User:AaronSw/phenomic


 * chinaman
 * A scientific belief or claim made without evidence but still popular because it supports some social purpose.


 * Robert totally debunked that chinaman in the latest issue of Zeptic.


 * from the first paragraph of Noam Chomsky's The Case Against B. F. Skinner


 * turnspeak
 * When X is beating up Y, complaining about how Y lifted a finger and scratched X.


 * Focusing on the damage caused by protesters is pure turnspeak!


 * from From Time Immemorial, ironically enough


 * UFOporn
 * A story written by a supporter of something in which he manages to convince a skeptic.


 * David Horowitz's latest bit of UFOporn, in which leftist academics confess their true totalitarian nature, is now up at Salon.com.


 * from Chris Mooney, Bad Science, Bad Fiction:


 * Let's face it: Such writing is pure porn for global warming deniers, in much the same way that fictional accounts of UFO abduction skeptics converting into true believers titillate UFO fans.


 * wealthsex
 * A standard of comparison with no basis in fact.


 * Some dismiss the DSM-IV as simply wealthsex, not entirely unreasonably.


 * from Oleanna:


 * JOHN: When I was young somebody told me, are you ready, the rich copulate less often than the poor. But when they do, they take more of their clothes off. Years. Years, mind you, I would compare experiences of my own with this dictum, saying, aha, this fits the norm, or, ah, this is a variation from it. What did it mean? Nothing.  It was some jerk thing, some school kid told me that took up room inside my head.


 * pun sluts


 * The people who sit in back rooms thinking up oh-so-clever titles for articles and things like "Barristas of the World Unite" and "One Nation Over Gravel".


 * (upon seeing an article) Aargh, stupid pun sluts!


 * intellectual fecklessness [looking for a better word]


 * Only caring about how an idea feels in one's mind, how clever it is, and not about how it conforms to reality.


 * Well, Bob is a wonderful writer, but his problem is that he's intellectually feckless.


 * from Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities:


 * It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so. (7f)