The rich don’t spend the money they have, and the poor don’t have money to spend.

This is a problem when 70% of the economy relies on consumer spending.

Closing our staggering wealth gap isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s essential to save our economy from collapse.

I took great pains on Sunday to explain for the Nth time why the "argument from ignorance" is false, manipulative, and arrogant. It involves circular reasoning, proof-burden shifting, self-deception, and using the presence of uncertainty--*to assert other unjustified certainty.*

I then got a response that was a most *beautiful* boiler-plate, texbook restatement of the same argument that I had just debunked! And you've heard it all before. Here goes:

//Science's ability to document the 'how' does not necessarily explain it, and partially explaining it doesn't illuminate the 'why.'//

This is "we can't explain" all over again, the classic core of the argument from ignorance. It usually means "I can't explain, because I haven't studied the subject in depth, and I have no idea what I'm talking about."

What makes anyone think that there IS a "why" to the universe? Everything that happens has a cause, but not necessarily a purpose. Saying we don't know something's "purpose" is a straw man through and through. We *can't* know purpose because purpose implies a mind we can't read, and represents a not-so-subtle argument for a "creator."

Take the question "Why does the Sun exist?" This demonstrates this absurdity of intent. Unless "gawd" directly *willed* the Sun into existence with a wave of their hand, it's there for the same reason as any other star. Why does any star in the universe exist? Because gravity coalesced gas and ignited a fusion reaction. Why did that happen? For the same reason you might climb a mountain--because it was there.

//there are notable gaps in the historical record//

So, what? Another core reference to ignorance. If there's a gap, that means a GAP. You don't get to fill it with whatever you want, or assert that the absence of knowledge somehow supports other knowledge we don't have. This is the blind leading the blind.

//the record is being rewritten constantly as new evidence comes to light//

Which is it? Are there gaps, or is the entire record suspect? You see how this is used to undermine the totality of science? Not only are we missing data, in this view, but the data we do have is supposedly suspect. And it's not suspect because of some specific error in a given experiment or paper this person discovered. That would take work. According to these buffoons, all scientific data is suspect--IN GENERAL.

Constant revision is *science functioning as designed.* Revisions to science ONLY happen when someone shoulders an extremely heavy burden of proof. It's not enough merely to question existing evidence. When challenging an existing theory, you have to provide *better* evidence, along with a new theory to explain it--and that's the tough part. That's why gaps in our knowledge persist, because probing those gaps is difficult.

And it's also why evidence that has stood the test of time will usually continue to do so. The way science advances usually has to do with discovering data that requires refinements of earlier theories, such as how Einstein's Relativity modified Newtonian mechanics. Nothing Newton discovered was overturned. His laws remain an excellent approximation for how matter behaves, except at near-light (relativistic) speeds.

//any scientist that does not accept the possibility of missing evidence cannot claim they understand the limits of possible knowledge.//

It's far worse than that: Any "scientist" who does not accept the possibility of missing evidence IS NOT A SCIENTIST.

//Absent evidence of intent....we are likely not going to get closer to the truth, because it's ineffable.//

There it is again, the insistence on knowing intent, or the "why." What makes anyone think that there is a "why" to the universe at all? (This is getting repetitive). "Ineffable" is one of the worst words in the English language. (Someone used to run a blog called "Effing the Ineffable." HA) The problem with the word is that it's obscurantist. It means "can't be known, described, or expressed." Once again this is a reference to the core of the argument from ignorance. "We can't know THIS--therefore we know THAT (which I just made up)."

//I simply am not going to accept that because [evidence of] something is missing means it isn't possible.//

Of course an infinite number of things are possible. The question is, WHICH THINGS are true or likely to be true??? And that's why evidence is all-important. Science doesn't rule things out, it rules them IN. With evidence! Once again this takes the form "We don't know that _______ is NOT true, so that means it's possibly true."

According to the argument from ignorance, you can fill in the blank with anything you want! Purple Chupacabras? Can't prove they don't exist. If they don't exist on Earth, they could exist on some other planet, right? Folks, this is unforgivable self-dishonesty. Until you find the purple Chupacabra, there's nothing to talk about. Then you could shift the criteria to orange Chupacabras we "can't prove don't exist," and on it goes.

Bertrand Russell's famous teapot thought experiment demonstrated the absurdity of this tactic.

//I know that many believe they know the limits of what is true. I do not.//

This is frankly the most arrogant form of the argument from ignorance. Because if you finish the thought what it really means is "I refuse to be held accountable to the body of work produced by the scientific method, or for any standards of evidence or burden of proof it imposes."

//The history of scientific investigation is one of the frequent need to reset and recalibrate what "truth" actually is.//

Yes, that's abundantly clear as previously stipulated. And that recalibration is done according to the strictest rules of evidence--not according to personal doubt. Doubt is effortless. Proof is difficult.

I'm sad to say that I've found that the "argument from ignorance" forms the core of the most stubborn and widely-held popular epistemology. You've heard all this from ignorant peopple, but also from so-called educated people who aren't trained in the probabilistic methods of the hard sciences.

The reason it's so popular is because it allows people to feel that their opinion "might" someday be proven true, even if it contradicts every single bit of current knowledge (pointy-headed, know-it-all) scientists spent centuries accumulating.

It's a total intellectual "get ouf of jail free" card.

This is the apocalypse Carl Sagan warned us about. It's all happening just like he said. Because of this mental rot, we're losing our ability to sustain a technological civilization. Because we forgot the rigor and mental discipline that got us here in the first place.

Do better, hoomons!

#ignorance #scientificmethod #logicalfallacy #burdenofproof #god #purpose #NOMA #universe #reality #teleology #creationism #argumentfromignorance #godofthegaps #sagan #russellsteapot

Today seems like a good day to mention in passing that "Love Languages" aren't scientific. A pastor made it up because it sounded like it was a thing.

There are scientific descriptions and explanations for everything in the phenomenology of "Love Languages." Some of it is healthy, some of it is wobbly, and some of it points to areas for healing. It's all quite complicated, really, and there's a reason people go to school for years to be couples counselors.

So... you know. Don't dig in too hard on this one, okay?

I've written a few long posts in the past couple of days debunking the argument from ignorance, which is a core component of the republican war on science. Another front is the exaggeration of the so-called replication crisis. Yet a third front is the attack on university education which at its core is an attack on the scientific method. Everything we're suffering as a nation traces back to the substitution of dogma for evidence-based policy.

Here are just a few of the consequences, and they are devastating.

-The war on the economy: President Eisenhower was the last Republican to fully embrace Keynesian economics. Since then, Republicans have embraced the tax and spending cuts known as trickle down or supply side economics. Which is unscientific dogma that has proven unsuccessful, and they know this. But then they don't actually succeed in fully implementing the spending cuts, and make up the difference with deficit spending, leading to a 30 trillion national debt. This has stifled US economic growth for decades. And left us with a hugely unequal society, that has tilted power away from the people and put it in the hands of the wealthy.

-The war on public health: from gun violence to vaccinations to the opposition to single payer universal healthcare, Republicans have ignored scientific data regarding outcomes, and suppressed the study of how to improve public health for decades. *This has killed millions of Americans.* At least a million from Covid, and another million and a half from gun violence during my lifetime. That's not even counting the number of people who've died from not being able to afford health care, including mental health care, and treatment for addiction. One of the biggest menaces to public health is poverty, which has been exacerbated by the war on the economy.

-The war on secularism: religious privilege and the rule of law are diametrically opposed. The law protects everyone, religious privilege only protects the few against the rights of the many. The first amendment is ambiguous as to which should take priority. The free exercise clause has been used to enable public funding of religion, grant exceptions to anti-discrimination and civil rights law, and allow individuals to circumvent both the law and corporate policy based on conscience clauses. Science (basic logic, really) proves that secularism grants the most religious freedom. In fact religious freedom can't exist without it, because the infiltration of government and law enforcement with a single dominant religious point of view means that minority belief systems suffer discrimination.

-The war on atheism: Estimates of the percentage of the US population who don't believe in any gods ranges from 4 to 30% or more, depending on how the question is asked. Yet there's only a small handful of politicians who will admit to being atheist. Even at the lowest end of the figure of 4% atheism, there ought to be at least 17 US congressman and 4 US senators who are willing to say they don't believe in god. Usually there's zero or one who are willing to publicly discuss non-belief. And this is largely the result of the argument from ignorance. Which makes people *at best* say they are "agnostics" meaning they can't know whether or not God exists. It's a basic misreading of probability. And a failure of representation.

-The war on education: This goes along with the war on science, but it's also its own battle. Basing educational policy on best outcomes would require early sex education, teaching accurate history, and exploration of critical thinking and power dynamics in society. All these topics have been suppressed, leading to the dumbing down of education, and the production of graduates who are trained to work menial jobs in corporations, but not trained to be citizens.

-The war on the climate: we've known for decades that unchecked global heating from the burning of fossil fuels would eventually kill billions of human beings. This isn't even controversial. Yes you heard that right, I said billions. Climate change has humanity on the path to extinction. This is undeniable, and even the early stages of climate impacts have been devastating to the population. Over 300 million people live in parts of the world where at least for parts of the year, it's too hot for unprotected humans to survive. These no go zones will only increase in the future, leading to mass migration, wars and refugee crises like we've never seen. All because Republicans have successfully introduced doubt of climate science into the minds of just enough of the population.

I could go on but you get the point. Once we allowed power to overrule knowledge, we lost our way as a nation and a world. We will never find it again until we restore knowledge and science to its rightful place, as determinant of policy.

The argument from ignorance is constantly used to raise just enough doubt about the reliability of science to justify not following best practices when they conflict with the desires or bank accounts of powerful people.

#ignorance #waronreality #sabotage #goptraitors #gop #fascism

Children must be protected from people who think children must be protected from books and ideas.

#fascism #bookban #Florida #desantis

Time for everyone to read or watch the #1619project on Hulu or wherever you can get it. This work has triggered the right wing. It gives a deep background of what got our nation here today. Why killings of Black men, American citizens, are shown on television at the same time #book bans unequally target #black writers. We need a 21st century Federal Civil Rights #law that codifies all threatened rights & freedoms.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

Today is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the infamous camp where Nazis murdered over a million people, mostly Jews, in cold blood.

The Nazis didn't start with death camps. They started with boycotts of Jewish businesses. They infiltrated and took ownership of the media. They looked the other way while crimes were committed against Jews. They censored anything that painted them negatively. They invoked religion and mysticism to give themselves authority.

Today's Nazis look a little different. They are not hyperfocused on one enemy. The rhetoric and hate is less focused. Liberals. Muslims. Blacks. Latinos. Anybody, really, who isn't white, Christian, and Republican. It's a more stochastic version of Nazi propaganda.

In Germany, one night symbolized the shift into full blown atrocity. Kristallnacht. A night of organized violence across the country. In the US today, the violence is "randomized" and slower to develop. Instead of organized mobs, it is radicalized white men, acting "on their own." "Domestic terrorists."

But they are not acting on their own, and they are not really random. They are inevitable. They are the inevitable result of FOX News and its spinoffs. The Republicans are intentionally creating a crisis, because crises are the vehicles for coup. And once Krystalnacht happens, there's no turning back.

The US already established concentration camps for brown people. But their initial coup attempt failed, and so the escalation was stopped. The ongoing coup attempt continues today.

Make no mistake. It's not just that it "could" happen here. It *WILL* happen here if this Republican Party succeeds in establishing one party rule. They might not have death camps like Auschwitz. But please don't think for a moment that they wouldn't find ways to kill millions of people.

They're so very very close. Anywhere Republicans have power, there are agents in the service of Nazis. They have to wait until there's no chance of losing the next election. They have the Supreme Court. They have over half the states. If they win enough states to call a Constitutional Convention... it's over. If they win another trifecta at the Federal Level, it's all but over.

Auschwitz is closed, but the Nazis were never fully defeated. Germany was defeated. The Nazis persevered. And they've almost won. Again.

#Auschwitz #Holocaust #Nazi #Republicans

Black cops can be racist too. That's the takeaway from that brutal murder. As with gun violence, #police #racism is a systemic issue. It cannot be solved by merely convicting murderous cops. It will happen again and again.

1) We fix the issue of police murders at the time a cop is hired, by screening out the sociopaths and racists and domestic abusers. (Up to 40% incidence of DV among cops...) There are reliable psych tests for determining the narcissistic, power-hungry personality type. Law enforcement is a *service profession* and must never be allowed to become a private power trip.

2) The workplace culture of police departments must have zero tolerance for racism and sexism. No jokes, no banter, no social media posts that glorify any of those things, or disparage any race or gender. No slurs by any police officer. Fireable offense.

3) Where malice or negligence is proven, pay wrongful death judgments out of police retirement funds. So that any settlements hit all cops in the pocketbook. That builds peer pressure for curtailing brutal behavior.

4) Go beyond a typical corporate HR department and have an active internal affairs investigation of any bullying or harassment complaints. Want a badge and a gun as a taxpayer employee? Prove you represent all citizens equally.

5) Limit police unions to collective bargaining action only. No more legal defense for corrupt cops. They can take their chances with public defenders.

6) Institute an equivalent to the Hippocratic oath for cops i.e. "first, do no harm." Make it a point of professional honor and loyalty that the job is to protect citizens, and de-escalate violence. Make it clear in the oath that mistreating any suspect is a failure, and a crime.

7) Stop producing TV shows that glorify violent / paramilitary behavior by cops, as "effective," or continuing without punishment. (Like Mayor of Kingstown, to cite one among many...)

If we don't implement sweeping police reform, the killings will continue.

#tyrenichols