Okay, so I don’t believe in ghosts, hell, gods, angels, creation myths, astrology or Santa Claus. But there is enough evidence to be strongly skeptical of Obama’s birthplace. Sorry if I don’t swallow hook, line and sinker, the “official” story in the face of the evidence to the contrary. I’m just not a gullible person by nature. I simply don’t possess the credulity necessary to jump on the “Obama was born in Hawaii, now stop asking questions” bandwagon.

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The Rant, that’s the problem with the insanity called ‘conspiracy theories’. No amount of evidence can convince you that you are simply wrong.
Quite simply, if the right wing the USA can’t keep a foreign national from violating federal law, then there must not actually be a crime committed.

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Enjoyed the article. TheRant, there is enough evidence to assume that anyone who questions Obama’s birthplace either watches too much Glenn Beck or thinks Hawaii is burrito at Taco Bell.

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Interesting article. 

Education, critical thinking… yes.  Too obviously it’s the simple solution to dumb acceptance of any and all outre statements/ideas.

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http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html birth certificates are widely accepted as sufficient evidence of birth. Also who gives a crap where he was born. Don’t be such a piece of stupid.

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I’d definitely agree that the technique of double blind experimentation should be taught in primary science classes. But I doubt it would do much good by itself.

If I could get my hands on the reins of public primary education, the two major changes I would make are:

1) Comparative Religion as a social studies course for one semester in high school. No matter what religion a teenager is (or isn’t), he/she should be aware of the basics of all major religions to be a good global citizen.

2) Much more emphasis on Statistics in math. I’m an engineer, and I still hardly ever use calculus. But I use statistics every single day. I find it shocking how little grasp most Americans have of basic statistics.

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Grimwyrd, second number two big time!!!!!!  I think calc is useful for making statistics actually interesting and make sense though.  Also much more emphasis on math in general.  The thing that really pisses me off about people is when they act like quantitative thinking is a luxury.

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The emphasis on double blind experiments, coupled with a widespread misunderstanding of what failure to reject a null hypothesis actually means, is one of the worst memes running around.

It rather annoys me that doctors and journalists continually equate “a particular study failed to reject the null hypothesis with p=0.95” with “the particular study showed there was no effect”, or “there is no placebo controlled double blinded study which successfully rejects the null hypothesis”, with “there is no evidence to support the hypothesis”.

Most of the evidence we have in life does not come in double blinded placebo controlled trials which reject a null hypothesis to a high p value. Throwing out all that other evidence, and refusing to make decisions based on it, is crippling yourself intellectually.

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TheRant:

Proving location of birth is nearly impossible with a certificate because anyone can claim that they think it is fake.  No matter what paper anyone shows you, you can still doubt it.

However, we have as much evidence for Obama’s birth as anyone is ever expected to give.  His family history also supports the location of birth.

If you are going to propose that he was born a few days earlier than the hospital says, then the burden of proof is on you.

Also, your unproven belief only supposes a technical violation.  The “natural born” clause is there to prevent foreign nationalists from taking over the US in order to serve another country.  Obama grew from infancy to adulthood in the US, even if the unproven “birther” claims were true.  So you are arguing, without evidence, for a technical crime.

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STUART CHASE said…for those who believe, no proof is necessary…for those who don’t believe, no proof is enough.  With what evidence has been presented, couldn’t it be safely assumed that the DNC would have thought of that and given that the smell test themselves.  His mother is an American citizen, so if she left the country while pregnant (on vacation) and had him…he wouldn’t be considered born in America even though he was legally born to an American on a 10 day visa to a country?  MUTE anyway.  He was born in Hawaii and there is proof.  There is so much anger on the other side of the aisle that it clouds judgement.  Emotion is the enemy of rational thinking…

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I blaim lawyers. I once served an excruciatingly long jury tenure in San Francisco. The guy was obviously guilty. He even admitted to the actions on the stand. However, the jury was hung.

One of the three police officers who testified was a newbie and gave word-for-word descriptions of what he “saw” that were identical to his senior partner’s account. When pressed, he became very flustered and nervous…obviously he had been coached to back his partner’s story and was not telling the truth.

That was all the defending lawyer needed to drive a wedge into the jury. If this cop was obviously lying, how can you trust the other two? There were jury members who decided they would not convict the accused, because “a message needed to be sent to the police”. Jury nullification.

That concept of “reasonable doubt” has become a staple of American discourse. They don’t need to prove Obama isn’t a citizen, it’s not even their goal, they just need to raise doubt.

Here are more untruths that raise doubt and fear:
“Health care reform = the government taking over health care”
“Allowing gay marriage = government forcing your church to perform gay marriages”

These don’t have to be true, they just need to spread fear and doubt.

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The solution is simple .  People have to apply the BASIC scientific METHODOLOGY to almost every decision made in life .  It seems arduous but it is actually quite easy . 

You start with either an observation that you want to explain or with a theory you want to prove. 

•  Characterizations (observations,definitions, and measurements of the subject of inquiry)
•  Hypotheses (theoretical, hypothetical explanations of observations and measurements of the subject)
•  Predictions (reasoning including logical deduction from the hypothesis or theory)
•  Experiments (tests of all of the above)

by applying these principles , even if its just trying , they will help you make better and more informed decisions .

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i’m with him ^

@grimwyrd   Its blame btw   not blaim

http://www.dumbtionary.com/word/blaim.shtml

and @buybuydandavis

” Most of the evidence we have in life does not come in double blinded placebo controlled trials which reject a null hypothesis to a high p value. Throwing out all that other evidence, and refusing to make decisions based on it, is crippling yourself intellectually. ”

so where does the evidence come from then ?  , if not from various observations and experiments

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@ theeqs - It’s “It’s” btw   not “Its”

As in: “I thank you for your generous concern regarding my English skills and for your righteous need to correct them, but it’s simply a typo.”

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Grimwyrd,

RE: #2

Would you also teach comparative fairy tales and myths and other beliefs based on superstition and unverifiable assertion?  I’d say a day or two is enough to expand the world consciousness of a student with the basics of “all major religions”.  Beyond that using the classroom to disseminate the details of these made up mythologies would be a waste of taxpayer money.  I’d rather see a course in reason, skepticism, fact checking, and scientific method to lift the extremely low average of what passes for common sense these days.

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Jackanapes,

In theory, I agree 100% with you. But I don’t think teaching reason, skepticism, fact checking, and scientific method is enough.

The reason I’d teach comparative religion in high school is two-fold. First, it’s harder to hate/fear someone when you understand them and their beliefs. A day or two, is not sufficient to understand “why” different faiths have different worldviews.

Second, being presented with the history and beliefs of other human beings forces you to examine your own faith. That’s the key. Humans are perfectly capable of compartmentalizing reason and faith. There are scientists with extremely well-developed skills in reason, skepticism, scientific method who still shrug and say “my religion is all about faith, not reason”.

In an ideal world, I’d like to see religion fade from all consideration…just like fairy tales and myths. But we’re not in that world yet.

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Actually, Grimwyrd, this
“The reason I’d teach comparative religion in high school is two-fold. First, it’s harder to hate/fear someone when you understand them and their beliefs. A day or two, is not sufficient to understand “why” different faiths have different worldviews.”
isn’t necessarily the case. It could become progressively easier to hate/fear someone the better you understand their beliefs, depending on what those beliefs are. There are some people that believe some pretty scary stuff. When Krishna tells Arjuna “Do not yield to unmanliness, O son of Partha. It does not become you. Shake off this base faint-heartnedness and arise, O scorcher of enemies!”  because he is wondering whether or not it’s right to go to war and kill his own kinsmen, this is a bit of ‘revealed wisdom’ that can easily generate some pretty scary ideas. The primary country in which this religion is practiced has nuclear weapons. Understanding the idea of martyrdom will not ease a student’s anxieties about Pakistan one little bit, since they also with nuclear weapons. Knowledge of scary ideas coupled with scary technology, while necessary, will not exactly set people’s minds at ease when considering the people possessing those scary ideas and scary technology. It would be a far more worthwhile project to try to reduce, and eventually eradicate, the scary, irrational ideas.

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True Veronica, it isn’t necessarily correct to postulate that more understanding of the religion of others will always reduce fear and hatred and breed understanding.

You’ve seen through my insidious secular plot, which is really that if kids are taught about all religions…they’ll see how stupid and contradictory they all are and choose reason.

That being said, I think a comparative religion class is a better way for teenagers to hear about secular humanism and atheism than from their religious parents.

For instance, if not for an impartial class on the major world religions, how will a Christian teenager learn about the ~1 billion Hindus in the world and what they believe? From their Christian parents?

American children are usually completely clueless about any religion that they are not actively brought up in. Or worse, they are fed serious misinformation. And religion (or lack thereof) is one of the central aspects of how many people live their lives. Whether you believe it or not, it’s good to know something about the world’s major religions.

I still think it’s easier to fear and hate any group that you have no knowledge about, whether that group is a different race, different sexual preference, or different religion.

I still think that the more kids know about the world’s major religions, the more they will examine their own beliefs and start asking questions. And as a skeptic…getting kids thinking about religion and asking questions about religion is a great first step in my mind.

Besides, it would be funny to watch parents’ head spin in a circle when I say, “OK, I’ll teach Creationism to your Christian kids…but that means I’m also teaching them about Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Nonbelievers.”

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@grimwyrd

dude chill, lol i was not attacking your English ( I’m french btw even if that is no excuse for grammar mistakes but can justify my weird syntax ) 

BLAIM cannot be a typo .... it is not even a word…check the dictionary. The correct spelling is blame ( ex :  i blame the republicans for killing the US economy ) .

anyway , your argument is OK for a first step towards a more critical , systematical and methodical way of thinking even tho i would prefer to teach scientific reasoning because it ends up being more practical in eliminating every supernatural & unreal claims that we stumble uppon in our everyday life. 

Also, it is a lot more interesting, fun and more importantly ,a LOT   less crual .

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@theeqs - Sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as defensive.

I was just teasing you, because I found it funny and ironic that someone was critiquing my spelling using misspelled words.

Again, I thank you for your concern, but I know exactly how to spell “blame”. I just can’t type very well. My brain thinks one thing and my fingers do something else, which is why I call it a typo.

It’s like the auto-complete function on my darn cell phone. I start texting a word and it just finishes it for me, even if it’s not the word I want. Sometimes I start typing a word, and my fingers just auto-complete it, because my mind has already moved on to the next word (like claim and maim, my fingers were just going through the typing motions).

But I’m not mad, and I won’t tease you anymore. That would be “cruel”. 

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anyway , back to the subject ^^ he has a point tho

teaching religion indirectly spreads, or at least highlights , discrimination and racism which most of the time is the basis of the religion itself. 

Especially since some beliefs have a tendency to be more attractive than others .  For example Islam undeniably was created to exploit and profit on the male genetic impulses ( power over women, violence over rationality ,  the fact that they cannot lose a serious argument against their wives . The desire for multiple partners ...)

We know that these are male genetic impulse because these problems mentioned above do happen in western civilizations but are frowned upon .  It just turns out the guy who wrote the first version of fhe koran knew what men like deep in their primitve ancestral brain.

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http://www.pnas.org/content/107/suppl.2/8924.full

here’s the link to an article about genetic impulses but this one is about how our brain & body reacts to certain food exposures .

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I don’t think religion of any sought should be taught in schools, even if one thinks the end result would help convert the deists/theists to atheism. Manipulation of the education of children to achieve a desired outcome is what helped to create a bunch of deists/theists in the first place. I think it would be great to teach kids ethics, and scientific reasoning. I think they should be taught seperately and that within the scientific reasoning course they should use the morals being espoused in the ethics course as one of hypothesis for testing. In this way our kids will never have their minds kidnapped by anyone ever again.

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more science classes i think should fix the problem of people believing in the pseudo-sciences or supernatural claims

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