On the self-image of loops

I believe Michael Shermer once made mention that people who are intelligent but wrong have a greater level of arguement to "unravel" before they can see the error of their thinking.

The practical course was to just make my best judgement change, rather than ask for suggestions. Had this gone through the "Proposed New Topics" procedure, I would have picked on the title.Your feedback on the matter is proper and welcome. OK, I'll take the change back out.But I really don't know what "On the self-image of loops" means.AdminnemooseusNote for the record: I had changed the title to "On the self-image of loops (Unskilled and Unaware of It)".This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 11-15-2004 11:51 AM

yeah, particularly I had no idea what LOOPS were. I didn't bother to check the topic until now because loops didn't strike any note with me.lfen

I agree. Popular religion much prefers the kinds of rhetorical persuassion that is used in advertising and courts of law. Science and academic reasoning is demanding in terms of time and the work to understand. Couple the difficulties of science education with the simplistic abuses of apologetic creationists and people can arrive here with a very distorted idea of how scientific and academic conclusions are arrived at.The latest from Kendemeyer is that he has found a Dr. who has demonstrated to Ken's satisfaction the Jewish dietary laws are good dietary laws, and that very well might be true. This Dr. also thinks that only God's revelation of what to eat and not to eat can account for these laws and voila, the entire Torah is thus proved inerrant by divine revelation. Ken has the truth and the proof for the truth so he goes into debates knowing in advance that he has won! So all he does it keeps citing that Dr.'s paper, claiming that he has won if you can't refute the Dr.s paper. Now in the context of this forum the problem of Ken's logical errors is well understood but this kind of argument goes on all the time in sermons, books, web sites, radio and t.v. shows and it's not always fundamentalists who are abusing this and it's not only Christians.It seems like a gap between two cultures, the scientific and religious, if anything grows larger as science increases in complexity.The thing is in Jesusland, Ken is an all star debater, his audience would be won over and applaud his brilliant irrefutable proof of the divine inerrancy of the bible, so why would he change his opinion of his arguments based on the complaints of a hand full of atheists who lack the God sense to see the bible is the inerrant word of God?JAD is not a typical cases he has a cantankerous agenda all of his own.I think those who aren't interested in science except in that it seems to be a threat to their beliefs won't learn much. On the other hand those who have chosen to in some sense study science and come from a background of creationist thinking have the motivation to examine what science is and to acquire the skills and thus have a greater openness to learning.lfenedited because that was what I was doing but clicked the wrong button when I went to preview it.This message has been edited by lfen, 11-15-2004 12:41 PM

Well, having been rated 'bottom of the barrel' by our very own demi-god, Ken de mire, I resolve to self-examine and train hard.

I took it as being a shortening of fruit loops. Otherwise I have no idea.

Yup, that's it.I'm honestly surprised that it wasn't immediately understood as such; what term would be more easily understood? I considered "eccentric", but we have eccentric posters here who aren't "loops" while "erratic" seemed to vague.

Yeah, I'd agree with your set of hypthesises. One of the problems I see with the research is that the subjects are all students at Cornell university and thus it can never really look at the truly inept - even the worst at cornell are probably better than the average burger flipper at McDonalds.

is that the posting membership (note to all you lurkers out there) seems to cover a very broad spectrum. But that means we get the extremes of the bell curve as well as the middle. In all, I think that helps raise the standards here and I firmly believe those extremes (both ends) need to contribute as long as they do not hinder conversation. It is only when such input becomes disruptive that I think there is any issue.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I understood it. I've heard such people refered to as loops many times, in fact I myself often use the term 'loopy' to refer to their way of thinking.

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Dog is my copilot.

I'm impressed. I didn't understand it at all. I thought it was some kind of understated British reference to the way hard-core creos tend toward circular reasoning, or something. Too dumb for my own good, I guess.

That's true, and I had the same thougth... but then again, I think Cornell psychology undergrads are closer to JAD and other posters here than burger-flippers. So I thought the article applied more to the OP because of it.I think sideline's thought (Message 16) also applies...And finally, I think some of the irrational ideas I talked about here (Message 76) apply. That may be why many people (not just those we're talking about) are unresponsive to criticism--they have the immediate and irrational response that, those who are not colleagues (i.e. on their side, or already in the 'trusted' membership through previous healthy discussion) and criticize them are simply doing so for non-rational (i.e. other than argumentation) reasons.Did that make any sense? Time for me to shut up, I'm confusing myself.Ben

Quetzal writes:

quote:

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I thought it was some kind of understated British reference to the way hard-core creos tend toward circular reasoning, or something.

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I dunno 'bout the British part, but I always thought it had more to do with circular reasoning than with Fruit Loops.

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Dog is my copilot.