Guest “Surely you can’t be serious” by David Middleton
“I am serious and don’t call me Shirley!”
H/T to Willie Soon for the article and the catchy phrase: Critical Rock Theory!
UW-Madison to remove 70-ton boulder some view as reminder of campus’ racist past
From the Chamberlin Rock: Rediscovery and removal series
Erin Gretzinger Aug 5, 2021Erin Gretzinger
UW-Madison will remove a 70-ton boulder from the heart of campus Friday morning following calls over the past year from students of color who view the rock as a symbol of the university’s racist past.Chamberlin Rock, located on top of Observatory Hill, is named in honor of Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist and former university president. But for some students of color on campus, the rock represents a painful history of discrimination.
[…]
Wisconsin State Journal
I don’t know if this deserves a Larry the Cable Guy or a Ron White award?
Or maybe, just a Tommy Lee Jones…
Although, I have to admit that I am surprised that it took them this long to cancel T. C. Chamberlin… He’s probably the main reason why geologists tend to be skeptical of Gorebal Warming and all other dogmatic hypotheses.
When I was studying geology, way back when The Ice Age Cometh in the 1970’s, we were taught to avoid getting hooked on paradigms or “ruling theories”. Geology, as a science, has very few unique solutions. Climate “science” has an even larger susceptibility to “non-uniqueness”.
This is why we were were taught to embrace Chamberlin’s Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses:
The following is a modern reprise of T.C. Chamberlin’s famous paper on Multiple Working Hypotheses. Chamberlin’s paper is too long, too high-blown, and too sexist for modern students, but Chamberlin’s idea of multiple working hypotheses is, in my opinion, more important than ever (see Geology 1990 v. 18, p. 917-918.) If you want to generate paper copies, there’s also a PDF file. The text below was written in about 1990, was made available on-line in the mid-1990s, and was published in the Houston Geological Society Bulletin (v. 47, no. 2, p. 68-69) in October 2004 at the request of the editor of that publication.
T. C. Chamberlin’s “Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses”: An encapsulation for modern students
L. Bruce Railsback
Department of Geology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2501 USA
Introduction
Scientific study designed to increase our knowledge of natural phenomena can follow at least three different intellectual methods. These can be called the method of the ruling theory, the method of the working hypothesis, and the method of multiple working hypotheses. The first two are the most popular but they can, and often do, lead to ineffective research that overlooks relevant data. Instead, the method of multiple working hypotheses offers a more effective way of organizing one’s research.
Ruling Theories and Working Hypotheses
Our desire to reach an interpretation or explanation commonly leads us to a tentative interpretation that is based on relatively hasty examination of a single example or case. Our tentative explanation, as such, is not a threat to objectivity, but if we then begin to trust it without further testing, we can be blinded to other possibilities that we ignored at first glance. Our premature explanation can become a tentative theory and then a ruling theory, and our research becomes focused on proving that ruling theory. The result is a blindness to evidence that disproves the ruling theory or supports an alternate explanation. Only if the original tentative hypothesis was by chance correct does our research lead to any meaningful contribution to knowledge.
Seemingly less insidious is the working hypothesis. The working hypothesis, we are told, is a hypothesis to be tested, not in order to prove the hypothesis, but as a stimulus for study and fact-finding. Nonetheless, the single working hypothesis can imperceptibly degenerate into a ruling theory, and our desire to prove the working hypothesis, despite evidence to the contrary, can become as strong as the desire to prove the ruling theory.
Multiple Working Hypotheses
The method of multiple working hypotheses involves the development, prior to our research, of several hypotheses that might explain the phenomenon we want to study. Many of these hypotheses will be contradictory, so that some, if not all, will prove to be false. However, the development of multiple hypotheses prior to the research lets us avoid the trap of the ruling hypothesis and thus makes it more likely that our research will lead to meaningful results. We open-mindedly envision all the possible explanations of the phenomenon to be studied, including the possibility that none of explanations are correct (“none of the above”) and the possibility that some new explanation may emerge.
The method of multiple working hypotheses has several other beneficial effects on one’s research. Careful study often shows that a phenomenon is the result of several causes, not just one, and the method of multiple working hypotheses obviously makes it more likely that we will see the interaction of the several causes. The method also promotes much greater thoroughness than research directed toward one hypothesis, leading to lines of inquiry that we might otherwise overlook, and thus to evidence and insights that single-minded research might never have encountered. Thirdly, the method makes us much more likely to see the imperfections in our knowledge and thus to avoid the pitfall of accepting weak or flawed evidence for one hypothesis when another provides a more elegant solution.
Possible Drawbacks of the Method
The method of multiple working hypotheses does have drawbacks. One is that it is impossible to express multiple hypotheses simultaneously, and thus there is a natural tendency to let one take primacy. Keeping a written, not mental, list of our multiple hypotheses is often a necessary solution to that problem.
Another problem is that an open mind may develop hypotheses that are so difficult to test that evaluating them is nearly impossible. An example might be where three of our hypotheses are testable by conventional field work, but a fourth requires drilling of a deep borehole beyond our economic resources. This fourth hypothesis need not paralyze our research, but it should provide a reminder that none of the first three need be true.
A third possible problem is that of vacillation or indecision as we balance the evidence for various hypotheses. Such vacillation may be bad for the researcher, but such vacillation is preferable to the premature rush to a false conclusion.
An Example
The field discovery of a breccia provides an excellent example of the application of the method of multiple working hypotheses. A breccia may form in many ways: by deposition as talus, by collapse after dissolution of underlying evaporites or other soluble rocks, by faulting, by bolide impact, or by other means. Each of the possibilities can be supported by various field evidence, for which we could look if we were evaluating all these hypotheses. However, if we chose just one hypothesis, we might ignore other evidence more clearly supportive of a different hypothesis. For example, if we hypothesized that our breccia was the result of cataclasis during faulting, we might find that the breccia occurred along a fault. We would then accept our single hypothesis and quit looking for additional information. However, if we were using multiple working hypotheses and looked for evidence supporting or disproving all our hypotheses, we might also notice that the breccia was localized in a circular pattern along just one part of the fault. Further examination might show that it was accompanied by shatter cones. Armed with this additional information, we would be more inclined to an interpretation involving an impact that was by chance coincident with a fault. By looking for evidence supportive of a variety of hypotheses, we would have avoided an incorrect interpretation based on coincidence.
Summary
In using the method of multiple working hypotheses, we try to open-mindedly envision and list all the possible hypotheses that could account for the phenomenon to be studied. This induces greater care in ascertaining the facts and greater discrimination and caution in drawing conclusions. Although our human tendencies lead us toward the method of the ruling theory, the method of multiple working hypotheses offers the best chance of open-minded research that avoids false conclusions.
T.C. Chamberlin and the method of multiple working hypotheses
The geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (1843-1928) was president of the University of Wisconsin, director of the Walker Museum at the University of Chicago, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the founder and editor of the Journal of Geology.
Chamberlin read his paper on “The method of multiple working hypotheses” before the Society of Western Naturalists in 1889, and it was published in Science in 1890 and the Journal of Geology in 1897. It was reprinted in several journals during the subsequent seventy years.
This is a short modern encapsulation of some of the ideas in Chamberlin’s original paper, and it should not be considered an adequate substitute for the original paper. This encapsulation is based on a version of the original paper republished in Science in 1965.
Chamberlin, T.C., 1890, The method of multiple working hypotheses: Science (old series) v. 15, p. 92-96; reprinted 1965, v. 148, p. 754-759.
Chamberlin, T.C., 1897, The method of multiple working hypotheses: Journal of Geology, v. 5, p. 837-848.
To a web-based copy of Chamberlin’s paper (apparently from the 1965 reprint)
Back to Railsback’s main page
Back to the UGA Geology Home Page
L. Bruce Railsback
Now that I think of it, Chamberlin was probably cancelled back in the 1990’s or early 2000’s, when CO2 suddenly became the long-term driver of Phanerozoic climate change… Because… Models!
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Obviously a case of rock it science.
shrnfr, add trees to the racist list. A Portland, Oregon school has delayed the changing of their mascot name to “Evergreen” because the principle is concerned trees are racist because they used to hang african americans from them.
Please tell me that you are making a joke.
He’s not: https://www.koin.com/local/portland-school-fears-evergreens-mascot-tied-to-lynching/
No joke MarkW: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/portland-school-fears-evergreens-mascot-connotes-lynching/ar-BB1fkcNu
I
wastedspent an hour sipping coffee and trying comprehend what the stink was all about. This is a problem with this site – a very seductive time suck. From my limited education I must learn many new things and gratifying as that is I’ve got maybe a decade or so of quality life remaining and is this what I should be doing? LOLNo matter today I learn somebody likely long dead said something that has offended someone with the mind of a two year old and so an evil rock must be moved to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
While jumping link to link trying to make sense of the nonsensical I learned about the origin of “knockers” and “tommyknockers” and that “knockers” referring to woman’s breasts likely arises from mechanical device the door knocker. A swinging objected slapping against a fixed object making perfect sense as I watch my bra-less wife pick up her slippers exiting the bed this morning.
I never know what I will learn from Watts Up With That!
Knockers up!
Somehow MWH theory has survived postmodern consensus, GIGO computer game “science” to survive into the deepest, darkest 21st century, even in the highly corrupted Royal Society:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.200231
A modern method of multiple working hypotheses to improve inference in ecology
The Royal Society has always been circumspect
Bunch of individuals who were more political than scientific but had money
Err Gore
The old name for an erratic boulder was quite rude, and would result in a woke jihad against anything associated with it. But as they were probably English Lit or Woman’s studies majors, they should be ignored as a matter of good practice.
Not rude at the time. Simply a description.
The word was generally low class,and therefore rude.
It was not too low class for a good joke in the movie The Young Dr. Frankenstein with Gene Wilder.
Which came first? The field description or the alternative meaning?
For those who don’t have a clue, and because this is about geology:
https://findanyanswer.com/why-do-they-call-them-knockers
thank you
I had heard of “tommyknockers” in mines
guess its just a variation
So King was being a racist/sexist when he wrote “Tommy Knockers”?
The glacier… 😎⛏️⚒️
I got my field training in California, where the term “knocker” (as in large, ornate, door-knocker) was used for large boulders or blocks of weathering-resistant rocks in the common coastal melanges. My professors, Berkeley graduates from the ’40s and ’50s, probably learned the term from their professors, before the alternative ‘sexist’ slang term became entrenched in the language. I took my field training in the ’60s, and I don’t remember any snickering or other indications that the students (largely male) recognized any kind of sexual connotation to the term. And, knowing the personalities of the professors, I doubt that they intended any kind of sexual or sexist meaning.
We have poorly-educated ignoramuses dictating what, in their eyes, constitutes acceptable geologic vocabulary, based on modern slang. It is a sad state of affairs when the ‘snowflakes’ are in a position to influence our vocabulary.
Let’s just hope they never come to understand the meaning of “les grand tetons”. Imagine the effort involved in trying to have those removed…
rip
There are local streets in my city named after national parks. One of them is the Tetons. I laugh every time I drive by it. I am such a juvenile.
If you are of European extraction, then no matter who long ago you lived, your actions are to be judged by 21st century standards.
If you are not of European extraction, then judging your actions is racist, no matter when you lived.
I was confused about what this was about. Yes I heard the term years ago and had forgotten it. So the woke liberals have unearthed the memory for me and a few others. I hope they are proud of themselves. if it weren’t for Tom’s post, I would have never put Two and two together.
It wasn’t the name. It was a description from one newspaper article. Some fool really had to dig to find this one.
Ah, well, those who forget the past tend to repeat it. So it looks like these bozos who are afraid of “symbols” want to dismember, hide, squelch, paint over (etc.) the past so that they can repeat it. I hope that they confine their repeats to themselves and that they leave behind no traces of their own existence. 🙂
Oh, the times, they are a-tryin’….!
From the article that I read, these shining examples of social justice found a single reference to the rock in a 100 year newspaper article.
Somebody used the “n word” to describe a large dark rock back in the 1920’s, so the rock is therefore an offensive symbol to be removed? This is essentially a kind of magical belief system, or else it’s insanity, or a bit of both!
I really don’t like to put ideas in the heads of these people, but what the heck, nothing *I* could say could possibly amount to anything worse than whatever it is they decide to do anyway, so here goes! When you think about it, shouldn’t we absolutely ban the sale of *brazil nuts*, everywhere? Just saying!
I don’t know, Sara, something that’s rubbed off on that rock from the 1800’s has offended me for as long as I can remember, and I can tell you I’ve never been anywhere near it. Heck, I’d never even heard of it before now, but I can just imagine how galling it could be to have to pass by it crossing the campus.
And don’t get me started about those odious ‘pet rocks’ once treasured by all those earlier rockists. For that matter the Rocky Mountains just make my blood boil! I say throw all ‘dem rocks into the sea where they’ll raise its level that has been laggard to my rising expectations. Anyway it’s clear the resolution is at hand now that the woke administration has bowed to the Shirleys to run their asylum.
OH, how sad that certain composite rocks do offend thee, m’Lord! (snirk!)
I do have sitting upon my desk a piece of an ancient sand bar wormholes and all, and an iron ore concretion that is cracked. I call that one Crackpot the Rock. I was advised to not try to crack it open, despite the crack line. You never know what might jump out at you and seize you by the nose hairs, after a peaceful slumber of 330 million years. (snork!)
N.B.: All squawking herein is catatonic and snarky by intent. 🙂
Weekend’s coming up. Enjoy the overt humidity and freely floating clouds in the air, and remember: only YOU can prevent That Stuff from being seen in public again. 🙂
strewth! so does that mean all the Terry Pratchett “people” of rock will also have to be excised as well?
they might have a view on that;-)
heavens they might even TROLL that idiot Uni
We have a rock on Magnetic island, just off Townsville, north Queensland, inside the Great Barrier Reef. It is very conspicuous & has been used for a couple of centuries as a navigation aid, so much so that it is mentioned in the Sailing Directions, used for navigation before sat nav & Radar removed the necessity for proper navigation.
It is a favored resting place for shags as they pause in their fish hunting, & thus it’s name, WHITE rock, & over the decades the shags have done their job of painting it white.
Some time back an aboriginal activist, a European man with some indigenous heritage started to stir up a movement to change this “RACIST” name. It went on for years locally, but did not gain national traction, hence white rock slumbers on as it has for centuries, thank heaven.
Those who respect or even acknowledge the position of the offended, ignorant, immature loudmouths aren’t smart enough to even ignore them. These children should be “taken behind the woodshed” and told to STFU until they become educated and mature enough to join polite society. But where can they get really educated these days? Not in what passes for a college or university.
Getting a crane that can lift and a trailer that can haul a 70 ton boulder is a task in itself. Maybe the better thing would be to split it into pieces, scatter it around the area and tell everyone they took it away. Or dig a big hole and roll it into it.
Reminds me of the term, “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” Which is kinda fundamentalist and a bit self-defeating. Some guy said people tend to give to the poor in public, “to be seen of others”. Otherwise known as virtue-signalling. And then there’s the saying, “Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.” [… not Judge Judy].
So an alleged injustice must be irrationally made into a proper farce to undo a totally imaginary ‘injustice’. Advanced Virtue-Signalling: 101
Still think they should stick with plucking out their eyes.
Have no idea why a lump of Granite is the bad guy.
Only in the minds eye of these ‘victims’! By the way, how long has it been since the campus was ‘racial’? I doubt whether ANY of the current crop of would-be scholars was around then! Prove me wrong on that?
I don’t know the current statistics but UW Madison used to have the lowest percentage of black students of all major US universities.
That could have something to do with the low number of minorities in Wisconsin.
I think it’s gneiss… 😎⛏️⚒️
Well, some people take it for granite.
Because it’s not gneiss to fool Mother Nature… 😎
Now that’s funny right there.
Made my day.
Or have a sculptor contest.
Have them submit sketches and plans, choose the most beautiful sketch, (Not the most woke), and have that sculptor do the job.
Should be cheaper than having some crane and truck remove the granite rock.
The etch into the bottom “In Memoria Thomas Crowder Chamberlin”
As long as they don’t call the smaller rock pieces picka….ies.
😆
A good, well-rounded vocabulary is handy in any situation. Now, wit is a little harder to come by, David.
well fairly soon they wouldnt BE offended cos literacy etc wont be an issue
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/oregon-suspends-need-high-school-graduates-be-proficient-reading-writing-and-math
What’s the point of “schooling” that leads to no useful “proficiencies?”
Might as well just have them start rehearsing “Do you want fries with that?” when they’re 4, and put them to work in the only field they are likely to be able to hold a job when they’re 16.
If they don’t have to worry about providing useful “proficiencies”, schools can return to their primary purpose. Providing paychecks to teachers and administrators.
On a roll…
roll it in front of the cave the students live in?
or the principal that shouldnt be allowed out for agreeing to this?
Or tell those who are “offended” by a boulder that they are free to remove it themselves. Then let’s see if they have the courage of their convictions.
You’ve over stayed your welcome, son and righteously deserve the universal opprobrium of this community. Clearly you haven’t even familiarized yourself with what WUWT is about:
” About Watts Up With That? News and commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”
No one is forcing you to stick around.
That made more sense than anything else you have ever posted here… 👍👍
You seriously need some introspection. Ask yourself why everyone is banning you. If you can’t immediately work out the answer, you need to take a break from the internet until you can.
Once again: No one is forcing you to stick around.
There you go again … coming up with the childish reaction. Why do you feel the need to post spam at all?
I think you need to go stand in the corner until you learn how to play nicely with others.
As much as I appreciate you trying to nudge him in the right direction I think it’s time to apply Formosa’s Law.
I guess it’s wrong of me to succumb to argumentum ad misericordiam, but the guy is practically on his knees begging to be shunned. It’s a class act of its type, n’est ce pas?
I doubt even Formosa’s Law is appropriate for someone asking to be banned.
Obviously he’s being banned because the masses are jealous of his brilliance.
That must be it. Why didn’t I think of that?
So even you can’t stand your behavior.
because you are obnoxious
Why does that not surprise me?
i hope you aren’t wondering why!
“ because I’m banned literally everywhere”
And literally nobody is surprised that is so.
gee we would’nt have to work hard to guess WHY would we?
With good reasons 😀
Meanwhile back at the ghetto:
Rights come with responsibilities, expectations, behaviors.
Obeying the laws is big one.
Disobey the laws, lose some rights.
In a capital case, the right to breath.
Civil behavior is another.
Chicago, Heyjackass.com:
YTD 470 shot & killed!!!!!! Every 10 h 42 m.
YTD 2,275 shot & wounded!!!!!!!!!!!! Every 1 h 56 m
WTF?!
83.3% BLACK!!
WTF^2!!!
Chicago, where black lives really do not matter.
Same in Detroit, Baltimore, KC……
Shot by police: 4 dead, 8 wounded. Police shot, 11.
I guess not newsworthy enough for the fake news MSM woke talking heads to foment riots.
If Garfield Park, Austin, Englewood, Humboldt were plantations the Massa would roll through with shot guns and dogs and put an end to that shit – it’s bad for the bottom line.
Maybe blacks NEED slavery!
Kaepernick, Rahm and Obama should hold a “cease fire” kneeling celebration.
Ballistic vest and helmet recommended.
FBI Table 43 & US Census
Blacks are about 13% of the US population yet commit 27% of the violent crimes.
BLM & SJW should be be collectin’ guns
On the one hand, it’s easy to come up with facts like the ones you have presented.
On the other hand, it’s easy to come up with a theory about how blacks are oppressed and the facts you present don’t matter.
When I listen to either side, I am reminded of what Mencken said:
link
A study of history shows a long string of attempted solutions to problems. When these Social Justice Warriors (SJW) look back on history, they judge those in the past as evil, not as people trying to solve problems and deal with life. That blinds the SJWs to the fact that they are probably, in whole or in part, also wrong. Their simplistic solutions will almost certainly lead to more problems than they solve.
Educators pride themselves on teaching thinking skills. How many of them are even aware of the Multiple Working Hypothesis Method? This should be inculcated starting in preschool. It would cause people to be mistrustful of simple solutions.
link
Somehow I get the feeling that the idea of real critical thinking has been abandoned and forgotten. Defund the universities.
Anyone familiar with Dr Stephen Meyer’s works on Intelligent Design will recognize the Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. He uses that extensively to argue that the information processing systems & machinery we observe in life is best explained by a mind, not an unguided natural process.
I keep asking where said mind originated an all I get is circular logic.
That was really good, David Middleton. I learned a lot from such a short read.
That’s why I’m a loyal WUWT reader.
I’m just a dumb ol’ engineer (retired) so I really enjoy getting exposed to ideas that I didn’t and wouldn’t encounter in my schooling and over my career.
–
–
I’m trying to think of an equivalent to the multiple working hypotheses for my field. The best I can come up with is when a piece of equipment goes wonky. Sometimes, something just snaps and breaks and the solution is obvious. Other times, you’re chasing an intermittent failure and the question becomes
animal, vegetable, or mineralelectrical, mechanical, or digital.–
–
–
As to the r-a-a-a-a-c-i-i-i-s-t nonsense, that kid need to get slapped upside the head with a
2 x 4clue stick.I’m willing to bet that student never had to walk 3 miles to school, uphill both ways, through two feet of snow, while carrying his little brother on his back with a lard sandwich in one hand to share with his brother at lunchtime… and stopping by the railroad tracks in hopes of finding a lump of coal to bring home to heat the shack for the night.
We’ve had the immigrants and pioneers who built America, followed by “The Greatest Generation”, followed by the greatest educated and well off generation, followed by the greatest whiners and wussies who got everything they wanted generation.
What’s next?
Sheer luxury. I had to do that without feet.
The first liar doesn’t have a chance!
Hilarious sketch … Particularly the version in The Secret Policeman’s Ball!
My specialty is making engineers laugh, particularly well completion engineers… They always want to know whether the objective will be a blocky or laminated sandstone. I always answer, yes… unless it’s not… 😎
You forgot to mention the howling blizzard.
With wolves hiding behind the trees.
One of my favorite books is C. E. Warren, BIOLOGY AND WATER POLLUTiON CONTROL. 1971. W. B. Saunders Company. He quotes Chamberlin, along with Darwin, Aristotle, Thyucydides, Pasteur, even Malthus in the proper context. Many others who I won’t mention should someone from there happen to read this, but the book is rare, hard to get and beyond cancel types’ comprehension. I have been on the campus, they produced lots of real ecologists concerned with, guess what, real ecology. My best friend educated there always said he was going to “ go check on things.” Problem solver. Great agricultural stuff also like cheese and ice cream.
Warren’s point was that MWH are just as applicable to other real sciences, he didn’t say real, back in those days, taken for granted. I got a copy of Chamberlin’s paper buried somewhere, also completely quoted in Walcott’s SOURCE BOOK IN GEOLOGY, inherited from my geologist uncle, under Internal Structure of the Earth. He was given a whole chapter from pages 604-630.
Thyucydides… I may have drilled a Thyucydides trap a couple of years ago… 😳
I grew up in Madison and attended the University of Wisconsin. This degree of stupid has been cooking for a long time It was inevitable that it would boil over.
That is a very selective quoting from the article. Reading the linked article it clearly gives a good reason for removing the rock. And also notes that it is being moved elsewhere on the University grounds. Finally the article states that “The university plans to erect a plaque in Chamberlin Hall to honor the former university president”
so nobody is trying to cancel Chamberlin but just remember him in a non-racist way.
Referring to a rock, 100 years ago, in a racially insensitive way is grounds to spend thousands of dollars so that social justice warriors can sleep comfortably at night, knowing they have once again saved the world from sanity.
That you agree with and champion such nonsense is hardly a surprise.
I am guessing that it is an ongoing issue and not just something that happened once 100 years ago. Beyond that it is just a rock and if people are happier with it being moved then why not move it?
You just single handedly solved the “climate crisis” thingy… “it is just a rock and if people are happier with it being moved then why not move it” a bit farther from the Sun… 😆
“I am guessing”. So once again, you didn’t bother to actually study the issue before commenting.
Who are we going to make happier? Why does only one side of any controversy have the right to have government do whatever it takes to make them happy.
Where does it stop? If you bend over backwards to make every oversensitive nut case happy, then it will never end, because the reality is that they will never be happy and nothing other people can do will ever make them happy.
Something that would be worth your time to read would be “Democracy in America” (de Tocqueville, 1835). In it, he expresses concern for what he termed “tyranny of the majority.” He needn’t have been concerned. Today we deal with “tyranny of the minority.”
To put it in perspective, if one person took exception to the Statue of Liberty, for whatever reason, would you advocate moving it?
I take it that you advocate expunging anything that has become offensive in modern slang, regardless of the original meaning or alternative meanings. You are a liberal through and through!
Clyde,
It is a rock. If moving it makes people happier then why not move it?
Make the people complaining about it move it themselves… preferably by hand. Let’s see how happy it will make them.
If they are too weak to do that, as they most assuredly are, then let them use their own money to remove it. Let’s see how happy that will make them.
If you have to dig up a hundred year old newspaper article that used a racial slur to describe the rock but everybody today calls it by its official name, then you are being a disingenuous, virtue signalling twat and should be thoroughly ignored.
Hi,
Did you read the article. Again it states that “The university estimated this winter that removal would cost between $30,000 and $75,000 — an amount that officials said at the time would be covered with private or gift funds.”
so as you suggested they are using their own money to remove it.
So instead of those funds being used for something useful, they will move a rock because of an article in 1925. Wow, you need help.
Not ignore. Pointed and laughed at is the appropriate response to disingenuous, virtue signalling twats like Izaak.
I find Izaak the Idiot offensive, so to make me happier you should move out to elsewhere.
Yes, that is the logical conclusion to Walton’s illogical recommendation! But, his liberal blinders prevent him from seeing the consequences of his shallow thinking.
The reason given to move it is the very reason NOT to do it. It serves no practical purpose. Hurt feelings is not a valid reason for such an undertaking.
Rory,
the rock serves no practical purpose. Moving it is nothing other than basic politeness. If moving a rock doesn’t harm anybody, doesn’t cost the University anything (they have gotten the money from donations) and makes some people feel welcome then it seems like a good thing to do.
Hurt feelings are a valid reason for doing some things. It is why in polite society you apologies when you hurt somebody accidentally.
Except the entire exercise was founded on nothing. There were no hurt feelings and no purpose other than CRT and pandering to a very dangerous precedent. As for having “no cost to the University”. The money raised could have gone to something worthwhile and might actually benefit people.
The connection to “racism” arose when; in a 1925 news article the rock was referred to by a common euphemism using the “N” word (usually referring to a rock sticking out of a crude road). No fault can be attached to the rock. It was NOT racist.
It was a political victory for real racists and cancel culture. If they can force the removal of a rock for no apparent purpose. It demonstrates their power. If you want those cretins in power you’re you’re irrational.
+42
Maybe the protestors should be taking issue with the newspaper that used the insensitive word, instead of the object it referred to.
What about the people whose feelings are hurt that it’s being moved?
Hurt feelings and assuaging them are generally best left to individuals to deal with.
When society is asked to assuage collective [or more accurately collectivist] hurt feelings, small, often activist and extreme groups are given veto power over the public square.
People who support the whiners think that’s just fine. The rest of us don’t.
Public apologies and appeasement should be reserved for only those with relatively broad and bipartisan support toward the most egregious and direct effronteries. To do otherwise is to increase division, not reduce it.
This met none of those criteria.
What if rock defenders are hurt by this moving?
Funny how basic politeness always requires everyone to bend over backwards to accommodate the latest left wing nuttiness.
Notice how “basic politeness” always seems to work in only one direction?
Leftists always redefine words so that they benefit.
Like bi-partisanship becoming Republicans and Democrats working together in order to pass the Democrats agenda.
Or when Republicans flee a state in order to prevent the legislature from having a quorum, the Republicans are thwarting the will of the people (regardless of what polls say the feel about the issue).
On the other hand when Democrats do the same, that’s democracy in action.
University of Wisconsin, commuter cost of attendance – $17, 210.
If moving that rock doesn’t cost at LEAST that much, I would be very surprised.
How about paying for a year of attendance by some deserving black person from Madison? Or even seed a continuing scholarship called “Fund the Rock”?
Nope. Have to waste the money on “making people happier,” not educating them.
(“People” = half a dozen loud “social justice warriors” – whites from the upper middle class – who get their kicks from making other people do stupid things. Not that they’ll be “happy,” they’ll just move on to the next stupid trick to teach their trained seals in the university administration.)
You’ve hit the nail right on the head. There is nothing racist about the rock. The entire thing comes from a 1925 news story when the rock was referred to by a contemporaneous euphemism for a protruding rock in a road. If you check the period, there were possibly 100s of similar references across America.
Your solution would have been a positive and permanent reminder. Theirs was one point on some imaginary political score card … soon forgotten.
COON cheese here got rebranded cos of morons like this
(named after a chap called Coon who developed the process.)
so now?
its Cheer
and its NOT selling
been watching the stock on shelves locally
when its OOD I figure it will be good cheap dog treats;-)
When people find ways to start adjusting language on any pretense, no good will come of it and here’s no end in sight. How our language is used depends on inference and context. Without that it has no meaning, so cancelling words is pointless.
“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.”
We’re witnessing it live.
(Now you’ve gone and caused the hair to stand up on the back of my neck.)
… and with ever increasing frequency.
Rory, just wait until they get to the part about “all the statues have been torn down…”
I can’t remember how often I’ve quote ‘1984’, Animal Farm, Brave New World and Samuel Butler’s Erehwon, over the past year and a half. It’s like they’re using a century and a half of dystopian literature as their script.
One of the disadvantages of being literate and widely read is: … it’s all coming true. It was supposed to be fiction.
And don’t forget Atlas Shrugged.
It’s almost like they’ve chosen to use them as a guide rather than a warning. Those writers look like prophets, but I think were simply just more observant of the direction things were going.
Yep, that does seem to be what’s happening, doesn’t it? To my aging eyes, it looks like these people are trying to destroy arguably the best and most benign periods in human history. Humans have never been so well off.
now your reference to hair-raising will have Indians in an uproar.
Titter – titter … I laugh in your general direction.
That is a definite difficult ‘booger’ for me…words matter (or, they used to), and it is ‘sorry hard’ to keep up with the nonsense we oldsters are viewing.
I’m pushing 80 … and each day I despair a little more at what I’m witnessing. What I once took to be intelligent people are swallowing this crap by the bucket full. We’re pandering to madness.
Yesterday I watched a woman, walking alone in the park with two masks, a plexi face screen and an umbrella. I kid you not.
And, how about asking that the newspaper contribute to the education fund for using the language of their time?
Do we boycott “Brazil Nuts” because they once had a common name that is now found offensive?
Oddly, once the context of the epithet became clear, my mind shot back to the nut bowl, at Christmas. Who could extract a perfect, unblemished “N”-toe from its shell? Good times. Thanks for the reminder.
that was easier than an intact walnut, imo.
Not all nuts were created equal … (and I should know).
“nuts” is now offensive? well…come to think of it…
The governor of Oregon quietly signed a bill removing proficiency requirements for high school graduation.
Apparently too many minorities were failing to meet the existing requirements.
Given the loon Oregon has as a governor, not a surprise.
They should just send “recruiters” to the Junior High Schools from McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Dominos, etc. so the kids can start “cashing in” on the only “opportunities” they’re ever going to have earlier. You know, like quitting school early to join the NBA, but for the height and coordination challenged.
What people? Most likely only a very few people, at most. Then there will be a few dozen virtue signalers who will sing about anything if it makes them feel part of the group. The majority probably resent the nonsense but have gotten tired of having rocks thrown at them for pointing out such stupidity.
There is a class of people, who simply aren’t happy, unless they are upset about something.
Being upset gives their otherwise useless lives, something to feel good about. Once the rock is removed, they will immediately start looking for something else to be upset about.
Because that’s called Pandering to idiots!
What if it makes other people happy to leave it alone?
And if “people” want it moved, let them do it themselves. Then we’ll see exactly how “important” it is to them.
1) It costs a lot of money.
2) It never ends, it’s a rock this week, it will be something else next week. Better to tell them to grow a pair and get over themselves.
Reading the linked article it clearly gives a good reason for removing the rock. And also notes that it is being moved elsewhere on the University grounds.
Sorry, but that is a very selective quoting from the hymn book.
The simple fact they moved the rock somewhere else means the powers that be did not believe the rock to be at fault, so they in real terms spent a bucket load of money and reputation to shift the so called Racist Rock (remember, ONE SINGLE OFFENSE FOUND) from public display to a different public display.
The way the Woke have been crying you might expect that in Ye Olde Days the racial group A would round up members of racial group B and force those people to carry the rock around on their backs as a reminder of their inferior place in the social structure, plus face painting for the kids, and that this historical activity was still openly celebrated.
Nope.
ONE.
SINGLE.
OFFENSE.
This entire thing has been a massive waste of money and a massive waste of professionalism.
Again it is just a rock. The university has gotten private money in order to remove it and by doing so they make their students feel welcome. The net effect might actually be an increase in student enrolment since students want to go somewhere where their concerns are listened to and acted upon. Which makes the whole thing a smart business move.
In the past students were going where they got the best education. Times clearly have changed.
Rubbish . No, it’s not just a rock, or, otherwise they wouldn’t gone to the trouble of moving it. And, by the way, a progressive making a smart business move means he’s worked out another way to steal something.
Were those funds given for the express purpose of moving that rock? If you don’t have evidence then you are lying.
Isn’t Izaaaaak Walton some kind of Russian interference, or something?
1) That money would have been used for something else had it not been wasted moving the rock.
2) Why do you assume that the pantywaists that were upset about the rock was the only group that matters?
3) Or a net decrease in enrollment as students and parents rightly conclude that the university is more interested in pandering than it is in educating.
Rationalizing speculations!
Apparently Mr. M has LOTS of time on his hands. And if you check out the lack of activity by his current (or ex) employer, and their current market cap death spiral, you can see why. Enough extra time to spend days looking for inconsequentialities to whine about….
Being successful really does bug those who have never had any.
The good news is that only non fossil fuel was used to perform the work needed to move a 70 ton rock that was at rest for 15,000 years for no particular reason. If you look close enough at the pictures, you can see the solar panels on the crane and the flatbed that are moving the rock. I’m certain the excavator was solar powered as well. Plus all the steel used was smelted using renewable power.
This shows the commitment that UW Madison has to maintaining their pledge to reducing the use of fossil fuels whereever and whenever possible.
For more information on environmental sustainability programs, contact the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
An encouraging side note is that we may, possibly, have reached “Peak Stupid” with this episode.
But maybe not.
Izaak the Idiot weighs in, trips and does a face-plant in the sand.
He simply doesn’t get it. That’s why he, in the face of all reasonable science, remains doggedly an AGW true believer and proponent of a pointless precautionary principle.
He should be made to wear earphones.
I was given Chamberlin’s paper to read as an assignment in Freshman year geology at Boston College. It served me well for more years than I can count in a career as an economic geologist. If you’re going to do science, do science. If you’re going to reject a single piece of evidence in order to preserve your hypothesis, rather than modifying your hypothesis then repeating the experiment to account for the evidence, you’re not doing science. Period.
I’m glad this little piece of woke stupidity has at least brought Chamberlin back into the limelite for a few minutes. Even bad publicity is better than none, and “fake science” can be reminded once again how REAL science is done. If they’ll pay attention.
The requirement for reading Chamberlain’s masterpiece as an undergraduate is probably the defining difference between geology and the other sciences, which tend to resort to appealing to authority. It may also help explain why there seems to be an inordinate number of geologists on this blog.
Geology is, after all, the foundation science to the entire question of climate. Of course it’s well represented here. Geologists have all the best arguments.
Well, at least they’re well grounded.
Geologists have perspective – “climate” is about long term changes over time, and about the entirety of the Earth’s climate history, not just some “recent” period, while the post modern so-called “climate science” is mostly CO2 fetishism propped up by models that assume their pet “working hypothesis” is the be-all and end-all regarding “climate,” which they can only manage by doing exactly what Chamberlain warns of – willfully disregarding, or not looking for, contrary evidence.
That’s why so many geologists are in the skeptical “camp” – because there is simply too much evidence that CO2 is not the “control knob” of climate to ignore, if you actually bother to look – and geologists are by their nature going to be looking at it.
I’m in your debt for fleshing out my rather terse comment. The most important thing missing with contemporary “climatology” is time. Of course, their “working hypothesis” has never been more than flashy visual aid to fool the public. It has all been politics from the start. Phil Jones let the cat out of the bag in the emails … it’s all about “The Cause”.
Yes. Once “scientists” have a “cause,” they no longer have the right to assume the “mantle” of being “scientists,” because they have lost their objectivity – and are therefore, by definition, no longer “scientists.”
What the climate pseudo-scientists do today is activism, not science.
Amen to that.
The big “if”
What was the rationalization for associating Chamberlain with racial discrimination? Did he have a preference for rhyolite over basalts?
Who gives a schist?
The Anti-Schist, Walton.
From the Madison paper:
“Chamberlin Rock, named for former university president and geologist Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, was at least once referred to as a “n——-head” rock in a 1925 Wisconsin State Journal story. University historians have not found any other time that the slur was used.”
Correct and it is just 42 tons.
In fact that isn’t even a real “slur”, but just a rather common euphemism for such a rock from long before the “n” word became such a sensitive issue. Hell, the same term was also a reference to a capstan winch on a ship.
It seems to me the term was incorrectly applied to this particular rock — by one person 95 years ago. If anything needs to be censured it is that dumb article writer of yesteryear.
Rory.. a wealth of information… thanks so much!
I hate racist rocks. I had one out back for a while – I bashed it with a hammer.
Off Topic:
Tomorrow is the 40th birthday of global warming in the popular press. Thames TV ran a documentary titled “Warming Warningl 12 August 1981.
If you Search that on the you tube, it will come right up.
Anther take in this mess, if you will.
The term in question is “niggerhead”, for those who did not know.
I came across this term within a history of sailing and sailing ships.
By 1750, the term was commonly used in the British Navy. It referred to a reef or a sunken rock, especially one that could punch a hole in your hull, as opposed to a reef or shallows you would simply go aground on. As such, this term was a term of art for navigators and helmsmen, and of sailors in general. In short, there was no racial connotation attached to it. The term was used to describe many things over the years.
Another history goes all the way back to about 1300. Then, it is said, the term referred to the type of a winch on a ship we now call a capstan.
Somewhere along the line, geologists adopted it for their use.
Reading the history of the term now, it appears that the racial connotation was “back fitted” or retrofitted to the term to provide the required “That’s Racist” narrative.
Exactly. Meaning doesn’t mean anything to the woke, it’s all about outrage points. Just try telling a wokester that you “sniggered” when you heard about this story and see if you don’t make the news.
Or “niggardly”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly
A few years back, a city councilman somewhere became upset and was demanding the firing of a department head who used the term “niggardly”.
I don’t know that your assertion is true. I have never heard it, or read it in any geology text. Can you provide a citation?
It is true that prior to ‘The Enlightenment,’ the term was commonly used for several things by common people. I suspect that the infamous ‘N-word’ is a corruption of the Portuguese word for “black” by uneducated people in the Americas.
That is surprising, because the trans-Atlantic slave trade of kidnapped Africans, which the Portuguese called Nigers (“blacks” in Portuguese) started in the 1400s, with most of it after 1526, after the 1492 discovery of the New World.
Why would the sensitive critics want to remove such a gneiss rock?
Actually, to be fair, the removal of the rock has nothing to do with T.C. Chamberlin as far as I know, The issue is that the rock had been referred to as the n—-head using the taboo word until some time around mid-1900s. It was later named for Chamberlin in the hope that its previous moniker would be forgotten. But the PC crowd never forget and never forgive.
But the irony is soooo ironic… 😆
Forged in iron.
They did forget. Until some kind soul unearthed an article from the beginning of the 19thc that mentioned THAT word. Without that article, no-one would have been any the wiser, no-one would have been offended or triggered by the rock. Should’ve cancelled the article, not the rock.
Leftists really do get their panties in a wad whenever facts emerge that they don’t want to deal with.
This guy really does remind me of those students who petitioned to have the rock removed.
He’s been triggered, and he will make everyone’s life miserable until everyone acknowledges his feelings.
Regardless, the rock was only the first couple of sentences. The rest was about science.
Either you stopped reading at the picture, or you aren’t able to recognize real science when you see it.
Though I do have to acknowledge that both may be the case.
The rock in question was stolen from Canada in an act of Pleistocene cultural appropriation. It must be returned to its home and given a proper burial among its own kin.
And then we can talk about restitution for past acts of colonial oppression.
And don’t forget, to cross the border, it will need two vaccinations and a negative covid test.
👍we have a winner! best comment.👍
When seeing the outputs and predictions of their multiple models the ‘climate scientists’ do appear to be using multiple working hypotheses.
Unfortunately, they then tend to average them in order to announce that they are all correct.
Nah, they all pretty much use the same hypothesis, and an incorrect one at that. Hence their inability to reflect the real world by an overrun of about a factor of three.
Aaaah, the cult of victimology!
I can not recall ANY great religion or philosophy from history that teaches that becoming a perpetual victim is beneficial! Every one that I have read or studied deems being a self-made loser a harmful personality trait! It does rather make one easier to program and manipulate, as one’s emotions must always be atwitter at the injustice of it all!
The ChiComs must be laughing with glee as they, one of the most racist criminal organizations in history, teach the children of the Anti-slavery Movement to be ashamed of their past! The CCP can buy US politicians and even elections apparently; now they are financing nihilism and societal suicide!
We’re just having a bit of fun tonight; it’s the only sane response to the self-adulatory insanity that passes for progressive opinion these days. If you don’t like it, you can always click on the little “x” at the top right corner of your screen. That usually works for me.
Peak Renewables was about 1850, then came fossil fuel and nuclear, a tremendous improvement, except to the Amish. Stuck in the Past much?
Just a few hours ago, you were proclaiming this site was utterly irrelevant and useless.
Aha! You are make joke, Mark-the-Cracker! I laugh ha-ha at your funny joke.
Damn I think I have lost my humurus.
See if it’s hiding among the Four Bodily Humors.
The removal is actually destroying scientific evidence if the boulder came to rest naturally at its location. Mapping boulder trains for locating mineral deposits that the continental glacier traversed over (plus taking glacial till samples “up ice” for washing and picking mineral grains, gold flecks, diamond mineral associates etc.). Maybe the boulder is from a graniodiorite intrusion that is the locus for mineralized veins in surrounding rocks.
Anyway, was it the look of the rock or the name of the rock. Will non-white geology students refuse to use multiple hypotheses? I don’t quite get it.
The nickname given the rock in a journal article nearly a century ago, before the word in question even had the racial connotation to offend anyone.
A lot of what the woke get “offended” about is easily explained by their lack of history classes and context.
So it is in general an education crisis. And sadly one of people with bs college “degrees”.
Oregon no longer requires students to achieve any level of proficiency in high school. How long till this progresses to the college level?
Quest for Fire is the end goal.