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That's is a relative, and false, perspective that is based ones relative conclusion, not truth.
Social People with extreme anti-science views know the least, but think they know the most: study
- Thread starter Grenz
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That's is a relative, and false, perspective that is based ones relative conclusion, not truth.
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Newton was a fring thinker, copernicus, maxwell, einstain, etc., as well, but within the scientific community not outside of it. The acceptance of their theories came about after the older generations who didn't want to let go of their theories died off and were replaced by the newer generations. All of this happens within the scientific community, never from outside. It will never be the case that some quack will cause a paradigm shift working from his basement disconnected from the scientific community.
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Julius_Caesar
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Far Right, Trump supporting, FoxNews watching, Alex Jones loving, weird conspiracy theorist, usually southern, overly religious rednecks....many of which believe the world is flat and think everything's a conspiracy as long as Trump is not part of it.
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Right, but wouldn't an idiot also ignore their actual information of the fringe group in favor of blindly agreeing with the consensus? And arent scientific breakthrough usually based on some fringe scientist ignoring consensus?
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Scientists don't talk of truth, but rather of confirmed and disconfirmed theories, which get them closer to the truth. They operate with the assumption that all their theories could be false or some underlying auxiliary hypothesis could be false (Duheim thesis).
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franklinstower
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Especially when that fringe thinker begins his disagreement with accepted science based on falsely classifying a religious text as an historical or scientific document.
Because nothing is more common in the global warming debate than mindless “signal repeaters”. People who can only enforce what they have accepted to be true without actually having a legitimate depth of understanding themselves.
So I asked because if one is willing to attack someone’s position, they must have more than just convention and orthodoxy backing them. You must know the science in depth. You must be able to debate the science in depth.
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This is how progress in science happens according to Khun. The only thing is that the fringe thinker is within the scientific community not outside of it and shares the same assumption but differs in something that makes a big difference.
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But once something is confirmed it's no longer a theory. If it's a theory it hasn't been proven and thus up for debate.
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What is this magical threshold one has to cross to have their work considered part of the scientific community? Endorsement of other scientists?
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It starts as a hypothesis. The hypothesis has test implications if it is a propper scientific hypothesis. This is tested and either confirmed (or corroborated) or falsified by scientists around the world.
If it is confirmed it becomes a theory.
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franklinstower
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Semantics. The idea us up for debate is the point.
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Interaction with the scientific community, peer review, research institutions, publishing work in respected journals, part of a team of scientists, etc.
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A hypothesis has not yet been confirmed or falsified.
A theory has been confirmed or corroborated.
This doesn't mean that it will never be falsified or replaced by a better theory.
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So endorsement by others. Appeal to authority is all you're taking about. That does satisfy the truly intellectual.
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It's not appeal to authority when one works with authorities in the field.
Whoever it is that works within the community will be testing and learning stuff himself. He isn't in a religious school being indoctrinated. He can disagree and challenge his professor's views and provide alternative views if he can back it up with evidence.
IGIT
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hi again there, Joe,
i don't call it "global warming", really. that's a very 1970's way of framing the issue.
i also am a little unsure what you mean by "legitimate depth of understanding". i'm an ordinary guy with a useless bachelors degree - i work - i smoke alot of pot - i goof off - i sleep late.
i don't spend too many of my idle hours working on debunking or defending the science of AGW, if that's what you're asking.
that's not how the scientific process works, at least that's not it worked for my dad at Celanese (where he had 4 patents) or my mom at Merck (where she discovered the enzyme for Mevacor).
parroting convention and orthodoxy isn't what goes on at the R&D labs that i've had knowledge of.
i do agree, though, that if one is to challenge climate scientists on their findings, it would be swell if some of the more energetic objectors knew their science in depth, as you put it.
- IGIT
i don't call it "global warming", really. that's a very 1970's way of framing the issue.
i also am a little unsure what you mean by "legitimate depth of understanding". i'm an ordinary guy with a useless bachelors degree - i work - i smoke alot of pot - i goof off - i sleep late.
i don't spend too many of my idle hours working on debunking or defending the science of AGW, if that's what you're asking.
that's not how the scientific process works, at least that's not it worked for my dad at Celanese (where he had 4 patents) or my mom at Merck (where she discovered the enzyme for Mevacor).
parroting convention and orthodoxy isn't what goes on at the R&D labs that i've had knowledge of.
i do agree, though, that if one is to challenge climate scientists on their findings, it would be swell if some of the more energetic objectors knew their science in depth, as you put it.
- IGIT
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If a theory is comfirmed(demonstrated, predicted, repeated) then it becomes a fact and no longer a theory. All theories are up for debate but anyone with understanding. And understanding is not determined by consensus.
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InternetHero
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That's true on t.v., in real academic life, no.
That's true only in certain areas of certain fields and more often than not in the hard sciences (But even there, change takes a lot of time for the reasons I will outline), although we're starting to see some slips there as things like understanding DNA and heredity leads to some uncomfortable ideas that societal architects would rightly prefer to avoid.
However, if something goes strongly against social norms, and especially peer group-think dynamics, an idea can and will be squashed, manipulated, or rejected in total and anyone who touches it will be a pariah.
Think Charles Murray and "The Bell Curve," in no way meant to be racist and yet chapter 13 saw him vilified and pilloried as a KKK Dracula. Not over the work he had done, but over societies' and the social sciences insecurities.
This happens all the time, in every field, in all parts of human endeavors for logic. Why? Because reputation, financials, personal connections, and fear of upsetting orthodoxy of powerful men is a constant.
If a scientists develops a theory, do you really think a lot of them invite magnanimous criticism? That's nice on a t.v. show, and in the hard sciences there are a few who are so generous, but in general you're starting a war with a fickle and fearsome personality - with a high reputation, with support of an institution and it's colleagues, and with connections to journals, book publishers, and sympathetic media, all while enjoying he has tunure... do you want tenure? Do you want respect? Do you want your peers to admire you? Do you want the "important" people to agree with you?
Then do what the nice men who spent their careers researching the ideas say...
