Yazata said:
Sciforums often misuses that one [when posters falsly accuse other posters of lying]. A 'lie' is a knowing and intentional misrepresentation of a fact. That's not the the same thing as a mistake and definitely not the same thing as an opinion that somebody just happens to dislike.
So my question was: why does that distinction matter if the damage to the forum is the same either way?
It's trollish in the sense that it accuses the purported 'liar' of a moral fault. Accusing somebody of being a liar is almost guaranteed to move a conversation from the intellectual level to an emotional level (which is what trolls are always trying to do).
And what conceivable damage is taking place when people argue about the existence of ghosts in an appropriate alternative forum? That could develop into a fascinating discussion, if both sides argue well.
SF has a traffic problem and if bad post quality is what is driving people away, why does it matter if such a post is just spectacularly stupid and not a life?
I'm not convinced that a statement can always be dismissed as 'spectacularly stupid' just because it happens to contradict somebody's own personal philosophy or worldview.
The 'spectacularly stupid' conclusion only seems to follow if we already possess the faith that our own philosophy and worldview is true, sound and complete. Inviolable, in other words.
And that's where discussions of things like ghosts can get interesting. The critic can ask the ghost-proponent about how he/she supposedly knows that ghosts exist, what he/she thinks ghosts are, and how the evidence justifies that conclusion. And the proponent can in turn inquire into what justifies the critic's own denials, revealing whatever faith-commitments that might conceivably lurk there.
Either way, IMO, it should be moderated to prevent it from damaging the forum.
I think that the moderators should be prepared to move threads from the regular science fora to the alternative fora. But once a thread arguing for whatever heresy is in an appropriate alternative forum, I see no reason to further moderate its content. Any moderation at that point should be for inappropriate behavior (including false accusations of lying).
Of course, distinguishing which threads need to be moved isn't going to be as easy as it might initially sound. If somebody is actually arguing to the existence of ghosts or spirit-beings, then the discussion probably should be moved. But what if the discussion is really about the history or philosophy of science, and the hypothetical existence of ghosts or spirit-beings is serving as an example that raises important issues? What if somebody starts out arguing for ghosts, but the subsequent discussion raises valuable philosophical issues?
In real life, arguing about the distinction between science and pseudo-science, about what is and isn't real, and about what science actually knows and how it knows it, can produce some of the most interesting and educational discussions possible on a board like this.
As for me personally, I'm something of a Fortean, I guess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortean
I see science as currently our best human attempt to understand the universe around us. I think that most of what science tells us is substantially true. But that doesn't mean that science is complete. Nor does it mean that everything that science says today will still be accepted by science in 500 years. In the future we are inevitably going to know a lot more, and perhaps a few of the cherished theories of today will have been dramatically revised in much the way that Aristotelian mechanics was replaced by Galilean. I think that's almost inevitable.
In other words, our scientific picture of the world is an approximation. It's a conceptual model that embodies our best current understanding of what the universe is and how it behaves. But it's almost certainly an over-simplification. It's very much a work in progress.
And that in turn suggests that our scientific worldview shouldn't be simply equated with reality itself. Reality is bigger than our current picture of it, it overflows our current understanding.
Acknowledging that, I don't think that it's unrealistic to expect to expect occasional anomalies, 'wild' or 'maverick' events that don't seem to fit into our current scientific understanding. I'm inclined to think that such events do exist. That being said, I also think that it's very important to maintain a skeptical as opposed to a credulous attitude towards such things.
Maybe that's why you and Magical Realist don't get along, Russ. Magical Realist is all about trying to preserve the idea that wonders and mysteries are still possible. (Except regarding 'religion', but that's another story with him.) He can be way too credulous at times in embracing any anomalous report that he hears, but I can understand where he's coming from, since I kind of share the same underlying attitude.
Others around here seem to have set themselves up as Sciforums' grand-inquisitors, rooting out heresy wherever they find it, flaming the sinners responsible and doing all they can to defend the scientistic catechism. Reality is whatever scientific orthodoxy currently pictures it as being and that most emphatically is that.
That collision isn't necessarily a bad thing. Fascinating discussions about the history and philosophy of science and about science's position in broader intellectual life, tend to naturally arise from considering it. But that won't happen when rhetoric on both sides descends to the lowest level of insults and denunciations.
