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Episode 78
This week on Comedy and Everything Else:
- Jimmy and Stef love the Bachelor for all the right reasons
- Jenny Sanford was interviewed by Barbara Walters and she's the new kind of female hero
- Jimmy says sex is more fun when it's dirty
- The GOP's effort to compromise with Obama: You gotta be kidding me
- Centrists are the new kind of mature adults
- Thanks to our donors!
- Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh keep talking about snow and asking "Where is Al Gore?"
- Jimmy is smart enough to tell the difference between a true god and a false god
- Plus let's talk about the inherent arrogance of the religious (yaaaay)
- Paul makes a confession
This is an episode of Comedy and Everything Else, a comedy podcast featuring Jimmy Dore, Stefane Zamorano and comedy guests. For more of our comedy and even more of everything else, subscribe with iTunes.
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Comments
There's an entire website
There's an entire website dedicated to the depressing widespread ignorance about Global Warming as seen in political cartoons:
http://ifglobalwarmingisrealthenwhyisitcold.blogspot.com/
Pretty miserable stuff. The media is inundated with so much bad science that it's pretty staggering.
Thanks for sharing the
Thanks for sharing the link!
As though political cartoons weren't already hack-y enough (amazing that so many people are paid to make the same obvious joke). I'm not surprised at all that they're better rewarded with future employment for making thousands of people slightly laugh over an obvious joke than for making fewer people stop and think about what it actually means.
New rule: if you have to write the name of something on another thing to explain it's a metaphor, you're not good enough at what you're doing. e.g.: Putting a badge on a character to explain it's "AL GORE"
Do you have a deadline for
Do you have a deadline for the logo contest submissions?
No word on a deadline yet,
No word on a deadline yet, but only four entrants so far- so literally anything you enter currently will have you in the top five (assuming no other people submit any). It's almost a completely open game at this point!
RE: Jimmy's condemnation of
RE: Jimmy's condemnation of the anti-science right ...
Long time listener/lurker,and I love the show. Every single one. Including the radio show Jimmy does every week (How do you guys consistently bring the funny and interesting on such a consistent basis - you must all be talented or something!). Of course, when a segment repeats from the radio show to the podcast - or vice versa - I get so worked up that I might just not listen to that segment again and either fast forward or skip to something I hadn't heard already. Do people really complain about your reruns, Jimmy? Do you think they write to the networks every time they show a rerun?
I just listened to today's show and Jimmy said something about the anti-science of the right not having an equal on the left. I just thought I'd disagree a bit.
Though I think of myself as a rational leftie, I have encountered more than a few irrational anti-science lefties. These would be the new age medicine people (including scientifically disproven stuff like acupuncture, chiropractic medicine, holistic medicine and the like), the anti-vaccination crowd, the ghosts exist crowd, the we didn't land on the moon crowd, the ancient Mayan Calendar denotes the end of the world in 2012 crowd ... in short, the non-Christians who embrace alternative religions (paganism, wiccans and such) and medicines as if they actually work.
While for the most part they are much less organized and much less interested in forcing their ideas on others, and they are often dismissed by mainstream media, they are still a large part of the community and do not have any more respect for science than their counterparts on the right. Maybe it isn't fair to charactarize all of these groups as lefties, because I am sure some on the right believe this stuff as well ... but that's just as true as radical Christian groups. There are crazy Christians on the left, they're just pushing a different agenda.
It is unfortunate, by the way, when one of these folks starts defending climate change - once you invoke "Mother Earth" or demean humans on the planet as a disease (two arguments I hear with some consistency) I think some people reject the science just to not be on the side of those folks.
Now I have something horrible to confess ... I'm not sure I'm as rational as I think I am. As a layperson, I have to say that most of the higher science goes right past me. I don't know how electricity really works, quantum theory is beyond me, and I barely know what's in my backyard let alone the infinite reaches of space.
As a non-scientist, I believe evolution is true. I believe it because people I respect believe it and because the explanations they give are plausible. I believe Richard Dawkins when he explains evolutionary theory. I believe in the incredible discoveries in our universe, because awesome scientists like Carl Sagan and Niel DeGrasse Tyson believe it and describe it so well.
...but am I different from the folks who believe the people they admire? Their priest? Their pope? Their Wiccan Earth Mother Goddess Priestess? I don't know.
I certainly assume that scientists are telling me the truth, and it helps that their work is peer reviewed, and it seems like the scientific method is the only self-correcting system out there (ever see a religion admit a mistake BEFORE science proved them wrong? I haven't, though the Vatican has started to pre-emptively do it before science proves them wrong again. That's why the Vatican believes that there is life on other planets, and that God made them, too).
But it seems to me that if you are a non-scientist you are very limited in your understanding of science. And while you may reasonably understand and accept gravity, a round Earth, simple math and technological advances, it doesn't seem like that automatically should translate in a trust of scientific theories that are very complex - like quantum physics, cosmology and evolutionary biology.
Ultimately, non-scientists debating this really just becomes a discusson of belief, and who you chose to believe.
...which means that everyone should be able to believe whatever shit they want so long as it doesn't interfere with the beliefs and lives of others. It is this lack of understanding, of course, what makes hardcore religionists (or new-agers, or conspiracy theorists, or whatever) such asshats.
Hope I didn't waste too much of your time. Thank you for all of your work to keep me amused at work!
you were doing so well, right
you were doing so well, right up until those last three or four paragraphs. Damnit.
It is not belief that science is science, it is provable, that is why it is science. Just like evolution is provable science It is fact. It is not a belief. That would be the big difference, and where your argument falls apart , and it does so immediately.
You say it all comes down to who you trust.
See, that is the beauty of science, you don't have to trust it. It is provable and repeatable.
Again, same point answers all your questions.
But a sincere thanks for listening, glad you like the show, and glad to have you along for the ride!!
-JImmy
I agree with you. Our world
I agree with you. Our world views are, not surprisingly since I am a fan, very similar.
But there's a reason the anti-science crowd latches on to high theoretical sciences like evolution and climate change, and not gravitational theory or electromagnetic theory.
Most anti-science advocates do not deny that electricity and gravity are real because they are faced with the reality - and the products of the science - every day.
To truly understand the mechanisms of evolution, you have to be an evolutionary scientist. This is true of all of the high level theoretical sciences. The reality of quantum theory is only truly grasped by quantum physicists.
A layperson (such as myself) cannot reproduce the experiments and studies that an evolutionary scientist can do. I have to trust that evolutionary science is not a grand conspiracy created to keep scientists employed and a weapon against religion. I do trust the evolutionary scientists much more than I would trust a religious leader - but that's how I'm wired.
Evolution is provable if you accept carbon dating, DNA sequencing, and a whole host of other scientific processes that you and I (as non-scientists) accept as real because we accept that evolution is the best explanation for the way life works. As Kurt Vonnegut's brother said, "It's the only game in town."
But if you were the type of person who listened to different people, people who told you that evolution (or climate change) was a hoax - what daily activities would show this to not be the case? Evolutionary theory doesn't enter in to the life of most of us.
If I denied electromagnetic theory, all you would have to do is wave your iPhone in my face and say "explain this, buttmunch!"
If I deny evolution, you can't pull something out of your pocket and dismiss my denial with it. There would not be any incontrovertable, tangible evidence of it that proves a denier to be a fool immediately. The only way to convince someone that evolution is real is to throw study after study at them - and if they don't accept the intellectual honesty of these studies, they won't feel particularly moved to believe in evolution.
Climate change deniers are the same way. Odd weather happens, and doesn't prove anything on an individual basis. The scientists who measure it and study it look at the changes over decades, centuries and millenia. Again, you have the same problem as a layperson you can't just pull something out of your pocket to prove climate change is real.
Add to that that climate change has become a left/right issue (and evolution is heading there sadly), and you just get intractible non-scientists on both sides propping up their firmly held world views without any real understanding of the facts of the matter.
Even between you and I there could be some differences in what science we believe and what science we do not believe. For example there have been many studies about pot, but I'm sure that there are plenty you disagree with mostly because it doesn't fit your personal experience with it. My personal experience with it may be different, and I'll accept some of those studies you disagree with.
I certainly am skeptical when a corporation does a study that proves their product is great. I easily dismiss those scientists that work for the petroleum industry that claim global warming isn't happening. But I certainly don't pretend to understand (or even read) the scientific papers they published. I just trust the climate scientists who seem reasonable to me.
Even the worst scientist could run rings around me if they used science jargon and high level maths. A scientist I have decided to trust is really just showing me a world view that I think personally makes sense.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I love science. I enjoy learning new details about the world we live in. But I don't pretend to be able to say more about the theories than to say "I think this science is correct because it makes sense to me" ... as opposed to going that extra step and saying "This science is correct, and if you don't believe it you're an idiot"
Evolution can be proven to
Evolution can be proven to you in every day encounters. Bacteria and viruses continue to adapt to what we use to try and destroy them. When products say they kill 99.9% of bacteria that .1 is the one that reproduces. Leaving us with a resistant strand and now we have a major staff infection problem in hospitals. Or take Swine and Bird flue both were able to adapt the ability to jump species. These are examples you can see and follow every night if you watch or read news articles. Neither of witch requires any degree or high level of intelligence to understand.
Keep in mind that I do
Keep in mind that I do believe the science behind evolution, climate change and even quantum physics.
I don't think I'm getting my point across.
An anti-evolutionist doesn't equate bacteria to people and may not even consider the mutation of bacteria to be an evolutionary process. I've had discussions with anti-evolutionists, and they will admit to alteration within species, but won't admit that over millions of years it could create the vast variety of species we have today, including humans.
Is the anti-evolutionist necessarily an idiot, or does he or she just choose to believe the things that support thier personal world view. I believe it is the latter, and if I really drill down into my own perceptions, I'm not sure I'm much different.
I take as a matter of trust the facts as presented by scientists I respect. I also trust in the scientific method that is eventually designed to remove false conclusions in science. But it doesn't seem to be that giant a leap to imagine a person who is otherwise intelligent but is not "wired" to trust counterintuitive science. I just can't make the conclusion that a non-scientist that doesn't believe the higher theoretical sciences is necessarily stupid or even ignorant, I can only conclude we don't agree.
I think the other point I was making was that there is a huge anti-science group on the left, which is at least as strong as the one on the right - even if they are not as organized or respected in the mainstream media.
The anti-vaccination crowd, for example, believes that innoculations cause autism in children and they base this on a study published in the Lancet that the Lancet has since discredited and retracted very publicly. Regardless, the anti-vaccination crowd (which does seem to lean left and has a very anarchist, anti-corporate vibe) has actually had enough influence to increase the instances of mumps and measles in the United States.
And these people aren't stupid, either. They probably have some personal associations with autism and the discredited theory that associates it with innocultions fits into their world view. That doesn't make it true, but it certainly makes it tough to convince them their wrong. I would say impossible even with the weight of the scientific community against them.
The difference is I can if I
The difference is I can if I want to go to the badlands and did up my own Dinosaur fossils. If I want I can do my own study on the number of Autism cases and the difference between the last 3 generations. I cannot how ever prove that someone feels the power of God inside them. It can never be proven that Abraham spoke to god. This category of event must be taken entirely on hearsay. That is the difference Science can be learned and the evidence can be repeated. If you choose to trust what you hear and read you are right it can be done because there is a process to debunk falsities in the solution. All religion can teach is for you to follow what someone else "says" happened. If someone chooses to ignore what they can see with there own eyes for what they were told to believe, or in the case of those on the left that read once that vaccines cause autism then didn't follow up on it. They may not be stupid but they are ignorant.
Yeah, absolutely. Ignorant
Yeah, absolutely. Ignorant but not stupid. Exactly. The number of things I am more than likely ignorant of has got to be far larger than the things I am not. Therefore, a debate of non-scientists is merely a measure of how ignorant one is over the other in any given circumstance. Not a debate of intelligence. Now, the argument can be made that if you argue from science, the ignorance of the other must be abandoned and the facts can be debated ... but, as been shown in innumberable flame wars, this isn't what happens. Instead, the sources are attacked the personalities of the arguer and their sources is called into question and no one wins.
By the way, I am not qualified to either dig up dinosaur bones - which only prove there were dinosaurs and not that there was evolution - nor to do the study of autism over the past 3 generations with any level of proficiency. While it may seem bizarre to think that there could be someone otherwise intelligent believing that scientists all conspired to pump up a false theory - that is undoubtably what has happened.
Not that all deniers are not stupid, just that some are not.
The 9/11 conspirators - mostly lefties as well because of political power at the time - turn logic into knots to dispute expert analysis and believe in things like controlled demolition (for towers 1, 2 and the pentagon). They mix real questions of the event with off-the-wall conspiracy theories that lie in direct contradiction to the experts.
Experts are engineers and scientists who dismiss special pleading theories for the melting point of steel or the rate of descent of the buildings - and when they do they are accused of buying into (or being bought by) those responsible for the conspiracy. Most of these 9/11 conspiracy nuts almost all believe in evolution and climate change, but not expert statements about the World Trade Center. Why? Because to not believe their conspiracies is to not believe in the world as they see it.
(There are valid questions about 9/11, btw. But the erroneous theories far outweight the reasonable (and I daresay rational) skeptical ones.)
Are anti-evolutionists or climate change deniers and dumber than rabid 9/11 conspiracy nuts? JFK assasination loons? UFO belivers? People who believe in ghosts? No. None of them are dumb. All of them have chosen to believe different sources than I have ... but none are dumb, and all of them will inevitably dismiss any experts I mention who they disagree with if I were to engage in a debate because all I could do is throw articles and studies at them while they do the same to me.
Evolutionary science is almost universally accepted by evolutionary scientists (but they're biased, if you believe the deniers). Evolution is extremely widely accepted by the general science community - but evolution deniers exist within the scientific community. But if you drill down into the medical community - that is doctors and nurses - there are a disturbing number that do not believe in evolution. Not a majority, but can you imagine all of those biology courses and still concluding that evolution isn't true?
I read an article last year about a paleontologist who believes the Earth is both millions of years old AND 6,000 years old depending upon which way he decides to think about it at any given moment.
When an educated scientist can state that, what hope does the non-science community have of convincing other laypersons that such theories are undeniable?