Dan Satterfield at AGU (whom I hadn’t read before: thanks Greg Laden) connects the epistemology of the Tea Party (or rather of Tea Partiers) with the Dunning-Kruger effect and authoritarian thinking.

Ed Maibach and Anthony Leiserowitz at GMU, and the Yale Center for Climate Change Communication have released a fascinating study of the opinions of different political party members on climate change. This is all the more fascinating because it defines the Tea Party as a separate group and asks some interesting questions about climate science. Take a look at the highlights from the survey below and see if you notice what stood out glaringly to me.

Yup; it jumped right out.

Tea Party members are much more likely to say that they are “very well informed” about global warming than the other groups. Likewise, they are also much more likely to say they “do not need any more information” about global warming to make up their mind.

Classic illustration of not knowing enough to realize you don’t know enough, in short, Dunning-Kruger.

According to Psychologist Bob Altemeyer this is classic authoritarian behavior…

When it comes to issues surrounding their world view, authoritarians show almost no critical thinking skills. You could say these people have a much stronger force field around their idea of reality than other people do and It’s nearly shatter proof. Authoritarians can easily dismiss and minimize the overwhelming evidence on climate and replace it with global conspiracy theories, involving thousands of researchers, that to most people are obviously downright silly…

The media is often frustrated by scientists who are reluctant to plainly state an opinion or make a concrete prediction about something. They are always qualifying their answers and for a reporter looking for a good solid sound bite, this can be maddening and puzzling. i.e. if the expert doesn’t know, who does! The Dunning-Kruger effect explains this as well, and in their original paper Dunning and Kruger ( you expected someone else??) quoted Thomas Jefferson in explaining it:

Thomas Jefferson once said, “he who knows best, knows how little he knows.”

It’s true – that’s one of the things you learn when you learn about anything – how little you know about it. You learn this because you find out how much other people know and how much there is to know.

It’s too bad so many people don’t know this.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Skepticlawyer has a great post with great comments on manners and geekdom and victim status as all-purpose excuse for off-the-charts rudeness.

There are various manifestations of these atrocious manners, but they seem (to me, at least) to boil down to an inability, on the part of certain men, to take ‘no’ for an answer. I think this is tied to participation in various ‘geek’ subcultures (both on-line and off-line, so while it may be convenient to blame the internet, blaming the internet is unfair). Participation in these varied subcultures is seen to give people something of a pass for rudeness. The justification proffered is that participation in the subculture resulted in bullying when the man in question was young, conferring victim status on him as an adult. And, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere on this blog, wrapping oneself in victimhood is often a way to avoid having to take personal responsibility–for anything.

Read the rest.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There’s a little chat I did with Jonathon Narvey of The Propagandist last week. If you listen to it I recommend skipping at least the first three minutes, because before that I keep sounding as if I’m translating from the Jupiterian.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Via Classical Cipher in a comment, via Rebecca Watson at Facebook, via who knows what – marriage the old-fashioned way.

Let’s discuss this.

Marriage is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church – so what is that then? What is the relationship between Christ and the Church? Does Christ have long interesting conversations with the Church, or does he just grunt now and then? Does Christ spend all his time with the Church or does he go out to work and leave the Church at home? Does Christ go to parties with the Church?

What exactly is that relationship, and how does the loon who wrote this stupid letter know what it is? How does anyone? What does that formula mean? What does it mean that can translate into a relationship between two (non-dead) humans? Is it just a fancy way of saying I am the boss of her the way Jesus is the boss of the Church? But even then…does Jesus tell the Church what to do every day/hour/minute? Did the loon who wrote this letter just give his wife a pamphlet of cryptic sayings and then disappear? In what way can these two people’s marriage be “a picture” of the relationship between Christ and the Church? I want to know.

And then husbands are to love their wives the way Christ loves the Church. Same problem. What way is that then? Husbands are to love their wives the way a guy who’s been dead for two thousand years loves an institution?

The part about the man asking the woman’s father for her as if she were an inflatable doll is too obviously disgusting to bother pointing out.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There are new entries in the dialogue with William Hamby. I don’t know if subscribers get notified every time I update…in a way I hope not, since I don’t want people getting notified every time I fix a typo or berserker line-breaks, so in case you don’t, here is notification.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Out of the closet at last.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

PZ wants help finding the right adjective for the title of his book…but I don’t think it can be done. I think The _______ Atheist is a boring title no matter what ________ turns out to be. I think this because I tried to think of something interesting and then I read other people’s attempts and there’s just no spark, no matter what. This tells me that the formula is a dud – at least, it’s a dud if they (the publishers) want a buyer-thrilling title, which of course they do.

The Something Atheist. I just don’t think there’s a word that can make that sound exciting.

Unless they go absurdist or something. The Ruritanian Atheist. The Pioneer Atheist.

Think of something. Something not boring.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

More from “how to be a really high-quality doormat for God.”

This past week the local Preparing class invited two older mothers to share their experiences in marriage. It was quite sobering, and some of the girls came away from class unnerved by the burdens of marriage. What the mothers wanted to convey to the girls was, “Learn now while you are young to honor your husbands. Learn patience to continue in your role as a Help Meet, and commit yourself to God now while you are young so you can avoid some of our trials and errors as we struggle to find our way.”

Great. The girls were “unnerved” by the prospect of lifelong slavery, and what “the mothers” want to convey to them was “learn now while you are young how to be a good obedient self-denying self-immolating slave to another human being who gets to be the boss of you because he has testicles.” Learn that you don’t matter; learn that your dreams and hopes and plans are just fluff inside your head; learn that you are never going to have a full life of your own, but only a share of someone else’s; learn that you have no rights, no authority, no power, no autonomy; learn that you have to put up with whatever is handed to you. Learn what it is to be an inferior.

Today’s culture, our own selfishness, and our lack of knowing God’s Word all play a part in making marriages miserable. What you learn as a young unmarried woman can change your life more completely than you can imagine. If you are wise you will learn to become a many colored girl. Don’t say to yourself, “I am a go-to girl and not a servant.” Rather say, “I am learning to be anything I need to be. I want to be a servant, I need to learn to lead and teach, and I will learn to be creative because my husband may need me to be all of these.” Practice being flexible in your likes and dislikes, how you feel about things, and what you hope to accomplish. Start striving to shape your life to help others, and hide God’s Words in your heart concerning becoming a wife. Lastly, make a written commitment to honor the man God provides for you.

What an absolute horror that is. Practice being flexible in your likes and dislikes, how you feel about things, and what you hope to accomplish - in other words just forget all about wanting anything, feeling about anything, and hoping anything; just prepare to do what you’re told for the rest of your sad diminished life.

That is such an outrageous thing to tell anyone. This terrible woman is telling all the women she can reach to obliterate themselves in this way. It’s evil. It’s not just mistaken, deluded, unfortunate – it’s a moral outrage.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

In case you’ve missed it – I posted an article at Other B&W by the author of the Love, Joy, Feminism blog. It’s a must-read. She tells us what it’s like to grow up in the Patriarchal/Quiverfull world, and what it’s all about, and what it took away from her.

A wife and mother was all I wanted to be, because any dream of anything else was nipped in the bud before it ever took root. I truly believed that this was what God wanted of me, and that serving my family and raising my siblings was serving God. And I gloried in it.

That’s one of those philosophy thought experiments it’s interesting to puzzle over – if you think you’re happy, does it make any sense to say you’re wrong? If we could know that all Quiverfull children are blissfully happy, should we just leave them to it?

… by homeschooling us my parents could completely control what we learned. I studied from creationist textbooks and learned history from a curriculum that taught “His Story,”beginning with creation, Noah and the flood, and Abraham and his covenant with god, showing the hand of God moving through the six thousand years of the earth’s history. I never had anyone tell me to dream big, or to think outside the home, or that with my talent and intellect I could have a brilliant career. Everyone around me believed the way my parents did, including all of my friends, who, after all, were without exception children of my parents’ friends. They encouraged me in my steadfastness of belief and held me up as a paragon of virtue. Why would I desire anything else?

Well?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)