7/30/09

Scientific Cenobites - Some notes on Skepticism, part 5 of 6

FYI: this post has been moved here.

2 comments:

  1. I loved the books involved in this post. I have that large volume "Forbidden Archaeology" (as well as the other books published by the others) sitting on my shelf. It goes a long way to throwing a monkey wrench in the evolutionary time-periods (even thought the authors accept these time-periods).

    Good post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Marianito,

    You ow me an irony-meter. Especially with the one on "Dislike of the consequences." You love to use that one against atheism.

    A few shades of truth here and there over the 5 parts so far. You, or your source, have chosen to believe that everything not published was legitimate. Tons of "authors" get rejected because of sloppy thinking, or lack of data (take Jonathan Wells for instance). Since people tend to blame others rather than check what they might have done wrong, or what they might be lacking, and there you have it. Books/articles claiming that they are ignored and such.

    Of course, monetary issues have influenced what can be published and what not. Big corporations have ruined some scientific careers. Yet, that does not mean that each and every author who does not get her/hos work published is under the same situation. But the few real problems make good excuses for the mediocre. I bet that, after the mockumentary "Expelled", lots of scientists who did not make it to tenure (it is very competitive, and the rate of success is very low), will turn to some church in order to later on claim persecution for their religious beliefs. Just like other pretend to have such an excellent idea that would shake the foundations of science.

    Just recently we had a visitor claiming that his ideas on evolution were rejected because they shacked the establishment. So, he gave us a few self-published books. It was all so wrong. From his presentation of what the established theories were (all wrong, all authors misquoted, I happened to personally know two of these misquoted authors). He even describes positions nobody holds, and rejection of ideas nobody has rejected, then proceeded with his idea, with no support whatsoever, filled with tautologies and other fallacies.

    However, get a hold on this one. The guy looked quite sincerely convinced. He could not even see his problems.

    I guess many of these mediocre scientists willingly become frauds. Yet, some are not smart enough to note that they are building fantasies around their failures.

    Anyway, yeah, a very few shades of truth, but mostly exacerbated stuff and your choice to believe all those claims, such as those "stats" behind the "paranormal." Seems like you do have a very obvious bias towards believing whatever will discredit science or the scientists. Which makes your notes on skepticism a futile exercise of immersing a little tiny bit of truth into an ocean of bullshit in this little "essay." But you are not alone Mariano. This is a common trick. The few shades of truth make the bullshit appear much more reasonable and creditable. This is the key to successful charlatanry.

    aDiablo,

    G.E.

    ReplyDelete