Posted on 11/21/2014 1:16:47 AM PST by Swordmaker
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way. Thomas Jefferson
It is a common perception that we stand on the shoulders of giants: that is, new ideas are based on those inherited from older investigations. If that is the case, then there is a serious hinderance inherent in the approach.
The title of this article is borrowed from Paul Feyerabend, a self-described epistemological anarchist, who promulgated an irreverent view of science. It is necessary, in his opinion, to promote inconsistency in the scientific method. By demanding conformity to older theories, those older theories are protected from change, thus inhibiting amended thought. That dogmatic stipulation is familiar to Electric Universe advocates when they attempt to introduce the idea that electricity governs the cosmos and not gravity, alone. The old guard immediately mans their guns, aiming to blow apart any intruders attempting to storm their institutionalized walls.
As Cervantes put in the mouth of Don Quijote de la Mancha: Facts are the enemy of truth. Facts are those data points born from observations that trusted in past theories. Those observations become the rules under which all new research is governed. They are the laws of physics, for example, that must not be violated lest thought criminal be branded on the forehead of the transgressor. The hallowed halls of science become the home of sanctified knowledge that brooks no denial.
It is forgotten that the worshipful dictum is an assumption. It is assumed that the charge on the electron does not vary. It is assumed that a kilogram is a kilogram no matter where or when it is measured. It is assumed that the fine structure constant is a constant throughout the Universe. However, it is demonstrated time and again that those assumptions could be wrong. The gravitational constant seems to change every time it is measured. The speed of lightconsidered to be one of the most inviolate cosmological statuteshas been exceeded in some laboratory experiments. If those facts are obviated by new observations, then laws become mere suggestions.
Skepticism has been lost in modern science. To be a skeptic today means to attack new ideas; to marginalize the opposition with a coordinated offensive designed to eliminate competitive viewpoints. It is usually couched in a variety of logical fallacies: appeal to authority; denigration of personality; arguing adverse consequences; or demanding adherence to tradition. As the old gospel song fervently asserts, If it was good for Paul and Silas, its good enough for me.
Without an inner context, observations can be invisible. That inner context is called a theory. It can be shown that the theories that changed the models science uses to comprehend observations were often based on unsubstantiated particulars. The Electric Universe promotes theories of reality that await confirmation. In conventional conclaves, those theories are nothing but pseudoscience, meaning not genuine; not authentic. So-called authentic science is, in reality, the established dogma against which leading-edge visualization should be opposed.
Philosopher Thomas Kuhn wrote: Examining the record of past research from the vantage of contemporary historiography, the historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places.
Those new paradigms do not come about because research builds on top of research stone-by-stone. Rather, those paradigm shifts usually come about by force. The fall of the Berlin Wall is an equivalent phenomenon. When the decision is made, nothing can withstand it, and that decision can arise suddenly.
AGAIN, you don't reply in any substantive manner, just dismissive. Why do you bother even post on these threads? You refuse to engage in debate, but just speak ex-cathedra. I am not trying to "convince you" but to engage your closed mind.
That says a lot about you.
Somebody won’t answer your questions on an Internet chat forum. You poor thing.
Go publish your work if you want to be taken seriously.
YOU refuse to engage in discussion. Done.
I care about the conservative cause, which is why I comment about the twaddle you post concerning a theory that has a bad reputation, which reflects poorly on Conservatives. FR allows me to do that, just as FR still allows you to make the posts in chat.
You’ve given me no reason to believe that a discussion with you is worthwhile. I’m glad you’re done and look forward to your silence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri5hspmAzmc&list=PLwOAYhBuU3UfklHQ8Rb1sOzkSAw50fCfc&index=15
the sky-woman’s basket
Then please refrain from addressing this topic. There are other Freepers who are interested in the topic and that makes you a TROLL on these threads since you choose not to be engaged beyond throwing brickbats and insults.
If, on the other hand, you choose to address the issue and critique the facts and what is presented, offering alternative explanations, rather than throw stones and insults, you are welcome here.
I might grant that. But how much of it will stand peer review. Especially where mathematics are concerned. And mathematics...well, I think God derived the function that we discovered as mathematics. And in M-Theory, we might be able to.... But even that depends on peer review as, again, the mathematics are so complex.
you are welcome here.
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FR welcomes me here not you. I will continue to post on the subject as I see fit and am allowed.
If you want to boss me around, then get your own forum.
You come onto a thread and behave like a troll and a skunk.You act dismissive to the topic and the people discussing it and insult them. You refuse to respond to reasonable questions except with more insults and dismissive posts. Do you expect to be welcome? I don't think so. You throw stink bombs without really participating in any discussion. There are 57 members of the Electric Universe Ping list who are interested in the topic and want to participate without your non-participatory brickbats. If you want to give reasons why you disagree, post the reasons, not straw man links. Try and be civil.
If you are not interested in the topic, simply DON'T READ IT.
I promise to stay off Thunderbolts.info. People don’t have to read about disreputable theories on FR without dissenting opinions. There are plenty of places they can go.
I’ve told you my policy about posting on FR which isn’t going to change. And your authority over me is still zilch.
It is ALSO not your forum to act as the policeman about who can and cannot post on FreeRepublic. . . or to determine the topics that can be posted on FR. You are not the moderator.
Why not try responding to the questions with reasonable explanations of how those objects which are far larger, and far more energetic, than our solar system can exist in a purely gravity driven Universe, instead of just throwing spit wads? I have been trying to engage you in a discussion but you simply insult people who attempt it, with the equivalent of a dismissive Internet "Whatever," and cover your eyes and ears with your hands.
You are the very essence of what this article is pointing out:
"To be a skeptic today means to attack new ideas; to marginalize the opposition with a coordinated offensive designed to eliminate competitive viewpoints. It is usually couched in a variety of logical fallacies: appeal to authority; denigration of personality; arguing adverse consequences; or demanding adherence to tradition. As the old gospel song fervently asserts, If it was good for Paul and Silas, its good enough for me.
So far, in two threads, you have hit everyone of those logical fallacies. . . and touched on ad hominem. Your intent is to be disagreeable and disruptive. Fine. Go ahead. Be a troll.
It is ALSO not your forum to act as the policeman about who can and cannot post on FreeRepublic. . . or to determine the topics that can be posted on FR. You are not the moderator.
...
Exactly, and in post #24 I stated that FR allows you to post your articles in chat, and they allow me to criticize them. You don’t like it so you call me a troll, which is ad hominem.
If I call Electric Universe a crackpot theory or disreputable (which it is), that doesn’t mean I’m calling you or anyone else those names.
Being a troll is how you act where your actions are intended to be disruptive. If the shoe fits, you get to wear it. As for calling names, I suggest you review your dismissive response to me in reply 21.
Being dismissive is allowed. You don’t have the authority to demand answers from me.
Hit the abuse button, and I’d wager that the mods will tell you to grow a thicker skin, considering your subject and that it has nothing to do with conservative politics or accepted science.
It seems you have been engaged in a discussion with a member of the species who would look into the sky-woman’s basket and tell you that the basket is empty.
My skin is quite thick, thank you. It is you who is acting like an ass.
That member of the species will NEVER look into the sky-woman's basket for fear of what he may see there. It might rattle his oh-so-secure world view. There is no one so blind as he who will not see. I've posted photographs of inexplicable (by gravitic cosmology) objects that literally litter the cosmos but he will not even attempt to try to explain them under his preferred theories.
That is all I am requesting him to do, to open the conversation. It's obvious he cannot.
The title of this article is borrowed from Paul Feyerabend, a self-described epistemological anarchist, who promulgated an irreverent view of science.Quoting an "anarchist" who promotes "irrational methods" isn't going to help the reputation of a theory which is already considered crackpot by many. The whole article reads like something done by a starving lawyer.
Paul Feyerabend, one of the most important Philosophers of the 20th Century, concerned himself with the meaning of science in society and thought. Here are some excerpts on his writing:
Against the tyranny of Scientific facts'Scientific "facts" are taught at a very early age and in the very same manner in which religious "facts" were taught only a century ago. There is no attempt to waken the critical abilities of the pupil so that he may be able to see things in perspective. At the universities the situation is even worse, for indoctrination is here carried out in a much more systematic manner. Criticism is not entirely absent. Society, for example, and its institutions, are criticised most severely and often most unfairly and this already at the elementary school level. But science is excepted from the criticism. In society at large the judgement of the scientist is received with the same reverence as the judgement of bishops and cardinals was accepted not too long ago. The move towards "demythologization," for example, is largely motivated by the wish to avoid any clash between Christianity and scientific ideas. If such a clash occurs, then science is certainly right and Christianity wrong.
... Pursue this investigation further and you will see that science has now become as oppressive as the ideologies it had once to fight. Do not be misled by the fact that today hardly anyone gets killed for joining a scientific heresy. Heretics in science are still made to suffer from the most severe sanctions this relatively tolerant civilization has to offer [for] science has become rigid, that it has ceased to be an instrument of change and liberation. [People claim that] science deserves a special position because it has produced results . This is an argument only if it can be taken for granted that nothing else has ever produced results. Now it may be admitted that almost everyone who discusses the matter makes such an assumption .
...
[Yet we] have become acquainted with methods of medical diagnosis and therapy which are effective (and perhaps even more effective than the corresponding parts of Western medicine) and which are yet based on an ideology that is radically different from the ideology of Western science. ...By now everyone knows that you can earn a lot of money and respect and perhaps even a Nobel Prize by becoming a scientist, so many will become scientists. They will become scientists without having been taken in by the ideology of science, they will be scientists because they have made a free choice. But has not much time been wasted on unscientific subjects and will this not detract from their competence once they have become scientists? Not at all! The progress of science, of good science depends on novel ideas and on intellectual freedom: science has very often been advanced by outsiders (remember that Bohr and Einstein regarded themselves as outsiders).
...So, it is electricity that causes the stars to shine, and it is electricity that causes them to explode. If dust is formed in supernovae, it is an ironic commentary from NASA that specifies the need for an electric discharge to create their version of it.
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