The inspiration for this article came from listening to Dr. Dean Edell spewing the "green" party line and in the process, acting like a scientific ignoramus while sitting in demogogic judgement of others. If you deal in commentary then there is a further issue. Can I trust what this person says?
Dr. Dean Edell is a prime example. He passes himself of as a knowledgeable person on medical maters and continually rails against the supplement industry and that these characters should be jailed for fraud. Though what he says is true, as a source he is almost unusable. Why?
Now how does this relate to reality.? Dr. Edell is dead on about the Supplrment industry and yes, they ought to be put out of busienss for fraud and the persons executed. But How can I use him as a reference? He supprts Marxist mediscne. attacks mysticism and then gives his support to an idea that we are fated to be mystics (craving more and more government intervention but whining that the insurance company "gatekeepers" don't know medicine: What does he think the apparatchiki will do; sit around singing "Kumbya"?), supports the most anti-science groups going while posing as an apostle of science, reduces all mental activity to chemical reactions under the mantle of higher metnal functiosn, especially science of which he claims to be a champion; i.e. objectivity, knowledge and truth. So much of him ternintes with "End of Story"; i.e. self-nuking and all with the smug sanctimonious tone of voice that makes him seem like a character from Atlas Shrugged: Specifically Dr. Floyd Ferris, Yet we are told, even by Ayn Rand, that she created these characters as abstracts and not from real persons and Dr Edell is an honorable man. It's deja vu all over again and the worst and most unlikely thing one can say of Edell is that he knoww what he's doing, which would deny his "life is just a bowl of chemicals" outlook anyway, so I doubt that he does know what he's doing. As I say, he's an honorable man if you believe that, which I do. Honor=H2SO4+Co2NaCl in Ringer's Solution. I would have to believe that this is deliberate save that by his own chemistry=psychology, he. along with everybody else, is incapable of doing anything deliberately, or of being deliberate: too much. If I tried to use him for a source, I'd get, thrown in my face at light speed and with the force of a tsunami, Isn't he the one that...? End of stroy": and me!
If you need to know anything else, on Saturday 3 May Dr. Edell, who has bitterly attacked the Christian Conservatives, came to the defense of Jeramiah Wright of "The US of KKKA", God Damn America" and The Government created AIDS to kill Blacks" bringing up the old saw about segregation and saying that "... it wasn't that long ago, just a few decades". and that it's "our ability to change that makes America great" and that Wright should be respected. I'm sure that if a Conservative Christian minister had said what Wright said about AIDS, Edell who wants to have a religious test for persons to hold elective office, would, rightly, be all over him like dumb on a liberal. I take it that Edell would bar Mike Huckabee or Pat Robertson from holding office, he would vote for (respect) Mr Wright. But Wright attacks what Edell himself says is "great" and gets a pass. In fact those "few decades" amount to a half-century; almost 2/3 of a lifetime and over 20% of our nations history (when most Western nations or cultures are 400 years old) and he treats it like a mere hour's time. One wonders what flavor Kool-Aid Dr. Edell likes best. Even the drive-by media and Obama have thrown Wright under the bus. How can a person wage nuclear war against the Christian Right and give the likes of this hatemongering from the left a pass? I suspect that the key operative words are "right" and "left", but to me, hatemongery is hatemonger, bad science is bad science and falsehodds are falsehoods no matter who delivers them: But Dr. Edell is an honorable man!???????????????????????????????????????????????? END OF F***KING STORY!!!!!!!!!!. How can I trust this guy on anything? Particularly if he bends the knee to a man who makes the MEDICAL claim that the US Government invented AIDS? I don't know if this proves or refutes the theory of evolution: What we have here is the flak-catcher (d?)evolving to the stage of not being mau-mau'ed but of self-mau-mau'ing. It certainly is a step backwards in the area of mental development and shows that being liberal is being stuck on "stupid". Hell, even an invertibrate fights back when attacked. A liberal impales himself on the enemy's weapon.
Since Dr. Edell is a Determinist (psychology=biochemistry), it is not surprising that Dr. Eddlle is a collectivist (some form of Socialist: "Can't we guarantee every child decent health care?" Guarantee? Like, dude; when could anyone guarantee anything?) and a racist (supporting the "get Whitey" of Wright). Does it not follow then that he is, in fact anti-science (in giving wright a pass, he tacitly agrees to Wright's AIDS theory. The rise of science was commenserate with the development of individualism since it is individuals, not collectives, who have brains, Gallileo, Newton, Einstein, et al were individuals in case nobody noticed and it was capitalism that made R&D worth the time and effort and over the last 40 years the Earth Day crowd has been the most virulently anit-science movement in history; The seventeenth century church thought it was defending truth and did not know better. can the same be said of the Eco-li-ars? Who live in prosperity undreamed of by 90% of the world as a result of science and who routinely attack science for not accepting their fraud of the hour?)? In this last, the joke is on Dr. Edell since he does not know it. Perhaps an undigested bit of acetyl choline meant that certain neuro-synases did not get triggered, or being part of the anti-salt crowd, his sodium-potassium pump might not be pumping well... I'm almost sorry for using Dr. Edell as the poster child here but what can I do when he makes such a big fat target of himself and jumps in front of my weapons system? and he's so damn sanctimonious that someone has to take him down a peg or ten just to keep the sanity and insanity in rough balance: I don't dabble in Ophthamology, why should he dabble in psychology and philosophy incompetently with impunity. I guess all my epinephrine and norepinephrine is in place.
Now here's a real twisted sister for you. Dr. Edell is some kind of social libertarian whose motto appears to be "live and let live: Do your own thing". This would be good but if his psychology is as it is, why bother? There is also another self-contradiction. He seems to support some vague Socialist/Welfare State model of medical financing. Has he not heard of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the Rules. Some lifestyles are riskier than others. Now if the government allows certain known risky lifestyles and pays the medical tab for those who indulge in them then it is acting as a wastrel. Now Joe Sixpack has no desire to subsidize Drew Druggie's habit, Welfar Wanda's (with the yard-wide @$$) baby mill, Bozo Boozer's liver transplants, Inez Illegal's never-ending, frequent, costly treatements for multiple third-world diseases (as well as the spread of these diseases into the US), Gary Gay's 200-partern-a-year adventures and the diseases that accrue fro that, Sally Sextoy's montly STD treatments and the consequences of Garth Gangsta's violent ways (ever notice how Welfare Statists are soft, and that's a gross understatement, on crimes against productive folks?): All of whom think of Joe Sixpac as just a cash cow and with utter contempt: If they take the time, effort and have enough of a mind to think of him at all. To top it all off, he has to stand at the end of a long line of this human debris and wait four months for the tests and treatment that will save his life. So What happens? Politics is a derivative of ethics. Whereas Ethics is "How do I tell good from evel?" Politics is "How does that translate itself in matters of State?" The long and the short of it is that, as the cost of health care rises, and since most folks don't want to subsidize what they consider evil, risky for pleasur or wasteful. The State-financed health system has to make decisions that are called "rationing". it has a choices are; not treat persons because of their lifestyle and choosing whom it will and will not treat, which may be a death sentence, or regulate, control and ultimately decide which lifestyles to allow. I actuall heard a talk show host, on WBZ AM 1030 on the night of June 29 2008 say that the government has an interest in preventinog obesity and therefore the right to prevent it (and the right to define it?) NOw would he surrender his First Amendment rights. and would the government consider the fat lip that about 50,000 persons should get together and give him on a continuing basis,obesity? My point is that Dr. Edell is not competent to deal in politics and history when you see what is obviously predictable and he misses it by a galaxy. It is a pity that he did not study Randism. I was aware some 37 years ago of a quote attributed to Leornard Peikoff "From Handouts to Handcuffs".
Another source of self-contradiction is his addiction to the Earth Day, now called "green", claptrap. Lumping "anti-global warming" sites in with anti-evolution and anit-vaccinnation groups. How does our Apostle of Science feel now that 31,000 scientists have sown open rejection of that theory? This, again is important. One of the most invasive and numerous set of laws are the environmental laws; most of which are agency-created "regulations", numbering in the tens of thousands with only a miniscule participation by any elected legislative persons or body. Casuing the return of child-killing coyotes into areas where they were not. But their is a greater danger. In 1978, Ayn Rand, a staunch supporter of science to the point of having been the MIT Commencement speaker in the mid-'60's, an invited guest to the Apollo 11 launch and Commencement speaker at West Point in the mid-'70's, was asked about the then-called "eco" movement which was starting to fade. Here response; "Though it has lost it's tawdry glamor. it is wreaking havoc with American industry". the synthesizer firm PAIA ceased making keyboards because of such lasws (Vintage Synthesizers) and his support of this malcontentia is despite their continued rejection of and attacks on science. Anyway a complex lifestyle recquires prosperity. Of the whole New Left, which is the home of this bunch Ayn Rand has said "The Old Left tried to convince us that the government could made shews better. The New left, realizing the failure is trying to convince us that we don't need shoes [or vaccines]". Of the hippies, who really started this cult, Miss Rand said something about "...being lectured about cleanliness by someone who would pollute a river by mearly stepping into it" (at this point, I could go through the numerous quotes from inside sources that Miss Rand has collected but it would be a long list). It is the greens who cannot live and let humans live by being very intrusive and by attacking the science and prosperity by which one can do one's own thing, as well as the degrading effects this has on the very medical system that makes it all possible.
And why is it that when Dr. Edell reports on some diet scam he says "Another fine example of the free markiet"? If he were half as smart and 1/3rd as educated as he purports to be, or if he thought his audience was not primarily leftist Kool-Aid drinkers, he'd know that not only are Capitlaism and fraud not related. The are incapable of living on the same planet, star system, galaxy or universe.
I don't like to use Dr. Edell as a poster child but a missile magnet of that size and intensity, with that level of scnctimoniousness and blatant self-contradiction just can't be passed up, It triggers my weapons' control and fire system automaitcally and to pass it up would be a dereliction of duty for which any military officer would and ought earn a court-martial, and serves as the perfect example of the subject of this article. Why I hate doing it is because it frightens me to contemplate the implications of such a well-educated person being such a self-creating and implementing target.
My conclusion of Edell is this. The intellect is as good as any, but the mentality, the control system is stunted by being unprogrammed or mis-programmed. Consider the intellect to be the scalpel and the mentality the training and skill that the surgeon has in its use. The hard-wiring he mentions is the physical cause of the function of mentality and looks for the abstract principles by which to work. Since he has implicitly equated accepting principles with magical thinking and since he rails against magical thinking, he rejects all abrstract principles that are consciously evaluated and accepted. However, the hard-wiring does as it will, not as we wish. It seeks out thouse pricniples and accepts them without conscious activity. IN the world of the (pseudo)intllectual, what "principles" is he going to find"? And since these "principles are 180 degrees out of sync with the real world. He ends up with a specific variant of the magical thinking he rails against.
Now what is the point of all of this, you may ask, other than my opportunity to administer intellectual lacerations and third degree laser burns (well yes and no; the lacerations and burns are self-administered. I'm just pointing and having some yuks)? That is the point, If there had been intellectual integrity here I could not have made mincemeat of Edell. There would be no "two metre target" into which to put one Proton Torpedo: Let alone six of them. And that's only what I remember (Second Rule of Psycho-history: You only see 10% of what's going on).
If you read my blog, The full Archives and my Ayn Rand site, you will note that, when I come down on someone. it is with my full weight and there's not much left. For example when I discussed Neal Boortz and the fact that he was still peddling the WMD notion years after President Bush said there were none. I chewed him up and spat him out in very tiny pieces and when a paper serfaced not 5 weeks later that confirmed that they just wasn't there, I went back over the remains and danced on them. If you read how I creamed Avi Nelson (another unpleasant task since he was a mentor) and in my monthly columns, the likes or Michael Reagan and Howie Carr, you'll know I pounded the snot out of them. Until June '08, I had yet to take on Bill O'Reilly with a full head of steam. I have named him "America's Demigogue" and sent a few missles his way but I've in no way even dented my supply of those: It's not that I'm that good, it's that the weponry is that good. First O'Reilly accepts every principle of the left, he just argues about the degree, which Ayn Rnad described as "arguing over a few slices of tainted meat while accepting the entire tainted batch wholesale [she had a way with observations that I've not found the equal of anywhere]". A person of even modest integrity or acumen could drive the Death Star through a breach of that size. That's not a two meter target, that's a two mile target. The only reason you apprach that gingerly is that you say "That's such a big hole, there has to be a trap somewhere. Nobody that arrogant makes that big a mistake": MORE O'REILLY.
You may think I'm being over the top, but this is for a number of reasons.
In terms of self-destructing nothing was funnier than Boot-in-boca Boortz with his lips firmly around literal creationist Huckabee's you-know-what whill regularly attacking "turbo-Christinas" and Focus on the Family, with that sneer that only a pseudo-intellectual can carry off, but we are supposed to believe that Borrtz knows WMD and is a real libertarian when you don't know what side of his face he's speaking out of on major matters. No comment is necesary becuase none is possible since the enormity of it staggers the mind and exceeds the vocabulary. [ADENDUM 19 June] Did I say "Boot in Boca"? On 18 June Boortz said concerning the long-dead issue of Saddam's supposed WMD, in his usual "gotcha" voice (apparently never having heared "the empty barrel makes the loudest sound), "...he put them in a Soviet-made truck and sent them to a valley in Syria where they are now. Now let me see you tell me for a fact that they are not there". Now, not only did he wow a convention of joint doctors by inserting his foot between his lips and then jamming it up past his knee. he also amazed a convention of gastro-enterologists who were stunned that someone would have a mouth and gullet that large. I can just hear his logic teacher say "No wonder that shipdit flunked my course!". The most used basic logical fallacy next to the ad hominem is the argument from ignorance, technically called "shifting the burden of proof". in a debate it is the job of the person who supports a thesis to prove or demonstrate. In this case it is the job of Neal Boortz to prove that These phantom WMD were in fact put ont the Soviet-made truck and shipped out to Syria. not anyone's job to prove they were not: The one thing that you learn in basic logic is that nobody can prove a negative. I don't know if No-Great-Loss-Neal knows this. He certainly used his most heart-attack prone tone of voice, so I can't tell if he knows better and is just evil or doesn't know better and is just plain stoooooo-pid. At any rate, the Fair Tax is something to be avoided at all costs if this is the level of rationality displayed by its chief supporter. So you don't have to be a liberal to be stuck on stupid. BTW; No-Cred-Neal has made himself my other poster child for dysfunctional discourse. As with Dr. Edell, I am becoming increasingly embarrassed at using this clown for a target. The buttocks are becoming so big that one could properly chide me with "Hell a blind man could confidently expect to hit targets of that immensity. Can't you find someone worthy of that steel-toed combat boot of yours?". My defense would be "True, but it is immoral to not smash a glass house to shards when the owner is such an openly loudmouthed lightweight and especially as he dares to work my side of the street. Besides, do you really expect anyone to be able to help himself from helping himself to such a treasure?".
Now what's wrong with this picture? Well aside from the hypocrisy, noise and static, there is need for a counterbalance to the mainstream media like the New York Crimes, Boston Glib or Communist No-news Nutwork and Fox is as much of an embarrassment as the rest.
The Upshot of all of this is (ta-da) credibility.
What is credibility? Credibility means that I can, as a rule, take the word of a person rather then have to treat everything he/she says as subject to scrutiny. It refers to giving the person the "benefit of the doubt" as long as there is any doubt to give the benefit of. While it is the case in academic research and strict formal logic that everything has to be established from the first level beyond the self-evident and set in a chain of propositions that lead up from or back to the same self-evident. We grant this benefit much more in the real world since we need to be able to trust that someone is not feeding us a load of crap, either intentionally or because said individual does not know what he's talking about. I get involved sometimes in scientific speculation as a matter of course and I'll say outright that "I think...", "Don't hold me to it", "I'm giving you this at what I paid for it" or "I wouldn't bet the ranch on it but I'd bet the gate [or if it has more credibility, the bunkhouse]". In some way, I'll tell you that what I have is indicative of but not conclusive of what I'm proposing. We do so for the following reasons:
Before, we used to call it belivability and plausibilty. Media is the way we look at ourselves as a culture and society. Media transfer information, data, music and just everything. Media is the social cardio-vascular system of a civilization. Media have been with us forever: Storytelling, minstrels, written material, rituals, etc. the internet is a medium. Media don't care if what is being transferred is fact or fiction. A media person like me often does both.The Space Patrol of which this is an off-shoot is based on the science fantasy TV program of the early 1950's. Music is neither fact nor fiction.
Well, now how do you know that I'm giving you the straight goods? First, as far as Space Patrol, I've positioned myself in such a way that I can fill in some of the gaps and moved myself into their future by about 20 years but the basic ideas are the same. Also I keep in touch with other uber fans of the show and the genre. You can ask Jean-Noel Bassior, Warren Chaney orJohn Dunaj about me. Also as part of the orientation I provide my own and links to others' material about the show AND you can experience directly or purchase the real thing through the Space Patrol website. I also provide access to the 1950's culture via the various retro items both material and cultural. You can, in effect, turn me upside down and shake me until all the stuff falls out of my pocket.
Credibility means that if I say something. it is most likely true and that I, or the person under discussion is to be believed as a matter of course. Believed in the sense that I don't contradict what I've said earlier without cause and that that cause is explained so there is a continuity over time. and believed in the sense that you can verify what I say through other sources. I establish that by giving them or, if I cannot, by telling you that I don't have them right here and to check for yourself. As I am not a professional journalist I don't always keep the "stack of stuff" that I would like to keep it 100% watertight. Another way is to make a prediction of a line of events that follow if your thesis is true. Prediction is just a matter of Bernoulli's Theorem: As the number of applicable cases increases towards infinity, the observed and calculable probability of a consequence occurring approaches the actual probability of that occurrance. Credibility is achieved when it is way more probable that you are on target then not. Be rest assured that I'll miss one now and then (which is both true and my way of making sure you read everything I write so my effort is not wasted).
There are two kinds of events. those with one cause and those with more than one at the4 same level. a mono-causal event is linear and B follows A without exception. In multi-causal events, it may be that to get M, you need A, B, C, F, if G and H, or L is present then M ain't happening. In the art of prediction. the idea is to show that B follows A and then show that A is true or posit M, demonstrate that you need A, B, C.. and must avoid L or G+H.then demostrate that that is, in fact, the case. Another method is to show tha D follows from C, C from B and B from A then demostrate A to be true and the whole sequence to D is true
if you do this consistently then you have credibility. This is why I go to lengths to show how come the event in question is true or will happen. The A, B, C, G, H and L connect the subject under discussion to the real world. They are the absolutes to which the subkject is relative. For instance, you went to the market yesterday. Now how do you know that when you go there next week it will not have been turned into a frog by a really annoyed Fairy or one who is having fun making persons jump through hoops and watching their reactions (just think, Kroegers becomes "Croakers)? In fact, as part of life, you make dozens of predictions every day and not notice it. Well a good commentator learns how to navigate through events and abstract material in the same way. The A, B, c, G,and L are called "premises" and the process is called "logic". The bit is that I presnet the subject and the premises and then show the course of logic that goes from the premises to the subject. You can verify the premises by using other soruces than I have or already know them to be fact or not but not the subject since that follows from the premises. There is a phrase that is often used: "Factual premises and valid reasoing lead [automatically] to true conclusions" In monocausal arguments, once the premise is established as fact then the conclusion is true. The valid reasoning only leads a previously ignorant mind to the correct identification of the conclusion which was true even before it was known to be true.. Truth, according to Ayn Rand [probably via Aristotle or St Thomas Aquinas] is the correct identification of a fact of reality. I support that definition.
There are 3 levels of truth
As a bulwark against this, if I'm skating on thin ice. I'll come out and say it. You will always see me say "I think", "I wouldn't bet the ranch, but I'd bet the bunkhouse [or the gate depending on just how tight I think I've got it]" or "This is my opinion" or something like that if I think that what I'm saying, based on the evidence I present, is possible, plausible, believabe or probable but not convincing, or, "This is not a lock".But notice, as you read my material, that I go to great lengths to explain, make explicit and make understandable what I am proposing and what makes it true.
Watch the subtext. These are unstated ideas or tacit premises that you are either expected to know or which the person is trying to sneak into the issue. In 1975, as part of my graduate work in Psychology, in a Tests and Measurements course, we were given the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (a kind of psychological test; "schedule" refers to putting may sets of two things in and saying "which do you prefer?" to evaluate strength of certain personality attributes) to take and evealuate. This had to be done in two months which means you had to take it, do a historical study on it and see how valid it was by going through the journals. This instructor had to be nuts. Rookies can't do that kind of thing well and I got a C on the paper. As an example of the instructor not getting it. I went through the reported correlational data, plus used my still-leading edge Texas Instruments SR-50 Slide Rule Calculator (related item) and which said as much about me (hard science guy but with crap for calculational skill, tech hound and futuristicaly oriented; read "1950's spaceman") as it did for me (made up for the fact that my calculational skills were crap), for some added back-up. and wrote "I like the [orrelational material] if it holds up" Well she wrote wit h her red pencil "why do you like it then?". The subtext was, I did as much investigation as could reasonably be expected (in fact, I'd discussed it with her. )There may be things I don't know about out there that lessen this, and this is my first time around and I'm putting you on notice of that. CYA to be sure, but sometimes you have to do that if there is the chance that you are going to be misread or misunderstood and I was swimming in deep water with fast, unnpredictable currents and I knew it. Some people just don't get it. Hidden agendas, intentional or not, which is what the subtext usually contains, do me no good. To avoid unidentified subtext, I am as explicit as I can be. You'll notice that you will often see things like:
Now, what to do about the likes of Boortz, O'Reilly, Edell et al? Please notice, I do not say to boycott these programs. Just be sure to note that these are bad guys (epsitemologically, since either their data is boggus or nonexistent, their logic is flawed or non-exixtent or they are dealung "ideology first; Facts...well...maybe later if at all") but they are useful ideots and can be entertaining
ADDENDUM; 14 AUG: Just as I was beginning to think I waas being a bit too heavy-handed with Dr. Edell, I got a lesson about "going soft" (actually, I'm a fun-loving pussycat, but like the rest of the species, I have sharp claws and teeth). On this past Sunday on WPRO 630 AM Providence RI. they were running, as the usually do, a redux of his programs. In one section, he was really wroking over the crowed that is trying to sell to the Africans that circumcision would be a prevetative against spreading AIDS, and he was 100% right. well commenting on the matter of advocating circumcision he ends that monologue with "How Western, how colonoial" with the usual sanctimonious sneer. I mean folks colonialism has been dead for 3 generations. Circumcision is not a western thing and is fairly new and if it weren't for the influence of the West that Dr. Edell sneers at. they'd still be eating each other over there and dying of some horrible diseasees at the age of 5 not to mention that all the vaccines that Dr. Edell is bitching about them not getting are a product of the West at which he feels the strange compulsion to sneer.
So are they all: All honorable men. It seems that the science that Dr. Edell is most conversant with, and the real apostle of is political science as in Lysenko. One would only wisht that he would give Galileo a better funeral. ***UPDATES: Winter 2010: Edell finally gave the statistical holy grail concerning the death rate of Measles. 2 per 1,000. No statistician would ever claim to be able to draw a whispered conclusion with that kind of figure. As my engineering buddies say, "That's down in the noise". Yet Edell has the crusading zeal of a biblical prophet on this. Mid March 2010 He was referring to the "tea party" and a response to a Harris poll. Now Hrris was the original bisased poll and I got the proof of that in '84 when he consistently showed Mondale closer to Reagan much more than othe polls. My politically savvy frined said that Harris was biased and that as time went on his poll would look more like the others: As said, so done, around late September or early October that started happening. Now I'm a simple man, If a smart person says A will happen because B is X and A happens. THat's it. IN his discussion both at the lead in and somewhere towards the middle Edelle referred to "tea party" then in an amending tone "teabaggers". "Teabaggers" was cointed by either Keith Obermen or some other screaming meemee at one of the commie cable (no)news outlets. This generates for me a problem. Given the years-long covert and now overt mad-dog leftism shown by this man, how can I cite him as a credible source? He seems more related to Lysneko than Galileo. I think we can clsoe the book on him as a reference. How trustworthy is he? If I were to cite him the most unintellectual Fundamentalist could come back at me with just three of these and there would not be enough left of my credibility to see with an electron microscope. Another credibility incident involved pheremones: The airborn chemicals that trigger in the lower animals, cetain behaviors, mostly related to sexual activity. Beginning in the mid-1970's the idea of human pheremones came up and was never proven to my satisfaction, well in the late winter of 2010, Dr Edell brought this up and mentioned that there is no organ in the human physiology that is the equivalent of that existing in pheremone-driven animals. That should have ended it, right? I mean, if the antenna ain't there, the signal ain't getting through. However Dr Edell is still entertaining the idea, what he uses as evidence is this; among female college students sharing the same dorm, the periods tend to line up. Because he is physiology bound, he could not get that often physiology adapts to circumstance. It's been known since 1973 that, as part of learning, the brain, particularly the Cerebellum, reconfigures in accordance with that which is being leared. To me, accepting the notion of pheremones in the absence of knowledge of a physical organ, is akin to being a flate-earther. What's worse is that this is in what should be his area of near-expertise. This only points to the idea that lax thinking beginning in politics eventually spreads and infects the whole psychological system***
Whele liberals are easy pickin's by virtue of being self-contradictory (how come they hate priveate, read earned by intelligence and effort, monopolies, they want everything under the purview of governemtn, read coercive, established by fiat and enforced by a gun, monopolies? Now they're trying to bring back that 1970's oldie but goodie; the windfall profits tax which sent the price of heating oil from about 85 cents in '77 to $1.28 in '80: What do we call personw who do the same thing twice and expect different results?), the "conservatives" aren't immune to the stupids, either. Here's one I got from Rush Limbaugh upon reading a report that oil may be continuing to be made: "God is creating more oil" and "in matters of science, I look to the word of God". Well if there were life after death, Gallileo would haunt the crap ouo of this one. What did he do when his ear went dead from the Oxy-contin: Pray or see a doctor? It is this that would give credibility to the whackjob over at Airhead America Radio when he said that conservatives should "...crack open a science book" save that it is a case of Joe Stalin calling Franco a brutal totalitarian. When I heard that, I almost choked on my Italian sub sandwich. If I have to recount the anit-science activities of the left over the last 40 years, then truely you've spent your life in a wicca basket.
So you know what I am working from and, depending how thourough I am being, pretty much what I know. Thank goodness for HTML having Ordered List and Unordered List tags! I also use questions a lot, Yes? No? Anything to increase transparancy so that you know what I think and how come and can make the trip yourself.
On the other hand...
The idea is to get past, by, through or around them as close to the horse's mouth as you can. Incidentally do that with me as well (you'll stop after awhile. I guess that's why good instructors, mentors and prophets throw in a few bogus ones now and then; to see who's minding the store but I don't know how to do that right but that don't mean I can't make mistakes.).
Mo<
Credibility is one's most important attribute. It always happens that, at some time, it will come down to your word being good at least for the time being. One of the things that EST used to say that gave it some credibility was "when you tell it like it is, your word is law in the universe" (I'd love to get that book of aphorisms). There used to be a phrase from an old E.F. Hutton ad that became generally used to mean "...is to be taken seriously and believed", "when E.F. Hutton speaks, people listen": well so did the Feds one day.
WEBSITES: Worth lookig at but caveat emptor. BOORTZ, SAVAGE (does support the health and diet lunacy), BILL O'REILLY, LIMBAUGH, MICHELLE MALKIN (the best of the lot; the jury is still out); These commentatros are questionable, so look for links to the sources