Skeptical Root

@1ABeliever @peterboghossian I try and follow both spaces and I see near equal amounts of dialogue with the other side. The further out you get, the less likely either side is (on average) to engage with the other side. Telling him that he seems biased doesn't "prove" his point, nor reflect poorly on me.

@SkepticalRoot @peterboghossian Were you trying to literally prove his point as a joke or is it hitting you in the face as you read this reply?

Willingness to speak with people who disagree with your political views has become a right-wing position.

So, can someone, (like maybe @heavythings77) explain this? He asked for an example, I gave him exactly what you asked for (off the top of my head), and he then responded and BLOCKED. Like, why even get into the discussion at all if this is how you handle things?

@heavythings77 @JohnRWoodJr Don't wash your hands before eating.

@SkepticalRoot @JohnRWoodJr Taking for granted that the words of Jesus in the gospels were actually spoken by Jesus, what would be an example of one of his “bad ideas”?

Do you believe in Jesus? And if you don’t believe in Jesus as messiah, do you value the teachings of Jesus?

@TheLaurenChen You're just wrong.

Most people can no longer read because we've stopped teaching students how Reading comprehension used to cover the intent & subtext of whole pieces Now, it means the bare minimum of understanding the explicit message of single sentences Shameful

@AndrewZywiecMD How does " Gay adoption isn't 'love,' it's child abuse that exposes kids to environments with elevated sexual abuse risk." follow from the information you provided?

Gay male couples adopt boys at massively higher rates: 81.8% boys in one study (vs ~50% for hetero couples). Preferences and outcomes show clear skew to boys. Gay adoption isn't 'love,' it's child abuse that exposes kids to environments with elevated sexual abuse risk. Ban it.

@hulsey_ryan @wil_da_beast630 @WanjiruNjoya Even if I was inclined to accept your numbers (I'm not, but I do know that those states have been doing better), that is just school testing scores, not state population. "Most educated" seems to be about quantity (people with advanced degrees, for example) and not test scores.

Problem: That list of "least-educated states" is wrong. Mississippi was #50 (out of 51) in the early 2010s, educationally, but it's #16 today. Louisiana and Arkansas have also risen over the past decade. Louisiana is something like #6 in the nation: Its reading scores _increased_ during the pandemic.

All the maps are the same. 56% of black people live in the South.

@wil_da_beast630 @WanjiruNjoya Montana has the lowest black population, not WV. Most western states are way lower too. Maryland is also 4th highest. worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings…

@WanjiruNjoya West Virginia is the least Black state in the USA.

@AlobhaPatrick California has a robust screening/testing model for autism (Get-SET Early). Also, rates tend to be higher in certain occupations like STEM, which is a good chunk of California's economy - if I had to guess.

Someone explain to me why the rates in California are so high. Why are people diagnosing this so frequently here?

@PaulaSeeksTruth Why would such an amazing woman want to do such a thing? What does having private thoughts and feelings mean about our outward expression to or for others? Deliberately deceiving and not sharing things are not the same. How does this work if we reverse genders here?

Thought experiment about porn. Men, imagine you go on a date with an amazing woman. She’s attractive, smart, kind, etc. She says: I need you to do something for me. Let me install an app on your devices so I see everything you do. Would you say yes and NOT change your behavior?

@mysteriouskat There is a sense of "likeness" between eating meat and eating lab grown meat. Human brains are good at making correlations and linking concepts together. We do this often with all kinds of moral stances - maybe more so with concepts we become emotionally invested in.

I don't eat meat. I just can't bring myself to eat anything I wouldn't be comfortable taking the life of. If I cannot look an animal in the eye and accept responsibility for ending its life, I have no business benefiting from someone else doing it for me. Meat substitutes have been around for a while, mimicking its taste and textures. But now there's something else: Labs have been growing meat that requires no death. Chicken wings with plant-based proteins engineered to bleed and char and pull apart exactly like flesh. No animal suffering or death involved. It would seem that there's no moral quandary here. And yet, for some reason, I have a discomfort with it. Is it irrational? Quite possibly. Or, perhaps, it's the "wisdom of repugnance" at play, a term that philosopher and bioethicist Leon Kass had coined, arguing that while out minds might not have caught up to it consciously, our emotional reaction of disgust towards certain things, do have some moral meaning. Perhaps what I find unsettling isn't the physical imitation of meat, but the meaning behind it. It's a simulation of death. It's sort of like death's uncanny valley. Whether that makes it wrong, I genuinely can't say. But I find myself wondering. Logically, the discomfort doesn't make sense. Morally, there's no victim. And yet...

@benelli14597445 @thebadstats Because the internet exists and there seem to be no dearth of them telling anyone who will listen what they think of the Artemis missions (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, even here on Twitter/X, etc). Here's a top search result for "Artemis 2 hoax" - yahoo.com/news/articles/…

@SkepticalRoot @thebadstats How do you know what moon deniers believe based on events of last week?

Bret thinks the moon landing deniers have a serious case and it's a shame NASA didn't use the Artemis mission to finally collect real evidence that we did go to the moon in 1969

@ThinkingAtheist No, because it's actually there in the puzzle.

Divine hiddenness?

@TheLaurenChen Vaccines save lives with a VERY low risk profile. Monoclonal antibodies are only effective after infection, very expensive, can't keep up with viral mutations, and not as effective at reducing negative outcomes as any of the vaccines.

Why don't we talk about monoclonal antibodies anymore? I'm sick of being harassed by Pfizer sales reps (ie doctors) anytime I bring my kid to doctor...

@RichardHanania His donors money.

I’m confused why Trump doesn’t dump Israel at this point. His base would be happy, so would the international community and the MSM. They’re not buying him like the Gulf Arabs. The only MAGAs who like Israel are the cultists who would go in any direction. What ties him to them?

@SwipeWright Most people are theists. Just because more of them aren't as religious doesn't mean that there are necessarily more atheists, OR that most people who say this are not also theistic.

As an atheist who used to believe something like this, the rise of gender ideology forced me to take the L. I'm still an atheist, though unfortunately I think the saying “When men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing —they believe in anything," has some merit.

@RichardHanania This has been my complaint for the most part since this subject has been getting media attention. Now do one on what "plant based diet" really means. LOL

The whole concept of "processed food" seems to be fake. I always assumed excitement over this issue was based on the nature fallacy, pushed by the same types who believe vaccines are bad and big corporations are hiding the cure for cancer.

@HumansNoContext youtube.com/watch?v=-1Bv71…