Sep 18 2007
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How ignorant can you be and still get on TV?
Answer: there is no upper limit.
Regulars know I am not an ad hominem kinda guy (unless they really really deserve it). But stuff like this pushes me well beyond my limit.
Synopsis: on The View, a horrifying chit chat show where Barbara Walters stands out as an intellectual giant, their new co-host — and I can barely type this, it makes my brain hurt so much — says she doesn’t know if the Earth is flat or not.
You may wish to reread that. I don’t recommend it, though, if you don’t want your cerebrum to explode outwards in all directions at the speed of light.
The link above has a video on it, in case you simply can’t imagine that anyone who would land a job as co-host of a national TV program could actually not know for sure what the general shape of the planet is. Sherri Shepherd, the person in question, knocks it out of the park, though. This, after saying she doesn’t "believe in evolution, period."
Hey, that’s something we share! I don’t "believe" in it either. I don’t believe in anything, especially rock solid facts. I know evolution is real. Belief is for things without evidence.
Anyway, when Whoopi Goldberg (who is actually pretty smart) presses her on this, Ms. Shepherd demurs, saying that it’s more important for her to know how to care for her son. This is almost legitimate. Almost. But it misses. If this were a thousand years ago, and she were toiling in a cave someplace with no access to information and spending 20 hours a day trying to keep her family fed, then sure, some knowledge may simply be too esoteric to be useful and, worse, distract from the actual task of survival.
But that isn’t the case. Here we have an actress and singer who is living, if I read my calendar and atlas correctly, in the 21st Century in the United States. Has she never seen a picture of the Earth from space? As it happens, a vast majority of people in the U.S. can hold a job, care for their family, and also know that the Earth is, y’know, round. Some people (though sadly, not enough) also know it takes the Earth a year to go around the Sun, that gravity makes things fall, and that DNA is a big molecule in which genetic information is coded. None of this is needed to feed your family (unless you are a science writer), yet humans are in general capable of handling a vast amount of information not directly pertaining to immediate survival.
For someone in Ms. Shepherd’s position to not know the Earth is a ball is really just beyond my ken (sadly, not believing in evolution is par for this country’s course). *
Now, there are lots and lots of people out there who lack an education (and there is blame to go around aplenty, there) or for whatever reason may not understand the Earth is a sphere. But then, how many of them get to be co-host on a TV show seen by millions of people every day?
Look, don’t get me wrong: people have priorities, and for some, I understand that even basic knowledge of the Universe around them isn’t among those priorities. But a co-host on a TV show like this should be for role models, for people who will have an informed opinion and who will make the viewers think. Yes, there are demogogue shows with bloviating ignoramuses as hosts, too many to name. But The View is not really one of them. Shallow, yes, but not — pardon the expression — geometrically flat.
The producers of The View need to seriously rethink this. But then, it’s not like they’ve shown brilliance in discretion when they’ve picked past hosts. Maybe they just want to drum up controversy. In the sad world of network TV, that would also be par for the course.
But this… sigh. It goes to show what a long, long road we have ahead of us.
Tip o’ the Mercator projection to Mike’s Weekly Skeptical Rant, which is really ad hom, and has much NSFW language.
* I will give her some credit, though: when asked what she would do if her young son asked her if the Earth were flat, her reply was, "I’d look it up".” That is the right answer. However, given her comment on evolution, I fear for where she would look it up.
Minor peeve of mine, but I’m compelled to point out it’s not ad hominem if it’s not actually used as an argument. “Hovindites are evil” is a statement. “Hovindites are evil, therefore creationism is wrong” is an ad hominem.
Well, I have to admit at the outset that I’ve never suffered the mental pollution of watching The View.
But I think that the recent controversy over Rosie O’D has kind of identified the show with her in the public mind — someone who seems to think the president perpetrated the 9-11 attacks and that fire can’t melt steel. (Hello, Rosie, try Wiki-ing “Bessemer Process.” This has been happening for well over a century! Of course, the fire didn’t have to melt the steel, only weaken it. Japanese sword-making comes to mind here.)
So I can’t get too excited about anything that comes out of that show. It’d be like taking seriously a National Enquirer story the likes of, say, ‘Mother Gives Birth to Space Alien Who Travels Back in Time to 1977 and Abducts Elvis.’
Of course the sad part is the number of people who DO watch the show, or DO read The Enquirer, and NOT for the comedic effect. But, hey, you can’t spend your life worrying about the stupid things some people do. You’ll make yourself crazy. And stupid. And you’re too smart for that.
The reason we are in Iraq is becasue getting on TV is judged as an achievement.
I’m from Uruguay, a third world country, and I stand amazed at the fact that in a leading first world country like yours live people who state things like that, things I’ve never heard said in my underdeveloped country
And remember — your efforts are contributing to the SOLUTION, not to the problem!
I don’t see a problem-
The Earth can be both round and flat at the same time. It shouldn’t matter to the elephants holding us up.
BTW- I thought Whoopi did a great job of standing her ground. She’s always struck me as a smart cookie.
[…] Plait says the show’s producers should rethink her hiring. I disagree. I’m thrilled she’s going to be on the […]
The answer is not “there is no upper limit” - the answer is “there is no LOWER limit.”
You can pick your friends and you can pick your nits, but you can’t pick your friends’ nits.
-Picker of Nits
Just to be absolutly clear, the bit of video does not give enough information for me to be sure that the “panel” is not discussing a recent book whose title proclaims the flatness of the world as a metaphor. I am disturbed by the tone of the woman’s explanations, but am a bit skeptical that the exchange may have been taken out of context. I hope that I am justified in my assumption, but I know all too well the fathoms of stupidity that the average person is submerged in.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
It’s difficult to type this with my cerebrum plastered all over the walls…He was right about not reading it again…
Sherlock Holmes told Watson that he wasn’t aware that the earth went around the sun. It was on no practical importance to his line of work. I suspect that Sherlock was putting Watson on…
autumn:
Full video including context in which Shepherd denies the possibility of evolution as well
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6254340168010486676&q=sherri+shepherd+evolution&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
There’s never going to be a US version of QI, is there…. *sigh*
The truly frightening thing is, Sherri Shepherd will probably decide to homeschool her kids. Gotta keep the little tykes away from the corrupting influence of the evil evolutionists!
[…] 19th, 2007 by tinyfrog [Via BadAstronomy] Hooray! More and more intelligent people are questioning the intellectual know-it-alls who call […]
Just a little wishful nitpicking: These ladies don’t use the words “earth” and “round”.
They talk about “world” and “flat”. I just wish for them that they discussed cosmological models of flat spacetime which would be beyond cool; I also wish they would have used “hyperbolic” or “Minkowski” or “manifold” to support my feeble point. :-}
>>> I’m from Uruguay, a third world country,
>>> and I stand amazed at the fact that in a
>>> leading first world country like yours live
>>> people who state things like that,
I don’t see the connection. There’s 300,000,000 people in the US, and it’s amazing that a few people say something dumb? People say dumb things all over the world all the time. The media just gives them disproportionate attention.
It’s like those videos that are all the rage these days where random Americans in the street are asked questions about the world and there’s nothing but dumb answers. People need to remember those things are highly edited down to just the dumb answers.
They’re propaganda films designed to make the US look stupid because, well, that’s sort of the trendy thing right now. You seem the planet is full of miserable, bitter and spiteful people who think it’s even possible to stereotype one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Notice how you never see videos asking people these questions anywhere else on the world. That’s a lack of a control group, that is, and makes for bad science.
>>> things I’ve never heard said in my underdeveloped country
Sixty-six percent of Uruguayans are Roman Catholics. You must have heard *something*!
And don’t be so hard on the homeland. Uruguay is really more Second World and has the 2nd highest standard of living in South America.
Hi Fred (Shuman),
You said: “But, hey, you can’t spend your life worrying about the stupid things some people do. ”
I think you are justified in some degree of worry, because ignorance is a danger to us all. It seems to me that some people are wilfully ignorant and not just ignorant by accident. This is especially true of creationists who, despite any and all the evidence, will never admit to the truth because it confounds their beliefs. You can cure ignorance if someone wants to be cured, but you can’t cure it if they want to stay ignorant.
The trouble we all face is that wilfully ignorant people have the same influence as the well-informed. They pay taxes and vote, so parliamentarians listen to them. IMHO, the greatest danger we all face is with global warming, but there are those who chose to ignore it, deny it or rubbish it, despite all the evidence. My biggest worry is that politicians will prefer the option of listening to their ignorant constituents instead of undertaking the drastic action required. Ignorance may well be the death of us all.
autumn,
I agreed with your thought that the whole thing might have been taken out of context until I checked out Christian Burnham’s link, which lays out the context in all of its horrible glory.
At our core we are still the terrified animals roaming the savvanahs. Still, when you have a good tool that improves your ability to survive you pick it the hell up and use it rather than avoid it because some old book said it won’t work because it’s unholy. Better to die and live forever in heavenly bliss than pick up that tool. Sometimes I wish selection pressures were a bit stronger at local levels. Bah… my libertarian inclinations are screaming “totalitarian!” at me.
Sherri ain’t a threat, she just affirms others beliefs. If it weren’t her it’d be someone else. There is no lack of folks to affirm her beliefs.
I am shocked that Whoopi Goldberg turned out to be the most rational one on the panel, although (Is it Joy Bahar?) was pretty reasonable, too, in a sort of Francis Collins kind of way.
I wonder why she felt she couldn’t take a stand one way or the other on the shape of the planet? It boggles the mind. I wonder if Richard Wiseman has any ideas…
Phil, tell Rebecca that her NPR show (she better win dammit!) is only a stepping stone to a seat on the View! She has a Mission!
Quiet desperation, I guess the uruguayan poster meant “heard on the TV”.
And by the way, the Catholic Church agrees to modern science findings, evolution explicitly included, and quite unlike most protestant sects in the USA.
I am always amused at how protestant sects and extremist islam are the major forces opposing evolution from a religious standpoint…
I always thought it was faith that does not require evidence.
The previous post was correct that, in this case, you have not engaged in an ad hominem attack. Strictly, an ad hominem fallacy is of the form: you are wrong because you’re an idiot, or because you are a smurf, or because you are a Republican (which may be proven statistically, however, in which case it is NOT an ad hominem). The fallacy is only ad hominem if you have alleged or implied that a person is wrong because of what the person “is”. Moreover, even idiots and Republicans have been known to be right if only by chance. There is an hypothesis concerning typing monkeys writing Shakespeare and Bertrand Russell once proved “conclusively” that he was the pope.
That said, I would like to point out that you are entirely “correct” to be outraged. It is not merely that this person is in a highly visible position that she bears a responsibility to be at least minimally knowledgeable or literate. This is stuff that everyone should already have learned by third grade. I was lucky, my father explained some elementary cosmology to me at a very early age. By age four, I could name the “known” nine planets and understood that, beyond the Solar System, there was a vast cosmos. But I was lucky. If public and private schools are not teaching elementary cosmology along with basic science and what I would consider a basic curriculum, then we have failed this and future generations. Sad.
“I always thought it was faith that does not require evidence.”
You are correct. The BA keeps blurring this distinction (I’ve read it before on this blog), and it is not helpful. It is perfectly OK to say that you believe in evolution, because it is a hypothesis that has to be inferred indirectly. The evidence is that which everyone agrees upon, also know as “the facts”, and logic must be used to determine whether the facts support the hypothesis or not. To call evolution a fact is to say that evolution is true because it is true. Something may have started out as a hypothesis, like the shape of the Earth. But now astronauts have actually seen the shape of the Earth and I would say that a round Earth has become a fact. Evolution, however, can never be observed as a fact in this way.
The other reason why “belief” is a perfectly good scientific term is that you need it in probability theory, and in particular the Bayesian interpretation of probabilities (which is the only non-problematic interpretation of probability theory). There is a very good book by ET Jaynes on this. Our measure of belief allows us to quantify the likelihood of hypotheses, which makes precise all sorts of scientific procedures such as data analysis and precision measurements. Even the facts themselves can be given a prior probability distribution that estimates how much you trust them. So “belief” is a central concept in science.
Please BA, be a little bit more careful about this.
People, clearly she does know the world is not flat. But she was being pressed by the others, and as a result she entered a defensive mode. In that defensive mode, to her, is more important to defend what she said before then to state the yes she does believe the earth is flat.
From what I saw, and what you said, what I saw in the linked video was. She made a statement that she don’t believe in evolution, the others started to counterargument (witch is good), and she started to defend her point of view fiercely. I don’t agree with that, but many people will never get out of a discussion admitting that they were wrong, no matter how many facts and how many reasons the opponent has given to them would be a shame admitting being wrong. That is why is impossible to discuss evolution with an ID believer.
Halloween is coming. Penn & Teller have been Halloween guests for at least two years.
I don’t know if they will be guests this year, but if they are…
Do you suppose that the boys (after showing off how cute Penn’s kids are) could maybe subtly suggest a simple critical thinking message, such as “It’s better to be educated than to be an ignorant dunce?”
Hrrm…. My guess is that she was trying to be tricky to show the importance of making her family a priority, but she really just came off looking like a dimwitted stump.
Still, it breaks the head.
So are you telling me the Earth isn’t flat after all???????? Now I have to rethink 45 years of belief here! Next thing you’ll be telling me that the Moon isn’t made of green cheese either. We all know the astronauts didn’t find any because they were actually in the Nevada desert! I wonder what Hoagland thinks of this!
Quote from: Christian Burnhamon
“BTW- I thought Whoopi did a great job of standing her ground. She’s always struck me as a smart cookie.”
Would this be the same Whoopi Goldberg whom on HER opening day on The View defended Michael Vick’s dogfighting involvement because he’s from the South and that’s what they do? (paraphrased- Originally gotten from a vid clip off of CNN which has expired, but info easilly found by googling “Whoopi defends Michael Vick”)
I have to agree with PK. Belief is in fact wholly appropriate in scientific discourse. I in fact believe a lot of the things my supervisor tells me, even though I do not know the to be scientific fact. The neat thing about science is that it’ll give the mechanics to get to the bottom of things. Given enough energy and time you can have a look at the evidence, at other papers, at the experiments and then derive a conclusion yourself. Now, it is pretty easy to see that the earth is not flat, and in fact, that can be fun… a day spent at the beach is all you need, you just have to pay some attention. And Ms. Sheperd could even bring Jeffrey, I heard kids love the beach.
The problem that the lay person have, I presume, is that the belief PK is referring to is, I presume, actually a measure of certainty. It is derived from many factors, both social, such as trust, and observational, from experiments, but there remains uncertainty. For the regular person on the street, the belief in scientific theories is, I would suppose, the same as a believe in a divine creature. To them, the scientist telling them about evolution is no different from a minister or a politician.
Oh, and while I am on the rant here: What Quiet Desperation said was, in my experience, not quite true. While it might be trendy to bash Americans for their ignorance, it would have to be said that the American system of education is rather limited to a US centric view, for example in geographics. If I remember correctly my time in high school in rural Iowa, there was like a 1 term course in world history and georgraphy and everything else was concerned with the US. That some, or even most Americans cannot name the seat of government of the Netherlands, or point out on a map where Bhutan is, certainly is not a problem, but the system, IMO, fails to imbue knowledge about some elementary stuff, e.g. where China is, what the EU is all about etc. They are simply left ignorant about what’s going on outside the US, but they are the constituents of the nation that meddles most in world affairs… I just think that’s a rather bad combination. That being said, I luv y’all, my dear American neighbours
I really *really* hate that being homeschooled is now seen as being fundy. My sister and I were both homeschooled all throughout school (well, me since second grade) and our family is ANYthing but fundy. Although some people decide to homeschool in order to have a more religious-based education, that is certainly not the reason for everyone. Having kids of above- or below-average intelligence and wanting to teach them at their own pace, having poor public school conditions and no money (or no interest) for private school, or simply wanting to do it “as an experiment” are all quite valid reasons for homeschooling.
The problem is not whether evolution is real or not or whether the earth is flat or round. The problem is that the American public worships ignorance.
And I don’t understand why. Given that American scientists are among the top researchers in every single academic discipline, ignorance strikes me as very un-American.
I was going to say the same thing as Seamyst. My two brothers and I have been/were homeschooled our entire lives and we are quite vocal atheists. We live way out in the country as well, so we probably would have gotten much more religion shoved down our throats at the local public school than at home.
@ PK
“But now astronauts have actually seen the shape of the Earth and I would say that a round Earth has become a fact. Evolution, however, can never be observed as a fact in this way.”
So you believe evolution is NOT an ongoing process? There have been no changes to any creature since the 6th day? Genetic mutations, survival of the fitest, and natural selection are all figments of our imagination?
I love your blog , everyday I can’t wait to read it when I get to work.
Classic stuff!
If I had my way, “The View” would be replaced by a test pattern that says, “GET A JOB.”
They recently had a local Creation Museum “curator” (and I use that term very loosely) on the CBC Radio noon show here in Calgary.
I wound up leaving the room in frustration, save the risk of throwing my radio through a 15th floor window when he started going on about how all forms of radiometric dating are wrong. Except for Carbon Dating, which gives a number closer to their 6KA age for the Earth, so it’s got to be right.
It literally hurt my brain just to write that!
@Thorin
I think you misunderstand what I wrote. Of course evolution is an ongoing process, but you have to compare different data sets to show it. The data sets are the evidence, which supports the hypothesis of evolution. The existence of genetic mutations follow directly from observations (the genome at a time t compared to the genome at a later time t+t’). Survival of the fittest and natural selection, on the other hand, are concepts that are used to unify our understanding of the phenomena. So far, they work much, much better than ID or creationism, which is why my degree of belief in evolution is so much greater than my degree of belief in creationism.
I don’t think he intended to say that all home schooling is bad and only done by religious nuts. The fear is, if these kids are home schooled, they will not have any chance to learn what evolution is about as the most dominant source of knowledge in their life will be against the idea.
I’m going to weigh in for just a moment before I go back to lurking. The word “belief” should never be used scientifically, simply because BA is correct: it implies a lack of evidence. What is better to say is that we “accept” evolution based upon the evidence, not that we “believe” in evolution. Perhaps this is only due to the negative connotation associated with the word “believe”, but we need to be clear that we are not believing or having faith in something, we are accepting it as the most likely explanation of reality. Evolutionary Theory is accepted as being the current best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet. It is not something in which we can believe in the sense that we need some sort of faith; we have the hard evidence, thus we accept it.
Wouldn’t the proliferation of resistant bacteria in high-antibacterial areas such as hospitals be seen as an observable example of evolution? It’s on a much shorter time frame then most evolution, yes, but that just makes it possible to watch it happening. There wasn’t a lot of resistant strains before, now there are, because we inadvertently created an environment in which resistant strains survive better than non-resistant strains.
# PKon 19 Sep 2007 at 4:43 am
> Please BA, be a little bit more careful about this.
You need to be a bit more careful as well. Evolution can be, and has been, directly observed. It can even be induced by deliberate man-made pressures. (Bacteria having become increasingly resistant due to misuse of many kinds of anti-biotics is just one of several examples.) Evolution is an observable, (inconveniently) demonstrable fact.
Evolution is also a theory, a collection of tested and tried hypotheses, an explanation as to the mechanisms of Evolution, the fact. Evolution, the theory is itself is evolving as better information and new testing become available.
Don’t confuse Evolution, the fact, with Evolution, the theory. Especially don’t confuse Evolution with Natural Selection and Speciation, which are but two _mechanisms_ within Evolution.
@ Richard Wolford
I think you are right that there is a knee-jerk reaction to the word “belief” from some atheists, but that is quite irrelevant. Belief and faith are two different things, one perfectly at easy within the scientific method, and the other the antithesis of science.
In fact, if we’re talking PR, it makes more sense to embrace the concept of belief (in its scientific sense) rather than alienate the god-fearing people who may also be interested in science.
The BA said:
“. . . if you don’t want your cerebrum to explode outwards in all directions at the speed of light.”
Heck, I don’t think that could happen. My cerebrum is a physical object, and AFAIK it is impossible to accelerate a physical object to light speed.
So there.
PK, I understand your point, and likely it is simply a matter of semantics, but I disagree about alienating god-fearing people. If they are truly interested in science, and truly wish to learn, they are going to very quickly come to a pivotal point; accept evolution or accept the bible (assuming Christian faiths of course). Evolution is in direct contradiction of the bible; the bible requires belief in higher powers taken on faith. Science, on the other hand, believes nothing. I don’t believe in gravity, I accept it as fact. I don’t believe in math, I accept it as fact. Same as evolution, I don’t believe in it, I accept it. Likewise, those of a religious mind set whom are interested in science need to accept it, not believe in it. I think again that this really is coming down to semantics, but the problem is that belief, from a religious point of view, does in fact indicate that there is no evidence, thus the need for faith. We need to make that distinction IMHO, otherwise we could end up confusing them into thinking we believe in evolution because we do not believe in god. Rather, we need to highlight that we accept evolution based on empirical evidence; it may only be semantics, but I think it would be better to get the point across. Let them accept evolution based on fact, then believe in god based upon faith.
Again, likely semantics.
@ Moose
I know that to talk just about “evolution” is asking for trouble, because it is a very dynamic scientific discipline, where our understanding constantly changes. Nevertheless, you cannot ever equate a theory that purports to explain a host of phenomena with a fact. These are two different categories. Apples and pears.
This leaves the question of the truth value of the theory, measured by a probability. In other words, given all the information available, what is our degree of belief in the various theories that attempt to explain the phenomena.
If one has a belief in evolution, which is the conviction that the concept is in fact true, to me, or an acceptance of evolution is, in this context, a matter of—yuck, I thought I would not have to use the evil word—framing. If we look that the everyday use of believing, I have to say, that without a certain reliability regarding a source, without prior evidence of truthfulness, for example, I will not believe. E.g. when somebody tells me something, and that person has a reputation for being truthful, I tend to believe them. Thus, belief is not necessarily and should not be removed from concepts such as evidence and trust. It is a rather personal concept, to be sure.
For evolution, I believe that the theory of Evolution is mostly correct, although I also believe that there might be adjustments and additions, as research progresses. I know that evolutionary concepts work, because I apply them to computational concepts, that’s what I have experience in and direct knowledge of. I have not done any research into EvoDevo, thus I have to rely on what people and text books tell me about it, what the scientific community says and what I myself can derive as plausible… thus I believe that something is true.
Phew…
Sorry, that first sentence was a bit convoluted… what I meant to say: Acceptance of, believe in –> matter of framing, same semantic content
Richard, some of it is semantics: Why should I (and a large part of the scientific community) abandon a perfectly good word, especially while being backed up by the dictionary? From Webster online:
The second part of my argument is categorical: theory and fact are philosophically different entities (they belong to different categories).
In some sense belief is a personal statement. However, when you quantify the degree of belief using Bayesian priors, then the degree of belief of a rational person leads to the laws of probability theory. In other words, updating the priors in the face of new information (evidence) in a mathematically consistent way gives a unique result, namely Bayes’ rule.
With all due respect, what difference does it make, in her life, in her day to day activities, what geometric configuration the earth is in?
Yes, she appears to be a dimwit. Yes, it is a shameful reflection of her education. No, she’s not smarter than a fifth grader. But unless she is designing programs for future space missions, planning to send a satellite into orbit, or manufacturing globes, her lack of knowledge really only hurts her. In truth, even if she did homeschool, her children would have contact with others if differing belief systems and educational levels.
As a side note. I am homeschooling our three children and there is a conspicuous lack of religious education going on here. I would also like to point out that I’m a registered republican, but lean toward more independent ideologies. Someone’s political leanings or educational choices doesn’t preclude said person from grasping complex philosophical or scientific principles.
@PK,
The reason being that the likely perceived definition of “belief” by those we wish to bring to the light of reason is going to have a religious tone and, thus, parallels. It gets into the whole science as a religion nonsense because scientists have belief in their theories and faith in their instruments. It’s wordplay, so why even get into it? I agree that the word, based upon its denotation, is perfectly plausible, but let me provide a more extreme example. The “n” word has a perfectly reasonably dictionary meaning, but I wouldn’t recommend using it due to negative connotations. While the word “belief” doesn’t likely fall into that range of extreme negativity, it is there none the less. Why let the YECs turn the word “belief” back on us? I believe that evolution is the best theory/model we have for the diversity of life, but I will say that I accept evolution, not that I believe in it, because I don’t want some religious nutjob throwing up that I have “beliefs” when my definition of the word is not the same as theirs (such as “theory”).
But then, from a linguistic point of view, we get into specialized (scientific) terminology. But, I guess, that was the whole point, wasn’t it , PK?
I just emailed her asking her to kill herself (sherridvd@aol.com), or at the least give her kid up for adoption, and stop breeding.
The gene pool of the planet would thank her.
@MadProphet
Tell me you’re joking.
>>> And by the way, the Catholic Church agrees to modern
>>> science findings, evolution explicitly included, and quite
>>> unlike most protestant sects in the USA.
Yeah. Check back with me when Catholics can openly purchase a French tickler.
@Richard Wolford.
I am not joking. Why would I joke about something like that?
@TheJerryLander
I think you’re right in that semantically we’re saying the same thing, acceptance or belief; the problem is that these words can have multiple meanings to multiple audiences. Look at the whole “it’s just a theory” nonsense due to different interpretations of the definition of the word “theory”. We are talking about a cultural change, something I studied heavily during my doctoral courses. You have to examine these subtleties. Technically it may be correct to have a belief in evolution, but how does that play in the minds of those who believe in god? Their reasons for believing in god and rejecting evolution are not based on empirical evidence, thus “belief” is not based on empirical evidence. You could then, by way of that evil wordplay they’re so good at, say that evolution, because it is a belief, is based on no empirical evidence. I know that’s BS, you know that’s BS, but we’re not the ones who need to change. To change the culture, we must change how the culture thinks. If “belief” is used for religious purposes, we need to use something else when dealing with scientific concepts. We have to play to the audience in other words; if they take “belief” to be something associated with religion, they will see science as just another religion (something many of the YECs actually do). I simply despise when someone uses wordplay to dismiss an idea (gee, its only a theory!).
BTW, this is actually the first ongoing discussion I’ve had hear, and it’s actually very cool
@MadProphet
Seriously, that’s not a wise idea, that could easily be construed into a threat, which would make your post a confession of a criminal act.
But from another perspective, it’s not productive. I can understand your frustration; I live in southern West Virginia. It’s nothing but unions and churches. We were the worst in the nation to do business with, and it shows in the local culture. I get irate quite often; when I was working on my PhD, I was made fun of; I am also chastised for not going to church (I’m an atheist). It gets to me, quite badly sometimes.
However, death/murder/mayhem is never the answer. The answer lies in education and a desire for knowledge. It is very easy to kill a person; anyone here could do it. However, would anyone in here care to try and kill an idea? Ideas are above mere individuals, thus the death/birth of those individuals is not relevant so long as the idea is maintained. We are talking cultural change; we need to educate people, not kill them off because they don’t agree with us. Education will solve all of our problems, given time of course.
A quote which comes to mind (and I apologize, not trying to quote mine here, I’m not a fan of it), which I believe is from Eleanor Roosevelt.
Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Weak minds discuss people
She can’t be wrong. She’s Black.
Wait, two black people are arguing… now my head is approaching critical mass.
Phil said:
> Here we have an actress and singer who is living, if I read my calendar and atlas correctly, in the 21st Century in the United States. Has she never seen a picture of the Earth from space?
It’s worse than that. Has she never heard of a globe?
To give her credit, one could possibly argue she was taking the arch skeptic position - “I haven’t looked at the evidence myself, so I don’t know, though I’m told it’s round.” If so, she does an extremely poor job of expressing herself.
I also disagree with the aversion to the word “believe”. Believe is a broad word for accepting a certain statement or condition as true. The issue is not the act of believing, it is the basis of belief - objective evidence or faith. Faith and belief are not synonymous. Apparently, though, many people seem to think they are. I realize some folks wish to stress the distinction in the basis of belief, so wish to define belief as faith and the other form as something else, like “knowing”. I think the focus should be on stressing the basis for accepting the information, not the choice of the word “believe”.
PK said:
> I think you misunderstand what I wrote. Of course evolution is an ongoing process, but you have to compare different data sets to show it. The data sets are the evidence, which supports the hypothesis of evolution. The existence of genetic mutations follow directly from observations (the genome at a time t compared to the genome at a later time t+t’). Survival of the fittest and natural selection, on the other hand, are concepts that are used to unify our understanding of the phenomena.
I agree, Evolution is not a fact in the sense of an observable, measurable condition. Chromosomes exist. Genes exist as parts of chromosomes. Genes control the creation of proteins, and the expression of physical traits, i.e. the phenotype. Mutations change the genes (shuffle, sort, damage, etc), which changes physical traits. The expression of the phenotype interacts with the environment and affects the survivability of the organism. These are all facts. The connecting explanation that strings them all together and makes a comprehensive understanding of the process is Evolution. It is a description of the whole process, an explanation.
One can say that Evolution is factual, in that it is based upon a string of facts, and it does not contradict facts. But it is not a “fact”in itself. Descent with modification pretty well confirmed - fact. Breeding populations shift the gene frequency or change gene attributes over time, making the “species” change - fact. Evolution: explanation of the facts, therefore true for the best of our understanding. Does that make it a “fact” as well? Is that a semantics question?
@Richard Wolford
I respect your views sir. I believe you and I view the world from the same spot, but interpret it differently.
First, I never threatened the woman, since killing someone is indeed a criminal act, and I do enjoy my freedom.
Agreed, my email is indeed an act of frustration, and gains nothing. She will very likely never see it as her handlers will screen her email for anything unpleasant. But I do feel better now.
Now, I will disagree with you on one important point. I don’t believe that the human race is progressing overall. We have more knowledge of physics, biology, and geology, than ever before, yet we have more people who fall back on religion than I can remember. How many Republican candidates publicly state that they don’t believe in evolution? Or “George Bush, friend to science”?
Do you not think another dark ages caused by religion could not occur?
Consider something else. I am a great fan of the Darwin Awards, as I imagine are many others on sites like this. If this woman did something stupid tomorrow, and died, exactly how many intelligent people would mourn her death? So yes, while killing someone is criminal, wishing them dead is not something I consider wrong or immoral.
Would the world be a better place if this woman got hit by a truck tomorrow and she was replaced on the View by someone like Naomi Wolf?
At least this statement was made by a dippy and vacuous talk show host, not Francis Collins or a Federal Circuit Court Judge.
Phil, don’t be too afraid if she looks it up. Even Conservapedia admits the Earth is a sphereoid, although not in so many words.
“Conservapedia admits the Earth is a sphereoid, although not in so many words.”
I thought it was actually kinda pear shaped?
“If this were a thousand years ago, and she were toiling in a cave someplace with…”
Cave? in 1007 AD? Civilization had developed some pretty complex construction techniques a thousand years ago. I thought you would have noticed that.
@Richard Wolford
I see where you are coming from. The way Ms. Shepherd said “I don’t believe in evolution, period.” she, in all likelihood, meant it in the same way as if she had said “I don’t believe in Kali.”—and that is the problem. I don’t think we should accommodate other people’s wrong views by adjusting our vocabulary, no matter that the belief I have in evolution has nothing to do with blind faith or that her’s is based solely on faith. We, the scientific community, should reach out. These people have to be interested in science, its methods and the wonderful things it lets us discover. Her views may be stupid and childish, but we should at least try to show her the evidence for evolution and start a thinking process. We have to get people to start to like thinking.
As far as Ms. Shepherd is concerned, she might be a lost cause, as might people like her be… but we have to make a push for educating people, especially the younger generation. Which brings me to the following: Why not offer to discuss the fundamental scientific concept with Ms. Shepherd and try to explain it to her? And, why does she have a TV show and Phil doesn’t?
I think when I am done reading about complex systems, I will go and dig out my Sagan again, it always makes me feel cozy
Please someone kill me. I’m about to comment on t…
Now that I’ve commented on The View, I need to go eat raw meat, watch UFC and pound on drums. Maybe kill something. Possibly myself….
She can’t be wrong. She’s Black.
Wait, two black people are arguing… now my head is approaching critical mass.
1930 called. They want their racism back.
Listen carefully to that whole conversation (not sure about the online clip; I watched it on tv) and notice that she and Elizabeth Hasselback both admitted to picking and choosing which parts of the Bible to interpret literally and which to interpret liberally. Funny, just like Phil said fundamentalists do.
Thorin, the Earth is slightly wider around the equator than the poles, and even more slightly lumpy on the northern hemisphere, what with Europe and North America and some of Africa and most of Asia, while the southern hemisphere has some of Africa, a bit of Asia, most of South America, Australia, and Antarctica. “Pear-shaped” is inaccurate. It is a slightly squashed billiard ball with some scuffing on the surface finish.
I think Phil had the right idea with respect to ‘belief’ and ‘fact’. Belief and faith, while obviously having key differences, are still on the same side of the fence and really depend on trust.
I don’t ‘beileve’ in evolution nor do I have ‘faith’ that evolution works. I accept the scientific work performed in the evolutionary and see that it is the best explanation. The thing about it, that while I ‘believe’ the people who have performed the work (i.e. I trust what they’re doing and how they’re doing it), that is by choice. I can, if so disposed, set up the tests they’ve done and am confident I will achieve the same result. If I don’t, then I can investigate and find out why. In that vein, ‘belief’ is an aspect of the people with whom I’m working; I can trust them or not. However, the scientific process is not based on belief or faith. I think that’s the distinction that Phil was trying to emphasize.
The earth is round, except for Saskatchewan (and perhaps Nebraska).
Have a look sometime…
@BAProponent:
I totally agree that the scientific process is not based on belief, and most definitely not on faith. But belief is not the opposite of fact… without fact there is hardly any reason to believe, IMO. Extrapolation or prediction, I’d say, require you to believe… but then, I guess I am just dragging this on
I can just say, that I am probably having to live with the fact that I have to believe in the factual truth of many concepts, because I just do not have the time to conduct the experiments myself, learn the handiwork to perform said experiments, etc.
That’s my whole point here…
“Pear-shaped†is inaccurate. It is a slightly squashed billiard ball with some scuffing on the surface finish.’
Cool. Learn something every day.
Christian Burnham provided the link that gave the question in context. It arose during silly quasi-existentialist banter.
I never said belief is the opposite of fact; “belief” is the opposite of “knowledge”. Fantasy is the opposite of fact. “Believe” is the opposite of “know”.
People are mincing words here, and my intent is simple enough: there is a difference between knowing something is true based on facts and evidence, and believing something is true based on faith.
MadProphet: Congrats, you earned yourself one of the very few bans I roll out. If you actually did what you said you are a truly horrible person, and if you’re joking, you are still a horrible person.
Go away.
>>>1930 called. They want their racism back.
Oh lighten up. It was a parody of political correctness.
You kids these days wouldn’t know REAL racism if it bit you in the butt.
From Ms. Shepard’s website (just in case Phil’s head hasn’t yet exploded):
“To those of you who prayed… let me tell you … PRAYERS WORK! Because it is a miracle of God that I am now a co-host on The View.
To those of you who fasted for me to get this job… YOU CAN EAT NOW!”
Further down she adds:
“Now just keep praying, that every morning I don’t put my foot in my mouth - but if you know me, it’s bound to happen :O)”
She’s a prophet too! Now if she would just appear on my toasted cheese sandwich, she’d have the trifecta….
>>> I don’t believe that the human race is progressing overall.
Sorry to say, but I agree with the mad one on this.
There is a definite sense of retrogradation. Started somewhere in the late 80’s or early 90’s.
What a stupid woman. Evolution does not work in some parts of the world indeed. And not educating her son is caring for him? Fried chicken is all that counts? LOL
Elvis and Jesus just appeared on my morning toast.
What do I do?!
Eat’em. Follow with a good drink and make a wish.
BTW good thing it wasn’t Muhammad, then the neighbours might start getting worried.
Thanks for the link there, Phil. The oversight has been corrected over at my site and you’ve been compared to a delicious steak. Have a good one
I am trying to understand this dense mentality, and found this on her Wikipedia page:
“Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, Shepherd later became a born-again Christian after moving to Los Angeles.”
And according to the same page, her explanation for not knowing that Earth is round is that “in the previous broadcast she had been too nervous, confused and stupid to answer the question adequately.”
Ah, the Miss Teen South Carolina defense, plus she did admit to being stupid, so she is slightly redeemed.
Being Christian does not have anything to do with being educated or not. for e.g. in Europe there’s several mostly Christian countries and even children know that zi earth is round, goes around the sun and we were apes once. geez
There’ s a clip of her defending herself…
She don’t have balls to admit she does not know some basic facts about the world, as if she was living in the 15th century. she would be a bigger (no pun intended) person if she admitted lack of education and strong will to learn. It would not be so shameful and silly…
I was visiting relatives, when my Aunt Louise was gleefully talking about reclaiming America for God, including the ongoing challenges against teaching evolution in Texas. As I was trying to be invisible, she turned and asked me, “When you were in school, did they teach evolution then?”
I uneasily muttered “Yes,” before Mom came in to tell us dinner was ready, and of course being Southern, that immediately sent all other matters to the back burner. Later on, I thought of some better answers I should have given (I always think of the perfect thing to say, about 18 hours too late)…
“By the time they got around to teaching that in school, I already KNEW what was what!”
“I really don’t remember. I was a kid. Kids don’t pay attention to a damn thing they’re told.”
It wasn’t just any brand of xianity, please note. It was the
two most militant in terms of close-minded cult thinking.
Don’t even pretend to act like they didn’t have any influence
on her amazing state of ignorance.
And what’s scary is that all of this stuff leaves the atmosphere, overtakes Cassini in a few hours, reaches Proxima Centuri in four years… you know the drill.
If ETI finds that, they will assume that Earth is a planet of imbiciles and never visit or communicate.
This is why Cosmos needs to be re-broadcast. A lot.
I understand everyone’s frustration but evolution cannot be equated with the world “being round,” a very simple physical fact that can be documented in with single photographs.
Many people use the term “evolution” colloquially to refer to macro-evolution the way it was taught to them in school- as a cut-and-dry solution to how we got here, standing in stark contrast to any sort of theology.
I think some of you should get out a dictionary and look up some terms like “belief,” and “evidence.”
I am not ashamed to say that I believe in micro-evolution, nor am I ashamed to say that I believe that one God created the universe. Obviously, God is capable of working through the natural processes that real science studies.
Frank Oswalt said
The reason is that ignorance is easy. Abby Hoffman had a bumper sticker in his hotel room when he died that said “Vote Republican, it’s easier than thinking.”
Remember, this woman follows in the proud tradition of Star Jones, who said that God delayed the SE Asian tsunami so she could get home safely.
The BA said: “People are mincing words here, and my intent is simple enough: there is a difference between knowing something is true based on facts and evidence, and believing something is true based on faith.”
However, 99% of science deals with neither. Instead, it is about believing something is true based on (as yet) incomplete evidence. You do it all the time when you tell us about the latest cool thing that is observed in the universe. This is not mincing words, it is the essence of what it’s about!
Yawn, “The View”, really what we have here is not ignorance, it is benightedness, which implies less not knowing than unintelligence. Sure she knows, but she is blinded by what the good book says.
[…] How ignorant can you be and still get on TV? (Sep 20, […]
Draken: Whoopi wasn’t Defending Vick. She was merely stating a fact. He is from the south and they do engage in dog and probably cock fights here. Whoopi IS one of the smartest “cookies” around. I’m quite certain she knew exactly what she was stirring up.
GAry 7
In reading the debate about believing vs knowing that evolution is true, I’m reminded of something Douglas Adams said in an interview. When asked why he believed there was no god, Adams said, basically, that he didn’t believe there was no god — that he was convinced there was no god. I really liked that.
And that’s how I feel about evolution. I am convinced that it’s the best explanation for how we’ve developed.
This comment is a day late and a dollar short, so I guess no-one is going to read it. But here goes anyway.
To the people who claim humankind is regressing intellectually, I have this to say: That’s actually rather arrogant and/or provincial. You might make an argument that America is regressing (or you might vigorously disagree) but remember, America is not the world!!!!!
Europe has not (yet) fallen to the barbarian hordes of dim-wits and liars that propogate ID and similar nonsense. Emerging giants like China and India are keen to develop their scientific, technological and industrial bases, leaving no room for such sloppy thinking. The far-east Muslim nations like Indonesia are still (mostly) holding out against the extremism that afflicts their fellow faithful in the Middle East.
Just because there are serious threats from religious extremists in the US and the Middle East, one should not extrapolate that humanity as a whole is in peril from anti-intellectualism
Laurice: But unless she is designing programs for future space missions, planning to send a satellite into orbit, or manufacturing globes, her lack of knowledge really only hurts her.
There I would have to disagree. At best, she has a vote in a technological society and has a hand in making decisions that impact everyone in that society; she represents the waste that a well-reasoned and carefully-planned vote becomes when it merely exists to cancel out stupidity.
As it stands, she has the wherewithal to reach millions of people who respect her. It’s probable that not very many will be influenced by her words, but then that stupidity has to be canceled out as well.
At worst, she (or someone she influences) could become chief executive of the most powerful land on the planet. (But hey, as long as that individual wasn’t planning space missions, sending satellites into orbit, or manufacturing globes while in the Oval Office, right?)
Says the person making the racist joke. And you know absolutely zero about me, where I’m from or what I know.
Pardon, …defending.
PK, I absolutely agree with you on the distinction between belief and faith, as I also take a Bayesian approach to probability.
Still, I think you may be overstating its case a bit by saying that it’s the only interpretation that’s not problematic. E.g., I’m still not sure of any good principle for distributing priors. I’d guess it would be related to a statement’s information content, but uneducated as I (currently) am in information theory I don’t know of any consistent way to measure this that isn’t based on the statement’s probability to begin with. Perhaps this just means I need to read that book?
I agree with your main point, though, that belief oughtn’t be identified with faith and that science helps us to assign rational degrees of belief to competing theories.
Well Phil, I think this is a perfect chance to set that crowd straight. I’m sure thay would love to have someone like you on air to raise thier rating.
Go for it!!
[…] Phil Plait has a posting concerning a major TV personality who doesn’t know whether the Earth is flat. […]
I think the US child protective services should visit the family, to insure that they are not in danger from her dangerous ignorance of basic facts. Does she know how to read the safety labels on products? If she does, does she also not believe in the safety information contained? Care for her family? Her willful ignorance makes her a threat to the future welfare of her children.
>>> Says the person defending the racist joke.
Dude. Decaff. It was parody.
>>> And you know absolutely zero about me,
>>> where I’m from or what I know.
I know everything about you because I CAN READ MINDS!!!! Woooooooooo! Ooooooeeeeeeeooooooooo!
Escuerd, the beauty of the Bayesian approach is that it hardly matters how you choose your priors: As you update you will get to the right distribution regardless of your initial choice.
Interestingly, the only way that fails is if you set priors to zero or one, meaning that absolute certainty (dogmatism) breaks the procedure. How cool is that!
This is one of the reasons I rarely watch TV and just about anything generated by Hollyweird. I am sure I could live the rest of my life and never see a TV again.
Xenu said:
> Fried chicken is all that counts? LOL
Not funny.
Pk:
Ah, I see. For some reason I always found the method that relies on convergence of probabilities with evidence to be a tad unsatisfying. I think it’s the fact that there’s always a non-dogmatic (not 0 or 1) prior that can be used to reject any given amount of evidence for a proposition. So no amount of evidence could ever be enough to say that clinging to a false belief is irrational.
Surely, one could say someone who keeps changing their priors is being unfair, but how could we judge someone who merely sets his/her prior for some statement unrealistically low/high in the first place (e.g. 10^-(10^1000)) unless there’s some systematic way of determining them? Wouldn’t there be something epistemically wrong with this degree of stubbornness?
I hope it isn’t frowned upon to post NSFW stuff in the comments, but her defense of her own ignorance reminded me of an old Chris Rock bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utnK4o-jvzk
The part that came to mind is from 2:10 to 3:50.
[…] have a new favourite blog. It’s the Bad Astronomy Blog, and recently Phil posted a rant about this little gem from [i]The […]
Thorin, I must amend what I said earlier. I looked at the link to the Asimov article that Phil originally provided. Turns out there was something I missed.
The bulge around the equator is apparently slightly more bulgy on the southern hemisphere than the northern hemisphere, and the south pole is slightly closer than the north pole. Thus indeed, a pear is the closest representation of that configuration. (Wide shallow lump vs tall narrow lump.) Except for the fact that the level of deviation from spherical for that effect is less than the deviation of the bulginess due to spinning. So my conclusion still stands:
It is a slightly squashed billiard ball with some scuffing on the surface finish.
The Bad Astronomer said:
> People are mincing words here,
Are we really mincing words on this more than, say, clarifying the scientific vs common use of “theory”, or debating the meanings of “liberal” and “conservative”, or explaining what is meant by “Creationist”? Or are we engaging in the process of exploring the word meaning to make sure we all understand your intended meaning?
> and my intent is simple enough: there is a difference between knowing something is true based on facts and evidence, and believing something is true based on faith.
Again, you are distinguishing knowledge from belief based upon the distinction of the source of information and the means of evaluating it.
> I never said belief is the opposite of fact; “belief†is the opposite of “knowledgeâ€. Fantasy is the opposite of fact. “Believe†is the opposite of “knowâ€.
The distinction is subtle, because you are linking the definition of knowledge to facts and the definition of belief to faith, which is taken to be not based upon facts, and therefore not measured for truth value. If it is measured for truth value (via evidence) and accepted, it is “knowledge” of facts. If it is not measured for truth value and accepted, it is faith, and therefore a belief. So knowledge is fact, but belief may be fact or fantasy.
I would say there is a difference between believing something is true based upon faith and believing something is true based upon evidence. The difference is in the justification for the belief, not the nature of the information.
But one could distinguish between factual claims and opinion claims. Then it would be fair to call knowledge a result of facts, and belief an result of opinions. Then it would be safe to say, for instance, “I know the Earth is round, and I believe round is better than flat.”
Asimov article here:
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Hello all:
Actually, there’s no *lower* limit to ignorance. It’s an unmeasured abyss.
There should, however, be a lower limit to the tolerance for ignorance.
bipolar2
I may have my metaphors mixed, but wasn’t it P.T. Barnum who said that you would never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the customer? That is doubly true of television; that’s what keeps me away from it. Every time I find myself sitting near a television, an occurrence that gets increasingly rare by the year, I can just feel the neurons in my brain begin to collapse.
I was right with you, until you started to assume that USian daytime TV might contain some form of valid content.
I live in the UK, and our TV is bad. We’re only catching up with the US criteria for bad TV, so I don’t really understand why the fact that some idiot on daytime TV (of any country) would cause you any concern.
If I spent my time worrying about the content of daytime TV shows, I wouldn’t have time to worry about the idiots who are really trying to ruin the world. She’s not exactly a decision-maker, after all.
If she had said that we should invade another country, and was in a position to make that decision, that would be another issue. But she’s just some TV show host. So it doesn’t matter.
myinventube@www.inventube.com
Every day I am reminded again and again why it is that I rarely watch network TV. I find syndicated adult-geared cartoons to be of more intelligence and wit than anything I find on the major 3.
By the way, I really, really like your blog here.
[…] has lost it’s course entirely with the pick up of their newest dumbbell… according to Sherri Shepherd the world is FLAT and we don’t evolve… well we were until this moron started to rattle […]
actually evolution is still q theory
“actually evolution is still q theory”
So is gravity you silly twit…
[…] have heard a while back one of the ladies on “The View” wasn’t really sure if the earth was flat or round. Well, I let that one pass because it had already been written about to death on a bunch of other […]
[…] on December 5, 2007 Â Back when I’d read about a co-host of “The View” claiming that she didn’t know if whether the world was flat I just thought ‘What the hell - It’s ‘The View” - you only get on that show […]
Daniel from Uruguay,
I envy you.
North America is full of crackpots that someone how believe whatever they think is true just because, no proof needed.
Evangelicism and the supposed moral majority (who constantly get caught have sex in public washrooms) has ruined the US in particular and pandering by political parties to these deluded people has given these people legitimacy. Its becoming a Christian fundamentalist state much like the ones in the Middle East controlled by Islam. Truth and facts no longer count. Just conviction.
I commend your country and its secularity, especially the fact Christmas and Holy Week are not recognized by the state. The way it should be otherwise you are supporting only one faction in your country which causes what you see in the Middle East and soon in the US.
As for third world status, thats a label conjured up by those who believe selling your soul for the almighty dollar is everything. Life is secondary.
Cheers.