Not even wrong: "The Politic" edition.

Legend has it that it was theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli who once dismissed a student's physics paper with the unforgettable putdown, "This isn't right. It's not even wrong."

Nowadays, the phrase "not even wrong" is typically used to describe claims that are not only incorrect, but are presented in such an unintelligible way as to be simply beyond refutation. Put another way, the claim is such hopelessly jumbled nonsense, you have no idea where to even begin its evisceration.

You can find countless splendid examples of that kind of irrefutable rubbish in the claims of various New Age practitioners, who have taken the standard terminology of science and bastardized and abused it to the point where it can't even be parsed in any meaningful way anymore. Consider the following, content-free New Age gibberish:

The Sonic Rainbow Siren synchronizes our personal vibrations & environment, with the ever present [ phi harmonic ] Music of the Spheres at the vibrational levels of our whole selves - at all the molecular, fluid & gaseous or ethereal states, keeping our whole, ever integrating vibrational selves & environment in tune & flowing with the continual phi harmonic vibrations & light geometries the magnanimous Music of the Spheres generates. These constant, inaudible phi harmonic vibrations are generated by the actual friction of the continual movement of the planets, determining our Earth's and as a reflection - our own energetic, vibrational make up.

How would you dispute that? Where in God's name would you even begin? But you don't need to go surfing through New Age lunacy to find that kind of incomprehensible silliness; no, you need only check in at the previously-referenced article by Matthew at "The Politic," in which Matthew produces such singularly brain-damaging scientific illiteracy that it's a mystery how you'd even start to explain to Matthew how off-base he is.

You could try, of course, but any kind of meaningful dialogue typically requires that you have at least some fundamental basis for communication; that you can agree on some minimal set of terminology to use. But when someone claims that creationism is
"a real scientific theory" while dismissing biological evolution as "a model [that] won’t be so lucky as to stick around [for 400 years]", you have to ask yourself whether there's any point in even starting the conversation. That sort of absurdity is not only incorrect, but it's beyond wrong as well, and there's nothing to suggest that Matthew is capable of even being educated to the point where he'd understand the point you were trying to make.

So, really, you can leave educational comments there if you like but they're unlikely to make much difference. To put it simply, Matthew is not to be educated, he is to be mocked. It may sound cruel, but I'm sure Pauli would have approved.

OH, DEAR: I think you've reached dumbfuck critical mass when Aaron "Spanky" Unruh joins the discussion and tries to educate others on the philosophy of science. Stay tuned as Aaron waxes eloquent on cosmology and string theory, telling anyone who will listen how he would have set that Stephen Hawking guy straight, yes sir.