so, when it was stated in the abstract that there were no irregularities in the teams method, it was what? a lie?
what do the other 7 have to say about what you claim?
For the alternative theorists:
- Thread starter paddoboy
- Start date
what do the other 7 have to say about what you claim?
I glanced at the link DMOE gave and all I saw was someone's opinion of what happened. I don't see any miscarriage of scientific justice. I think the way origin describes it, it sounds like no harm was done, except that a few people were embarrassed by the premature release of data. I think his comparison to the FTL neutrino story was an excellent one. Looks like the system works after all.
You seem deeply suspicious that the way dating methods are done, and/or the evidence for evolution is collected, is somehow broken or contrived or manipulated or something. In my mind there are far too many people out there cross-checking each other for such a scenario to unfold. Just as a wet-behind-the-ears upstart doctoral student can peel back the data and try to shake any hidden facts loose, you or I are equally free to do the same. It's all public domain, right? There is nothing to control or manipulate, nothing hidden behind closed doors, right? I assume you or I could fly down to Mexico and start doing our own detective work. So what could possibly be contrived or manipulated here? That's what I don't get.
Everyone is working with the best evidence available, and the folks who are publishing have their reputations at stake. In order to stay on top of the game they're in they have to scrub their own work, always mindful of best evidence and the need to remain objective. Peer review serves as a second step in protection towards that end. In the dissertation process there is the defense before the faculty that serves the same purpose. In my own line of work, folks request reviews before they commit funds to a project, to ask other experts to put their ideas to the test. In quality assurance, the process is usually called an audit. Peer review is just that. It's a way to be sure nothing falls through the cracks. Of course even audits can on rare occasion accidentally leave something out. That's not the point. The point is that intent is to thoroughly check the work. No one assumes that any draft of anything is perfected, at least not until it's well reviewed.
I think the process of quality control in research and publication speaks for it self; science is always advancing even though there may be a few bumps in the road. But just look at the warehouses full of excellent research products that come of this. It's nothing to scoff at.
A "grasping at straws" exercise in an attempt to discredit the scientific method and peer review, is how I see it.
In leopold's world, if a paleontologist makes a statement 'refuting' evolution, then issues a correction/retraction regarding how the statement was reported clearly he was coerced into doing so by peer pressure, because obviously if the news editorial was actually inaccurate the journal carrying it would issue a retraction.
leopold is different than the typical skeptic IMO. He doesn't profess any religion, but he often takes a stance similar to creationists against "the wisdom of science", almost from the same playbook. But when pressed for his motivation, he seems to express a sincere opinion that things are being manipulated. I think he has a technical background which is what surprises me. Normally folks who work with technology are just as likely to express the same view as mine, that there are simply too many checks and balances to get very far with an error or a scam or a coverup of some kind.
It brings to mind some of the extended discussions of that kind which leopold fostered. A lot of the pro-science folks would end up calling him a creationist since his main points seem to come straight out of the ICR playbook (and worked out in detail at the TalkOrigins site). At some point I understood him to say he has a non-religious reason to oppose science. I think he actually believes that there is a cabal or conspiracy of some kind. Here we can see how such an idea falls apart. Even if all of the people he listed were wronged (I don't get that from glancing at the article) then anyone could simply go to Mexico and investigate further. And of course what I just said ignores the fact that Mexico has its own technical people fully capable of doing the same. Given the rather extensive ruins left by meso-American cultures, and the considerable interest this creates in Mexico and abroad, it isn't the kind of thing that could be manipulated and then hidden from the world.
I think leopold may have some doubts about radiometric dating, too, but it's not clear to me if he doubts the technology or just the integrity of the people doing the work. And of course I see no reason to doubt either one. I also don't think a few sporadic cases of errors and/or fraud are enough to indict the entire process. It's just too enormous. That may not be as obvious to people who don't get free access to all the periodicals now that the web has made it easier to offer them for a fee--but back when these were only available in print, it only took a trip to a well endowed library to find hundreds of journals on display, and free to read. Since they would keep back issues, these amounted to many thousands of items, typically containing a dozen or more articles each--so roughly tens of thousands of articles for the average library. Then you had the catalogs to index the material, with references to items keep in storage and/or microfiche. In the long run this amounted to perhaps a million articles or more in total. It's just way too big a system to be taken down by a bad guy here or there. In fact, when a problem or controversy is found, it's typically fodder for a rebuttal article.
i believe this is wrong.
it isn't science or the method i distrust.
i have a real problem with appealing to authority.
well, yeah.
it seems that is the case.
don't ever make the mistake of thinking "it can't happen here".
where, oh where, did i ever say i opposed science?
questioning the status quo IS NOT opposing science.
there's a damned good chance of it happening, seeing how science is becoming politicized.
Opposing the status quo merely because it is the status quo does oppose science, since there are often good reasons why there is a scientific status quo.
If you really are not religious, then you have faith in space aliens creating terrestrial biology?
no, but it's a possibility.
my opinion is either life has always existed or there is some fundamental property of matter called "life".
the term "life" is a can of worms because it's ill defined.
we not only have "life" to contend with, we also have things like consciousness.
Well actually there is a rather huge conspiracy going on in science right now. Big buisness and big oil are spending alot of money to discredit global warming. It is not a secret conspiracy it is an obvious conspiracy and they even expicitly state the point of the conspiracy. If we decrease the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted there are fears that it will cut into the profits of big buisness, especially the energy companies. So if a politician publicly denounces the science of climate change he will recieve campaign money from the businesses that have an interest in maintaining or increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.
I think you got it backwards. The government taking over the heath care system, away from the greedy free market, tipped the hand of liberal arts within science, being used by government for control over the energy industry.
The drama and politics of manmade global warming is based on an overlap of liberals arts studies, with science. This forms relative illusions in science, that tricks the liberal mind; relative truth of liberal arts applied to science.
Consensus is not how science works. That is a liberal arts concept connected to politics. Science works by irrefutable evidence and not majority rule using opinions and political propaganda. Anywhere you see liberal arts in science, these is soft science not able to stand on its feet as pure science. It needs the liberal arts consensus building for relative truth.
How does liberal arts, blended with science, impact science? Science is nonfiction, while liberal arts is both fiction and nonfiction, with fiction more popular than nonfiction, since it offers an escape from reality.
Should liberal arts be a deciding factor in science? Al Gore's image of the polar bear on the melting ice, was liberal arts drama being added to influence the consensus of science. It was based on fiction. All the prediction he outlined, which got the ball rolling never materialized but were also based on fiction. Liberal arts appeals more to liberals. They assume science works the same way.
One way to see the impact of liberal arts on the science, is to look at the impact of manmade global warming predictions. Name me one other theory in entire history of science, that allowed constant bad model predictions, yet still maintain the consensus? Part of the scientific method is the theory needs to make predictions. This helps to verify the validity and utility of the theory since clever illusions will fail the prediction test. In most of science, one bad prediction can doom a theory. But with manmade global warming, bad prediction don't count.
If someone found a single anomaly within a prediction of relativity, all of physics would a buzz, since just one thing out of place can change everything. With manmade global warming, maybe the criteria is it has to stay under 100 bad predictions.
The reason for the loose standard, in is liberal arts, fiction and emotional appeal is important. These can move the liberal herd like an Academy Award winning movie. The liberal arts aspect, behind each bad prediction, did mobilize people with fear and outrage, according to the surveys. It did what was required of good liberals arts. What is important to normal science, like accurate prediction, is secondary. This does not define the final outcome.
The question is, in the history of science, name one theory that has had as many bad prediction outcomes, yet lingered with a consensus? Also it needs to be a theory, which, in spite of a long bad prediction history, still gets to attack anyone who point it this out, like they are the people not seeing reality. It may not be possible to name one, since liberal arts only recently invaded science.
If someone found a single anomaly within a prediction of relativity, all of physics would a buzz, since just one thing out of place can change everything. With manmade global warming, maybe the criteria is it has to stay under 100 bad predictions.
The reason for the loose standard, in is liberal arts, fiction and emotional appeal is important. These can move the liberal herd like an Academy Award winning movie. The liberal arts aspect, behind each bad prediction, did mobilize people with fear and outrage, according to the surveys. It did what was required of good liberals arts. What is important to normal science, like accurate prediction, is secondary. This does not define the final outcome.
The question is, in the history of science, name one theory that has had as many bad prediction outcomes, yet lingered with a consensus? Also it needs to be a theory, which, in spite of a long bad prediction history, still gets to attack anyone who point it this out, like they are the people not seeing reality. It may not be possible to name one, since liberal arts only recently invaded science.
Stop getting you science information from Fox News for crying out loud!
Oh, I wish! It would be great to have socialized medicine like the rest of the civilized world. Nothing would help small business more than have a work force that didn't have to work for a large corporation to get health care.
Huh? Liberal arts?
Still can't figure out science? Consensus in science means that a majority of scientist agree with the science and methodology of a hypothesis or theory. I guess your Liberal Arts degree (if you made it to college) confused you into thinking it was some sort of popularity contest.
Sort of like your consistent escape from reality?
Utter bullshit. Al Gore did not influence the climatologists. Al Gore made a movie (I have not seen it but there apparently are some errors in it) based on what the climatologist reported not the other way around! Use that head of yours for something other than a hat rack.
The theory that smoking can cause lung cancer.
Which it does.
"I smoked for sixty years and I never got lung cancer, even though my doctor said I probably would!" - I guess that disproves the theory that smoking can cause lung cancer.
Motor Daddy
Valued Senior Member
Who is doing that? It implies bias, but you haven't said who is biased. Don't forget that all of science is an appeal to the authority of evidence. When a highly anamolous result is reported, almost always it's a mistake. It's very common to make mistakes during testing and research. What's far less common is to perpetuate those mistakes by publishing them. Here the mistake would have been egregious, even if we didn't know the drama behind the story. There rarely is a case, certainly not in this arena, in which a single find upsets the balance of evidence coming from around the world. The biggest news I can think concerning human origins was Louis Leakey's discoveries as Oulduvai Gorge. And that was long ago, long enough to have copious confirmation. But it brings us pretty much to our current state of science concerning human origins. Certainly other remarkable finds since then have more fully explained human origins.
The closest thing to an appeal to authority I can think of, as far as human origins is concerned, is the use of Darwin's work to substantiate evolution by natural selection. But you only need to read his own words to realize that all he is doing is reporting on the copious evidence he collected before arriving at his conclusions from really just a few cases of adaptive radiation, but then referred to larger observations to deduce that in this case there has to be a general rule across all species. So it turns out not to be an appeal to authority at all, but rather, to the compelling evidence drawn from nature. Further, with Darwin, as with any other source, there is ample opportunity for the whole world to test what's been proposed. And in fact that's what happened in the the subsequent work that discovered certain nuances of mutation and gene flow which we collectively call neo-Darwinism. Not everything is resolved--ever--in science, and there are legitimate controversies about the specifics--since all of science is a work in progress. But also, there are things we call "settled science". When decades pass and nothing but corroboration come from all the investigations subsequent to a project (such as all the work in evolution since Darwin first published) then it's considered a settled matter until something bigger comes along to unseat it.
Now factor that into your conception that there is some overuse of the "appeal to authority" and I think you find that the reverse is true. Even in a school course in evolution you will be challenged to get to the truth -- by preponderance of the evidence, not some shortcut like "appeal to authority".
I think the issue in play at the moment is the opposite of that--the mistake of assuming that a faulty report was not only true and correct , but sufficient to overturn mountains of evidence to the contrary.
When I speak of "settled science" it means it can't happen here, without some earth shattering discovery that unseats a mountain of prior discoveries. It's not impossible, but when you get to questions of human origins, it's next to impossible. The probability that the dates of evolution and migration of modern humans would change drastically from our present findings is extremely low. And in any case, a single discovery doesn't reverse the rest of the findings as simply as this seems. Those findings have to be tested against the world body of evidence.
Most recently you said that a scientist (or group of them) was overruled by the mainstream, and that the textbooks were therefore not accurate. That's a pretty serious indictment against science. Tens of millions of living scientists, medical folks, engineers and technologists have all been through those books. When you say the books we learned from are wrong, you imply that we all are wrong in some way. It also is quite dismissive of the critical thinking process each student had to master to graduate.
That sounds a little like equivocation. To be clear about what you mean, you would have to explain what kind of questions you have, and why they persist. If you simply can't accept certain first principles of science then I can't see why you would prefer to think of yourself as a person who doesn't oppose science. My general impression of your stance is that you feel there is a cabal of some kind, that information is somehow being manipulated, that the truth suffers as a result. You seem highly suspicious, which is different than questioning the status quo. For example, you might question whether Mitochondrial Eve was actually African. But to get to the bottom of that you would need to bring the data into question. I don't see you questioning the status quo in that regard. I see you questioning some general principles about human origins from a rather unusual perspective, one that sees all of the world through the lens of certain remote anecdotal reports, like the present case. It's almost as if you are operating entirely from a gut feeling. Did it ever occur to you that that's the place where you should probably direct your remarks? Maybe you should rely less on your gut on more on the facts at hand. Just sayin'. Obviously you're the one who holds the key to whatever it is that's conflicted within you--whatever is the actual source of your remarks. I can only speculate.
The only politicization I am aware of is the bulk manufacture of propaganda by the Religious Right, purporting to have foundations in science of its own. For example, there is the museum/theme park built to convince kids that humans roamed the Earth in the era of dinosaurs; that all of natural history fits within about 6000 years. Similar are the manufactured scandals and attacks on climate science by the same general groups of lobbies. Where is your sense of righteous indignation when it comes to the actual perpetrators of manipulated information? This is what confuses me. If it's ethics you want, shouldn't you start by weeding out the known perpetrators? You say you're not arguing from a religious point of view, but your silence on this seems tantamount to a defense of the bad guys.
In fact a lot of editors and publishers were forced to inject politics into science texts, under pressure of school boards and state legislatures. For the last 20 years or so you see sidebar discussions about the politics of the Religious Right appended as insets to the text explaining Darwin's discovery of adaptive radiation. The National Academies Press has devoted booklets to the discussion, to try to help the indoctrinated kids, and the ones on the sidelines who can't understand the basis of the controversy, to unravel the story. The Teacher's Associations and just about every professional scientific organization has produced similar material. Similarly these groups organize workshops and considerable effort is spent trying to get the teachers to teach good science without violating the law. Is that what you call politicizing science? Because it's not. It's advancing science while rebutting the cranks.
So what is your stance on the cranks and why don't you mention them and what they are doing? How else is science being politicized, other than this?
Beaconator
Valued Senior Member
If the world were to give up past knowledge and express only irrational opinions. The world would remain the same. If this forum were to only express irrational opinions of past knowledge, rationality would pervade over a biased world.
The logic which persists behind this ideal is similar to a Sherlock Holmes quote I'm sure we all stand by. In that case we would seek the irrational benefactor to rational results instead of imposing more rationality into ideas containing preconceived bias of incomplete rationality. Seeking to "un-know" the known instead to know the unknown. The same goal is achieved in half the time with half the effort.
If the idea of irrationality were taken to extremes both with and without bias the line of best fit would fall perfectly tangent with the line of rationality. A single common familiar point can be reached from this forum's "irrational" to gauge the best rationality found elsewhere. The only kicker seems to be this is already the way in which our knowledge and sarcasm leads.
The logic which persists behind this ideal is similar to a Sherlock Holmes quote I'm sure we all stand by. In that case we would seek the irrational benefactor to rational results instead of imposing more rationality into ideas containing preconceived bias of incomplete rationality. Seeking to "un-know" the known instead to know the unknown. The same goal is achieved in half the time with half the effort.
If the idea of irrationality were taken to extremes both with and without bias the line of best fit would fall perfectly tangent with the line of rationality. A single common familiar point can be reached from this forum's "irrational" to gauge the best rationality found elsewhere. The only kicker seems to be this is already the way in which our knowledge and sarcasm leads.
I find it really dumb, for people to side against the status quo, the mainstream, or the establishment, just for the sake of trying to project an Image of being able to think for one self and to wear it like a badge of honour.......Invariably, they just project how stupid they really are in ignoring many decades of observational and experimental data, while having nothing to falsify the incumbent model........Real dumb.
Well first, I don't know it all, and secondly, I don't automatically oppose mainstream thinking just for the sake of it, as you appear to do.
Who am I???...I'm me, who are you?