Comments on: Two Small Observations

By: ChrisP

ChrisP — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:39:12 +0000

John — I just read the post that you’re referring to.

I stopped reading that particular blog for the same reason. He’s an ignorant, arrogant blowhard who thinks he speaks for the SF community. I got bored very quickly with his 12th grade English style of “finding fault = good criticism.”

Slagging something very worthwhile based on ignorance is just lazy writing, but when you’re caught in the act and then refuse to learn from your mistake… Well, that’s something else entirely, isn’t it.

By: jason mitchell

jason mitchell — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:12:42 +0000

here’s another layer to consider – the meaning(s) of the word ‘ignorance’

1) uninformed – capable of understanding the concept but lacking facts (unexposed to certain facts, unaware of certain facts’ existance)

2) in a state of ignoring the facts- perhaps capable of understanding the concept – but refuses to ‘believe’ certain facts or actively ignores certain facts (often for political/religious reasons) – listen to AM radio conservative commentators commenting on global warming, evolution etc. A.K.A pigheaded, willfully ignorant, dogmatic, willfully conflates ‘truthiness’ for the truth.

3) not capable of understanding the concept because of cultural context

4) stupid – (colloquial/ implied) – incapable of understanding the concept due to mental defect.

now when you say ” someone is ignorant” if you mean “lacking a datum” = definition 1 BUT if you mean that the ignorance is part of there personality = definition 2

example – The people who run the Creation Museum are ignorant of science/reality

By: Alternative Eric S.

Alternative Eric S. — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:49:20 +0000

“Well, that’s funny because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here.”

By: mythago

mythago — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:32:16 +0000

re @29 – as soon as you find yourself devolving into a rant about Kids These Days and How Coddled They Are, Not Like Us, you can immediately put yourself into the ignorant-blather column column and check in for remedial anti-fogery treatments. I mean, really.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:30:57 +0000

One of the main benefits of being a librarian is that I can tell someone they don’t know what they’re talking about and they’ll actually believe me, if only because they were just shushed by a librarian. Little do they know that 99.9% of the time even I don’t know what I’m talking about. And so it goes.

By: David Huss

David Huss — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:11:32 +0000

I have always explained to my students that ignorance equates as a lack of knowledge and is curable with information. Stupidity is generally described as deliberately refusing to, or blithely ignoring self-ignorance. Ignorance is curable with the application of knowledge, (although this has to be aimed at a receptive, not hostile audience) whereas affecting stupidity is attempting to and generally failing to change a mind set IE. close-mindedness. As previously stated “You can’t fix stupid!”is not always true, sometimes it depends on the approach. Playing to a hostile audience is an exercise in futility, where as sucking the audience into receptiveness is an art.
Dave

By: Nobu

Nobu — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:27:08 +0000

I can’t have an opinion because the second part ate my brain. The editor in me wants to fix it to be about half as long and with much much better sentence structure *grin*

Studies have shown that the more ignorant or incapable a person is, the harder it is for him to accurately evaluate his own competence/knowledge. Go figure.

By: Rigel Kent

Rigel Kent — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:19:50 +0000

I just say the fact that you don’t have pointy objects sticking out of you is proof that I’m not being hostile.

Of course there’s no guarantee I won’t become hostile.

By: JJ Brannon

JJ Brannon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:29:25 +0000

Captain Button at #36 — Michael F. Flynn wished there were a word for having knowledge of a fact that is no longer demonstrated.

F’rinstance, to cite a popular example, the proposition that Science cannot explain aerodynamically how bees fly.

This has not been a fact for nearly a decade, since ultra-fast microcameras in a mini-wind tunnel captured the vortex formation in the bee’s wing swivel.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/March00/APS_wang.hrs.html

Another is knowing that Dar es Salaam is the capital of Tanganyika.

If there were such a nation with such a capital.

However, the capital of Tanzania is Dodoma.

I suggested to Michael the term “retromeme”.

By the way, I highly advise y’all that if, as a teenager, one were to have written renown film-critic Judith Crist a letter pointing out her ignorance of “protein-based logic circuits”, one should not misspell that word as “ignorence”. :>)

A salient and invaluable lesson should she have written a scathing response.

JJB

By: Youngblood

Youngblood — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:28:33 +0000

Unfortunately, this state of affairs will only get worse as the internet insinuates itself further into our consciousness and the grip of its anti-intellectual bias tightens.