Religion isn't science. You can study human religious practices and beliefs scientifically, but religion itself is not falsifiable and hence not a scientific topic.
As I understood it, Pence was talking about how religious people should support Trump, and the students treated that particular garbage as garbage. What are they supposed to do? If they provide any support for Pence they're misunderstood, and if they don't they're blamed.
What's doubly funny about your example is that when the issues in question actually ARE examined by scientists in the relevant fields, they often come to conclusions that the left then ignores and/or flames for alleged political bias.
Your statement is also true when substituting "right" for "left". Both sides have people who deny the science in favor of what they want to be true for political purposes.
Those examples are mostly from long ago. Since more advanced societies started producing superior weapons that worked well for people with limited training, the barbarians have been at a distinct disadvantage.
WTF is this "post-truth" nonsense? It makes it sound like this sort of crap is something new. There's been idiots of various sorts for as long as I can remember, and probably much longer than that.
If a group of X, Y, and Z is better at problem solving than a group of X alone, it doesn't mean that X is any worse than Y or Z, but that having more diversity of thought is useful. Given a group of white straight men talking about things, a lesbian is likely to have different ideas on some things, so if you can get the men to take her seriously she probably has more to add to the discussion than another white straight man.
Things like spontaneous generation, phlogiston, and the luminiferous aether were scientists being scientific. They matched the available scientific theories and observations to some extent, better than the alternatives, and they were ditched when that was no longer true.
I fail to understand what you're saying about gender dysphoria.
It's a bad thing and causes a lot of problems for those who suffer from it. However, it doesn't look to me like a strictly mental illness. It's a mismatch between mind and body, and, currently, it's easier to change the body. And what do you mean by "opinion"?
I may be older than you, but nobody ever explained to me why LGB became LGBT. It seems to me that transsexuals are a different sort of thing than people with sexual attractions to others of the same sex.
Demographic diversity can bring diversity of thought, depending on the demographics we're talking about. (It can also miss. I've been in groups of people from many different countries and cultures that thought pretty much alike.) For a long time, experimental psychology was the study of relatively well-off people in wealthy and advanced countries. Some demographic diversity in the subjects would have made it much easier to figure what was and what wasn't common to most people. Diversity in the researchers might have picked up some people who'd realize that's not how people would have acted back home.
The situation reminds me very much of the more extreme environmentalists in the 60s, and we survived that and even came out of it with a much cleaner country.
That's not what I got from TFS. The author's complaints about society seem generally well-founded, and it would be good if most of the things she talked about went away. That doesn't mean the scientific community should have any particular role.
We know enough chemistry and biology to understand the problems with Flint's water supply. That isn't going to fix it, and neither will more research. The science involved in running oil pipelines through indigenous people's territory is the same as in running oil pipelines through rich neighborhoods, and while science can quantify the reasons the former is more common than the latter, it isn't going to change them.
However, that doesn't mean that all valuable things will be invested in for financial gain.
Consider quantum mechanics. We've got a whole lot of devices that depend on it, and companies make a whole lot of money by understanding how it works and acting on that. The basic research isn't profitable, but it allows a very large number of profitable activities. It's a Tragedy of the Commons: a company that dumps a lot of money into basic research will be at a disadvantage in the business environment, because it won't get enough direct profit to offset the expense.
Similarly, Space-X is taking advantage of a very large amount of prior work, much of it government-funded. They're taking older technologies and putting them together in novel ways to achieve useful and profitable things. Without NASA, Musk wouldn't have that technology and knowledge to work with.
Health insurance companies do make their money by charging premiums for policies that cover treatment. If there suddenly were no disease and no injuries, health insurance companies (and branches of companies) would go out of business, even if this were established by some magical means rather than simply wiping out humanity.
The more health care costs, the more money goes through health insurance companies, and the more money that goes through them the more they can make. Health insurance companies indeed have little fiscal motive to make people healthier. This isn't why they don't fund research, but the sentences you quoted as "not even wrong" are largely correct.
if, as feminists allege, the world is governed by an unshakable patriarchy which has persisted since time immemorial
Got a cite on that allegation? As far back as we can find out, men have run things, with greater or less participation by women. That's historical fact, as near as I can figure it out. Whether it's a "patriarchy" is a matter of semantics, but it obviously can be shaken.
We may have plunged ourselves into a degenerate post-modernist post-truth, post-fact memeplex, but unfortunately for lofty ideals, they're nothing more than electrical impulses in human brains rather than concrete realizations of anything other than delusional wishes.
You make it sound like political agendas and politicized science are something new, and ideals still serve the purpose of inspiring people to try to change things for the better. Justice is an abstract noun, but trying to make the world more just is likely to make most of us better off.
Sure. And what should the scientific community say about, say, the Flint water supply? Not that many are going to be able to make comments much more insightful than the ones I could make. ADA issues are political and economic. Scientific study can establish what a group of people need, but not whether it should be required. Science does some thing extremely well, but it's specialized. It only works on matters that have objectively measurable properties, and thus can't be applied to morality and in a very limited sense to politics. (It's possible to do science on what people's morals, but not what is moral.)
I'm an old fart, and don't remember being taught to read blackletter. If I have to read a book written in it, I'm going to be in trouble. (I can of course write in cursive, and occasionally read what I've written.)
Why interview for a C/C++ role? Why not C or C++? They aren't that similar anymore.
Also, learning modern C++ is not trivial, and neither is lots of multi-threading. Assuming the guy had a life outside programming, or maybe a 70-hour-a-week job, doing an outside project in a new language would be a significant commitment that could cause a lot of stress..
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Religion isn't science. You can study human religious practices and beliefs scientifically, but religion itself is not falsifiable and hence not a scientific topic.
As I understood it, Pence was talking about how religious people should support Trump, and the students treated that particular garbage as garbage. What are they supposed to do? If they provide any support for Pence they're misunderstood, and if they don't they're blamed.
You can substitute "right" for "left" in your post without loss of accuracy.
What you're saying is that the criminal justice system isn't perfect. However, we're a more just society with it than without it.
Your statement is also true when substituting "right" for "left". Both sides have people who deny the science in favor of what they want to be true for political purposes.
Those examples are mostly from long ago. Since more advanced societies started producing superior weapons that worked well for people with limited training, the barbarians have been at a distinct disadvantage.
WTF is this "post-truth" nonsense? It makes it sound like this sort of crap is something new. There's been idiots of various sorts for as long as I can remember, and probably much longer than that.
If a group of X, Y, and Z is better at problem solving than a group of X alone, it doesn't mean that X is any worse than Y or Z, but that having more diversity of thought is useful. Given a group of white straight men talking about things, a lesbian is likely to have different ideas on some things, so if you can get the men to take her seriously she probably has more to add to the discussion than another white straight man.
Things like spontaneous generation, phlogiston, and the luminiferous aether were scientists being scientific. They matched the available scientific theories and observations to some extent, better than the alternatives, and they were ditched when that was no longer true.
I fail to understand what you're saying about gender dysphoria.
It's a bad thing and causes a lot of problems for those who suffer from it. However, it doesn't look to me like a strictly mental illness. It's a mismatch between mind and body, and, currently, it's easier to change the body. And what do you mean by "opinion"?
I may be older than you, but nobody ever explained to me why LGB became LGBT. It seems to me that transsexuals are a different sort of thing than people with sexual attractions to others of the same sex.
There have always been idiots. There are idiots. There will always be idiots. Don't let them get you down.
And lots of generations think they have to fight to the death and are wrong. This is going to blow over. Science will remain.
Demographic diversity can bring diversity of thought, depending on the demographics we're talking about. (It can also miss. I've been in groups of people from many different countries and cultures that thought pretty much alike.) For a long time, experimental psychology was the study of relatively well-off people in wealthy and advanced countries. Some demographic diversity in the subjects would have made it much easier to figure what was and what wasn't common to most people. Diversity in the researchers might have picked up some people who'd realize that's not how people would have acted back home.
The situation reminds me very much of the more extreme environmentalists in the 60s, and we survived that and even came out of it with a much cleaner country.
That's not what I got from TFS. The author's complaints about society seem generally well-founded, and it would be good if most of the things she talked about went away. That doesn't mean the scientific community should have any particular role.
We know enough chemistry and biology to understand the problems with Flint's water supply. That isn't going to fix it, and neither will more research. The science involved in running oil pipelines through indigenous people's territory is the same as in running oil pipelines through rich neighborhoods, and while science can quantify the reasons the former is more common than the latter, it isn't going to change them.
However, that doesn't mean that all valuable things will be invested in for financial gain.
Consider quantum mechanics. We've got a whole lot of devices that depend on it, and companies make a whole lot of money by understanding how it works and acting on that. The basic research isn't profitable, but it allows a very large number of profitable activities. It's a Tragedy of the Commons: a company that dumps a lot of money into basic research will be at a disadvantage in the business environment, because it won't get enough direct profit to offset the expense.
Similarly, Space-X is taking advantage of a very large amount of prior work, much of it government-funded. They're taking older technologies and putting them together in novel ways to achieve useful and profitable things. Without NASA, Musk wouldn't have that technology and knowledge to work with.
Health insurance companies do make their money by charging premiums for policies that cover treatment. If there suddenly were no disease and no injuries, health insurance companies (and branches of companies) would go out of business, even if this were established by some magical means rather than simply wiping out humanity.
The more health care costs, the more money goes through health insurance companies, and the more money that goes through them the more they can make. Health insurance companies indeed have little fiscal motive to make people healthier. This isn't why they don't fund research, but the sentences you quoted as "not even wrong" are largely correct.
Got a cite on that allegation? As far back as we can find out, men have run things, with greater or less participation by women. That's historical fact, as near as I can figure it out. Whether it's a "patriarchy" is a matter of semantics, but it obviously can be shaken.
You make it sound like political agendas and politicized science are something new, and ideals still serve the purpose of inspiring people to try to change things for the better. Justice is an abstract noun, but trying to make the world more just is likely to make most of us better off.
Are you saying that conservatives can't have a political power elite? It sure looks to me like they can and do.
Sure. And what should the scientific community say about, say, the Flint water supply? Not that many are going to be able to make comments much more insightful than the ones I could make. ADA issues are political and economic. Scientific study can establish what a group of people need, but not whether it should be required. Science does some thing extremely well, but it's specialized. It only works on matters that have objectively measurable properties, and thus can't be applied to morality and in a very limited sense to politics. (It's possible to do science on what people's morals, but not what is moral.)
"is being groomed" would suggest that this is a new phenomenon. Saying nonsense and appealing to Science! has been around a long, long time.
I'm an old fart, and don't remember being taught to read blackletter. If I have to read a book written in it, I'm going to be in trouble. (I can of course write in cursive, and occasionally read what I've written.)
I was going to make a comment about how I still use it, then I noticed "younger programmers".
Why interview for a C/C++ role? Why not C or C++? They aren't that similar anymore.
Also, learning modern C++ is not trivial, and neither is lots of multi-threading. Assuming the guy had a life outside programming, or maybe a 70-hour-a-week job, doing an outside project in a new language would be a significant commitment that could cause a lot of stress..