Oh, I see. You took responsibility for blaming others.
RealityCheck: moderators are trolling and treating me unfairly
- Thread starter Quantum Quack
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Oh, I see. You took responsibility for blaming others.
At least he can legitimately call himself a scientist.
How did you infer that from what he said?
Obviously not else he wouldn't have been able to get 'PhD' after his name, rewording known work is not valid research.
And now we're into selective reading abilities, a not uncommon problem of mainstream rejecters. No rational person would make the argument "A piece of work is only worthwhile/valid if and only if it has passed peer review in a journal". There are some scientists who refuse to publish in journals because the journal makes financial gain from other people writing and reviewing papers for them. However, thanks to the internet and websites like www.arxiv.org this is no longer an issue in terms of viewing community impact. Someone will still garner pretty much the same number of citations by putting their work on ArXiv as putting it in a reputable journal, since pretty much all research mathematicians and physicists read ArXiv. If a piece of work is deemed interesting to others in the field then they'll cite it. If not then they won't. Thus a paper on ArXiv without a journal review but many many citations is likely a good one, with sound workings and results. Furthermore if it were to be submitted to a journal it'd almost certainly pass. In the event people find problems with the work then small 'retort articles' will be written and perhaps the paper eventually withdrawn by the author(s). Some of the biggest and most novel pieces of work in theoretical physics have been put on ArXiv and never submitted to a journal. This includes the paper which initiated the whole domain of gravity/gauge dualities, which is where Prometheus did his PhD research. So demonstrably Prometheus doesn't work by the principle "If not in a journal not worth considering".
Hacks don't work like that. Look at someone like Magneto. He demonstrably can't do basic tensor calculus, yet he's written a 3 volume hundreds of pages long book series on his new replacement for general relativity. He's even written a 'textbook' on tensors! Rather than submitting his work to a journal or the textbook to a publisher of scientific literature he's paid to have them vanity published and he's charging people for them. No one has reviewed his book to give a validation or rejection of his claims, he's just completely passed the process by. The reason he's done this is that his work would fail review. No one will cite his work either because it's worthless. Thus, even though he hasn't got a journal review, someone from outside the relevant fields can say with good confidence he's not done good work.
Besides, in many cases we don't even need to go to "Has someone with the title of 'Professor' reviewed this? What did they say?". In cases like Farsight's claims about relativity and Einstein its easy for people like myself or Prom to show Farsight wrong. It's doing precisely that which sparked off RC's barrage of complaints, Prometheus was highlighting how Farsight's claims are not just rejected from journals (which they are) but can be shown to be false with pretty basic knowledge of the relevant mathematical physics.
You, RC and a fair few people on this forum and many other science forums seem to make a pretty big mistake, in that you think the level of discourse on a forum such as this is close to the 'physics coal face', the forefront of scientific knowledge/understanding. In at least 2 regards it isn't. Firstly the types of 'explanations' people like Farsight, Mazulu, Martillo etc provide for their assertions are so utterly vapid and weak they fail in every regard to be scientific explanations/models. Yes, it might well be as detailed as such people can manage to grasp but that isn't anywhere close to proper science. Secondly, and somewhat conversely, the level of discussion Prom, myself, Guest, Trippy, Ben etc do here is many orders of magnitude below the level of discourse we engage in when we're doing actual research. For every wordy paragraph explaining to someone what the role of the Higgs is in the SM we know hundreds of instances of equations, quantitative models, formal construct, predictive constructs, experimental results etc. Most we know because we read about them and then developed a working understanding of them but some we know because we invented them. Inside my head right now is an algorithm no one else knows which solves a particular linear algebra problem essential to quantum mechanics and it does it faster than anything you'll find in the literature. I made it up, I developed it, I spent months of 8 hour days working about it, developing it, correcting it and implementing it. And I'm absolutely certain if I decided to start a thread where I waxed lyrically about it, as some of the hacks here like to talk about their 'theories', the number of people on this forum who'd understand it I can count on one hand. And I can count on even less the number of people wouldn't want to have a detailed discussion on it. Hacks think the level of discourse the actual scientists here display on the forum is close to the science coal face but that's only because they, you, have never seen just how far the rabbit hole goes before you hit the coal seam (okay, this analogy is getting a bit convoluted...). Forums such as this serve as places people with rudimentary or no science knowledge can come to discuss science on pretty much the most superficial of levels. Researchers don't talk about their research in detail because it's generally hard to find someone in the same department who understands your research, never mind on a layperson science forum. Hacks like to regularly update everyone with their latest musings, which remain as vapid and unjustified as ever. The actual researchers here would be much more justified in posting updates to their work, as and when it gets published and gathers the attention of other researchers. But that's assuming we even wanted to post our work in detail, which we don't because it would be pointless (and in my case, a violation of company policy).
I say all of this to try to get you to realise that the scope of forums such as this is actually much more limited than hacks seem to think. That isn't to say they don't serve a very good purpose, I wish more people engaged in discussion about science, but knowing the scope of the forum is important, particularly when you're moderating it. I wouldn't remove a thread if someone posted a detailed, post-doctoral level post asking about the finer points of, for instance, the removal of a bosonic string anomaly via cancellation between a tree level and a 1 loop process. I'd just expect no one other than a tiny handful to have any idea what they're on about and even less people would want to discuss it. Personally I find the medium of forums extremely restrictive for proper discourse, I'm somewhat of a more animated face to face person (at least when it comes to mathematical stuff).
Firstly you've misrepresented him and secondly, as mentioned, this is not where actual researchers discuss actual science research. This is a place for somewhat 'simpler level' discussion. Prom has a technical orientated job and if he can't come up with the goods he'll get tired. As would I. If you familiarised yourself with proper scientific research and the level of discourse it involves you'd realise the gulf between it and forum discussions.
No one is quashing people pitching ideas, provided some reasoning can be given. Farsight just asserts things. Martillo just asserts things while simultaneously paying vapid lip service to "Oh I should put some basic maths in to look good". QWC just makes up random stuff and draws pictures. Likewise for Pincho Paxton. Mazulu not only make vapid baseless assertions but they can often be proven false by experimental fact and his 'reasoning' is to say "Aliens told me". ****ing ALIENS! Even if a claim of his turned out to be true he wouldn't have given reason for it, he wouldn't have been doing something scientific. Science is not just saying "Speed = 5 m/s" but showing how you arrived at that conclusion. If Einstein had just sent the equation $$E=mc^{2}$$ to a journal in 1905 he'd have been rejected and rightly so because he didn't provide justification/derivation/methodological construction. Knowing how a result is arrived at allows as much, if not more, insight into a system than just knowing the eventual equation or model or conclusion. None of the hacks here have ever provided such a thing. I've been asking Farsight for 5 years to provide one, just one, working model of a phenomenon of he choice, along with the derivation of said model from some clearly stated first principles. He cannot provide it. Hence his claims have no place in the maths/physics main forum.
That's the difference between the 'new ideas' put forth by the hacks here and proper speculation in a reasonable scientific manner.
It should be embarrassing for you that for someone who has clearly spent a great deal of time on a science forum you have such a poor grasp of what it means to have an informed, reasonable scientific discussion, else you'd not mistake what the hacks do for actual informed, reasonable scientific discussion.
And you know what research results people like myself and Prom have done? No, you don't. I have published, cited work to show to the slogging I did during my PhD. Post-PhD I've been in the private sector so my work doesn't get published and in some cases I can't even talk about it but to give you an example of something very good I can point at and say "I helped" is that there are things in space I've been involved with. In another instance a certain technological problem encountered by people wanting to do a new generation of tests for general relativity I helped address. I have no regrets about the time I've put in 'slogging' away at this stuff. Even the rather abstract mathematics I learnt (and helped develop in a small way) during my PhD I've put to real practical use. Farsight liked to keep saying to BenTheMan and I that our string theory PhDs would be a black mark on our CVs. It got me a job less than a month after finishing, I got it on my first interview, and now I'm putting some of it to real use. I haven't done anything paradigm shifting but I've helped. Unlike people like Farsight who set out to earn fame and glory (and Nobel Prizes) I'm content not to have my work published now, even when I do manage something pretty good, because I know it makes a tangible difference to things in the real world, to other people's work.
I don't need to do anything on this forum to give myself existential justification. The same doesn't seem to be true for many of the hacks here. After all, if you think god and aliens are communicating with you then surely you're very special, right? Why else would they pick you? Right Mazulu?
No one has said that.
And yet you have ignored, on more than one occasion, when your claims have been falsified by reality. You just change your assertions as if they have always been like that, ala The Ministry of Truth. For example. I've explained why your frequency experiments involving lights and different LED outputs is flawed, you just ignored it. Or how about Martillo, he made assertions about how the Standard Model must be wrong, that his take on the Higgs was different and I immediately gave several experimental reasons why he was mistaken and all he could do was say "Well I'm not accepting those, my ideas could still be right". Flat out denial!
And now you're the one making assertions! What you've just said is an assertion that there are physical phenomena in existence which no one has seen. So how do you know they are there? You just assert it. You have no evidence, you don't listen when people point out the flaws in your claims and yet you simultaneously complain we are close minded and stubborn! You are just being a hypocrite.
I live in hope that you're just trolling, that you don't believe the things you say, because if you believe what you say then you show such staggering ignorance of how science works, what the scientific method is and even what basic logical reasoning is that it's almost painful to consider you might be representative of a larger group of people in society. Wilful ignorance and denial are two of the biggest problems in civilisation because from those follow so many issues. If you're willing to make do with such bad decision making procedures when it comes to something where your actions don't have much of an impact on others then you're likely using the same terrible and wilfully ignorant mindset when making decisions which do have an impact on others.
@ Alphanumeric,
do you believe that if a post or thread topic fails to match your unrealistic agenda for a public forum like this one, it is not worthy of those who have a more realistic appreciation of these "inferior" forums?
do you believe that if a post or thread topic fails to match your unrealistic agenda for a public forum like this one, it is not worthy of those who have a more realistic appreciation of these "inferior" forums?
@prometheus.
@alphanumeric
@anyone else
Have you any idea about the benefits you can gain from someone elses scrambled egg?
Do you understand what creativity is and how it can be your own personal gold mine?
A smart person is one who capitalises on everything he encounters, whether that be the innocent ramblings of a 2 year old child flying in his imaginary rocket to the moon or an aging physicists on his death bed writing about the value of all he thinks he has accomplished.
These forums are a gold mine for those seeking inspiration, guidance and a chance to express their creativity.
What behaviour helped inspire me to create this poster do you think?
Who's behaviour helped inspire the above poster image? do you think?
Can I thank you now or do you want to be thanked later?
@alphanumeric
@anyone else
Have you any idea about the benefits you can gain from someone elses scrambled egg?
Do you understand what creativity is and how it can be your own personal gold mine?
A smart person is one who capitalises on everything he encounters, whether that be the innocent ramblings of a 2 year old child flying in his imaginary rocket to the moon or an aging physicists on his death bed writing about the value of all he thinks he has accomplished.
These forums are a gold mine for those seeking inspiration, guidance and a chance to express their creativity.
What behaviour helped inspire me to create this poster do you think?
Who's behaviour helped inspire the above poster image? do you think?
Can I thank you now or do you want to be thanked later?
Dude...subforums like Math and Physics are highly moderated so that Woo woo's don't teach guys like me the untruth. If you want to post without moderation...choose the pseudoscience subforum...there are no active mods there...only the supermods like Stryder and Admins like JamesR moderate there.
So you don't think that finding a novel solution to "a certain technological problem encountered by people wanting to do a new generation of tests for general relativity..." Counts as creativity?
How about developing a robust approach to modelling the distribution of something, and being the first person in the country to employ it. Is that creative? I don't think I've seen anyone anywhere take the approach I have taken to one problem I have recently dealt with.
How developing a two page spreadsheet that does the calculations outlined in a 500 page guideline. Is that creative?
Developing a novel solution to exclude the atmosphere in an experiment to prevent the products from being oxidized. Is that creative?
absolutely!
and that's my point....have another read of my post
yep you got it in one... the key vexation behind the issues in the phsyics and math forum. crack wrapped up as smack!
an example of creative gain from these last few threads about forum management.
"I am currently seriously considering whether to get involved in building and offering an application for facebook that allows it's membership to post to a forum similar in function to this one."
the idea could be worth millions..potential membership "millions" thank you very much!
Market research is under way....
"I am currently seriously considering whether to get involved in building and offering an application for facebook that allows it's membership to post to a forum similar in function to this one."
the idea could be worth millions..potential membership "millions" thank you very much!
Market research is under way....
I could not have done this:
With someone like Ching Lu, who doesn't understand the problem in the first place, and knows nothing about the tools I am trying to use to solve it gibbering in my ear trying to offer me "creative" solutions.
In fact, after my experiences on this forum, and other fora on the few occasions when I have asked a serious question, instead of starting a thread I will now PM a certain member for advice - depending on the topic. Why? Because every thread I have ever started to ask a question has either gone completely unanswered - including by hacks whom have professed elsewhere to have all of the answers, or, it has been swamped by hacks and their half-brained ideas trying to shout me down and tell me I'm being closed minded for ignoring them.
Perhaps you should stop and consider what it's like to have somebody else half brained, half thought out, unjustifiable "creativity" shoved down your throat and then being abused when I refuse to consider their point of view.
In fact, I don't mind sharing that it wasn't that long ago that a member on another forum threatened to kill one of my family members after I told them I thought they were wrong.
well then, the issue of how these fora a moderated could be high n your agenda yes?
any suggestions?
example: how would you moderate a forum with over 1 million active members? How is it any different to moderaing a forum with only 30000 members?
I am a layman of physics and math...I WANT the mods to sort through all the bullshit...so I don't learn something that is woo. There are sub-forums set up for scientific opinions that are not exactly mainstream...its in pseudoscience. Don't let the name fool you...many of our best debates come from this subforum.
In my opinion, the Sub-fora in the 'Hard Science' part of the forum need to be well moderated.
We have subfora for alternative theories. If you want to work on your fractal ether vortex universe, that should be where you do it. And when someone asks how relativity accounts for something in the Physics and Maths sub-forum, you shouldn't expect to get away with showing up and proselytizing your theory.
I have literaly lost count of how many useful and interesting threads I have seen dragged into the quagmire because (to pick on one example) Farsight has shown up denouncing the the explanations offered by AN or Prom or Ben, offered zero evidence to support his denouncement and things have degenerated into a bitch-slap-fest as he takes offense as people start dogpiling his explanation.
Who's fault is that? Should Farsight be allowed to get away with spreading provably wrong or false information? I don't think so.
Hi James R.
Unfrtunately, I have tried every thing (bolding, underlining etc etc) in the past, but it never worked. The 'mod-troll' pattern kept being manifest against all fairness. Threads still kept getting closed and people banned due to inexcusable moderator/troll activity where personal prejudice rather than objective science was the obvious driver of such incessant and deliberate actions.
Even when a simple Hypothesis is put, making no claims but inviting input for discussion, the trolls and mode just keep to the 'pattern' and kill of the thread/OP and call the thread author the troll and close the discussion down before it even had a chance to get started.
One instance of that may be explained away as just 'unfortunate'. Two instances as just 'the way it is'. But a long line of instances following the same mod-troll combination 'pattern' for victimizing and censoring perfectly legitimate OP/Hypotheses/discussion threads and members is inexcusable by any rationalizational 'reach'.
The problem of frustration arises when repeated pleas to the mods/trolls to cease and desist such patent and inexcusable tactics/actions as recently demonstrated (again) not only seems to fall on deaf ears, but actually invites further unfair treatment/activity by the now patently obvious troll-mod combination tactics which have now come to a head.
How many times must a member in good standing appeal for just remedy before he is aloud to do some 'shouting' so that he will be heard and fairly dealt with along with the (serially) offending mod-troll combination which makes a mockery of the due process' and the 'no shouting' etc which does not work?
Can you blame someone for getting a bit fed up with the platitudes and lip-service to standards/behaviour which does not work but rather is the plaything for the very mod-troll combination to use at will for their own personal/prejudicial ends even in the face of the facts presented by the injured party (and more than once) pointing out such mod-troll behaviour?
Of course, as I have already indicated to others, I will try to not capitalize as much as I have been doing in my frustration at the serial offending by those who are at the root of this whole frustrating situation.
I probably will have no need to capitalize as before because now the whole situation is out in the open (finally) and being discussed properly with a view to finding solutions which will stand this otherwise excellent science discourse site in good stead for its future potential.
Thank you James R et al, for taking seriously the facts of the matter and your own considerations thereof with a view to arriving at fair and reasonable solutions given those facts and the problem they highlighted.
Cheers James R.
RealityCheck.
.
Dude...just post your threads in Pseudoscience...and you will have no problems. Physics and Math is STRICTLY moderated for a reason.
Attention Please, admin, mods, everyone: Owing to the different time zone compared to most posters, my long overnight absence means I will have a number of posts to reply to all at once. So please forgive the occassional necessity for me to post a number of replies in succession perforce of this time zone caused backlog. Thanks everyone.
What is unrealistic about expecting people to have some rational for their beliefs? If someone cannot provide reason for something they believe then why do they believe it? Faith? To quote a YouTube atheist, faith is the excuse people give when they don't have a good reason. What is unrealistic to expect people to do some reading on a subject if they want to know something about it? My first instinct is to go try to find information about it myself, using books or a search engine. Then if I can't find the piece of information I want then I ask someone else. Similarly if I know nothing about a subject they I wouldn't make assertions about it. What is unrealistic about that? I'm not expecting everyone who posts in the maths/physics forum to have a degree in one or both, more just a mildly motivated interest and some intellectual honesty. What is unrealistic about expecting people to be willing to say "I was wrong" when they are categorically proven incorrect, such as Magneto or Chinglu when it comes to mathematics? What is unrealistic about stating there's a large gulf between the levels of forum discussions and scientific research, particularly given everyone with first hand experience in both says the same? That's far more realistic then RealityCheck's view that proper science is done here. No discussion here has led to the authoring of a paper and the acceptance by the scientific community.
Please tell me precisely what I'm being unrealistic about.
Where did I say I'm the benchmark for all of this? If two or more people have no interest in rational, reasonable, informed, honest discussion then they shouldn't be posting in the maths/physics forum. They can post elsewhere but even then they should not be surprised when someone points out they aren't being rational or reasonable or informed or honest in their discussion. If you don't want to meet the basic standards of a scientific discussion there are plenty of non-science forums around. RC is complaining about the handling of threads in the main maths/physics forum, as that's where Prom and I have moderator powers (as well as in Astronomy). That's a 'main forum' and if people come here to discuss science then it is not unrealistic or unreasonable to enforce a modicum of standards when it comes to justification, reasonableness, rationalisations, evidence, intellectual honesty etc in that forum. After all, the reason science/scientists have the position in society they do is because of the level of critical evaluation they, we, typically engage in. It's the reason societal groups like religious fundamentalist in the US want to be able to award one another doctorates, there is a certain level of credibility associated to science because of it's standard, standards religion doesn't follow. Therefore it is not unreasonable for a forum which discusses such things to follow that sort of mentality, that people who want to discuss science, to engage in scientific debates, to get a taste of some of the things in science, expect such things. If we just said "Fine, no one ever needs to justify their position, they can ignore internal contradictions in their claims and they don't have to know anything about a topic before making wild assertions about it" then the maths/physics forum would not longer be trying to embody some of the principles of the subject matter. Someone interested in science should see the value of those things and a discussion forum on science should have expect them to some degree. People who think they are interested in science but aren't interested in those things aren't actually interested in science at all.
If someone does absolutely no reading on a subject and makes continuous wild assertions, deliberately ignores internal inconsistencies in their claims, refuses to consider evidence and has no problem misrepresenting or just plain fabricating science then the question is whether they are going to add anything to a discussion between people who care about honest informed rational discussion. The answer is no. That doesn't mean said person can't go and find somewhere else to be dishonest, it's just not in the maths/physics forum.
If you feel this is all being too unrealistic then I pity you because it means you feel it's unrealistic to expect someone asking questions to care about the answers, that it's too unrealistic to expect people to grasp and value basic reasoning skills, that it's too unrealistic to expect people interested in knowing something should be willing to expend a minute quantity of effort to look for it. Being honest and knowing how to use Google is enough. My 5 year old niece can manage that.
Nothing I've said negates creativity. But creativity untempered by rational thought is not good, just as pure rational thought without creativity is not good (though at least it can be put to useful tasks). Creativity for considering the physical world which ignores the physical world is not good either.
I make my living coming up with creative solutions to problems many have tried and failed at. I conduct interview for the company and I prefer to see someone not know the standard method but invent an approach using creativity than someone whose a textbook shitting machine. We've rejected people with pretty much photographic memories while hired people who had to come up with solutions on the fly because they didn't remember a 1st year lecture course they attended a decade ago. And this comes back to my previous post. Do you think what you see Prom and myself post here is the extent of our scientific creativity? It's the tip of the tip of the iceberg. We haven't talked about our work because it wouldn't garner much discussion and we don't need to get validation for our results from anonymous people on some forum. I can understand how it might seem we're little more than equation reciting machines, knowing an equation which relates to this and that, but this is because the almost totality of discussions about physics and maths in the main forum are of an undergraduate or lower level. When they do wander into research level territory it's always on a qualitative level because most people don't know the details, and, as said, we don't post our actual work for people to see what creative stuff we might be doing. For hacks the stuff you post here might be the limit of your capabilities, so it might be natural to assume the same is true for everyone else. It isn't. I almost never start threads, so I'm almost always responding to topics other people bring up, so no one sees how my work might be progressing or what novel solution I've concocted for a problem.
You talk about 'personal gold mine'. I got my job because I'm creative when it comes to problem solving. I got promoted because of my problem solving. I pay for the roof over my head and the car in my drive because of my creativity. I also find it extremely intellectually fulfilling. As such I know all about the 'personal gold mine' it can provide, both literally and conceptually. The fact you can't provide a decent enough level of discussion to scratch beneath the surface, that you cannot grasp the most rudimentary of mathematics, the stuff I live and breath, doesn't mean I lack creativity. You just haven't given me reason to think engaging in a discussion on the level of stuff I do would be anything more than an exercise in time wasting.
And before people pile in with "OMG you arrogant ****" I'm not saying I intellectually out class QQ, I'm just saying I do in maths and mathematical physics, including in terms of creativity for those things. Given the fact QQ couldn't pass a high school exam in such things that is faint personal praise because it's like saying I speak English in a more elaborate, consistent and creative manner than a parrot who can only say a handful of phrases in German.
You and other hacks here like to talk about capitalising on thigns at your disposal, resources you have access to. Why then do you make claims about supposed paradoxes in maths and physics models without first learning something about them? You're obviously unfamiliar with the mathematical construction of concepts like 0 or negative numbers yet you make assertions about them. Clearly you haven't capitalised on everything you encounter because you haven't bothered to use the internet to find any relevant information. Do you think someone being wilfully ignorant is capitalising on all they have encountered? Almost by definition they haven't and it's a trait common to many of the mainstream nay-sayers. You said I had an unrealistic agenda for the forum yet I'm just asking for people to make use of the tools available to them, be it the internet or be it their mind or be it logical reasoning.
A smart person wouldn't pile assertions on assumptions on suppositions. A smart person wouldn't believe things they do not have a good reason to believe. A smart person would say "Am I making assertions which are not reasonably justified or logically sound?" and then stop making the assertions if they realised they weren't sound or justified. These are the behaviours I'm expecting of people who are honestly interested in a scientific discourse. Hardly unrealistic.
As I said, creativity without rationale is not good for a scientific mentality. You mentioned guidance. Saying to someone "You are wrong" or "This is unjustified, you need to demonstrate some rationale for believing it" is giving guidance. Expecting people to be honest and willing to inform themselves a little is hardly being unrealistic. Being honest and having a wider knowledge of things would surely help creativity, broaden horizons etc.
Hacks here may well feel that if they are expected to provide rationale for their claims or stand up to criticism then they cannot talk about science but that is not a sign the forum rules are wrong but rather your approach to science is wrong. If you've got justification then you have nothing to fear from someone passing a critical eye over your claims. It is entirely possibly to be very creative while also being rationale, intellectually honest and informed about a subject. For someone who has all of those critical evaluation of their claims should be something to relish, not complain about. If you fail to lay these foundations then it's not surprising you may feel all possible avenues of discussion are closed to you when minimal standards are enforced. If everyone laid these foundations before a discussion the level and quantitative of discussion would vastly improve. It doesn't hinder creativity at all. You may not realise it, because you've never done science properly, but removing these foundations is ultimately fatal to scientific discourse, the forum would just be awash with random assertions.
Artistic creativity is different. What counts as art is very much in the eye of the beholder. What counts are logical, what counts as evidence, what counts as accurately describing reality is not.
You aren't having creativity suppressed, you're being asked to include with it rational thinking, honesty and relevant information. The question is now whether you, ie hacks in general, complain so much when basic standards are introduced because you just don't understand the scientific method (ie it's an honest misunderstanding) or because you know you cannot meet even those basic standards due to a lacking in cognitive capabilities so you attempt to do precisely what creationists do with evolution and demand "Teach the controversy!"? Anyway, it's 2.05am, I had a 12 hour work day today and I have to be up in 5 hours for another long day. Unfortunately my employer requires I provide demonstrations my ideas address the problem we're contracted to do, I can't just knock up a picture of someone with face paint in exchange for my next pay cheque.
With respect, mate, but there is a world of difference between moderation and censorship. The art is to be able to discern the difference when moderating.
For example, more than once I merely put a hypothesis on a perfectly legitimate subject/observation involving conventional science/discoveries etc which may have implications for the current perspective on the subject matter of the hypothesis. How can one justify calling it 'pseudo-science' if the discussion of the invited replies is not allowed to proceed until it is determined one way or the other whether it was fair science discourse or not?
Preconclusionary judgements and censorship and 'painting' as pseudoscience something which has not even been discussed properly and openly are not the way to do free science discourse. I trust you agree with that reasonable approach to allowing free science discourse until the situation becomes clear on its own merits and without prior personal/professional biases and trolling etc brought into it?
I appreciate your input, but perhaps you may have the wrong end of the stick on this one? Just because there are cranks and there is pseudoscience abroad here and elsewhere, it does not automatically make every new and unusual perspective/hypothesis crank/pseudoscience. One must take time and care to discern what is actually going on before kneejerking from past experience.
It takes just one idea 'from left field' to change things and advance the subject. Such paradigm-shifting ideas have happened before in the coffee houses and clubs and other informal exchanges/venues between amateurs and professionals alike.
The next big idea may come from anywhere nowadays, simply because of the Internet Potential for information/education/exchange etc and the exponentially greater potential it affords for Synergy and Serendipitious confluence of people and ideas/perspectives from all walks of life which were hitherto effectively excluded by virtue of lack of 'access' and 'opportunity' etc in the past before the internet.
Internet fora have great potential. We have already seen some of that potential realized in recent world events and even as we speak.
To harness such potential requires discernment and vision and freedom to exchange ideas about both the net and the topics discussed thereby.
Let's not limit ourselves to kneejerking and thus missing out on the great potential the net has to offer everyone and every subject under the sun, both in science and in humanity.
Thanks for your interest, mate. I trust this has clarified a little about where I'm coming from!
Cheers!
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It ain't censorship if you can post the same ideas in another sub-forum. Math and Physics is strictly moderated...just like Formal debates. If you want to talk about theories that are outside of "known science" than do it in the proper sub-forum and you will have all the responses you want.
What is unrealistic about expecting people to have some rational for their beliefs? agrees If someone cannot provide reason for something they believe then why do they believe it? Faith? debatable To quote a YouTube atheist, faith is the excuse people give when they don't have a good reason. a cynical pov yes? What is unrealistic to expect people to do some reading on a subject if they want to know something about it? Agrees My first instinct is to go try to find information about it myself, using books or a search engine. Then if I can't find the piece of information I want then I ask someone else. Similarly if I know nothing about a subject they I wouldn't make assertions about it. What is unrealistic about that? Agrees I'm not expecting everyone who posts in the maths/physics forum to have a degree in one or both, more just a mildly motivated interest and some intellectual honesty. What is unrealistic about expecting people to be willing to say "I was wrong" when they are categorically proven incorrect, such as Magneto or Chinglu when it comes to mathematics? proven only that current scientific thought says so What is unrealistic about stating there's a large gulf between the levels of forum discussions and scientific research, particularly given everyone with first hand experience in both says the same? That's far more realistic then RealityCheck's view that proper science is done here. possibly "can be done here" would be better" No discussion here has led to the authoring of a paper and the acceptance by the scientific community. are you sure of that can you prove what you just stated
Please tell me precisely what I'm being unrealistic about. shall do later if you value my contribution
Where did I say I'm the benchmark for all of this? implied If two or more people have no interest in rational, reasonable, informed, honest discussion then they shouldn't be posting in the maths/physics forum. honesty works both ways They can post elsewhere but even then they should not be surprised when someone points out they aren't being rational or reasonable or informed or honest in their discussion. If you don't want to meet the basic standards of a scientific discussion there are plenty of non-science forums around. RC is complaining about the handling of threads in the main maths/physics forum, as that's where Prom and I have moderator powers (as well as in Astronomy). That's a 'main forum' and if people come here to discuss science then it is not unrealistic or unreasonable to enforce a modicum of standards when it comes to justification, reasonableness, rationalisations, evidence, intellectual honesty etc in that forum. [he is not as you say he is complainig about a concerted trolling then thread closure conspiracy] After all, the reason science/scientists have the position in society they do is because of the level of critical evaluation they, we, typically engage in. [ critical assessment can also be performed by any clear thinking individual ] It's the reason societal groups like religious fundamentalist in the US want to be able to award one another doctorates, there is a certain level of credibility associated to science because of it's standard, standards religion doesn't follow. yep R Feynman was a classic Therefore it is not unreasonable for a forum which discusses such things to follow that sort of mentality, that people who want to discuss science, to engage in scientific debates, to get a taste of some of the things in science, expect such things. If we just said "Fine, no one ever needs to justify their position, they can ignore internal contradictions in their claims and they don't have to know anything about a topic before making wild assertions about it" then the maths/physics forum would not longer be trying to embody some of the principles of the subject matter. Someone interested in science should see the value of those things and a discussion forum on science should have expect them to some degree. People who think they are interested in science but aren't interested in those things aren't actually interested in science at all. according to who? My son when he was 2 expressed an interest in science with out even knowing how to say it.
If someone does absolutely no reading on a subject and makes continuous wild assertions, deliberately ignores internal inconsistencies in their claims, refuses to consider evidence and has no problem misrepresenting or just plain fabricating science then the question is whether they are going to add anything to a discussion between people who care about honest informed rational discussion. The answer is no. That doesn't mean said person can't go and find somewhere else to be dishonest, it's just not in the maths/physics forum. hence the move to pseudoscience could be appropriate
If you feel this is all being too unrealistic then I pity you why? because it means you feel it's unrealistic to expect someone asking questions to care about the answers, that it's too unrealistic to expect people to grasp and value basic reasoning skills, that it's too unrealistic to expect people interested in knowing something should be willing to expend a minute quantity of effort to look for it. Being honest and knowing how to use Google is enough. My 5 year old niece can manage that.
Nothing I've said negates creativity. But creativity untempered by rational thought is not good, just as pure rational thought without creativity is not good (though at least it can be put to useful tasks). Creativity for considering the physical world which ignores the physical world is not good either.
I make my living coming up with creative solutions to problems many have tried and failed at. I conduct interview for the company and I prefer to see someone not know the standard method but invent an approach using creativity than someone whose a textbook shitting machine. We've rejected people with pretty much photographic memories while hired people who had to come up with solutions on the fly because they didn't remember a 1st year lecture course they attended a decade ago. And this comes back to my previous post. Do you think what you see Prom and myself post here is the extent of our scientific creativity? It's the tip of the tip of the iceberg. We haven't talked about our work because it wouldn't garner much discussion and we don't need to get validation for our results from anonymous people on some forum. I can understand how it might seem we're little more than equation reciting machines, knowing an equation which relates to this and that, but this is because the almost totality of discussions about physics and maths in the main forum are of an undergraduate or lower level. When they do wander into research level territory it's always on a qualitative level because most people don't know the details, and, as said, we don't post our actual work for people to see what creative stuff we might be doing. For hacks the stuff you post here might be the limit of your capabilities, so it might be natural to assume the same is true for everyone else. It isn't. I almost never start threads, so I'm almost always responding to topics other people bring up, so no one sees how my work might be progressing or what novel solution I've concocted for a problem.
You talk about 'personal gold mine'. I got my job because I'm creative when it comes to problem solving. I got promoted because of my problem solving. I pay for the roof over my head and the car in my drive because of my creativity. I also find it extremely intellectually fulfilling. As such I know all about the 'personal gold mine' it can provide, both literally and conceptually. The fact you can't provide a decent enough level of discussion to scratch beneath the surface, that you cannot grasp the most rudimentary of mathematics, the stuff I live and breath, doesn't mean I lack creativity. You just haven't given me reason to think engaging in a discussion on the level of stuff I do would be anything more than an exercise in time wasting.
And before people pile in with "OMG you arrogant ****" I'm not saying I intellectually out class QQ, I'm just saying I do in maths and mathematical physics, including in terms of creativity for those things. Given the fact QQ couldn't pass a high school exam in such things [I didn't even pass highschool full stop wanna know why?] that is faint personal praise because it's like saying I speak English in a more elaborate, consistent and creative manner than a parrot who can only say a handful of phrases in German.
You and other hacks here like to talk about capitalising on thigns at your disposal, resources you have access to. Why then do you make claims about supposed paradoxes in maths and physics models without first learning something about them? You're obviously unfamiliar with the mathematical construction of concepts like 0 or negative numbers yet you make assertions about them. Clearly you haven't capitalised on everything you encounter because you haven't bothered to use the internet to find any relevant information. Do you think someone being wilfully ignorant is capitalising on all they have encountered? Almost by definition they haven't and it's a trait common to many of the mainstream nay-sayers. You said I had an unrealistic agenda for the forum yet I'm just asking for people to make use of the tools available to them, be it the internet or be it their mind or be it logical reasoning.
A smart person wouldn't pile assertions on assumptions on suppositions. A smart person wouldn't believe things they do not have a good reason to believe. A smart person would say "Am I making assertions which are not reasonably justified or logically sound?" and then stop making the assertions if they realised they weren't sound or justified. These are the behaviours I'm expecting of people who are honestly interested in a scientific discourse. Hardly unrealistic.
As I said, creativity without rationale is not good for a scientific mentality. You mentioned guidance. Saying to someone "You are wrong" or "This is unjustified, you need to demonstrate some rationale for believing it" is giving guidance. Expecting people to be honest and willing to inform themselves a little is hardly being unrealistic. Being honest and having a wider knowledge of things would surely help creativity, broaden horizons etc.
Hacks here may well feel that if they are expected to provide rationale for their claims or stand up to criticism then they cannot talk about science but that is not a sign the forum rules are wrong but rather your approach to science is wrong. If you've got justification then you have nothing to fear from someone passing a critical eye over your claims. It is entirely possibly to be very creative while also being rationale, intellectually honest and informed about a subject. For someone who has all of those critical evaluation of their claims should be something to relish, not complain about. If you fail to lay these foundations then it's not surprising you may feel all possible avenues of discussion are closed to you when minimal standards are enforced. If everyone laid these foundations before a discussion the level and quantitative of discussion would vastly improve. It doesn't hinder creativity at all. You may not realise it, because you've never done science properly, but removing these foundations is ultimately fatal to scientific discourse, the forum would just be awash with random assertions.
Artistic creativity is different. What counts as art is very much in the eye of the beholder. What counts are logical, what counts as evidence, what counts as accurately describing reality is not.
You aren't having creativity suppressed, you're being asked to include with it rational thinking, honesty and relevant information. The question is now whether you, ie hacks in general, complain so much when basic standards are introduced because you just don't understand the scientific method (ie it's an honest misunderstanding) or because you know you cannot meet even those basic standards due to a lacking in cognitive capabilities so you attempt to do precisely what creationists do with evolution and demand "Teach the controversy!"? Anyway, it's 2.05am, I had a 12 hour work day today and I have to be up in 5 hours for another long day. Unfortunately my employer requires I provide demonstrations my ideas address the problem we're contracted to do, I can't just knock up a picture of someone with face paint in exchange for my next pay cheque.
OK, great post... thanks
the issue with Zero Point Theory wont go away just because it fail to conform to your ideology. In this instance it will only go away if it is dealt with properly and fails to cut it using the scientific method as a basis of assessment.
So far that method has revealed many possibilities for it's predictive capacity and I am still looking for something that with tangibly provide science with a chalenge to discount. So that when that theory is formalised it will be appropriate reading for pesons such as yourself.
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