He doesn't have to be your hero.
That wasn't the reason for posting. Not my downvote by the way in case you assumed it was.
You apparently don't see the rationality that I do. Maybe I watch more often, or maybe I'm applying Thomas's suggestion more than you.
I used to watch every episode. I stopped watching because it got to the point where the irritation I felt at the fuzzy thinking, irrationality and bias began to outweigh the entertainment I got from the comedy and the sometimes interesting interviewees. I only watch the Daily Show very occasionally these days and the Colbert report slightly more often.
I am curious as to your current motive.
Really it was expressing surprise at the big difference of opinion and perhaps looking to understand it. I stopped watching the Daily Show largely because Jon Stewart's particular brand of irrationality was more than cancelling out any enjoyment I was getting from the show. To see him suggested as a 'hero' of rationality was thus surprising. When I see a dramatic difference of opinion I generally like to try and understand what's behind it and figure out if I should be updating.
I've always been puzzled by the idea of personal heroes so it is possible that my inability to grasp the concept of a hero is part of the problem here.
I've always been puzzled by the idea of personal heroes so it is possible that my inability to grasp the concept of a hero is part of the problem here.
I've noticed that, even if it may be a worthwhile endeavor, it doesn't help so much when you present the names to other people. Every time I've done so, I've been challenged by similar disagreements, and it becomes difficult for me to express why I consider them to be useful role models.
My suggestion to you is not to update. If I could take the whole thread back, I would. Consider me updated to 'personal ...
Light reading about 'Rationalist Heroes'.
I am not sure how useful people find having personal heroes. I would argue that they are definitely useful for children. Perhaps I haven't really grown up enough yet (growing up without a father possibly contributed), but I like to have some people in my head I label as "I wonder what would X think about this". Many times they've set me straight through their ideas. Other times I've had to reprimand them, though unfortunately they never get the memo.
One living example is Charlie Munger.
He was an early practical adopter of the cognitive biases framework, and moreover he clearly put it into context of "something to protect":
"not understanding human misjudgment was reducing my ability to help everything I loved"
(The quote is from his talk on "Misjudgment" which is worth reading on its own http://vinvesting.com/docs/munger/human_misjudgement.html)
One interesting point is that Charlie is seemingly a Christian. I have a deep suspicion that he believes that religion is valuable, for the time, as a payload delivering mechanism.
“Economic systems work better when there’s an extreme reliability ethos. And the traditional way to get a reliability ethos, at least in past generations in America, was through religion. The religions instilled guilt. … And this guilt, derived from religion, has been a huge driver of a reliability ethos, which has been very helpful to economic outcomes for man.”
Also, judge for yourself from his recommended reading list - looks like something out of an Atheist's Bookshelf.