The Ideal of the Noble Scientist

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Magical Realist, May 29, 2015.

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  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    As you have previously been informed, my criticism was mainly in regards to at least two fools and their way out philosophical interpretations of most anything at all.
    And I did not say there is nothing at all to learn from philosophy.
    I see it as more fact then philosophizing, and again, I have never totally written philosophy off at all.It just has limitations in its usefulness to science.
    Terrific!
    At its most fundamental application, I believe I am still right. Is that philosophical enough for you?
    Possibly there are variations, but again, at its most basic fundamental structure, I'm confident it remains the basis for all good science.
    OK, let me tell you in no uncertain terms, my "perception" as you put it, of an anti science presence is real.
    And the best recent example of that was a thread started by MR that insisted that science had done nothing and has never benefited humanity at all, ever!
    It would in my opinion be the most stupid outrageous claim anyone has made on this forum.
    Then we have the many religious nuts that set out to deride it, ably led by one called chinglu, who thankfully seems to have been lost in oblivion.
    A couple of recent new anti science arrivals have been evident also, with one being totally banned, the other jcc? pops in occasionally although he also has had a lengthy stint on the side line.
    Now what were you saying about my perception of "anti science"?
    I was mainly talking about the evolution of life. And disregarding the highly fanciful scenario you have painted, the evolution of life is certain, and as far as we can tell, also the Universe according to latest evidence.
    Well we can be as sure of the effects of time dilation as we can of evolution, and the fact that the speed of light is constant and that both time and space are not as absolute as we once thought due to our personal common sense intuitiveness. Einstein showed that such intuitiveness just didn't hold with regards to space and time.

    And you have won your wager!

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    Although only a lay person, I have read many books on astronomy and cosmology by many reputable authors, and some not so reputable [as Eric J Lerner] and was lucky enough in an early forum that is now defunct, to cross swords with a professional cosmologist and a GR expert. They sort of took me under their wings and put me on the right path.
    Which is why a few of my adversaries on this forum [the alternative brigade] will always down cry and attempt to rebuke any claim I make because I back those claims up with reputable and professional references.
    I'm not totally against anyone pushing alternative hypothesis, but as the record shows, most of those that do, do not have the qualifications, yet they stand there in all their glory, refuting the professional opinions of reputable experts!
    Then of course I will always pose the question, if anyone had any alternative hypothesis of substance, why come to a science forum? They would be pounding on the doors of academia and pushing their model for all they are worth. Yes, its very hard, but so to in most situations were getting those theories which are now incumbent accepted.
    That's part of the scientific method....running the gauntlet and coming out the otherside with as few bruises as possible.

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    Again to finish off, my main argument here was and is directed at MR and wellwisher.
    I accept philosophy and the philosophy of science has been incredibly helpful and useful now and in the past, and always will be.
    I just see some taking it way too far.
    And I'm not proud of my ignorance with philosophy....It's just something that I don't find as "hands on" as the sciences of astronomy and cosmology.
    I mention it to show people that have asked questions [and that I have answered] where I'm coming from, and why in most cases, I re-enforce my answers with links and references.
    And finally nice to have a reasonable, level headed debate with you without name calling and such.
    Any name calling on my part is in most cases a return favour....
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2015
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  3. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Wrong. Each of those quotes I attributed to their authors and included them in quotation marks. Plagiarism is defined as trying to pass off other's words as your own. I never did that, and you have failed to show where I did. So no plagiarism was involved. Again, as you have done in the past, you effectively banned me for 3 days for nothing. I'm reporting this obvious abuse of moderator power to James R and Bells.

    And FYI, to "cite" is to simply quote a book or an author. Which is what I did. Why don't you look up a word before you accuse someone of not doing it?
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2015
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  5. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    That wasn't the only reason. You were also moderated for insults and aspersions with words such as "spastic" and a few others to boot.
    This is primarily a science forum.
    If you see the need to post provocative subject matter, make outrageous claims such as "science has never benefited mankind" or unscientific claims like Bigfoot, you are bound to be confronted rather vigorously about it.
     
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  7. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    "Spastic" merely refers to a muscle spasm. So it isn't an insult. What were these other so-called "insults" you claim I posted?

    I will post whatever I think here whether it agrees with you or anyone else. That's called free speech, a right that true science enthusiasts should have no problem allowing here.
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2015
  8. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps if you hadn't earned such a bad reutation on SciForums, people would be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt more often.
     
  9. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Trolling is dragging personal issues about a member into new threads. If people like you are doing this, then it is you who are violating sci forum rules, not me.
     
  10. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I don't believe you MR, but then again, I don't really care either.

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    Who said you couldn't post?
    Sure you have that right, and you are also responsible for what you post.
     
  11. Kristoffer Giant Hyrax Valued Senior Member

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    I don't see how explaining to you why some will disregard your posts is trolling, MR.
     
  12. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Did I say anything about disregarding my posts? How would people who drag personal issues about me into my threads be "disregarding" my posts? That's the last thing they're doing.
     
  13. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    So many "myth of the righteous researcher" articles and blog pieces started popping-up after this 2008 venture of Terence Kealey, that I wondered if the UK biochemist outright coined MOTNS via the title. But in 2002, physicist David Goodstein openly deposited an earlier claim to it:

    "Finally, I think we scientists are guilty of promoting, or at least tolerating, a false popular image of ourselves that may be flattering but that, in the long run, leads to real difficulties when the public finds out that our behavior doesn't match that image. I like to call it The Myth of the Noble Scientist. It arises, I think out of the long-discredited Baconian view of the scientist as disinterested seeker of the truth, gathering facts with mind cleansed of prejudices and preconceptions. Thus the ideal scientist would be more honest than ordinary mortals, certainly immune to such common human failings as pride or personal ambition. When it turns out, as invariably it does, that scientists are not at all like that, the public that we have mislead may react with understandable anger or disappointment." http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/conduct_art.html

    Again, a scattering of sources like the random one below repeat that it is a "deeply" circulating mis-perception that the public of this or that country, or the world as a whole, has of scientists. But even if the case, there's still the impression of Kealey's post-2008 influence enhancing its supposed apprehension by way of popularizing a convenient label for discriminating instances of the concept occurring amidst students, media people, viewers of cliche movies, etc. Vaguely similar to how the introduction of "symbol grounding problem" in the '90s loaned better cognition to what John Searle's 1980 argument had been trying to get at [in the AI field].

    "There is deeply ingrained in American culture — particularly nowadays on the Left — the stereotype of the scientist as pure in intent and action, caring only for the Truth, let the chips fall where they may. The scientist works readily with other scientists (except when s/he is working alone, late into the night, thinking deep thoughts), accepts — nay, encourages — challenges to her/his theories and findings, welcomes new information and hypotheses, and is always willing to change his/her mind based on better data, models, and/or reasoning. It is, to quote the late Douglas Adams, a load of dingos’ kidneys. A very large, steaming, rotting load of dingos’ kidneys. Anyone who has studied the history of science (as I have) — and/or who has worked with actual scientists (as I have) — knows the truth of it: scientists are just as susceptible to human foibles as the rest of us — perhaps more so for most of them, because of the perennial insecurity of their positions and reputations. Science is every bit as much a human activity as politics, religion, and business, and..." http://andstillipersist.com/2013/09/the-myth-of-the-noble-objective-scientist/
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2015
  14. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Very few scientists are totally self sufficient. Most scientists are beholden to others for resources. Very few scientists, are like in the movie IronMan, where you have a creative billionaire scientist, who answers to nobody, and can afford to be of high character without any outside influence able to apply pressure.

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    In fact, most of the scientists that do the actual work of science, are often the lowest on the science power structure totem pole. A promotion from the lab, to a group leader and office, takes one away from the day to day working with science, in favor of more and more management duties. Richard Dawkins is way up there, and is more like a circus act. He is not in the trenches, since that is at the bottom where you begin out of college, with the best of intent, wanting to change the world.

    Part of the problem in science, in that the noble scientist; college kids and career investigators, who like and do the work, are so low on the totem pole, that they have no power. If one wants more leverage, they need to work their way up the ladder all the way to circus clown. But now it is less about science, and more about politics, connections, causes that may stifle discussion, in ways that help keep the clown juggling.

    Science would be more noble if there was a power structure inversion, with clown having the least voice. The guys and gals in the trenches, are the real scientists but lack a voice apart from publication. Publication is designed to be lot about a little detail and does not allow a voice to address larger scale conceptual ideas and problems. Al Gore, who is not a scientist, but a circus clown, has a larger scale voice about climate, than anyone in the trenches. This is upside down if nobel is important.
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2015
  15. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Right. Your whole point in posting your quotes was to attribute the views that they seemingly expressed to the authoritative figures that you believed had originally written those things. I can't imagine how doing that conceivably be thought of as 'plagiarism'. It's actually the antithesis of plagiarism.

    The whole accusation was just a fanciful justification for jerking you around, because you wrote things somebody disagreed with and they became angry and frustrated.

    So much for the ideal of the noble science discussion board.

    Your quotes may indeed have been misquotes or even entirely spurious. Einstein in particular has had no end of things attributed to him that he never really said. They almost certainly were being quoted out of context, so that they seemed to be implying things that were probably never intended. So it isn't unreasonable to inquire into the sources for these quotes.

    Of course you weren't the only one posting unsourced quotes.
     
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  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    It's standard practice here in getting me banned. Kittamaru pulls some new rule out of his ass, like not providing the website or book you get a quote from (who ever heard of that?) and calls it plagiarism just so he can ban me. Note nobody here gets this sort of treatment. Kittamaru has already falsely banned and infracted me before only to have it reversed by James R. It's a pattern he's well familiar with. Bells suggests I take it up with supermoderator of Tiassa since James appears to be busy.

    It was evident the moment they started insulting me and attacking me for my fringe posts, which to my knowledge is trolling. Balerion used to drag other thread issues into new threads, and got banned for trolling many times. Ofcourse when the mod is the biggest troll around, it's entirely useless to expect proper moderation.

    Banning and flaming in the sacred name of science. What would Einstein say? lol!

    This famous quote by Einstein is all over the internet: https://www.google.com/search?safe=....0....0...1ac.1.64.img..3.16.1853.X_xd5yze_58

    I even have a poster in my bedroom with it on it. And all these quote sites and memes ever say is "Albert Einstein.." What? Are they plagiarizing too? Nobody goes back to the context to contrue some new meaning to it. The context makes no difference. Einstein said it, he meant it, the context doesn't change it, and that irritates the hell out of science fanatics here who for some reason have something against imagination.

    Right..people quote sayings like this all the time on this board without getting banned for it. I think the dishonesty and unfair targeting of me is more than obvious here.
     
  17. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you for admitting you are not here for intelligent discussion... this is not your personal soap box nor social media - while you are correct in that you can post whatever you please, do note you will find yourself being held accountable for it.

    I think this has gone on quite long enough... MR, you have shown time and again you have neither a desire to learn, nor the capability to admit when you have err'ed... it seems your opinion is that everybody else is wrong and you are somehow the sole Beacon of light in a vast sea of ignorance... sadly, like most of your posts, the truth is far more mundane. It's time to let this thread die, lest you continue to make a fool of yourself.

    For the record - your defense of "it is all over the Internet" is pitiful at best - just because it is on the Internet does not mean it is true.

    Ps - I will address your other "concerns" once I am home - doing so on my phone is a pain and honestly, I have better things to do at the moment (such as work and then my brothers graduation ceremony). Fret not though, for I will show you, again, why what you did was plagiarism.
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2015
  18. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    In response to the opening post:

    Do you really think that's a popular conception?

    For example, Hollywood films, to the extent that they accurately reflect popular conceptions, would seem to me to paint a somewhat different picture. Scientists are often portrayed as dangerous and untrustworthy people who are obsessed with their own research and oblivious to any adverse consequences of said research efforts. Or they are portrayed as eccentric nerds who don't really understand normal social interactions. Typically, scientific experiments are portrayed as being uncontrolled or out of control, leading to the need for an "ordinary" hero to step in and clean up the scientists' mess.

    I think that scientists, and other kinds of experts (i.e. those with specialist training and education), are often perceived as powerful but not to be trusted. "We" can't understand what it is that they do, exactly, and yet they have power over various aspects of our lives. Therefore, we're in a bind. On the one hand, we rely on experts to support out lifestyles (remember that scientists made your smart phone and your microwave oven), but we're worried that their power is out of our ultimate control. Therefore, we should be suspicious of their motives and hidden agendas.

    I'd be surprised if anybody went into a career in science for the money or the fame. Science these days tends to be a group effort. Discoveries are typically made by groups of people working together. There are very few rock star scientists (as opposed to science popularisers). And science doesn't typically pay that well compared to say, jobs in finance or IT.

    Scientists are certainly people, and subject to the same kinds of human foibles that everybody else is. They do tend to be "in pursuit of truth", inasmuch as science itself is a pursuit of truth. But the same could be said of many other kinds of researchers: historians, musicologists, journalists, ...
     
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