Miss Greta Tonight

[Samuraisan]

Anybody going to watch ?

[jim360]

I'd suggest that the analogy to Samuel Johnson's pronouncements on women priests says a lot more about you (and Johnson) than it does about Thunberg. Both you and he make the fatal mistake of caring more about the messenger than the message.

[andy-hughes]

pixie - // Andy, there have been child geniuses and stupid adults...
A sensible argument to what she has said seems fair enough. But dismissing someone because of age...
makes no sense. //

In order to ensure that my point is clear - I dismiss Ms Thunburg, not because she is a teenager, but because as a teenager she has not an ounce of the knowledge and experience she needs to be accorded such status and impact.

She is parroting what her parents and other adult campaigners tell her, and frankly it is as valid and revolutionary as teaching a parrot to count to ten and then saying it can revolutionise quantum physics.

[ummmm]

Andy //no-one really does or ever did at that age//

Are you for real?

[andy-hughes]

jim - // Both you and he make the fatal mistake of caring more about the messenger than the message. //

What irony!

It is the sheer novelty of a teenager supposedly grasping these complex issues - in other words the message, rather than the message - that makes Ms Thunberg remotely interesting to anyone who wants to listen to her.

She is not saying anything new - she is simply not a boring scientist, and some people think that must indicate that she understands what she is talking about, and for reasons already explained, she does not, because she cannot.

[Zacs-Master]

What a shame, I’m cutting my testicles off with a rusty saw. Otherwise I’d have watched.

[andy-hughes]

jim - // You flatter yourself, frankly, if you think you understand any of this stuff better than Thunberg. //

I have never ever claimed to know anything whatsoever about the subject of climate change - so I have no view either way about whether she knows more about it than I do, I don't care.

The difference between us is - only one of is is pretending knowledge that they don't actually possess.

[andy-hughes]

ummmm - // Andy //no-one really does or ever did at that age//

Are you for real? //

Absolutely.

Do you think David Attenborough would stand up and say "Actually I knew all this when I was a teenager, I've just been marking time for sixty years until I was old enough to be taken seriously?

Doubt it.

[andy-hughes]

jim - // I'd suggest that the analogy to Samuel Johnson's pronouncements on women priests ... //

Doctor Johnson did not pronouce on 'women priests' and I did not uote him as doing so - he observed the notion of women preaching, which is not the same thing at all.

It's easy to mis-read something when you are leaping to the attack, but it does leave you exposed later on, weakening your position up there on the moral high ground.

[gness]

Well you've shown your true colours now, Andy. What a disappointment.

[jim360]

I don't think the difference between women priests and women preaching is worth picking up on, frankly.

[andy-hughes]

gness - // Well you've shown your true colours now, Andy. What a disappointment. //

I am sure you can manage this without further patronising gness - in what way have I 'shown my true colours'?

[andy-hughes]

jim - // I don't think the difference between women priests and women preaching is worth picking up on, frankly. //

Maybe accuracy is not important to you - it is to me.

If you are going to have a pointless pop, at least have the courtesy to get your facts right first.

[pixie374]

Andy, please tell us what you disagree with about what she has said, rather than who you think she is. As ummm says, quite rightly, she has aspergers. There is every possibility that she knows far more about what she is saying than her parents do.

[jim360]

Accuracy is of course important to me, but in this case what mattered was Johnson's intent, and yours, in drawing the analogy. Picking up on how crass the analogy was, and still is, is therefore hardly pointless.

[ummmm]

Andy - I have my own little academic at home. There are subjects I wouldn't debate with him over simply because he knows far more than me. He knew more than me because he studied them, and still studies them.

You are underestimate our young. They are well able to form their own opinions without input from the parents.

[allenlondon]

God almighty.

Having been accused by various elements of misogyny, it is vaguely sickening to read comment after comment of genuine misogyny, and nobody says a word!

What a shower.

[pixie374]

Allen?

[Zacs-Master]

I see Allen is in ‘confused rant’ mode. Again.

[jim360]

// I have never ever claimed to know anything whatsoever about the subject of climate change... //

Even aside the fact that this total lack of knowledge hasn't stopped you from commenting on the topic in the past, what this also shows is that, despite your long life, you've never looked into the topic. What use then, on this specific topic, that you are older? Someone who was younger, but was motivated to research a topic, will know more on that topic than anybody older than them.

Which, frankly, shouldn't require spelling out. This is how research works. No doubt there are things that Thunberg understands far less well than you do, because you have looked into them and she has not. That, again, is nothing to do with age. Her age is therefore irrelevant; what matters is the message, and, as you have established, you are in no position to evaluate it.

[Mozz71]

I don't think anything here is misogynistic Allen. Superiority complex over younger people, yes.