Sigh.
The host of one of the stupidest television shows in history – Fear Factor – turns out to be a standup comic of surprising intelligence.
Go figure.
Go figure indeed. Joe Rogan, the topic of that article, is certainly intelligent. But even smart people can fool themselves. I have to say, though, that the philosophy he espouses in the article makes some sense… except sometimes there are forces at work against which we must fight. Ignorance, willful or otherwise, is pretty high on that list.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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November 10th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Are irony glands as explosive as irony meters? Because…yikes.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Somebody else comment, or I’m turning on the karaoke machine and belting out “You Light Up My Life”.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I’ve listened to his stand-up and he’s pretty funny in my opinion and can be insightful. Him and Doug Stanhope, I hated them both on the man-show but when they have a better forum they come across better.
Also, Joe freely admits that fear factor was stupid and he can’t believe it lasted for so long. He got paid to watch people eat horse penis for money without having to eat any himself.
Anyway, just because you don’t agree with someone doesn’t mean they are not smart. I know some really smart people who don’t believe we landed on the moon, that 9/11 was put on by our government, that the Mayans predicted the end of the world, and so on.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
“This is the kind of helpful material Rogan comes up with while immersed in his sensory deprivation tank, one of “all sorts of things” he does to alter his state of consciousness. ”
Because you certainly don’t want things like “facts” and “observations” to mess up your great incites about the world.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
There is irony all over this! Fantastic!
My favorite is how he, as a standup comedian – an occupation requiring an ego at least the size of Greenland – philosophizes about our insignificance.
Made me giggle.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Well, I agree that we might as well enjoy life and spread happiness around, but I dislike the idea that the more we know about the world, the more depressing we get. I’m very intelligent and enjoy being so. In fact, the greatest joy I experience is when I think of the fact that we are capable of understanding the universe. That in itself is the most bizarre and wonderous thing I’ve ever realized.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Every revelation bears two enigmas; for each discovery we see there is more for us to understand
November 10th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
That is to say, I’d rather have a series of neverending questions versus a single “Super Turtle” answer
November 10th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
He has a point; eventually the Sun will explode and wipe out the Solar System, the Universe will eventually collapse. Nothing really matters, anyone can see, nothing really matters to me…
November 10th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Hokay, I will comment.
I have seen Joe take on hecklers on youtube. And admittedly he rocks at that. But you are right, Phil. He has a lot of weird views on very sciency topics, most of which are dead wrong.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Does a fish know it’s a fish?
November 10th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Is Joe Rogan stilll way into moon landing denial?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/06/talkin-to-penn-schoolin-joe-rogan-part-ii/
November 10th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
To be fair, he is very upfront regarding the copious amount of, uh…’pharmaceutical grade assistance’ he uses to come up with his ideas.
He should also get credit for dragging a few comedy thieves into the spotlight – ‘Carlos Mencia’ (aka Ned Holness) in particular.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Zeb said “we are capable of understanding the universe”
Is that really true? If we model the universe computationally, then I’m pretty sure we’d need a universe at least twice as big – completely dedicated to computing our universe – to fully ‘understand’ (i.e. simulate) our universe.
The most we can ever hope to achieve is an approximate understanding of some part of it. As humans we are accustomed to only studying a small part of the universe – we just don’t have the time! But to think that intelligent life will never be able to reach complete understanding is a sobering thought.
Perhaps it’s best to create some little universes of our own and observe those from a higher dimension! Flatland FTW!
November 11th, 2008 at 1:39 am
The video in the link you provided has been removed
November 11th, 2008 at 2:08 am
@TheWalruss: I wouldn’t say we need to *recreate* the universe (which would be the end result of completely simulating it) – isn’t it also “understanding” if we grasp the common rules of physics that govern its behavior, without imitating each and every one of them in a computer? i.e. the falling of an object is neatly described by a formula – instead of using a huge table with every possible weight, distance, speed and air drag already pre-calculated.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:05 am
I’m proud to say that I introduced Joe Rogan to BadAstronomy.com. My one and only claim to fame.
My wife (a comedian) and I were meeting with Joe and another comedian, Doug, at a dive bar in Hollywood one night to see Extreme Elvis perform. It was the night after Fox aired some worthless documentary that claimed we didn’t really go to the moon. ( I didn’t watch the show but did notice it as I channel surfed and was highly irritated that Fox would spew this garbage for our impressionable kids to hear.)
After the show we were all talking and Joe started going on about how we never really went to the moon and how the “documentary” proved it. We got into an argu…er…uh…we had a difference of opinion but I didn’t have the exact facts to refute what he was saying about camera angles and shadows, etc.
I went home to research the issue and stumbled across BA. I shot off an e-mail to Joe right away. He remained and remains convinced of the conspiracy theory.
Joe is a really nice guy who is quite bright and his comedy is sharp, witty and to the point. His theme is that we should question authority on all fronts and for the most part I agree but on this issue he gives us a glaring example illustrating that at some point reason must step in. It baffles the mind
November 11th, 2008 at 6:50 am
I just noticed YET ANOTHER huge problem with Joe Rogan’s Moon Hoax theory. If NASA was really secretly collecting meteorites in Antarctica, why they would send a high-profile, attention-grabbing, world-famous scientist like Werner Von Braun rather than some anonymous geologists? If they had the technology necessary to fake the moon landings and the degree of control over thousands of participants to keep it secret, you’d think that it would occur to them to collect the “fake evidence” in secret and months ahead of time rather than in the full glare of publicity…
And this really goes to the heart of the problem with the moon hoaxers mentality: it requires you to believe in a massive, sophisticated, highly-organized conspiracy of brilliant scientists and Machiavellian politicians… who made incredibly dumb mistakes like not noticing that the flag shouldn’t wave in the breeze or sending the most famous and identifiable rocket scientist in the world on an attention grabbing scavenger hunt at the height of launch preparations. In other words, the people being the “Moon Hoax” are smart enough to fool all of the world’s professional journalists and professional scientists… but dumb enough to make glaring mistakes like not collecting rocks in secret well in advance. D’oh!
(Footnote: yes, I know what the usual Hoaxer excuse for the flag, etc. is: those “mistakes” were deliberately sneaked in by people who wanted to expose the hoax. But this still requires you to believe not only that they managed to sneak them past the notice of thousands of conspirators… but that everybody who for decades after has patiently explained why these are not mistakes is also part of the conspiracy.)
November 11th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Well, he is very knowledgeable about MMA. Also, he knows a lot about….
did I mention he is very knowledgeable about about MMA? ‘Cause he is.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Joe’s greatest fear is ignorance? That is ironic.
…and here I thought his greatest fear was people not posting porno to his forum. Yeah, you read that correctly…to qualify as a member, you MUST post some form of pornography or face banning.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I’m a big Joe Rogan fan but his insistence on the Moon Hoax stuff baffles me because his baloney detector seems so great for almost everything else. He’s got a great bit about Noah’s Ark that’s an almost perfect skeptic’s comedy routine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXTBuSOu2FE
The Moon landing (and aliens, though that may be just a comedy routine) seems to be his blind spot, and instead of setting him up as the “big bad believer opponent” I think it’d be better to just overwhelm this otherwise bright guy with the evidence and make him a full-fledged skeptic.
November 12th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Puck, it’s been tried. Rogan is actively disbelieving in the Moon Landings. He has an agenda. That agenda is an anti-government, don’t believe what you’re told agenda. He will not accept the evidence presented to him.
It is possible that Rogan is using the Moon Landings as source material to make his point about questioning everything and everyone. He is ultimately a comedian, and he isn’t the first to use the topic (Kaufman). However, he is pretty convincing that he actually believes what he says.
Rogan was invited to participate on the Bad Astronomy Board, he declined. Several members here attempted to talk on his board, but the rules there are not conducive to intelligent conversation or polite debate.
So Rogan is afraid of ignorance, but cultivates it on the Moon Hoax topic.