Re: Anyone want copies of the "fake moonshot" story and pictures?

Thomas Bartkus wrote:
<Russell.Martin@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Thomas Bartkus wrote:
<Russell.Martin@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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This in some ways parallels my recent discussion with Thomas
about global warming. At what point does honest disagreement
with scientific research results become stubborn refusal to
accept "the truth" (to the extent that science can establish it),
or even psychopathology?

Never!

IOW you think that psychopathology provides an equally valid
explanation of of the world works. Whose psychopathology?
There appears to be many.

No! I don't think all theories, hypotheses, and fantasies, are "equally
valid".

I just think they should all get exposure to the light ;-)
Nay! That statement was too weak. Science *requires* that psychopathology
(astrology, creationism, numerology, you name it ) get exposure. You don't
bury anything - you put it out in the sun.

Giving exposure differs from giving credence or tolerance, IMO.
If you want to expose them to the light hoping it will kill them
as proposed "alternative science" fine, but that isn't the
impression I got.


Possesion of "the truth" dispenses with the need for science. Such a
happy
state suggests that all is known and unchallengable. If you possess
"the
truth" then all else must be false.

Did you read Smith Rhoade's post, to which I was responding,
or for that matter my " " around the truth, or my "to the extent
that science can establish it"? Clearly we are not talking about
"universal truth in the religious sense" as Smith put it. Of course
all scientific "truth" is ultimately provisional. I think we've been
over that before. But there must be some region through which
someone who disagrees with well established science passes
from the category of "reasonable sceptic" to "crackpot", or else
science is ultimately a pointless endeavor as far as advancing
humanity's understanding of the universe. That is, if anyone can
merely say "I just don't believe it" and make that stick as an
acceptable scientific argument, then science is reduced from a
truth seeking mechanism to a way to generate random opinions.

Science, on the other hand, requires that everything be challengable.

Yes, but only on the basis of experimental fact, not
obstinancy or psychopathology!

What "experimental fact" could ever have been attached to Einstein's
relativity theories when he proposed them? None!

I've studied relativity theory. In fact that was what I really
wanted to spend my career doing when I was young. You
are simply wrong. Einstein didn't create his work out of an
experimental vacuum (no pun intended). In fact he took
observations like those from the Mickelson-Morley
experiment and insisted they must be true and therefore
the previous fundamental assumptions about space and
time must be wrong rather than the observations being
wrong.

It took a long time
before any of his relativity could be subject to that test.

You need to distiguish between experiments that are the
basis for a theory and those that are needed to verify the
predictions of a theory. I'd call one set a justification for
a theory and the other a validation of a theory. Anyway,
what you wrote isn't true. Light bending was observed 3
years after the General Theory was published. And even
for those predictions that still have not been verified, like
gravitational waves, have nothing to do with the idea of
discounting theories that are simply overwhelmingly
disproved by the evidence, like the Flat Earth Model.
Relativity is still open to experimental falsification, and
I've never said it isn't, but even if it proves to be wrong in
some details that may only mean it has a certain range
of validity, just like Newtonian mechanics. And just
because relativity theory is once full of far out ideas
doesn't mean it is full of crackpot ideas, and so IMO
your points, even if they were correct, would have virtually
nothing to do with my position that it is scientifically
wrong to give credence to crackpot ideas, and scientists
should oppose doing so.

With no consensus and no experimental fact to back up relativity -
should the scientific consensus have have defended itself against Einstein's
off the wall theories?

It did, but it was also open minded and looked for evidence
and then looked at the evidence. But being open minded
doesn't mean accepting crackpot ideas that are in open
contradiction to objective reality, as imperfect as some
philosophers may view the concept.


It is
a quest for truth and science itself becomes irrelevent when the truth
is in
hand. Pray that we always realize that we are never in possession of
"the
truth" and that crossing the next hill only brings us somewhat closer.

Yes, but like I pointed out that isn't the question under
consideration.


Science means one must tolerate expression of any and all views. Mind
you -
I am not saying one must accept all views. Just that they be allowed
full
expression and exposure to light. No matter how at odds with the
consensus
opinion.

I disagree. To tolerate the view the Earth is flat is to
encourage anti-science as a valid intellectual approach
to understanding the observable and testable world. That
isn't to say that I think we should round up those who
think the world is flat and force them to recant, but I
don't consider refraining from such action as toleration
for the opinion but rather as acceptance of human rights.

The consensus itself, at one time, defended a flat Earth. It didn't merely
"tolerate" it, it treated opposing views with ridicule.

Yes, but it wasn't a scientific theory, as we've been over before.
We're talking science and how scientists should react to
crackpot ideas, not scientific ideas. IMO there is a difference,
which you don't seem to accept.


And "tolerate" is a such modest word. I hardly see how you can disagree
that science needs to tolerate opposing viewpoints.

Opposing scientific viewpoints, no. Statements that simply
contradict observed reality, yes.

If you can't tolerate something, what do you do with it?

Oppose it, like I've been saying scientists should oppose
accepting the flat Earth model as a valid alternative scientific
model for the shape of the Earth. If someone wants to make
a religion or psychosis out of believing the Earth is flat, then
that's a different matter.


To what extent can one argue that
consensus is irrelevant to human understanding of the world in
the broad sense? Certainly at times consensus is just group
think.

Consensus is irrelevant. Completely. Utterly.

No it isn't for reasons we've been over. Try driving down
the road without a consensus of what a red light means
or even what color constitutes "red" to see why.

My criticism of consensus is quite narrow. Only that science can't and
properly shouldn't be hampered by it.

Agreed.


Flat earth. Creationism. Caloric theory, Phlogiston. Myriads of other
formerly consensus opinions.
Nothing ever gets evicted from the tyranny of consensus until someone
has
the courage to reject it. The ocean of ideas may be full of cockamamie
theories, BUT it is the only place rare teaspoons of enlightenment are
to be
found.

That assumes that truth and falsehood are a physical
mixture, which they are not. IOW IMO you've made a
poor analogy.

Sorry you don't like the analogy.
But at any moment in history, science is a mixture of truth and falsehood.
I expect that over time, truth gains and falsehood diminishes. I fancy that
by this moment in history that truth has the greatest weight.
But I could be wrong about that ;-)

True, but my point is that letting what are falsehoods (as
clearly as we can establish anything to be false) back into
science after they've been kicked othut will decrease the
truth to falsehood ratio rather than increase it, overwhelmingly
on average if not necessarily in every individual case.


So - Suffer the cockamamie theories!
Science needs them.

Does science need cockamamie theories that are
untestable? By definition no, so that is at least one
class of cockamamie theory that provides a counter-
example.

Copernicus, Einstein, Wegener, and many more, all proposed theories valuable
to science that were untestable in their time.

We've been over that. By untestable we mean making
predictions that can not in principle be tested. Almost
all theories can not be tested at the moment they are
published, if for no other reason than it takes time to
read the paper and set up the equipment, but that doesn't
mean they are untestable.

Einstein even had the
temerity to declare in advance that any future physical experiment that
failed to support his relativity had to be flawed. Talk about self
confidence!

So far well justified, says this Einstein admirer. :-)


I trust all theories to be testable, even if we lack the tools to accomplish
it at the time. But the answer is yes. Science needs theories, proposed
freely and abundantly, testable or otherwise. If that means one must wade
through much chaff to find a little wheat - so be it.

But there is no reason not to go to the threshing floor of
common sense and knowledge as close to universally
accepted reality as we have and winnow out as much
chaff as we can first.


We've seen- examples of that in public policy in recent
years. At a recent symposium here one of the panel said we,
as scientists, need to be more active in defending science and
its result in the public arena.
If we believe that science is the
way to understand and interact with the universe that is certainly
true, IMO. So we need a way to distinguish and deal with these
positions.

Why do scientists need to do that?

Because if we don't not, science as an approach to dealing
with the world, which has been a productive methodology,
may be weakened in that role.

Is it really to defend science?

Yes.

Or is
it to defend and justify public funding for science?

Ah, is the Libertarian bias peeking out? ;-)

Guilty! And that really is the "burr under my saddle" here.
My Libertarian tendencies flow from the interest in science.

I do fancy science and intellectual freedom to be inextricable from one
another. I know you disagree,

Why would you say something as insulting as that? I
agree they are inextricable, but freedom isn't anarchy
and intellectual freedom isn't intellectual anarchy, which
is what it appears to me you are promoting. Sorry if
that is insulting.

but my opinion is that this requires science
to tolerate the expression of lots of nonsense in order to get at the few
pearls of wisdom.

Well. I clearly disagree, for reasons expansively presented
above.


I really do like my science uncontrolled ;-)
Thomas Bartkus

Cheers,
Russell

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