Request for Input - SubForums and Mission Statement

Discussion in 'SF Open Government' started by Kittamaru, Nov 28, 2017.

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Should the non-science sub-forums be rearranged / changed?

  1. Yes - Condense The Fringe to one sub-forum, including Religion

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. Yes - Condense The Fringe to one sub-forum but leave Religion as it stands

    10.0%
  3. Yes - Eliminate The Fringe entirely (combine with The Cesspool), this is a Science site

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  4. Yes - Eliminate The Fringe and Religion entirely (combine both with The Cesspool)

    25.0%
  5. No - Leave things as they are

    60.0%
  6. Other - Please Explain Below

    5.0%
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  1. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe I simply haven't noticed, but do they actually disrupt the science forums? I don't know.
     
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  3. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    They "disrupt" the science forums by posting questions that belie a disbelief in science at every turn and regardless of evidence. It's presented as "questioning" science by people who know no science and yet have theories of their own. That's the definition of the "fringe".
     
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  5. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    If their thread had no value, wouldn't it naturally just die? Sometimes the most inane subject can generate very interesting replies...science.
     
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  7. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Adding the word "science" to the end of a sentence doesn't contribute anything.

    Inane subjects belong in the fringe.
     
  8. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Move the thread to another section; suspend from posting in that section...
     
  9. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Only issue is that, unless I am mistaken, the only one able to suspend members from individual subforums is JamesR. The rest of us can request it, of course, but we don't have the ability to do so ourselves.

    Given that there can sometimes be days, weeks, or occasionally months between his appearances...
     
  10. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    How about, with notice to all members, once you post in the fringe you can't post anywhere else?

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  11. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    But sometimes during the discussion, a gem pops up which makes the whole thing worth the effort. Limiting the conversation reduces the possibility of such a potential outcome. When the absurd rises, those with better ideas also rise. It's not a total waste of time.
     
  12. Seattle Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,842
    In your private life, do you waste a lot of time with people talking nonsense, in the hope that one day something interesting might come out of it?
     
  13. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    My private life isn't spent in a forum such as this, yet often that nonsense provides some room for thought. You people love to talk. Any excuse to do so should be a welcomed opportunity.
     
  14. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    8,828
    Not at all a total waste of time.

    A perspective I never considered before reading that thread.
     
  15. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    exactly. my thread on berenstain bears was obviously so ridiculous to everyone it got zero replies.
     
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,045
    I think Bowser is trying to correct a knee-jerk response to novel ideas which later may be proved insightful.
    Sometimes (not always), great discoveries in science are made by people considered to be "on the fringe".
    There is a long list of such historic "discoveries", which originally were dismissed out of hand, because it wasn't "mainstream".

    Aristotle's concept that fundamentally a hammer falls faster than a feather stood for centuries, before Galileo proved him wrong. Who then was on the "fringe"?
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2018
  17. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    And that's all well and good, so long as one can back the claim with verifiable and reproducible evidence.
     
  18. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I agree, the person must at least be able to expain (defend) the fundamental principles on which the premise is built .
     
  19. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    ...and does that ever happen here?

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  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Of course it does. Granted that happens seldom with most uninformed propositions.

    However, in mainstream science there are many long-standing disputes by "knowledgeable fellows" also.

    Questions:
    a) Where would you place David Bohm's "Wholeness and the Implicate order" (Bohmian Mechanics)? The man knew what he was talking about and had the credentials to prove it.
    b) Where would you place Renate Loll's "CDT" (causal dynamical triangulation)? Developed by brilliant and knowledgeable minds.
    c) Where would you place Max Tegmark's "Mathematical Universe"? He has credentials aplenty.

    These hypotheses go beyond mainstream science, but attempt to go deeper, without directly contradicting mainstream science and IMO, squarely places then in the "Science" forum, even though they have not been formally tested and falsified. But that is not due to knowledge or logic. We just don't have the tools to test them (yet).

    But do they belong in the somewhat derogatory category of "fringe" theories?
    In fact they are "cutting edge" hypotheses, based on knowledge of physics and mathematics.
     
  21. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    There is a difference, though, between hypothesizing something to be a possibility, and insisting that it is a fact without evidence to back such a claim up.
     
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  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,045
    I agree, but that still presents a problem what category to place it in to begin with, without critically examining the proposition first. Science, or Fringe, or Garbage?

    I like the feature that the mods can move a conversation to another category, when it proves to have no fundamental scientific pertinence.
     
  23. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    By my reckoning, it would be science. The defining feature being a desire for truth above a preselected outcome.
     
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