9 thoughts on “Neil Tyson’s “Rationalia””

  1. Credentialed by itself is pretty straight forward (although it is just an authority reference which can be corrupt.) Credentialed scientist just means some authority claims you to be a member of that set.

    It doesn’t change the fact of doing science or not.

  2. The problem with credentials is the credentialing bodying being captured by the corrupt or incompetent. And the incentive for corruption in turning the credential into a protectionist market is strong.

  3. It is amazing the number people who imagine themselves to be scientifically literate and yet think that a system of knowledge based on reproducible experiment somehow involves a credentialing process.

  4. Did you mean to link the article with which you agreed, rather than only your several-years-old PJ media article?

  6. The striking thing about such “progressive” sentiments is how thoroughly adolescent they are, how naive, ingenuous, jejune, and simplistic. This is an entire sub-population permanently locked in a state of arrested development.

    I remember the days when I knew everything, had all the answers for the world’s ills, and looked down disdainfully upon those who just didn’t “get it”. Good times, for as long as the illusion lasted. Reality has a tendency to puncture the balloon sooner or later. For some, the balloon never bursts.

    These privileged souls live out their lives without encountering any sharp needles. Or, if they do, others blunted the tips for them. And so, your trust fund babies, your Hollywood stars who got lucky breaks that vaulted them painlessly to the stratosphere, and your moguls who caught the wave of a life-changing new technology… they all figure that, just as their rise was easy, so was the rise of every other person at their level.

    It follows that, if everyone is given the same lucky breaks, everyone can be beautiful like they are. There is no ugly reality, no limits on resources or production. There is only a fairy land of unicorns and pixie dust, obviously being denied the common folk by a league of subhumans who lack imagination.

    We desperately need interstellar travel so we can load these dimwits on the B Ark and have done with them.

    1. I just finished reading Chennault’s memoire “Way of Fighter.” Chennault was a war hero of Flying Tigers fame, but this book published in 1949 weighs in on “Who lost China (to the Communists)?” “Who lost China?” provokes the same response as Alger Hiss and Sacco and Vanzetti in certain circles.

      Evidence of this is in how Wikipedia articles are written and edited. One of Chennault’s complaints is that no one ever notified him in advance about the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, and as a result, most of the raiders who landed in China crashed, with many crews taken prisoner by the occupying Japanese. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Lee_Chennault, “but (Chennault) was never able to demonstrate how telling him could have helped. He was not even an American officer at the time.” This assertion, in best Wikipedia fashion, is backed by Reference [26], linked from http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33019.

      How was Chennault supposed to have helped? This is explained in Reference [26] of the very same Wikipedia article, which in turn quotes Chennault’s 1949 book. The Chinese had used their vast manpower advantage over the occupying Japanese to build for use by Chennault’s American flyers paved runways all over China. This was done “in case we would ever be able to turn back the Japanese and hence need these airfields.” The Chinese also maintained an extensive observer and radio network feeding Chennault’s pilots advanced warning of Japanese raids. The Japanese spent the war “playing wack-a-mole” with Chennault’s forces, who either attacked the Japanese planes in the air when it was advantageous or flew away to an alternative airbase when it was not — this was war fought Sun Tzu-style.

      Chennault would have recovered the Doolittle Raiders with the same radio net and using the same airfields and using the same Chinese on-the-ground-to-sneak-the-pilots out as he used for his Flying Tigers. How was the US Military supposed to contact Chennault, who I guess was still an expatriate mercenary personally reporting to Madame Chang at the time? The same way they always did when they were “engaged in negotiations” with him and Generalissimo Chang that he and his Flying Tigers were to be “inducted” into the Regular Army for much of early 1942. That Chennault was not in regular contact with every Army officer in the Chinese theatre is stupid talk.

      Of course Chennault’s book is going to present his side of the story. But there is nothing, nothing in the Wikipedia article apart from self-confident snark (remind you of anybody?) to counter Chennault’s assertions.

  7. My guess is that the national pastime of Rationalalia is rationalization. It’s a fun game that anyone can play. For instance, I’m sure with a little time (and a sixpack of Sam Adams) I could think of a perfectly rational reason why I should be in charge and the rest of you should just STFU. The reason would make perfect sense to me, yet have no relationship to reality. Facts have a way of being interpreted in favor of the person doing the interpretation.

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