Against Stupidity

[Thundril]

On dial-up it takes forever to load a vid ,it would take me about five hours to view that ,so rather than tell me what they believe ,
what do you believe , are you a christian ,,???
what conclusions did you draw from the vid,???

I'm an atheist and humanist. I didn't watch the vid.I just wanted to give context to the printed appeal:

"Please pray for those who struggle financially and have a hard time making ends meet in the Promised Land." (Emphasis added)

You don't see any irony?

See the irony , reality is indeed an individual experience ,
I'm sure I could come up with at least 50 ways to interpret that ,
so why don't you spell it out , exactly what little pearl of wisdom are we supposed to get from that ,
that those in the promised land should not be struggling,,???
most countries , even NZ calls itself "gods own"
so in relation to this thread , your irony is lost on me ,
I have often said in here , if you leave it up to the punters to work it out for themselves , then the message will not be conveyed ,
we will draw every conclusion but the one you imagined we should ,
so why not just tell us , what irony ,
and what point was there to this post again,,???

A person who needs to ask for an ironic point to be explained is not going to like the answer.

[Godfree]

You don't see any irony?[/quote]
See the irony , reality is indeed an individual experience ,
I'm sure I could come up with at least 50 ways to interpret that ,
so why don't you spell it out , exactly what little pearl of wisdom are we supposed to get from that ,
that those in the promised land should not be struggling,,???
most countries , even NZ calls itself "gods own"
so in relation to this thread , your irony is lost on me ,
I have often said in here , if you leave it up to the punters to work it out for themselves , then the message will not be conveyed ,
we will draw every conclusion but the one you imagined we should ,
so why not just tell us , what irony ,
and what point was there to this post again,,???[/quote]
A person who needs to ask for an ironic point to be explained is not going to like the answer.[/quote]
I'm sure I'm big enough to handle it ,
question is is it worth saying , was it worth saying to start with,,???
is there some point of relevance or interesting point ,
go for it , don't be shy , you brought the subject up ,

[RickLewis]

The 2012 Philosophy Now Award for Contributions in the Struggle Against Stupidity will be on Tuesday 13th November at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London. We've found a very worthy winner!

The event will start at 7pm with Philosophy For All's George Ross Memorial Lecture, which this year will be given by Lesley Chamberlain and will be called "A Goethean in Postmodern London".

The Against Stupidity award ceremony will be held straight after the lecture, and will be followed by a short talk by the winner.

The event is free and everyone is welcome.

[chaz wyman]

The 2012 Philosophy Now Award for Contributions in the Struggle Against Stupidity will be on Tuesday 13th November at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London. We've found a very worthy winner!

The event will start at 7pm with Philosophy For All's George Ross Memorial Lecture, which this year will be given by Lesley Chamberlain and will be called "A Goethean in Postmodern London".

The Against Stupidity award ceremony will be held straight after the lecture, and will be followed by a short talk by the winner.

The event is free and everyone is welcome.

Is booking required or is it a turn up on the day sort of thing?

[RickLewis]

The 2012 Philosophy Now Award for Contributions in the Struggle Against Stupidity will be on Tuesday 13th November at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London. We've found a very worthy winner!

The event will start at 7pm with Philosophy For All's George Ross Memorial Lecture, which this year will be given by Lesley Chamberlain and will be called "A Goethean in Postmodern London".

The Against Stupidity award ceremony will be held straight after the lecture, and will be followed by a short talk by the winner.

The event is free and everyone is welcome.

Is booking required or is it a turn up on the day sort of thing?

You can just turn up on the day.

Conway Hall have a system of free electronic tickets that they are putting at our disposal. The idea is that if you get one of these free tickets then (a) it gives us some sort of clue as to how many people are likely to turn up, (b) you can print it out and stick it to your fridge as a handy reminder of the event and (c) you get sent an automated reminder email the day before the event. All of which sounds good to me. I'll provide a link shortly.

However, if you just turn up on the day without having booked an electronic ticket, you will still be let in.

[chaz wyman]

Well Chaz ,
if you can't be bothered checking out one website ,
don't bother trying to give me homework again ,
there are many such as Paul La Violette ,
who have credentials and degrees in physics ,
and claim to be able to disprove the bbt ,
I don't agree with some of Pauls claims , but the point is ,
not all scientists agree on this bbt , there is plenty of alternative views ,
from people just as qualified to make such claims ,
I have looked for the proof the universe is expanding ,
there doesn't appear to be any , it's all based on the red shift ,
being PROOF the universe is expanding,
and it's not proof , there are other explanations that fit the observational data better ,
so Chaz , what other proof is there for this expansion,
I would have thought if they could they would have come up with the proof by now ,
give me one real solid proof other than the red shift , that it's expanding,,!!

What does red shift indicate?

[RickLewis]

The winner of the Philosophy Now 2012 Award for Contributions in the Fight Against Stupidity is Dr Ben Goldacre.

Here is the full announcement and details of the award ceremony at Conway Hall on Tues 13th November:

http://philosophynow.org/award

Hope to see you there! That page includes a link to where you can book a free electronic ticket for the event.

[chaz wyman]

The winner of the Philosophy Now 2012 Award for Contributions in the Fight Against Stupidity is Dr Ben Goldacre.

Here is the full announcement and details of the award ceremony at Conway Hall on Tues 13th November:

http://philosophynow.org/award

Hope to see you there! That page includes a link to where you can book a free electronic ticket for the event.

He made an appearance on BBC's This Week tonight.

[spike]

There is a new winner for PN's award against stupidity, Noam Chomsky.

Noam Chomsky is a smart man who writes about the absurdities and bullshit of our political system. But he would be a far more cleaver fellow if he acknowledged the fact that human history has always been absurd and full of bullshit, and that, ironically, is the stuff on which we have developed, progressed and improved. Stupidity is part of our learning curve.

One example that PN uses to identify stupidity is Niels Bohr and the splitting of the uranium atom. Bohr said the atom couldn't be split. But others showed him it could be. On learning that Bohr slapped his forehead and uttered that he had been stupid in not knowing that before. But to me that's not being stupid. (He was probable more stubborn than stupid in thinking what he did.) He was just using a figure of speech when he called himself stupid. We all do that when we haven't realized something from the beginning. We can't know everything all at once. Nor could the great Niels Bohr. So that shouldn't constitute stupidity.

Now, if Niels Bohr continued to deny that the atom was un-splittable, then that would be stupid.

[RickLewis]

It wasn't just Bohr - it was pretty much all the physicists up to that point. Also Otto Hahn (a chemist) in whose Berlin laboratory the essential experiments were done.

Incidentally, about 25 years ago I worked for a physicist called Tony Frisch. I jokingly asked him if he was related to Otto Frisch, and it turned out that Otto Frisch was his father. He also remembered his aunt, Lise Meitner. Meitner and Frisch were the ones who re-interpreted Meitner's results from Hahn's laboratory and realised that the uranium atom was being split in half by slow neutrons.

[spike]

So Rick (pardon my familiarity), I am thinking you are entrenched in physics.

Physics has generally been engulfed in stupidity. But that is how the discipline has learned and expanded, through thinking and doing so-called stupid things first. The real stupid part is the continuation of doing stupid things in physics. But physics tends to see the clever, in the long run. Otherwise it would really be stupid.

A question that might be asked is, Do we live in a stupid world? In many respects we do. But in the long run everything makes sense, because it's all for a reason, that we develop and expand through stupidity.

This stupidity thing should be front and center because, I am sorry (present company exempt), this forum is full of it!

[Arising_uk]

...
This stupidity thing should be front and center because, I am sorry (present company exempt), this forum is full of it!

But according to you this is a good thing?

Is that why you keep posting here?

[spike]

Is that why you keep posting here?

I really don't like posting on this forum anymore. I don't follow the activity on here like I used to. There is stupidity and then there is stupidity.

[RickLewis]

Is that why you keep posting here?

I really don't like posting on this forum anymore. I don't follow the activity on here like I used to. There is stupidity and then there is stupidity.

Sherlock Holmes once said (I forget in which story): “Crime is common but logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.”

I'd recommend the same thing with regard to stupidity and good reasoning. Stupidity is common, good reasoning is rare. Therefore you should seek out good reasoning wherever you are (on the forum, for instance) and respond to that with your own good reasoning, and so far as possible simply ignore stupidity.

Usually stupidity isn't interesting. An exception is maybe if you spot somebody really clever like Neils Bohr being stupid, because then there may be an interesting reason for that.

[uwot]

... so far as possible simply ignore stupidity.

Or we can give awards people who contribute to its eradication. What are we talking about here? Stupidity isn't ignorance, none of us can avoid that, but it is easily cured. Aren't we assuming that stupidity implies some wilfulness? Should we really ignore people who wish to impose their stupidity on others? Ought we not, as Philosophy Now in fact does, commend people who stand up to stupidity?