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Politics and 'An Inconvenient Truth'
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Nov 28, 2006 09:59 AM
from the get-this-sorted-out dept.
from the get-this-sorted-out dept.
Frogbeater writes "The producer of 'An Inconvenient Truth' is accusing the National Science Teachers Association of being in the pocket of Big Oil because she can't get preferential treatment for her film. The entire situation is turning into a 'if you're not with us, you're against us' yelling match. Regardless of the viewpoint, is it even possible that science can remain apolitical? Has it ever been?" The Washington Post makes things out to be less than above board: "In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the way children learn about science, from kindergarten until they graduate from high school ... NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the science of energy. There, students can find a section called 'Running on Oil' and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track record -- citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the companies fought tooth and nail, by the way -- but makes only vague references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video produced by API called 'You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel,' a shameless pitch for oil dependence."
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An Inconvenient Truth 1033 comments
There's a movie teaser line that you may have seen recently, that goes like this: "What if you had to tell someone the most important thing in the world, but you knew they'd never believe you?" The answer is "I'd try." The teaser's actually for another movie, but that's the story that's told in the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth": it starts with a man who, after talking with scientists and senators, can't get anyone to listen to what he thinks is the most important thing in the world. It comes out on DVD today.
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Random questions and comments (Score:5, Interesting)
-I remember seeing in science class a movie produced by Exxon about the Valdez oil spill. While it was propaganda, I also remember the teacher pointing out all the flaws and telling everyone that it was Exxon's propaganda. "Oh, look at this part, where they act like everything's all peachy now."
-Oh, so *now* you care about teachers' associations getting political. Just not when they oppose any whiff of school choice.
-Should no research into oil be funded by oil companies? Even basic research into hydrocarbon chemistry? That seems to be the implication.
-To answer the question: yes, science can remain apolitical, as long as it rigidly adheres to the scientfic principles of reproducibility and transparency. That's what makes science science: Even if someone refuses to believe you, it doesn't matter. Other people can perform their own corroborating experiments. Even if someone believes it to be all voodoo, you can then go out and continue to make valid predictions that result in useful services. And then anyone is free to propose alternate theories that match the data better.
When the above isn't possible, science can become political. When you can't make a thousand copies of the earth, causally separate them, randomly vary emissions, wait a hundred years, and run a regression, people have all the room the in world to reject your theories since it can't have the repeated empirical validation science relies on. When you can't engineer an entire planet's existence, start a weather system, wait a billion years, and see complex organisms evolve, you again don't have the repeated empirical validation science relies on. BEFORE YOU FLAME ME OR MOD ME DOWN, I'm not trying to dispute global warming or evolution, but rather, just pointing that you can't come up with the plain-as-day prediction and validation you can in other areas.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When you have
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's my point -- you don't need their approval. You make predictions routinely. They are correct routinely.
The problem with this argument is that you assume your predictions come true the majority of the time. In many cases, environmental science especially, this assumption is not true. So what happens when you make your predictions and those predictions are wrong? While I think that his book on environmental theory was a bit of a sham, Michael Crichton definitely had a good idea when he proposed t
Re:Random questions and comments (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Random questions and comments (Score:5, Insightful)
This is fine as long as everyone does hold to their principles, as long as there is someone there to point out that, in fact, X, Y, or Z piece of propaganda is propaganda.
History is rife with examples of corporate special interests skewing research about their products through carefully chosen grants and commissioned studies. Lead, Tobacco, DDT, Oil; hell, you even get a lot of it in government sponsored hydro power, because if the people who make dams run out of places to put dams their jobs go away.
It's real easy to say, "We can keep our principles and take their money" but history shows that that's just not true. You take their money, you drink their kool-aid, you sacrifice your principles, and you produce biased research.
It's like a politician saying, "Just because this lobbyist gave me a million dollars, doesn't mean I'm going to vote the way he wants me to." Come on. You're only fooling yourself.
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Re:Random questions and comments (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with the assumption that the oil companies truly believe that global warming is a nonexistent threat. Remember big tobacco? They persisted in denying that cigarettes causes cancer, etc. all the while knowing full well that this was false.
A quote which is attributed to Friedman goes: "The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders." Taken to the limit, this means that a company will take any action neccessary to secure and guard profits.
I'm one of the people who believes that this is exactly what most big corporations do. Call me cynical, but I think a lot of empirical data supports this theory.
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Re:Random questions and comments (Score:5, Informative)
You totally misunderstood Friedman's point, probably because you never read Friedman, but instead took the quote out of context.
First of all, in the section of his book where he makes the quote you pulled, he's not talking about how companies do behave, he's talking about how he thinks the should behave. Friedman argues that corporations engage in all kinds of frivolous charity, making donations to causes and such, and that they should stop. Instead, corporations should return those profits to their shareholders, and let the shareholders make charitable donations as they wish.
Second of all, Friedman didn't believe that corporations should take any action necessary to secure profit. His understanding of corporate responsibility is the commonly-accepted, rational one: corporate businesses, like all businesses, individuals, non-profits, clubs, or other human agencies, should obey the law equally. In other words, if corporations take less-than-optimal actions, and they're not breaking the law, you need to change the law, not the corporation.
Your interpretation is akin to saying that Winston Churchill was a big supporter of Hitler--it's the exact opposite of the facts.
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Re:Random questions and comments (Score:4, Insightful)
I make my living as a computational chemist, and while I know that we're neglecting many terms in our solutions, reproducible results come back, that agree to varying degrees of confidence to experimental results. Furthermore, we understand how to improve those results, and make rational time/accuracy/resource trade-offs to get the answers we need to the precision required.
In short, while I've never directly observed an oxygen molecule, accumulated indirect evidence has caused me to believe in them. It has also led to the conclusion that removing them from my immediate environment is bad. Same for your examples. Come up with a reasoned set of arguments that explain why a couple thousand physicists or biologists are all wrong, send out some papers and get yourself slotted into a presentation at a conference, and have at. You're free to try, and that's what the process is all about.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're missing the bigger issue here. There is not necessarily any problem with the oil industry doing their own research, and disseminating that research to teachers. It becomes a problem when they are allowed to buy access that other groups don't have. In this case they've been treated as loving benefactors, and the teachers have willingly accepted their message along with their cash. But when another group tries to offer a different viewpoint, they are labeled special interest and shut out of the
Science + Money = Politics (Score:4, Insightful)
The domain of politics is isomorphic... (Score:5, Insightful)
What needs to be avoided is not politics but the temptation to distort scientific findings and inquiries to match preconceived ideas that support entrenched political interests.
We're pretty terrible at that. But it might not take a genius amount of forethought to understand that putting Al Gore's name on the movie doesn't help to de-politicize the issue.
I mean, duh.
Re:The domain of politics is isomorphic... (Score:4, Insightful)
But it might not take a genius amount of forethought to understand that putting Al Gore's name on the movie doesn't help to de-politicize the issue.
If it never becomes a political issue, it will never be addressed. The science is what it is, but once the science has been done, politics necessarily enter the scene. And what better person to put forward a political argument than a politician? They may be stinky, and we may all hate them, etc., but I'm sorry -- global warming researchers haven't got the clout or political savvy to move the issue where it needs to move. Perhaps Al Gore doesn't either, but who are you going to get? George Bush?
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Reminds me of a film about Oil spills from Exxon (Score:5, Interesting)
For those who do not know, the wetlands coalition is madeup of oil and gas companies despite the decietful name.
Re:Reminds me of a film about Oil spills from Exxo (Score:5, Informative)
Why would you laugh? An oil slick really will evaporate over time. It happens every day in the Gulf of Mexico where oil literally rises to the surface from the sea floor.
Immediately after the laughter, your science teacher could have made the important point that the results of experiments often conflict with what our intuition suggests.
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I swear... (Score:3, Insightful)
oooh, I have an idea... (Score:3, Funny)
Science? (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't new..... (Score:5, Informative)
Try:
* Discounts from Apple, Microsoft, etc on computers (I'd link, but I'm going to go with this as a given...)
* Coca-Cola [commercialalert.org]
* Book It (Pizza Hut) [bookitprogram.com]
* A growing trend of commercialization of sporting events and buildings [asu.edu]
* Large amounts of money being spent by religious lobbies to support Creationist teachings in schools....
* Large amounts of money being spent to promote evolution as a science teaching in schools
* Politicians getting involved in the above 2 items
* Politics derailing attempts to get anything done about improvments in materials and course work [toledoblade.com].
Where there is money and future political mindsets involved, people will spare no amount of money and/or stupidity on all sides of a debate. It's really too bad that politics and ideology wars have to get in the way of doing what schools should be doing, give the kids the ability to think for themselves instead of telling them what to think.
Question about 'inconvenient truth' marketing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless they have different ideas than you do... (Score:4, Informative)
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Pro-big oil apologism (Score:4, Insightful)
There can even be some largely apolitical justification for oil companies to be sponsoring science education. They are the largest employers of geologists, and oil probably account for a substantial portion of professional chemists. It's simply in their direct commercial interests to fund science. And if they do this, it's a good thing for everyone.
Likewise, with the lobbying against environmentla regulations - The adversarial system is not limited to the courts any more. Should politicians enact any and all possible environmental legislation no matter how small the effect without any concern at all for the costs to the oil industry?
Environmentalism has become anti-science (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is any group that can be called anti-human, anti-science, it is the "true believer" segment of the environmental movement. No other politically active group is so thoroughly terrified of every promising area of research and development, so violent in opposing science (animal rights groups bombing research labs, for example) and so quick to limit the quality of life of the majority of the human race.
So scientists == anti-science? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure who you're calling "environmentalists", but I know that I self-identify as one. I also have 3 science degrees, and am working on a fourth. I don't think you could sanely call me anti-science. Also, when it comes to anthropogenic global warming, every single last climatologist who does not receive money from fossil fuel companies is in agreement that it is real, and that it will be a major problem for humanity if something is not done about it.
Of course, I'm not 100% against GM foods (although I appreciate caution), I'm in favor of informed uses of nano-technology, and I think that nuclear power (i.e., fission) is the best option we currently have for dealing with greenhouse gases. So maybe I'm not an "environmentalist" by your definition - but I still recognize that global warming is a real, anthropogenic, threat.
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Nothing to see here; move along, children (Score:3, Insightful)
The omnipresence of major corporations is not a bad thing -- it makes things so much better. Imagine if we didn't give corporations the keys to our kingdom. Who would be in charge then? People? Voters?! Pshaw! We need the benevolent hand of Wall Street to guide us to the promised land of low, low prices.
Now, let's all rejoice in Big Oil's concern for the welfare of our children. It's obvious that they know what's best for us, and they obviously have our best interests at heart! After all, they are oil men, and oil men are the most caring, compassionate and kind people ever to walk this green earth (although they actually hover a few inches off the ground).
It is a blessing that corporations care for us so much that they intervene in our daily lives. We can only hope that they will one day bring their bounty to slashdot.
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Environmentalism as Religion (Score:5, Interesting)
Before the crowd starts jumping up and down, his speech contains errors. So does An Inconvenient Truth. But his theme has merit - science should stand alone whereas Al Gore asks people to pray for environmental change.
We really need to teach schoolchildren facts, the skills to consider and weigh evidence, and enough wisdom to know when someone is blowing smoke up their dresses. An Inconvenient Truth isn't the right tool for scientific education, though it's a great propaganda piece, artfully assembled, and gets some things right. A proper school curriculum can cover all of the things Gore gets right, and then the things that he's omitted for 'time', e.g. solar activity and global warming on other planets, the effect of water vapor on the greenhouse effect, natural cycles of warming/cooling, etc..
Let's not assume our children are too dumb to learn about science or think like scientists.
They can then spend some time teaching the children about ways to conserve resources, get towards carbon-neutral economies, and cut back on their own energy uses. These things will have real environmental and economic benefits but only millions of small impacts, no big splashes which work out nicely for Big-Media political coverage.
The conspiracy theorists are going to have a heck of a time, though, reconciling the fact that the NEA isn't lapping up the film from a guy who will be a Democratic contender in '08.
Little Environmentalists (Score:5, Interesting)
The year after I graduated, I went back to visit a few teachers I considered to be friends, including the chemistry teacher. She told me with some disgust that the school board had decided to replace the chemistry textbooks for both Chem I and II, and she handed me one of the books so I could see what the problem was. Instead of college-prep chemistry, most of the textbook was filled with text and pictures (rather than equations and homework problems) about protecting the environment. The quality of the actual chemistry education provided in that book was so low that I suspected that many students would have insufficient background for their freshman-level chemistry classes they'd be taking next year.
In other words, Big Oil isn't the only lobbying group that attempts to influence high school education.
Know-Something Party (Score:5, Interesting)
Scientists, on the other hand, can't be apolitical. They're humans, so they're going to be political to some degree, even if negligibly. More than two people in any society means politics. But apathy and disenfranchisement are political conditions, especially useful to those with power who make arbitrary decisions for their own reasons.
American politics does vast amounts of work according to decisions derived from facts about the way the world works. Especially the way that it works physically, as we know from physics, chemistry, biology, even astronomy. Those facts are supposed to determine the decisions we make, and the facts about those facts, to whatever degree of confidence we know we have.
Scientists are obligated to participate in politics. Not just like any other people in a democracy. But because they don't have the excuse that they don't know what will happen when the politicians do what they say.
Certainly scientists are much more appropriate to our Constitutional democratic republic than are, say, religious ministers. The Constitution specifically directs the government to "promote science", and specifically prohibits the government for "respecting an establishment of religion". Our government is crawling with religious establishment professionals. While its scientists increasingly get edited, silenced, ignored, fired, scapegoated. Scientists need to organize better to protect their interests in science. And we need them to do so, to protect our interests in science, and in them.
That's why I recommend people join [sefora.org] SEA: Scientists and Engineers for America [sefora.org], even if you're not a scientist (it's free and open). Or join any more specific technical association in your discipline, then vigorously work to make policy hear your science. If you're a scientist, your work is already surely contributing to some corporate political action / lobbying industry. You should make sure that the facts you produce are being represented at least as much as the money you make for them.
Think of it as an experiment, in a lab made of people. Think of a political hypothesis to describe the way your country works best, then test it with the equipment. Share the results with the rest of us.
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, even if your propoganda is being pushed out of schools by the oil companies, just because the oil companies are doing it for their own selfish reasons doesn't mean that keeping propoganda out of schools is a bad thing.
Re:I'm SHOCKED (Score:5, Informative)
From the above link:
Or if that's not enough, how about this from NSTA directly:"Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters."
Me - 1
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No you hayseed retard, Algore's movie is the TRITH, says so right there in the title. Rejecting it means science teachers are against the Truth. My god (little G, don't send me to the camps) if one of the Democratic Party's core groups are rejecting Global Warming Theology what is the world coming to. What the hell was the point of taking Congress.
I'm off to pout on DU.
Re:I'm SHOCKED (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I'm SHOCKED (Score:5, Informative)
No, Global warming did not predict 15 hurricanes hitting NYC this year.
Some Scientists be believe that one of the effects of warmer global temperatures could be more and stronger hurricanes.
This is one effect that may be caused by global warming. There are other effects that Might be caused by global warming including :
* more drought
* more floods
* desertification
* loss of productive farm land
* more extreme weather changes in local areas
All of these effects are predictions of what might happen because of global warming based largely on data and simulation. Some effects are more widely accepted then other effects.
but what is OBVIOUS is that
1. we now have more carbon in the atmosphere then at any time in well a really long time.
2. CO2 is a green house gas
3. Global temperatures are starting to go up
If Carbon emissions are left unchecked by 2050 we will have twice the pre-industrial age level of carbon in the atmosphere. and there is a good chance we won't be be able to slow them down fast enough to avoid massive temperature increases. Every time in earths history the climate has radically changed the dominate life form on the planet became extinct. Guess what species is the dominant life form this time.
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Perhaps if you breathed into a paper bag for a sec (Score:4, Informative)
No, the el niño is periodic thing that's been happening for a very, very long time, and is considered a natural coupling of the ocean and atmosphere [wikipedia.org] with a predictable recurrance. Whether any larger change in global temps has anything to do with how it interacts with other weather patterns is a separate issue, and not at all clear. But it is not "caused by global warming." That's complete BS. Likewise, the dust from Africa exists because the Sahara desert has been there for 2.5 million years [wikipedia.org]. Dust storms blowing out to sea are completely expected, and happen all the time. We're just now getting the regular use of imaging tools and computer models that help us to understand how readily that hot bowl of dust impacts Atlantic storms. The Sahara is as dry now as it was 13,000 years ago, but has gone through numerous huge fluxuations in wetness and vegetation unrelated to "global warming" as that phrase is now used. Unless, of course, you consider the last ice age - things were cooler, then, and the Sahara desert was much larger, drier, and dustier than it is now.
What about the 2005 hurricane season? It was also global warming that caused that.
What are you talking about? We have a hurrican season every year, and we're in the middle of a cyclic 25-30 year peak, which has been going on for thousands of years and is most likely tied to solar variation. Further, the number of storms reported in 2005 include storms that never came ashore - seen (and thus counted) by satellites that we've only recently had at our disposal. During a previous cycle (say, 100 years ago?) the dozen or so Atlantic storms that we saw stay out to sea might also have been there (or been more frequent), but they'd never have made it into the statistics that we now generate because they would have gone unobserved.
Take a deep breath, how about.
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Re:I'm SHOCKED (Score:5, Funny)
Genetics.
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That's not funny. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Aren't these the same climate scientist that said we were going to have a record hurricane season this year. What was the number I read? "One in Six Americans Could be Directly Impacted by 2006 Hurricane Season " [accuweather.com] But we are supposed to believe them when they say that the film is 99% correct on long term forecasts when they can't tell me if it is going to rain today or not.
Yeah, these guys may be the top of their field, but being on top of a bunch of people who don't know crap doesn't say much.
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Re:Difference (Score:4, Informative)
I suppose that you could argue that some unforeseen event will occur that dramatically throws off the CO2 model, and most climate researchers would probably agree with you. However, I'm not really into depending on a natural disaster blocking out sunlight. We should probably do something about this ourselves.
One could also argue that we're going to run out of stuff to burn pretty soon, so all of this is just academic anyway
And in a billion years, the sun's intensity will increase - rendering the planet uninhabitable no matter what we do, and no matter who controls congress (the otters?). Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.
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Not "difference", but "dopeyness" (Score:5, Interesting)
Further, I've noticed a troubling trend in the community of self-described "conservatives". It now appears that to be considered a conservative, you must predictably hold certain absolute beliefs. For example, if you believe that say, pollution is a bad thing, you are not a conservative. Or, if you believe the Iraq War was a mistake, you cannot possibly be conservative. If you believe that women should be allowed to decide for themselves whether to carry a fetus to term, you're no conservative, yet to be conservative you must believe that all limitations on public smoking or gun ownership are very bad.
The thing that makes this a problem is you will notice some clear conflicts within these beliefs. Absolutely no regulation on guns, but lots of regulation on abortion. No limitations on smoking, but absolutely no naked breasts in video games.
I know liberals who are against abortion, who are extremely religious, who smoke like chimneys and who are against pornography. There are even liberals who are in favor of military action in Afghanistan and the removal of Saddam Hussein. But find me a conservative who wavers from the established dogma established by the National Review (Dems are the "Party of Death"!!!) and I'll show you a person who's being singled out as "not a real conservative".
When you have to hold such dogma in political thought, it means your arguments are weak.
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You forgot "industry shill". (Score:4, Informative)
You're welcome to question global warming, just as you're welcome to question the theory of evolution. It gets old when the same [timlambert.org] tired crap [talkorigins.org] is thrown out time and again, designed not to advance anyone's understanding of anything, but to sow public confusion and doubt.
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Re:Difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Science isn't researched in a vacuum. Nothing is apolitical.
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Damn right there's a difference. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your attempts at drawing a moral equivalence are feeble, and were I a working scientist, I'd probably be offended.
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It's not the editors. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It's not the editors. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the message from the NSTA is a big "We're For Sale" sign. Note to the Christian Coalition: Buy now! For a few million dollars, you can get them to start distributing pamphlets talking about that great flood that wiped out our dinosaur enemies 6000 years ago.
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Re:Is this about science being apolitical (Score:5, Interesting)
This is real inconvenient for left-wing environmentalist nuts (all of them live in cities, obviously, which are the least environmental of surroundings imaginable, but hey, let's just disregard that).
I guess by "least environmental of surroundings" you could mean that there aren't any lush forests, but while they are soul crushing, living in New York City is a more energy efficient way to live according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_New _York_City [wikipedia.org]:
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Re:Is this about science being apolitical (Score:5, Insightful)
Fertilizer, pesticides, and drainin down the aquifers, that's how god meant man to live! Top soil blowin away? Hell, boy, you think we're gonna run outta dirt? Go back to yer city!
Face facts, jackass. There is no place in this country where people are really living "with the land". Cities are actually nice and efficient, because they cram all those people and services into a tiny area. Sure they produce pollution, sure they use a lot of energy, definitely a hell of a lot more than in the 20's, but don't pretend that everyone in this country doesn't use more power than people in the 20's, and cities don't produce more pollution than the same number of people living outside a city would produce...Quite the contrary.
And it's a widely proven fact that the worst thing for nature is too much contact with man. Wildlife in the area around Chernobyl has rebounded since the disaster, and is more healthy now than it was before the meltdown. The demilitarized zone between the Korea's has healthy game populations, despite being paved with fricking landmines.
So all those people crowded together in that city are far far better for the environment than the same number of people spread out equally around the country. It's not that they're isolated fron the environment...city folks just love to go out and spend time with nature! It's that the environment is isolated from them...And that's a good thing.
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Re:Hey, dummies! (Score:5, Interesting)
All companies act in their own interests, and while oil companies need geologists, etc, they also stand to make a hell of a lot of money on increased consumption of their product. When oil prices spike, that's the oil companies making more for the exact same quantity sold. At the same time, if they can discredit this or that research that says they should be forced to implement this or that safeguard, that lowers their operating costs. Likewise research about atmospheric carbon; if people take that seriously and start putting an extra tax on gasoline to lower the consumption, that's the oil companies seeing a drop in sales.
In their ideal world, we'll stay addicted to their product until the last drop is sold. Any science that threatens that, they're going to work like hell to discredit.
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Maybe because they admitted to it? (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe because the NSTA themselves admitted it [thinkprogress.org]? As a previous poster pointed out: "Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place 'unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.'"
How in the hell can anyone be stupid enough to think that's NOT a political motive? ;)
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Re:Inconvenient Truth is convenient bubkis.... (Score:5, Informative)
Just to add and what a cursory review can turn up:
Junkscience.com
The most visible public activity of TASSC [The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) was an tobacco-industry-funded lobby group which promoted the idea that environmental science was "junk science", which should be replaced by "sound science" more favorable to corporate interests] was its support for the Junk Science website run by Steven Milloy, who describes himself as the "Junkman". Milloy denounces research on environmental issues such as climate change, pollution and public health as junk science if it produced results suggesting a need for public intervention or regulation. He promoted the idea of sound science, interpreted in practice to mean science favorable to corporate interests.
Adverse publicity about Milloy's links to Phillip Morris were followed by his departure from the Cato Institute, where he had been an adjunct fellow, at the end of 2005, and the removal of links to junkscience.org from the Cato website. However, Milloy remains influential as the science columnist for Fox News.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advancement_of_Sound
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Re:apolitical... (Score:4, Insightful)
Note that these are all gross generalizations, and nearly everyone reading this will take exception to some specific thing that I said... one guy will claim that he never finished high school and another will claim that he's not socially awkward, as if that really matters when discussing generalizations.
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