Science deniers. WTF?

[ClichéGuevara]

Never mind flat earth, don't get me started on Creationists...

*facepalm*

You could always offer my theory that God created religion to weed out the boring sods that just agree and never question, so he's not stuck with them for eternity. An omnipotent omniscient is going to want interesting people that challenge him.

 

[Drago]

You could always offer my theory that God created religion to weed out the boring sods...

Why should she do that?

 

[Reynard]

Indeed. I mean, who created God?

To quote Babylon 5...

What came first? The word, or the thought behind the word?

I know, I'm a nerd

 

[Reynard]

You could always offer my theory that God created religion to weed out the boring sods that just agree and never question, so he's not stuck with them for eternity. An omnipotent omniscient is going to want interesting people that challenge him.

You mean like Q and Captain Picard?

 

[KnittyNorah]

I use Smallpox as my example... I have had replies like "The vaccine didn't do that - Smallpox was dying out naturally" and even "Oh, that was different!".

I use the fact that I have SEEN the effect of smallpox on a person. When I was working in Saudi Arabia in the early 1970s (before smallpox was declared extinct) we had a pleasant man, in his mid 30s, an engineer from Sudan working in Riyadh, who had had smallpox as a child in the late 1940s. He had a damaged heart from his childhood smallpox, which was why he'd come to the hospital I was working at.
However, his facial (and other) scarring was ... something to behold ...
I will just use the word 'impressive'.

For the first time I understood why - be she ever so plain - a milkmaid (who'd had cowpox) was considered the epitome of beauty in the 17th and 18thCs.

Smallpox was not 'dying out naturally' at all, and people in general really are far more stupid and ignorant than this earth deserves.

 

[bonzobanana]

What does David Icke have to say on all this?

Dare I say though that science doesn't stand still, maybe in the year 3000 they will look back at our science and understanding and think us as primitive as we think of people in the dark ages. That in no way supports ridiculous conspiracy theories just stating how science and what we understand may go through radical changes as the decades pass.

 

[classic33]

I say that were living in a computer simulation, and there's the science to back it up.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/

Consider computer games which allow you to build your own "empire". In them its a way of proving the computer simulation. Get everything correct, and you'll be directed to where the proof is.

 

[Drago]

I say that were living in a computer simulation, and there's the science to back it up.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/

Consider computer games which allow you to build your own "empire". In them its a way of proving the computer simulation. Get everything correct, and you'll be directed to where the proof is.

That would explain why I'm so awesome.

 

[Jameshow]

I sometimes wonder whether the flat-earthers are the world's greatest fibbers and straight-face-keepers! Maybe they are just competing with each other to come up with the most extreme nonsense to explain how a flat earth would work, and not cracking up while doing so...

I had someone at work do that with 'bloody cyclists' once. He started off by saying that cyclists ought to be made to pass cycling tests, have riding licences, be insured, and so on. He saw he was getting a reaction from me and went on to say that cyclists actually shouldn't be allowed on roads at all, but stick to cycle paths. He looked deadly serious. I was about to blow my top, when he smiled and nudged me... "Ha ha, only kidding, mate!"

Have you ever met a flat earther?! I haven't!

I've met COVID vaccine deniers and 5g link proponents but I think the flat earth idea is a bit of a strawman tbh.

 

[Jameshow]

I say that were living in a computer simulation, and there's the science to back it up.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/

Consider computer games which allow you to build your own "empire". In them its a way of proving the computer simulation. Get everything correct, and you'll be directed to where the proof is.

I've heard that before from clients, trying not to laugh has been difficult!

 

[classic33]

I've heard that before from clients, trying not to laugh has been difficult!

If you think about it, the science does a fair job of explaining it all.

 

[ColinJ]

Have you ever met a flat earther?! I haven't!

I've met COVID vaccine deniers and 5g link proponents but I think the flat earth idea is a bit of a strawman tbh.

I haven't met any but I saw some very serious looking flat earthers on TV with what they appeared to think were explanations for how everybody else had got it wrong!

That is why I was wondering whether it is all an inside joke... See how long it is before everybody else finally realises that they are making it all up to see how many people they can fool.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Many years ago I worked in an IT office with 4 other people

4 of us had Science degrees and the other one was no slouch either

I mentioned in passing about some people not believing that the AMericans had landed on the Moon
The bloke who say beside me had never heard that (the rest of us had) and just didn;t believe that such people existed

Now this was the early days of the WWW - I think Google was only a year or so from entering common WWW consciousness

so I looked it up on the WWW and found the "facts" that the moon landing deniers put forward - and printed them out


Several of the "facts" we could easily prove wrong immediately
a couple more took some batting back and forth to manage to find ways of proving they were false

in all of this I was acting as "devil's advocate'" and generating some discussion when I insisted that the other put together proper proof for things that they though obvious

But after an hour or so - including lunch - we had dismissed all but two or three of the "facts

by te end of the day we were down to one or tow


the next day we had done them all


so - before someone say it - we were a strange group - at times we were snowed under with work - otehr times we had little to do and this was a slow day as we were banned from making any changes to the computer systems due to the approaching Christmas.

ANyway - the point is - it took a team of people with Science degrees (except one) and who were used to solving complex problems to dismiss all the arguments - a whole day.


COming up with concepts is easy - finding the rights facts and checking them often takes more time

 

[Time Waster]

I read an article about how a number of high schools /academies run by religiousgroup in the UK were falling because they were following a religious organisation's creationist syllabus. It's also used in home schooling books by the same religious group. This was developed in the 1970s in Texas apparently.

The centre of the science curriculum was that creation was real and evolution was proven to be wrong. In fact all science curriculum was based on the bible being literal truth. If you find that article it will shock you!

Anyway, the reporters interviewed a couple of very intelligent former pupils of these schools and home schooling courses. They all came out and into university having to do extra years to unlearn what they'd been taught in order to get onto a university course. They learnt that their school qualifications weren't recognised by universities and more significant was that their whole science education at school was just outright lies!

Seriously wish I knew where that article was now, about a week or two ago it appeared in my MS news page. Guardian, independent or telegraph I think.

 

[Jenkins]

These sort of people are really just harmless nutters.

Until they get elected into positions of power.