April 14, 2009

Cost of ignorance

This from Reuter's suggests that Saudi Arabia is paying the price for an educational system (and culture) based on religious fundamentalism.

The English-language Saudi Gazette newspaper said some buyers were willing to pay up to 200,000 riyals ($50,000) for an old Singer sewing machine proven to contain red mercury.
Mobile phones are supposedly employed as instruments to prove the existence of the phony substance. Popular belief in the Middle East has it that it can help uncover hidden gold treasures, though there are other theories which say it can be used to create a nuclear bomb.
"If the line cuts off when the telephone is placed close to the needle ... that proves the existence of the substance," Saudi Gazette said.

5 Comments:

Blogger VMM said...

Well, when society places a value on credulity, I expect no less. (Right, the Front?)

April 14, 2009 at 3:21 PM  
Blogger The Front said...

I want to believe...

If the alternative is nihilism, I'll take the pretty stories. Or at least the strange ones... I must admit I prefer the fanciful explanations to the probably rational explanations.

Although rationality is probably a little slipperier (?! 8^/) concept than most rationalists believe.

I am particularly hostile to the fucking logical positivists. Except for Ayer. He rocked.

April 14, 2009 at 8:42 PM  
Blogger VMM said...

I haven't decided between pretty stories and nihilism, yet. I know it has to be one or the other; I just don't know which one I like more.

April 15, 2009 at 9:09 AM  
Blogger President in exile said...

I'm thinking of Peter Rabbit vs. the nihilists in The Big Lubowski. Come to think of it, those guys were pretty wimpy. Might be an even match.

April 15, 2009 at 11:12 PM  
Blogger The Sum of All Monkeys said...

Peter Rabbit was clearly a pookah.So, at +7 feet, he'd have wiped the floor with them.

April 15, 2009 at 11:58 PM  

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