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Agree, fishtank. In my view, much of the supposed "wisdom" of inter-galactic astronomers is as reasonable as Astrology. But it still makes for entertaining speculation and fun to argue about. Look at this thread. More than 100 comments! FReepers were entertained by this topic.
Pre-Covid, when I needed to get up at o'dark thirty to drive to the airport, I would to listen to the Coast-to-Coast radio show and its enchanting interviews with all kinds of pseudo-scientists and story-tellers -- anybody selling a book on paranormal stuff, aliens, etc. I'm convinced many of the people calling in to ask questions of the guest were paid actors -- their commentary was so convincing.
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The truth is that knocking down dumb theories and wild conjectures can also be fun.
One of the best lessons in debunking was done by Mark Twain in his humorous -- but highly effective -- essay "Is Shakespeare Dead?".
In the essay, Twain totally destroys the notion that the historical Shakespeare of Stratford actually wrote the plays history says he did.
The essay is lengthy (a good evening read) but teaches lessons in how to intelligently tear bogus theories apart with humor.
Here's an excerpt from Chapter 4. Conjectures.
The historians “infer” that he got his Latin in that school—the school which they “suppose” he attended.
They “suppose” his father’s declining fortunes made it necessary for him to leave the school they supposed he attended, and get to work and help support his parents and their ten children. But there is no evidence that he ever entered or retired from the school they suppose he attended.
The next addition to the young Shakespeare’s Stratford history comes easy. The historian builds it out of the surmised deer-stealing, and the surmised trial before the magistrate, and the surmised vengeance-prompted satire upon the magistrate in the play: result, the young Shakespeare was a wild, wild, wild, oh such a wild young scamp, and that gratuitous slander is established for all time!
It is the very way Professor Osborn and I built the colossal skeleton brontosaur that stands fifty-seven feet long and sixteen feet high in the Natural History Museum, the awe and admiration of all the world, the stateliest skeleton that exists on the planet.
We had nine bones, and we built the rest of him out of plaster of paris. We ran short of plaster of paris, or we’d have built a brontosaur that could sit down beside the Stratford Shakespeare and none but an expert could tell which was biggest or contained the most plaster.
Uh, Shakespeare lived, he wrote well-known plays, and anyone who says otherwise is engaging in groundless speculation. Period. Hilarious that you use that as a case against speculation.