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read the peanut butter -- and there's an image of Jesus dog in it.

the guy missed that.

he also missed a lot.

don't know a blessed thing about life.

posted by Xeno-x on September 7, 2007 at 2:58 PM | link to this | reply

I categorically affirm your last paragraph, Gome...

And I have no real quarrel with the rest of what you wrote. I was simply protesting your statement that we are falling behind, by showing that we are gaining in nearly all fronts. In realty, the Intelligent Design gang is losing ground, except in those areas where they have a natural constituency. I see these areas "lost" anyway.

posted by arGee on September 7, 2007 at 12:52 PM | link to this | reply

arGee - a gate attraction soccer player coming to the USA in the mature

stages of his athletic career to cash in on a huge contract is completely irrelevant.

All of the other things that money can buy that are outside of the realm of scientific discovery and technological innovation are irrelevent as well. I'm not sure where you are coming from if you are suggesting that these things have anything to do with maintaining our overall quality of life. They are byproducts of our relative affluence. I think that the natural progression of logic based on my contention moves into the realms of utilizing resources to their maximum efficiency which in turn facilitates the maintainance of the average citizen's buying power. This is the discovery and innovation I am speaking of. My contention isn't rocket science, creationists are taking more and more of the players out of the system, it stands to reason that if the trend continues we will come to a point where we are not fielding our best team (to use a sports analogy).

But that admittedly is hypothetical and I am not worried about it either. I'm more worried about the collective and cumulative affects of Talabanish mentalities gaining favor in a society that I live in. A con man hustling religion and promoting junk science is only a small portion of the overall picture. We have to collectively smarten up, not collectively dumb it down to maintain what we have.

posted by gomedome on September 7, 2007 at 12:46 PM | link to this | reply

That's a big if, Gome...

Shall I add sports – even world class Soccer players are coming here now. Don't forget the arts, music and stage (not to mention Hollywood). I have more faith in the American common man, in his or her common sense and street smarts. I follow science , technology and innovation on a daily basis. If anything, we're pulling ahead of the rest of the world. I am not fearful.

posted by arGee on September 7, 2007 at 12:15 PM | link to this | reply

arGee - all of that is inarguably true but it is a reasonable prediction to

suggest that if large segments of the populace are turned away from the sciences, these things may not continue to be true in the future.

Junk science accompanied by discrediting the scientific disciplines is thought pollution. It has always been a part of the educational landscape but never to the degree that it is today. This stengthening influence cannot help but be detrimental to the promotion of the collective mindsets necessary to compete globally.

posted by gomedome on September 7, 2007 at 12:09 PM | link to this | reply

I am not going to quarrel with your thoughts, Gome...

I agree mostly. But you wrote that "We have lost that competitive advantage...," and I simply don't agree. The American worker is measurably the most productive worker in the World – by a significant amount. American innovation still leads the world in nearly everything. American universities are where you go as soon as you can afford it, and if you are sick you go to an American hospital – any American hospital!

As bad as it sometimes seems, there's nothing even close.

posted by arGee on September 7, 2007 at 11:36 AM | link to this | reply

arGee - Thank you for the excellent comment - I agree with most of what you

are saying about Missler but I cannot agree that persons such as him are harmless.

Any individual in a position of some influence spreading misinformation to prove a prejudicial point of contention is not completely harmless. Depending on the extent of that person's influence they can be decidedly detrimental to society as a whole. I know you are not saying that it is okay for someone to mislead children because they will grow up and learn the truth eventually but think about the implications of his type of actions in a broader scope. He is depicting those in scientific disciplines as a facade of misinformation (which is rather ironic) so in effect he is not only presenting junk science, he is discrediting the sources of real science.

The quality of life we have experienced on this continent for the last several decades has relied heavily on the scientific and technological innovation of our societies. We have lost that competitive advantage in the last couple of decades and now find ourselves in catch up mode. If we dissuade our young people from entering the scientific disciplines, which were at one time considered almost universally as honorable professions, we further debilitate our ability to complete globally. By filling young heads with prejudicial misinformation that has virtually no basis in scientific fact and further depicts those in the scientific disciplines as liars and untrustworthy, the subtle side effect is to discourage some young people from entering fields of scientific research and discovery.

The not so subtle effect is to raise a generation of dummies.

posted by gomedome on September 7, 2007 at 10:30 AM | link to this | reply

I'm going to jump to Missler's defense...sort of.

Missler has a problem, a conundrum if you will. He has made a statement of faith that requires him to believe certain things in order to be internally consistent. Missler has no scientific training, so – among other things – he doesn't know what the word theory means. (See my article on this here, or click on Gome's sidebar under arGee.) Furthermore, he really doesn't understand how the scientific method works. Because of his original statement of faith, he is working with a "reality matrix" into which he has to fit the real world. When he comes across things this real world that don't fit into the matrix, because he is fundamentally honest, he has to find a mechanism that discounts the nonconforming real-world elements. Fortunately for Missler, a group of so-called Intelligent Design scientists have told him that these nonconforming real-world elements really result from a mistaken understanding of fundamental natural laws in other words, they are not actually real-world elements after all.

Missler completely understands this, although he does not understand the underlying science and has to rely on the "expertise" of the Intelligent Design gang. Missler is a Minister, and he is speaking to his flock. He uses the well honored mechanism of a parable – an analogy, if you will. Within the framework of his point of view, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with his "peanut butter jar" analogy. It is not scientific in any way. He's just llustrating a "greater" point in language his flock wil understand. I don't doubt for a moment that Missler thinks he is making a scientific argument. He's just making a point.

In an earlier post, Gome, you made an excellent point about presenting what a person says within his venue, inside his context, since to do otherwise is to distort what he said, and that's not intellectually honest. Missler is a scientific fool, but he is a sincere Minister who believes he is helping make a better world. He does no harm, hurts nobody, and even the children he indoctrinates are able, as they grow older, to see beyond his narrow view.

Missler and his kind typically break no laws, join no gangs, pay their taxes, are honest in their dealings with others, and generally contribute to a better society. I'll take that any day over a screaming Liberal who shouts down opposition, molly coddles criminals, confiscates my money with big taxes, micromanages my life through legislation, and forces me into a PC straight jacket.

posted by arGee on September 7, 2007 at 7:56 AM | link to this | reply

Nautikos - you know the saddest part about that sort of thing is that not

everyone is conversant with the scientific theory of evolution.

When someone makes inane contentions such as that from a position of perceived credibility, there are some people that actually believe that both the science and the reasoning are sound.

posted by gomedome on September 6, 2007 at 10:20 PM | link to this | reply

gome

The 'peanut butter creationist's' piece was one of the funniest things I have read in a long time...

posted by Nautikos on September 6, 2007 at 7:59 PM | link to this | reply

Pat_B - any kind of misinformation that comes from a source with an implied

credibility does society a great disservice.

In the example I used in my last comment " . . . did we really evolve from a rock and some water?" when spoken by an individual claiming academic credentials (probably a crackerjack box degree in this case) gives the uneducated, undiscerning and those who are simply are too lazy to research what he is saying, the impression that the scientific theory of evolution suggests that we have evolved from rocks and water. In any other field of endeavor, he would be laughed out of the room for applying childlike reasoning to contentions arrived at, corroborated and endorsed by some of our greatest scientific minds but religious belief is unique. Distinct from all other fields in that the conclusions are foregone and predetermined. One need only pander to the extreme bias held by all who want the foregone conclusions to stand up against scientific discovery, the drivel that comes out of their mouths doesn't have to make sense, just as long as it supports the desired conclusion.

posted by gomedome on September 6, 2007 at 8:13 AM | link to this | reply

Gome, this goes along with the "scientific" BS that comes from

so-called news broadcasts of the 700 Club. One of the more conspicuous is the claim that abortions cause cancer. I avoid those broadcasts religiously, but sometimes a re-broadcast pops up on the comedy show. I'll bet those guys never mention the medical evidence that more than half of cervical cancer is caused by poor hygiene on the part of males.

posted by Pat_B on September 6, 2007 at 7:40 AM | link to this | reply

A-and-B - I don't know which one of the points he makes are my favorite

But I do get a kick out of this one: " . . . did we really evolve from a rock and some water?"