Comments on: It’s a vast government conspiracy!

By: pavlov112

pavlov112 — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:04:32 +0000

If it’s not a joke, then the author’s sheer stupidity makes my hair hurt.

By: Dave Regan

Dave Regan — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:21:15 +0000

Wow…… Well at least she admits that global warming is actually happening.

By: luaphacim

luaphacim — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:56:50 +0000

I’m thinking joke.

By: DavidD

DavidD — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:30:55 +0000

Your last link explains that the letter’s author is an actual lawyer in Arkansas, and rebuttals appeared in the paper as if this wasn’t a joke. Ah, she’s someone experienced with arguing absolutely anything in words. If only we had to make a working model of everything we say.

By: DavidD

DavidD — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:24:25 +0000

The most amazing thing about something like this is how rational the words sound if that’s all you have, just as creationism is, Scientologists on psychiatry, anyone with an ax to grind. There’s this association between a warm March and DST starting early. Yes, it could be coincidence, but connecting any two things like this has some rationale to any human mind. It sounds OK for at least an instant. It’s not jibberish. It’s just wrong.

You actually have to do some work to see the flaw here, that there isn’t an extra hour of daylight. I wonder what neuroimaging looks like as someone does that. First they have to be paying attention. Then they have to be skeptical enough to consider the possibility of error. Then they have to figure out the error. Then they have to decide what to do with that knowledge of error. What theory shall we go with about what was going on to make this error? People can be just as simplistic and wrong in that as the author of this letter was in making the error. Then the whole process of critical listening starts over.

It’s so much work being smart. Can’t we just shout slogans and obscenities instead?

Then again, is there any chance this was tongue in cheek?