Just for the fun of it ...
From the comments on PaleoOD, something Kurt Harris said prompted this t-shirt slogan idea by bentleyj74:
"I'm wrong with all the right people"
Which got me thinking ... would you rather be:
- Wrong with all the right people ... or
- Right with all the wrong people??
Just kidding ... If this generates some discussion I'll chime in on the comments with my own thoughts.
Comments
Many people I respect, including Stephan, once thought carbohydrates per se might be unhealthy.
Sadly, some of the people I respect otherwise still think that.
Bentley's joke is funny, but has an altogether different meaning....
I certainly did not mean I preferred to be wrong than to hang with the "wrong" people.
Everyone likes to think they are a maverick.
The question is, relative to what?
You can wear the dissident badge relative to the "Stupid diet researchers"
Or you can wear the badge of dissident relative to the false consciousness of the "debunkers of the stupid diet researchers" once you realize that the narrative that the Germans between the wars knew more than we do now is a crock of shit.
It would make a decent t-shirt though : )
It happens. My skeptical muscles got a good workout and my ego a good working over.
I prefer to think of myself as what the judge called Ken Kesey
click "tarnished Galahad"
copy & paste for the paranoid to be sure it's safe
https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=%22tarnished+Galahad%22+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
It's like those who went to the desert to find the guru/abba/monk/saint...and they brought all their wrong-headedness to the RIGHT people to learn wisdom. :) Better to be wrong before the wise one who will help me see the light, then just be right with the wrong ones. Judas must have figured that one out...hence the big old suicide jump. ; )
Later....
The question is, relative to what?"
Exactly ...and it's fair to say that in hindsight I for sure have mistaken "maverick" for "successfully propagandised" and I'll bet I'm not all by myself in the naughty chair.
1 They will shake it off sooner rather than later
and
2 It will be a fun ride regardless
Maybe its like getting lost in the forest with an expert woodsman vs following the clueless along a path that only leads to trouble.
The ultimate odds of ending up in the right place are what count.
The tools in your kitbag....
You state your truth and take the consequences. What other people think is irrelevant.
Eventually the truly smart people will come around.
"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." Arthur Koestler.
Example: the Israeli chemist who recently won the Nobel prize. He proposed something so apparently outlandish that his recent team expelled him. But eventually other chemists came to see he was right.
Evie - there ain't no Nobel prizes for science blogging, but in my book, you deserve one!!
As an extrovert who is assuredly not within shouting distance of being a nobel prize winning Israeli chemist or even one of the truly smart people I do think that other peoples opinions are relevant. Perhaps not crucial, but relevant. I find the rub and conflict very useful hopefully without turning me into a useful idiot.
"crucial, but relevant."
Yes, there is a rub. Human beings are social animals and we can't help but be members of someone's team. The chemist (Schectman, I looked it up), had to learn his chemistry from someone else. The physicist Richard Feynman, a genius, complicated his own cancer treatments terribly because he was a radical skeptic who thought he knew more than his doctors about cancer (he didn't).
Science, or any critical thinking for that matter, is a matter of revising prior assumptions. There are some teams that know more about stuff than others. But....the truly good ones always know when it's time to break ranks.
I hear Steve Jobs did the same thing re cancer treatment. My grandfather was invloved in physics professionally but thought he could treat his own type 2 diabetes with snickers bars [he was wrong and probably shaved years off his life].
@Kurt: I took your original comment exactly like you clarified it here!
"I'D AGREE WITH YOU BUT THEN WE WOULD BOTH BE WRONG"
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