Joe Rogan - Intellectual Heavyweight

[bilby]

As a quick 'rule of thumb', if you want to get a rough idea of how trustworthy someone's opinions are on the internet, you can count up the number of text-only comments they make, and divide that by the number of comments that include images, and by the square of the number of comments that include videos.

It's not a perfect measure of intelligence; But it's surprisingly good, and it's certainly better than IQ scores.

This technique works because text-only posts tend to be the poster's own words, and represents their having thought seriously about the topic and come to a conclusion they think is worth publishing; While images, memes, and videos typically represent the un-filtered regurgitation of someone else's thoughts.

 

[Trausti]

As a quick 'rule of thumb', if you want to get a rough idea of how trustworthy someone's opinions are on the internet, you can count up the number of text-only comments they make, and divide that by the number of comments that include images, and by the square of the number of comments that include videos.

It's not a perfect measure of intelligence; But it's surprisingly good, and it's certainly better than IQ scores.

This technique works because text-only posts tend to be the poster's own words, and represents their having thought seriously about the topic and come to a conclusion they think is worth publishing; While images, memes, and videos typically represent the un-filtered regurgitation of someone else's thoughts.

Man, you just can’t take a burn.

 

[Trausti]

It’s an atheist/agnostic board, supposedly. But somehow not blindly following the priestly class is considered haram.

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation...When someone says, “Science teaches such and such”, he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, “Science has shown such and such”, you might ask, “How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?” It should not be “science has shown” but “this experiment, this effect, has shown”. And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments–but be patient and listen to all the evidence–to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at...The experts who are leading you may be wrong...I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science...Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.

~Richard Feynman

 

[bilby]

As a quick 'rule of thumb', if you want to get a rough idea of how trustworthy someone's opinions are on the internet, you can count up the number of text-only comments they make, and divide that by the number of comments that include images, and by the square of the number of comments that include videos.

It's not a perfect measure of intelligence; But it's surprisingly good, and it's certainly better than IQ scores.

This technique works because text-only posts tend to be the poster's own words, and represents their having thought seriously about the topic and come to a conclusion they think is worth publishing; While images, memes, and videos typically represent the un-filtered regurgitation of someone else's thoughts.

Man, you just can’t take a burn.

If the cap fits...

 

[bilby]

It’s an atheist/agnostic board, supposedly. But somehow not blindly following the priestly class is considered haram.

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation...When someone says, “Science teaches such and such”, he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, “Science has shown such and such”, you might ask, “How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?” It should not be “science has shown” but “this experiment, this effect, has shown”. And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments–but be patient and listen to all the evidence–to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at...The experts who are leading you may be wrong...I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science...Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.

~Richard Feynman

Sure, it's important for scientists to remember that the experts might be wrong.

It's also important for non-scientists to remember that the experts have a VASTLY lower probability of being wrong than you do as a non-expert.

And even if you are both wrong, the expert is liable to be wrong in a far more interesting and useful way than the non-expert.

And least likely of all to be right are the Dunning-Kruger sufferers who quote genuine experts out of context, without even realising how stupid that is. For example, people who defend Joe Rogan's communications by quoting the very smart person who said:

"I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific"

Self refuting posts are hilarious. Or do you think Feynman would have been a massive Joe Rogan fan?

 

[Hermit]

The establishment hate it when ordinary people question the orthodoxy and "experts".

Love the scare quotes.

While experts do get things wrong I am more likely to seek advice for, say, medical matters from a properly trained doctor than Gwyneth Paltrow.

Also, orthodoxies are not necessarily wrong. You don't get any prizes for guessing which I prefer to go with when asked to choose between the theory of evolution and creationism or between heliocentricism and geocentrism.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As a quick 'rule of thumb', if you want to get a rough idea of how trustworthy someone's opinions are on the internet, you can count up the number of text-only comments they make, and divide that by the number of comments that include images, and by the square of the number of comments that include videos.

It's not a perfect measure of intelligence; But it's surprisingly good, and it's certainly better than IQ scores.

This technique works because text-only posts tend to be the poster's own words, and represents their having thought seriously about the topic and come to a conclusion they think is worth publishing; While images, memes, and videos typically represent the un-filtered regurgitation of someone else's thoughts.

Seconded, although I would treat graphs differently than other images.

 

[Hermit]

As a quick 'rule of thumb', if you want to get a rough idea of how trustworthy someone's opinions are on the internet, you can count up the number of text-only comments they make, and divide that by the number of comments that include images, and by the square of the number of comments that include videos.

It's not a perfect measure of intelligence; But it's surprisingly good, and it's certainly better than IQ scores.

This technique works because text-only posts tend to be the poster's own words, and represents their having thought seriously about the topic and come to a conclusion they think is worth publishing; While images, memes, and videos typically represent the un-filtered regurgitation of someone else's thoughts.

Confirms my opinion that my intelligence is below average, as if confirmation were needed, but thanks anyway.

 

[Trausti]

The establishment hate it when ordinary people question the orthodoxy and "experts".

Love the scare quotes.

While experts do get things wrong I am more likely to seek advice for, say, medical matters from a properly trained doctor than Gwyneth Paltrow.

Also, orthodoxies are not necessarily wrong. You don't get any prizes for guessing which I prefer to go with when asked to choose between the theory of evolution and creationism or between heliocentricism and geocentrism.

I dunno. I’m a litigation attorney. It’s very common for both sides to get experts of equal credentials who give opposing opinions. Experts are whores who open their mouths for money. To think that “experts” are somehow free of bias and motive is embarrassingly naive.

 

[bilby]

The establishment hate it when ordinary people question the orthodoxy and "experts".

Love the scare quotes.

While experts do get things wrong I am more likely to seek advice for, say, medical matters from a properly trained doctor than Gwyneth Paltrow.

Also, orthodoxies are not necessarily wrong. You don't get any prizes for guessing which I prefer to go with when asked to choose between the theory of evolution and creationism or between heliocentricism and geocentrism.

I dunno. I’m a litigation attorney. It’s very common for both sides to get experts of equal credentials who give opposing opinions. Attorneys are good at finding experts who are whores who open their mouths for money. To think that “experts” in courts of law are somehow free of bias and motive is embarrassingly naive.

FTFY.

Your expectations are clouded by your belief that your very small and very distorted professional exposure to scientific expertise is representative of the whole.

The law is an ass. It selects "experts" to win fights, not to provide information about reality.

 

[Trausti]

The establishment hate it when ordinary people question the orthodoxy and "experts".

Love the scare quotes.

While experts do get things wrong I am more likely to seek advice for, say, medical matters from a properly trained doctor than Gwyneth Paltrow.

Also, orthodoxies are not necessarily wrong. You don't get any prizes for guessing which I prefer to go with when asked to choose between the theory of evolution and creationism or between heliocentricism and geocentrism.

I dunno. I’m a litigation attorney. It’s very common for both sides to get experts of equal credentials who give opposing opinions. Attorneys are good at finding experts who are whores who open their mouths for money. To think that “experts” in courts of law are somehow free of bias and motive is embarrassingly naive.

FTFY.

Your expectations are clouded by your belief that your very small and very distorted professional exposure to scientific expertise is representative of the whole.

The law is an ass. It selects "experts" to win fights, not to provide information about reality.

Well, alright. But I remain in awe that so many on this atheist/agnostic board treat "experts" as the infallible clergy of our day. The denouncement of free inquiry is disconcerting.

 

[bilby]

The establishment hate it when ordinary people question the orthodoxy and "experts".

Love the scare quotes.

While experts do get things wrong I am more likely to seek advice for, say, medical matters from a properly trained doctor than Gwyneth Paltrow.

Also, orthodoxies are not necessarily wrong. You don't get any prizes for guessing which I prefer to go with when asked to choose between the theory of evolution and creationism or between heliocentricism and geocentrism.

I dunno. I’m a litigation attorney. It’s very common for both sides to get experts of equal credentials who give opposing opinions. Attorneys are good at finding experts who are whores who open their mouths for money. To think that “experts” in courts of law are somehow free of bias and motive is embarrassingly naive.

FTFY.

Your expectations are clouded by your belief that your very small and very distorted professional exposure to scientific expertise is representative of the whole.

The law is an ass. It selects "experts" to win fights, not to provide information about reality.

Well, alright. But I remain in awe that so many on this atheist/agnostic board treat "experts" as the infallible clergy of our day. The denouncement of free inquiry is disconcerting.

Nobody's doing that.

Despite the claims to the contrary made by those who wish to cause outrage and disruption.

The only way to defeat bad science is with better science. If you think a scientific claim is wrong, you need to show that it is wrong with more science. Just declaring that experts are often mistaken is worse than useless - not least because non-experts are mistaken even more often.

 

[Trausti]

The only way to defeat bad science is with better science. If you think a scientific claim is wrong, you need to show that it is wrong with more science.

You have got to be shitting me, Pyle. Now you allow that science can and should be questioned? WTF?

 

[Hermit]

I’m a litigation attorney. It’s very common for both sides to get experts of equal credentials who give opposing opinions. Experts are whores who open their mouths for money. To think that “experts” are somehow free of bias and motive is embarrassingly naive.

You select experts who will support whatever case you are working on. No kidding! I bet the tobacco industry managed to find experts who testified that smoking causes no harm even if 95%, or more, of health experts knew and said that it does.

If you have a pool of thousands of acknowledged or self-declared experts you will always find at least a handful that asserts the diametrically opposite of what all the others know. Greasing palms with a juicy appearance fee can even turn the occasional desperate or greedy expert to say stuff s/he knows to be untrue.

In other news, water is wet. Pictures at seven.

 

[Hermit]

...I remain in awe that so many on this atheist/agnostic board treat "experts" as the infallible clergy of our day.

How many is "so many"? And where is your evidence to declare that there are "so many"?

The denouncement of free inquiry is disconcerting.

Yup. This forum is chockers with posts by atheists and agnostics denouncing free inquiry. And it is much, much worse than that! The atheist/agnostic governments of Germany and Austria will fucking jail you if you dare deny that the holocaust happened. Ask that eminent scholar and eminent history expert, David Irving, what happened to him when he tried to defend the results of his free inquiry.

 

[repoman]

ah wrong thread even though about Rogan

 

[bilby]

The only way to defeat bad science is with better science. If you think a scientific claim is wrong, you need to show that it is wrong with more science.

You have got to be shitting me, Pyle. Now you allow that science can and should be questioned? WTF?

When did I ever say otherwise?

I think you are simply unable to grasp the difference between "We should trust the scientists because they know their subject better than we do" and "Scientists cannot be wrong".

The huge effort by the tabloid outrage machine to obscure the difference and conflate these claims has, at least for you, apparently not been wasted.

If you're done beating the shit out of that strawman, you are welcome to start contributing something non-stupid to the discussion.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I dunno. I’m a litigation attorney. It’s very common for both sides to get experts of equal credentials who give opposing opinions. Experts are whores who open their mouths for money. To think that “experts” are somehow free of bias and motive is embarrassingly naive.

The ones that appear in courtrooms have good credentials but many of them should not actually be called experts. In a trial situation at least one of them is almost certainly lying for money.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well, alright. But I remain in awe that so many on this atheist/agnostic board treat "experts" as the infallible clergy of our day. The denouncement of free inquiry is disconcerting.

We pay attention to the ones where it's their job, not where the courtroom or politics is their job.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The only way to defeat bad science is with better science. If you think a scientific claim is wrong, you need to show that it is wrong with more science.

You have got to be shitting me, Pyle. Now you allow that science can and should be questioned? WTF?

When did I ever say otherwise?

I think you are simply unable to grasp the difference between "We should trust the scientists because they know their subject better than we do" and "Scientists cannot be wrong".

The huge effort by the tabloid outrage machine to obscure the difference and conflate these claims has, at least for you, apparently not been wasted.

If you're done beating the shit out of that strawman, you are welcome to start contributing something non-stupid to the discussion.

Disagree--it's not the tabloid outrage machine, it's big businesses running the outrage machine.