Is it me or is this site in its death throes?
- Thread starter Bowser
- Start date
Shoot it, but please no spelling mistakes in names, use copy-paste instead of typing.
Been thar done that... all 7 names are spelled corectly... thanks
Ha... you know you'r on the right side when you have God on you'r side
Whoa... just checked an it looks like im gonna be busy answrin PM's for a while... lol
Please be patient people i will get to you.!!!
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/sciforums-site-rules.142880/
Sciforums is an intelligent community that encourages learning and thoughtful discussion. We expect and welcome contributions that inform as well as stimulate discussion and debate. At its foundation, sciforums focused on discussion of Science. As the forum developed, our interests broadened to include Philosophy and Ethics, Religion, World Events and Politics and other topics. However, we retain in all areas of debate an ethos of respect for the scientific method, which demands critical analysis, clear thinking and evidence-based argument. Vigorous debate is expected, but we expect all participants to treat each other with courtesy and basic good manners, and to abide by reasonable standards of intellectual integrity and honesty.
P.S. Originally, sciforums was exosci, and I think the focus was supposed to be on extraterrestrial life and the science relating to that. That was a little before my time here, so I can't say that categorically that was the case. Clearly, the forum's interests have broadened and diversified somewhere since its foundation.
I'm not entirely convinced that expanding Pseudoscience into our Fringe forums was a net positive for the forum. That was the most recent major change.
I'm not entirely convinced that expanding Pseudoscience into our Fringe forums was a net positive for the forum. That was the most recent major change.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
If by all areas of debate you mean the other non-science forums, then the scientific method doesn't really apply there. Philosophy, ethics, politics, religion, economics, history, art & culture, and fringe have their own methods of validation including logical argumentation, direct experience, hermeneutics, critical analysis, and strong anecdotal evidence. Saying these areas are subject to science smacks of scientism imo.
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Yeah, like putting nuts in a fruit cocktail bowl.
Critical analysis and clear thinking still apply to all of those things. Evidence is relevant in all of them, too. When it comes to philosophy and ethics (which is applied philosophy), critical analysis and reason are paramount. Politics, economics and history all rely on evidence; critical analysis demands that facts first be established. As for art and culture, nobody is claiming those things are scientific, but they can still be discussed thoughtfully.
Religion is kind of in a category all of its own. Here, the facts, or lack thereof, surrounding religions, are a common focus of discussion and debate. But discussions of religion can also touch on philosophy, society, art and culture, history etc.
I am interested. What would you say the differences are between "strong anecdotal evidence" and "weak anecdotal evidence"?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
- in situ notes and sketches (eliminates the loss of - and inadvertent alteration of - observations due to the passage of time.)
- detailed recounting of relevant but oft-overlooked factors such weather, geography, time, direction etc. (goes toward perceptivity and objectiveness of witness)
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I already said that. What doesn't apply to them is the scientific method which is what you claim. And history relies largely on anecdotal evidence.
Credibility of eyewitnesses, descriptive detail, multiple eyewitnesses, first handedness of accounts, and repeated anecdotal accounts of the same phenomenon.
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MR:
Historians sometimes talk about "recorded history" as distinct from "oral history". Generally, oral histories are not considered as reliable as documentary evidence, but sometimes they are all that is available to the historian.
No. Eyewitness accounts can be important historical evidence, but history is more often concerned with following paper trails of one sort or another. Documentary evidence of all kinds is especially important. History also draws on a wide range of other observations, and connects with many areas of scientific investigation (e.g. archeology, to name just one).
Historians sometimes talk about "recorded history" as distinct from "oral history". Generally, oral histories are not considered as reliable as documentary evidence, but sometimes they are all that is available to the historian.
Fair enough. I won't disagree with that.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Quantity or quality?
I think that the quantity of participation is declining at all web discussion boards like this one. I post on several, and they are all pretty slow. Part of the reason is that kids these days spend all of their time on cell-phones, not computers. They use "social media". This is the kind of place their parents would frequent.
Quality hasn't been changing very much on the other boards I frequent. So if it seems to be declining here, that's probably board-specific. Part of Sciforums' problem is that it seems like a social-club sometimes, one that's very opinionated, very full of itself, and not very welcoming to new people. Especially if the new people deviate too much from the board's vigorously enforced atheism/political-left/scientism line.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Documents ARE anecdotes of something that happened. History, when it is really done well, is reconstructed from the accounts of the people who lived during that time. An example of that is Ken Burn's Civil War documentary, a rich recounting of events from the letters and diaries of those who endured that tragic series of events. There is no way you can find out what happened in detail without reading written accounts of those events.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Also, it's summer.
History is what actually happened, not just what the people who were there thought was happening.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
History is what people who were there know happened.
Did MR really mean or could it be deduced from his quote that "the Earth was flat and it happened" ?
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
You're confusing knowing with believing, which isn't surprising considering your Christian persuasion.
Tell me how much of your Bible is based on anecdotal accounts.
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An ironic statement from the one who is perfectly fine with the idea that ghostly aberrations come from beyond the grave to mess with the living by shuffling furniture et al. At least with the Bible, the inconsistencies can be attributed to the passage of thousands of years and repeated translations.
The fact that you are unable to see how what we "know" is nothing more than "we believe we know due to repeated testing" kind of proves the quote accurate. What we "knew" and was accepted as "fact" decades or centuries ago... And then, oops, science and technology advanced and we realized that we were wrong, and the sun didn't actually revolve around the Earth, or that sickness was not because of an imbalance of the humors, but because of microscopic organisms that previously could not be detected... The list could go on quite a while, and I've no reason to suspect that our technological Era is somehow exempt from this pattern.