Robert Stacy McCain on feminism’s mainstreaming of extremists:
Any honest person who undertakes an in-depth study of modern feminism, from its inception inside the 1960s New Left to its institutionalisation within Women’s Studies departments at universities, will understand that without the influence of radicals — militant haters of capitalism and Christianity, angry lesbians who view all males as a sort of malignant disease, deranged women who can’t distinguish between political grievances and their own mental illnesses — there probably never would have been a feminist movement at all…
Once we go beyond simplistic sloganeering about “equality” and “choice” to examine feminism as political philosophy — the theoretical understanding to which Ph.Ds devote their academic careers — we discover a worldview in which men and women are assumed to be implacable antagonists, where males are oppressors and women are their victims, and where heterosexuality is specifically condemned as the means by which this male-dominated system operates.
As noted previously, when it comes to identity politics, the boundaries between mainstream and delusional aren’t as clear as one might wish.
And Thomas Sowell on cultural inequalities:
While cultural leadership has changed hands many times, that leadership has been real at given times, and much of what was achieved in the process has contributed enormously to our well-being and opportunities today. Cultural competition is not a zero-sum game. It is what advances the human race. Cultures are living, changing ways of doing all the things that have to be done in life. Every culture discards over time the things which no longer do the job or which don’t do the job as well as things borrowed from other cultures… Spanish as spoken in Spain includes words taken from Arabic, and Spanish as spoken in Argentina has Italian words taken from the large Italian immigrant population there. People eat Kentucky Fried Chicken in Singapore and stay in Hilton hotels in Cairo.
This is not what some of the advocates of “diversity” have in mind. They seem to want to preserve cultures in their purity, almost like butterflies preserved in amber. Decisions about change, if any, seem to be regarded as collective decisions, political decisions. But that is not how any cultures have arrived where they are… No culture has grown great in isolation — but a number of cultures have made historic and even astonishing advances when their isolation was ended, usually by events beyond their control.
At which point readers may recall the Guardian’s Emer O’Toole, a “postcolonial theorist” and assistant professor of Irish Performance Studies, for whom all cultures past and present are equally vibrant and noble, except of course the culture in which she currently flourishes, on which opprobrium must be heaped ostentatiously and often.
Ms O’Toole famously bemoaned the colonial propagation of Shakespeare, whose works she denounced as “full of classism, sexism, racism and defunct social mores.” And worse, “a powerful tool of empire, transported to foreign climes along with the doctrine of European cultural superiority.” The possibility that at any given time one set of values and insights might be preferable to another, even objectively better, bothers her quite a bit.
Her article was accompanied by a photograph of New Zealand’s Ngakau Toa theatre company performing Troilus and Cressida in a distinctively Maori style. To me, it looked fun and worth the price of a ticket. But this cross-cultural fusion saddened Ms O’Toole, who dismissed notions of the Bard’s universality as “uncomfortably colonial.” She then presumed to take umbrage on behalf of all past colonial subjects, whose own views on Shakespeare and literature she chose not to relate. She did, however, get quite upset about “our sense of cultural superiority” – a sense of superiority that, she insisted, has long been “disavowed by all but the crazies.”
It may be a tad indelicate, even improper, but I can’t help wondering how Ms O’Toole might have felt had she been among the 19th century English colonists who encountered a Maori culture that was all but prehistoric, with no discernible literature or science, in which the average lifespan was about thirty years or so, and where cannibalism was not unknown. Faced with such things, I’m sure Ms O’Toole would have resisted the wicked urge to think herself a little more culturally advanced.
When not romanticising the cultural purity of others from a safe distance, Ms O’Toole prides herself on denouncing those more primitive than herself – say, women who choose to shave their armpits. In Ms O’Toole’s moral universe, cultivating armpit hair is “the necessary and important work of challenging stupid, arbitrary, gendered bullshit.” And our right-thinking Guardianista tells us, several times, that her boyfriends have thought her “brave” for daring not to shave.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.
Minnow – “It wasn’t a ‘gotcha’ question.”
Nah, it was bollocks.
There’s been no recorded global warming since 1997, despite rising CO2.
Case closed.
You can argue how many climatologists can dance on the head of a pin all you want, but planet Earth has made fools out of all the warmies.
Then how can women be oppressed?
I think you have mistaken ‘equal’ for ‘the same’. I consider black people and white people to equal in every regard, for example, but I still consider the black population of the USA to have been oppressed in the slave era.
There’s been no recorded global warming since 1997, despite rising CO2.
Yes there has:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
Oh dear Lord. The Guardian is just keeping them coming…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/22/thomas-the-tank-engine-children-parents
PS. The author of the above Thomas the Tank Engine article is ‘a fellow at the The Opportunity Agenda’ where she ‘researches and writes about the intersection of social justice and pop culture.
Thought you ought to know.
Minnow – so you’re likening the status of Western women – who are among the most privileged people in the history of the world – to the institution of slavery?
Oh dear.
Yes there has
Nope:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/files/2014/06/newchart.jpg
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us
http://cdn.meme.li/instances/300×300/52844793.jpg
Can you think of a more gruesome existential nightmare than being a sentient train?
Can you think of a more gruesome existential nightmare than being a sentient train?
Watching a Spanish TV show from the 1970’s and concluding we have a rape culture? 🙂
And, yes there has:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
F*ck your blog comments get boring when Minnow is involved. Really boring. Love the blog though 🙂
Watching a Spanish TV show from the 1970’s and concluding we have a rape culture? 🙂
I mentioned it as one example among thousands that indicated that there had been a rape culture. But I am guessing that you don’t consider ‘dagos’ as you call them count as having a culture? Or something?
Minnow – so you’re likening the status of Western women – who are among the most privileged people in the history of the world – to the institution of slavery? Oh dear.
No, I was just pointing out, by analogy, that there is no inherent contradiction in considering two groups of people as equal even while one group is oppressed by the other. These really aren’t difficult ideas.
Tom Foster – love it!
Thomas and those friends are trains that toil away endlessly on the Isle of Sodor – which seems to be forever caught in British colonial times
The bastards!
For one, these trains perform tasks dictated by their imperious, little white boss
He’s white?!? Crucify him!
Hatt orders the trains to do everything from hauling freight to carrying passengers to running whatever random errand he wants done, whenever he wants it done – regardless of their pre-existing schedules.
Fascist!
Hatt has to scold one of them about being a “really useful engine”, because their sole utility in life is their ability to satisfy his whims.
Remember, we’re talking about cartoon trains here.
Yeah, because I want to teach my kid to admire a controlling autocrat.
They *hate* controlling autocrats over in Guardianland.
thee good engines pump out white smoke and the bad engines pump out black smoke […] – it’s not hard to make the leap into the race territory.
Cartoon trains, on a programme for small children.
James is mortified that he has to travel while pink and proceeds to hide from all the other trains along the way. When he’s caught, the other trains – including Thomas – viciously laugh and mock him.
She should’ve put trigger warnings on this. My mascara is running.
Last year, the British Labour shadow Transportation Secretary even called out Thomas for its lack of females
TV show aimed at little boys is aimed at little boys shocker!
saying that the franchise setting a bad example for girl wannabe train engineers everywhere.
http://cdn.meme.li/instances/300×300/52845533.jpg
What? Is it 1882? I’m worried Commando comics set a bad example for girls who want to fight in WW2.
At first blush, Thomas and his friends seem rather placid and mild. And there are certainly a lot worse shows in terms of in-your-face violence, sexism, racism and classism.
He-Man: ableist, sexist and promotes violence against talking skeletons.
Thundercats – Racist. Snarf represents the comedy black step n’ fetchit. Also subtle anti-Arabic bias in the portrayal of Mumm Ra.
Wizbit – big talking KKK hat.
Mysterious Cities of Gold – neo-colonialist celebration of European conquest.
“My daughter Nora… loves the trains, and Thomas has reached iconic stature, so I felt bad when I made her stop watching it.”
http://feministmomstudies.com/2014/05/18/toxic-thomas/
I am, for once, lost for words.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/22/thomas-the-tank-engine-children-parents
Joan – that’s even better than the Guardian article 🙂
Ah, I see others have found this magnificence before I. No matter. Let’s share.
Mr E,
Ah, I see others have found this magnificence before I. No matter. Let’s share.
The comments are particularly enjoyable. I liked, ‘Peak Guardian. It has been reached.’
Oh dear Lord. The Guardian is just keeping them coming…
That one was just too good not to highlight with a page of its own. Cheers, Tom.
I am on the right wing of politics – and a climate change sceptic – and I like this blog. But when I see people praising James Delingpole, I tend to despair. Up to a point, JD is great fun; but he will convince no-one to change their voting patterns or ideas. He is an ideologue, preaching to the converted. And even UKIP (currently, home of protest votes – after the collapse of the LD and BNP) rejected him as a candidate. Whatever happened to nuance??>
‘Tis Eugenides. Greetings, sir.
theophrastus
You have a point but the problem is that the warmists have captured the agenda, they try and exclude all dissent and the whole CAGW narrative is running their way because of that. Delingpole helps draw attention to the fact that there is another way of looking at this. There is nothing wrong with ideology, everyone who thinks about the world has one, progressives like to pretend that they don’t that they are in fact strict utilitarians only concerned wit the facts, which they somehow have a unique understanding of, people like Delingpole help to expose that as the self serving bullshit it is.
[Minnow:] We can have both. You haven’t explained why you think that is impossible. Women and men are equal in every regard.
No, they aren’t. And the hint is in your own statement: women should have equivalent freedoms, and social equality.
Here is where your responses are completely trite. Unless you prefer a great many words where a few will do, there is a difference between “equivalent freedoms” and “social equality”.
“Equivalent freedoms” is, like all individualistic negative concepts of freedom is easily understood.
“Social equality”, being a collectivist positive assertion is completely opaque. Just exactly what do you mean by the term “social equality”?
In the West, women and men have equivalent freedoms. Indeed, women in almost every regard have more freedom than men.
Where it is impossible to have both at the same time is to presume what you have yourself negated, that freedom and equality are the same thing. But if they aren’t, and your separating them rather suggests that even you don’t think they are, then complete freedom and complete equality will happen by sheer cosmic coincidence.
Your assertion amounts to saying there is absolutely no difference worth discussing between members of teams estrogen and testosterone. Pro tip: avoid putting yourself in a position where you are having to prove a negative.
A couple weeks ago, I was rebuilding the rear suspension on one of my cars. At one point, it involved having to move a 90 pound differential from the floor beside me into the subframe two feet above me.
Number of men strong enough to do this? Millions. (US only; your country’s strengthage may vary.)
Number of women with more upper body strength than a 59 year old man? Hundreds. Maybe.
Unequal. You should have more sense than to pose an argument that relies upon an absolute. It only takes one contradiction to bring the whole rickety thing down.
Delingpole was arguing that consensus is irrelevant in science while the Nobel-prize-winning scientist was arguing that it isn’t. That was the subject at hand. Nurse presented a simple and obvious analogy to make his case and it was immediately clear that Delingpole had never before considered the question.
Fallacy one: the accuracy of a description of objective reality is dependent upon the number of practitioners that believe in it. Fallacy two: argument from authority. Fallacy three: argument from a fallacious analogy. Fallacy four: playing the man, not the ball.
Not bad for two sentences.
Delingpole is right, and you would be a fool to argue otherwise. Reality doesn’t give a fig for how many “scientists” believe in it.
Nurse’s analogy was staggeringly stupid, Nobel-prize or not. For those who haven’t plodded through this tendentious nonsense, the analogy that Delingpole is presented with is a cancer diagnosis, and a consensus decision as to how to treat it. On what basis can Delingpole reject that consensus? Clearly none, since he doesn’t have the expertise. Yet Delingpole feels justified in contradicting the consensus of climate scientists who (conclusion without argument) possess expertise. This is a contradiction.
No, it is utter bollocks. You must be familiar with the statistical concept of n, sample size. Regardless of Delingpole’s hypothetical cancer, the sample size is at least in the tens of thousands, a historical baseline upon which we can statistically consider the various treatment options and outcomes. Somehow, this is analogous to the climate science “consensus” of eventual transient climate response and equilibrium climate sensitivity.
The sample size of which is exactly zero.
I’ll repeat: when speaking of consensus, only a fool or ideologue will analogize a situation where the sample size is in tens, hundreds, or thousands of thousands with one where n=nil, nada, zip, zilch, squanto. That is why Delingpole never considered the question, because he isn’t foolish enough to ponder it in the first place.
This points out the glaring problem with arguments from analogy. Unless they are exactly analogous with the problem at hand and simplify the problem, they are either useless or misleading. In this case, Nurse, despite winning a Nobel in some damn thing or another, and having no small amount of time to think of it, trots out an analogy so ridiculous as to qualify as a non sequitur.
And that is even before getting to what constitutes n for the consensus, or what, exactly, the consensus agrees upon. I guarantee that you know neither one of these handy pro tips, just as you can’t possibly provide a list of warmenisms deductive consequences. Why? Because you never considered this fundamental question, and no matter how much you might suddenly ponder it, there aren’t any.
The moment someone tosses argument from analogy onto the table, it is time to reach for your wallet, or your gun.
I’m embarrassed for you that you swallowed this whole.
As for Nurse, I’m not embarrassed for him in the least. That the man thought this hypothetical appropriate marks him as either a fool or a scoundrel.
Steve2:
I wish I could be half as funny in a year as you are in a comment.
You humorplutocrat bastard. I demand humor equality!
Joan:
I couldn’t help but notice this sentence from your link:
Since [the female train coaches] are not engines, they are literally taken in whichever direction the male engines choose.
Feminist mom has a thing or two, at the very least, to learn about how trains work.
Your assertion amounts to saying there is absolutely no difference worth discussing between members of teams estrogen and testosterone.
That’s right. If you think it is wrong, you should say why. The thing about lifting heavy weights? It means nothing. Some men can do it, some women can. All you are saying is that there is a lot of variance between humans in things like physical strength. Sex is irrelevant. We are individuals not guassian distributions.
Delingpole is right, and you would be a fool to argue otherwise.
Delingpole is wrong. It took Paul Nurse less than a minute to show how and render him, literally speechless. It was a humiliation that I think Delingpole should have been spared, Nurse had obviously been poorly briefed as to who he was. In the same room as Nurse, Delingpole looked rather, well, care in the community.
Jeff Guinn – thank you, you silver tongued devil, you 🙂
Re: the James Delingpole “gotcha” and Sir Paul Nurse’s cancer metaphor.
I think it would have been more apt if Nurse had said:
So what if you were diagnosed with prostrate cancer, and a bunch of homeopaths and witch doctors said you should have both your arms and legs amputated, and spend a fortune on highly diluted herbal infusions? And you had to do this RIGHT AWAY because they told you the time for debate was over? WHAT WOULD YOU DO, DELLERS???”
Because even if we accept the Stern Report in full, even if we ignore the inconvenient truth that global warming stopped nearly 20 years ago, the “cure” being offered is worse than the “disease”.
We’re being asked to destroy our economy and eviscerate our children’s living standards, not to stop global warming, but merely to slow it down for a few years. That is madness.
theophrastus – I understand that JD isn’t everybody’s cup of tea but criticising him for not doing nuance is like complaining that Black Sabbath aren’t a country and western band.
He’s not running for President of the Sensible Slippers Society or editor of Pipe and Beard Monthly. He’s a raucous, irreverent, punk-rock writer – more like H.L. Mencken or H.S. Thompson than Bill Deedes.
He’s very good at being himself and I hope he keeps at it. It takes different strokes to move the world.
Because even if we accept the Stern Report in full, even if we ignore the inconvenient truth that global warming stopped nearly 20 years ago, the “cure” being offered is worse than the “disease”.
Well, that is a different question, what follows from the facts of AGW. But don’t run away with the idea that Global Warming has stopped. You yourself linked earlier to a website that shows it has not.
Minnow – Sex is irrelevant.
Sorry, you’ll have to try harder to top Racist Thomas the Tank Engine.
I find it very odd when people find qualities in people that are invisible to me, but never odder than hearing Delinpole called ‘irreverent’! Really? I think he is the most determined toady and forelock-tugger in the public prints and surely that is what he sells himself as. Loud-mouthed and bumptious, yes, but irreverent? I don’t think that is part of he schtick.
Minnow – well, it shows surface temperatures appear to be on a downward trend. The ocean data may or may not contradict that, bearing in mind ocean temperature data is inherently less reliable.
I guess the lesson here is that the stories about us all frying due to human CO2 emissions were bollocks, and the world’s climate is a lot more complex than simplistic scare stories about carbon would have us believe.
But keep saying otherwise if it pleases you. You don’t think there are any important differences between men and women and think random Spanish TV shows from the 70’s are full of important lessons, so believing in imaginary climate gods punishing us for our lifestyles isn’t the oddest curio in your mind box.
I saw an episode of Tales of the Unexpected where a man turned into a giant bumblebee, so now I’m worried about bee culture. 🙁
But don’t run away with the idea that Global Warming has stopped.
So what ? Even if it hasn’t, which is highly debatable, the amount of warming we have had in the last 15 years or so is not what was predicted by the models, we were told that those models, based on the understanding that recent warming was man made, would predict something that hasn’t happened. This suggests either that the models are useless or that the suppositions on which they were based were wrong or possibly both. Then there is the problem of where the measurement of recent warming starts, the chosen start point makes a considerable difference to the outcomes. How does anyone really know that the warming of the last thirty years or so is significantly affected by human activity when the data is so affected by such things as cyclic fluctuations in the climate, measurement sites and the long term bounce back from the LIA. That’s even before we begin to untangle the question of the Sun’s affect on short term climate variation. It seems perfectly plausible that adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will have a warming effect but by how much and over what period are not certainties at all. Yet as Steve says we are busy dismantling our power supply system and spending billions in the process whilst letting Green fanatics and their political and corporate chums stifle debate on the matter. Science my arse, I’ve lost all respect for organisations like the Royal Society which has just become an activist mouthpiece and people like Nurse are every bit as partisan and driven by political agendas as any so called denier, they are listened to far more were it matters though which is doing neither society or science any favours at all.
I saw an episode of Tales of the Unexpected where a man turned into a giant bumblebee
I could live with that, a short life but not a bad one, flitting from flower to flower sucking sweet nectar. Have to be a drone of course, let the women and minnow do all the work I say.
Minnow – well, it shows surface temperatures appear to be on a downward trend. The ocean data may or may not contradict that, bearing in mind ocean temperature data is inherently less reliable.
No, there is no downward trend. A pause, yes, but there have been many if you look at the graph for the last 50 years, and dips too. But the trend is up. The oceans meanwhile heat up vigorously.
You don’t think there are any important differences between men and women and think random Spanish TV shows from the 70’s are full of important lessons
I think women and men are different in some respects but are nonetheless equal. It’s not such a hard concept to get the hang of. It’s like black people and white people. Yes, there are obvious differences, but, no, one group is not inferior to the other, whatever they may tell you at the golf club.
As to the evidence of TV, Spanish or otherwise, yes I think it tells us a lot about who we are. It is made by people, you see, people with ideas.
Thornavis – bees are a great template for leftist societies. They’re matriarchal, the male drones have no penises or stingers, and they all live in a worker’s collective.
What’s not to like?
Minnow – oh dear, this is becoming embarrassing for you. I once saw Hulk Hogan beat up a wrestler who was dressed as a chicken and it was less one-sided than this.
Do you know why surface temperatures – and not ocean temperatures – are used as the most important metric for measuring climate change?
Obviously not.
If the oceans are warming and the surface is not, what does that tell us about the climate models on which the global warming scare is based? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? It tells us the models on which the science was settled are wrong.
“Wrong” is a term used by clever people to denote the opposite of right. As in:
Did you see where that guy Minnow said sex is irrelevant? My God, he couldn’t be more wrong if he turned up at an interview to become a primary school teacher, dressed as Jimmy Savile and wearing a “Rolf’s Cartoon Club” badge.
And no, you silly goose. The differences between male and female humans or any other type of mammal are not like the differences between black people and white people. There are minor differences in skin pigment and other superficial features between the races. There are significant differences in biology and psychology between the sexes.
If you paid more attention to your 1970’s Spanish soap operas you might have picked up some clues about that. But I recommend learning about these things the fun way, by getting to know women IYKWIMAITYD.
Deep Oceans are Cooling.
17,000 years of climate change.
@David (sorry if this is a repost–“typepad encountered an error” while I was posting, and lord only knows where my comment went. So glad I’m anal about copying comments before hitting “send”)
while all kinds of political movements attract nutters, some seem to attract nutterdom more than others. Among some, there’s a particularly acute in-group dynamic, in which competitive extremism establishes one’s credentials as “radical” and “authentic.”
I don’t think that feminism is any more prone to a “radicalism = authentic” paradigm than any other ideology. All groups based on an ideology that polarizes will find the entire body leaning toward the crazy end of the spectrum, due to simple group psychology. Hell, you even see this in dog/cat breeding. The American Kennel Club describes an ideal pug as having a characteristic pushed-in face, and all of a sudden breeders are in competition to churn out puppies with the MOST pushed in face, to the point where the poor things end up wearing oxygen masks and apnea alarms when they sleep at night.
The primary danger of feminism is that we humans are arguably ALL feminist to a degree. A study on automatic own-group preference by gender found that over four experiments, all other things being equal, women “preferred” (read: sided with) women over men 4 out of 4 times, and men “preferred” women over men 3 out of 4 times. Women are FAR from neutral, and men are also far from neutral, and guess what? Neither of them have any mechanism that bolsters a gender preference for men.
Given the gendered behaviors of our closest primate relatives (chimpanzees), none of this is particularly surprising. In fact, in light of it, I’m surprised human males are as nice to each other as they are.
However, there is hope. The system cannot sustain itself. Whether feminism brings on cultural collapse, or is merely a symptom of the decadence and complacency that tends to lead to cultural collapse, I’m almost positive the anti-gun, “soon to demand trigger warnings on trigger warnings because the word ‘trigger’ is triggering”, “muh preshus feelz!” crowd will likely be the first to succumb to people not afraid of hitting people who might actually hit back (or who, god-forbid, own guns), or their own lack of stomach to put a worm on a hook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBVjbYMG6dE
If the oceans are warming and the surface is not, what does that tell us about the climate models on which the global warming scare is based? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? It tells us the models on which the science was settled are wrong.
We don’t yet know which models will be best. That is how it is in science. Sometimes, in really complex areas, it never settles permanently. What we do know is that we are seeing unprecedented levels of warming and this is, almost certainly, due to CO2 emission by human beings. It may comfort you to pretend this isn’t true, and you mat prefer to take James Delingpole’s word for it ahead of every climatologist on the planet, but there it is.
There are minor differences in skin pigment and other superficial features between the races. There are significant differences in biology and psychology between the sexes.
You are quite wrong. Again. There are significant differences between the races that go far beyond trivial pphenotypical difference because of significantly different selective pressures – just ask Stephen Pinker if you don’t believe me. But that tells you no more about their status relative to one another than it does the sexes. There is no biological reason to decide that one sex or race is inferior to another. I know you may prefer to think differently and there will be someone on the internet who will tell you that you are right – perhaps James Delingpole – but you are still wrong.
Karen,
Thanks for the great work on Girl Writes What.
However, there is hope. The system cannot sustain itself. Whether feminism brings on cultural collapse, or is merely a symptom of the decadence and complacency that tends to lead to cultural collapse
Predictions are hard, especially about … etc, but the one thing we can be sure of is that Spenglerish ‘end of civilisation’ prognostications will be wrong. They have been for 3,000 years already. My guess is we will end up with fewer guns and less sexual harassment and it will be OK.
Steve2 et al, it knows as much about climate science as it knows about Georgia yellow jackets. The entity you are dealing with is fundamentally, quintessentially incapable of grasping that there are things it is incapable, itself, of understanding. It’s a recursive loop inside an endless loop.
And on top of that, you are arguing with such a being regarding a subject that itself, similar to much of macro economics, has been demonstrated time and time again to be significantly lacking solid numbers that are measurable by the tools of man to provide the level of detail required to form significant actionable knowledge on the subject. You are heading far, far into the woods. Are you sure you have enough bread crumbs?
Karen,
Welcome aboard. Help yourself to liquor and nibbles.
to the point where the poor things end up wearing oxygen masks and apnea alarms when they sleep at night.
An image that calls to mind many of the identity politics warriors who’ve been noted here. The ones who are emotionally crushed by nail polish colours, corrected punctuation, racist hair and such.
bemerded
OMG! Did you coin that? It’s wonderful!
So… they’re Sith?
If only.
That would reduce their number to two.
Steve2 et al, it knows as much about climate science as it knows about Georgia yellow jackets.
Yes, I made the fatal error of basing my understanding on the work of dozens of entomologists with decades of study instead of person-on-the-internet-who-really-really-KNOWS.
I think what everyone finds so annoying about you Minnow is that you never tell us what your qualifications for pronouncing so authoritatively on these subjects are. We’ve no reason to imagine it’s any more than looking stuff up on the net either, yet you come along and make vague reference to various authorities and then tell the rest of us we are ignorant and prejudiced. The only subject I’ve seen you provide some reference to which suggests some involvement in was that work on Shakespeare and even then you got the title wrong it seems. I’m guessing that the arts are your area of knowledge, nothing wrong with that but unless you have some real qualifications in entomology or climate science you’re unlikely to be any more knowledgeable than any one else here, maybe less so. Perhaps you are actually Caroline Lucas whose knowledge of Elizabethan poetry apparently entitles her to be taken seriously on the subject of fracking.
No (God help me, I can’t help myself), the problem lies…and pay attention here as this has broader implications that, God willing, will make your head explode…in that you made the fatal error of basing your bloviating ignorant pronouncements on your egotistical misunderstanding that you actually had some superior knowledge of the subject being discussed; yet still in the face of numerous OTHER persons on the internet chiming in with similar direct contradiction to your BS, you continued to insist you were far more knowledgeable on the subject than people who had first hand experience and thus (probably still think) you were right.
Try this on for size. All of us humans have had to do so on occasion…”Yes, I made a stupid mistake. I assumed that I knew more than I possibly could, and I was wrong. It wasn’t the first time and, provided I live a to see the sun rise tomorrow, it won’t be the last. Perhaps I should consider this in the future in regard to subjects far more complex in which I lack any expertise whatsoever.” It might even save your life one day.
[Minnow:] That’s right. If you think it is wrong, you should say why. The thing about lifting heavy weights? It means nothing. Some men can do it, some women can.
When talking about things like social equality — BTW, when you use that term, what the heck do you mean? — it is by definition an aggregate term.
That thing about heavy weights does mean something. If you are in stadium filled with 25,000 men and 25,000 women, there will be a few women stronger than a few men, sure. That also means that almost no women are stronger than any man. There are a lot of characteristics in which the distributions have very little overlap.
In terms of mechanical reasoning, the mean of the female curve is one standard deviation below the male mean. If the male mean is considered the minimum for a good mechanic, then few women qualify. Because of this difference, the individuals who become mechanics will be almost exclusively male.
Aggregates, whether societies or occupations are aggregates of individuals. When you say sex is irrelevant, despite the almost endless number of ways in which characteristics are highly correlated to sex, then what you are saying is that despite all those differences, and the profoundly different survival challenges males and females have faced over time, that evolution stopped at the neck.
There is a great deal of nonsense residing in the left, but this has to be right at the pinnacle. Male and female bodies are profoundly different, but their brains are exactly the same.
Bollocks, pure bollocks.
Delingpole is wrong. It took Paul Nurse less than a minute to show how and render him, literally speechless.
I described to you how Nurse’s analogy was completely false. Unless you can show otherwise, then Nurse’s question wasn’t an analogy was a non sequitur. Unfortunately you won’t — your response will be more overworked crickets — because you can’t.
Also, you are playing the man. That Delingpole didn’t have an answer to hand doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.
If Nurse had the decency to provide his questions ahead of time, a good Delingpole response would have consisted of six words: Club of Rome, Limits to Growth.
Also, I note you still haven’t provided even one deductive consequence that must be true in order for CAGW to be true.
That means CAGW is not a scientific theory. You realize that, right?
But don’t run away with the idea that Global Warming has stopped.
How many more years does the increase in global temperatures have to stop before judging all the climate models incompetent?
What we do know is that we are seeing unprecedented levels of warming and this is, almost certainly, due to CO2 emission by human beings.
Download Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. About midway through the first volume he talks about climate change in Europe during the time of the Roman Empire, based upon contemporary descriptions.
You might want to be a lot more careful when using the word “unprecedented.”
OMG! Did you coin that? It’s wonderful!
Yes (blushes).