This opinion article by a recent author of a book on cranks, along with their editorial bias towards claims of the eminent demise of General Relativity and the Standard Model, has got to be a large part of the reason that New Scientist is associated with crankdom.
Science is a priesthood? This is a claim arising from nothing more than psychological projection from the cargo-cult of wannabes. If science were a priesthood, there would be organized worship rather than the disorganized affections of groupies and the unasked-for flattery of imitations of those that ape science's form without benefit. If science were a priesthood, there would be an initiation into its mysteries rather than open access journals and public libraries of books.
Mathematics is an obstacle? No, you dunderheads! The human brain with its grossly circuitous and inefficient function of thinking and understanding implemented in story-telling meat is the obstacle. That the thinking meat of cranks are of the opinion that untutored meat should have equal chances of discovery as the meat of scientists who attempt to work in with reliable abstractions of logic, math and evidence is without basis. Naive egalitarianism in this case is simple arrogance.
Science has to be a precise, useful and communicable description of nature. That the most precise and most useful descriptions are necessarily communicated in mathematics is not a bug, but a feature.
This post has been copied from my social media post. If you are subscribed to New Scientist you have my permission to repost on the comment thread there.![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Existing comments seem to share my opinion:
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Reviews of the book:
Michael Shermer in Wall Street Journal
John Horgan for Scientific American blogs
Peter Woit
Science is a priesthood? This is a claim arising from nothing more than psychological projection from the cargo-cult of wannabes. If science were a priesthood, there would be organized worship rather than the disorganized affections of groupies and the unasked-for flattery of imitations of those that ape science's form without benefit. If science were a priesthood, there would be an initiation into its mysteries rather than open access journals and public libraries of books.
Mathematics is an obstacle? No, you dunderheads! The human brain with its grossly circuitous and inefficient function of thinking and understanding implemented in story-telling meat is the obstacle. That the thinking meat of cranks are of the opinion that untutored meat should have equal chances of discovery as the meat of scientists who attempt to work in with reliable abstractions of logic, math and evidence is without basis. Naive egalitarianism in this case is simple arrogance.
Science has to be a precise, useful and communicable description of nature. That the most precise and most useful descriptions are necessarily communicated in mathematics is not a bug, but a feature.
This post has been copied from my social media post. If you are subscribed to New Scientist you have my permission to repost on the comment thread there.
Existing comments seem to share my opinion:
Eric Kvaalen said:But if it really does take tensors and gauge theories to understand physics, then these people are just whining.
Crumple said:Cargo cult physics. At least the next generation of nukes should be safer if they gain the centre ground.
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Reviews of the book:
Michael Shermer in Wall Street Journal
John Horgan for Scientific American blogs
Peter Woit
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