Friday 20 May 2016

Denialism is the opposite of believalism

A new comment on the post "The RICO 20: lessons in stupidity" is waiting for your approval
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2016/05/15/the-rico-20-lessons-in-stupidity/ (update: nowadays you may prefer https://wmconnolley.wordpress.com/2016/05/15/the-rico-20-lessons-in-stupidity/)
Author: Brad Keyes
Comment:
Dr Connolley writes inline that:<blockquote>[...The antithesis of science is denialism, e.g. WUWT or Republican congresscritters -W]</blockquote>Um, not quite.

Denialism is the opposite of <i>believalism</i>.

Republican congresscritters is the opposite of <i>Democrat senatecritters</i>.

The opposite of science is <i>antiscience</i>: the active hostility to human discovery about nature. This hostility is exemplified when a supposed "scientist" says that if people he doesn't like ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, he'd rather destroy a priceless library of knowledge about climate and weather rather than send to anyone.

5 comments:

  1. Why is this comment in spam, William? AFAICT every point made therein is both true and relevant. (The least you could do is deny it.)

    Also, why don't you support common HTML tags?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pffft, I don't choose what tags are accepted.

      I don't think anything you said was useful. And having previously encountered you with stuff like https://cliscep.com/2016/01/22/in-a-sad-way-this-is-sad-news-rip-robert-carter/#comment-1262 I'm not inclined to offer you any goodwill.

      Delete
  2. OK fair enough about the tags—I forgot that this was a group blog.

    Why don't you consider it "useful" to be corrected? You wrongly suggested that the opposite of science was Republican congresscritters; I set you straight. As a scientist, you should welcome such learning experiences.

    And I'm not asking for "goodwill"—it's not as if allowing a comment to be posted is some monumental act of faith in, or charity towards, your fellow man, is it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Why do you keep referring me here? This isn't a post, it's a spam-bin page.

    I'm neither an elf, dwarf, gnome, orc or troll.

    I don't know what your impugnment of my humanity was supposed to mean ("troll" being the most uselessly polysemic catch-all) and, short of sending you a sample of my DNA, I don't know how to falsify it.

    You made some claims about epistemology that were wildly wrong according to my not-inconsiderable education on the subject. If you were expecting me to sit idly by and watch you persist in your error, you misjudged me. I care. I help. I educate.

    Does that make me a hero? Possibly, possibly not, but it doesn't make me a troll.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is a place for material that would adversely affect the flow on my main blog, but where side discussions can occur if necessary.

    Like I say, I think you're a troll. Your response above doesn't convince me otherwise.

    ReplyDelete