Trust and Belief in Science vs Conjecture and Philosophy

[Twiglet]

You call farsight evasive but you still haven't answered my direct question.

For the third time. Why did you post the "shill" link? If you were not accusing farsight, what was its purpose?

The link on shilling is entirely relevant to lobbyist techniques (tobacco, big energy) in undermining scientific findings with misinformation, which speaks to the OP. The subsequent Monbiot articles elaborated on that point.

NB Xamonas... I replied to you at the end of Page 2 of this thread:

The reason I mentioned shill is because it is exactly the kind of tactic deployed by big energy and big tobacco to misrepresent science which is part of the debate in this thread, and I have gone on to quote some articles by George Monbiot to expand on the issue.

So you accusation that I evaded your point are completely without foundantion.

No they are not. You have only described the contents of the link, NOT why it was posted directly after farsight's post without further comment.

Good grief you are clutching at straws now. I'm accountable because I posted something underneath farsights post???!!!

On previous occasions where I have an issue with what other posters say, I quote them, or name them. I did neither here. I linked in a word which is relevant to my OP with the intention of discussing it later, and it happened to be posted under what farsight wrote.

I subsequently clarified my position, twice, despite that you won't accept it, even when I directly answer. What do you want, blood out of a stone?

[colubridae]

First let me apologise for attributing your post to Colubriidae!! The two of you do seem to be playing tag-team here - perhaps I should check your IPs...

Sorry to butt in...

Check our IPs and you will find that they don't match...
That means nothing

Twiglet and I could be still be co-operating.
Or ganging up. Or co-ordinating our attacks.

We could still easily be doing all of those things and much more.

I could easily be a friend of twiglet's and he is e-mailing me texts which he wishes me to post under my membership id.
or vice-versa.
We could be in phone contact discussing ploys etc.

In fact if twiglet and I were co-operating we would be incredibly stupid to be using the same IPs.


as I said before my real name is oliver stone.

There is forensic software available (at a hefty price) which can be used to track identities from textual content. AFAIK it is not admissible in UK courts.



The magic carpet question alludes to farsights smoke and mirrors.

He went to great pains to explain why a swimmer's trajectory would deflect. This appears therefore to bear out his theory. The reader’s attention is neatly deflected over the fact that the ‘truck dumping gelatine in the pool’ is a complete and utter leap of imagination.

Hence my statement, you ponder ‘how to steer round a tight curve’ missing the fact that a magic carpet is, simply, magic.
IIRC he was pissed that I smilied laughter. This is why.

I could be wrong it’s not unknown…

BTW farsight has still not explained the missing positrons.

He could possibly get away with it, by pointing out that olber’s paradox does not prove steady-state to be incorrect.
Olber’s paradox relies on the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This has never been proved, it is simply supported by googles of evidence. Therefore my position fails on that score.

In the same way missing positrons do not destroy farsight’s stuff, but it’s a whole, whole lotta problem. It means at the big-bang all the extant electrons existed, or yet another still unexplained mechanism, (that’s two completely unexplained mechanisms) exist. One requiring pair production one not.
(I’m still sure that his theory requires pair production)
Or that the pairs were somehow cosmically separated.

Apart from all the other stuff, still not answered, leaves whopping holes in the postulate. Not a problem for me if qui gon jin had said at the outset ‘here is my postulate, but it’s got fucking big holes in it.’



Interpret the evidence how you want.

Looking forward to 10th December.

And still bemused that hubius helix has disappeared from wiki


I still agree very strongly with twiglet’s statement regarding the difficulty in refuting someone like farsight. As I posted with my joke dark force postulate, try destroying it. You will find it very difficult.

Xamonas IIRC you said ‘if his theory is incorrect it should be easy to disprove’…
I don’t think that is necessarily true. And it can be extremely frustrating.
But if you think that letting my frustrations get the better of me is wrong, with that I agree wholeheartedly. It’s why I got a month’s ban from RDF.



TJ

[Trolldor]

It’s why I got a month’s ban from RDF.

Are you sure you didn't sleight Josh in someway instead? Like, by saying "I don't quite agree..."

[colubridae]

It’s why I got a month’s ban from RDF.

Are you sure you didn't sleight Josh in someway instead? Like, by saying "I don't quite agree..."

No. Had no idea of the politics. I'd never been on a forum before. Thought ‘this is fun’

I was stunned when I came across creationists posting there.

It gave me a weird feeling of 'why' 'Isn't this an atheist website?' ‘Why are you saying that about atheists?’.

Naivety cubed. I soon learned.



Just before it folded there was a very bright theist who challenged everyone to prove that the moon landings were real. He tied everyone in knots by simply disagreeing with everything. His beef was that the bible not being deity evidence, was matched by nasa’s claims photos, interviews etc. Fuck it was fun. I had real difficulty withholding insults. It particularly incensed me that he was definitely not a dimwit.

Id Vintage78.

[Farsight]

I really enjoyed episode 1 of The Story of Science on BBC2 last night. Michael Mosley gave us a historic tour that took in Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Hubble, etc. He really brought home how slow scientific progress can be, with things like "who owns the truth" and the resistance one meets. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/. Well worth watching.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I really enjoyed episode 1 of The Story of Science on BBC2 last night. Michael Mosley gave us a historic tour that took in Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Hubble, etc. He really brought home how slow scientific progress can be, with things like "who owns the truth" and the resistance one meets. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/. Well worth watching.

It was good. I watched it as well. I like his approach - science progressing through serendipity, painstaking hard work, political will, etc. instead of simply by 'Eureka' moments, as is often assumed. And dead right, IMO.

[colubridae]

I really enjoyed episode 1 of The Story of Science on BBC2 last night. Michael Mosley gave us a historic tour that took in Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Hubble, etc. He really brought home how slow scientific progress can be, with things like "who owns the truth" and the resistance one meets. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/. Well worth watching.

It was good. I watched it as well. I like his approach - science progressing through serendipity, painstaking hard work, political will, etc. instead of simply by 'Eureka' moments, as is often assumed. And dead right, IMO.

Often there's great irony.

Gregor Mendel 'doctored' his results to get the right numbers.
He didn't know that bell curve results were what should have occured.

[Farsight]

Do watch the program colubridae. You start to understand just how difficult it is to make scientific progress. It took a hundred years for Copernicus's sun-centric model to gain acceptance. Newton had all sorts of grief. Einstein was still being dismissed in 1923. And see the Golden age of general relativity where it says:

"The Golden age of general relativity is the period roughly from 1960 to 1975 during which the study of general relativity, which had previously been regarded as something of a curiosity, entered the mainstream of theoretical physics."

All the hassle and grief gets swept under the carpet. It doesn't quite get airbrushed out of history, but most people don't get to hear about it. The issue is that people are the way they are. They get taught something, they become convinced about something, and they they resist anything that challenges it. People so love their beliefs. Religious people are the prime examples, but make no mistake, it's a people trait. It isn't limited to religion. Hence the saying "science advances one death at a time". My advice is to never have any beliefs. Just a current-best-fit opinion based upon the available evidence. And if there isn't any evidence, be suspicious.