As important science relevant to the future of the world is increasingly swamped by extra-scientific noise (political, financial, defaming and increasingly legal attacks and counter-attacks) it is important to pay attention to the bizarre ways in which important people are thinking about things.
Don’t miss, for example, Ralph Hall’s ideas. Now on the one hand, Ralph Hall is an 88-year-old from exurban northeast Texas. So, demographically he doesn’t count for much; it’s reasonable to consider that he represents an outdated and declining point of view.
NJ: Do you think climate change is causing the earth to become warmer?
Hall: I can’t say it doesn’t have a percentage of effects on it – one percent, three percent, five percent. But I don’t think it’s the cause. I don’t think we can control what God controls.
We put $32 billion into it and don’t see very much change.
Unfortunately he is the chair of the US House of Representatives Science Committee.
While I appreciate that neurons firing in ways that generate ‘ideas’ is technically “thinking”, I am having a really hard time associating ” … important people are thinking about things.” with the concept of “thinking.”
The process in question would seem to be midway between rational thought and a petite mal seizure. Not quite random and spastic, but getting there. Perhaps we need a neologism like “petite mal cognition” to describe the phenomenon.
Looks like. The patient demands “believable science”… The interviewer should have asked for an opinion on quantum mechanics and relativity. Not just for fun, but to make such interviews more sufferable for the educated.
(P.S.: Mestupid forgot to type the last word, Public. (U.S. congress seems blatantly unaware they have a large publicum. The show is unimaginable.))