09.01.10
Shermer the real ‘woo’ master
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/what-i-believe-about-mark_b_701327.html
Shermer defends himself. His defense is not so good, and his book The Mind of the Market is a dubious exercise.
Shermer says he is talking about trade, not capitalism, etc… etc…
Not convincing.
And the issue of trade is a no-brainer in any context but the current one, where free trade is championed by the elite, and an entire class of American workers have been destroyed by the deceptive trade ideology.
So it might be nice if Shermer were more honest, and capable of getting his unraged head out of his ass.
But why keep flogging Shermer: the issue is the false theory of Darwin which skeptics conveniently give a pass. The second issue is the way in which Darwinism, classical liberalism, Malthus, Social Darwinism, all coexist. Trying to prettify the issues by talking about trade and evolution is mostly bad science, and covert ideology. I think Coyne was about right the first time.
As to the ‘woo’ of Chopara, we have discussed that here many times, without much support for Chopra, as such. But please note that Shermer and his ilk are using skeptical discourse to trash Eastern religions in a way that is completely fasle and ideological. When Chopra tries misguidedly to do physics with Eastern religion the results is a convenient target for fake skeptics.
The real ‘woo’ here is the confusion of Darwinism, Social Darwinism, and economic ideology.
Shermer criticizes anger. As I noted in my earlier posts, he is a spoiled idiot of the establishment, behind his skeptic’s mask, and cannot understand the rage of those who have to live in this economic system.
Second, I think I made a mistake in mentioning “capitalism” at the beginning of the column on markets and morality, because (1) the article is really about trade, not capitalism per se; and (2) that word seems to set some people off into MichaelMoorish-like paroxysms of rage, engaging the limbic system full throttle and governing back the prefrontal cortex, resulting in red-faced, spittle-spewing tirades about Gordon Gekko and Bernie Madoff.