posted
Ah, but it is that person's choice to think that way. It is other people's choice to follow them. It is, of course, other people's choice to "debunk" that person's views. The point, of course, is that we should have the choice to choose what are equal and what are not.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Your argument seems to boil down to the following: we all have the right to be very, very wrong, and no one has the right to think less of us for it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Hmff. I thought this thread was going to be something from the Weekly World News -- something like how atheist scientists are doing lab experiments on captured angels...
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Oh good grief, people are actually calling scientists petty and saying that they go into science in the hopes of becoming famous and getting published? Have you ever *been* in a lab? Or cleaned up poo, for those who went into medicine? Sitting in a lab for all of - oh - about four hours should cure anyone of a burning desire to use labwork to become famous, and spending a few months on various rotations in hospitals is a real eye-opener too.
*sics vampire army on people who aren't displaying the brains God gave little green apples*
And I can explain why my army doesn't multiply and overrun the world - I have a secret stadium modeled on the Coliseum, only in pink (I like pink) under Chicago which I use to stage vast battles between the minions I don't like so much, or who just aren't very pretty, or who don't wear enough pink. To kill the excess off. So I can make more. Eeeeexxxxcccceellleeennnttt. *does the Mr. Burns finger thing*
In all honesty, I have no idea who you're basing this extremely generalistic attitude toward all scientists on, but it seems a tad overzealous. If you really don't like that some individual scientists make presumptions on people's intelligence based on their belief in things that cannot be proven using the scientific method, I suggest that you do not replicate that attitude by personally choosing to think negatively of all scientists just because they are scientists.
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
"Paul Golden, then you better have a darn good argument why not, rather than simply name calling."
a) Its Goldner
b) I do. The scientific method produces results on a more consistent basis then any other epistomology, where by results I mean "ideas that allow us to understand the world, and how to interact with it to achieve a desired effect."
"TomD, do you have a problem with that?"
If tom's summation of your argument is correct, then yes, I have a problem with your argument. If your choices are consistently wrong choices, I reserve the right to think less of you then if your choices are not consistently wrong, assuming you are not trying to learn from your incorrect choices.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Samarkand, I think that at least some of your post was directed at me there, so in my defense I gotta point out that you mischaracterized my argument.
I called science petty, not scientists. In fact, most of my critique is directed at Science as an institution and not scientists. And I specifically told you not to take "petty" pejoratively, but you did. And I never said famous.
I think that's all that was directed at me.
Posts: 3056 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:The scientific method produces results on a more consistent basis then any other epistomology, where by results I mean "ideas that allow us to understand the world, and how to interact with it to achieve a desired effect."
This is not entirely true. The scientific method has produced the best results only in certain areas, such as physics, chemistry, and medicine, while it has produced less consistent results in other areas for which it is not as well-suited, such as morality, sociology, religion, or politics. Science-based theories in these latter areas have sometimes led to poor results.
At the same time, when it comes to certian sorts of questions, pure logic and math has a 100% success record - which is more consistently correct than even science can offer in any field. Of course, one could argue that pure logic and math are included as part of the scientific method.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:The scientific method has produced the best results only in certain areas, such as physics, chemistry, and medicine, while it has produced less consistent results in other areas for which it is not as well-suited, such as morality, sociology, religion, or politics.
I dispute this.
quote:Science-based theories in these latter areas have sometimes led to poor results.
I do not dispute this. But science-based theories in all fields sometimes lead to poor results, since it's not possible to have all necessary information at the start of any inquiry.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: They have looked at the most obvious and surface ideas about the subjects and debunked them. However, for those who know a lot more about the myths than what is shown in movies realize they haven't even touched them.
My point is, I suppose, that I am tired of scientists taking pot shots at things they don't actually understand.
I actually laughed out loud when I read this. I had to go back and read the entire post again to make sure that "Occasional" wasn't trying to make a snide and sarcastic remark on the state of American scientific policy. But no, it does seem that he was being quite serious.
Unless you have a strange definition of the word "understand" Occasional (which I suppose is possible, since you play by your own rules. I made up a language once, you know? I was in second grade. Snaggle frog bork), then I have no idea how you can say that somebody who repeats something that somebody else made up (none of these superstitions are even original work) can have a "greater understanding" than somebody who actually studies the subject in depth. This argument is ridiculous. Also, I think you need to look up the meaning of the word "skeptical", unless you have your own special meaning for that one too.
Posts: 127 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: I am not messing up terminology. Rather, I am refusing to play by your high and mighty rules.
You mean the desire to communicate effectively, using the appropriate terminology and generally accepted definitions in order to do so? Because calling psuedo-scientists the same thing as philosophers is a willfull distortion of either term. Philosophers do not generally claim to be scientists, and scientists generally make clear when they are being scientific, and when not (Carl Sagaan had to make the distinction all the time, as do most science writers).
Your confusion of the terms is indicative of your attitude towards the argument; mainly that your simply unwilling to play by any rules but your own. This means that you allow yourself to take any definition of any term, or willfully distort the intent of any rebutal in order to make it not apply to you. I have known people who did this, and they never learned anything from anyone, as far as I could see.
"I'm refusing to play by your high and mighty rules," is almost exactly the response I get from the teenagers I work with when they don't want there to be a way they can lose a game, or apologize for breaking a rule. It's basically: "I'm taking my ball, and I'm going home." Which leads me to ask- why play at all?
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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