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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 2:22 pm Post subject: New(ish) Phenomenon Needs a New Word |
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There's a post around here scoffing at a study of the long term effects of drinking alcohol. There is a widely recognized challenge to scientific thinking in the field of climate change. There's been a long term challenge to science from the creationist crowd. Then of course we have the upsurge in conspiracy thinking. In general, there's more than a whiff of ________ (a word for anti-science) in the air.
Science has been around for about 500 years and there has always been opposition to it, but I think we are in need of one word to refer to that position. 'Anti-science' seems too cumbersome to me. A person who hates someone because of race is a racist; a person who mistreats someone because of their gender is a sexist. Unfortunately, you can't call someone who hates science a scientist. That word is already taken. So is 'medievalist'. Scienphobic looks funny and doesn't roll off the tongue.
Open for suggestions. |
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blackjack
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: anyang
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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| idiot? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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You want to take the time to create a new liberal insult for those who question anthropogenic global-warming theory and its politics? You want to morally equate them to creationists, racists, and sexists and simply decree that they "oppose five hundred years of science" in one simplistic monolithic anti-science position?
You liberals certainly love your name-calling and labels. "Scienphobic?" You are looking to create a new mental-illness classification for this?
Laughably predictable tactic. And this represents the sorriest, deliberately antagonistic, and intentionally offensive thread I have seen here in a long, long time.
Who do you think you are? Oh that is right, you are a liberal. Smug moral superiority and haughty disdain comes so naturally to you.
How does that strike you as "a suggestion?" |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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"irrationalist!" was the old slur by scientists and their defenders who liked to name call
the long term effects of drinking alcohol is OVERWHELMINGLY positive, based on hundreds of scientific studies - time and again, drinking alcohol albeit in moderation has been found to be a healthier option than abstinence - to think otherwise is to be simply ignorant of the science or one of those people the name for whom the op wishes to determine
so go have a drink or two for your health and lighten up |
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proustme
Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Location: Nowon-gu
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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YOU LIBERAL! AGHHH  |
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oldtactics
Joined: 18 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Christian? |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:31 pm Post subject: |
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I'm uncomfortable with the word creationist as it is too broad a term. A majority of Christians are not literal creationists, but interpret the first chapters of Genesis as symbolic. These are not necessarily anti-scientific people, though some are.
Medieval is another false and ugly stereotype. The medieval Europeans founded the universities which led to modern scientific inquiry. Chaucer wrote scientific manuals on the astrolabe. The knowledge of science was primitive but there was no antagonism to its study as such. I don't know where the claim that science is 500 years old comes from. The Greeks had their own scientific discoveries and pursuits.
What's wrong with "anti-intellectualism" as a general term? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Moldy Rutabaga wrote: |
| What's wrong with "anti-intellectualism" as a general term? |
It connotes a very specific meaning, at least on my campus and in my social sciences college. As it is used, it means "anyone who opposes intellectual activism, especially intellectuals engaged in systematically critiquing, protesting the existing order, be it the state, the government, or the economic regime." They also use it as an insult against those in the administration who oversee budget cuts, especially when those budget cuts affect their specific college or department.
I completely disagree with it, however, because it serves as a way for leftist, activist intellectuals to monopolize the definition of "intellectual" and in a way which perforce makes any and everyone who dissents from this definition "an anti-intellectual." To be "an intellectual," then, one must be an oppositionist; otherwise one is "anti-intellectual."
Nonsense. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
"irrationalist!" was the old slur by scientists and their defenders who liked to name call
the long term effects of drinking alcohol is OVERWHELMINGLY positive, based on hundreds of scientific studies - time and again, drinking alcohol albeit in moderation has been found to be a healthier option than abstinence - to think otherwise is to be simply ignorant of the science or one of those people the name for whom the op wishes to determine
so go have a drink or two for your health and lighten up |
Yea this is true. But...I literally don't know anyone who drinks in moderation according to the standard guidelines.
http://www.drinkingandyou.com/site/us/moder.htm
Now it's true that my experience is with Irish people(stereotype is true) and esl teachers but people just don't drink in moderation. Two bottles of beer in a day is the limit for men. As far as I can tell, one long island ice tea is over the limit.
I know people who don't drink and people who do drink, but no-one who consistently drinks in moderation. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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Heard or read awhile back about a guy who was a hundred-and-something who has a shot of tequila every morning to start his day (and that's all he drinks).
I've had a drink in the mornings before, but those were 'hair of the dog' cases where I was attempting to lessen a hangover.
If I hit 100 I'll let you know. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Our family doctor told us that a pint of Guinness(or any stout) a day is really good for you. Alot of boxers and athletes back in the day would start their day with one. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 5:15 am Post subject: |
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I don't know where the claim that science is 500 years old comes from. The Greeks had their own scientific discoveries and pursuits.
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Technically, it was the Hellenistics who made the real progress in science. But that strengthens my point. Their rational approach got squelched by superstition and disappeared for a thousand years and more. If that can happen once...
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| The knowledge of science was primitive but there was no antagonism to its study as such. |
That's not really true, unless you don't think Galileo being shown the instruments of torture amounted to much. There was enormous opposition to scientific study when it came up with propositions the Church didn't find acceptable. There were progressive elements in the Church, but they were not the controlling faction.
Unless I miss my guess, the leading scientists of the next century will be from India and China, not the West. |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 6:05 am Post subject: |
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| That's not really true, unless you don't think Galileo being shown the instruments of torture amounted to much. There was enormous opposition to scientific study when it came up with propositions the Church didn't find acceptable. There were progressive elements in the Church, but they were not the controlling faction. |
The Galileo story has been misinterpreted for various agendas. The pope was actually interested in Galileo's findings, as he was with Copernicus', and there were progressive elements in the Vatican willing to listen. Galileo's error, according to contemporary historians, was in being an arrogant jerk, basically. He refused to work with the church and wrote pamphlets mocking the pope. The church was not opposed to scientific inquiry. It was opposed to people unwilling to work through the channels.
I am not arguing that the church was right to censor Galileo, but his case has been exaggerated. As he was elderly he would not have survived torture. His sentence was house arrest at his Italian villa. Nice punishment if you can get it. So far as the medieval church opposing scientific thought, many of our Hellenic and Roman treatises survive because the church sponsored and copied such works (although many survive through Arabic translations).
Getting back to the main issue, I agree that there is a modern antagonism toward science. I don't know what to call it. My experience of anti-intellectualism is not that it was used for elitist or "leftist" ideologies, and to me it is a term that can be reclaimed. I just don't think medieval is a fair term. The medieval age gave us engineering feats such as castles and cathedrals, advanced weaponry and metallurgy, and laid the foundation for the university system which would lead to modern science.
Maybe we need something totally new, such as "dumbism" or something. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 6:41 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| You want to take the time to create a new liberal insult for those who question anthropogenic global-warming theory and its politics? You want to morally equate them to creationists, racists, and sexists and simply decree that they "oppose five hundred years of science" in one simplistic monolithic anti-science position? |
Yes, he's tried this before when he tried to equate the idea of lizard people on Mars with those that rogue elements in our own government may have been involved in the JFK assassination and 9/11.
He calls that "science" when he (nor anyone else) has ever explained, as just one of many examples, how jet fuel which burns at 1700 degrees could melt steel with its melting point of 2800 degrees.
Nothing new to see here. |
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guava
Joined: 02 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 7:01 am Post subject: Re: New(ish) Phenomenon Needs a New Word |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
Open for suggestions. |
How about common sense, as an alternative to spurious information being posited as science.
In general, there's more than a whiff of common sense in the air. |
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