http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/10/american-nobel.html
You are fully welcome to think you are smarter than me — you probably are.
But 76 Nobel Prize winners? That’s a tougher sell, no matter who you are.
They have a lot to say on how the Bush administration single-handedly destroyed America’s position of dominance in the scientific community, and mention how this has directly affected America’s current and future financial situation.
In other news, I just received a forwarded e-mail from my mother that, in so many words, blamed our current financial crisis on Nancy Pelosi.
Hmm. E-mail forwards from conservative family members, or 76 of the world’s brightest minds?
At some point some of you people out there have to take your moral principles and look at what truly constitutes the ‘big picture’. While you’re raising arms over the semantics of ‘when life begins’, the rest of the world is laughing at us and passing us by.
I don’t care if you like Obama, or agree with his abortion policy or the color of his skin or his perceived sense of inexperience — when 76 Nobel Prize winners say that he is the best chance of America regaining its scientific dominance in the world and very directly the strength of our economy, you need to stop for a moment and think about whether you think you know more about what we’re talking about here than -76- of the most intelligent and well-informed human beings on the planet.
These people are not partisan. They aren’t looking for your vote, they don’t want your money, they aren’t ‘biased liberal media’ who want your attention for ratings. They want to see this country succeed, and once in a while it’s okay to admit that 76 Nobel Prize winners are smarter than you are, and perhaps, just maybe, trust their judgment.
So if need be, go have a chat with your imaginary sky person of choice, but come down off the high moral horse, put the moral compass back on the shelf, and realize that the only reason you get to argue over moral points instead of begging for food is because you have a job, and your vote next Tuesday may very well determine if you still have that job in the years to come.
We used to be a superpower. Our military has been squandered, our economy is on a very precarious edge (many nations no longer technically consider us a ‘superpower’ because our economy is so weak right now), we are the laughingstock of the global community, as if we weren’t laughed at enough as it was. Some of the most ambitious and intelligent and willful youth are coming home not with paths to a better life, but in bodybags.
Change can be very scary. But sometimes the status quo is far more terrifying. Tell me if any of you can honestly tell me that you can sleep at night reconciling som sense of moral obligation, that is questionable at best and foolish at worst, with four-to-eight more years of The Same.
And yes yes, I’m sure ‘God will provide’, right? Well, I have a record number of Americans living at or below the poverty line that would like to have a word on that subject. But they’re probably all just horrible heathens or something, right? Or perhaps dying of starvation on American soil is apart of his great loving plan?
white walls / black ink 
Thank you for your insightful post!!! I’m going to repost on my blog, and hopefully the endorsement of the most gifted among us will sway some people.
This could happen if conservatives are not too put off by scary, scary science. Unfortunately, they’ll be too busy commiserating with Joe Six-Pack about having no money to call Joe the Plumber, to see the connection between SCIENCE and the WAY OUT OF THIS MESS.
Thanks again!
So… If I also endorse Obama, does that mean I’m just as smart as those 76 Nobel Prize winners? 😉
Read that as sarsasm in the positive, if you know what I mean.
sarcasm*
Sorry to overload this post with mostly useless comments. 🙂
Of course, this assumes that reason and science are the pinnacle of the human experience.
Perhaps some of the moral people you mock perceive other important facets of life beyond the scientific. People are not simply rational robots, and God help us if we start basing our important decisions on \”because some other human being with an award bestowed upon him by other human beings said so.\” That\’s about as logical as voting for somebody because somebody who won an Oscar endorsed him.
Personally, as a poet, I think there is far more to human experience than simply rational, scientific understanding, and I\’m so glad there is. I don\’t honestly know how a poet could think otherwise.
Rachel,
I’ve never truly gone so far as to question your intelligence or comprehension, but this comment may very well have done it.
So…let’s think here. You really see no difference between an actor (Ben Stiller, for instance) and a Nobel Prize winner (Albert fucking Einstein, for instance)? None at all? Those two ‘awards’ are comparable to you, when it comes to the intelligence, insight, and advice that may be offered by a winner of such?
Also, the Nobel Prize has categories for both Literature and Peace, so if you’re writing this prize off as some reward for purely logical, scientific (I’m sure you’ll say ‘worldly’, again?) award free from the realms of the authentic human condition, the following people would like a word with you:
Mandela, Wiesel, Mother Teresa, Kipling, Yeats, Shaw, Faulkner, Eliot, Hemingway, Camus, Steinbeck, Morrison, Heaney…I really could go on, but I think you get the point.
I think your eagerness to cling to the ‘faith’ side of faith vs. reason has pathetically clouded your judgment and grasp here. Apparently my respect for the same minds that honored the likes of Hemingway makes me less of a poet then, as you so stated. Your reasoning is simply flawless, I must say! That was sarcasm, by the way, in case you didn’t catch on.
Oh, by the way, there is also a category for ‘economic science’. This brings us back to the point of this post: 76 of the brightest and most recognized and respected human beings alive today endorsed Obama out of their sheer desire to see someone running this country that might lead it to success in contrast to further ruin.
Please feel free to comment again and explain to me how you know, better than they do, that McCain is the one to do that.
Ryan, you so often read things into my words that were never there. I never mentioned Obama or McCain, or which I feel will be better at running the country.
My point was, yes, the Nobel Prize is simply a prize bestowed by other human beings, and that process in itself is VERY political. And no, I don\’t believe that just because a person has been deemed worthy of that prize that they are necessarily any more qualified to speak out on who will be an effective leader of our country. My point is more that I will make my decision based on MY beliefs and MY understanding, not that of others.
Regarding the Nobel prizes for peace and literature, you focused in your post on scientific understanding, so I answered according to that.
Overall, my post was less about this particular political race or even politics in general than about questioning scientific, or indeed human, rational knowledge, as the pinnacle of human experience. Though it may irk you, Ryan, there are many very, very intelligent people who believe science is simply the study of created things.
Your last statement shows that you didn\’t understand that this was the intent of my post. I am not arguing about politicians. I\’m advocating the acknowledgement that there is something more than rational understanding, the open-mindedness to seek it, and the ability to think for one\’s own self despite what other people say.
You can question my intellect and comprehension if you\’d like; that\’s up to you. One difference between us is that I can study, understand, and appreciate all disciplines, including spirituality, without feeling the need to degrade them. Intellect is of no use if you shut it off as soon as a subject becomes distasteful to you.
I suppose that comes down to what one perceives as ‘distasteful’.
Do you find the Holocaust distasteful, to make an understatement? I’m sure you do. I do as well. We do not differ here. Does this make us both hosts to useless intellect? I don’t believe so. Oh damn, I’ve gone and used that evil ‘logic’. My apologies.
I also find the intellectual enslavement and hindrance of millions of people over thousands of years to be distasteful, but here you and I differ. It happens.
Logic:
If one encounters a subject of study, and possesses the intellect to study it, and studies it (even though it may be distasteful to him), that intellect is useful.
If one encounters a subject of study, and possesses the intellect to study it, but refuses to do so on the basis of an emotional distaste for the subject, he has stopped using his intellect anyway, and that intellect becomes useless.
In your example of the Holocaust, of course, this means that if, simply because I found the Holocaust distasteful, I refused to study it out of an emotional disdain of the Jewish religion, THAT would render my intellect useless on this subject, because I am refusing to engage my intellect. Rather, I am acting out of conditioning or emotion.
Well I could point out your approach to Islam, per our arguments over such many months ago, but I don’t feel like going down that particular road again.
The real point here is that no-one is talking about Obama (or McCain) leading us to any kind of ‘pinnacle’. That isn’t their job. If you find that in art, or God, or money, or sex, or whatever, then good for you. Go at it, rock it out.
What we’re talking about is the person who can best put the country in a successful position, from economics to education to scientific and technological advances, both of which directly effect our economy and are a result of our educational systems, and 76 of the people in the best position to judge which candidate will put the country in a more prosperous position endorse Obama. Zero have endorsed McCain.
That’s the point. Roger roger?