I literally don't even know

http://www.cracked.com/article_18822_5-famous-scientists-dismissed-as-morons-in-their-time.html

This is what happens then. They made claims that were 'blatantly wrong', were sometimes killed for it, and then everyone went, "Oops, guess you were right, sorry." You don't get to decide what "Bad Science" is. If there were flaws in the experiment, then point them out, fix them, and preform it again. Don't ruin someone's career for it.

In case you didn't understand what what his position was, it was that global warming isn't nearly as apocalyptic or even as bad as mainstream science claims.

Have you ever heard the saying: "Only bad ideas need censorship to survive."? I think it applies here.

 

Right--so what is "bad science?"

If I were to go out and say that Asian people are inherently smarter than everyone else, because we're born with a higher capacity for knowlege, would the burden be on you to disprove me?

I also want to point out that this guy's career hasn't gotten ruined--he hasn't gotten fired, he hasn't had to resign any position in disgrace--literally nothing happened to this guy except a few people saying "you're wrong." I think that's perfectly reasonable, as it's well within my rights to say "you're wrong" to someone. Right?

I feel like people often use climate change denialism as an excuse to maintain inefficient practices. "Oh, well, climate change isn't so bad as they say it is, so who really cares if I leave the lights on all day." I see people saying stuff like this all the time. I think that's the real harm in global warming denialism.

Really, you should take care of the earth because it's the right thing to do, not necessarily because you're going to wipe out humanity 200 years from now.

 

That's pathetic. Don't do that again, especially if you're trying to puff yourself up as someone who can reason. You basically shred any credibility you have the moment you start going grammar-Nazi. You might as well scream, "Well, I've lost every single point in this conversation that had any actual relevance, but I can win this one!"

LOL, this must be that amazing ability to reason that has stupefied every liberal you've met.

Honestly, this just says you're not familiar with science at all, because derision has always been a part of the community, and liberal/conservative have nothing to do with it. It's an I'm right/you're wrong thing.

This actually happened to people who were right, as opposed to people who pretend CO2 doesn't trap heat - I assume you've seen it?
http://www.cracked.com/article_18822_5-famous-scientists-dismissed-as-morons-in-their-time.html

 

"Unreasoning" does not mean "without a reason;" the term "unreasoning" is defined as "Not guided by or based on good sense; illogical." It is illogical to have an antipathy towards homosexual people based on religious beliefs; therefore, what I said doesn't contradict with the definition.

Whether or not someone is homophobic can be mostly proven based on their behavior and stances; whether or not someone is has a superior/inferior ability to reason cannot (unless the difference is very extreme), because it is based majorly on complete opinion.

Even though my statement was based off of personal experience, it is something that I could hypothetically prove if I were given the opportunity (because of the fact that whether or not someone is homophobic is pretty easily determinable). If I wanted to, I could say that all of the conservatives that I've met have had an inferior ability to reason to my own (which is not contradictory with how I honestly feel), but because of the fact that I'm just making an opinionated statement that can't be logically supported or factually proven, it's not going to lead anywhere.

 

He's using it as a counterexample to ranger0203's previous post.

 

Read the rest of the damn thread, lol.

I wasn't making an actual claim on myself or on conservatives; I made that statement specifically to make a point to Ranger about how making a claim like that that (since he was the one that actually did it) is unproductive and leads nowhere because it's solely opinion without being based off of logic, facts, etc. I even said in that very sentence that me actually making that claim would lead nowhere because of it being an opinion that can't be logically supported or proven.

Side note: Someone's political stance can be used to make a logical judgement on someone's intelligence, but that's a different topic from what's been discussed here.

 

True, but when you look at groups as a whole, trends emerge. There are positive correlations between IQ and liberalism, atheism, and male monogamy: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence/

This also dovetails with the Slate article I posted upthread which showed that self-identified Republicans make up only 6% of the scientific community.

This doesn't tell you that any given liberal is smarter than any given conservative, but it does say that, as a whole, liberals are smarter, conservatives are dumber. That's also reflected in the way their parties conduct campaigns, and the overall quality of their candidates. The Republican primary season wasn't an infantile poop-show by accident.

 

"No way," you say? Alright, let's delve into this deeper.

If you look at this article, http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion/, you can see the political affiliations of scientists. It is shown that only six percent of scientists are Republicans and only nine percent are conservative. Fifty five percent, on the other hand, are Democrats and fifty two percent are liberal.

Based off of this, it's a logical assumption that someone who is a Republican will be, on average, less intelligence than someone who is a Democrat. Of course there are going to be exceptions; there will be stupid Democrats and smart Republicans, but that doesn't mean that it's not a logical assumption to assume that someone that is a Republican isn't going to be as smart as someone that is a Democrat.

--- Double Post Merged, May 5, 2016, Original Post Date: May 5, 2016 ---

Yeah, that article is referencing the more detailed article that I mentioned in my post.

 

You would have to give evidence for it, and there is actually evidence for it. Asians are one of the smartest AND high achieving (notice related but not the same) demographics.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 29, 2016, Original Post Date: Jul 29, 2016 ---

Well played, sir.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 29, 2016 ---

And I made that claim to point out to you that your claim (conservatives are generally homophobic) wasn't necessarily justified because it was based on your personal experience.

Omg... Please don't

Oh no, you did. God damn it.

Just never mind.

Actually there's reason to believe that political belief is based upon personality, etc.

I don't really subscribe to that belief because people tend to change political ideologies as they get older: Kids go from whatever belief their parents had, to liberal (if they weren't already) and then to conservative.

I've already started to experience this, at 16, where I find myself feeling that maybe I, and my parents, are wrong. I've already changed most of my opinions to classically liberal opinions (which aren't really Liberal, but small government conservative type opinions). I don't think I'll ever go full liberal, and I'm certainly not an authoritarian by any measure (if you don't get what this has to do with anything feel free to ask but I don't want to waste effort explaining if I don't need to), but neither do I hold to a lot of conservative social values, like God, and all the beliefs that stem from that, although I am pro-life.

https://notesonliberty.com/2014/05/...-intelligent-than-conservatives-and-liberals/
Suck a c***. I'm sorry. I'm staffing a (Ironically enough) Boy Scout summer camp, and the other staff has ruined me.

I would argue that Libertarians are more conservative than liberal, because socially they adhere to liberal, classically liberal (conservative) beliefs, whereas they are fiscally conservative and believe in small government.

 

Hey the 12 year olds who like debating complicated life issues might get mentally scared.

 

Your example used your personal experience to claim that everyone that's a liberal is therefore inferior to yourself in their ability to reason; my claim just used my personal experience to claim that a lot of conservatives are homophobic. Claiming that everybody in a group is a certain way and claiming that a lot of people in a group are a certain way are very different things. I would say that around 90% of the conservatives that I've met have been homophobic (also, their homophobia goes hand-in-hand with their conservatism), so I think it's a fair claim that 'a lot' of conservatives tend to be this way, since 90% of the hundreds of conservative people that I've met is 'a lot' by itself, and it's reasonable to assume that more conservatives will tend to be this way as well. An individual's ability to reason is more subjective, but for the sake of the argument, let's say that we judge it by their I.Q. If you (a conservative individual) have an I.Q. that is higher than that of 100% of the liberal people that you've met (assuming that you've met a lot), then sure, you have an ability to reason that is better than that of 'a lot' of con and you can fairly make the assumption that liberals are generally going to have an ability to reason that doesn't match your own. You can't, however, fairly assume that all liberals are going to be this way based off of what seems to be the norm, in the same way that I couldn't fairly assume that all conservatives are homophobic even if 100% of the ones that I've met have been.

TLR - The number of homophobic conservatives that I've met could be considered 'a lot' on it's own (since 'a lot' is a highly subjective term), so I can fairly claim that 'a lot' of conservatives are homophobic if I'm only referring to the ones that I've known/seen. Furthermore, I can use my personal experiences to fairly, justifiably, and logically assume that conservatives are generally going to tend to be homophobic, but I cannot fairly assume that all conservatives will be, nor can I claim that the majority of conservatives are (based off of this, that is).

 

I disagree that this would inherently mean that they are less intelligent. They could be mechanical engineers, or pioneers in mathematics, and that would not be considered "the scientific community", would it? And even then - perhaps you mean to say less educated? It does make sense, as conservatives value the individual family, and the "hard-life" more - (no welfare and such) - for them to be in more poverty-oriented situations, no?
To clarify: I didn't read the source because I'm just popping in to skim, but that seems like a very... odd statistic, considering how many people are liberal vs. conservative.

 

There are two things I'd like to point out here.

1. It's not just that the majority of scientists featured in this study weren't Republicans, but that the overwhelming majority weren't. 55% were Democrats, 32% were independents, and only 6% were Republicans. If the statistics weren't so overwhelmingly different (say, 35% were Democrats and 26% were Republicans), I'd agree that this wouldn't necessarily mean that Republicans are less intelligent; however, this is not the case. If only 6% of scientists are members of a group and 55% of scientists are members of a different group, I think this definitely suggest that, on average, members of the second group tend to be more intelligent.

2. Sure, the majority of mathematicians or engineers *could* be Republicans, but we can't assume that they are just because we don't know. Maybe 90% of mathematicians or engineers are Republicans, maybe %2 are, who knows? We don't, which is why this is irrelevant. If someone has statistics or evidence showing or suggesting that more mathematicians or engineers are Republicans than Democrats, that would change things, but for now, we shouldn't assume what we have no evidence for. What we do know, however, is that this poll shows that the majority of scientists are Democrats and that a very significant minority (%6) are Republicans, which (without any counter-evidence such as an actual poll showing that the majority of mathematicians or engineers are Republicans) suggests that, on average, Republicans tend to be less intelligent than Democrats and independents.

(Side note here: Physics uses a very large amount of math and the poll also shows that 53% of physicists and astronomers are Democrats, while only 6% of them are Republicans. Based off of this, I think it would be a logical assumption that the statistics for people in other intelligence-required, heavily math-based fields (such as mathematics and engineering) would be similar, though I wouldn't use this to make any actual claims.)

Generally, people that become scientists seem to actually be intelligent and not only well-educated, as there are other careers that are education-required that are easier to go into. I doubt there are that many well-educated people that just decide to become a scientist without actually being intelligent, but yeah, I'm sure that there are plenty of poorly-educated people that would enjoy being scientists. As for political party though, I'm not convinced that Republicans are generally poorer. In my area, there are plenty of expensive private schools that are religion-based and made up of mainly Republicans, so that doesn't lead me to believe that Republicans are generally poor or that they're generally unable to get equal educations to that of Democrats.

Sure, a whole lot of people are Liberal vs. Conservative, but Conservatives and Republicans tend to have stances that go against certain aspects of science, so the poll aside, it seems logical that more scientists would be Democrats/Liberal.

 

What are the other 41%? Just out of curiosity.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 13, 2016, Original Post Date: Aug 13, 2016 ---

They are. It's well established, and probably has something to do with the fact that the south tends to be conservative and poor, whereas the north tends to be liberal and wealthy (relatively speaking). That doesn't mean there's necessarily a correlation, as the economic status can be blamed on other things (the civil war, for example, and the south's extreme emphasis on values, for example) but it doesn't rule it out.

Another thing that's been pointed out: Conservatives tend to give more to charity, although this is heavily disputed (unsurprisingly), but it would make sense, as the conservative ideology believes that giving to charity is a personal responsibility, whereas liberals believe it is a function of government.

 

35% are listed as independent. The other 6% are, I'm assuming, people who didn't answer this question. The article features more polls than just the ones that have been mentioned on this thread, so perhaps this other 6% of physicists/astronomers answered other questions but not this one. I don't know, it seems a little odd that they wouldn't have excluded their numbers from this particular poll.

There are plenty of poor urban areas though. The people that live in poor urban areas typically tend to be minority racial groups, who tend to be liberals/Democrats. I'm not saying that it's untrue that conservatives/Republicans are generally poorer, but I won't be convinced until I see some actual statistics or other evidence.

It would also make sense that because liberals don't believe that the government is helping enough, they feel the need to take matters into their own hands and give more to charity. Furthermore, a common conservative argument against the government helping the poor is that the poor need to work to fix their situation, which makes it seem less likely that they'd give as much to charity. Another thing is that liberals tend to be less religious, so it makes sense that they would be more likely to feel like people have a duty to help one another, as they are more likely to believe that without religion, our fellow humans are all that we have for support. Again, I'm not saying that it's untrue that conservatives give more to charity (and again, I'm open to any statistics), but logically, I think it makes more sense that liberals would give more.

 

That's interesting, as about 35% of the population at large identifies as independent, which would suggest Republicans are almost entirely excluded from science. However, Independents tend to lean Republican (according to wikipedia), when asked to chose between Republican and Democrat.

Okay, let's take a step back, because I think you're going in the wrong direction here.


Conservative States tend to be Southern States, which tend to be rural. Liberal States tend to be Northern States, which tend to be urban. So this Urban/Rural comparison is irrelevant, because even with poor urban areas, the states they are in tend to be more prosperous. "For percentage of residents in poverty, we found that 93 of the 100 poorest counties were in red states." From Forbes, but drawn from U.S. Census Bureau information.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2014/10/17/Ten-Least-Generous-States-US
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2014/10/17/Ten-Most-Generous-States-US


And I realize the fiscal times is conservative, so:
https://www.philanthropy.com/article/How-States-CompareHow/152501

Which is (hopefully) independent and unbiased.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicle_of_Philanthropy

On the flip side, conservatives believe in God, who tells them to help the poor, whereas liberals don't.

In addition, the conservative argument is: "The poor aren't entitled to my money!", rather than: "The poor shouldn't be helped.".
There's a difference between someone taking what they are "entitled" to, and someone receiving a gift.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 13, 2016, Original Post Date: Aug 13, 2016 ---

Except that Christianity (the religion pretty much all conservatives belong to) explicitly tells it's followers to help the needy.

The whole argument against welfare programs is one of principle. "You can't take my money, but I can give it to you." Practically, its the same end result: the needy get money. But morally, and ideologically, they're very different.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 13, 2016 ---

It's not that subjective. How many conservatives have you met (and actually known well enough to make this judgement), 100? That means that for every one that you've met, there are about 1.1 million others. That means you've met 0.0000909% of conservatives (about). 1, with respect to a million, is not a lot, by any stretch of the imagination.