“Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« on: April 03, 2023, 05:52:49 AM »
I am open to disagreement and discussion.
Please note this is largely based on my own observation on how many many people act.

Some groups (creationists, for example) frame “scientists” as this lying monolith that have some reason to lie about the fossil record or carbon dating. Or “scientists say the earth is a globe and you’re supposed to believe it because science said so”. Framing an enormous group of varying fields and millions of people as this evil machine results in actual major phenomena like vaccine hesitancy or distrust of institutions.

It’s not uncommon for me to come across a debate where one party will cite a study, and the second party will completely disregard said study because “it’s from academia and can’t be trusted”.

It is a fairly common misconception to be skeptic of the idea of evolution as a whole because of skepticism of abiogenesis. While those two ideas are different, creationist groups will conflate and mix them while all the while saying “this is the Satanic science religion that says God isn’t real and evolution is God”.

Or people becoming allured to the idea of flat earth because they utterly misunderstood something like “how can water stick to a ball” or “the moon lander sure looks made of tinfoil” or simple distrust.
And that’s the core principle: “experts cannot be trusted”. People will trust a random stranger on the internet over someone dedicating decades of their life for vaccine research, or a flat earth meme over an entire organization of people whose sole job is getting things in space. Arguing with them simply doesn’t work because many ask things that you can’t provide.

Such trap questions include:
“Show me an experiment where a monkey evolves into a human. If you can’t, evolution is fake”.
“Show me water sticking to a ball. If you can’t build a planet-sized gravitational experiment, the earth must be flat”.
Of course, to us that is fallacious reasoning but so many people genuinely believe this is a valid way to argue.


The desired evidence for both sides is not balanced. There is no peer-reviewed study, independent or not, that proves demons are real - however, lots of people genuinely believe demons are real and demons do bad things. On the other hand, there is a mountain of studies on how vaccines save lives, but they can be disregarded.


Contrary to what lots would claim, people don’t believe things because “science said so!”, though that is a common framing. The premise is desiring proof, and evaluating proof requires more thinking than just “science said so, God fake evolution good”. I can weigh all the proof and evidence, and determine on my own - without anyone telling me what to think - that, for example, the earth is a globe. There’s lots just like me who seriously considered all possibilities for these things and found personal confirmation that the experts are, in fact, correct.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2023, 05:59:55 AM by Realestfake »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2023, 10:02:41 AM »
I guess my main point of contention is your not-so-subtle framing of "some groups" to mean "groups you personally dislike, and which you'd like to discredit". It's paritcularly telling that you choose to mix and match people who believe in demons, religious fundamentalists (Christian, of course. Christianity bad.) and groups that attempt to challenge the status quo of science through repeatable experiments. You do it so fluidly, so casually! The disdain in your tone is delicious.

Meanwhile, you ignore certain groups (ones you personally like), who are guilty of the very issues you present.

Some groups ask, for example, that we produce an experiment demonstrating EA at a galactic scale. Oh, what's that, you can't just shove a few celestial bodies in a vacuum chamber to run your tests? Well, then you must be wrong!
The same some groups often demand that their lack of understanding of basic maths and physics be catered to. After all, FE is terrible, terrible pseudoscience, so if some groups can't grok the difference between 9.8%5Cfrac%7Bm%7D%7Bs%7D and 9.8%5Cfrac%7Bm%7D%7Bs%5E2%7D, then clearly that's the FE'er's problem.

I also have a strong distaste for your suggestion that skepticism of institutions "results in actual major phenomena like vaccine hesitancy". You don't even try to back this up with logic, you're just presenting a set of steps as something that should be unquestioned. "Something something creationism, yadda yadda stupid tinfoil hats, rhubarb rhubarb THEREFORE VACCINE HESITANCY, SKEPTICISM BAD!" Even if one accepts your tenuous link, it completely ignores the real roots of vaccine hesitancy. You're busy crying about a few people with alternative views duking it out on Twitter, while completely ignoring co-ordinated and carefully planned nation-state efforts to destabilise rival countries.

A lot of things are not balanced here, but that includes your ability to apply critique equitably to people you do and don't like.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2023, 10:06:52 AM by Pete Svarrior »
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Offline Action80

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Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2023, 11:50:50 AM »
Acknowledging the decided inability to produce repeatable experiments is basically admitting "science," has nothing.

Follows up with the regular demeaning slurs to foster the sense of superiority.

Same old tired playbook.

Why don't you find a new sandbox?
To be honest I am getting pretty bored of this place.

ichoosereality

Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2023, 04:14:19 PM »
Clearly things like arguing something around velocity or acceleration while not understanding what those are is very poor argumentation. But such failures do not validate the other side.

Don't the thousands of successful space launches over the past 60 years count as a very repeated experiment validating the standard solar system model (with round planets, including the earth, orbiting a much more massive sun) ?

If EA were real why has it never been seen in the lab where extremely small deviations in the path of a light beam can be detected (via things like interference patterns)?

The history of science includes many upsets with a small group going against the status quo and eventually being proven correct.  Yet for FET it seems to be all layman as far as I can tell (who often are selling T-shirts or books or seminar tickets etc).  Why are there not at least some career scientists in the relevant fields that are championing FET or EA?
« Last Edit: April 03, 2023, 05:26:00 PM by ichoosereality »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2023, 05:55:55 PM »
Clearly things like arguing something around velocity or acceleration while not understanding what those are is very poor argumentation. But such failures do not validate the other side.
I didn't propose that they do, and you're extremely disingenuous to strawman me like that. If you'd like to respond to what I actually said, I'm happy to hear you out. Until then, however, I will be reminding you to behave in the upper.

extremely small deviations in the path of a light beam
Deviations from what?

who often are selling T-shirts or books or seminar tickets etc
I despise the accusation. Our markups are set to $0 for a reason. I expect you to retract and apologise. I also ask that you be more careful in the future - if you're gonna accuse someone of profiteering, you had best fucking had some evidence. Until then, you serve as excellent proof of my point above.

Why are there not at least some career scientists in the relevant fields that are championing FET or EA?
Ah, that really is a head-scratcher, that one. Why, oh why, are there no career fascist politicians out there championing communism? A mystery for the ages, that one.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2023, 06:26:18 PM by Pete Svarrior »
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Offline Алёна

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Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2023, 06:28:19 PM »
My grandfather was a scientist and we do have a chat whenever he calls during the weekends about science.
He still goes to school as he doesn't want his brain to go to waste.
Professional procrastinator.

ichoosereality

Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2023, 06:55:56 PM »
Clearly things like arguing something around velocity or acceleration while not understanding what those are is very poor argumentation. But such failures do not validate the other side.
I didn't propose that they do, and you're extremely disingenuous to strawman me like that. If you'd like to respond to what I actually said, I'm happy to hear you out. Until then, however, I will be reminding you to behave in the upper.
I did not claim that you did so.  Perhaps I should have made that more clear but are you following your own advise about responding to what was actually said?

I also note that you declined to comment on my point about the thousands of successful space flights being a much repeated experiment confirming the standard solar system model.  You are of course free to respond or not as you see fit, but it seems like a pretty glaring omission to me.

extremely small deviations in the path of a light beam
Deviations from what?
From the expected (i.e. straight) path.

who often are selling T-shirts or books or seminar tickets etc
I despise the accusation. Our markups are set to $0 for a reason. I expect you to retract and apologise. I also ask that you be more careful in the future - if you're gonna accuse someone of profiteering, you had best fucking had some evidence. Until then, you serve as excellent proof of my point above.
"Our markups"?  I did not even realize that you were selling such things, I was referring to other places on the net.

Why are there not at least some career scientists in the relevant fields that are championing FET or EA?
Ah, that really is a head-scratcher, that one. Why, oh why, are there no career fascist politicians out there championing communism? A mystery for the ages, that one.
I fail to see how that addresses my point.  Science is of course not perfect.  It can be influenced by commercial or political issues/trends as can pretty much any human activity.  But diverse views are pretty well tolerated and again there have been many upsets over the years.  So your sarcasm does not remotely address the question I actually asked.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2023, 09:29:42 PM by ichoosereality »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2023, 10:18:09 PM »
From the expected (i.e. straight) path.
You reveal your inability to reason yet again - I even asked you a guiding question, but you did not stop to reflect, to think. "The expected path" would not be "straight" in an EA universe. Your simplistic view of the world presupposes that EA does not hold. It then uses that presupposition to point out that EA would deviate from non-EA. You need to take several steps back and mature as a person before you try tackling the big questions.

I notice that you're very dismissive of "laymen", but you do not appear to have more knowledge than the people you deride. If you wish to uphold your position that this debate should be gatekept, I suggest you start with yourself.

I also note that you declined to comment on my point about the thousands of successful space flights being a much repeated experiment confirming the standard solar system model.
I comment on the things I find interesting. So do you - you have not addressed every single thing I've said either, which is a pretty normal thing that nobody would hold against you, even implicitly. You blurting out an uneducated comment about something that doesn't affect the RE/FE debate is an obvious candidate for omission. You're welcome to educate yourself on the basics of modern RE at your leisure.

Unfortunately, you treat yourself as special, so when a point you personally like goes unanswered, you don't quite know what to do about it. This leaves you with a comment of "well, you don't have to respond, but, haha, you didn't respond". How childish.

"Our markups"?  I did not even realize that you were selling such things, I was referring to other places on the net.
If you say so - seems a little convenient. That said, levying an unsubstantiated accusation against someone else is still a dick move. So, evidence or retraction?

I fail to see how that addresses my point.
You fail to see many things. You're welcome to ask follow-up questions, but farting out strawman responses like you just did will not be tolerated. Second reminder.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2023, 10:24:06 PM by Pete Svarrior »
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ichoosereality

Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2023, 10:34:53 PM »
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Your responses are just personal attacks and insults.  I see no point in continuing this interaction.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: “Science” is far too often misrepresented.
« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2023, 10:43:01 PM »
Your responses are just personal attacks and insults. I see no point in continuing this interaction.
I respond in your own tone. Once again, you deem yourself special, and you find honest reasoning too hard to engage in.

I do love how quickly you ran away after you realised your "deviations" comment showed your true colours. And, of course, providing evidence to your baseless accusation is impossible, and retracting/apologising would require for you not to feel special; so none of that will be happening, either.

Perhaps one day you'll mature past that. Until then: yes, crawl back into your default state of choosing credulity.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2023, 10:47:05 PM by Pete Svarrior »
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
Follow the Flat Earth Society on Twitter and Facebook!

If we are not speculating then we must assume