Friday Tom Toles Rant

[n2doc]

Friday rant: loyalty edition

People get loyalty, sort of. The only two people I can count on are me and you, but I'm not too sure about you. We need group loyalty, because we are programmed to trust and rely on our genetic sub-group. You may not know about that, because as yesterday's blog pointed out, we don't "do" evolution in our schools. The other reason we need group cohesion is because there are just too many hard facts to learn them all, so you need a group to help digest the best current evidence.

Take climate, please! I know readers think I can't leave that subject alone, and that's because I can't! Why? Because it is not going to leave us alone. (see: wheat-destroying droughts in Russia, Australia, China sampler). Now I have read a fair bit on the subject and have long since come to the conclusion that the case is VERY strong, but I am relying to a certain extent on a larger group to account for my lack of technical proficiency in a complex science. Who do I rely on? CLIMATE SCIENTISTS! How wacky. Climate science has now been politically discredited, and who would have guessed that such a thing could happen in a country that doesn't teach science in science class.

Deniers, of course, have read up on the subject, too, as they never tire of parading about in the comments section here. They are all about conspiracies, EXCEPT when it comes to wondering about the reliability of information that to a great extent has been generated by the energy industry, whose financial stake in the debate dwarfs the putative conflict for scientists by many orders of magnitude. (Orders of magnitude? Do we do math either?) The energy industry, in a remarkable demonstration of synergy, is destroying the climate AND America's respect for science at the same time. No negative consequences down the road for us with that! Anyway, some have scratched their chins and decided that the energy industry "interpretation" of the facts is the one that shall hold their loyalty, and, wow, hold it it does! My only suggestion, before they bet the whole planet, and THAT IS THE BET, is that they go back and reread the second sentence in this post. --Tom Toles

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2011/02/friday_rant_loyalty_edition_pe.html#more

[Octafish]

1. Tom Toles is one great cartoonist and one great writer!

Toles is TOPS!

The second sentence:

The only two people I can count on are me and you, but I'm not too sure about you.

Which gives way to the third:

We need group loyalty, because we are programmed to trust and rely on our genetic sub-group.

Loyalty. Royalty. In the USA, we are loyal to the nation -- the Constitution and what we are because of the ideas it contains -- not any wannabe aristocrat.

[n2doc]

2. kick n/t

[phantom power]

3. "Because it is not going to leave us alone."