(((OmarLittlefinger)))

Pro science. Anti ideology.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@Ivanof4DC @nmlinguaphile Very interesting. It’s hard to imagine how to have done that introduction “correctly”.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@Evolving_Moloch I 100% agree with you about the importance of ethnography and of making the effort to get a comprehensive understanding of human behavior. However, your estimated proportions of BS in the discipline are way too low.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@HistoryBoomer Since you say “almost never”, what are the exceptions?

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@tommasodi_di Everything human is the result of evolutionary processes somehow, someway. It is hubristic and counterproductive to try to remove religion from human nature. The issues you’re raising are the result of people overextending uncertain scientific knowledge.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@tommasodi_di @Tyler_A_Harper 👆 This is the precise rhetorical move undermining academic credibility. Neither my tone nor my “lack of understanding” are the issue.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@tommasodi_di @Tyler_A_Harper It is categorically untrue that science is dependent on philosophy. Your argument would suggest that because astronomy is the “child” of astrology, astronomers are dependent on astrologers. There is no need to overcomplicate this.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@tommasodi_di @Tyler_A_Harper It’s much much simpler than this. We have around 300 years of evidence of scientific epistemology establishing Truths. We KNOW the Earth revolves around the Sun. We KNOW evolution is true. The instinct to cite Plotinus(!) is part of the problem.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@tommasodi_di @Tyler_A_Harper It’s much much simpler than this. We have around 300 years of evidence of scientific epistemology establishing Truths. We KNOW the Earth revolves around the Sun. We KNOW evolution is true. The instinct to cite Plotinus(!) is part of the problem.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

The epistemic failure of academia is obscene.

[Jesse Singal @jessesingal]

2/ Jason Arday didn't just plagiarize quotes. He then claimed the quotes came from his own interviews -- so plagiarism plus the fabrication of interviews that never occurred (plagrication?). The journal Social Sciences and Cambridge just... let him do it? It's astonishing.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@mattyglesias These guys want to think they’re the same as farsighted abolitionists or civil rights pioneers. They just aren’t. Their political goals are contrary to the extension of Enlightenment ideals. Lincoln already eviscerated people like them in his Lyceum speech.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@JasonKPargin They’re just planting seeds for the big reveal that George R R Martin has been writing Predator fanfic all along.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@Evolving_Moloch In the future, it’s going to be so obvious in hindsight that everyone with a liberal arts degree needed to master sexual selection and the ethnographic record. Name such a discipline that is not currently impoverished for lacking those foundations.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

If you squint, this becomes a testament to American Enlightenment Ideals producing accountability.

[Tyler Austin Harper @Tyler_A_Harper]

@JacobAShell I always find it amusing that everyone wants to blame Fox News, but don’t want to consider whether letting the public see academics express their unfiltered, bizarre, and often not especially sophisticated thoughts on social media all day has also done a great deal of damage.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@Tyler_A_Harper @joshshepperd The reason academia is fucked is that it rewards rhetorical obfuscation like what this guy is doing. He has admitted I understand his point, but his elaborations reduce the clarity of his insight. This is a known fail state in human knowledge production.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@Tyler_A_Harper @joshshepperd The reason academia is fucked is that it rewards rhetorical obfuscation like what this guy is doing. He has admitted I understand his point, but his elaborations reduce the clarity of his insight. This is a known fail state in human knowledge production.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@Tyler_A_Harper @joshshepperd I agree. His definition isn’t reasonable in the real world, and it raises questions about why he is still in academia if he’s so sure he is right.

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

More than 65 years after C. P. Snow's "The Two Cultures," The New York Times Magazine's feature on “How to be cultured” completely neglects science – Why Evolution Is True https://t.co/uM8FzFheQL

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

@Tyler_A_Harper @joshshepperd You’re both right, but only because he’s using a broader definition of “conservative”. Academics who stay in academic institutions such as those you accurately describe are perpetuating the dynamics you’re critiquing.

[(((OmarLittlefinger))) @OLittlefinger]

They should be able to articulate their expertises on social media or public blogs. Part of an academic’s job is knowledge dissemination. It’s altogether right and proper to expect them to do what ChatGPT and Claude do.

[Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo]

Cannot emphasize this enough. Academia has lost control of the conversation about itself and needs to grapple with public opinion, not explain, again, what it thinks public opinion would be if they only read the journals. (They will not read the journals.)