Doonesbury has a great take on how to handle scientific facts that don't match your beliefs:
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2007/db070114.gif

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

BTW, I've just checked the link with what my newspaper (The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) printed and found that they censored the first two panels! I wasn't aware that "fudge" was such a naughty word, and if it is a euphemism for a certain word, it is only a euphemism for that word used as an expletive, not its uses as noun and verb.

A few weeks ago they were running some old Doonesbury's. Was Trudeau really taking a leave or was there a story line that my local paper didn't like? Guess I'm going to have to monitor the website and get after my paper for their censorship.

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Trudeau takes a week off occasionally. If you're curious, you can check Doonesbury.com.

The first two panels of a Sunday strip like Doonesbury are considered expendable by some papers, which drop them in order to make more room for other comics. The syndicate has the author make the first two panels a separate joke for this purpose. Other strips have these panels, like B.C. and so on.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

Celestial Mechanic -- Please edit the above post according to my edits. As there might be children reading, we cannot let them hear certain words that will turn them into axe-wielding maniacs.

Thank you.




...



Of course, its' most likely to be Nowhere Man's conclusion, and that sounds the most logical to me.

It's funny, though!

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I can't read the printing...it's awful. Is there another link? I've never had that problem with other cartoons

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

"Situational science"-- that's quite an oxymoron, and great wit. I think I should point out that it should be viewed as all right to hold a belief if it is important to you, but if you choose to enter into objective and evidence-based thinking, you have chosen the path of science-- and you ust follow it to the end without prejudice.

And others should be able to hold the belief that you're hilarious and great for mocking if your belief is non-factual-based or silly.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Of course anyone may find anything to be "hilarious", sense of humor is so subjective!

[Whispered] Careful with that axe, Eugene ....
What's really ironic here is that the newspaper in question is constantly excoriated on talk-radio for being "liberal" and "out of touch".

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

If your browser's autosizing it to fit, downloading it and reading it through an offline picture viewer might help. MSIE has a mouseover menu that allowed me to expand it to full size to read it.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

Same with Firefox.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Yeap. And I'll mock anyone that holds silly beliefs/opinions.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I've discovered the world has quite a knee jerk response to such mockings. Usually the level of backlash is proportional to their lack of accurate knowledge on the subject at hand. The less they know, the more hostile they will be in the response.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

I saw it in another thread in Babbling

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

Knock yourself out, just don't do it in the name of science or scientific thinking. That's like applying logic to determine if you should fall in love or not. It might be the best way to decide if you are going to end up concluding you were right or not, but that's not really what falling in love is all about.

This particular comic for Doonesbury is actually about a year old. It's true! It was made in response to the (un)Discovery Institute's Bill Dembski and Michael Behe saying they were going to take over Kansas after the Dover Trial. I've subscribed to social bookmarking websites since then, so the other day when Pharyngula posted this strip the other day, I immediately had some good nostalgia and posted it to Digg, Reddit, and my StumbleUpon profile.

Falling in love isn't the same thing as peddling false assertions about the real physical world.

I agree, and that was never what I was talking about. Holding a belief should not logically be equated with peddling anything, particularly anything false. Note of course that peddling requires exporting an idea, and falseness requires an agreed-on criteria.

But I can tell you what love is. Or how people fall in love. This is thanks to cognitive science as well as the science of the human body and brain. It may not be a perfect picture as we're still exploring the human brain, but we're getting closer and closer; National Geographic even had an article on it, explaining the various functions of the human brain that lit up when an individual expressed love-responces. Didn't keep people from mailing them saying that because people like music, therefore, it MUST be explained by the spiritual or by God... what's the point of even having a "scientific" discussion with them anyways? They obviously don't care for the subject.

So if you tell me what "love" is, and your claim is outside of the objective evidence set before me, then I can say "bullcrap" and move on. And if you keep saying it and don't change your mind, then I'm either going to mock you or ignore you, especially if you will not accept the evidence that is available. However, if you can make a reasoned argument and further show objective evidence showing that it is so, then I am obligated to listen to your point.

Further, if you claim that "love" is invisible aliens in your skull making you feel it, I almost feel morally obligated to make fun of you... or at least obligated out of a sense of humor. Crazy people are funny.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov