"Pretending to be smart is not the same thing as being educated."

ToddNotTodd · Dec 7, 2017

variant said:
It's also easier to complain about other people's lack of ability/education than to make a real contribution. The irony that the OP calls himself "uber genius" and complains about people pretending to be smart should be lost on no one.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is both fascinating and infuriating...

DogmaHunter · Dec 11, 2017

Uber Genius said:
The title above is a Halle Berry line off a movie called, "The Program."

One of my continuing frustrations on most forums these days is running into individuals who pretend to have done their homework but haven't.

You mean, people like you, who have been caught red-handed copy pasting sciency sounding propaganda from creationist websites, without citing the source to make it look as if they were your own words?

On the Cambrian Explosion and phony expertise

Nihilist Virus · Dec 14, 2017

Uber Genius said:
Anachronistic fallacy (wait what?) (no, wait when!)

Slavery is bad. The bible condones slavery. The Bible is bad.

Here we just pretend that values we hold for the last few decades in the west are ubiquitous across all culture and all times. Again, I have yet to see a New Atheist that doesn't return over and over to this method. Don't worry few people have ever heard of the anachronistic fallacy so you can use it on theists with impunity.

Lol, I'm going to walk into a black neighborhood and tell them that slavery was not wrong.

2PhiloVoid · Dec 14, 2017

Nihilist Virus said:
Lol, I'm going to walk into a black neighborhood and tell them that slavery was not wrong.

Or, you could hold a conversation with them about why they think their ancestors ended up as slaves in Europe and the Americas in the first place, maybe even as slaves of Native Americans. Or, you might ask them if they know whose tribe sold out the other tribes to the white slavers in the first place. Wouldn't this be a bit more productive conversation if you dared to do something akin to what you've just humored about?

Nihilist Virus · Dec 14, 2017

2PhiloVoid said:
Or, you could hold a conversation with them about why they think their ancestors ended up as slaves in Europe and the Americas in the first place, maybe even as slaves of Native Americans. Or, you might ask them if they know whose tribe sold out the other tribes to the white slavers in the first place. Wouldn't this be a bit more productive conversation if you dared to do something akin to what you've just humored about?

I'm not suffering from white guilt, but that doesn't mean I want to go down the delusional path of excusing whites from what they did or shifting the blame. Whites committed atrocities on basically everyone.

2PhiloVoid · Dec 14, 2017

Nihilist Virus said:
I'm not suffering from white guilt, but that doesn't mean I want to go down the delusional path of excusing whites from what they did or shifting the blame. Whites committed atrocities on basically everyone.

Well sure. Whites have been the great enablers of all kinds of atrocious social systems, such as slavery, ever since the time of Greece and Rome and on up through ... well, today.

Uber Genius · Dec 15, 2017

sfs said:
Right. So read the peer-reviewed literature, not a journalist's often woefully inaccurate interpretation of the research.

If you think reading a magazine about science adequately informs you about research you are mistaken.

Straw man!

You extended my statement (an introductory method to approaching knowledge) to the ridiculous (that I am suggesting reading a peer-reviewed journal adequately informs one of all research in that area).

Silly rabbit, Rhetorical tricks and logical fallacies are for kids.

Uber Genius · Dec 15, 2017

variant said:
I think the OP has reguarly fallen into the trap that it is easy to demand more of people who disagree with you.

It's called confirmation bias, most suffer from it.

It's also easier to complain about other people's lack of ability/education than to make a real contribution. The irony that the OP calls himself "uber genius" and complains about people pretending to be smart should be lost on no one.

Educated people are probably aware of the idea of a false trichotomy.

This "false trichotomy," is accepted by just about every physcisict writing about fine-tuning since Brandon Carter in the early 1970s.

Now most don't hold to design but they do hold to the three options.

So instead of demonstrating your ignorance of the body of knowledge why not give us an alternative to the three (which is how all false dichotomies are rectified). Please show at least someone from the field that holds to your fourth or fifth or sixth inference.

sfs · Dec 15, 2017

Uber Genius said:
Straw man!

You extended my statement (an introductory method to approaching knowledge) to the ridiculous (that I am suggesting reading a peer-reviewed journal adequately informs one of all research in that area).

You made a suggestion, that people do research using respected sources. That was a good suggestion. Then you wrote, "Peer-reviewed literature in journals specializing in a particular body of knowledge. "Science News" as opposed to "Scientific American". That is a bad suggestion. "Science News" is not a more respected source than "Scientific American." and neither is a substitute for consulting peer-reviewed research. Pointing out that you made a bad suggestion is not a straw man.

Your parenthetical comment then completely mischaracterizes what I actually wrote.

I see no evidence that you are in a position to be lecturing others on how to argue effectively.

Uber Genius · Dec 15, 2017

sfs said:
You made a suggestion, that people do research using respected sources. That was a good suggestion. Then you wrote, "Peer-reviewed literature in journals specializing in a particular body of knowledge. "Science News" as opposed to "Scientific American". That is a bad suggestion. "Science News" is not a more respected source than "Scientific American." and neither is a substitute for consulting peer-reviewed research. Pointing out that you made a bad suggestion is not a straw man.

Your parenthetical comment then completely mischaracterizes what I actually wrote.

I see no evidence that you are in a position to be lecturing others on how to argue effectively.

Quoted you exactly.

Stop pretending.

Your lack of clarity is due to lack of training and integrity.

Your rhetorical tricks are disingenuous.

Your misrepresentations are obvious.

Please engage the material and stop leading us down rabbit trails.

"Ignored"

bhsmte · Dec 15, 2017

Personal opinion, which everyone is entitled to.

bhsmte · Dec 15, 2017

Lots of projection, which is always entertaining to watch.

sfs · Dec 15, 2017

Uber Genius said:
Quoted you exactly.

You wrote: "You extended my statement (an introductory method to approaching knowledge) to the ridiculous (that I am suggesting reading a peer-reviewed journal adequately informs one of all research in that area)."
Your second parenthetical comment is not a quotation (exact or otherwise) of me, and does not accurately represent what I wrote.

Uber Genius said:
Stop pretending.

Your lack of clarity is due to lack of training and integrity.

I guess I'd better turn in all my degrees then, and retract the 150 or so scientific papers I'm an author of. (Well, I would if I had any integrity. . .)

Uber Genius said:
Your rhetorical tricks are disingenuous.

Your misrepresentations are obvious.

Your inability to handle correction is understandable -- but not laudable.

variant · Dec 16, 2017

Uber Genius said:
This "false trichotomy," is accepted by just about every physcisict writing about fine-tuning since Brandon Carter in the early 1970s.

Now most don't hold to design but they do hold to the three options.

So instead of demonstrating your ignorance of the body of knowledge why not give us an alternative to the three (which is how all false dichotomies are rectified). Please show at least someone from the field that holds to your fourth or fifth or sixth inference.

You misunderstand. The falseness is the idea that the answer must fit neatly into any of those categories. Even if we accept such categories as exhaustive, the answer is free to be a mixture of any of them.

Your arguments reliance on "experts" is also funny, there simply aren't any.

The fine tuning argument is a question about how universes come into being and there aren't any experts in how that occurs, or what the possibilities or limitations are. The immediate skepticism of physicists trying to tell you what would happen if the fundamental forces were different should be quite overwhelming.

Physicists (the experts you speak of) once summed the entirety of what they "knew" about the universe to try to calculate the cosmological constant and were off by hundreds of orders of magnitude.

So it seems being "educated" hasn't given you the capability to actually work though a simple argument.

Further I don't think being "educated" looks like copying William Layne Craig into an internet forum, but rather, it should look like having the actual ability to process the argument and understand it's meaning and limitations.

Silmarien · Dec 16, 2017

Uber Genius said:
Quoted you exactly.

Stop pretending.

Your lack of clarity is due to lack of training and integrity.

Your rhetorical tricks are disingenuous.

Your misrepresentations are obvious.

Please engage the material and stop leading us down rabbit trails.

"Ignored"

There appears to be a misunderstanding somewhere here. Go back and reread the whole exchange--if Science News is not a better source than Scientific American, your initial suggestion was a bit off. I don't think @sfs is jumping down the rabbit hole by providing a simple correction, especially in a thread about how to carry out research.

Ana the Ist · Dec 17, 2017

Uber Genius said:
The title above is a Halle Berry line off a movie called, "The Program."

One of my continuing frustrations on most forums these days is running into individuals who pretend to have done their homework but haven't. In fact within a few seconds of reading a post it is clear that they haven't even done a 30-second Google search on the topic of which they are pontificating.

Method for Pretending to Be Smart:

Questioning ad nauseam

Don't do research just repeat back you objector's question and put a "What causes that," in front of it. Trick is you don't have to know anything and can produce an infinite amount of questions pretending to be engaged intellectually (especially effective with complex inferences such as philosophical arguments, or historical sciences). Further you can avoid justifying truth claims by pretending you don't have to justify you own claims. (Young Earth creationist and just about every atheist (sorry I meant to say "seeker") on this forum use this method.

Create and then attack straw men

This method is so simple (pronounced in a thick New Jersey accent). Just misrepresent the particular inference such as "Faith is believing something for which there is no evidence." Next attack the ridiculousness of the statement (remember you must pretend that it actually is a fair representation...not your own absurd definition) for more: read any New Atheist publication.

Anachronistic fallacy (wait what?) (no, wait when!)

Slavery is bad. The bible condones slavery. The Bible is bad.

Here we just pretend that values we hold for the last few decades in the west are ubiquitous across all culture and all times. Again, I have yet to see a New Atheist that doesn't return over and over to this method. Don't worry few people have ever heard of the anachronistic fallacy so you can use it on theists with impunity.

How to avoid pretense and actually learn something.

1 - Research the topic
Use respected sources (not wiki crowd sourced research
which can be at times excellent at at other times complete
propaganda)

Peer-reviewed literature in journals specializing in a
particular body of knowledge. "Science News" as opposed
to "Scientific American"

For philosophical topics try Plato.org or internet
encyclopedia of philosophy.

2 - Represent the topic and particular problem and give reasons why you pick one inference over the next. No shifting burden of proof. If you claim no knowledge (agnostic) then fine, but if you claim that a particular inference is true in the real external world be prepared to defend it with reasons and evidence. (Atheists often fall into this fallacy regarding God's existence, theists also make a similar mistake when they refuse to give reasons for God's existence (claiming their faith is superior because they don't have reasons (I will do an entire post on this foolishness).

Example:

Universe appears fine-tuned for life.

The cause is:

Chance, or a result of the physical laws, or design.

An educated person would represent the best evidence for all 3 inferences. Then give reasons such as explanatory power why one inference is better than the next.

I hope I have offended those who are intellectually lazy and just pretend to be smart. I have included an IQ test hidden in this post and will reveal it once I get some comments.

You forgot attacking the credibility of the person making the argument instead of the argument itself.

Uber Genius · Nov 1, 2018

HereIStand said:
Opinions are knowledge claims. They are based on knowledge.

No. They are beliefs.

Knowledge claims, although controversial, usually are defined as having two additional properties, justification, and truth.

Justified True Beliefs are knowledge.

This has been the philosophical standard for the last 100 years of so.

"I belief that the lake is approximately 30 feet deep off the dock," is an opinion.

"I believe that the lake is approximately 30 feet deep off the dock, because

I measured it,
and I have a land survey from before the lake was formed showing the land proceeded 30 below the current water level,
and fishermen in my lake talk about their fish finders finding fish at 28 feet by my dock and suggest that they are two feet off the bottom.

Do you sense the difference between belief alone (opinion) and knowledge?

Here is a resource:

The Analysis of Knowledge (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

gaara4158 · Nov 1, 2018

You mean like that time you got called out for doing exactly that? On the Cambrian Explosion and phony expertise

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