57 thoughts on “Trump Spokesperson: No Climate Change, Earth is 5500 Years Old”
This interview shows how much deep sh_t we are in with this incoming administration. However Mr. Pakman makes a big error here, which does not help our cause. Scaramucci does not say the earth is 5500 years old – he corrects himself to say the 5500 year old human history, which is also wrong, but a completely different thing. And ClimateCrocks needs to point this out.
The last thing we need is to use the same dishonest tactics the right uses (like taking things out of context, clipping sentences, etc). The facts based on science can stand on their own with no help like this.
The good news is that Trump believes in only one god, and its not a Young Earth Creationist god, or for that matter, even a Christian one. The bad news is that he seems quite willing to entertain the religious nuts who do believe in Young Earth Creationism (that the earth is roughly 1/1,000,000th its actual age, which in terms of magnitude at least is roughly equivalent to believing that the Earth is a little more than 400 feet in diameter, and quickly runs afoul of geology, paleontology and genetics) if it means that they will stand with the Kleptocrat in Chief and his cronies.
Pretty shameful that Trump could indeed be our first atheist president. I did a quick history video on the first experimental calculation of the age of the earth a few years ago, though I accidentally said the Hutton lecture to the Royal Society was in 1775 instead of 1785:
One thing is clear from it: In 2100 or 2200, long after the energy market has been decarbonized, there will still be climate change deniers (and evolution and geology deniers).
“long after the energy market has been decarbonized, there will still be climate change deniers (and evolution and geology deniers).” Hopefully by then they will be living in their rightful environment, pink padded cells containing no sharp objects. Letting them run the largest military industrial complex on the planet? Words fail me!
Actually, he has a BA in Economics from Tufts and a JD from Harvard Law, so he would appear to be better educated than his science comments suggest. Began his career at Goldman Sachs (another one of those) and made his bucks as a hedge fund manager, so probably isn’t a very good Christian even though he believes in 5500.
(He sounds like he was bottom of the class at the schools he graduated from—-even economists and lawyers are supposed to be minimally educated in science).
There are a number of Christians who believe they will occupy a higher place in heaven for doing anything then can to promote a literal interpretation of the English bible. No matter how stupid they may sound (in fact, they enjoy the attention)
Reblogged this on D. M. Hutchins and commented:
Well, all hope of Trump doing anything decent just went flying out of the window… Is he seriously going to appoint a stooge like this to any position of power? I’m hoping that this idiot is just saying these nonsensical things because he thinks he will gain the approval of the idiots who actually believe this “biblical” stuff… I just cant facepalm hard enough right now. This is the dumbest news segment in our planets 5500 year history, lol.
Did you know there is a new ‘conservative’ Bible?
It’s been re-written because the original Bible “has a left-wing bias”.
I kid you not. Turns our Jesus was a bit of a socialist and got quite a few things wrong.
One of the aims of the new Bible is to:
“Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning”
Looked it up, but its still a flegdling project. Was curious how these conservatives would translate words like qadosh; qadoshah; qadoshim (holy; harlot/priestess; god/gods/holy ones/homosexuals), but they haven’t gotten that far yet. Just a single example shows that interpreting and converting the language and culture found in ancient Hebrew texts is not a simple or straight forward proposition.
Matthew 19:24
“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Shall become “Only someone who is truly rich with profits from vice and dishonesty can purchase a needle large enough to squeeze all his worldly possessions into the kingdom of God”
The “eye of the needle” was actually the name of a gate in the wall of Jerusalem. It was quite small, and a camel would need to walk on its knees to squeeze through. This implies, by way of analogy, that it was not absolutely impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom (as it would be if you are thinking of a sewing needle), but still completely impractical, and, most importantly, not without crawling on your knees. The exemptions that the proposed “Conservative” translation introduces are completely fabricated and ideological, and 100% at odds with any scholarly methods and controls.
It is true to the spirit of the teaching and text that the wealthy are not by definition irredeemable, and even they can turn their life around — Jesus did not turn away from anybody, not even those collecting taxes for the Roman Empire.
“The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things from what I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. Those are found in other circumstances, I find them when thinking at my desk, but not in the meeting hall.”
Thanks for sharing that Louise , glad I’m not the only one seeing so many similarities – scary times ahead indeed, what a dramatic change an election (in the most influential nation on our planet).
5500 years takes us to 3500 BC, and this is indeed the dawn of human history and the advent of writing and recording of math, astronomy, laws, stories, myths, and kings. Herodotus is 5th century BC and is know as the father of history (Cicero), the first person known to us to actually write historiographically about events in the past. The lists of kings from Sumer/Uruk takes us out to about 2800 BC, and they were already looking backwards to record the past, although very little going back to 3500 can be confirmed. Everything we know about humans before then is only by way of pottery, artefacts, and archeology. The advent of writing and actual records of human consciousness and thought can be stretched to max 3500. In this sense we could say there are about 5500 years of human history.
Writing can only have come from language. Writing did not pop up fully formed. Complex language, ideas and stories can only have come from many years (many hundreds of years) of talking and thinking and ascribing words to reality. Human history, as in later societies that did not use writing, was recorded verbally for as long as humans have talked to each other. It’s likely that, for example, the verbal histories of the Australian original people go back far longer than 5500 years. It is regularly discovered that the ‘earliest recorded’ incidences of history are found to go back further than first thought.
Actually Vedic literature and the Indian Vedic scholars claim that civilisation is tens of thousand years old.
There are ancient sunken cities that went under water when the Laurentide shelf went. The entire world was not covered in ice and civilisation would have been centered around coastal areas especially tropical and subtropical. Higher elevations more likely to be icebound
These are difficult archaeological areas to investigate
From sites such as Göbekli Tepe (11,500 BC) we now know (on the basis of DNA of domesticated plants and carbon dating, etc, of edifices) that large scale “temple” building preceded the neolithic agricultural revolution. These people would certainly have also had calendars and trading conventions. It could well be that human beings built and accomplished things millenia before then, but we have no records which tell us anything, and skeletons, firepits, burial sites, etc. contain limited information which is also subject to rather large differences in interpretation. The 3500 BC is about the maximum for anything resembling the recording of history and human thought, especially if we are talking about things that can be confirmed and are not simply myths or backwards projection.
This interview shows how much deep sh_t we are in with this incoming administration. However Mr. Pakman makes a big error here, which does not help our cause. Scaramucci does not say the earth is 5500 years old – he corrects himself to say the 5500 year old human history, which is also wrong, but a completely different thing. And ClimateCrocks needs to point this out.
The last thing we need is to use the same dishonest tactics the right uses (like taking things out of context, clipping sentences, etc). The facts based on science can stand on their own with no help like this.
I have criticized R. Maddow similarly.
James obviously believes that no horse is too dead to beat. LOL!
If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it. Lord love a duck!
The good news is that Trump believes in only one god, and its not a Young Earth Creationist god, or for that matter, even a Christian one. The bad news is that he seems quite willing to entertain the religious nuts who do believe in Young Earth Creationism (that the earth is roughly 1/1,000,000th its actual age, which in terms of magnitude at least is roughly equivalent to believing that the Earth is a little more than 400 feet in diameter, and quickly runs afoul of geology, paleontology and genetics) if it means that they will stand with the Kleptocrat in Chief and his cronies.
The name of the only God in which Trump believes is Mammon, of course.
Pretty shameful that Trump could indeed be our first atheist president. I did a quick history video on the first experimental calculation of the age of the earth a few years ago, though I accidentally said the Hutton lecture to the Royal Society was in 1775 instead of 1785:
https://youtu.be/K-tjh-wIShk
One thing is clear from it: In 2100 or 2200, long after the energy market has been decarbonized, there will still be climate change deniers (and evolution and geology deniers).
“long after the energy market has been decarbonized, there will still be climate change deniers (and evolution and geology deniers).” Hopefully by then they will be living in their rightful environment, pink padded cells containing no sharp objects. Letting them run the largest military industrial complex on the planet? Words fail me!
‘We get allot of things wrong in the scientific community..’ says the clown.
Listen up clown you are not a part of the scientific community but that does not stop you being outrageously WRONG.
He is an example of output from Liberty University perhaps, or maybe Trump University.
A new dark age dawns. Just wait for the ‘book burnings’ which will be blamed on Mexican, Venezuelan, Cuban or Islamic terrorists.
Actually, he has a BA in Economics from Tufts and a JD from Harvard Law, so he would appear to be better educated than his science comments suggest. Began his career at Goldman Sachs (another one of those) and made his bucks as a hedge fund manager, so probably isn’t a very good Christian even though he believes in 5500.
(He sounds like he was bottom of the class at the schools he graduated from—-even economists and lawyers are supposed to be minimally educated in science).
How long will this ignorance be bliss?
There are a number of Christians who believe they will occupy a higher place in heaven for doing anything then can to promote a literal interpretation of the English bible. No matter how stupid they may sound (in fact, they enjoy the attention)
Reblogged this on D. M. Hutchins and commented:
Well, all hope of Trump doing anything decent just went flying out of the window… Is he seriously going to appoint a stooge like this to any position of power? I’m hoping that this idiot is just saying these nonsensical things because he thinks he will gain the approval of the idiots who actually believe this “biblical” stuff… I just cant facepalm hard enough right now. This is the dumbest news segment in our planets 5500 year history, lol.
I am feeling ill………
Did you know there is a new ‘conservative’ Bible?
It’s been re-written because the original Bible “has a left-wing bias”.
I kid you not. Turns our Jesus was a bit of a socialist and got quite a few things wrong.
One of the aims of the new Bible is to:
“Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning”
http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project
Looked it up, but its still a flegdling project. Was curious how these conservatives would translate words like qadosh; qadoshah; qadoshim (holy; harlot/priestess; god/gods/holy ones/homosexuals), but they haven’t gotten that far yet. Just a single example shows that interpreting and converting the language and culture found in ancient Hebrew texts is not a simple or straight forward proposition.
Matthew 19:24
“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Shall become “Only someone who is truly rich with profits from vice and dishonesty can purchase a needle large enough to squeeze all his worldly possessions into the kingdom of God”
The “eye of the needle” was actually the name of a gate in the wall of Jerusalem. It was quite small, and a camel would need to walk on its knees to squeeze through. This implies, by way of analogy, that it was not absolutely impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom (as it would be if you are thinking of a sewing needle), but still completely impractical, and, most importantly, not without crawling on your knees. The exemptions that the proposed “Conservative” translation introduces are completely fabricated and ideological, and 100% at odds with any scholarly methods and controls.
It is true to the spirit of the teaching and text that the wealthy are not by definition irredeemable, and even they can turn their life around — Jesus did not turn away from anybody, not even those collecting taxes for the Roman Empire.
“The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things from what I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. Those are found in other circumstances, I find them when thinking at my desk, but not in the meeting hall.”
Joseph Goebbel Speech on 9 January 1928
Thanks for sharing that Louise , glad I’m not the only one seeing so many similarities – scary times ahead indeed, what a dramatic change an election (in the most influential nation on our planet).
5500 years takes us to 3500 BC, and this is indeed the dawn of human history and the advent of writing and recording of math, astronomy, laws, stories, myths, and kings. Herodotus is 5th century BC and is know as the father of history (Cicero), the first person known to us to actually write historiographically about events in the past. The lists of kings from Sumer/Uruk takes us out to about 2800 BC, and they were already looking backwards to record the past, although very little going back to 3500 can be confirmed. Everything we know about humans before then is only by way of pottery, artefacts, and archeology. The advent of writing and actual records of human consciousness and thought can be stretched to max 3500. In this sense we could say there are about 5500 years of human history.
Writing can only have come from language. Writing did not pop up fully formed. Complex language, ideas and stories can only have come from many years (many hundreds of years) of talking and thinking and ascribing words to reality. Human history, as in later societies that did not use writing, was recorded verbally for as long as humans have talked to each other. It’s likely that, for example, the verbal histories of the Australian original people go back far longer than 5500 years. It is regularly discovered that the ‘earliest recorded’ incidences of history are found to go back further than first thought.
Actually Vedic literature and the Indian Vedic scholars claim that civilisation is tens of thousand years old.
There are ancient sunken cities that went under water when the Laurentide shelf went. The entire world was not covered in ice and civilisation would have been centered around coastal areas especially tropical and subtropical. Higher elevations more likely to be icebound
These are difficult archaeological areas to investigate
We have of course fragments, such as http://www.jckonline.com/2015/05/08/jeweler-made-this-bracelet-40000-years-ago
The Australian Aborigines were building stone dwellings 9,000 years ago
The sphinx is by its weathering and erosion by water believed by some to be far more than 10,000 years old.
The history we know originated from specific areas of the globe
From sites such as Göbekli Tepe (11,500 BC) we now know (on the basis of DNA of domesticated plants and carbon dating, etc, of edifices) that large scale “temple” building preceded the neolithic agricultural revolution. These people would certainly have also had calendars and trading conventions. It could well be that human beings built and accomplished things millenia before then, but we have no records which tell us anything, and skeletons, firepits, burial sites, etc. contain limited information which is also subject to rather large differences in interpretation. The 3500 BC is about the maximum for anything resembling the recording of history and human thought, especially if we are talking about things that can be confirmed and are not simply myths or backwards projection.