Ah, me . . . logic. . . ?

Up to my ass and then some in illogical fallacies, arguments, premise, conclusion, deductive and inductive reasoning, and my personal fave, PhillyChief's Better Moments. Trying to teach myself how to argue gooder, and beat back the theistic hordes battering the gates of reason.

I dunno how much of the dry fact-y type stuff is sticking, but I've read and reread it so much that hopefully, as I apply it to more things, it'll become second nature. What I can't understand is why every student, in either junior high or high school, isn't made to take a mandatory class on critical thinking. Well, I have an idea. Let's see if I can turn it into an sound inductive argument:


Premise 1: Since critical thinking is the careful, deliberate determination of whether we should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which we accept or reject it--

Premise 2: It's implicit that it's more difficult to mislead and/or distract someone who is accustomed to thinking critically, and examining everything. Therefore,

Conclusion: It is my conclusion that those in authority, whether parent, teacher, or government, are unlikely to push for mandatory critical thinking classes in public schools.


Hmm. I think Premise 2 might actually be a conclusion. And the Conclusion's probably an appeal to emotion (cynicism) . . . meh. It's my maiden voyage--sue me.

::sighs::
Back to the mines. . . .

"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

A Dose of Dr. Myers

"All those surveys of people's attitudes towards evolution experience major shifts if the questions are simply reworded: ask whether they believe humans evolved from apes, and half of Americans will say no. Ask them if animals evolved from simpler forms, and the yes answers surge upwards by tens of percentage points. It is not an objection to evolution in principle, but to evolution as an explanation of their personal history. I'm sure there's a marketing principle to be stated there.

The second objection is to chance and the lack of purpose. People really, desperately want there to be a personal agency to causality — they become utterly irrational about it all if you try to imply that no, fate, destiny, and ultimate cosmic purpose guided them to their mate, for instance. It couldn't have been just chance. I suspect this is a consequence of the first contention: people want to believe that they are important agents in the universe, and one of the implications of evolution is that they aren't."

--PZ Meyers, "Marketing Evolution" on Pharyngula, December 6, 2008 12:33 PM



Yes. Exactly. I can see myself in the second paragraph, with all my fears and mile-high angst. Though I was never bothered that I evolved from primordial ooze and apes. That's fine. The part that bothered me was that I evolved only for evolution's sake, as opposed to some grand purpose (though I'm realizing that's the grandest purpose there could ever be: to change, and avoid stagnation).

I think, speaking as someone who threw money down the shitter chasing the speckled-advertising degree, that Evolution is a wonderful product, especially since it's impossible to dispute, the more you know about it. But there does need to be better marketing. Teachers can only do so much. Civilian atheists have to get out there and support them, because they're ultimately supporting their children, and their community.

I can't stand people, but . . . if I had a head for science, I'd teach it. Physics, if I could wrap my brain around it, or biology, if I couldn't. I think, in the absence of an Objective Reason, dedicating a portion of, or one's entire life to eradicating ignorance wherever one finds it is quite a fine Subjective Reason.

I find myself hopeful, lately :)

Also? I didn't write the parts of the post you can click on, and mean no stealy-stealy. So please don't sue or otherwise prosecute me. Thanks.



"The Seether is neither big nor small. The Seether is the center of it all."--Veruca Salt

A bitter pill, but not for me

I've had a bit of a back-and-forth with a tool.


His initial post.

My response.

The tool's response to my response.

My final smackdown of his monkey ass.


I'd worried that I'd indeed been offensive, or derisive--beyond reason, anyway. That maybe my sarcasm was a little too, as it can sometimes be. But fuck self-doubt, that guy's shit was all 'tarded. I simply felt the need to school him on that fact.

No, I shouldn't say that, that's mean. There is no 'tarded shit, only 'tarded individuals. . . .

. . . I watch Idiocracy waaay too often.

But if that poor 'tard-burger can't even defend his ill-conceived, badly-worded ideas to me, he needs to get off of RD.net, or bend over and take his dressings down like man. (Heh, the mods told him if he didn't stop making personal attacks, they'd kick him off. Good looking out, RaspK)

Arguing with people is delightful. Especially when I happen to be right, though I'll play devil's advocate at the drop of a hat. Must be my huge, humanity-destroying ego :D

Another killer day at work, by which I mean I fantasized about killing each. And every. One of my customers, and at least a third of my coworkers. My job requires me to be nice to idiots and assholes--I'm not allowed, not supposed to argue with them, or hang up on them, or be honest about all their myriad short-comings. Which is painful to the point of actual physical pain and stress. Hence the job hating. I need to get a job at the DMV, where I can be as honest to people as I want and treat them like shit all day. . . .

That'd be nice.

Because I'm sick of being respectful to my mental inferiors. Not that I'm so wonderfully smart, but that so many of the people I meet are so exceptionally dumb. It's a good thing for them there is no objective point to life; if there was, these jerks wouldn't exist. They're cockroaches. Worse, really, since if put down in a truly adverse situation, they wouldn't adapt or survive nearly as well. My apologies to cockroaches everywhere. I'll try to think before I speak, in future.

On an up-note, oh, my gawds . . . isn't it ab-fab (and aren't I horribly bad at being femme):

Seattle.

I'm a New Yorker by birth and by 'tude. But there are a few other cities that I'm sure wouldn't be a step down to live in: London, Toronto, Sydney, Chicago, Edinburgh, Cardiff, San Francisco. Seattle tops that list. I've got such a deep yearning to be there, have for years. It just about kills me that I'm not there right now. . . .

I suppose my life has a point, after all: get the hell out of Kingston, and out to Seattle. Once there, I'll sort something out--if I'm not totally distracted by all the unparalleled happiness, that is.


"The Seether is neither big nor small. The Seether is the center of it all."--Veruca Salt