Speed of Light and Energy...?

[FBM]

I appreciate the problem here, but unfortunately, if this forum lacks the academic background to moderate science topics, then you are left in the unenviable position of moderating on a "be nice" basis rather than calling out fantasy and fabrication or wilful misinformation. In this thread, farsights ideas were given substantial time and analysis by at least 4 people who know what they're talking about. The playground stuff was borne of exasperation in the face of perpetual repetitions and farsights demands that we re-explain ourselves everytime a new page started. That is a trolling behaviour. Repition, misquoting, posting huge tracts of wikipedia which did not support the points he was making. If you want a "serious" science discussion, then get scientists to moderate the forum.

The reality from my perspective is that just about all of this topic can be answered in about 2 paragraphs - one of the lorentz transform and the other on Bells hypothesis. The reason it's gone on for so damn long is because of a deliberate and sustained attempt to subvert genuine experimentally validated science in support of someones personal fantasy, which wasn't initially obvious. It was then compounded by cheerleading.

And I appreciate how exasperating it can be sometimes. I'm a Philosophy major, not a science major, so I'm limited in how much I can contribute. It would take all day for me to decipher this whole thread and figure out who's being reasonable and who instigated the snottiness. Thus, my plea to please stop the sarcasm and snottiness wasn't directed at anyone in particular. As long as no rule was broken, I don't particularly care who's being a twit the most. But when posts get reported and someone complains about the tone of the rhetoric, it's staff's duty to respond. I hope we can let all that pass now and discuss the Lorentz Transformation and Bell's Theorum/Hypothesis, both of which seem to go right to the heart of the matter, in my limited understanding.

Would you mind giving me a quick run-down of why they're the solution to this argument? I have a rough idea, but it'd be better to see your explanation, as you have a deeper understanding of them than I do.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Twiglet,

(and this applies to others here as well, so everyone please take note)

This is NOT a science-based site. Nobody on the staff here makes any claim to expertise in any field. As such, you are quite right in saying that we moderate the site on a 'play nice' basis. That is how we do things here. We like it like that. We don't consider that to be a failing on our part or to be unenviable.

Farsight's ideas were met from the start (by a few) with sarcasm, sneering, vague, unspecified hints that they were laughable (without the exact reason for their risibility being made clear in many cases) and a general lack of playing nice.

Let me make this perfectly clear: EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO THEIR OPINION HERE. That goes for bad physicists, fundies, IDers, holocaust deniers, global worming deniers and even cheese-haters!

As long as a member treats other members with respect and engages constructively in debate, they are free to espouse any point of view that they wish. It is not farsight that I see falling short of that benchmark here.

I have not once seen farsight rail against the insults and sneers that he has received here. He has just argued his case and provided what he sees as corroborating articles. If you find his ideas to be wrong - or even ridiculous - please have the courtesy to address the errors in those ideas in a constructive, positive and respectful manner. If your understanding of cutting-edge physics is so much greater than his, then take the opportunity to demonstrate that and assist him in seeing the flaws in his logic. You have an opportunity to come across as knowledgeable but you are merely coming across as dismissive and childish.

As I said, this is not directed solely at you. And it is not intended to apply solely to this thread. There have been similar attacks from yourself and others in other threads in the science forum. There may well be Nobel standard scientists posting here but that does not give them the right to dismiss those of lesser standing and belittle their ideas in such an off hand manner. Kindly limit yourselves to correcting mistakes where you see them and educating rather than dictating.

Thanks.

[Twiglet]

Twiglet,

(and this applies to others here as well, so everyone please take note)

This is NOT a science-based site. Nobody on the staff here makes any claim to expertise in any field. As such, you are quite right in saying that we moderate the site on a 'play nice' basis. That is how we do things here. We like it like that. We don't consider that to be a failing on our part or to be unenviable.

Farsight's ideas were met from the start (by a few) with sarcasm, sneering, vague, unspecified hints that they were laughable (without the exact reason for their risibility being made clear in many cases) and a general lack of playing nice.

Let me make this perfectly clear: EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO THEIR OPINION HERE. That goes for bad physicists, fundies, IDers, holocaust deniers, global worming deniers and even cheese-haters!

As long as a member treats other members with respect and engages constructively in debate, they are free to espouse any point of view that they wish. It is not farsight that I see falling short of that benchmark here.

I have not once seen farsight rail against the insults and sneers that he has received here. He has just argued his case and provided what he sees as corroborating articles. If you find his ideas to be wrong - or even ridiculous - please have the courtesy to address the errors in those ideas in a constructive, positive and respectful manner. If your understanding of cutting-edge physics is so much greater than his, then take the opportunity to demonstrate that and assist him in seeing the flaws in his logic. You have an opportunity to come across as knowledgeable but you are merely coming across as dismissive and childish.

As I said, this is not directed solely at you. And it is not intended to apply solely to this thread. There have been similar attacks from yourself and others in other threads in the science forum. There may well be Nobel standard scientists posting here but that does not give them the right to dismiss those of lesser standing and belittle their ideas in such an off hand manner. Kindly limit yourselves to correcting mistakes where you see them and educating rather than dictating.

Thanks.

I can't speak for others on this thread, only for myself (and as you say, this is not solely directed at me), but for myself, I actually started out my contributions on this thread very respectfully and provided explanations.

I am afraid you are only seeing one kind of trolling her. I was very explicit in my previous post about the various ways in which farsight has been trolling all the scientific contributors to this thread. If you don''t understand the context or content of the thread, then you are just left evaluating comparative levels of courtesy.

Everyone does have a right to their opinion, but it doesn't mean every opinion is equally right. I had assumed from the title of the forum I was posting in that the aim was to share ideas and inform and educate about science, not to pit scientists against people propounding pet theories with "play nice" rules and then wonder why it's the scientists who get pissed off.

On other sections of this forum, where topics that are widely understood get discussed, like evolution - there is a pretty clear and consistent approach to distinguishing good science from fantasy and misrepresentation, but from your post above, it seems that this is more by circumstance (this being an atheist forum) than design (to distinguish between fantasy, conjecture and science). That's fine. I shall not persist in wasting my time and effort arguing with every fantasist who turns up. I clearly misled myself to believe that this particular part of the forum was somewhere I could chat and share ideas and knowledge and interests with others who are interested in science. The most active threads here are scientists vs fundie-nutcase pseudoscience fantasies. I didn't realise that when I started contributing in this section. Now that I do, I won't persist in wasting my time here, when I could be in the Pub.

[charlou]

It's not a science based site, but this section of the forum is dedicated to science and I think it's right essential that the serious discussion of science be as rigorous here as it would be on any science based site.

[FBM]

It's not a science based site, but this section of the forum is dedicated to science and I think it's right essential that the serious discussion of science be as rigorous here as it would be on any science based site.

And ideally, just as dispassionate. By that, I mean that one's passion should be channeled into constructing careful, well-reasoned and supported arguments, and selecting the most relevent data, not into adolescent ridiculing of the other person's position. (We do plenty of that elsewhere. )

[Twiglet]

It's not a science based site, but this section of the forum is dedicated to science and I think it's right essential that the serious discussion of science be as rigorous here as it would be on any science based site.

And ideally, just as dispassionate. By that, I mean that one's passion should be channeled into constructing careful, well-reasoned and supported arguments, and selecting the most relevent data, not into adolescent ridiculing of the other person's position. (We do plenty of that elsewhere. )

You can't possibly achieve that unless you have people moderating who can follow the science being discussed in the threads. In all sincerity, no forum can be all things to all people. It's a big enough task to create a well managed forum on atheism and associated topics.

The mistake I made here was entirely mine. The desire for rigour alone doesn't create it. Scientific journals have peer review for this exact reason, because science departments and spublications are literally innundated with fantasist ideas - and almost all of them arise from fundamental misunderstandings of existing theories, which is exactly what the issue is in this thread.

When that happens, if you don't defend the scientists posting on your forums, you will simply lose their content, because most of us hold ourselves to standards about how we frame our replies - i.e. with honesty and integrity, based on existing knowledge. It takes time, and I certainly get fucked off when I have to perpetually repeat myself under a barrage of "o noes buts". Fantasists act under no compulsion to honesty, in fact the exact opposite is generally true.. which means that perpetually refuting their points becomes like headbanging.

When others who read the thread can't tell the difference between the legitimate scientists and the fantasists, then the scientists are going to very soon wonder what the hell point there is in posting, and piss off somewhere else. I wasn't party to the breakdown of the Dawkins forum, but I wonder if the same thoughts went through his mind. He wrote a set of very well structured books, with some excellent intellectual arguments and started a forum to support those books. I don't expect he wanted his forum to become a fantasists playground either, in fact, he said "the reason I don't debate with creationists is that it would look bad on my resume and good on theirs".

I agree wholeheartedly with Charlou, but Rationalia just isn't that place right now. When some of the core admins here post as Xomonas just did, that is abundantly clear. The content of the science forum will ultimately be determined by the administrative strategy and the core posters who contribute. Most of this thread belongs in conspiracy theory or at the most generous evaluation - philosophy, because almost none of it is science.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Twiglet,

(and this applies to others here as well, so everyone please take note)

This is NOT a science-based site. Nobody on the staff here makes any claim to expertise in any field. As such, you are quite right in saying that we moderate the site on a 'play nice' basis. That is how we do things here. We like it like that. We don't consider that to be a failing on our part or to be unenviable.

Farsight's ideas were met from the start (by a few) with sarcasm, sneering, vague, unspecified hints that they were laughable (without the exact reason for their risibility being made clear in many cases) and a general lack of playing nice.

Let me make this perfectly clear: EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO THEIR OPINION HERE. That goes for bad physicists, fundies, IDers, holocaust deniers, global worming deniers and even cheese-haters!

As long as a member treats other members with respect and engages constructively in debate, they are free to espouse any point of view that they wish. It is not farsight that I see falling short of that benchmark here.

I have not once seen farsight rail against the insults and sneers that he has received here. He has just argued his case and provided what he sees as corroborating articles. If you find his ideas to be wrong - or even ridiculous - please have the courtesy to address the errors in those ideas in a constructive, positive and respectful manner. If your understanding of cutting-edge physics is so much greater than his, then take the opportunity to demonstrate that and assist him in seeing the flaws in his logic. You have an opportunity to come across as knowledgeable but you are merely coming across as dismissive and childish.

As I said, this is not directed solely at you. And it is not intended to apply solely to this thread. There have been similar attacks from yourself and others in other threads in the science forum. There may well be Nobel standard scientists posting here but that does not give them the right to dismiss those of lesser standing and belittle their ideas in such an off hand manner. Kindly limit yourselves to correcting mistakes where you see them and educating rather than dictating.

Thanks.

I can't speak for others on this thread, only for myself (and as you say, this is not solely directed at me), but for myself, I actually started out my contributions on this thread very respectfully and provided explanations.

Noted. But...

I am afraid you are only seeing one kind of trolling her. I was very explicit in my previous post about the various ways in which farsight has been trolling all the scientific contributors to this thread. If you don''t understand the context or content of the thread, then you are just left evaluating comparative levels of courtesy.

If you consider farsight to be a troll, then why are you feeding him? Ignore him and his threads if it upsets you so much.

As for the thread's content, I have followed most of it. I don't understand the subject well enough to know whether farsight's pet theory is vaguely feasible, way out on the fringe, or utter bollocks. I am moderating solely on behaviour and I will continue to do so.

Everyone does have a right to their opinion, but it doesn't mean every opinion is equally right.

I would never claim that.

I had assumed from the title of the forum I was posting in that the aim was to share ideas and inform and educate about science, not to pit scientists against people propounding pet theories with "play nice" rules and then wonder why it's the scientists who get pissed off.

It is a forum for discussion of scientific topics without random derails about tits and cheese. It does not claim to be moderated on grounds of 'serious scientific content' or anything other than remaining on topic and reasonable behaviour.

I find it odd that the 'serious scientists' here take such exception to people's pet theories. You accuse farsight of being a troll and ridicule him but nobody has made a serious attempt to address his theory point by point and explain exactly where the flaws lie. It is equally possible that he is a well educated layman that possesses that 'dangerous thing' - a little knowledge - and genuinely believes that he has insights that the scientific world has missed. This is how I perceive him. Einstein was a patent clerk, remember (not that I am claiming farsight shares his level of genius!)

On other sections of this forum, where topics that are widely understood get discussed, like evolution - there is a pretty clear and consistent approach to distinguishing good science from fantasy and misrepresentation, but from your post above, it seems that this is more by circumstance (this being an atheist forum) than design (to distinguish between fantasy, conjecture and science).

Is there? I am afraid that that is as much by accident as design!

That's fine. I shall not persist in wasting my time and effort arguing with every fantasist who turns up.

I am not sure why you ever felt you had to. They will soon wander off if nobody bites.

I clearly misled myself to believe that this particular part of the forum was somewhere I could chat and share ideas and knowledge and interests with others who are interested in science.

Who says you can't? That is exactly what this area is for - but we do not restrict access to those with sufficient academic qualifications! There are many with an interest in science and little understanding. Just because someone asks a stupid question does not mean they are stupid - usually they are simply uneducated in that particular area. As I said above, take the opportunity to educate, if you wish, or ignore them if not.

The most active threads here are scientists vs fundie-nutcase pseudoscience fantasies. I didn't realise that when I started contributing in this section. Now that I do, I won't persist in wasting my time here, when I could be in the Pub.

If those threads are the most active, it would require continued interest from both the scientists and the fundie-nutcases, would it not? Perhaps we have a lot of scientists here that enjoy the feel of a cold, hard wall against their forehead?

At the end of the day, you are free to post wherever you like here. You are also free NOT to post wherever you like. If you argue against someone's pet theory and they don't feel like surrendering it, fine, move on - you tried.

[FBM]

Are you suggesting that we moderate out the 'bad science' and only allow posting that agrees with current models? The moderation here isn't designed to evaluate people's ideas. The moderation here is designed to allow everyone the freedom to express their ideas as long as it's done in a 'play nice' way. The rules protect you as much as they do the others. The quality of the science in the ideas presented is for you science-literate members to analyze and evaluate; that's not staff's responsibility or purpose.

If you think someone's actually trolling, and thus breaking a rule, then report that person's posts. As XC noted, farsight has yet to resort to childish derision, despite being sujected mercilessly to such. His ideas may be way off-target and based on fundamental misunderstandings of basic science. If so, please demonstrate how/why that is the case. I don't see how resorting to sarcasm and derision is either required or wise. If he's wrong, teach him how and why he's wrong. Even if he's wrong, he's got the right attitude wrt to his choice of language.

Explaining the relevance of the Lorentz Transformation and Bell's Theorum would be productive, it seems.

[Twiglet]

If you consider farsight to be a troll, then why are you feeding him? Ignore him and his threads if it upsets you so much.

I, and others, initially did respond to his points, which if you had followed the contents of the thread, you would know. Whether I consider him a troll is irrelevant to how you administrate trolling, but perhaps the simple answer is you don't. You administrate politeness, and are quite content to leave it at that.

I am moderating solely on behaviour and I will continue to do so.

Indeed.

I find it odd that the 'serious scientists' here take such exception to people's pet theories.

Really!!!??? Then I suggest you look to the content of this forum on topics like Intelligent design. Your point is rendered ridiculous by it.

You accuse farsight of being a troll and ridicule him but nobody has made a serious attempt to address his theory point by point and explain exactly where the flaws lie. It is equally possible that he is a well educated layman that possesses that 'dangerous thing' - a little knowledge - and genuinely believes that he has insights that the scientific world has missed. This is how I perceive him. Einstein was a patent clerk, remember (not that I am claiming farsight shares his level of genius!)

Then you misunderstand what I'm ridiculing. His ideas are based on misunderstandings of existing theories, but that's a mistake anyone can make. What I am ridiculing is his persistent wilful and deliberate misrepresentation of existing science to supposedly back up those idiotic ideas, rather than any genuine willingess to evolve his thinking. See Intelligent Design, once again.

[Twiglet]

Explaining the relevance of the Lorentz Transformation and Bell's Theorum would be productive, it seems.

I did both, with references and explanations, in response to your earlier post on the previous page.

[FBM]

Explaining the relevance of the Lorentz Transformation and Bell's Theorum would be productive, it seems.

I did both, with references and explanations, in response to your earlier post on the previous page.

Found it. Thanks! That was after midnight last night, Korean time. I was eager to be elsewhere at the time.

[JimC]

Twiglet wrote:

You can't possibly achieve that unless you have people moderating who can follow the science being discussed in the threads. In all sincerity, no forum can be all things to all people. It's a big enough task to create a well managed forum on atheism and associated topics.

The last two sentences in this exerpt are fair statements, and sum up the issues well. But I take exception to the sentence I have placed in red. You have an incorrect interpretation of the nature of moderation in a forum like ours. It soes not involve weighing up the scientific merit or plausibility of statements made about threads, although staff may do that when posting as members. In other areas you mention, like intelligent design, evolution or the nature of atheism, where staff may well have more expertise, exactly the same applies.

Moderation in areas of science like this thread, and others like the String Theory thread, are about ensuring members do not make personal attacks on other members. It is quite possible to rigorously oppose an argument, even to dismiss the argument as poorly thought-out, or full of logical errors, without becoming unpleasant to the poster. It is a skill well worth learning - many of the arguments in your posts are clearly deficient in this area...

[FBM]

I'm not fond of superluminal transfers. There is the "no time passes for the photon" aspect from which one can infer that within a photon no elapsed time can be measured. From this one can then propose that entangled particles are akin to the interior of a photon, and that an event occurs instantaneously. I don't like it. If pushed I might suggest that the entangled particles are spatially connected, but I'd be speculating.

I'm happier on firmer ground, namely the speed of light. How fast does light travel in vacuo? Here's what I think, and I challenge anybody to construct an argument that demonstrates where this is incorrect: ...

I can't help but notice that much of your reasoning seems to be fueled by sentiments such as 'I'm not fond of', 'I don't like', 'I'm happier' with this idea, etc. I'm sure you realize the dangers of that approach. What's crucial in science is that one starts with the data, then proceeds from there with necessary inference. Starting with one's preferences and proceeding to construct ad hoc defenses of them is a deeply flawed approach. I'm not saying that no scientist does this - Einstein did - I'm only saying that the probability of error is greatly and unnecessarily increased with this approach.

Now, there's nothing wrong with speculating. Countless advances in science and other fields have been inspired by speculation. However, if your speculative model violates well-founded and widely-accepted theories, you need to first resolve those conflicts before speculating even further. (Sorry if this has been said elsewhere.) For example, if you think the Lorentz Transformations and Bell's Theorum are flawed, please explain exactly how they are flawed.

[Twiglet]

You have an incorrect interpretation of the nature of moderation in a forum like ours. It soes not involve weighing up the scientific merit or plausibility of statements made about threads, although staff may do that when posting as members.

Indeed, I accept that point, it was my own misunderstanding. I had expected some kind of moderation of the basis of scientific integreity, and imagined that mods and admins might take a broader view of trolling than simple politeness, such as baiting, repitition amd misquoting which leads to this point....

Moderation in areas of science like this thread, and others like the String Theory thread, are about ensuring members do not make personal attacks on other members. It is quite possible to rigorously oppose an argument, even to dismiss the argument as poorly thought-out, or full of logical errors, without becoming unpleasant to the poster. It is a skill well worth learning - many of the arguments in your posts are clearly deficient in this area...

In point of fact, I stuck to attacking the flaws in farsights ideas right until my last couple of posts in this thread, one saying that farsights ideas were only appealing to people without relevant background, which was pretty snarky, and then, after being accused of making ad hominem attacks several times, I actually did make a couple, which the mods here then picked up on.

If you are going to directly accuse me of "unpleasant posts", then in fairness to me, you should look at the context of those posts and bloody well quote them, and do me the courtesy of understanding the context in which they were made. Also understanding that someone saying "I know you are but what am I?" at the end of each of my posts (which is effectively what farsight was doing to most every post here) is itself a form of rudeness and baiting. So far, there has been no acknowledgment of that.

[JimC]

Twiglet wrote:

In point of fact, I stuck to attacking the flaws in farsights ideas right until my last couple of posts in this thread, one saying that farsights ideas were only appealing to people without relevant background, which was pretty snarky, and then, after being accused of making ad hominem attacks several times, I actually did make a couple, which the mods here then picked up on.

That is a fair point, and I should have acknowledged that many of your posts, particularly early in the thread, were attacking arguments rather than the poster.

If you are going to directly accuse me of "unpleasant posts", then in fairness to me, you should look at the context of those posts and bloody well quote them, and do me the courtesy of understanding the context in which they were made. Also understanding that someone saying "I know you are but what am I?" at the end of each of my posts (which is effectively what farsight was doing to most every post here) is itself a form of rudeness and baiting. So far, there has been no acknowledgment of that.

Poster's styles may be irritating, and their refusal to respond to points you make may be annoying. You can certainly state in a post that you wish they would address points you have raised. However, being irritating, obscure or arguing in a haphazard way are not against our guidelines, and are not something that will be moderated. Neither should they be a trigger for ad-homs in reply, even if someone becomes irritated by them...