Slashdot Mirror
Yellowstone Super-Eruption Threat Debunked
GennyCream writes "The Internet has been all a-buzz with tin-foil-hat geeks have been in a tizzy over supposed government coverups of a soon-to-come super eruption in Yellowstone (especially see The Shadow Confederacy, but also Rense.com, or BlackVault for entertaining examples). I found an article on ATSNN.com (the Above Top Secret News Network) that cut the paranoia with the proverbial knife and went straight to the source. Their interview with USGS Yellowstone scientists covers all the angles and should inspire the mad-hatters to find something else to fear (for now)."
I don't think it matters. Conspiracy theorists aren't worried about inconvenient facts, they will make up something else to try to explain it away.
Citing Bowling for Columbine is like citing the National Enquirer. Neither one has much of a basis in reality.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
This is the problem with pseudo-scientists and non-scientists.... this article does not even address the issues that those concerned about Yellowstone have.
Yet the posting claims it debunks them? The relevant questions weren't even asked! Its like listenting to democrats expalain how doubling the tax burden on the poor is really designed to punish the rich. (As if punishing the rich were even a moral thing to begin with.)
This is what really sucks about mainstream society-- people believe what they are told to believe, and then steafastly refuse to listen to reason:
EG: Microsoft's investment of $150M "bailed out" Apple, despite Apple having billions in chash.
EG: The x86 is faster CPU despite the fact that the only way you can get those results are with artificial measures that essentially measure clock speed.
EG: The Republicans tax cut (which would have cut taxes on the richest by %5 and on the poorest by %33) were a "tax cut for the rich"... and that democrats "Care about the poor"-- even though their changes on Bush's tax cut reduced the tax cut for the poor drastically... EG: Democrats care about the poor so they raise their taxes.
Bottom line: Yellowstone may erupt soon, or it may be a long time. The questions asked didn't address the issues.... and of course nobody is going to see something looking at it on a day to day basis -- until it happens anyway!
But no, we have to spread the conspiracy theory that people who question the official word on anything are nuts-- despite the fact that much of what you are told is outright lies.
CNN Says "Assault weapons" are full auto machine guns (full auto has been banned since the 30s). But most americans believe it.
Hell most americans believe that marriage is traditionally between a man and a woman-- despite the fact that the ceremony was created by the catholic church to honor priest-alterboy relationships, and only later extendede to the masses as marriage.
People cannot think critically, or the refuse to, and so they believe waht tehy want or are told to believe... and the quality of slashdot goes to hell. The quality of science writing goes to hell.
And so we get articles "Debunking" things that don't even address the subject!
Of course its not erupting now, nobody says it is!
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23