Can nonsensical quack threads have scientific value to the board?

There are many threads started on this board that could be considered "nonsensical quack threads"...which on the surface appear to have no scientific worth or learning value.

But in some cases, I would disagree...

Sometimes threads filled with garbage science OP's make people angry enough to go do the research on their own..just so they can disprove the OP...and science learning happens.

In my own experience:

There have been a host of "911 conspiracy" threads lately that I have taken guilty pleasure in participating in. While they are filled with junk science, I actually went out and researched the construction of the WTC complex, in order to de-bunk the troofers, and came away with some fascinating knowledge of the engineering of the twin towers. Real...science...knowledge.

Sometimes crap can lead to gold.

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What about the stuff nobody needs to research on their own because common sense and basic understanding of the world are enough ?

 

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And many other times crap just leads to more crap!

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Crap stinks.

 

True...I'm not defending all crap.

just some crap.

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Another example:

One member started a thread completely about himself, detailing the problems in his life. Absolutely no science content....but that thread made me do research into the "SSI" benefit program...since that topic was brought up in the thread....and I learned something.

 

Hey, there's some great crap out there, it's just that most of it really doesn't mean much except to those writing about it or talking about it. Just listen to politicians speak, they talk crap all of the time.:shrug:

 

But that is your ability to even learn something from crap.
What about all the people that actually believe the crap ?

 

You must learn to tell the differences between shit and shinola!:itold:

 

Some people can't, apparently. And others have to try and clean up the mess, often to no avail.

 

True...maybe we need a warning label or something.

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lol I like that idea.. a crap label

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We do have that turd emoticon..

 

"The following thread contains crap and is not intended for all audiences. Cerebral discretion is advised."

 

:thumbsup:
Got to get to work now..

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:wave:

 

The thing with those kinds of threads, they are so laughably deranged you know they are wrong. The problem with some other threads, like Reiku's (and people like StevenA over on PhysOrg) is that they try to make it as smooth as possible and are not above throwing in terminology they know is considered 'complicated' to put off Average Jo Public from correcting them. After all, if you Wiki for things like 'manifold' 'topology' or 'renormalisation' you'll come up against some pretty formidable maths immediately. And anyone who isn't familiar with that maths just has their eyes glaze over and they stop there.

But there's some of us whose eyes don't glaze over. We understand those pages (sometimes even wrote those pages!) and see through Reiku's nonsense. And we say so. But why do I keep replying to him if I know better than he does? Because of his presentation, he is deliberately trying to sucker people who don't know better into thinking his nonsense is physics. It most certainly isn't!

He even once said he's writing a book on his work but it won't be aimed at physicists but at the general public. Precisely the people who don't know enough to see through his lies. He's out to commit scientific fraud, basically.

He'll throw in equations which are gibberish but if you don't know the maths, all equations look like gibberish. But when you do know the maths, you see his ARE gibberish.

Hence some (most!) pseudoscience threads are not good.

 

Let me ask you this AlphaNumeric,

In responding to Reiku's posts, by correcting him, have you ever learned anything new, or re-discovered some old knowledge, or thought about something that you hadn't thought about before?

 

Not with his work no. When I started posting a lot on physics forums I did find that it helped by understanding. Having to explain to people the subtles of GR's description of black holes for instance. I'd just finished a course entitled 'Black Holes' and while I could crunch algebra, sometimes the concepts were a little hazy and it helped explaining them to others to clear things up for me.

Reiku, however, doesn't ask questions, he just posts garbage. And not garbage which requires a lengthy explaination of the difference between local and global constraints or the implications of supersymmetry, it's literally incoherent nonsense. His posts, to someone who isn't scared off by the maths and knows what the big words he uses mean, are basically something like

My model of quantum conciousness says that the mind is a table, upon which you juggle fish. This is expressed by \(e^{\textrm{elephant}} = potato + 5\), which proves that up is east and I'm the king of Spain.

It doesn't require me to give a well thought out explaination about why that's BS. It's just BS.

 

lol...

ok..maybe you didn't learn anything...but here's my interpretation of a typical Reiku thread:

Reiku: My model of quantum conciousness says that the mind is a table, upon which you juggle fish. This is expressed by , which proves that up is east and I'm the king of Spain. (this is what you read...all I see is a bunch of ancient sandscript hieroglyphs that are meaningless)

AN: Reiku, your math is all wrong again. In the 3rd year of graduate school, you learn I.P. Freeley's Theory of Stream Dynamics...which covers all the basic math that your idea entails. If you would read Freeley..I think you would have a better understanding of the subject matter.


What if a undergrad physics student read your response, and was not familiar with the Theory of Stream Dynamics, or I.P. Freely...so they looked it up...and learned something? Would that have value?

(of course substitute a real physicist in place of Freeley

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)

 

Its not about the crap, but about what they ate. Do you know?

When you do, its no longer crap.

 

You can use crap to start a garden and grow food.

Or, you can fill a sewer with it. Either/or, basically.

 

But it still stinks..