Musings of an Aspie

Vote

autofire372 — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:27:14 +0000

The election is tomorrow, so I’m gonna break my nearly four-month-long silence and tell everyone to get out and VOTE.

(Obama ’08)

(Palin is an idiot)

On Zutara and Creationism

autofire372 — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:15:17 +0000

I’m a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as being a staunchly anti-pseudoscience. So when these two interests collided in an unexpected way, my curiosity was piqued.

For those not in the know, I will define a few terms first:

Ship: slang for relationship

Canon: the actual storyline of a, well…story

Quote mining: taking a quote out of context so that it supports your position

Kataang: a term for the canon romantic relationship between Avatar characters Aang and Katara

Zutara: a term for an alledged romantic relationship between Avatar characters Zuko and Katara

Zutarian: anyone who supports Zutara

Canon!Zutarian: anyone who believes that Zutara is the actual canon ship of Avatar

Now then…

I have found that canon!Zutarians bear a disturbing resemblance to creationists. For example, they both refuse to acknowledge any other possibilities, stubbornly clinging to their causes in the face of all contrary facts.

Both sides are also guilty of quote mining. Creationists, as I’m sure many of my fellow skeptics know, commonly rip quotes from various evolutionary scientists out of context and claim that the mined quotes are proof that even evolutionary scientists doubt their own theory. In a similar vein, canon!Zutarians will often present scenes from Avatar out of context in a way that makes them seem to support canon!Zutara.

They also fall victim to the fallacy of starting with a conclusion, then looking for evidence to support it.

Additionally, they also have a nasty tendency to overanalyze things.

Thoughts?

Scary:Part II

autofire372 — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:43:16 +0000

You know how, in my earlier post, I said I had never seen someone who advocated censoring evolution in favor of creationism before?

Well, I just realized—yes, I have.

Then again, Will Bryan has been dead for 83 years, so that is pretty telling…

A question for so-called “pro-family” people

autofire372 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:27:06 +0000

This post is gonna be a short one. It’s just a question meant for all those so-called “pro-family” people out there:

Why is it that being anti-gay means you’re “pro-family”? Hate to break it to you, but “gay”/”homosexual” is not the opposite of “family”.

Feel free to offer your opinions in the comments, of course.

Conservapedia and Logical Fallacies

autofire372 — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:42:12 +0000

I’ve decided to compile a list of the most obvious logical fallacies commited by Conservapedia.

So, without further ado…

Fallacy #1: Argumentum ad hominem

Well, let’s see…they say Obama is a Muslim (which is false, and shouldn’t mean anything anyway), and claim, essentially, that he is thus unfit for the presidency. In addition, they repeat the creationist argument about Charles Darwin being racist, as though this is supposed to cast doubt on his conclusions.

Fallacy #2: Quote mining

Hoo boy, just take a look at their page on evolution for a long list of mined quotes.

Fallacy #3: Straw man

Evolution, atheism…need I say more? The linked articles caricature their subjects and then “refute” the caricatures. FAIL.

I could go on and on, but I don’t know if I could last too much longer wandering around in that cesspool of ignorance and illogical thinking. Feel free to inform me of any other fallacies they’ve commited.

Creationism in a Piccy

autofire372 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:44:25 +0000

(hat tip to Failblog)

Scary

autofire372 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:23:20 +0000

Recently, some guy came to RationalWiki, posting a link to his own wiki on his userpage. He had hit us with a drive-by essay before, but I went to his site, and found that this guy was so ridiculously right-wing that he opposes democracy. This is truly disgusting. Other than that, there was the typical misunderstanding of evolution, though he actually goes so far as to say that evolution should be excluded from schools in favor of creationism. I have honestly never seen anyone so openly advocate for such censorship before.

People like him make me worry for the future.

Greetings random visitors

autofire372 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:00:47 +0000

Whoever stumbles upon this blog, welcome. I don’t have much to say right now, so just say hi in the comments if ya want.

Oh, and evolution FTW.