"Darwin's got to be rolling in his grave – the idiots have taken over."

Don't worry, Fat Mike will save us.

Well, maybe not. In a pure or near pure capitalist society, we get something closer to "survival of the fittest." Those who compete and are successful are rewarded while those that do not and are not receive the opposite. That potentially eliminates whole numbers from the gene poole, narrowing the field to those with last names like Rockefeller and Gates. One would assume that their success translates into smarter people. Unfortunately for you however, people with neither common sense nor book smarts will have the intelligence to stop reproducing. So our slime keeps mulitiplying much to the chagrin of those who have claimed to emerged from our special place. Hee hee haa haa. Back to the slime pit I must go. I must start copulating again.

I'm not proposing eugenics here. We don't need a "common sense test."

I'm simply saying that people with neither common sense nor book smarts should choose not to reproduce. Why burden your offspring and eventually their offspring and so on?

Unfortunately the effort to keep such genes out of the gene pool is pointless. The industrial revolution has invalidated survivial of the fittest. Now you need be neither wise, nor intelligent, nor physically fit to survive. The technology we have assures everyone will survive, whether fit or not, and reproduce.

Darwin's got to be rolling in his grave – the idiots have taken over.

An interesting viewpoint that you share…and no doubt you're in good company as far as the gene pool is concerned. I of course disagree with you. If I follow your reasoning (and I may not be able to, since I happily place myself among the genetically flawed) you seem to mix both Darwinism and subjectivity together. When I say Darwinism, I refer to your mention of the gene pool. When I say subjectivity, I refer to your comment regarding "book smart" versus "common sense." I suppose IQ fits the bill of an objective standard (though many bright folks have fallen through the cracks of this measurement) but not really sure how in the world we would set an objective standard for "common sense." Read up on a few postmodern thinkers who are shaping everything from science to religion and I believe you will see how your conclusion has at least indirectly been shaped by the philosophical trend of the day. Well, I've stuck my head out of the flawed gene pool enough for one day…time for me to return to the flawed slime from which I came. Ha.

I agree with early poster(s). Ignorance does not make someone an idiot.

Willful ignorance (being told the facts and refusing to learn, or even just remember 1 year later) means you are an idiot. I don't care what your IQ is, if you can't remember what's physically impossible after you've been made aware that it's physically impossible, then you are an idiot because you lack common sense.

There are two types of "smart" – book smart and smart enough to have common sense. If you don't have the former you can still get by if you have the latter.

But if you have only book smarts and no common sense you belong only behind the safe walls of academia. Leave the real world to people who can function in it.

If you have neither you should not burden the gene pool by reproducing.

(Yes, the exact opposite technique works too… who's the idiot that said it didn't? Until it reaches everybody it can reach, which is when my techique steps in. We're complementary, you and I Much to your dismay and my amusement)

Over and out.

However you state it doesn't change the fact that you prefer to call people stupid

Oh no, I don't. I prefer to call people smart. I hate seing idiocies floating around me like flies. I much, much prefer to see people that think, that actually have ideas in their heads, instead of seing again and again and again the very same idiocies being blurted by people who only seem to have vaccum inside their skulls. Few things give me more pleasure than discussing stuff with smart people, and especially when I'm able to learn something in the process.

You say that calling people stupid as a way to shake 'em up is a stupid idea. Fine. I kinda agree. It's a stupid idea to call people stupid when they ask stupid questions… unless alternative ways to put some sense into their heads are exhausted. Unless facts have been explained to them (nicely) over and over and over and over again and they still fail to grasp them. Simple facts, so simple that you don't even need to have finished highschool to be perfectly able to understand them. Like in this case.

You may think even then that's stupid. Also fine. It's your opinion. I happen to have seen it work, though, so I know you're wrong from personal, first hand experience. It doesn't work for everybody, but some people do wake up. Some brains do benefit from this kind of quiskstart. Believe it or not. It does work sometimes. And as far as I'm concerned, that's enough to make it worthwile.

Breaking news, in case you hadn't noticed: I'm not NASA . But yes, I have seen scientists calling stupid people stupid. Numerous times, in fact. Sometimes they shouldn't, sometimes they go too far, but often that's exactly what needs to be said. If NASA called a press conference and stated bluntly that enybody believing this Mars idiocy was an idiot that just might stop it once and for all. At the very least it would be so big news that you'd have to be a hermit not to hear about it . And some people might even try to understand why they were being so blunt about it, and in the process would learn something. If only to prove, to themselves and to others, that "no, no, I'm no idiot, I was just misinformed".

I happen to like PZ Meyers' style. It pisses some people off, sometimes royally, but it actually enlightens others.

You obviously don't. And won't, probably never, probably not even if you saw it working. So I'm shrugging and leaving the argument. It's pointless.

Which leads me to answering your question. Do I dispute the existence of stupid people? The question is moot. What I dispute is the idea of disparaging people for any reason. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. Ideas are wrong. People are wrong. That doesn't mean we resort to name calling. You are wrong for calling people stupid. There is nothing between the lines. I am not being politically correct (an idea that I detest). It is a fundamentally stupid idea to go around and call people nasty names…especially on a website committed to truth, reason, and integrity. You are in bad form for doing so. When's the last time you saw a NASA scientist in a public forum like this one call someone an idiot, stupid, etc?? Can you, for example, imagine Neal Armstrong going around to classrooms calling kids stupid because they believe Mars is as big as the moon? As a matter of fact, they used a turn-of-the-century form of the word "stupid" to describe young Einstein when he was a student. Give me a break.

I don't hold the slightest hope I will change your mind. But again, you will not win people over by calling them stupid. You lower your own integrity by doing so. There is a principal at stake. I am thoroughly disgusted by the name calling….and I will argue against doing so over and over, whether you get it or not. If I want to see this sort of thing, I can go to a chat room for immature pre-schoolers who don't know any better. But I will continue to fight against it on a blog site as awesome as this one.

Well…

How many times have I to repeat that calling people stupid in this context is not intended as an argument, valid or not, but as a way to shake them until they wake the hell up and think? I'm sorry, but I don't know how can I be any clearer than this. Maybe it's my non-native english putting some kind of barrier here. I can't say.

Since this is the base of the argument you seem to be trying to build here, and you don't seem to be capable of understanding its inherent falsehood, the building you try do build on this faulty foundation simply crumbles as buildings built on faulty foundations tend to do. What you call "my original point" exists only in your fertile imagination, and of course I won't even try to prove a point I never tried to make. That would be… well… stupid.

But tell me something: do you dispute the existence of stupid people? How would you designate someone that keeps believing in stupid ideas, despite people explaining to him or her how and why those ideas are stupid? Over and over again? And over again? "Intellectually challenged"? Is this a question of politically correct semantics?

Or is it simply a question of hypocrisy? You see, I know how to read between the lines. You don't need to write plainly "you're an idiot" to call someone an idiot. You can try to be subtle about it, clumsily or not, and still convey the message with the same cristal clear clarity. And if, while doing it, you say you're not doing it, you're being a hypocrite. Maybe you prefer hypocrisy. I don't. For me, a hypocrite is a life form lower than an idiot.

There's worse, though: there are some that are hypocrites AND idiots.

It's funny, I actually agree with the original premise of the story–the Mars story is terribly stupid. (Notice the key distinction between us–I call ideas stupid and you call ideas AND people stupid.) As to the rest of it, well, best idea you've had all day. I'll go cuddle with the masses you suppose to be utterly hopeless while you go around and call them stupid whenever you subjectively and arbitrarily decide when they are in fact stupid. Of course, you never answered whether you were intending to include yourself in that grouping or if that was an oversight on your part…(notice again I didn't call you anything) which may cause me to rethink my choice to cuddle with the masses.

Oh, boy. Thanks for the lough.

Now, seriously. Look, think what you will, I couldn't care less. But I daresay you are still not understanding.

Let's try to explain this to you following a different path.

At this point, 5 years into this idiocy, all the critical thinking and logic has been tried to exhaustion. It has ran its course. It can't go any further. Complicated matters can be reasoned around for centuries, but there are only so many ways in which you can explain simple things to people. Simple things such as this one. Everything has been tried since this thing started.

When critical thinking and logic can't go any further, you can do one of two things: you can give up, shrug and leave the argument. Or you can try to shake people into awakening. Some people are shakable into awakening, believe it or not. You seem to be too full of yourself to understand this, but different people do react differently to different stimula. Some need cuddling, some need a good shake. And those that can be awakened by a good shake will, after the early irritation ebbs away, be finally permeable to critical thinking and logic. And will probably understand. Finally.

The others, well, you can cuddle them until the stars go dark for all I care.

I have said and done some pretty idiotic things in the past, and as a consequence I have been called an idiot. Had I not been man enough to realise that the people calling me idiot then were right, then yes, I'd probably go read the Inquirer or any other dumb tabloid, probably not even realising that that kind of crap is way more disrespectful towards their readers than any foul-mouthed scumbag that calls them idiots in the face.

Instead, I realised I was being an idiot, I was man enough to admit it, and I made sure to no be an idiot anymore… and least in that particular situation, for we can never know beforehand when and where idiocy strikes. My idiocy and other people's insult led to enlightment, which is a good thing by any measure.

It all depends on who you're talking to, see? On how fragile is the ego of who you're talking to.

To be absolutely clear: nobody is an idiot for not being informed, now matter how stupid they might look at first glance. Asking stupid questions is a wonderful way to learn, and people should be encouraged to ask them. Therefore, for the first two or three iterations of the process, sure, things should be explained with all the patience of the world. But there's a point where there's no way a person with a working brain in the head will still believe in some stuff and patience simply drains out. This Mars thing has crossed that line already. Then it's the time to try a different approach. And if as a consequence, after 5 years of people explaining it can't be true and how and why it can't be true, you still prefer to go read tabloids instead of paying close attention to who is calling you an idiot and explaining why you're being an idiot, then you're hopeless.

And an idiot.

Not quite. I'm pretty sure that Mars at the apparent size of the Moon is still too far away for tidal disruption of either us or Mars.

A person able to think would also be able to take a step back and, well, think: "hm… I've never seen a disc on Mars with my own two eyes, however small it might be. How is it that it's all of a sudden the size of the Moon? And they're telling me to send this to everybody like one of those stupid chain mails? Hum… Fishy, very fishy. Let's try to find out what's going on here. Google… "moon the size of mars". Ah, it's a hoax. Figures."

The truth is that if a layperson believed in this 5 years ago it was one thing and quite excusable. After all, Mars was closer to Earth than usual back then. The next year, that layperson would begin to be a bit silly in believing this story, but what the heck, he could have sleped through the previous year. But now? Now only morons or amnesiacs can believe in this, quite frankly.