Phi for All

Can you please tell us why your "reasoning" led you to prefer Trump politically? This is the part that has always been indefensible. He's not a good businessman, he has the slimiest of reputations there as well. He denounces "the system" that has made him wealthy, and expects his base to believe he wants that to change, because he's looking out for them. Are you thinking he's clever because he's been pulling the wool over YOUR eyes pretty good? He barely understands politics, and it's clear he has little interest in learning. He claims he will help the working class, but his tax plan gives benefits only to the wealthy and actually burdens the middle and poorer classes with higher taxes (like they're the ones who haven't been paying their fair share). Unless you're a fellow billionaire, how on Earth can you believe the man represents you with his plan? He has been condemned by many world leaders that we've enjoyed great relationships with, and praised by some of the worst despots and strongmen dictators. I can't think of anything he's even remotely right about that he has a viable solution for. He opposes trade agreements, but would replace them with some kind of malleable, whatever-Donald-says-goes sort of yuge-deal-that-he-can-change-whenever-he-feels-like-it negotiations. His plans to encourage jobs and keep our borders safe are ridiculous, but appeal to his base's sense of vengeance and face-spiting. They'll help him push the plunger because it's better for us all to die than for a brown person or a goddamn woman to beat a white man at anything. Crime was at record lows until he started campaigning. He starts preaching hate, crime goes up some, and he points to that and says he's the one who can fix it. He's so transparently manipulative. It's chilling that white supremacy extremists have been given such a dramatic voice, and one that consumes so much undeserved attention and exposure. His policies mirror those of David Duke. Why is that acceptable to so many Republicans? Can you really just gold-plate a turd like the KKK platform and put the word "Trump" on it? So please, I'm VERY interested in knowing what your strictly political reasons are for voting for Donald Trump.

I think it's fairly common to want to chime in on things you may not be an expert in (everyone has an opinion), but the folks that the Dunning-Kruger study unearthed are usually pretty adamant about their expertise. On the level of "Call the President of Physics, I've discovered the Theory of Everything while showering this morning!" They don't just postulate, they want to lay the idea out in broad strokes, let the math geeks work out the deets, and start cashing those checks. The arrogance is sometimes staggering.

I think it's poor critical thinking skills all round. They leap from one bit of information to another with no bridges between, using a pencil color only they can see to connect the dots. I don't think it really makes sense to them either; most glide over and ignore the troublesome parts ("...and then a miracle happens..."), and this often makes it seem like they're on a path to the truth. In general, I think it's related to the phenomenon where popular science ropes in someone who shunned regular science in school, and they think to themselves "Hey, I sorta get this stuff, this isn't as bad as I remember", or "Wow, I wish my science teachers would have just put videos like THIS on every day!" But without the foundational information they missed in school, it's like trying to figure out what picture the jigsaw puzzle will make when you don't have the box and 75% of the pieces are missing.

Perhaps not chemically different, but isn't blood a bit cooler than surrounding tissue? Perhaps a chemical that changes color when heat differences are detected? Since paramedics often start IVs on a patient, it would be optimum if they all had a phlebotomist's touch. Anything that simplifies and strengthens the efficacy of the procedures in those situations deserves a thoughtful look.

How do you mean "more than animals"? Even if you're only talking about factors relating to intelligence, some other animals outstrip humans. Chimps may have a better memory for patterns in strategy games than we do. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chimps-outplay-humans-in-brain-games1/

Are you willing to discuss your idea here? If not, you should look somewhere else. We're a science discussion forum.

! Moderator Note Our rules, the ones you agreed to when you joined, apply to everyone. Please follow them. Your idea is right here, waiting for you to support it with evidence. This is what you need to do, explain and support. What you've been doing is worthless posturing and bragging. There is hard work ahead, please start now. You may have made the mistake of equating expertise in one field with the ability to excel in an unrelated one. Your use of the term "logic" is incorrect in a science context, for instance.

! Moderator Note I'm not sure what you're on about. This is your original thread. Please keep all posts regarding this topic in the same thread, to make it easier to read. So far, you have created three threads; one in which you lay out your idea (minus evidence to support it), one in which you ask why nobody responded to your first thread (they did) which was closed, and a third one asking for your second thread to be opened, which I've merged here into your first thread. You've already opened a thread, and members are posting in that thread. Please keep your discussion of this subject confined to THIS thread only. Thank you, and if you have any objections, use the Report Post feature rather than discussing them here.

I don't understand how he gets away with the passive-aggressive, manipulative use of "...but that's OK!" after he lie/whines about something somebody did. Sitcom writers have been using that schtick to point out manipulation in teenagers, mother-in-laws, and conniving bosses for decades. How is it Trump's base doesn't see it? "Hillary has been, I've had lots of people tell me, Hillary is colluding with Martians, rapist immigrant Martians crossing the asteroid belt to form illegal trade partnerships to take our jobs. But that's OK...."

You may be looking at evolution like a scale, from "least evolved" to "most evolved", but it really doesn't work that way. Evolution as a process is working equally on all animals and plants as an adaptive mechanism, so it produces results dependent on species and environment. I think what you're looking for is a matter of the intelligence the mechanism has selected for humans. Other animals, no matter how clever, seem like "dumb" animals compared to us, due to the things we've achieved by using our minds. It's natural to want to put ourselves on a bit of a pedestal, but in the context of classification, we're animals. We're smart animals that have a very productive combination of highly-refined traits (cooperation, tool-use, communication) which work to increase our intelligence (when we allow it).

I also am not Clinton's biggest fan, but when you think about all the insinuation and baseless badgering that's been done to make her look bad, all the taxpayer money that's been spent investigating her over and over and over again for the same offenses, all the effort put into hobbling anything she's involved in, it's a travesty that needs to stop. She gets accused because people are convinced she's guilty, then she's exonerated by the system, but those original people refuse the verdicts. It's un-American, it's divisive, and it's immoral, and it's all perpetuated by the folks who preach about America, making us great, and morality. I read about these witch hunts and I get the same taste in my mouth as when I hear creationists repeating their misinformed, oft-refuted, deplorable lies in hopes of catching more people who don't check facts. Somehow, we HAVE to stop this War on Intelligence.

Focus on supporting this assertion. This was not my understanding. The exam wasn't approved, it never happened, so how would the judge allow evidence to be presented from it?

It was this guy, and I had him dealt with. You're welcome.

From the Washington Post link in your OP:

It was my understanding that Shelton didn't know about the request for a psych evaluation until a reporter showed her 9 years ago. Then she developed a memory about being put through a grueling psych test. But now it turns out that, although Hillary requested the evaluation, the judge in the case denied it. How is it Shelton remembers an evaluation that never took place? Lies? Bribery? Dirty tricks? Or did I misread something?

A theory is more powerful than a proof, imo. A theory has the ability to improve when better information is obtained. A proof means the answer will always be the exact same. What happens when you've been looking for something, and you find it and think "This is exactly what I was looking for"? YOU STOP LOOKING. In science, we don't EVER want to stop looking, so we don't look to prove an idea, we look instead at showing that it isn't false. Does that make sense? There's a big difference between saying "I think this answer is true" and saying "We've tested this is many ways, and have never found it to be false". I sort of see it the way a sculptor would, removing the stone that isn't part of the sculpture (all the false parts), and what's left is the creation you want (the theory). "Truth" and "answers" are too subjective, and science needs objectivity in order to be trustworthy.

I think we're being played by another deplorable tactic, the bait-and-switch. In personal life, it goes like this, you move out into an apartment with friends, and because you're deplorable, you spend your rent money on beer. You know you can't approach your parents for more money for beer, but they don't want you moving back in, so you say you need it for rent. They pay it out and hopefully you can do that every few months without them getting wise to your tactic. So our infrastructure money gets spent on subsidizing oil and coal and sugar, until our bridges start killing people, then we pay tons extra to fix them because it's an emergency now. The corporate interests get to party on the public dime while they paint pictures of welfare recipients partying on the public dime. It's the same deplorable, accuse-the-other-guy-of-what-you're-doing-first, tactics that we as gullible People/parents keep falling for over and over.

! Moderator Note Please take your own advice here. This is NOT the Philosophy section. You have several threads open there to explore those questions. Responding to this note here would be off-topic, but you can Report This Post if you object.

In parts of Missouri, if you ask how someone is feeling, then send them 5 kisses, it's a marriage proposal. This is followed by 30 days of no-contact, a week of fasting and flagellation, and finally the year-long honeymoon. You people are crazy.

I certainly have earned my money through capitalism. My objection is that the US spends far more than comparable countries for their social systems because of our insistence that we allow inordinate profits for those building our highways and other infrastructure, or our healthcare providers. Our deplorables bitch about government cheese distribution or needle exchange programs while private contractors overcharge for government contracts in the billions of dollars every year. And we're forced to use private contractors to make it look like we're keeping government payroll down, when in reality we spend billions more by doing it that way. And everyone knows about the US overpaying for healthcare. Why do we allow it? I think capitalism is great. I like socialism and communism too when it makes sense for the People or the state to own something. I think it's deplorable that we've forgotten what it means to own the roads, the seaports, the parks, the airports, the highways, the federal lands. We've forgotten how much power is in our hands already, and we've forgotten the responsibility. I think it's deplorable that "business as usual" is forgiven just as quickly as casual assault on women, or that mega-corporations who provide jobs are excused from caring about pollution, or paying taxes, or otherwise benefitting the country that gives them charter. I don't think all capitalism creates greed, but I do think when you've chosen a socialistic or communistic approach to a program or problem, and you allow it to have elements of profit that run contrary to what your program is trying to accomplish, the result is going to be some deplorable abusing the system for greedy purposes.

We pursue capitalist interests where it doesn't make sense. It's like we're practicing extremist capitalism when we feel we have to make a profit from school lunch systems and welfare medications. And when you place money and power above people in those situations, you get ugly, deplorable practices that make a few rich at the general expense.

Why are we shocked by the number of deplorables out there? We set out to educate our children in the US as an investment using public funds, and then we allow so much capitalism into the system trying to profit from it, and lobbyists pressuring for more privatized choices, and so much that is NOT good education directed in a productive manner gets piled onto our children. Many pick their way through the system successfully with help or without, and many more end up with less education than they need for modern survival. And far too many become deplorable examples of citizens, people who prey on other members of society rather than doing what they can to help. And of those, the poorest go to prison while the richest become media executives, real estate moguls, and politicians. I harp on this a lot, but I'm getting really sick of having our social powers diluted by capital greed. It's deplorable how stupid we're being with our efforts and resources. Is this the inevitable outcome of allowing corporations to control the media AND the businesses the media informs us about? I think, between a lack of education and constant media manipulation, much of the US at least has fallen to deplorable attitudes and behaviors, and respect for human lives fails to extend beyond a very limited circle.

! Moderator Note Please give a better direction for discussion. Do you have a question?

Like the belief systems that need to caricaturize science as being riddled with errors, hidebound, and resistant to change?

Please, criticism is inappropriate and divisive at this point.