than accepting the criteria by which agreement is eventually found.
Wait for spalinns on NASA wasting our money on dark matter detection or detection of amino acids on Saturn's moon Titan. Or mocking the longest-running NASA science project: the Gravity Probe B. Had the project been based in Alaska, it would have been shut down long ago - but fortunately national administrations have sometimes heeded national scientific opinion.
Not that a national scientific consensus cannot be wrong: for that see Boltzmann and atomism.
Denials: Chernobyl caused poison lichen for Laplander reindeer. No. Radioactive reindeer are just part of natural climate changge.
But if atomic testing had been done on the Aleutian Atoll ... or just across the Bering Strait ... or if mercury levels rise in Alaskan crabs ...
Global warming deniers
Arrogant and naive. Man over-powering nature is a hoax.
The domination of nature seems to go ith the belief that the natural world was a gift to mankind to dispose of as we see fit. spalinns follow naturally from this, I suppose. These might well be spalin NonSense hoaxes:
The Zuider Zee: a Dutch hoax.
The Thames Barrier: a British hoax perpetrated by paid friends of Tony Blair.
Alzheimer's: a hoax perpetrated by Margaret Thatcher.
The Aswan dam: a hoax perpetrated by Israel.
The most frightening denials may have come from medical doctors in Vienna: unless the suicide of Semmelweis was a hoax.
The draining of the Everglades by the US Corps of Engineers: a hoax perpetrated by Yankee real-estate speculators opposed to the inevitable election of George W. Bush.
The domination of nature seems to go ith the belief that the natural world was a gift to mankind to dispose of as we see fit. spalinns follow naturally from this, I suppose. These might well be spalin NonSense hoaxes:
The Zuider Zee: a Dutch hoax.
The Thames Barrier: a British hoax perpetrated by paid friends of Tony Blair.
Alzheimer's: a hoax perpetrated by Margaret Thatcher.
The Aswan dam: a hoax perpetrated by Israel.
The most frightening denials may have come from medical doctors in Vienna: unless the suicide of Semmelweis was a hoax.
The draining of the Everglades by the US Corps of Engineers: a hoax perpetrated by Yankee real-estate speculators opposed to the inevitable election of George W. Bush.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
deforestation is the issue
Deforestation may not be an issue in Alaska.
The kind of nonsense that we rank as spalinns is the public denial by figures with any significant degree of political power that deforestation has, and continues to have, dramatic effects on ecosystems and climate far beyond the local deforested areas.
Europeans who deny that deforestation and the draining of bogs has impacted Euorpean climate also fall into this class.
Those with access to accepted science who deny that deforestation had impacts in historical time in the Levant also fall into this class.
Stop spalin nonsense by mocking published spalinns. Don't worry about your spelling and your spellings. Spell-check is not the issue. Facts check is an issue. Theory is not nonsense: in science, theory is what counts.
If religious theology were the path to a metaphysics worth defending, then it would be critical to have state - church separation in countries such as Greece. But it is not.
Theory in science is what we must protect from the state, if not in constitutional law, then in the press.
Evolution is no longer just a theory.
Deforestation contributing to global warming is part of a theory.
Deforestation leading to non-local degradation of ecologies, species variety and viable human settlements is a fact.
Deniers with power are dangerous. Mock them mercilessly.
The kind of nonsense that we rank as spalinns is the public denial by figures with any significant degree of political power that deforestation has, and continues to have, dramatic effects on ecosystems and climate far beyond the local deforested areas.
Europeans who deny that deforestation and the draining of bogs has impacted Euorpean climate also fall into this class.
Those with access to accepted science who deny that deforestation had impacts in historical time in the Levant also fall into this class.
Stop spalin nonsense by mocking published spalinns. Don't worry about your spelling and your spellings. Spell-check is not the issue. Facts check is an issue. Theory is not nonsense: in science, theory is what counts.
If religious theology were the path to a metaphysics worth defending, then it would be critical to have state - church separation in countries such as Greece. But it is not.
Theory in science is what we must protect from the state, if not in constitutional law, then in the press.
Evolution is no longer just a theory.
Deforestation contributing to global warming is part of a theory.
Deforestation leading to non-local degradation of ecologies, species variety and viable human settlements is a fact.
Deniers with power are dangerous. Mock them mercilessly.
S Palin spalinns
We have had Mrs. Malaprop and malapropisms but the time has come for serious nonsense to have a name: spalinns
spalinns are not for people who have trouble with their spellings. Not at all.
spalinns are reserved for nonsense spouted by those who would drive us to look for a separation between science and state.
A recent US president was given to spalin nonsense, or spalin NS, for short ...
Take a political figure who denies that human activity affects natural processses that are far beyond local. Take Stalin and the cotton to be grown around the Aral Sea.
Take the US Corps of Engineers preventing the natural diversion of the Mississippi.
Take the proposals of "Technocracy" candidates in the 1920's to reverse the direction of flow of a few Canadian Rivers. And we are back to Stalin. Which leads us to genetics. And we are back to a recent US president.
The view that human activity does not relate to GW is bizarre: just begin with what we now know of paleo activity along the Colorado River and recent plans for desert cities.
Take the ports lying inland in desert in deforested areas of modern-day Turkey.
Take the US Corps of Engineers desisting from draining more of the Everglades (as it impacts floridian weather and much more.)
Take the construction of the thames barrier or any major breakwater.
When the powerful seek to tell fools what they want to hear: bald-faced lies, canards, vicious rumours -- what then can we do? we rely on reasoning, law, history, the facts -- and science.
NASA pictures of Madagascar bleeding red soil into the Indian Ocean is THE image of deforestation and the plight of the lemurs.
Deforestation has not endangered the Alaskan moose population. But over-fishing has devasted key fish stocks elsewhere (but perhaps not yer in Alaskan waters.)
The last pristine forests of eastern Europe are in peril - and so the last eastern European bears, "moose", wolves and bison (Yes, European bison.)
spalinns
The problem is not your spelling.
Note that spalinns is not spelled "spalins" so as not to malign the Spalin family name.
spalinns are not for people who have trouble with their spellings. Not at all.
spalinns are reserved for nonsense spouted by those who would drive us to look for a separation between science and state.
A recent US president was given to spalin nonsense, or spalin NS, for short ...
Take a political figure who denies that human activity affects natural processses that are far beyond local. Take Stalin and the cotton to be grown around the Aral Sea.
Take the US Corps of Engineers preventing the natural diversion of the Mississippi.
Take the proposals of "Technocracy" candidates in the 1920's to reverse the direction of flow of a few Canadian Rivers. And we are back to Stalin. Which leads us to genetics. And we are back to a recent US president.
The view that human activity does not relate to GW is bizarre: just begin with what we now know of paleo activity along the Colorado River and recent plans for desert cities.
Take the ports lying inland in desert in deforested areas of modern-day Turkey.
Take the US Corps of Engineers desisting from draining more of the Everglades (as it impacts floridian weather and much more.)
Take the construction of the thames barrier or any major breakwater.
When the powerful seek to tell fools what they want to hear: bald-faced lies, canards, vicious rumours -- what then can we do? we rely on reasoning, law, history, the facts -- and science.
NASA pictures of Madagascar bleeding red soil into the Indian Ocean is THE image of deforestation and the plight of the lemurs.
Deforestation has not endangered the Alaskan moose population. But over-fishing has devasted key fish stocks elsewhere (but perhaps not yer in Alaskan waters.)
The last pristine forests of eastern Europe are in peril - and so the last eastern European bears, "moose", wolves and bison (Yes, European bison.)
spalinns
The problem is not your spelling.
Note that spalinns is not spelled "spalins" so as not to malign the Spalin family name.
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