Dr Myth vs oversimplimythification

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2013-12-12
Dr Myth vs oversimplimythification+Image

 

 

 

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    Brandon WilliamsCraig Well, to be technically correct they ARE myths, which is to say fact and fiction combined, interpreted, and framed in narrative terms to work with Big Ideas. Myth = False is as ridiculous an idea as Evolution and Climate Change being false. Just saying. Love, Doctor Myth.
     
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    Tobin E Threadgill Brandon... LOL, Two very different audiences ney? You are educated in what really defines a myth. Me thinks Neil deGrasse Tyson is speaking to another group altogether.
     
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    Brandon WilliamsCraig True, Sensei, but I also try to object gently but firmly when people of any group rehearse sad and damaging stereotypes about the martial arts. "Well, I'll know to be careful around you, so you don't kick my ass" being one of my least favorite, still pounding coffin nails into the truth of the more admirable martial artists being persons of character, inclined much more toward deliberation than reaction.
     
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    William Taylor Global warming is no myth to Pacific Islanders. The effects of rising sea levels has caused some low lying islands to be abandoned. Our NE Trade winds have become very sporadic in recent years and have been replaced by southerly warm and humid winds. Those NE trade winds give Hawaii its great weather and we are in danger of loosing them. It could negatively impact tourism which would be a severe blow to the economy of the 50th state.
     
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    Tobin E Threadgill @ Brandon...And you originally from Texas as well.  Do you ever feel as much a freak as I do? (How's that for a stereotype!)
     
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    Brandon WilliamsCraig Definitely feel freaky until I reflect on the sheer quantity of other people who don't fit the various stereotypes. Then just feel freaky all on my lonesome 
     
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    Tarik J. Ghbeish While I don't entirely disagree with where Brandon is coming from, it is an entirely valid definition of the word myth is "an idea or story that is believed by many people but that is not true" from pretty much every dictionary you care to look it up in. The fact that there are many important truths that can be learned from myths isn't really all that relevant to deGrasse Tyson's point, IMO.
     
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    Brandon WilliamsCraig I am high-jacking deG.T., I admit. But we have a huge range of infinitely better ways to communicate "widely believed and false", deploying ideas like "groupthink", "propaganda", "mass psychosis", and more. Having this be the most commonly used idea of Myth is like shrugging your shoulders every time somebody reduces another human being to "a nice piece of ass." I gotta at least give them the squinty eyeball and ask "Really?" Digging down into how belief works (more than what is believed, often) beneath the stories being told, i.e. practicing a mythological point of view, is one of the most essential and widely neglected skill-sets of our era.
     

 

 

 

 

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