There isn't anything contradictory about knowing someone, and disliking them
this isn't the Carebear Universe, in which we'd all just get along if only we understood one another better. I don't need to have a meet'n'greet with the movers and shakers in the Third Reich in order to conclude that they were probably not very nice people. I don't need to stare Richard Littlejohn in the eye, to see if there's more to him than his venemous little columns. And I'm not obliged (or even extend the benefit of the doubt) to like an overly-opinionated, under-educated vacuous and self-important bore such as Clarkson.

A dichotomy is bascially the division of a whole into two non-overlapping parts. These overlap. I dislike him precisely because I know his character, or constituent parts thereof.


Seriz indede...
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Wed 5 May 2010, 10:34, 1 reply)

My point is that the dichotomy exists precisely because your dislike of him
is based on an entirely false impression of his character, and one that he almost certainly set out to create amongst those who take things seriously that they really shouldn't. In effect, you don't know him at all.

The difference between Clarkson and, say, Littlejohn, is that it's very obvious that Clarkson isn't serious about almost anything he says. overly opinionated? oh yes. So? under-educated? Please. That's a crap card to play at the best of times. Unless you seriously think that qualifications always make your opinions more valid? If so, please don't come into academia, you're in for a horrible shock. Vacuous? no more so than any other journalist. Self-important? Not really, no, because he doesn't expect anyone to take him seriously.

To put it another way. He's a cock in many other ways, and you have every right in the world to dislike him, but the fact that people take things he says seriously when they clearly aren't meant to be taken as such is hardly his fault. If anything, there the stupidity exists in the reader and not the author. You can't complain that his opinion is worthless because he knows nothing about a subject when his opinion was never intended to be used as a serious stance on the subject in the first place.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 5 May 2010, 12:01, closed)

Even presuming I had a false impression of his character
which I do not, incidentally, believe to be the case - it would still not be a dichotomy.

I don't give a rat's ass if he's actually, personally annoying or going out of his way to create an annoying persona; either would be enough to earn my dislike. Antics such as driving a landrover through the delicate ecology of a Scottish peat bog, or ramming a 4x4 into a 300-year old horse chestnut tree, do little to endear him to me. How on earth you pretend to detect a difference between two right-wing columnists, defending one whilst tossing the other under the bus, is quite beyond me.

Yes, qualifications make your opinions more valid, when you're discussing scientific matters. This is self-evidently true. Very few - in fact, dare I say no - prominent scientists got where they are as part of a saturday job, or weekend hobby; it's an academic discipline which requires serious amounts of study. The 'your qualificaitons mean nothing in the real world' card is generally only played by intellectually-impoverished chumps who have a handful of GCSEs (or equivalent), and no more; into this category, I would tentatively insert Jeremy Clarkson. As for me not coming into academia - given that I hold an MSc (nb: in a largely-unrelated subject, I'm not claiming to be a climate-change guru), bit late for that.

Unless you have a deep, personal knowledge of the man, you're working with the same evidence as me; ie, how he chooses to portray himself in the national media. You have no grounds for dismissing it all as a 'joke'; delivered in comedic fashion or not, he consistently, strenuously makes the same set of tired old points, and I'm fairly sure it's not just a coincidence.

He knows nothing about science, or the climate, yet rambles on about it anyway. This annoys me. I have a certain amount of familiarity with scientific process and method, and would not dream of pontificating in such a manner without having first examined all the available evidence, simply because I believe the results of my study to be more relevent than my gut feeling.

In brief; he's an ill-mannered thicko with a loudhailer, and he gets on my nerves.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Wed 5 May 2010, 16:15, closed)

trust me on this, since it's what I do.
your qualifications don't make your opinion more valid unless you are entering a debate with the intention to be taken seriously. I never said anything about your qualifications meaning nothing. I said they don't necessarily make your opinion more valid. It utterly depends on the context. Clarkson is not entering a scientific debate nor is he claiming to be a science correspondent. He works in entertainment. Tell me, do you get this irrationally angry because you think that Frankie Boyle shouldn't comment because he has no knowledge of the existence or not of bats in the queen's cunt? It's the same thing.

I can detect a difference because, frankly, I'm not a fucking idiot. Littlejohn is a political columnist, therefore it is reasonable to take what he says as his serious comment on things, and his comments are hateful. Clarkson does entertainment. It's rather different. Also, to my knowledge, Clarkson is not racist, homophobic, or overly nationalistic.

Unless your argument is "people are not allowed to hold opinions on something they are unqualified to comment on" then I fail to see any merit in it. Since Clarkson is neither a climate change scientist nor does he ask to be taken seriously or does he write a science column, the problem is yours if you take him in any way seriously, not his. If I write on climate change, then I have a responsibility to put forward the most powerful and respected scientific arguments backed up with as much data as possible, because it is one of my fields of research and therefore I ask to be taken seriously. Clarkson does not.

That doesn't diminish your right to dislike him or for him to get on your nerves, of course.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 5 May 2010, 16:35, closed)

Trust you on this?
Let's presume, for a moment, that you're a professional scientist devoting his life to studying climate-change; are you suggesting that Clarkson's frequently-published views on this subject are actually correct, or that he's wrong - but his opinion is not to be taken seriously? If the former, you may need to consider a new line of work. If the latter - well, your presumed employment as a scientist actually has no bearing on this. I do not accept that he means his writing to be taken as pure comedy. And to reiterate - yes, his opinions on scientific matters absolutely *would* be more valid if he had any scientific credentials, such as - by way of example - qualifications of any sort.

Clarkson does not simply 'work in entertainment'; gone are the days of top-gear being his sole means of income, and he's increasingly being inserted into newspapers, documentaries, and so forth. He describes himself as a journalist (or a 'broadcaster and writer', on his website), not an entertainer. Your comparison to Frankie Boyle - a stand-up comedian - is therefore utterly obtuse.

As to your implication that I am a 'fucking idiot' - you've yet to prove that Clarkson's delivery is more relevent than his content. Many people have delivered their message in comedic fashion, whilst intending it to be taken seriously. Mark Thomas springs to mind by way of example, but there are many, many more.

I'm not 'irrationally angry'. In fact, I'm not angry at all - it's not me throwing epithets around - but I defend my right to dislike complacent, boorish braggards when they not only poke their ignorance into places it does not belong, but do so in a very public fashion - and I regard that as perfectly sufficient reason for doing so.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Wed 5 May 2010, 17:01, closed)

Actually I'm a professional academic in stem cell research
I do climate change (specifically algal biofuel, if you are interested) research as a sideline that I fund off my own consultancy, because I think it's interesting and useful to society in general. I'd link to some of my research but I'm not planning on making any connection between this place and my work, sorry.

You've not been reading my posts if you need to ask the first question. But to re-iterate. His comments on climate change are irrelevant because they are not presented in an environment that demands that they are taken seriously, nor does he ask that they are. Consequently the comparison with Frankie Boyle is perfectly reasonable. Incidentally, since Mark Thomas is in no way qualified to talk about most of the stuff he does either, the only reason I can assume that you can give him as a positive example is simply that you agree with him and not Clarkson? fair enough, I do too, but that doesn't make Thomas's comments any more valid than Clarksons by your argument.

Oh, I never said you were any kind of idiot. I said that I wasn't a fucking idiot, not that you were.

And, for the third time in as many posts, I absolutely agree that you have the right to dislike him for being boorish.

now, I should be marking final year research so let's just say you've won, eh? Although it's the internet, so or course everyone loses.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 5 May 2010, 17:24, closed)

Well, I think we'll have to agree to differ on this

as I contend that anyone speaking both publically, and incorrectly, on scientific matters should be taken seriously - if only to knock the wind from their sails, and hopefully dissuade people from mindlessly parrotting 'wot dey red in der papers' at the local boozer as if it were set on stone tablets and delivered from Sinai itself. I've heard a lot of unhelpful (and sometimes actively harmful) bullshit being propagated and disseminated in this manner.

I think Clarkson intends to be taken seriously. You do not. That is fine. Out of interest; if you considered that his frequently-given opinions were genuinely held, rather than part of the Clarkson Entertainment Experience - would he get up your nose a little more?

Mark Thomas... Well, I preferred him when it was the Mark Thomas Comedy Product, not the Mark Thomas Product - he focussed on smaller issues, and was more tongue-in-cheek - but in both, he shows some evidence of research, at least - gets actual specialists involved, and whatnot. In any event, I did not mention his name as an example of someone with whom I identify - his name was raised merely to establish that some people do choose to deliver a sincere message in an irreverent style, and by extension, suggest that Clarkson is quite capable of doing the same.

I never thought I would spend this much time deciding whether or not Clarkson's public persona was invented, or innate. Partly, because I've never much cared, and partly, because I would dislike him either way, making the whole question somewhat irrelevent.

Splendid field of research, by the way. For entirely selfish reasons, I'm fervently hoping stem cells live up to their (as summarised in the New Scientist blaggers' guide) early promise.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Wed 5 May 2010, 18:08, closed)