Poem — When Reason’s Glimmer Dies
When Reason’s glimmer dies,
There is nonsense on the rise.
I’m critical of foolish thinking,
Expressed as though one has been drinking.
So it’s best not just to doubt,
But too to keep one’s wits about.
Who is right? Who is wrong?
Credulity’s a siren song.
Permutations transcendental,
Without clear thinking we go mental.
Sun electric can’t compare,
With our home star’s fusion glare.
Surreptitiously deceiving,
C.A.M. is of our health relieving.
To claim a need for faith in science,
Is positing a false reliance.
Logic errors soon abound,
And in weak arguments they’re found.
When the “fuzzy’s” in the thinking,
Into scams one will be sinking.
If our reasoning’s mistaken,
We will fall for claims a-fakin’.
Our brains make lots of nasty errors,
From biases to dreaming terrors.
To argue for young universe,
Is to make claims quite perverse.
Evolution by old fools,
Is assaulted in our schools.
It’s said that Bigfoot roams the North,
With crappy evidence put forth.
Flying saucers flit about,
In blurry photos ripe for doubt.
For the ancient astronauts,
There are built no landing spots.
Eviscerated cows,
And the flight of wing’d sows.
Will the threat of anti-science,
Need a strong freethought alliance?
Posted on Monday, 0:01, June 18, 2012, in Musings and tagged Critical Thinking, Doggerel, Nonsense, Poem, Poetry, Pseudoscience, Skeptical Inquiry, Skepticism. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
yet out of foolishness its known
seeds of creativity sown
sole reliance on what’s seen
can limit what may come of dreams
Really like your poem..
@grosenberg
Thanks. I for one fully believe in the power of seeing not just with the physical eye, but what the brain sees with the wellspring of imagination.
@grosenberg
I’m very careful to distinguish creative from foolish ideas. Any idea can be creative, and all ideas deserve a fair hearing. Beyond that, though, the foolish ideas are the ones which are thought to be reliable and/or effective in application to reality when they are not, the more so when they are tenaciously held.
I believe that no idea should be tenaciously held except perhaps that love and compassion trump all .
What threat of anti-science?
@klem
Oh, just the worldwide attempts to suppress scientific literacy and independent thinking by those with an ideological agenda in mind, such as the recent success of creationists in South Korea to remove references to evolution from textbooks…Why do you ask?
@Troythulu
“..Why do you ask?”
I ask because I don’t see the threat to science that many people claim is happening. You cite the success of creationists in S Korea but I don’t see that as a threat to science, I see it as a threat to the theory of Evolution only. And I am confident the theory is stout enough that this is merely a temporary threat, it is a well tested theory, it will survive easily. I see the climate skeptics have made inroads in some US classrooms, this might be a threat to the theory of anthropogenic climate change. But once again it is not a threat against science it is a threat against the theory of ACC only.
Many people I know who disagree with Evolution or anthropogenic climate change are scientists themselves, they love science, they work in science. They don’t see this threat to science either, they view them as just threats to individual theories only. They feel as I do, that theories need to be challenged, and challenged often. The great theories hold up, the lesser ones not so much.
These aren’t threats against science, they ARE science..
@klem,
These aren’t threats against science, they ARE science..
Not so.
Robust scientific ideas get tested and challenged all the time whenever new findings are made. As ideological movements, creationism and ACC denial contribute nothing to the scientific discourse, serving only to undermine the public understanding of science and its process. Both movements are dogmatic to the core and are pseudo-scientific for their misrepresentation of science’s findings and thinking, and anti-scientific in their rejection of its values for political ends.