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Where did Bunky come from?
Bunky is the "bunkmate" everyone would love to have. No matter how bad things are going for us, things are always worse for Bunky. Even his dog let him down.
So how come we are comforted, even amused, by the adversities of others, especially when we are depressed ourselves?
Bunky reminds us things are never as bad as they seem. But where is the humor in Bunky's unrelenting suffering? Why do we laugh at Bunky?
When bear-baiting was all the fashion in some places in Europe long ago, someone said they were opposed to bear-baiting "not because it gave pain to the bear but because it gave pleasure to the spectators".
Bunky gives us access to the deeper reaches of the human condition. What we see there is not always uplifting.
There is more to this than "There but for the grace of God go I", I think. Bunky closes the loop between ordinary people who laugh at Bunky's misfortunes, as a salve for their own wounds, and neo-Nazis who paper over their own insecurities by dehumanizing others.
Who was it who said that the germ of every psychopathology resides within all of us? Pogo said: "I have seen the enemy. And it is us."
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I'm still amazed that an expensive TV program could be so wasted.
I get so "amazed" every time I watch *it.
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Mostly, this thread has been boring.. but once you mentioned bunkmate-- i thought about sleeping (or not) in a bunk.
Any movie fans out there know the name of the circa 1948 movie, about a man who enters a contest sponsered by a coffee company for a new slogan?
His (the hero of the movie) slogan is "If you can't sleep, its not the coffee, its the bunk." (but i think he put in the brand name where i said coffee.)
every one thinks its a dumb slogan.. its an interesting movie... mostely about how we react to words!
and the name is?
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If you can't sleep, its not the coffee, its the grind.
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Mostly, this thread has been boring..
Oh, mercy, I have loved it! I think it exemplifies what this board is all about: what's the real meaning?; but wait, have you considered this aspect? kind of thing.
In fact, I am now going to yield to the temptation I resisted earlier in the thread, and see if there might be a mini-revival: centuries ago, it was "fact" that the world was flat. Was that "fact" bunk, back then? Because it sounds right to me now, to say that that "fact" has been debunked.
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Dear Jackie: I think the clue to what is 'bunk" is whether or not it deserves scorn. The people thousands of years ago formed opinions based on their ability to learn and understand the world around them. Their ideas were sadly erroneous, but need not be called bunk. When lazy or misguided people today choose to ignore the teachings of the brightest people, their errors need not be condoned, and may rightly be called "bunk".
The creationists are simply misguided, and their views do not deserve much respect. When they try to lower educational standards, it is justifiable to call their beliefs "bunk".
Anybody who has seen Grand Canyon, or good pictures of it, and can still profess to believe it is only a few thousand years old deserves no respect whatsoever.
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Was that "fact", back then, "bunk"?
I suppose it became "bunk" the day after it was widely and reliably reported that Magellan circumnavigated the globe.
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Dear plutarch: Long before Magellan, the Greeks knew the earth was round, and even computed its circumference:
Eratosthenes made a surprisingly accurate measurement of the circumference of the Earth. Details were given in his treatise On
the measurement of the Earth which is now lost. However, some details of these calculations appear in works by other authors such as Cleomedes, Theon of Smyrna and Strabo. Eratosthenes compared the noon shadow at midsummer between Syene (now Aswan on the Nile in Egypt) and Alexandria. He assumed that the sun was so far away that its rays were essentially parallel, and then with a knowledge of the distance between Syene and Alexandria, he gave the length of the circumference of the Earth as 250,000 stadia.
There is now some disagreement about the length of the stadium, but it does not really diminish his feat.
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A problem is that many things appear to be bunk and are only later discovered to be not so much bunk. An example is continental drift. The old guard is often scornful at newer views. Sometimes, even the greatest experts are wrong. And with so much politics thrown into the mix, it's often difficult for one to discern the bunk from the merely mistaken from the brilliant.
Are Peter Duesberg's ideas about AIDS and HIV bunk? A great many scientists disagree with him. But many people considered him brilliant before he broke away from the pack. I tend to disagree with him (only because of my herd instinct, though, and not because I know enough to evaluate what he says). Still, even if he's wrong, would we call his ideas bunk? If he's wrong, they might even be dangerous ideas. I'm sure there are some people who think his ideas (and probably his person) are worthy of scorn.
Evolution vs creation is an interesting case. I believe there are people among the creation scientists who deliberately mislead others. I say this as someone who was formerly a creationist and who is slightly irritated at having been misled. The vast majority of creationists, however, are not attempting to mislead anyone. Some don't have the education to understand what the issues are and how things work. Many are ignorant, but usually not wilfully so. Their heads are filled with crap before they're even old enough to distinguish their craniums from their sphincters. I certainly feel contempt for creationism, but seldom for creationists. And despite having heard that creationists are trying to make more moves on the school systems, I'm not that worried about it.
In Darwin's time, creationists declared that evolution was impossible because god would not make anything that wasn't perfect. When the gypsum moth was later used, they would say declare that, okay frequencies can changes, but nothing new could be created. Later, it was discovered that microbes mutate and they admitted that okay microbes can evolve but new species are not formed. Nowadays, the creationist elites (scientists at the ICR) admit that certainly evolution can produce new species, but not new *kinds* where *kinds* is ... well, wherever we notice a fossil gap, I guess. I'm not sure what it means. In any case, I suspect that in my children's lifetimes, creationist beliefs will become as rare as belief in a flat earth. My memory is fuzzy here and some of my facts might be slightly off, but I think this is generally true. Even creation scientists now acknowledge that evolution occurs.
Sidenotes:
You're surely aware there is a growing community of skeptics who are acutely interested in what is and what is not bunk. I read an article by Mary Lefkowitz some years back called "Greece for the Greeks: History is not Bunk" which I found pretty interesting. She wrote a book that expanded these ideas called "Not out of Africa" which a friend gave me for xmas and which turned out to be well worth the time. (She also edited a later one called "Black Athena Revisited" which I have not yet read. ) I wonder how many other books have the word "bunk" in the title.
Martin Gardner wrote two very good books called "Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus" and "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science" that gave accounts of poor science and quackery. James (the Amazing) Randi wrote "Flim Flam." Last time I checked, there were dozens of books (at least) published by Prometheus, many of which dealt with the issue of bunk and its debunking.
k
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