Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Only for those poor scientists who lack imagination and have to rely on a rote procedure to do science.
Why many scientists are so ignorant
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
- Status
Only for those poor scientists who lack imagination and have to rely on a rote procedure to do science.
Schmelzer
Valued Senior Member
Defamations are funny? I do not make statements about the Holocaust, point. This does not mean that I "cast doubt". It means that I do not cast anything about the Holocaust. I have explained why. And this explanation also does not contain any information about what is the real history of that time. It is simply related with the amount of work I would have to do to obtain enough reliable information about that time.and who casts doubt on the Holocaust.
I know that I cannot expect anything reasonable from you, so I have no such expectation. I'm a scientist, you not, so that your opinion is simply irrelevant. I care about scientific arguments, ignorance is not an argument, thus, not relevant.
And that's why my posting you have anwered here are not even questioned. Ad hominem via a defamation is not a serious argument, and there is nothing about the content.
So, let's repeat: The paper itself is a normal theoretical paper, which proves some unimportant theorem, and the only reason to mention it in a popular forum is the worst thing in the paper, the misleading title. Misleading for laymen, because scientists understand that evolution from an unstable false vacuum is not "something from nothing", so that the title is a cheap joke to increase the interest in the paper.
Ok, who cares if always or only 99%. It is a certain bet that, whatever question appears, you will support the mainstream. There may be some exceptions, but this is a case where exceptions prove the rule.
The simple fact that you question that the holocaust happened for whatever fabricated reasons you chose, in the face of overwhelming evidence that shows it happened beyond any reasonable doubt, says much about you: Yes, I know, you don't care.
True, I'm no scientist and openly admit that: It's also true that you are like the cocky on the biscuit tin: You just ain't in it.
Mainstream is mainstream for one over riding particular reason: It makes the most logical sense and matches that projected by the scientific method, better than anything else.
And thanks for your defamations, although you certainly will find a way to somehow claim they are not.
Quite a slippery customer you be.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
"In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so.""==https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
Example: "Most people believe in God. Therefore God exists."
Schmelzer
Valued Senior Member
No, in this case I care. You are a liar. Stop your defamations!The simple fact that you question that the holocaust happened for whatever fabricated reasons you chose, in the face of overwhelming evidence that shows it happened beyond any reasonable doubt, says much about you: Yes, I know, you don't care.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
So that God exists must be "shown to work"? I don't think so.
Actually evolution has been "shown to work". Why is creationism mainstream then?
Last edited:
Schmelzer
Valued Senior Member
No. Mainstream is mainstream because people believe it. If it is shown to work, this may be used as an argument to convince the people. String theory does not work, it is mainstream nonetheless.
In what way?
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Right.. Here's how "mainstream" is defined:
"mainstream adjective
US /ˈmeɪnˌstrim/
› (of beliefs or behavior) common and shared by most people, or representing such beliefs or behavior:"
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/mainstream
Schmelzer
Valued Senior Member
String theory has not given any prediction which was confirmed by any experiment.
Except for a plausibility argument that they obtain a spin 2 field theory which could mimic gravity.
Sort of contradictory.....
The problem is of course, and as you know, that we just do not have the technology to measure/observe at those levels.
To say it doesn't work, is, well, being deceptive.
[Plus of course the people you speak of, the ordinary street folk, probably have not even heard of string theory for that very reason]
And again, mainstream is mainstream, because in the opinions of most reputable scientists, it aligns with observations and makes the closest predictions:
Sadly Schmelzer, in this case I would love to be proved a liar.....
What I said.....
The simple fact that you question that the holocaust happened for whatever fabricated reasons you chose, in the face of overwhelming evidence that shows it happened beyond any reasonable doubt, says much about you: Yes, I know, you don't care.
That's why you are attacked.
Schmelzer
Valued Senior Member
Again, I do not question any particular claims about the history of WW II. I have criticized that, given that revisionists have to fear even imprisonment, we have, in this part of history, no freedom of science. Thus, to inform oneself about this time one has to do a lot more than simply to accept the mainstream, one would have to check the mainstream, becoming essentially a specialist oneself. I have no time to do this, so I will not check if the mainstream is correct. So, in particular, I will also not check if the mainstream claims are correct beyond any reasonable doubt. Maybe they are, I don't know about this. To clarify if doubt is reasonable or not, I would have to study all this.
This is something different than to doubt that the mainstream is correct, or to question the claims of the mainstream.
If you really don't understand the difference between a refusal to make any definite statement because of lack of study of the details, and questioning - which would be a claim about the details? Whatever, even if you are that stupid - I have now, repeatedly, said that I do not question any particular claim of mainstream science about this period. I also do not make statements about the evidence the mainstream has presented. To question something means to say that the evidence is not sufficient, not beyond reasonable doubt. I have not seen the evidence, not studied it, so I don't know if it is beyond reasonable doubt or not, I don't know if there are claims by mainstream history worth to be questioned or not, I don't know which claims, if any, are worth to be questioned. So, your claim is defamation.
I'm a scientist, and, in general, tend to believe other scientists. But there is an exception - science under political pressure. Because I know that scientists are usual human beings, not unconditional fighters for truth at all costs, they are susceptible to political pressures. This does not mean that they lie, it simply means that the default - to believe the mainstream without checking the details - becomes unreasonable. Or one has to check, or one has to accept that one does not know.
Why I'm attacked? Theory (1): Because you are too stupid to see the difference between making statements about the Holocaust and the refusal to make any such statements. I don't think so. The difference is a quite trivial one, so to mingle these two things is plausibly intentional, thus, we have here an intentional defamation. But, whatever, in this case, or try to understand the difference, or simply stop to defame.
Theory (2): Because I say "I don't know, because I have not studied this question", and this is already anathema. But in this case, this is not more about science. For any scientific question, "I don't know, because I have not studied this question" is a normal, acceptable claim, and not a reason for attacking. The situation is typically different in religions. In a religion, you are accepted as a member of the religious community only if you accept the religious dogma. To say "I don't know, because I have not studied this question" is not allowed. If you say so, you are an infidel, and a legitimate victim for attacks.
Just to clarify: I know that naming Holocaust a religion is part of the propaganda of those who doubt. I do not think they are right about this - and that's why I accuse you of defamation, and not of fighting me as an infidel of the Holocaust religion, and try to explain you the difference - the two possibilities of (1). But (2) is clearly a logical possibility. And the difference is a simple and clear one: If "I don't know, because I have not studied this question" is accepted, this may be science. If "I don't know, because I have not studied this question" is not accepted, this is no longer science.
I feel attacked because I say "I don't know, because I have not studied this question". I may be wrong about this, and I hope so. But if this is correct, it means this is not a question of science, but of a quasi-religious belief, a dogma which one has to accept even if one has not studied it, because, else, one is an infidel.
Schmelzer
Valued Senior Member
To doubt something - whatever - is a quite normal thing. There may be thousands of reasons. Antisemitism may be a reason. Sympathy to some national-socialistic ideas another one. General disbelief into anything written by the "lying press", caused by having seen lies about other things, another one. A personal conflict with the own history teacher another one. Disappointment about a particular history book about the Holocaust another one.
The normal reaction is to hear the doubts, to evaluate the arguments, to present counterarguments if available. All this without any requests of type "why do you ask such questions? Are you antisemitic?" Because, for a scientist, doubt is the most natural thing, and does not need any justification, it does even deserve encouragement, and for a scientist there should not be any Holy Things he is not allowed to question.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
What does "beyond any reasonable doubt" mean? How does a belief acquire 'Must Not Be Questioned' status.
My opinion is that Sciforums, for all of its intellectual pretensions, functions like an elementary school play-yard. It's a clique, with insiders and outsiders. To belong, one must visibly conform. Since all we can see of each other is words, conformity consists of saying the right things.
As for me, I informally and intuitively assign all beliefs plausibility-weights. I can't think of anything that I consider 100% certain. It's almost as hard to imagine anything that's 100% impossible.
As for the 'holocaust', I'm inclined to give it a pretty strong weighting. In other words I accept it and don't actively doubt it. But I accept that there's some small possibility that it isn't true.
If I lived in Europe, in one of those countries where public expression of any doubts can be a criminal offense, then I might be more skeptical. If the law demands that only one side of an issue be defended, one would naturally wonder what's being suppressed. The law would also seem to cast doubt on expert consensus as well.
Last edited:
Sure. I never said that it wasn't possible for scientists to correct themselves. Indeed, I specifically mentioned that possibility.
There are other methods of inquiry outside of specific sciences that can help specific scientific enterprises correct their own, otherwise invisible, errors. This is one lesson of the history of science.
While this is the case for much of scientific claims (broadly construed), it is not the case for all scientific claims. Thus it is important to consider the evidence for a claim, even "mainstream" ones. Indeed, it is these popular claims that can have the most insidious impact, as we use them to ignore alternatives.
So we have abandoned this: "This initial state is not at all a point, but the same infinite universe. Quite homogeneous, but nonetheless not exactly homogeneous, but locally inhomogeneous in the same way as our universe today. " Good. Progress.schmelzer said:
Next: And you know that it would be a spatial sphere, a three dimensional one, how? Talking below Planck length, we are.
So your assertion here: "It does not matter if you cut at Planck time or at 10−1000101000 Planck time, at any particular moment of cutting time the border where you cut is the same full three-dimensional universe" involves a slew of assumptions. I asked why you think other people should make them.schmelzer said:
Is it OK if other people want to think about what happened before that arbitrary cut? Especially since you have to make the cut after at least part of the separation of forces, before which the "inhomogeneous" nature of the universe is not well defined. That is a measurable, finite amount of time after the bang.schmelzer said:
You state that its nature and significance have not been reliably established according to the evidence you have seen, and that you have good reason to doubt the ordinary, standard history of it.schmelzer said:
Saying you have good reason to doubt the official histories of the Holocaust is casting doubt.schmelzer said:
Your assertion that you would have to do a lot of work to find reliable, as opposed to unreliable, information about the Holocaust is false. Your claim that the information easily available to you is unreliable is called "casting doubt". Your explanation for your assessment of unreliability - that some countries punish such doubt, so their official histories are dubious - is silly, given that so many other histories are just as easily available as those are, with no more work for you than they involve, and nobody is forcing you to attend only the unreliable sources.schmelzer said:
Last edited:
- Status