Inverse stopped clock
(→Examples) |
(they want to. read their charter.) |
||
| Line 71: | Line 71: | ||
*[[Ted Gunderson]], a well-known former FBI agent, and died claiming to be a [[whistleblower]] for every conspiracy theory under the sun. | *[[Ted Gunderson]], a well-known former FBI agent, and died claiming to be a [[whistleblower]] for every conspiracy theory under the sun. | ||
*[[The Young Turks|Cenk Uygur]] being an [[Armenian Genocide denial|Armenian Genocide denier]] and anti-[[GMO]]. | *[[The Young Turks|Cenk Uygur]] being an [[Armenian Genocide denial|Armenian Genocide denier]] and anti-[[GMO]]. | ||
| − | *David Pakman being wishy-washy on [[Gamergate]], believing [[Iran]] is making nukes despite the [[Mossad]] saying otherwise | + | *David Pakman being wishy-washy on [[Gamergate]], believing [[Iran]] is making nukes despite the [[Mossad]] saying otherwise and exaggerating the usage of human shields by Hamas as a way to insist on a false equivalence between Israel and Palestine. |
*John Bain, otherwise known as Total Biscuit, normally a fierce critic of the gaming industry and a consistent advocate for the consumer, seemed to support [[Gamergate]] via naively believing it actually was for gaming journalism. | *John Bain, otherwise known as Total Biscuit, normally a fierce critic of the gaming industry and a consistent advocate for the consumer, seemed to support [[Gamergate]] via naively believing it actually was for gaming journalism. | ||
*William Wilberforce, played a major role in [[Britain|Britain's]] abolitionist movement... and was an avid supporter of its [[colonialism|colonization]] of [[India]], while also believing the poor shouldn't be able to vote. | *William Wilberforce, played a major role in [[Britain|Britain's]] abolitionist movement... and was an avid supporter of its [[colonialism|colonization]] of [[India]], while also believing the poor shouldn't be able to vote. | ||
Revision as of 04:49, 30 March 2015
| Part of the series on |
| Key articles |
| General logic |
| Bad logic |
An inverse stopped clock refers to a situation in which someone who is usually logical, rational, or correct does or believes something idiotic or crazy. Also referred to as "Sometimes even geniuses make mistakes," or the common phrase "Nobody's perfect."
Contents |
Explanation
Due to the imperfect nature of human beings, even reasonable people — including people widely respected for being reasonable — will make a mistake every now and then, often by chance alone. Perhaps something cranky (e.g. a conspiracy theory) appeals to someone's ideology and they go with it, even if they're usually correct on other subjects. Other times they may panic and do something stupid in response to a sometimes exaggerated threat or situation. The difference between these people and other cranks is that they are usually not crazy, but every time an inverse stopped clock situation takes place their reputation becomes slightly more soiled. (The degree of stupidity also makes a difference, and if the moment is crazy enough they may never be able to live it down, with everything they say being up for question after the incident.)
The most dangerous part of the inversed stopped clock is that the crankery supported may be given much more weight than if it was supported by a known nutjob, due to the usually decent/sane reputation of the person promoting it. The opposite could also happen, and the person's one crank belief will become, again, mainly what they are known for, leaving the rest of their work marginalized by association. An example of the latter is Peter Duesberg and his HIV denialism.
Examples
- John Quincy Adams' anti-Masonic views and supporting the Hollow Earth theory.
- Buzz Aldrin: Apollo 11 pilot, second human to walk on the Moon, outspoken advocate of further space exploration, the man who gave Bart Sibrel a richly-deserved punch in the face... and a global warming denialist.
- Kingsley Amis supporting the Vietnam War and flirting with anti-Semitism at the end of his life.
- David Attenborough endorsing the aquatic ape hypothesis.
- Harry Elmer Barnes, once a respected historian, endorsing Holocaust denial.
- Norman Borlaug being a global warming denialist.
- Jean Bricmont, critic of postmodernism and relativism in the sciences along with Alan Sokal, also adheres to a form of obsessional anti-Zionism that constantly borders on antisemitism, pretends to take a hardline, consistent stance on freedom of speech while defending authoritarian and murderous regimes and is anti-environmentalist to a great extent.
- George Carlin's staunch opposition to political correctness, which often veered into misogyny and homophobia. Also, he was unrelentingly hostile toward people with eating disorders.
- Noam Chomsky occasionally flirts with genocide denial on Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, but the worst incident is his tu quoque fallacy towards the Cambodian genocide by Pol Pot, and his insistence that the evidence at the time suggested that he was right.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: creator of Sherlock Holmes, human rights activist, early opponent of racism, and dogmatic believer in spiritualism.
- Richard Dawkins making outlandish statements on gender, rape, Islam and even apologizing for pedophilia (Oh, how the mighty have fallen).
- A few liberals have become "birthers" for Ted Cruz.
- Tommy Douglas (Canadian universal health care pioneer) writing his master's thesis on eugenics.
- Freeman Dyson outside his contributions to physics.
- Albert Einstein refusing to accept that Stalin's Soviet Union was an oppressive, totalitarian regime.[1]
- Eisenhower, JFK, and LBJ not knowing how to restrain themselves with Containment.
- Gottlob Frege, one of the founders of modern logic and major influence on Bertrand Russell, being a Nazi sympathizer.[2]
- Gandhi holding racist attitudes towards black South Africans during his early years of activism, sleeping beside his two nieces to test his ability to resist the temptations of the material world, and not supporting Britain in WWII.
- Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka. Dr. Seuss) taking his anti-Axis propaganda too far in World War II with flamboyantly racist anti-Japanese caricatures (he did however create a rather elaborate, colorful and remorseful apology for such propaganda and its resulting policy actions in the form of Horton Hears a Who).
- Horace Greeley, journalist, publisher, and abolitionist, taking an interest in phrenology.
- Sam Harris' affinity for racial profiling, defense of torture, borderline misogyny, strange belief in the paranormal, and outlandishly xenophobic views on Islam (from saying fascists are the most sensible regarding Islam to saying Dick Cheney is less dangerous than Reza Aslan).
- Martin Heidegger enthusiastically supporting Nazism and Hitler in 1933, and enforcing the Nazi racial laws at the University of Freiburg.
- Laci Green's coldness toward Islam.
- Charles Darwin's views toward women.
- Dick Gregory[wp] — comedian, civil rights activist... and JFK assassination and 9/11 truther.
- Bill Hicks being a JFK assassination conspiracy theorist.
- Christopher Hitchens becoming a pro-War on Terror chickenhawk, being anti-abortion, his sporadic opposition to feminism (coupled with thinly-veiled misogyny), and having brain farts on seemingly random things.
- Jesse Jackson, respected civil rights activist, flirts with anti-Semitism from time to time.
- Thomas Jefferson and George Washington — liberators, great political philosophers... and slaveowners.
- John Adams for the Alien and Sedition Acts and fighting the French in an early phase of the French Revolutionary Wars.
- Michio Kaku bullshitting about UFOs and Fukushima.
- Ray Kurzweil's transhumanism and taking 150+ vitamin pills a day (and is still alive).
- John Lennon's denial of evolution, referring to the theory as "absolute garbage", and pondering, "Why aren't monkeys changing into men now?" To his credit, however, he did lambast young Earth creationism in the same interview.[3] He also expressed highly misogynistic views in his early song lyrics, although he later regretted them (reserving particular vitriol for the song "Run for Your Life").
- Bill Maher associating with PETA, embracing vaccine denialism, Big Pharma buffoonery, Islamophobia and sexism.
- H.L. Mencken, for being anti-democracy, a bit of a racist and giving Ayn Rand her career.
- Harvey Milk, gay rights pioneer, first elected openly gay public official in the US... and friend and defender of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.
- Pretty much all of Sir Patrick Moore's non-science related work.
- Henry Ford outside of his contributions to auto manufacturing, as he was highly anti-Semitic and was friendly with Hitler in WWII.
- Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist in the mid-19th century who opposed slavery, the Yellow Peril, attacked corrupt political bosses... and was vehemently racist against the Irish.
- Isaac Newton, physics genius, mathematics genius, astrologer, and alchemist. He also had a weird hatred of sex.
- Benjamin Franklin's early support of slavery.
- CNN, once a respectable news network, has become obsessed with reporting o plane crashes
- Martin Luther's vicious antisemitism and extreme sexism even for his day.
- Thomas Paine believing that George Washington conspired with Maximilien de Robespierre to have Paine imprisoned during the French Revolution.
- Howard Dean becoming a war hawk on Iran, erroneously believing that democracy in Iran would lead to further dictatorship.
- Penn and Teller fueling global warming denialists and denying risks around second-hand smoke (though their views on AGW did later change).
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt interning hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans, attempting to pack the Supreme Court, refusing to award an Olympic medal to a darker-skinned champion runner (if only so he could keep the Dixiecrats in line), failing to acquire the political support to help Jewish refugees (he ended up saving 500,000, but many acknowledge he could have done more), failing to support an anti-lynching bill (largely so he wouldn't anger the Dixiecrats), inaction during the Spanish Civil war (he flat-out called it his greatest failure), allying with Saudi Arabia (he also called the Saudi patriarch and founder "A son of a bitch, but our son of a bitch"), and mistaken order for farmers to kill their livestock without converting the meat into food under the AAA (widely regarded as the biggest fuck-up of the New Deal).
- Earl Warren also supported the internment of the Japanese during World War II.
- Carl Schmitt, a political theorist who influenced the likes of Žižek, Hayek, and Hannah Arendt, all while embracing Nazism.
- Margaret Chase Smith, a moderate Republican who helped destroy Joe McCarthy, opposed repealing the New Deal, pushed for greater rights for women... and wanted JFK to nuke the Soviet Union.
- Barry Seidman's review in The Skeptical Inquirer of Robert J. Sawyer's novel Calculating God definitely qualifies, though to what extent is debatable.
- Michael Shermer (as with P&T, being a libertarian means one may be willing to accept a load of anti-science in an instant).
- Susan Sontag making moonbatty statements about the West early in her career.
- Mark Twain being a believer in telepathy, and briefly being a Confederate Soldier.
- Gore Vidal being a Pearl Harbor and 9/11 truther and responding to a bad book review by blaming the Jews.
- Voltaire being a raving anti-Semite and racist.
- Alfred Russel Wallace being a spiritualist and anti-vaxxer.
- Jose Mujica, former president of Uruguay, for insurgent activity under the Tuparamos.
- James D. Watson's race realism.
- Abraham Lincoln, by our standards, would be considered a flaming racist for believing whites and blacks are so diametrically different that he wouldn't even support inter-racial marriage or voting rights for blacks. He believed the best way to resolve this would be to free slaves and ship them to Africa, albeit to his credit, he retracted somewhat after freeing the slaves, consistently opposed slavery throughout his life, and vehemently believed that blacks had inalienable rights as much as their white counterparts.
- Winston Churchill's support for the Raj, stubborn defense of imperialism, and excessive racism; even for his own time.
- Ted Gunderson, a well-known former FBI agent, and died claiming to be a whistleblower for every conspiracy theory under the sun.
- Cenk Uygur being an Armenian Genocide denier and anti-GMO.
- David Pakman being wishy-washy on Gamergate, believing Iran is making nukes despite the Mossad saying otherwise and exaggerating the usage of human shields by Hamas as a way to insist on a false equivalence between Israel and Palestine.
- John Bain, otherwise known as Total Biscuit, normally a fierce critic of the gaming industry and a consistent advocate for the consumer, seemed to support Gamergate via naively believing it actually was for gaming journalism.
- William Wilberforce, played a major role in Britain's abolitionist movement... and was an avid supporter of its colonization of India, while also believing the poor shouldn't be able to vote.
- Christiaan Barnard, the doctor who first transplanted a human heart, opposed Apartheid and... supported a worthless anti-aging product banned by the FDA shortly after he lent his support.
- Sadly it often does not take long for anti-Asian remarks and sweeping racist generalizations to appear on animal rights forums when China, Korea or Japan is mentioned.
- Sadly, transphobia is often found on some feminist and lesbian forums. To their credit, the generational shift has lessened it somewhat.
- Karl Marx's blatant racism toward "Asiatic races". Also, earlier in his career, he wrote an antisemitic screed called "On the Jewish Question".
- Slavoj Žižek's contempt for liberal democracy, which sometimes borders on support for totalitarianism.
- Nelson Mandela's brief foray into armed terrorism and terror bombing in the 1960s; as well as his support of the Cuban government. To his credit, once he was released from prison, he went out of his way to acknowledge his shadier activities.
- Suffragettes tended to be extremely racist , even for their own time.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. plagiarizing parts of his doctoral dissertation and some of his other research papers.
- James Randi temporarily becoming a global warming denialist; luckily, he later retracted his views.
- David Hume's out-of-character argument in his "Natural History of Religion" that religion is a prerequisite to morality and civility, which he couples with sneering racism toward practicers of non-monotheistic religions.
- John Locke's hatred of atheism, which he believed would lead to the breakdown of all reason and order if permitted to exist. He also hated Catholics, and saw them as unable to be good subjects; which was used to keep the Irish oppressed.
- Canada being the only nation to leave the Kyoto Protocol and engaging in the cultural assimilation/genocide of native aborigines.
- Galileo believing in round orbits. This is notable as Kepler, a contemporary, had no problem with eliptical orbits.
- Many otherwise credible female celebrities have defended PETA.
- Ulysses S. Grant's flagrant cronyism and corruption, even by 19th-century standards.
- The Union's failure to justify fighting against slavery for the first half of the Civil War.
- Scott Adams becoming a men's rights activist and flirting with evolution denialism.
- Ellen DeGeneres for her views on medicine and occasional transphobia.
- Many liberal talk radio hosts have a tendency to hold anti-GMO views.
- Sean Lemass, who modernized Ireland economically and opened up dialogue with Northern Ireland, for helping create De Valera's policies in the first place.
- Jack London's extreme racism, even by early 20th century standards.
- Rousseau's promotion of a strictly patriarchal nuclear family, necessitating wives to submit to their husbands to a degree well beyond the standards of his day.
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon also expressed patriarchal views.
- Gary Kasparov believed in conspiracy theories about the early Middle Ages.
- Some of Mikhail Bakunin's writings have unfortunate anti-Semitic connotations, although he kept them from influencing his politics much.
- The Southern Poverty Law Center working with the Ludwig von Mises Institute and with Cathy Brennan.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ The Myth of Consistent Skepticism: The Cautionary Case of Albert Einstein
- ↑ Hans Sluga: Heidegger's Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany, p. 99ff. Sluga's source was an article by Eckart Menzler-Trott: "Ich wünsch die Wahrheit und nichts als die Wahrheit: Das politische Testament des deutschen Mathematikers und Logikers Gottlob Frege". In: Forum, vol. 36, no. 432, 20 December 1989, pp. 68–79.
- ↑ http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/john_lennon_darwin_doubter048051.html