Recent Comments

1. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   Agreed on the overuse of the word “theory” to promote bogus ideas. The “creation theory”, also known as the “theory of intelligent design”, has to redefine basic terms of science to pass itself off as science. “Trickle down economics” has been described by some as an economic theory, despite the fact that it was proven to be bogus decades before Ronald Reagan popularized it again. Conspiracy theories are a verifiable cornucopia of logical fallacies and leaps of fancy all on their own, with some of their loudest promoters always finding new ways to hype up another end of the world or massive die off of the human race, and keeping their loyal followers after consistently being proven wrong.

2. 2 days ago on Non Sequitur

   How has it been tested? By observing the evidence for it, and failing to find evidence against it. Plenty of details are out there for those who look, presented by experts, who can back their explanations with easily understood details.

3. 3 days ago on Non Sequitur

   It’s no more silly than arguing that a scientific theory is just a guess. Germ theory, economic theory, atomic theory, numbers theory, theory of general relativity, theory of special relativity, etc.

4. 11 days ago on Non Sequitur

   And here I thought it was the graves for those behind the “Dominoes” game.

5. 14 days ago on Non Sequitur

   Too much straw manning, not enough steel manning.

6. 17 days ago on Non Sequitur

   Sadly, there have been more than a few of the crazier voters backing up their extreme claims (like “all Democrats are pedophiles” or “our borders are facing an armed invasion”) with “I did my own research”. I’ve also seen a few answer the question of what their sources are, with “do your own research”.

7. 19 days ago on Non Sequitur

   You can find arguments for pretty much every opinion on the internet if you look hard enough, and too many people don’t look outside of the echo chamber. You have to go with what the majority of experts say for a given field. And the wilder the claim is, the more you need evidence for it, beyond what “many people in the groups of people I chat with on social media says…”. (To quote Carl Sagan, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)

   Similar deal with political promises. If they promise great things, but fail to ever say how they’re going to do those great things, you’re only getting a great lie. Speeches built on vagaries are only given by those who don’t have your best interests at heart.

   With the upcoming US federal election, both candidates have four years as president to show their worth. In one case, you didn’t get that wall, Mexico didn’t pay for it, you didn’t get infrastructure projects, you didn’t get a better and cheaper healthcare system, the stock market and employment numbers were worse than with the alternative (even before COVID hit), less was done with protecting the national border, international relations were worse, and so forth. The truth is what the facts are, and biased ignorant opinions aren’t part of that.

8. 26 days ago on Non Sequitur

   All to often with the higher offices, if you’re not dishonourable when you started, you’re dishonourable by the time you’re finished there. In light of that, I can think of worse things to say in a eulogy than to refer to someone as being honourable.

9. 29 days ago on Non Sequitur

   Some fundamentalists are promoting the belief that dinosaurs lived until the 18th century, with one even claiming that Confederate soldiers shot down a pterodactyl during one of their battles. The Creation Museum in Kentucky has pictures of Jesus riding a raptor as one of the items which their store sells, with a prop of a saddled stegosaurus for the kids to get their pictures taken. Some even promote the belief that dinosaurs spent centuries working as beasts of burden, pulling plows and wagons.

   How do they explain dinosaurs fitting on the ark? Their argument is that the dinosaurs were brought on pre-hatched. No explanation on how Noah and his family were able to differentiate which eggs had baby male dinosaurs and which eggs had baby female dinosaurs. Considering their belief that science mirrors ‘The Flintstones’ more than science though, perhaps they figured that the boy dinosaurs were in blue eggs, and the girl dinosaurs were in pink eggs.

10. 30 days ago on Non Sequitur

    It would explain why North Pole polar bears, South Pole penguins, Australian kangaroos, African elephants, and Chinese pandas all happened to end up in Mesopotamia.