By: Salman Hameed
Last Sunday I had posted about the astonishing display of intellectual ignorance by Georgia Congressman Jack Kingston. For a change of language, below is a clip of a popular Pakistani TV anchor, Javed Choudhry, displaying an equal level of ignorance about evolution, and about the pursuit of knowledge, in general. Even if you don’t speak Urdu, just play the clip for a few minutes, and you will detect a deep level of condescension in his tone and in his voice.
His main point here is that you don’t have to read Aristotle, Socrates, Plato et al. for thinking about life (the topic of his talk this discussion is “Relationships”). After all, they have been dead for a long time (I don’t think he knows exactly how long, since at one point he says 5000 years ago and at another he says 3000 – and both are wrong). So he urges us to use our own brains – since we know a lot more today than they ever did, and that we should be able to challenge any authority with own ideas. Now on the surface this sounds great – since this what we say about science also. However, he does not mention that your views have to shaped and informed by learning from the past. A key omission.
And then just on cue, he demonstrates his own ignorance by arguing against evolution by bringing up the same old and stupid misconception: “if humans came from monkeys, how come monkeys are still around?”. But just to demonstrate his level of thinking, he goes on to say that monkeys have been around in zoos for a while. How come not even one has started wearing pants or smoking cigarettes (I guess, he missed a whole slew of Hollywood films). Sigh! I mean how much effort does it take to at least look at what are some of the basic principles of evolutionary biology. But he does deserve credit for taking the level of discourse to even a stupider level. I mean sure. You can criticize it. But at least know a tiny bit about what you are criticizing. Oh wait. But that would mean actually reading something. And I guess reading can be hard. But if you graduate from the Javed Choudhry university – you only need to think – and not read. I guess he is a born genius. First it was Einstein – and now we have Javed Choudhry.
Read about common misconceptions about evolution here and here.
Sorry to inflict this on you (blame Shahid Saeed for the tip :)). The fun about evolution begins around the 5-minute mark, but his anti-Aristotle/Socrates/Plato rant is before that:
Source:http://sciencereligionnews.blogspot.com/2011/02/celebrating-anti-intellectualism-and.html
slam, mr. sulman
mr. javed is right u r wrong here,,, cuz u try to find out only whats wrong in this discussion. You dont want to know whats new,,, or whats good in this discussion… you are also same like other normal people,,,,,
thanks….
sir,
you are very intelligent anchor and mind blowing personality
i like you and your views and idea i m agree with you
you said must change your ideas with the passage of time and make your own philosophy
i like you and your program kal tak and articles
Sir
PLZ Don’t tease Psychologist
I would strongly deny the title of your post and the statement that Javed sahib had a condescension tone in his voice rather i would say that you were slightly prejudiced in remarking him as anti intellectualism. and he used 3000 years both time not 3000 and 5000. I would say he was talking in a friendly tone to encourage the audience to ask question and regarding his statement that one should extract his own views is as humble as it can be and to develop those views you were sarcastically saying that javed sahib skiped to mention that one should read, but behold one i have listened many seminars of javed sahib and he urged in them that one should read to develop their own ideas. If u felt hurt just by 2-3 minutes comments of javed sahib on the evolutionary sciences, that doesn’t give u the right to humiliate him by saying stupid –>”But he does deserve credit for taking the level of discourse to even a stupider level”.There wasn’t a single hint of anti intellectualism in his statements rather he encouraged the audience to have creative thinking and develop their own ideas and then present them without any contempt.
Asslam-o-Alikum
please send me few written proof of corruption by our political leaders . Specially our current 4 chief ministers if they involve in any corruption, i will be very thankful to you.
Mohammad Shahid Kahn Mughal