Throw away your TVs

At least Whoopi gave her a hard time about it.

I saw that this morning. I was going to send you a link, but I was too busy. Glad you found it.

Well I for one will NOT throw away my TV. I use it to watch NOVA occasionally and...OK, I guess that's all it's been used for in the past year or two, but still. NOVA!

So she can quickly and definitively reject the theory of evolution, but she hasn't thought about whether or not the Earth is flat...hmmm.

I gave my TV away two months ago. Since that time, my guitar-playing has improved substantially, I've read two books (non-fiction, of course), my song book is filling up, my bike gets used a lot more and I sleep like a baby.
Chuck your TV and rejoin reality!

TV? What TV?

The Great Wasteland is done. It's hit bottom.

You're an optimist. There's always farther for it to fall.

I wouldn't have believed it possible, but this is actually a step down from Rosie "9/11 Was An Inside Job" O'Donnel. :-(

I thought the world was basin-shaped with a big hole at the bottom. I don't want to imagine where that leads us.

Score one for Team Whoopi, though!

I'd like to present her with evidence that the human body is over 70% water. How could she possibly reconcile this with the Genesis account of God making Man from clay and breathing life into him. Surely using this as our guide, the human body should be a majority clay with some quantity of air.

Perhaps our fair hostess has not stopped to think about this either or just thinks that red stuff that pours out of her when she is cut is a runny red clay?

Incurious doesn't even begin to describe this waste of airwaves.

Oh my godlessness, I saw that yesterday morning! I am *so* not a daytime TV person, but I turned it on while I was having my lunch, and just about brought lunch back up again while she was talking. It was just f-ing unreal. "I haven't really thought about whether the world is round/flat." Honest to goodness, my jaw dropped and I went "Buh buh buh buh..." before I started swearing at the TV. WTF!?!?!

Whoopi was great (is she an atheist/agnostic? she was fair but didn't seem to have much patience for the God nonsense), but this woman (and the skinny white chick sitting next to her) made me go "WHAAAAA??" Skinny white chick because she was all "The ACLU is evil because they defend *everyone's* rights, not just the ones I think they should defend!" and this other woman because, honestly, how can you be so jaw-droppingly stupid and still live from day to day?

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I was practically foaming at the mouth yesterday. And then I turned off the TV and turned on Diane Rehm.

Can't say that was hard; I didn't have to look at my Godless Evolutionists Conspiracy Manual at all to figure out what to answer!

Wait a second, I've just checked out her biography on the abc website.
"The Chicago native is mother to two-year-old Jeffrey, Jr., and two retrievers, Angel and Shatzi."
She's mother to two retrievers? Isn't this the sort of evidence creationists say would prove evolution?

This makes me think of the TV programming in the film version of Farenheit 451 - an escape for the bored and intellectually incurious where the TV characters become your "friends" and replace real interaction.

Cat's Staff (#4) brings up a great point - the dumb shit on TV doesn't even know what the shape of the Earth is, yet feels confident in dismissing evolution.

I've experienced similar conversations when arguing with creationist nitwits in the online comments section of my local newspaper.

The less they know, the more strongly they argue against evolution. Creationism is truly the refuge of the proudly ignorant.

"She's mother to two retrievers? Isn't this the sort of evidence creationists say would prove evolution?"

Ba-dum-CRASH!

"I never thought about is the world flat, but I thought about how to feed my son." Well, maybe if people got educated, they wouldn't be worrying, in supposedly the richest country in the world, how to feed their children!

Bet she didn't think about that, either! But whatever, she's got hers. For a while. Until her act falls flat, and she goes the way of that rounded former View hostess.

From where I'm sitting, the worst part about Sherri Shepherd's blathering is that when you're a member of a non-dominant group, people, particularly members of the dominant group tend to judge all members of your group by the actions of the standouts. (For another quick, ready-to-hand example, crime committed by darker-skinned people is always an issue for "the black community," but is there collective guilt for white guys who rob, rape, and kill? Not so much.)

PZed hints at this phenomenon when he says, "Way to reinforce the idea that women are incurious airheads," but I'm going to make it explicit, because it's worse than it looks: Every misogynistic asshole from here to Larry Summers is going to take her pronouncements as proof that women just shouldn't bother their pretty little heads about science.

I'm not even a scientist, and I'm getting that feeling like I'm Orac and I just ran across another creationist surgeon...

Oh man! Stop the world; I wanna get off!

--Raynfala

I saw that yesterday on Jezebel (http://jezebel.com/gossip/enjoy-the-view/-300966.php) and tried to watch the actual video clip but it was so horrible I never made it to her confession of stupidity. Either that or the levels of ignorance killed a few brain cells and I totally blacked out for a few moments. Wait, did I watch it or did I wander off in a fugue state? Hmmmm...

Sherri is right up there with Miss. South Carolina.

To #18 (Kristine):
I doubt she even needs to worry about how to feed her son - she's presumably a well-paid actress (especially now that she has this job on "The View"). She is unfortunately perpetuating the stereotype that others have mentioned - that women don't need to (or aren't capable of) learning anything beyond how to pop out babies and raise a family. There is no excuse for her stupidity - even if she was never formally "taught" that the earth is spherical, she's at least seen a globe at some point in her life.

I would say that ABC should remove her from the show, but given the amount of publicity her statement has received there is little chance of that happening anytime soon.

Twenty percent of the US population still thinks the sun goes around the earth. This is 400 years after Copernicus and decades after the US sent space probes everywhere including past Pluto. This women lives in a deep, dark, cave of her own making.

Didn't watch the clip but the comments indicate she has a kid and 2 dogs. No word on a husband. He probably ran out the door screaming, "NO! NO! You are way too dumb to deal with."

TV just reflects our culture. 50% of the US population have IQs below the median of 100. Lots of dumb people out there and Sherri is one.

I am so hoping this clip makes it onto The Daily Show

I would also be worried about how she's going to feed her son. I hope she knows which hole the food goes into.

OK, Sherri Shepherd was asked directly about the shape of the earth and we learned that she doesn't think about it.

How many talking heads on TV have ever been asked that question? I don't think there would be enough outrage to go around if we actually knew how every person appearing on TV would answer that question.

Just like dealing with your extended family, sometimes it's better not to know...

#24: half the population ANYWHERE, not just the USA, is below IQ 100.

Here's a longer clip, if you haven't seen it .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ACobXN7_p8

I'm sure the last few seconds of it will be highly illuminating. It features sex and violence. Well, not much violence. And no sex either. But you'll learn a lot you didn't know about sperm! ;)

This reinforces my (non-scientific) survay of people I meet...

There does seem to be a median IQ of around 100 -- but the distribution is NOT a bell curve! More like a camel with a truly HUGE hump at the bottom end, and a longer shallow hump at the top. I seem to meet more 'really stupid' people than 'really smart', but the stupid -v- smart seems to average out.

I'm an HR consultant so perhaps my sample is biased? ;)

Anyway -- I find it appalling that so many 'media' people are so truly dumb ass.

Consider the person of average intelligence. Now, think about the fact that the other half of the planet is even stupider than that guy! Don't forget to underestimate the average intelligence of the American public...

She saw the cover of a bestselling book that told her that the world was flat.

The skinny white chick is Elizabeth Hasselbeck, whose claim to fame is being married to an NFL quarterback (and formerly hosting a useless fashoin TV show). Boston College is sooooooo proud of her. Another reason to hate where I'm going to school...it turns out people like the Hasselbecks.

Did anyone count her chromosomes? My guess is she's weighing in at 48.

"Twenty percent of the US population still thinks the sun goes around the earth.'
Yes but only about 15% actually think the world if flat.

I love the point she made about going to the library to find out if the Earth is flat. I think we all know she would end up looking for some Flat Earth book to prove her point.

I think it's about time they book a female astronaut to appear on the show.

Here you go, Sherri, the Flat Earth Society, with lots of info that will help you answer your detractors, e.g.,

Q: "Why are other celestial bodies round but not the Earth?"

A: The Earth is not one of the other planets. The Earth is special and unlike the other bodies in numerous ways.

Good luck!

"She saw the cover of a bestselling book that told her that the world was flat."

Actually she saw a map on the wall and amazingly enough, it was flat.

Flat Earth, round Earth...

Folks, have you learned nothing? The Earth, like the Internet, is really more like a series of tubes. Just ask Ted Stevens!

I'd like to present her with evidence that the human body is over 70% water. How could she possibly reconcile this with the Genesis account of God making Man from clay and breathing life into him.

Dude, she's willing to admit on television that she "doesn't know" if the earth is flat or round - somehow I doubt that presenting her with the fact that the human body is over 70% water and asking her to resolve the contradiction would get you very far - she'd probably just say that you're wrong, or god is magic, or something.

If you don't have the pesky prerequisite that the things you believe to be true actually be true, you can get away with believing some really weird stuff.

I googled her website to see who she was. The announcement on the front page is completely unsurprising:

Your Prayers Worked!!!

...

To those of you who prayed... let me tell you ... PRAYERS WORK! Because it is a miracle of God that I am now a co-host on The View.

...

Now just keep praying, that every morning I don't put my foot in my mouth - but if you know me, it's bound to happen :O)

God Bless You

Sherri

God answred her prayers. The answer was "No, put your foot in your mouth."

Is the world carried on the back of a turtle moving through space? I think it is, 'cuz i read it in a book from a libary.

What was worse was the attitude. She wasn't just saying she didn't know, she was implying that she was RIGHT not to know, because she's been too busy with important stuff to bother with that. She was essentially implying that Whoopie's question was a stupid one, but NOT for the same reason it would be a stupid one to ask the average ten year old.

Twenty percent of the US population still thinks the sun goes around the earth.

Seriously? Do you have a cite for this?

As many of the previous posts have suggested, we are faced with several startling and sobering realities stemming from Ms. Shepherd's statement regarding her evolutionary beliefs, or lack thereof.

1. She is not in the minority in this country with respect to her faith in the theory of evolution.

2. By virtue of her artificially-elevated status as a TV host, her influence will quickly outstrip that of all but the most persuasive evolutionary proponents, if it hasn't already.

At the risk of sounding pedantic - oops, too late - might I suggest we spend more time scheming to correct the educational whirlpool in this country and less time riffing on the limited intellect of a hapless few.

I suppose it would be too much to ask for that she get booted off the show, but if she did, then I'd love to e-mail her and say, "I prayed for that."

Inkadu, don't forget the elephants...

I can't believe that any of you actually lasted the 8 minutes of that clip. I was going to puke about 2.5 minutes into it. Horrible! Not like I would ever watch that show anyway. But my respect for anyone who does has just gone down.

Mr. B.
High School Math Teacher

"Did anyone count her chromosomes? My guess is she's weighing in at 48".

You really think she's got the intelligence of a chimp ?

Throw my TV away? But I'm watching a History Channel show about pirates! PIRATES!

Can we just throw The View away instead? I think that would be a much better arrangement.

So, I post this tidbit on the Packer Report and I get asked if its another one of my anti relgious posts. It's actually not, I canna believe that someone in the US wouldn't know that...

here's the thread link...check it out. I'm "firemancheesehead"

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=61&f=1808&t=1055629&sto=pagestart

Every misogynistic asshole from here to Larry Summers is going to take her pronouncements as proof that women just shouldn't bother their pretty little heads about science.

Hear, Hear! It's nearly as irresponsible and stupid of the blogger to generalize in such a way. Granted, The View isn't the most informative, brain-building show.. but not every host is a complete dimwit. From Star Jones to Elizabeth Hassleback to Sherri Whatsherface.. there has been a strong conservative (and yes, idiotic) voice. Counter that with more liberal and outspoken women who actually exercise their Grey matter.

Kausik -- Of course. The elephants. How could I forget about the elephants? I'll tell you how: I was too busy figuring out how to put food into my mouth! Do I use my hands to do it, or my feet, or my elbows? Where is my mouth, exactly? If I eat with it, how come i can talk with it too? If I kiss someone, will I accidentally eat them? What I inhale them by accident?

These are the questions that are worth answering.

Hmph. Scientists. Next thing you know they'll be saying the turtle moves.

Deductive logic at work:

> the human body is over 70% water. How could she
> possibly reconcile this with the Genesis account
> of God making Man from clay

God breathes water.
God breathed water into the clay.
Probably through a siphon, while holding the clay in her tentacles, but that's just speculation.
Q.E.D.

Posted by: Brain Hertz #44

Seriously? Do you have a cite for this?

Here you go.

The data is from the 2006 General Social Survey.

Question:
Now, does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth?

Answers:
Earth around sun 73.6%
Sun around earth 18.3%
Don't Know 8.0%
Refused 0.1%

Here's another scary thought for you: This Sherri person is probably registered to vote.

Well, yeah - the View is, as you observed, a talk show for stupid women, so it should come as no surprise that the network found an extraordinarily stupid woman to host it. Who cares? You didn't watch it before, you don't watch it now, and if you're anything like me, you had never heard of it until it became impossible (literally) to ignore Rosie O'Donnell publicly losing such marbles as she has on the show. In other words, it could be hosted by Charles Manson, Derek Jeter, or the Secretary of Agriculture and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to you, me, or anyone else who has something better to do.

The View is certainly an insult to peoples' intelligence, but it's pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of such things.

Twenty percent of the US population still thinks the sun goes around the earth.

Seriously? Do you have a cite for this?

Yes, this is a real number. Gallup GSS poll, 2004 or 2006. Run a search engine and find it.

Not surprisingly, among fundies it is even higher, 26% IIRC.

With the bar set down to this new low, how will we parody stupid people now?

Answers:

Earth around sun 73.6%

Sun around earth 18.3%

Don't Know 8.0%

Refused 0.1%

Owwwwwwwwww.

There's some seriously scary stuff in there - thanks for the link (I think... :-o). I'm not sure what's scarier, the 20% who think the Sun goes round the Earth, or the 8% that don't know. Oddly enough, the combined 26-28% or so figure seems to crop up fairly frequently: it's the same percentage range as responded that lasers work by focusing sound waves, that electrons are larger than atoms, that astrology is "sort of scientific" (yes, that was one of the real options) and that George W Bush is doing a good job as President.

Coincidence? I think not...

Every misogynistic asshole from here to Larry Summers is going to take her pronouncements as proof that women just shouldn't bother their pretty little heads about science.

Ms. Sheppard obviously has not bothered her pretty head about science, and they can see the result. To say women should not bother about science, they would have to approve of that result. On the contrary, her statements offer a compelling illustration of exactly why women ought to learn science.

I suppose there is always the possibility of rebuttal from the misogynists' camp that they do approve of Sheppard's naivety and find it sexy.

Regarding the Sun-around-the-Earth poll in #55, I think there's a difference between people who actively believe the Earth is the center of the universe (Bible sez so!), and the incurious lot who just don't remember anything they learned in school. Neither is defensible. But I'd be curious at how these would break out.

We all know in this (crazed and demented) society that a "fair and balanced" operative in broadcasts for public consumption is to be respected as a given: for every intelligent opinion aired, we must perservere to give equal time to stupidity.

By now the standard bar has been lowered far enough so that broadcasters are wallowing out the delicately subtle shades of grey between "stupid" and "even stupider".

Oh what an acute sense of right we all have.

Every misogynistic asshole from here to Larry Summers is going to take her pronouncements as proof that women just shouldn't bother their pretty little heads about science.

But they can only do that by counting the misses and forgetting the hits, because Goldberg is just as female (and just as black, if you want to make invalid generalizations about that too) and clearly had her head in working order.

It's regrettable that *anyone* is that ignorant, but I saw at least three out of the five panelists having some connection to reality.

I think it's about time they book a female astronaut to appear on the show.

I understand Lisa Nowak needs a new gig.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I think it's about time they book a female astronaut to appear on the show.

I understand Lisa Nowak needs a new gig.

Throw away your TVs....

OK, I guess I can always watch the David Attenborough CDs on my Mac.

Sherri Shepherd....

Errrrr...who???

a new co-host on a talk show for stupid women....

Errrrr...what's a talk show, preciousssss?? Is it crunchable?

Is the world carried on the back of a turtle moving through space?

I was very much hoping that Earth was like Terry Pratchett's Discworld, and now y'all are telling me it's not. My day is ruined, and I shall return to Ankh-Morpork to sulk. >:-(

Sure it's fun, if a bit cruel, to make fun of a profoundly ignorant person, especially someone who is willfully ignorant. However, if people like us sit around snarkily waiting for the education system to improve itself, or for the ignorant masses to educate themselves, the true realization of enlightenment values will be a long time coming.

Outreach, people, outreach!

When Doctor Watson first meets Sherlock Holmes, he discovers that Holmes doesn't know that the sun is the center of the solar system and the earth moves about it. When so informed, Holmes does a shrug of his shoulders and says he'll do his best to forget that information because it is useless to his work.

At first I thought that Shepard was pulling a Holmes here, that we should focus our energy and time on problems here on earth, blah, blah, blah. Then it became apparent that I was giving her WAY too much credit and she's just a cretin.

I suggest we all go read Watson meeting Holmes to get the stoopid out of our heads:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext95/study10.txt

Holmes doesn't know that the sun is the center of the solar system and the earth moves about it . . .

Moriarty, on the other hand, is quite well versed in celestial dynamics, as witness his publication The Dynamics of an Asteroid. More proof of the evil fruits of scientific study.

By the way, this is OT, but I found this wonderful t-shirt. I wanted one, until I found out the seller is (apparently) serious. Now I'm not so sure. Should I be contributing to the coffers of a Creationist? Somehow I doubt it. Yet the design is so wonderfully self-parodying that I'm strangely drawn to it . . . .

Presumably she went to American schools. In all her time in primary and secondary school she had never encountered any mention of the fact that the earth is a sphere turning around the sun in a galaxy turning around?

If that is the case, there must be millions like her.

Au contraire, I am planning to get a high-density TV or whatever they're called and watch National Geographic specials, Canadian Discovery Channel (Daily Planet's DAILY Science News), and the like.

How many times did they use the word "believe"? 2 times per sentence?

When Columbia incinerated during reentry, Dan Rather was on TV and took calls -- live -- from viewers. His first call was a prankster pretending he witnessed debris falling from the sky, and Rather did not know he was being put on. The caller made it to his gag line -- "They think it's Baba Booie's foot!" -- and not only Rather kept going, but his support staff kept the call going. The prankster laughed and hung up, and Rather still didn't get it.

This was Dan Rather, of "What are the frequencies, Kenneth?" fame.

Dumb as a stump.

I fear they all are, and, really, that's as it should be. Corporate sponsors stand to make more money the stupider the audience gets, so every bit of stupidizing (because 'stupefy' is already a word with a different meaning) helps sell soap. And cars, face paint, stinkum, the Purple Pill, diet pills, and fatburgers.

Silly girl. Of course the Earth is round. If it was flat it couldn't be hollow. Pffft. It's so obvious.

I liked Whoopi's and Walter's comments on the subject. I didn't agree with all they said but I like how they found a fairly neutral ground in seeing evolution and a.. well, round earth.. with God too. Not bad, and it sure beats 6000 literal years.

I laughed out loud when she said she never thought about a round/flat earth. Then when pressed if her son asks, she said she'll "Go to the library to look it up". Okay. So look up books about the evolution of species see what you can learn from that too.

I give her a week. I wish I was on that episode.

What kind of school did this moronic Oprah ripoff go to? Come to think of it, where the hell did she grow up?

"But TV gives so much and asks so little."

Oddly enough, the combined 26-28% or so figure seems to crop up fairly frequently: it's the same percentage range as responded that lasers work by focusing sound waves, that electrons are larger than atoms, that astrology is "sort of scientific" (yes, that was one of the real options) and that George W Bush is doing a good job as President.

Coincidence? I think not...

From always excellent Kung Fu Monkey:

John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is --Tyrone: 27%.John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority.Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.

I never thought about is the world flat, but I thought about how to feed my son

I wonder if she might have more time to ponder deep questions like the shape of the earth if she wasn't overestimating the magnitude of the other task task. I mean, she's obviously already grossly overestimated the food needs of at least one other family member.

What was worse was the attitude. She wasn't just saying she didn't know, she was implying that she was RIGHT not to know, because she's been too busy with important stuff to bother with that. She was essentially implying that Whoopie's question was a stupid one, but NOT for the same reason it would be a stupid one to ask the average ten year old.

Please don't tell me the average 10-year-old in the USA still doesn't know the Earth is round. Please. <tremble>

Regarding the Sun-around-the-Earth poll in #55, I think there's a difference between people who actively believe the Earth is the center of the universe (Bible sez so!), and the incurious lot who just don't remember anything they learned in school.

People enter school without already knowing...? <tremble some more>

When Doctor Watson first meets Sherlock Holmes, he discovers that Holmes doesn't know that the sun is the center of the solar system and the earth moves about it. When so informed, Holmes does a shrug of his shoulders and says he'll do his best to forget that information because it is useless to his work.

Sherlock Holmes also takes codeine...

Sherri's a Jehovah's Witless. End of story.

To be honest, I stopped watching TV around the time Cartoon Network stopped airing Bob Clampett cartoons. At this point it was pretty much nothing but Scooby Doo 24/7, so no big loss.

And you know who's standing up against stupidity on The View? Barry Manilow, that's who. He was booked, but refused to go on the show when he couldn't get them to promise he wouldn't have to deal with Elizabeth (the former queen of stupid before the new hire, and a fundie evangelical type).

From Barry:
Hey guys,

I wanted to let you know that I will no longer be on The View tomorrow as scheduled. I had made a request that I be interviewed by Joy, Barbara or Whoopi, but not Elisabeth Hasselback. Unfortunately, the show was not willing to accommodate this simple request so I bowed out.

It's really too bad because I've always been a big supporter of the show, but I cannot compromise my beliefs. The good news is that I will be on a whole slew of other shows promoting the new album so I hope you can catch me on those.

Love,
Barry"

For lack of a better exclamation, CHRIST is she dumb. I'm actually glad she made herself into the world's biggest dunce on TV. Yet another glimpse into how mentally detached these people are not only from real society, but apparently their own beliefs. Now she's made herself look like the world's biggest robot. She doesn't seem to have questioned anything in her entire life.

What was worse was the attitude. She wasn't just saying she didn't know, she was implying that she was RIGHT not to know, because she's been too busy with important stuff to bother with that. She was essentially implying that Whoopie's question was a stupid one, but NOT for the same reason it would be a stupid one to ask the average ten year old.

Please don't tell me the average 10-year-old in the USA still doesn't know the Earth is round. Please. <tremble>

Regarding the Sun-around-the-Earth poll in #55, I think there's a difference between people who actively believe the Earth is the center of the universe (Bible sez so!), and the incurious lot who just don't remember anything they learned in school.

People enter school without already knowing...? <tremble some more>

When Doctor Watson first meets Sherlock Holmes, he discovers that Holmes doesn't know that the sun is the center of the solar system and the earth moves about it. When so informed, Holmes does a shrug of his shoulders and says he'll do his best to forget that information because it is useless to his work.

Sherlock Holmes also takes codeine...