Chris Mooney has come up with new book to explain why people like you and I are “abby-normal” for not unthinkingly and uncritically accepting all aspects of global warming climate change climate disruption. I haven’t read it, though the cover itself speaks volumes. I won’t commit the same dumb mistake that Igor Peter Gleick committed when he wrote his bogus non-review of Donna LaFramboise’s IPCC book, so I’ll let somebody who has reviewed it speak about it. Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.
He writes: 
Chris Mooney, the author and blogger who once alleged a Republican “war” on science, is going back to that well one more time with a new book (above). In it he “explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things.”
Mooney writes:
“[T]here might be a combination of genes acting together that somehow predispose us to have particular politics, presumably through their role in influencing our brains and thus our personalities or social behaviors ..,”
Mooney promises to explain:
“[T]he real, scientific reasons why Republicans reject the widely accepted findings of mainstream science, economics, and history—as well as many undeniable policy facts.”
…
Roger adds:
I wonder how well telling half the American populace that they are genetically/psychologically/mentally inferior will communicate?
=========================================================
Next I suppose we’ll hear why we need selective breeding programs to weed out this “genetic scourge”.
Turnabout is fair play:
I’m sure Josh could do a better satire, but hey, this is the best I can do on one cup of coffee.
Some inspiring levity from Mel Brooks:
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Keynes is considered mainstream economics and a tiny bit of Friedman but not Hayek or Mises. Friedman, Hayek and Mises are certainly not charlatans. I highly recommend you read them.
Myrrh November 9, 2011 at 4:54 pm
In the standard teaching they were not immortal, neither mortal nor immortal, their choice was eating of the Tree of Life and learning the knowledge of good and evil which entailed experiencing death, that is being fully of this world, or not, (not really alive, it is the tree of life and so not eating would be not fully realised which is the potential from ‘becoming gods like Us’ in knowing what is good and what evil).
The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are two different trees. God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the latter, “for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
You have an amazing talent for getting things wrong and writing at length about them.
Smoking Frog says:
November 10, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Myrrh November 9, 2011 at 4:54 pm
“In the standard teaching they were not immortal, neither mortal nor immortal, their choice was eating of the Tree of Life and learning the knowledge of good and evil which entailed experiencing death, that is being fully of this world, or not, (not really alive, it is the tree of life and so not eating would be not fully realised which is the potential from ‘becoming gods like Us’ in knowing what is good and what evil).”
The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are two different trees. God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the latter, “for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
You have an amazing talent for getting things wrong and writing at length about them.
Shrug, there’s one tree in the midst of the garden, the Tree of Life and (which is) the tree of learning the knowledge of good and evil. If you think you can acquire Wisdom, “She is the Tree of Life”, by ignorance of the difference between good and evil, bully for you..
When all’s said and done, a God who creates mankind, male and female, in image and likeness with free will and then demands obedience under threat of death is obvious irrational, a liar and manipulator.. Made worse, totally insanity, if that is taken from the premise of the Eastern Church which does not have the separation of created creature as an inferior who must not think for himself, where mankind is seen as the uncreated God created creature, as that would make God ordering himself, to not disobey his order to himself and then punishing himself with death for disobeying.. 🙂
In the West, thanks to Augustine, the meaning of image and likeness is not understood, hence the sin of disobedience in wanting to acquire knowledge which is deemed God’s alone, where ignorance is seen as perfection and death as punishment for wanting to be like God, not as Easter Orthodox have it, as teaching of consequence of the danger inherent in it.
All I was pointing out was there are explanations of why not to eat the fruit that is not irrational. Eastern Orthodox traditionally don’t have this irrationality, the guilt of Original Sin was a creation of Augustine’s which became the default Christian dogma in the West. For Orthodox Christians the difference is between God uncreated and God in the created, mankind in image and likeness is God. Extrapolating from this view, standard traditional Eastern Christianity, Eden is the beginning of this self-discovery, they are in potential, and with the aim to self-realisation of being God, in whose image and likeness we’re created.
Anyway, I shan’t discuss this further than this post, as this would go against board policy, and the arguments are as convoluted as those for and against AGW…, I was merely giving the brazen serpent of healing a rational explanation from tradition which she said was lacking in the West’s psyche, and giving the author of it, Augustine, as she thought this was the religious teaching of the Jews – to make it clear, the Jews don’t have this doctrine of Original Sin; for them mankind was created with free will with the capacity for good and evil, the OS doctrine was a creation of Augustine’s misreadings consolidated out of biases etc. Eastern Orthodox keep to the Jewish basic here, that mankind is created with free will with the capacity for good and evil, hence Jesus’s teaching, to bring the good out of ourselves if we want life. See Pelagius v Augustine arguments at the time of OS’s creation if you want to explore this further on your own.
P.S.
Smoking Frog says:
November 10, 2011 at 11:36 pm
You have an amazing talent for getting things wrong and writing at length about them.
Only to someone who thinks their own view is correct and everyone disagreeing is wrong. Objectively you first need to understand that there are differing viewpoints, when I give an argument from “tradition” it is from that particular viewpoint. You can argue ’til you’re blue in the face, say, that visible light heats water, but traditional physics says it can’t – this isn’t my opinion, it is what traditional physics teaches about the properties and processes of visible light and matter it impinges upon. Same here, the view that doesn’t read the dogma of Original Sin in Genesis goes back 2,000 years in Christianity, the Augustine doctrine of OS of guilt ridden man condemned to hell just for being born goes back only 1600 years and the Jews have even more centuries of tradition to add in which they never had that doctrine. In other words, you’re not arguing with my personal opinion, but with consolidated bodies of thought about something. Whether you think they’re right or not is personal opinion because the difference here is that a particular interpretation which is the foundation of any belief system, tradition, is a matter of belief, and a never ending argument because belief systems don’t require to be proved. But, if you want to prove I’m wrong about the physics of visible light, then understand you’re arguing in a tradition which demands proof, science, and tradition has already established what the properties are and what processes are possible. In other words, you have to prove traditional physics wrong. You can do this by proving that your view, say that visible light heats oceans, is physically possible and until you do that all you are demanding I belief is your opinion.
And taking this back to the subject of opening post, it is because Mooney is defending a belief system and not science that he demands compliance without attempting to show proof that his science claims are real physics. Claiming it’s proved in science is not a substitute for presenting proof of that claim.. Not being able to prove it his time is spent in making personal attacks on individuals or groups regardless of accuracy, because accuracy is not important in defending unprovable belief systems for those who demand others comply with them. It’s when we demand obedience to ‘our particular view, our tradition, our belief’ about something when the problems begin and the antagonism towards those who won’t believe escalates, even to mass slaughter as those with differing views are marginalised. Those who hold particular belief systems regardless of how many believe or don’t believe in them don’t have this need to prove their beliefs right by the amount of people believing them, “consensus” isn’t proof any belief system is real, but it is irrelevant in science. Marginalising and directing hate against those who disagree with you about anything shows paucity of thinking, here Mooney is doing that in defending an unproven in science claim by directing spite against those who dare point it out. Show the science or be happy in your belief system without demanding that everyone else complies with it.
“Friedman, Hayek and Mises are certainly not charlatans.”
Tosh. Hayek inspired Margaret Thatcher’s destruction of British Industry. Friedman, Hayek, and Mises are the core ideologues of the economic system that has just brought fiscal ruin to the world.
Please explain how.
Please explain what part of their ideologies supported government deficit spending, the social-welfare state, government guaranteed mortgage loans and government bailouts? The current economic system has nothing to do with their ideologies. They never advocated Keynesian Economics, Crony Capitalism, Progressivism or Social-Democracy.
You really seem confused on what the current economic system is and what they advocated for.
— H.L. Mencken (collected in his Chrestomathy, 1949)
Ummm, you do realize the book isn’t even out yet and no one has read it, so you are kind of making yourselves look like fools by attacking something you don’t know anything about.
“I won’t commit the same dumb mistake that Igor Peter Gleick committed when he wrote his bogus non-review of Donna LaFramboise’s IPCC book, so I’ll let somebody who has reviewed it speak about it. Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.”
How has Dr Pielke Jr been able to review the book, when it is not out yet and he doesn’t say that he has actually read it ? Someone has made a “dumb mistake”…