Politically Incorrect WSOP Post

[ihardlyknowher]

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Christian

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Since when does praying to the poker Gods make you a Christian?

[erby]

While I do agree that your average American is grotesquely uneducated, I believe that you are placing too much emphasis on the math and sciences. I in no way mean to belittle the sciences, as I am currently finishing up my premedical concentration and believe there is much merit in having a solid scientific background.

However, were the majority of Americans ignorant to Newton's laws of motions, or Bernoulli's principles of fluid dynamics, airplanes would still fly and gravity would still be here. Since your average American has no effect on the construction of an airplane's wing, he or she does not need to be versed in such skills (although it does make for a more interesting human being).

What seems more important to me is that we educate our citizenry on their role as citizens. The math and sciences can take a backseat for the moment for the sake of educating the citizenry on their role in government and their ability to induce change through expression of their ideas. Everyday the average American walks around completely ignorant of anything that is going on in the political sphere - a sphere in which his or her actions can have actual results.

I think that math and the sciences are important, but I also think that the ability to express your ideas intellectually is more important at this time.

Teach people to express their ideas well, and they will gain confidence and maybe begin to better themselves in other areas like math and the sciences.

ERBY [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[bobman0330]

This thread is really surreal.

You've pointed out 2 classes of people, scientists and poker players, presented a bunch of anecdotal evidence that they're dominated by non-white/non-Christians, then turned this into an argument about how stupid/ignorant/blind white Christians are.

Wow.

Taking on faith your assertion that poker and science require the largest amount of a certain kind of reasoning ability... who the hell would want to be a scientist or a professional poker player?

Ironically, someone with a clear understanding for figures should choose almost any profession but these two, just because there's very little money in them.

Take someone in the top 5% in ability from either group of professional poker players or scientists, and compare their salary to someone in the top 5% of almost any other professional category--doctors, lawyers, executives, Wall St. types--and the disparity would be shocking. Compare the lot of the average member and the result will be at least as unever. Plus all the scientists would be designing airplanes for you.

I'm going to offer the following counterproposition: Christians are not in fact hopelessly stupid and incurious. Scientists and poker players lack at least one of the following: ambition, self-confidence, or ability to succeed in other fields.

[J_V]

Very cool and intriguing.

[jason_t]

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"a decent number of mathmeticans or chemists could become great political scientists if they had to. (Because ability in math is correlated to overall thinking ability)"

This assumes politics (there is no such thing as political science) can be "solved," like a math problem. And that assumption leads to grand schemes to improve society and those often lead to disaster.

Are there any examples of great mathematicians or chemists who have become great political scientists?

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Quite a few high profile mathematicians have been involved in politics to varying degrees. Without doing any research on the subjcet the following names come to mind.

Isaac Newton (MP, Warden of Royal Mint)
Pierre Simon de Laplace (French Minister of the Interior)
Paul Painleve (Prime Minister of France, ran for President)
Laurent Schwartz (humanitarian, led protests against Russian invasion of Hungary, American involvement in Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Russian war against Chechnya.)

There are countless others.

[rollingdirty]

[Zygote]

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Ok this made me laugh. Laugh alot actually. My roomate asked me what Sklansy's Education level was when he read it. So what is the answer someone, or David himself?

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i believe he has a degree in actuarial sciences. he also appears to have a very intelligent father that passed on a lot of wisdom.

[lehighguy]

There is also one other factor to consider. I find that wealthy Asians and Indians tend to be as lazy and stupid as wealthy Americans and whites. Perhaps the correlation is partly wealth not just race or culture.

[jman220]

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"a decent number of mathmeticans or chemists could become great political scientists if they had to. (Because ability in math is correlated to overall thinking ability)"

This assumes politics (there is no such thing as political science) can be "solved," like a math problem. And that assumption leads to grand schemes to improve society and those often lead to disaster.

Are there any examples of great mathematicians or chemists who have become great political scientists?

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite a few high profile mathematicians have been involved in politics to varying degrees. Without doing any research on the subjcet the following names come to mind.

Isaac Newton (MP, Warden of Royal Mint)
Pierre Simon de Laplace (French Minister of the Interior)
Paul Painleve (Prime Minister of France, ran for President)
Laurent Schwartz (humanitarian, led protests against Russian invasion of Hungary, American involvement in Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Russian war against Chechnya.)

There are countless others.

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You left out a biggy: Albert Einstein. Extremely active in the zionist movement, was offered the presidency of Israel. Became active in the anti-nuclear movement.

[roxtar]

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Plus the attributes I ascribed to them (uninterested in learning from others) was just an average of course. Still I have little doubt that attribute is more common among the group mentioned.

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I think my local hardware store has just had a run on broad paint brushes.