You claimed that I had been fooled by Randi, but I am unclear (and not particularly interested in) what you mean by this.abraxalito said:
The core point, which I think most can agree on, is that people (including physical scientists and audio enthusiasts) tend to see/hear what they expect to see/hear and may interpret whatever raw evidence they have in the light of this unconscious bias. Conversely, they may ignore or reject evidence which conflicts with their bias. This does not mean that science is worthless, far from it, but it does mean that science is not infallible. The biggest danger arises when science hitches itself to a bandwagon, because it then can tend to suppress dissent. All human societies do this, and physical science does it less than most, but it does do it. In the long run science generally corrects itself.
Define "scientific community"? I suspect DF has qualifications, I'm a BSc, what more do you want?
That was an observation, based on what your own impression of Randi was. However I'll say no more as you're not particularly interested.
Yep, no disagreements there. The latest bandwagon that science has hitched itself to seems to be String Theory, at least going on Lee Smolin's analysis in 'What's wrong with Physics'.
Yes, my personal view (which could be completely wrong) is that string theory is nonsense and has taken theoretical physics in the wrong direction for many years. It allows geometers to kid themselves that they are doing physics, just like they have done for years with gravity and cosmology.
Far more interesting are the recent experimental results which may hint at a Higgs (at last!) or a new force beyond the Standard Model. And there is still the elephant sitting quietly in the corner of the room: what exactly is Time and why does it have a direction? I don't fully buy the usual thermodynamic argument about entropy change defining time's arrow.
Far more interesting are the recent experimental results which may hint at a Higgs (at last!) or a new force beyond the Standard Model. And there is still the elephant sitting quietly in the corner of the room: what exactly is Time and why does it have a direction? I don't fully buy the usual thermodynamic argument about entropy change defining time's arrow.
It has to be like that, one man's opinion or findings isn't enough. A large group of men has to agree with him, then it can be called science. We all know how difficult it is to find a large group of anything agreeing on something, that's why science goes slowly but maybe sure-footed. The problem lies in human knowledge. Is it any good? Is it good enough to understand the whole picture?
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The reason I joined this discussion was that I didn't particularly like the tone of the article linked to at the top of the thread. It generalises by linking a scepticism of science to political persuasion - based on some dodgy statistics taken from personality questionnaires (peer reviewed and published no doubt). I instinctively rile at that sort of thing; it's Kafka-esque...
Sure Doc - but be careful - you could wind up in the "pre-biased" scientific point of view category.
There is no good and clean way out of this topic - other than to walk away and do what you do. Let the others follow. That coming from an ENTJ - which opens up a different can of worms.
Good? Yes. Enough? No.Cassiel said:
The funny thing is that people who are into weird stuff like crystals will assume (correctly) that as a physical scientist I am not one of them (so hopelessly biased), yet according to some scientists I am not a real scientist either (because I take a creationist view of origins). So both the nutters and the rationalists will disagree with me!c2cthomas said:
Ahhhh- don't worry about it - nobody believes anything I say. Which goes to prove that I hang out with a pretty smart crowd!
If you were a biologist, then yes, your views would disqualify you from serious scientific discourse in the same way that being an anti-Einstein crank would disqualify one from any serious discourse in physics (all assuming that you weren't bringing some startlingly new experimental evidence to the table). However, I know several very competent physical scientists who hold, ahhh, unconventional beliefs in areas that do not relate to physical science. No problems for them professionally. I suppose that there may be biologists who believe in aether or phlogiston, but I've spent less time among that community than among physicists and physical chemists so can't say for sure.
I appreciate your sense of irony DF96 - a creationist calling a crystal hugger a nutter. Way to go
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