divideandconquer » Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:15 pm wrote:Let me get this straight. Conspiracies are confined to what? The last 50 years? 100 years? Prior to that conspiracies did not exist? Or cannot span hundreds or thousands of years? The only dogmatic thinking I see here is from the people who allow their emotional attachment to a 500 year old theory condemn anyone who asks questions or who provide contradictory evidence to their ingrained belief system. Using NASA, abstract mathematical models, and mainstream scientists doesn't prove anything to those of us who do not trust these abstractions/people/institutions.
I don't know why it's so hard to say, "I don't know". Because unless you've been to space and have seen the globe spinning at 1000 mph, you don't know. The only thing I know is that I don't know.
One thing for sure. So many of you who post here are skilled practitioners of the rhetoric of contempt. I think I prefer outright ridicule.
Worth making things more explicit, because there is a lot of "apples and bathtubs" discussion happening - things which are very different.
The first:
The Fixed Flat Earth theory as a model for the structure of the surface of the Earth.
If one has a mathematical model, one only needs ONE counterexample to that model to be provided, for that model to break.
My candidate for the counterexample: Intercontinental airline flights in the Southern Hemisphere, such as from Santiago, Chile to Sydney or from Jo'Burg to Perth. I have seen NO explanation of the flat earth model. I know Saffa friends who have flown from RSA to Aus.
I would estimate that the time required to do a point by point refutation of all the mathematical points put forward in the video would take dozens of hours. The point however is that that is not required. ONE counterexample is enough.
The second:
The patterns of response of scientists and their supporters to a challenge to an existing theory.
This is the domain of the philosophy of science and of management cybernetics.
An excellent example of scientists having fuck all understanding of the philosophy of science is the response of TED to the Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock talks, which I'm sure you have seen.
When reductionist scientists go into a frenzy over any questioning of their orthodoxy, which still trumpeting from their castle ramparts about being "evidence-based".
Personally, I say fuck them and the horse they rode in on. They are emitters of large amounts of the Moron, the fundamental(ist) particle of stupidity. Sneery physicists like pseudoskeptic Brian Cox are in their weird conflation space of science and scientism. On the whole I have met no community of people who are less capable of groking deep politics issues than pseudoskeptics. Asking with JREF posters to comment on Ptech? <Chirping Crickets>
Read 'Against Method'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
In his books Against Method and Science in a Free Society Feyerabend defended the idea that there are no methodological rules which are always used by scientists. He objected to any single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would limit the activities of scientists, and hence restrict scientific progress. In his view, science would benefit most from a "dose" of theoretical anarchism. He also thought that theoretical anarchism was desirable because it was more humanitarian than other systems of organization, by not imposing rigid rules on scientists.
For is it not possible that science as we know it today, or a "search for the truth" in the style of traditional philosophy, will create a monster? Is it not possible that an objective approach that frowns upon personal connections between the entities examined will harm people, turn them into miserable, unfriendly, self-righteous mechanisms without charm or humour? "Is it not possible," asks Kierkegaard, "that my activity as an objective [or critico-rational] observer of nature will weaken my strength as a human being?" I suspect the answer to many of these questions is affirmative and I believe that a reform of the sciences that makes them more anarchic and more subjective (in Kierkegaard's sense) is urgently needed.Against Method. p. 154.
The third:
The role of paraculture (Jerky's phrase) in the academic ecosystem.
My take is that that ecosystem is a deeply corrupt, busted flush that deserves to be flushed down a toilet.
Physics in particular is full of sexist, arrogant dicks who learn to mimic the behaviour of the successful people preceding them, in a way similar to medical consultants ie treat those below them with contempt and those above them with dedicated brown-nosing, while reciting politically correct talking points about being patient-centered, or interested in innovative approaches, in the physicists case).
My assessment is based on seeing the treatment of a brilliant woman PhD physicist whose work revolved around the application of a branch of very abstract mathematics called category theory.
The people who say "Oh why don't they just publish in a peer reviewed journal" show the same myopia as the JREFers on Ptech.
Where money goes, so goes conspiracy, perhaps in similar or geometric proportion.
The Harvard Corporation filled it's coffers from the pensions and saving of Soviet citizens (read up on, it's grants going to prestige big projects. If someone tells me this type of corruption is not going to have a knock-on effect into what is investigated by whom with which resources, I have a spare London Bridge to sell them.
http://solari.com/blog/pug-winokur-is-now-history/
Edited for spelling
