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Read it again, and then if it still doesn't make sense, don't worry about it. I don't care what you think.
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The "s" is there to denote present immediate. That is, my cup is currently runnething over. Doesn't runneth (no "s") denote...what the heck is the word for this...a continuing state?
My desire for unacknowledged irony is not continually fulfilled. At that point, it was, but the supply will wane. Thus, I think runneths is more correct than runneth. But I could be gravely mistaken.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The "s" is there to denote present immediate. That is, my cup is currently runnething over. Doesn't runneth (no "s") denote...what the heck is the word for this...a continuing state?
-eth is an archaic version of the third-person simple present ending. In modern English it has been replaced with -s. You don't need both.
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This article has to be the most ironic I've seen in a long time.
quote: Sean Hannity’s Hour on Liberal Media Bias is topped… by a Liberal Media Host
Friday night at 9pmET, Fox News aired a Sean Hannity special called “Behind the Bias: the History of Liberal Media.” It was billed as a “close-up look at the Obama-mania media’s liberal bias.”
Hannity’s hour, as it always does, came in first in Total Viewers averaging 1.4 million. But it trailed MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” in younger viewers: TRMS averaged 348K to Hannity’s special with 344K. This is a rare demo win for Maddow’s show. The last time was Keith Olbermann‘s final night on MSNBC in January, which gave the 9pm hour a healthy lead-in.
Hannity’s hour did not perform well against other Fox News shows. The normally #2 show on the channel, came in 5th after O’Reilly, Beck, Baier and Shep Smith.
The title made me think "Oh wow Maddow beat Hannity? That's news!"
Then you learn that Maddow beat Hannity in only one demographic, and only by 4 thousand viewers.
quote:I was taught those skills in school. I do wonder how many schools teach them, however.
I actually wonder if the way we teach those skills is a major contributor to the problem... In high school, we were taught an "There's no wrong answer, as long as you can come up with a well-written argument to justify it" approach. I'd think that lends itself to the mentality of approaching news as something with multiple equally valid truths that contradict and do battle with one another.
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I think what would be extremely excellent is a "science" course. (Not a "biology" or a "chemistry" course. A course where students come up with their own hypothesis about something they personally care about, then devise an experiment and test it. Then randomly assign everyone a classmate's experiment and have them peer-review each other.
On top of getting people to understand why science works and is useful, I think that would also help with political discourse (as long as you're talking about actual factual things instead of moral disagreements.)
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quote:I think what would be extremely excellent is a "science" course. (Not a "biology" or a "chemistry" course. A course where students come up with their own hypothesis about something they personally care about, then devise an experiment and test it. Then randomly assign everyone a classmate's experiment and have them peer-review each other.
This isn't a new idea. It is actually done a lot and it generally works pathetically. It's what science fair projects are supposed to be about. I've seen a number of liberal education scieces classes try it. Any class lower than the graduate level that does this ends up being mickey mouse.
The first part of any real science experiment is to find out what other people have already learned about the problem of interest and how they learned it. You can't even begin to form a reasonable hypothesis until you've done that. For most non-scientists that first step is going to literally require years of study. This means that most classes that try to teach the scientific method (at lower than graduate level) have to omit that first and critically important step of doing science.
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> It's what science fair projects are supposed to be about.
My impression was that science fair projects were often more about "following the instructions" than actually generating ideas and testing them.
I'd be hypocritical not to be open to it being a bad idea, but I'm curious exactly how these programs went about it and why they failed.
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quote:My impression was that science fair projects were often more about "following the instructions" than actually generating ideas and testing them.
I think this is part of the problem that Rabbit is talking about. The intent is to develop and test ideas - the curriculum discusses the scientific method and each project is supposed to follow a process from hypothesis through testing through conclusions. The result, unfortunately, is usually a grade based on following instructions.
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There's two different things I'd hope it could accomplish. One is to understand how "real" science is done and learn how to distinguish between good science and bad. The other is to drive home the notion that ideas are *testable*, period. Not necessarily foundation-of-reality level ideas, but simple things like "does pressing the button on sidewalk-corner actually make the light change faster?" or a more complicated "What clothes do cool people wear? Do all cool people wear those clothes? Are all people who wear those clothes cool? What do I mean by "cool?" (The latter might be hard to implement publicly and still be useful, but I'd have certainly appreciated knowing the answers)
At the elementary/middle school levels, I'd focus mostly on the latter type issues, to sell the idea that science is something that can be useful, rather than some weird thing you do to get good grades via mysterious processes. In high school you could incorporate research into part of the curriculum. (For middle and high school I'm imagining full year programs, not a project you do for a week then forget about it)
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>I think this is part of the problem that Rabbit is talking about.
Well absolutely. That's what *I* thought the problem was in the first place, and the "scientific method class" was intended to be the solution, not more of the same.
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This article has to be the most ironic I've seen in a long time.
quote: Sean Hannity’s Hour on Liberal Media Bias is topped… by a Liberal Media Host
Friday night at 9pmET, Fox News aired a Sean Hannity special called “Behind the Bias: the History of Liberal Media.” It was billed as a “close-up look at the Obama-mania media’s liberal bias.”
Hannity’s hour, as it always does, came in first in Total Viewers averaging 1.4 million. But it trailed MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” in younger viewers: TRMS averaged 348K to Hannity’s special with 344K. This is a rare demo win for Maddow’s show. The last time was Keith Olbermann‘s final night on MSNBC in January, which gave the 9pm hour a healthy lead-in.
Hannity’s hour did not perform well against other Fox News shows. The normally #2 show on the channel, came in 5th after O’Reilly, Beck, Baier and Shep Smith.
The title made me think "Oh wow Maddow beat Hannity? That's news!"
Then you learn that Maddow beat Hannity in only one demographic, and only by 4 thousand viewers.
Oh the irony
My biggest problem with this article is that it isn't about politics at all. It isn't even about the political parties. It is an article on the media, by the media, about the media, ultimately about eyeballs, and the only connection to politics in the entire article is a reference to the "teams" each player is supposed to be playing on.
It is as much about actual politics as the lead story on the Sports page. This belongs on the sports page.
In sum: 1. On the media. There should be a sign in their office saying "We Are Not the Story". It isn't just that stupid articles like this distort the important things, but it takes the place of an actual, maybe researched article about ANYTHING important in politics. I guess it is on a mediawatch web site, which slightly redeems it from this point. Not from the others.
2. One upsmanship and team playing. That's not about the issues - that's sports. I fully support this behavior when we are talking about high school football. Anything else and adults should be ashamed to take part in it.
3. Distorted headline, like you said. The article itself doesn't support the headline, and even the little bit that is true in it has a skewed perspective.
It is an excellent example of amazingly crappy reporting. Bad editor, for publishing this.
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Kat, I think that you may be missing the real consequences of the "game" you are talking about. It matters which "team" "wins" because, rather than getting a trophy, the team that wins gets the power to drastically impact the lives of real people. The teams represent political ideologies that determine the direction of that impact.
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Nope. Elections matter. This kind of crappy reporting doesn't change voting patterns, so the prize is nothing but... no, the prize is nothing. The only reward is the game itself, which is absolute crap.
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Comparing The Daily Show to Fox News is ridiculous from the get go. Fox News is supposed to be "News". The "Daily Show" is supposed to be "entertainment". The fact that people do compare the two highlights a central part of the problem. The distinction between what is "news" and what is "entertainment" has become so blurred that many people can't tell the difference.
If one is going to make a comparison, it should be between Jon Stewart and Rush Limbaugh both of whom claim to be entertainers not reporters. Reporters have an ethical obligation to present the facts in an accurate and objective manner. Entertainers do not. This is not to say that entertainers have no ethical obligation to their audience, they are just different than those of reporters. Entertainers and political pundits have every right to be biased, but bias is different from deception. Even entertainers and political pundits have an ethical obligation to make a clear distinction between what is fact and what is fiction. I think Rush Limbaugh and and other conservative talk show hosts cross that line. I don't think Stewart does.
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>The "Daily Show" is supposed to be "entertainment". The fact that people do compare the two highlights a central part of the problem.
I think both Rush and Jon Stewart need to be own up to the fact that regardless of their intentions, people DO treat them as sources of information. "Entertainer" and "Reporters" are arbitrary words we made up, not unchanging vows woven into the fabric of the universe.
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I could see it with Rush, but Jon Stewart is on Comedy Central and is a stand up comic. If people are silly enough not to try and balance out his show with some research, then they deserve to have the wrong idea about some things, and it is hardly his fault.
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I just compiled some numbers from PolitiFact.com on pundits associated with purported liberal and conservative news agencies. I limited my tally to mainstream media personalities (no bloggers). Here are the totals
Liberal Media (MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, Comedy Central) (includes Maher, Olbermann, Maddow, Schultz and others). Out of a total of 68 statements evaluated by PolitiFact,
Summary: Statements evaluated from pundits in the liberal media were half true or better 67% of the time.
Statements evaluated from pundits in the conservative media were barely true or worse 62% of the time. Statements from the conservative media pundits were found to be outright false or "pants on fire" twice as often as those from the liberal media.
In the liberal media, the biggest liars were Ed Schultz and Bill Maher, and Rachel Maddow (all MSNBC).
In the conservative media, the biggest liars are Beck, O'Reily and Limbaugh.
There was only one statement evaluated from Jon Stewart. It was determined to be mostly true.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I think both Rush and Jon Stewart need to be own up to the fact that regardless of their intentions, people DO treat them as sources of information. "Entertainer" and "Reporters" are arbitrary words we made up, not unchanging vows woven into the fabric of the universe.
Why? Do you think there is no room in civil society for biased entertainment? Is it uncivilized or irrational to laugh at jokes that reinforce your world view? I agree that it is a problem that people can't distinguish entertainment from objective news reporting, but I don't think the solution is to ask that all jokes to be fair and balanced.
I think the preferable option is to ask that entertainment be honest. That entertainers make the distinction between fact and fantasy clear. In that regards, I think there is a world of difference between Jon Stewart and Rush Limbaugh. I don't follow either of them very closely so I could be wrong, but I haven't found any examples where Jon Stewart made claims of fact that have been proven to be outright false. There are hundreds of such examples for Rush Limbaugh.
[ April 26, 2011, 06:33 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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Oh, I should add to my statistics above that MSNBC has a pretty deplorable truth rating. It's not as bad as Fox (60% lies), but its close (50% lies). On both sides of the fence it appears that news paper pundits are more honest than broadcast news.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: [QB] Also:
There's two different things I'd hope it could accomplish. One is to understand how "real" science is done
This is the part that is really difficult to accomplish because the first step in any "real" science is to find out what others already know about the subject. I don't mean to pick on you, but your proposal is a classic example of the mistake. If you want to act like a real scientist, your first step should have been to research what's already been done in this area and how its worked before forming a hypothesis about how to improve the situation. It frustrates me as an educator because people keep trying the same failed things over and over again.
quote:and learn how to distinguish between good science and bad.
I'm not sure what you mean here. I've been doing "real" scientific research for over two decades. I frequently review papers and proposals from other scientists, but outside my narrow field of specialization I really can't distinguish good science and bad science. It isn't realistic to think that the average citizen with no science training to speak of would ever be able to critically evaluate something that had passed peer review.
quote:The other is to drive home the notion that ideas are *testable*, period. Not necessarily foundation-of-reality level ideas, but simple things like "does pressing the button on sidewalk-corner actually make the light change faster?"
If you want to mimic real science here, the first step would not be to go and time the lights. It would be to go to the traffic department and ask what the buttons at different cross-walks are designed to do or perhaps to the library to look for books on cross-walk lights. With that information, you would be prepared to form a hypothesis and design some decent experiments to determine whether the buttons do what they are designed to do.
quote:or a more complicated "What clothes do cool people wear? Do all cool people wear those clothes? Are all people who wear those clothes cool? What do I mean by "cool?" (The latter might be hard to implement publicly and still be useful, but I'd have certainly appreciated knowing the answers)
When you ask the question "What do I mean by "cool"?", you are now veering into a territory where testability (in the sense I think of as a scientist) becomes questionable.
I think what you are really aiming for is "scientific" thinking, but better education in critical thinking, which can be taught in any discipline from the study of poetry to the study of muons. In education circles its commonly referred to as the ability to deal with ill-structured problems. Most people are pretty pathetically bad at it. Since it's a subject that obviously interests you, I recommend you look into the reflective judgement model.
[ April 26, 2011, 07:14 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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katharina: You are doing a lot of good posting, don't sully the good stuff with posts like your last.
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One more interest statistic I gleaned from politifact.com. Comments that they find to be egregious lies, they rank as "pants on fire". I clicked on truthometer and looked at the 8 pages (160 statements) they ranked as "pants on fire". I counted 25 made by democrats or liberals, the remaining 135 came from conservative or republican sources.
I suspect there is all kinds of sampling bias here, but 5+ times as many egregious lies is pretty enormous.
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There all over the map. I think you'd get a better idea if go to their website and browse through.
They have detailed reports of their analysis. They seem to be pretty thorough and put in a good effort to chase down the facts.
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quote:Originally posted by Ace of Spades: Can you give us an example of what qualifies as "pants on fire"?
quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: katharina: You are doing a lot of good posting,
I'm not sure whether you are accusing JB of telling an egregious lie, or demonstrating how to tell an egregious lie by strip quoting.
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It involves removing your clothing and taking what people have said out of context...it's all the rage at college parties!
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Because George RR Martin's Russian accent may be as fake as the college transcripts that Jon Stewart is biased about in a tornado which is racist for not making jobs for teaparties.
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When it comes to choosing excellent sources, starting first with noting the bias guaruntees that you'll fail. Humans are absolutely crap at seeing their own motes. You'll give a pass to whomever agrees with you.
Pick level of detail, method, and lack of kindergarten behavior and navel-gazing. Ignore the slant. You'll be better for it all around.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: It involves removing your clothing and taking what people have said out of context...it's all the rage at college parties!
If Model UN had been more like that, I might have continued with it in college.
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The guilty take the truth to be hard. It's not a surprise people get mad when they hear it. Sometimes really, really mad.
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I would consider the kindergarten baloney promulgated on television to not even be in the realm of political discourse. Political theatre, maybe. Political pantomime, definitely. Deciding which is "better" is just arguing the merits of various clowns.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: The guilty take the truth to be hard. It's not a surprise people get mad when they hear it. Sometimes really, really mad.
The innocent also take lies to be hard. Distinguishing between the two situations can require some effort.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: The guilty take the truth to be hard. It's not a surprise people get mad when they hear it. Sometimes really, really mad.
I don't think I've ever heard that bit from Nephi stated by anybody who wasn't trying to also excuse their bad behavior.
You aren't surrounded by the guilty, please stop assuming that that is the case.
Are there folks who are more liable to turn a blind eye to bad behavior on the left rather than the right, sure, I'll grant that. We certainly have people where the opposite is also true. Why do you keep baiting people into not acting like adults? Why do you want them to get angry and explode? Does it make you feel better to see others stripped down to bare emotion, blathering like animals?
I certainly don't enjoy it, and I don't think deep down you want that either.
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