Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Actually yes.....
The whole forum, including the nonsensical fringe sections, come under the banner of Sciforum.
No..there is no SciForum. There are only SciForums, referring to the 10 science forums.
Closing threads to win arguments
- Thread starter Magical Realist
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No..there is no SciForum. There are only SciForums, referring to the 10 science forums.
Nup...It's Sciforum.....I log in every day with that
Psst! You ain't making much sense my friend
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Magical Realist is actually correct. Regardless of the name, there is as much non-science related discussion here as there is science related. There is nothing requiring the scientific method to be used, particularly for non-science topics. That doesn't even make sense.
This is basically just a discussion forum with a preference (mine as well) for no crank posts in the purely science sub-forums.
I think dislike for some of Magical Realist's positions/posts is causing the "pig piling" going on in this particular thread. Many of you aren't being objective with your comments in this particular thread (IMO).
This is basically just a discussion forum with a preference (mine as well) for no crank posts in the purely science sub-forums.
I think dislike for some of Magical Realist's positions/posts is causing the "pig piling" going on in this particular thread. Many of you aren't being objective with your comments in this particular thread (IMO).
I was "overruled" out of a sense of pity for you... a sense of pity that you have quite obviously exhausted. If you could keep even a modicum of civility and rational logic in your threads, you would be absolutely fine - however, you insist on applying one standard to your posts (taking everything at face value and then delving into the strangest extremes possible), while demanding exceptional evidence from anyone even remotely counter-indicating your desired outcome.
That isn't science... that isn't even pseudoscience of alternative theory. That's trolling, plain and simple, and to be put it bluntly - it's gotten old.
Truthfully, MR... I think under different circumstances, perhaps we could have been friends. You have a wonderful sense of curiosity and an apparent desire to find... something. If you could temper your desire for the paranormal to be real and be just a little more objective, I think you could wind up leading an effective team to find "the truth thats out there"... but you have to put what you want to be true in one basket and put reality in another, then compare them, not simply declare that what you want IS the truth.
Cest 'la vie...
Science can be applied to anything, as can critical thinking. It doesn't mean the same process/procedure works for every scenario, but there must be some basis to begin from... otherwise it is useless posturing and supposition.
Case in point - in another discussion on another website, I am talking with someone about possibilities and challenges in radiation shielding a craft for a manned journey to Mars. One of the folks I am talking with knows far, far more about the atomic level interactions of high energy particle radiation with materials than I do - yet, because he is willing and capable of breaking it down a little bit, I am able to digest and learn from it. He is backing his statements with facts and figures taken from well vetted and tested sources, giving me confidence that what he is saying is accurate.
When I ask questions, he gives direct and concise (if not always brief, as he makes a point to be clear and thorough) answers that fill in gaps in my (and presumably others) knowledge.
Are we necessarily discovering anything new? Probably not... but it allows people who are less well versed in the subject matter take part and be able to glean knew (and often times, exciting) knowledge from the discussion, without ridiculing or otherwise belittling them.
The same can be done with Religion, Aliens, and, well, just about anything... the key is to put the facts before the opinions, and if a question does not have a solid answer, the response of "I don't know" is, in fact, perfectly valid and acceptable. It's a GOOD answer, even, because it allows a parallel discussion to start to try and answer that "I don't know", leading to potentially greater insight.
That is where certain members here run into issues. "I don't know" is a big phrase, and it often scares people to admit!
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Nup...It's Sciforum.....I log in every day with that
I just tried to go to
http://www.sciforum.com
and it failed. "This site could not be reached. DNS server could not be found".
I'm fairly certain Paddoboy was being facetious...?
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Actually yes.....
The whole forum, including the nonsensical fringe sections, come under the banner of Sciforum.
If that's the case, shouldn't this board be renamed 'Scientismforums' instead of 'Sciforums'?
There are two religion forums here, there are politics forums, several philosophy forums (that usually don't contain philosophy discussions), there are arts and literature forums...
If the suggestion is that only a "scientific methodology" is intellectually respectable and hence that if all of these subjects are to be accepted as genuine parts of human knowledge, they must adopt and conform to "scientific methodology"... then that's a definition of 'scientism'.
What's funny, though, is that some folks are obsfucating what the actual issue at hand is.
Simply put - trolling (especially in the case of reposting debunked and invalidated studies/evidence/opinions as "new and exciting" or "still valid") is intellectually dishonest. That has never been an acceptable behavior here, and it never will be.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Only if the meaning of the word 'science' is expanded so much that it becomes synonymous with epistemology, logic, metaphysics, and in humanities subjects like history, literature, art and religion, hermeneutics.
I'm inclined to agree, but I think that the foundation of rational discussion is to be found in informal logic and in epistemology (the theory of knowledge). That's where I think answers to the 'how do you know that?' and 'why should I believe that?' questions are to be found.
Of course, establishing what the facts actually are might often be a matter of opinion. Facts are existing states of affairs in the world. Our beliefs about what the facts are, are opinions. That's true even if they are scientific beliefs. What science tries to do is have as many of its beliefs as possible qualify as knowledge. Defining 'knowledge' traditionally, that means true beliefs that are well justified. Truth presents a problem since truth isn't something that's directly observable. That leaves justification. And I don't think that all beliefs are justified in the same way, even within science.What's more, people often disagree about what is and isn't a good justification.
I heartily agree. That applies to far more of life than most people are comfortable acknowledging. Pretty much all of our beliefs melt away if our questioning is pushed very hard. It's like that thing that pre-schoolers do to adults- ask 'why' to everything you say. 'Why?' You provide an answer. 'Why?' You provide an answer again. 'Why?' You get frustrated. Intellectual life is like that, even science isn't immune. Ask 'why' three or four times in a row about anything and you find yourself at the frontiers of human knowledge.
I agree. But we might disagree on who those members are.
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Which is perfectly fine - we can only answer "why" down to a certain scale (and, inversely, up to a certain scale) as a function of our ability to measure. After all, if you are measuring the size and location of an object by throwing basketballs at it and seeing where you get returns, that is not going to work so well at measuring an object the size of, say, a golf ball - you aren't going to get a return because the basketball is just going to knock it out of the way.
Much the same, you aren't likely to get any sort of meaningful return from a sheet of paper (it will likely rip a hole in it), nor will you gather much data about the size of a planet (unless you have a LOT of backetballs and a lot of time)
Much the same, you aren't likely to get any sort of meaningful return from a sheet of paper (it will likely rip a hole in it), nor will you gather much data about the size of a planet (unless you have a LOT of backetballs and a lot of time)
Actually true Kitt: I log in every morning, [just as I have now] with just "sciforum"
This is first and foremost a science forum, and obviously all comes under the banner of critical scientific thinking, and the ability to stand up to such critique.
On the subject of UFO's, and as far as I can remember, most all have agreed that some remain as "unexplained" or "unknown" or as the "U" in UFO signifies, "Unidentified"
Yet this still is not recognised by MR.
The same applies to other sightings of supernatural, paranormal etc etc.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I like this definition of ufo:
UFO
noun
- a mysterious object seen in the sky for which, it is claimed, no orthodox scientific explanation can be found.
synonyms:flying saucer, alien spacecraft/spaceship, unidentified flying object
"the Phoenix police received sixteen calls about the sighting of a UFO last night"
Whatever definition floats your boat: The essence remains though, "Unidentified"