Author: VD

Argville thinks I’m just making up the idea that Democrats believe they are smarter than Republicans, and that the Republican tendency to reject evolution is a popular justification for this belief:

This person doesn’t offers a single example of anyone, evolutionist or otherwise, calling Independents or Democrats smarter because of this one issue, but that doesn’t stop this idiot from saying it. He simply made it up.

Yes, because everyone knows that unless you provide ten footnoted citations, each written in blood and sworn on the Book of Mormon before being peer reviewed in a prestigious scientific journal, it cannot be true…. The fact that I didn’t bother to provide an example of something fairly commonly expressed around the Internet doesn’t make it untrue or indicate that I made it up, it merely means I have not proved the assertion should anyone choose to doubt it. But, since apparently Argville has so little experience of blogs such as the one belonging to my good friend and fellow scientist, Dr. PZ Myers, who loyally has my back again today, I’ll give him this example:

Democrats dominate academia because they are smarter than Republicans

I want to point out a couple of choice excerpts from letters to the editor of today’s New York Times. These letters are responding to an article from November 18th, “Republicans Outnumbered in Academia:”

[A] national survey of more than 1,000 academics, shows that Democratic professors outnumber Republicans by at least seven to one in the humanities and social sciences. That ratio is more than twice as lopsided as it was three decades ago, and it seems quite likely to keep increasing…

Here they are:

“Academics are trained to reason using logic, to question evidence and to consider and evaluate several possible interpretations of events. All these activities are discouraged and indeed ridiculed by the present Republican leadership.”

Similarly,

“A successful career in academia, after all, requires willingness to be critical of yourself and to learn from experience, along with a lack of interest in material incentives. All these are antithetical to Republicanism as it has recently come to be.”

I think these writers are onto something. Other evidence, albeit circumstantial, abounds. Take a look at the aggregate IQ scores of the Blue states vs Red states. Blue states have a dramatically higher IQ. Or to put it more eloquently:

“[Republicans] are stupid. They believe that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for September 11, 2001. They think corn syrup is food. They believe that there’s no such thing as stateless terrorism. They believe that “the left” is responsible for the revolting cesspool of popular culture. They don’t believe in evolution.”

And his “Republicans live longer” statement is totally absurd. He draws this conclusion from the life expectancy by state! Can you believe that? OK, that’s dumb enough but even playing that game, the state with the highest life expectancy in the USA is Hawaii, a blue state. So where does the Republican live longer bullshit come from? Again, the idiot made it up.

Actually, I very much agree that arguments by state population are absurd. Of course, Argville probably isn’t aware that I was mocking Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins by “proving” that Republicans live longer using state data, perhaps he’s not aware of Harris’s famously silly “Red State Immorality” argument, which Dawkins quotes in its entirety in “The God Delusion”.

While political party affiliation in the United States is not a perfect indicator of religiosity, it is no secret that the “red states” are primarily red because of the overwhelming political influence of conservative Christians. If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and social health, we might expect to see some sign of it in red-state America. We don’t. Of the 25 cities with the lowest rates of violent crime, 62 percent are in “blue” states and 38 percent are in “red” states. … Of the 22 states with the highest rates of murder, 17 are red.

The “bullshit” comes from the fact that the most Democratic “state”, Washington DC, has the lowest life expectancy, while the most Republican state has the second-highest. But this proves nothing conclusively, Argville is right to be dubious of those who try to prove anything about individuals through the use of statewide, let alone nationwide, data.

I wonder if he will conclude that Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, in their habitual reliance on such arguments, are actually the sort of idiot he believes me to be?

I do thank Argville for the award, however, and I shall certainly cherish my Argie for “Idiot of the Day”. I intend to put it on the mantle in between my much-prized “Godidiot of the Week” and “Pointy Stick” awards.

I find it hard to believe that women have such a difficult time understanding why men not only behave in a predatory manner, but will pay to learn how to become more effective sexual predators:

So, this is what we’re dealing with out there in the world of hetero dating. Predators teaching men to be predators. And getting paid very well to do it. Maybe I’ll start a business of my own, and I’ll call myself a date doctor, and instead of teaching men sleazy tricks to get into a woman’s pants, I’ll teach them how to actually treat women with respect. But, oh, wait – a business like that won’t make any money! The ones that make money are the ones that teach men to trick women. Because apparently, some men would rather learn how to trick a woman than learn how to be respectful and genuine.

Plenty of men know how to be respectful and genuine. The problem is that many women aren’t sexually attracted to respectful and genuine men, they’re attracted to men who behave in a certain way that is relatively easy for men to learn to emulate.

It’s simple supply and demand. If women truly wished to be treated respectfully, they would behave in a manner that encourages such treatment. Every girl that rejects a nice guy in favor of a predator isn’t merely confirming the predator in his attitude and actions, she is also teaching the nice guy that if he wishes to be successful with women in the future, he will have to stop behaving in a respectful and genuine manner.

As for me, I’ve never had any problem with the way women tend to be attracted to arrogant men who pay no attention whatsoever to their opinions, wishes or needs. It always struck me as a perfectly reasonable system that worked rather well.

This comment in particular made me laugh:

You know, none of my women friends have ever said that they would like to date a guy who’ll treat them like shit. Every one of them would prefer to date a guy who’s kind and generous and sincere and reliable and respectful. Yet, almost every woman I know has in fact dated a man who treated her like shit.

In other words, all of her women friends are either a) stupid, b) self-decieving, or c) possess poor discernment. When a woman demands to be treated with respect, my inevitable response is “for what?”

The irony of the evolutionarily faithful:

The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant minority who doubt that evolution adequately explains where humans came from.

No doubt evolutionists will argue that this is significant proof that Independents and Democrats are smarter than Republicans. Of course, it’s interesting to note that those presumably less intelligent Republicans are also wealthier, happier, are more likely to possess a college degree and live longer than their more evolutionarily-correct Democratic counterparts.

The lowest average life-expectancy in the nation is 72.6, in Washington DC, which at 90 percent Democratic is far and away the most Democratic voting community in the nation. The most Democratic state proper, Massachusetts (62 percent Democrat), has a life expectancy of 78.4. Meanwhile, the most Republican state, Utah, (72 percent Republican) has an average life expectancy of 78.7.

Democratic Hawaii has the highest life-expectancy, 79.8, but let’s face it, that probably has more to do with life on the beach than politics….

I’m not anti-evolution per se, I’m probably best described as an evolutionary skeptic. And while I’ve read far more evolutionary literature than anti-evolutionary literature – I’ve never even cracked open an ID book – I find the most convincing argument against evolution is the psychological one based on the behavior of its adherents. These people simply don’t behave like economists who know precisely how and why the Law of Supply and Demand exists and works like it does, they behave more like religious individuals full of self-doubt and terrified that their faith will be shattered at any moment.

It’s not like there aren’t as many, if not many more, intellectuals advocating ludicrous economics as there are individuals arguing what evolutionary biologists would consider to be ludicrous biology, and yet one never sees an economist being reduced to the rabid rhetoric of a Dr. PZ Myers or a Richard Dawkins. And there’s no shortage of evolutionarily correct individuals who wholeheartedly subscribe to economically absurd propositions that were conclusively disproven before Darwin first contemplated the various sizes of finch beaks.

When there are more evolutionary engineers than evolutionary theoreticians, I expect the average individual will be more inclined to accept whatever truth there is to be found in evolution as an explanation of human origins and continuing human development, such as it is.

When science is conclusive, it is a very simple matter of demonstrating the empirical evidence, one does not provide an endless circle jerk of citations of other people’s citations of other people’s suppositions. The fact that evolutionists can never supply this evidence and constantly substitute epistemological and ontological arguments in its place is the primary reason that so many intelligent and successful people will continue to reject their increasingly hysterical case.

Perhaps George Bush and the neocons should be contemplating an invasion of Europe if the absence of democratic rule is still considered a justification for an invasion meant to force regime change:

Insiders say that the Dutch are more worried than Britain about the EU signing up to anything that might require a referendum. “Their bar for a referendum is even lower than ours, and they fear they would lose it again, so that would help nobody,” the source said.

Modern “democracy” is little more genuinely democratic or expressive of the will of the people than the single-party voting systems that boasted 99-percent participation of the former Soviet Union or Ba’athist Iraq.

And they’re all super nice totally smart sex goddesses who only want world peace and universal applause for every expressed opinion and personal decision, however momentary:

The guilt over sex and food that women feel shows how deeply misogynist the notion of female “selfishness” is. Most of the time, the word “selfish” marks a behavior that is indulged for self at the expense of someone else, but when women are accused of selfishness for creating $51 billion in health care costs eating or spreading venereal diseases fucking, the behavior in question doesn’t actually hurt anyone else.

And you can see what a vicious cycle it is. Men hate women, which makes women feel bad, which makes women eat, which makes them fat, which makes men not want to have sex with them, which makes women feel bad, which makes women eat more… except for those women who deal with the pain of suffering mysogyny by attempting to win men’s approval through promiscuous sex, which makes men want to have sex with more than one of them, which makes women feel bad, which makes women seek male approval through more sex….

Women are not selfish, you see, they’re just sad and suffering. Except they’re not and they don’t need your contemptible patriarchal pity, they’re strong independent woman who don’t need a man, just a box of Krispy Kremes and a were-seal romance novel.

Still, speaking as a proud, pro-sex member of the Patriarchy, I’m delighted to learn that I have feminist sanction for having sex with anyone I want any time I like secure in the knowledge that I am not being selfish or hurting anyone.

You go, grrl!

I do enjoy watching their much-ballyhooed icons implode. Anyone who knows anything about sports knew that Michelle Wie was unlikely to ever be a champion of any kind, let alone one capable of playing with the big boys:

Even against the men, Michelle Wie hasn’t shot this big a number since she was in the ninth grade.

Wie’s woes continued Saturday at the LPGA Championship when she shot an 11-over 83 at Bulle Rock, leaving her in last place by five shots among the 84 players who made the cut and uncertain if she would show up for the final round….

An LPGA Tour official clarified midway through the back nine that “Rule 88,” in which non-tour members are banned for a year if they fail to break 88, would not be an issue because it only applies before the cut is made. A week ago, Wie withdrew at 14 over par with two holes to play with a bad wrist, raising speculation that she was worried about losing the rest of her LPGA Tour schedule with two more bogeys.

People always forget that because women mature faster than men, many women will never be any more athletically capable than they were in ninth grade. Every year, in track-and-field, eighth and ninth grade girls win state championships and the newspapers predict that they might be dominant for the next four years. And while this does happen occasionally in the case of an unusually talented athlete, usually their performance begins to decline their junior year.

That’s not necessarily the case in sports wherein experience and practice is as important as raw athletic ability. But golf is a game that is as much, if not more, mental than physical, and Wie has always been mentally shaky despite her physical abilities. I thought it was a huge mistake to throw her in with the men at a very young age; it increasingly looks as if those pushing her to compete at a higher level than she was ready for have succeeded in destroying her confidence and possibly even her career at the less-competitive level of the Ladies PGA.

I always appreciate female athletes who demonstrate respect for their sport by refusing to play along with the feminist cheerleaders. Mia Hamm, in particular, was great when after numerous reporters who knew nothing about soccer asked her how badly the World Cup-winning US women’s team would beat the men’s team. She just looked at them as if they were insane and answered them accordingly.

More blitheringly stupid Three Monkey jabber:

Pre-January 2009, can this marriage be saved? You know, as his luck would have it, staying together is worth it for the kids. And every once in a while — say, if there’s a Supreme Court opening this summer, as has been rumored, and he nominates a judge like Alito or Roberts – President George W. Bush may just remind us why we fell for him in the first place. It might not be the best marriage, but we share a love — a love of country, a love of democracy, a love of the Constitution. Yeah, he created a dubious Cabinet department. But we also haven’t been attacked for six years under his presidency.

Lopez would defend Bush if he sacrificed the twins to Quetzalcoatl live on Fox News… and explain why he was only doing it for America. We did get attacked under his presidency. 9/11 was Bush’s failure, not Clinton’s. I don’t think Bush is particularly enamored of “that damned piece of paper”. He’s ignoring the clearly expressed will of the people on illegal immigration. And if you love your country, why would you try to turn it into Mexico North?

I heard a story yesterday which made my blood boil. To repeat the details would be to risk identifying an innocent child, so I will give no more than a bare outline.

It happened at an apparently happy and tolerably well run primary school. Two boys, both six years old, were playing merrily together during morning break. They are the best of pals. One is white, the other is black. In the course of the game the white boy, giggling all the while, said his friend was a “little monkey”. The black boy giggled just as heartily. All would have been well, but a teacher overhead the awful words. The white boy was in big trouble.

Dawkins has described a touching picture of a long transtemporal line of women, each holding hands with their daughters, stretching all the way back from modern women to genuine apes or quasi-chimpanzees of some sort or another, I can’t recall. But I noticed that he never quite got around to describing what color the hands were as they were getting increasingly more furry.

I understand that evolutionary biologists believe human variance to be very slight and that there is only the one species. But obviously someone, somewhere, has to be in possession of genes that are more evolutionarily advanced than the next individual. Who might that be? Dawkins is very passionate about the need for humanity to take control over our Darwinian destiny, and yet, he never seems to have much to say about exactly what that control might be, how we are to go about taking it or what we should do with it.

I wonder why that might be?

BigTexasRob proves his point:

1) Harris states one could be almost certain that the religion of an unknown suicide bomber was Islam.”

In fact, it IS easy to guess this hypothetical bomber’s religion, but we couldn’t tell that given the part of the original text that you conveniently left out. You neglected to mention the part where Harris writes

“Although saddened to have lost a son, [the bomber’s parents] feel tremendous pride at his accomplishment. They know that he has gone to heaven and prepared the way for them to follow. He has also sent his victims to hell for eternity. It is a double victory. The neighbors find the event a great cause for celebration and honor the young man’s parents by giving them gifts of food and money.”

Why would anyone assume that the “adamantly secular” Tamil Tigers (likely to have grown up in a Buddhist or Hindu community) would have such parents?

I’ll want to do a bit of checking on how the Tamil Tigers celebrate their suicide bombers, of course, but since I never considered that paragraph for a second I was clearly wrong to hammer Harris on that particular point. Nicely caught.

Now, I still think this is a somewhat deceptive way for him to begin a book in which he’s attacking all religious faith as dangerous, and yet all he’s saying here is that it’s obvious that Christians, Hindus, Buddhists etc. don’t commit suicide bombings. And based on the population percentages alone, you’ve got a one in six chance of being right even if you leave out the suicide bombing and just say a young man is on a bus, guess his religion.

As for the second point, which we agree I did not misrepresent, let me lay out the logic for you:

If A=safe, B=deadly and A+B=deadly, which is the dangerous element that should be eliminated, A or B? The answer is obviously B.

Now, Religion does not threaten the planet nor has it ever been capable of doing so. We agree that Harris states that the planet is now threatened by Religion + Technology. Technology alone is clearly capable of threatening the planet. So then, if we are in dire peril demanding action, which is the dangerous element that should be eliminated, Religion or Technology?

Ergo, Harris is INADVERTANTLY making a logical case against technology/science. Of course he’s not intending to do so, he’s trying to attack religion. But the logic is clear that based on his claim that the imminent peril to the planet demands something be eliminated from the equation, it is technology/science that must be eliminated.

And that’s just one of the many examples of Harris’s woeful incompetence.