Another dumb scientist who has no idea what free will is.

BidenPresident said:
Q: So, whether I wore a red or blue shirt today — are you saying I didn’t really choose that?

A: Absolutely. It can play out in the seconds before. Studies show that if you’re sitting in a room with a terrible smell, people become more socially conservative. Some of that has to do with genetics: What’s the makeup of their olfactory receptors? With childhood: What conditioning did they have to particular smells? All of that affects the outcome.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/science/free-will-sapolsky.html

Dumbest thing I ever heard.
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I suggest you watch the PBS NOVA Program about the brain called "Who's In Charge?" It discusses this very concept. That our 'decisions' may actually be made BEFORE we enter into conscious thought on the topic. It's truly mind-bending to think that we may be more driven by the neural network than we think we are. Maybe free will doesn't exist at all? Or it is not what we think it is.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
You don't become a Leftist simply because of some minor stimulus. You become one because you are a combination of stupid and studying at a university for years. Nature doesn't make people (radical leftists) that stupid. It takes concentrated effort to become that stupid. It has to be distilled into a purer form and force fed into idiots for it to take effect. That's what liberal arts universities are for today...
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I'm curious, TAG, as to what universities told you to take a hike.
There has to be a story behind your resentment of education.

I have to disagree with your theory of cultivated stupidity.
I am quite confident that yours is entirely and naturally genetic.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
I'm curious, TAG, as to what universities told you to take a hike.
There has to be a story behind your resentment of education.

I have to disagree with your theory of cultivated stupidity.
I am quite confident that yours is entirely and naturally genetic.
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Not particularly. If you knew more about Admiral Richover and how he thought and did things, and were trained in that like I was, you'd understand things better.

Richover was not the brightest academically. What he was was an extreme example of OCD. He was a perfectionist. He learned his trade and areas of expertise to a point of perfection. He expected the same of everyone under him.

When I went to college, I had to take a good number of filler courses over many semesters. That is, courses that I didn't need for the degree but did need to get the GI Bill funds. The one that stands out in my mind was freshman astronomy. Let me put some back story to that first. I'd already taken physics, chemistry, and other introductory level science classes. I had taken upper division nuclear and electrical engineering courses (I figured that my Navy training in nuclear power would help which it did).
Anyway, I took astronomy because I thought it would be an easy A and maybe fun...

The classes were 99% liberal arts majors, mostly women, and they were fucking clueless. They could barely do the math. The prof figured out early I was a sort of ringer in the class and pulled me aside making me a defacto teaching assistant but guaranteeing me an A if I helped the class. I can remember having to hold sessions after the class ended (I had like a couple of hours to my next class) where I showed other students how to do things like precession of planets using simple single variable linear algebra and math rather than how the prof had explained it.

I remember one homework assignment where you had to figure out the age of the Earth from the decay of uranium. I read the problem, pulled out my chart of the nuclides and did the problem, didn't even think about it. Got to class, and it turned out, out of like 80+ students I was the only one that did that problem. The half-life of uranium wasn't given in the textbook and not one person in the class other than me had the sense to look elsewhere. The prof asked where I got it, and I held up my photocopy of the chart.

I was in other classes where being frank, expressing a brutally honest and factual opinion got you nothing but derision. Being right, or being honest wasn't valued. What, all too-often was valued was having a like mind, going with the consensus. Popular opinion trumped sound thinking.

Why I'm hard on education is because today it's often more about being popular and saying pablum than about getting at facts, truth, and sound thinking.
 
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T. A. Gardner said:
You don't become a Leftist simply because of some minor stimulus. You become one because you are a combination of stupid and studying at a university for years. Nature doesn't make people (radical leftists) that stupid. It takes concentrated effort to become that stupid. It has to be distilled into a purer form and force fed into idiots for it to take effect. That's what liberal arts universities are for today...
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You're a fucking idiot.

Approximately 50% of the population are either born or learn from their parents to care about others.

Those people grow up to become Democrats.

The other half are born or learn from their parents to be self serving, end justifies the means assholes.

Those people grow up to become Republicans.

Simple as that.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Not particularly. If you knew more about Admiral Richover and how he thought and did things, and were trained in that like I was, you'd understand things better.

Richover was not the brightest academically. What he was was an extreme example of OCD. He was a perfectionist. He learned his trade and areas of expertise to a point of perfection. He expected the same of everyone under him.

When I went to college, I had to take a good number of filler courses over many semesters. That is, courses that I didn't need for the degree but did need to get the GI Bill funds. The one that stands out in my mind was freshman astronomy. Let me put some back story to that first. I'd already taken physics, chemistry, and other introductory level science classes. I had taken upper division nuclear and electrical engineering courses (I figured that my Navy training in nuclear power would help which it did).
Anyway, I took astronomy because I thought it would be an easy A and maybe fun...

The classes were 99% liberal arts majors, mostly women, and they were fucking clueless. They could barely do the math. The prof figured out early I was a sort of ringer in the class and pulled me aside making me a defacto teaching assistant but guaranteeing me an A if I helped the class. I can remember having to hold sessions after the class ended (I had like a couple of hours to my next class) where I showed other students how to do things like precession of planets using simple single variable linear algebra and math rather than how the prof had explained it.

I remember one homework assignment where you had to figure out the age of the Earth from the decay of uranium. I read the problem, pulled out my chart of the nuclides and did the problem, didn't even think about it. Got to class, and it turned out, out of like 80+ students I was the only one that did that problem. The half-life of uranium wasn't given in the textbook and not one person in the class other than me had the sense to look elsewhere. The prof asked where I got it, and I held up my photocopy of the chart.

I was in other classes where being frank, expressing a brutally honest and factual opinion got you nothing but derision. Being right, or being honest wasn't valued. What, all too-often was valued was having a like mind, going with the consensus. Popular opinion trumped sound thinking.

Why I'm hard on education is because today it's often more about being popular and saying pablum than about getting at facts, truth, and sound thinking.
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Nothing you say makes sense. I think you are senile.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Not particularly. If you knew more about Admiral Richover and how he thought and did things, and were trained in that like I was, you'd understand things better.

Richover was not the brightest academically. What he was was an extreme example of OCD. He was a perfectionist. He learned his trade and areas of expertise to a point of perfection. He expected the same of everyone under him.

When I went to college, I had to take a good number of filler courses over many semesters. That is, courses that I didn't need for the degree but did need to get the GI Bill funds. The one that stands out in my mind was freshman astronomy. Let me put some back story to that first. I'd already taken physics, chemistry, and other introductory level science classes. I had taken upper division nuclear and electrical engineering courses (I figured that my Navy training in nuclear power would help which it did).
Anyway, I took astronomy because I thought it would be an easy A and maybe fun...

The classes were 99% liberal arts majors, mostly women, and they were fucking clueless. They could barely do the math. The prof figured out early I was a sort of ringer in the class and pulled me aside making me a defacto teaching assistant but guaranteeing me an A if I helped the class. I can remember having to hold sessions after the class ended (I had like a couple of hours to my next class) where I showed other students how to do things like precession of planets using simple single variable linear algebra and math rather than how the prof had explained it.

I remember one homework assignment where you had to figure out the age of the Earth from the decay of uranium. I read the problem, pulled out my chart of the nuclides and did the problem, didn't even think about it. Got to class, and it turned out, out of like 80+ students I was the only one that did that problem. The half-life of uranium wasn't given in the textbook and not one person in the class other than me had the sense to look elsewhere. The prof asked where I got it, and I held up my photocopy of the chart.

I was in other classes where being frank, expressing a brutally honest and factual opinion got you nothing but derision. Being right, or being honest wasn't valued. What, all too-often was valued was having a like mind, going with the consensus. Popular opinion trumped sound thinking.

Why I'm hard on education is because today it's often more about being popular and saying pablum than about getting at facts, truth, and sound thinking.
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You once did well in an undergraduate astronomy class. And that is your proof that no one at a university is learning anything worthwhile? That is the stupidest thing I ever heard.
 
Nomad said:
You're a fucking idiot.

Approximately 50% of the population are either born or learn from their parents to care about others.

Those people grow up to become Democrats.

The other half are born or learn from their parents to be self serving, end justifies the means assholes.

Those people grow up to become Republicans.

Simple as that.
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Gardner thinks he is smart because he hates other people.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Not particularly. If you knew more about Admiral Richover and how he thought and did things, and were trained in that like I was, you'd understand things better.

Richover was not the brightest academically. What he was was an extreme example of OCD. He was a perfectionist. He learned his trade and areas of expertise to a point of perfection. He expected the same of everyone under him.

When I went to college, I had to take a good number of filler courses over many semesters. That is, courses that I didn't need for the degree but did need to get the GI Bill funds. The one that stands out in my mind was freshman astronomy. Let me put some back story to that first. I'd already taken physics, chemistry, and other introductory level science classes. I had taken upper division nuclear and electrical engineering courses (I figured that my Navy training in nuclear power would help which it did).
Anyway, I took astronomy because I thought it would be an easy A and maybe fun...

The classes were 99% liberal arts majors, mostly women, and they were fucking clueless. They could barely do the math. The prof figured out early I was a sort of ringer in the class and pulled me aside making me a defacto teaching assistant but guaranteeing me an A if I helped the class. I can remember having to hold sessions after the class ended (I had like a couple of hours to my next class) where I showed other students how to do things like precession of planets using simple single variable linear algebra and math rather than how the prof had explained it.

I remember one homework assignment where you had to figure out the age of the Earth from the decay of uranium. I read the problem, pulled out my chart of the nuclides and did the problem, didn't even think about it. Got to class, and it turned out, out of like 80+ students I was the only one that did that problem. The half-life of uranium wasn't given in the textbook and not one person in the class other than me had the sense to look elsewhere. The prof asked where I got it, and I held up my photocopy of the chart.

I was in other classes where being frank, expressing a brutally honest and factual opinion got you nothing but derision. Being right, or being honest wasn't valued. What, all too-often was valued was having a like mind, going with the consensus. Popular opinion trumped sound thinking.

Why I'm hard on education is because today it's often more about being popular and saying pablum than about getting at facts, truth, and sound thinking.
Click to expand...

It wasn't like that went I went to college in the 1960s.
One got graded on the strength of the case one made, regardless of whether it was a majority or minority opinion.
That was also a highly volatile political time.

My kids went to college in the 90s, and the experience that they described didn't sound a lot different than my own--
except that they got better grades. In fairness, they weren't getting punched in the head during their college years.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
It wasn't like that went I went to college in the 1960s.
One got graded on the strength of the case one made, regardless of whether it was a majority or minority opinion.
That was also a highly volatile political time.

My kids went to college in the 90s, and the experience that they described didn't sound a lot different than my own--
except that they got better grades. In fairness, they weren't getting punched in the head during their college years.
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That class was jaw droppingly stupid. The prof was also a member of the local skeptics society. I got to meet the Amazing Randi (look him up) at one of their meetings.

James Randi, magician and paranormal debunker, dead at 92
https://nypost.com/2020/10/21/james-randi-magician-and-paranormal-debunker-dead-at-92/

The prof made me stay after class and retell an incident while I was on the Enterprise (CVN 65) about a plane we lost. She, the student, was a firm believer in things like the Bermuda Triangle. I pretty much demolished everything she believed in with it.
 
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T. A. Gardner said:
The prof made me stay after class and retell an incident while I was on the Enterprise (CVN 65) about a plane we lost. She, the student, was a firm believer in things like the Bermuda Triangle. I pretty much demolished everything she believed in with it.
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Wow dude.

You are like, such an awesome tough guy conservative macho man. :lolup: :palm:

Did she drop down on her knees and beg you to let her have your baby, after that? :laugh:

Bloviating Trumper. :blah:
 
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