Generalisations can be misleading but I notice that most everyone who seeks to present any case against mainstream cosmology get very angry when their posts against mainstream fail to have all proclaiming they are brilliant. Moreover when someone who obviously knows and points out their mistaken approach they react with rage and anger. It seems so many of these folk seem to believe their casual reading on the net gibes them qualifications above any professional. Personally there are things I don't understand or happily accept, I don't like dark matter being unresolved for example, but I don't then attack members who try and help to improve my understanding. It would seem that to replace a theory or model one needs a replacement, yet so many cranks spend their time saying the current model is wrong, offer nothing in its place, but worst of all then hrt angry if you try and help. I have seen members post links in an effort to help but the crank abuses them, when they are simply presenting the current mainstream position. Why do they take to attacking the messenger, after all the link is often to a paper or article and not the words of the poster trying to help. The unreasonable irrational misdirected anger seems s common trait of the crank. I read up on anger trying to find why we see these displays of rage. There are various things that will cause anger but looking at various articles on anger I still can not work it out. And as we have all witnessed some are worse than others launching horrible attacks. Why is this anger a part of the make up of a crank. Many of these folk are clearly at a basic level and yet carry on as if they are the next AE or Newton. Is it delusion signifying a mental issue and if so how should we great these folk. I am rather laid back but I find they are difficult to ignore and resist all efforts if one trys to engage them politely. If any crank reads this perhaps you could present your reason clearly and with restraint. Alex
Because they are cranks. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! This forum is full of them unfortunately.
Spot on! Just to add though, without mentioning names, when we have egotistical, delusional individuals, who claim that they know better than what is accepted by mainstream, and when those same individuals are probably failures in what they have generally undertaken in their lives, forums such as this, are an outlet for them....they can pretend, bluster and bully...they can claim all manner of uncertainties with regards to accepted science, without any need to run the gauntlet of professional proper peer review. Shouting and screaming then when at times their nonsensical claims are removed to the fringes, and suggest conspiracies and all manner of other nonsense with regards to the evil academia, mainstream brigade. They are good for a laugh. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I think it's because the typical cosmology crank doesn't have a very good education in physics and cosmology. In fact, many are self-taught, often from pop-science books or stuff on the internet. When confronted with people who have actually studied the science at a university, they feel inferior and defensive right from the start. They want to boost their own egos by thinking that they know better than the experts, and so they tend to react with anger when experts point out flaws in their reasoning or even basic facts or methods. They don't like losing face. In the pub or with their friends in the garage or on the internet they seem important and knowledgeable, like the smartest person in the room. A reality check can be a big hit to the ego. One would think that if you wanted to demolish an accepted theory in science, you'd start by learning everything about that theory - or the fundamentals of it at the very least. However, cranks tend not to do that. For many, it is because while they are interested they quickly hit the wall when things start to get complex. In cosmology and physics, typically the wall is a lack of mathematical knowledge and skill. Cranks who are unable or willing to progress to the required level in mathematics are reduced to attempting to revolutionise physics with word games and diagrams, which essentially can't be done these days. Finally, many cranks are lazy. They may have the capacity but lack the motivation to study up in a particular area. They typically want to jump into theories at the deep end rather than learning the fundamentals. So they end up wasting a lot of their time, writing 100 page theories that make a fundamental error on page 1. When such errors are pointed out, they direct their anger outwards at the people pointing out the mistakes, rather than changing their ways and actually trying to learn the relevant theory. Mostly, cranks don't evolve their ideas or understanding. Correct a crank today, and in ten years you'll probably still find him on a different forum repeating the same error. Having been rejected hundreds of times by then, he has developed a hard shell that reacts angrily and defensively almost as a matter of instinct. After all, it's difficult to face the fact that you've made no real progress in 10 years. Primarily, cranks, like most of us, just want to be loved. They want admiration - for people to recognise that their cosmological "revolutions" are the product of a brilliant mind. In some cases, cranks will collect together in one place to mutually pat each other on the back, although most cranks are only interested in their own pet theories and not the pet theories of other cranks. But they know that to get real validation, they have to go out in the world and try to mix it with real experts. When that happens, instead of praise and admiration, they are typically told that they have misunderstood things, or that they have made simple errors. In reaction, they can often lash out.
Thank you for your input gentlemen. I seems the less they know the more aggressive they present and the more angry they become if you point out the simplest of points. The failure to recognise the fact that if you have something of merit you need a better model. I say I don't know much but so many cranks just do not understand this most basic aspect. And if you understand the idea of models I can not understand why you would get angry. Heck every scientist on the planet may think a current model should be replaced or improved but none will waste time ranting unless they have at least a hypothetical replacement. So it seems these cranks miss the first step of science and run wild believing the world is stupid for not treating them with respect. Then they spit the dummy and what can you do but treat them with no respect. It is a pity many of these folk obviously have an interest but don't seem to want to learn and miss ever talking to folk who would help them if they showed any degree of respect. Alex
And I have been a crank in the sence that I formed ideas before I even knew about GR etc. But when I raised my ideas and was respectful my learning journey started. I guess I was lucky not to have an uncontrollable ego. Alex
My suspicion is, that real scientist have learned to become very careful when proposing new ideas. Many scientists have seen numerous of their experiments fail, made plenty of mistakes in their calculations and eventually are well aware that in anything new that they find, there might be a mistake which slipped in. So often you see wordings like "there is strong evidence", "thare are indications" or similar, which tell that they think they have found something, but at the same time they admit, there is a chance that it's not entirely sure, that some sort of mistake mislead them. At times there is statistical data that can back a claim, and lead to something like "a mistake in this finding is less likely than 1:10000000 or similar, e.g. for the discovery of the Higgs boson there were such statistics given, and when it was declared to be discovered, there still was a very tiny chance of a mistake. And they admitted that openly, even gave the number so people could see how reliable the result is. Also, new discoveries are usually picked up by other scientists, tested, reproduced or falsified, reviewed and the like, and eventually, if many teams can reproduce the findings, they are accepted. E.g. space time curvature has been tested many times, by many teams, in many ways and now we are quite sure it exists, since so many tests were made. The people who read and make up an idea from what they read, usually didn't undergo this sort of experience. Lacking the experience of former failures and how to deal with them, all they can do is to fight for their point of view. They usually have no reviewers to back their point, no other teams who reproduced their findings, so they are alone and weak, and this makes them vulnerable.
I can agree with most of the above posts, but, there's something else... I sometimes think some of these 'cranks' are not cranks as such with their own ideas, but rather people who intentionally wish to see science forums collapse into disarray, because they think science is anti-religious. That disarray is their goal on science threads. This may explain why they don't use the ignore button. So that's the agenda of some 'cranks'. The real cranks push their ideas, and the result is the same...disarray.
In addition, the less they know, the less likely they are to recognize the gaps in their understanding. Google "Dunning-Kruger Effect."
Yes the effect was recently discussed somewhere on this forum. I will google and post a link here to save guests who pass by the effort of a search. The more I learn the more I realise there is so much I have not learnt or even had any idea the subject matter was studied, I find out about areas of study that folk spend life times learning researching etc. I recall visiting a math site with an index of 35 pages and eack page having 25 lines, each line referred to an area of math that probably many folk had devoted their lives to study exclusively on that aspect of maths. So many folk, I have made this mistake, read an anology and then work on arguing against the anology failing to appreciate that anologies are often used to describe something complex which if addressed in its complexity would be beyond their grasp. I am unfortunately limited to understanding many things via anology but at least I realise that fact. Alex
Totally true, and particularly with two [maybe three] on this forum! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Science, cosmology in particular, has pushed the need for any magical deity/spaghetti monster into near oblivion. That is the impetus of these god botherers to oppose any and all of the cosmological sciences and fabricate impossible and inane scenarios in their vane, stupid efforts to denigrate or deride. Great thread Alex...Certainly highlights one of the chief problems we have on this forum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect Dunning–Kruger effect The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to ametacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.[1] The words.... in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is.... bear repeating and in my limited experience it seems if you question this "superiority" or suggest their ability is way under a professional in the field this causes the anger and the rage. I try to be humble (but its hard when you are perefect in every way lol) firstly because I find loud mouths annoying (maybe I see that fault inmyself) but mainly because folk share their knowledge and experience which is more worthwhile than rattling on about how you know more than experts. Alex
Thank you Paddoboy. I once thought you were too harse with these folk and that you were somewhat responsible for them going off... Well I now think you are too gentle. Having experienced unprovoked nonesence first hand I could not believe what was happening. And it is not limited to one person unless it is??? but my mistake seems no more than reminding certain folk about decent manners, respect for science and respect for others. Maybe I am mistaken about my presentation but I would think humble and passive fit well and would be seen as somewhat virtuous or at least reasonable. But no. I was taken as a new mark for bullying. You said once you didnot take that crap and I suggested restraint and quoted the words of Francis Bacon... On taking revenge a man is but equal with his enemy for it is a princes part to pardon... Well sure I wont take revenge but I will not ectend those words to mean I will takes the crap some of these fools think they can dish out a d worse still avoid addmission of guilt. So I say you are correct give them an inch if they over step flog 'em. I dont care if they want to have whatever personal model but they never do. In fa t no idea of the concept of model... Just want to vent anger. Can you imagine living in the same house, the same street or be in the same work place. As I said I have spent time reading up on reasons for anger. So it is interesting and on the bright side we can study some of the anger cases first hand. My trouble is when I attack I cant stop until they beg for me to stop. But I am respecting the rules and probably will just hit the report and ignore buttons. Alex
So all of you fell better and justified to your arrogant mainstream position . Lol . Oh the foolishness of the ego .
Not true..... The simple fact is that most logical genuine scientists, just like the observations, theories, predictions, and the results to match. That's common sense. Agreed. Perhaps you need to address that remark to the fool/s that openly, for whatever reason, proclaim on this forum, that they are never wrong? I'm sure you and all your genuine honesty river,Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! will now address that person in question.
Hi River I am happy you made a post here. Look its not so much about supporting mainstream as it is about folk getting angry when others dont think they are as great as they tell us or when they are given the current position science has reached they try to shoot the messenger. I have always found you to be well settled and I may have missed it, but I have not seen you lose your temper, sure you will take a shot but to my observation you have not been hateful and angry. So that is my point. I think these angry people would get angry even if we were talking about cats. And as I have said there are things that mainstream presents that I dont like but I dont run around saying they are wrong because I have a better idea and get angry because someone tells me to learn more. Again thank you for your input. Alex
Pad you are not able to see that under the current theory ; which is the BB ; we can predict very little ; which is why main stream theory is constantly " surprised " by this or that happening in the Universe upon observation . The gravitational theory is so incomplete and lacking it's becomes nonsensical. The theory is old and primative .
It is reasonable to be cautious River but I specifically said the following. I dont care if they want to have whatever personal model but they never do. In fa t no idea of the concept of model... And probably I am different here to many others because I dont mind discussion offerring a different view (and I offer in support my participation in quantum waves threads and my non mainstream comments) but I dont like the anger which is the point of this thread. But you think what you like and I thank you for being respectful. You do not get angry but you were calm and pointed to your concern. Think of it this way. Say you have an idea post it hear others out say thanks no thanks whatever. Try saying something to the rage crew even if you are polite they can go off, in my view they try and bully if you say anything against ther stand. As I also said I thought Paddoboy was too hrad on them... at first but I understand now why he does not give them an inch, he hits first because he has been there before. He stirs them up as I will do in the future because they just want to fight and beat their chests so go on Paddoboy from brining it on. Look at the recent posts just who is starting the bullying. Anyways you probably are off side with Paddoboy so you may find it difficult to accept my position as you think I only reflect his position.. I do and I dont. If you are arguing a case the opposition will often try and sidetrack you.. These rage mob seem to welcome it so they can just fight. Alex
Thought this interesting so I share it here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect Overconfidence effect The overconfidence effect is a well-established bias in which a person's subjective confidence in his or her judgments is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of those judgments, especially when confidence is relatively high.[1]Overconfidence is one example of a miscalibration of subjective probabilities. Throughout the research literature, overconfidence has been defined in three distinct ways: (1) overestimation of one's actual performance; (2)overplacement of one's performance relative to others; and (3) overprecision in expressing unwarranted certainty in the accuracy of one's beliefs.[2] The most common way in which overconfidence has been studied is by asking people how confident they are of specific beliefs they hold or answers they provide. The data show that confidence systematically exceeds accuracy, implying people are more sure that they are correct than they deserve to be. If human confidence had perfect calibration, judgments with 100% confidence would be correct 100% of the time, 90% confidence correct 90% of the time, and so on for the other levels of confidence. By contrast, the key finding is that confidence exceeds accuracy so long as the subject is answering hard questions about an unfamiliar topic. For example, in a spelling task, subjects were correct about 80% of the time, whereas they claimed to be 100% certain.[3] Put another way, the error rate was 20% when subjects expected it to be 0%. In a series where subjects made true-or-false responses to general knowledge statements, they were overconfident at all levels. When they were 100% certain of their answer to a question, they were wrong 20% of the time.[4] I am watching a show on tv about how our brain can play tricks particularly via overconfidence. I am set for a fall as I am usually over confident or I think I am most of the time, well at least some of the time, I am really almost certain. Alex
