Scientific American and Science censorship... [Physics]

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From: Vince Morgan on 17 Jul 2010 21:25

"eric gisse" <jowr.pi.nospam(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:i1t725$q6f$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
> Benj wrote:

>
> What makes sense is that you clearly don't have a firm grasp on how
science
> is actually done in the 21st century.

I think the IPCC has given many a much clearer view of how science CAN, and
is being done in the 21 century. And not only that it CAN be done by hand
waving, lack of method, lack of transparency, stacking the peer review
process etc etc. , but it is also teaching us all that if you have a large
enough political body behind you, you can not only completely disregard any
geniuine critisism by your peers, but that of anyone else for that matter.
The IPCC is now absolute PROOF that science doesn't have to be 'scientific'
in the 21 century. If you can get enough peers to claim that they agree, or
just make up some numbers to suggest they do, then today you can claim your
theory and or research is largely infallible. If the tree ring data doesn't
fit the measured temps, then make a hocky stick out of it and see if it will
fly anyway. And when you get caught out you appeal to the political
authority to fix it whilest you take a leasurely vacation. Later returning
with the caim that you have been completely exonerated. Exonerated by whom?
The political authority of course. This is NOT science and a child can see
that. But then again, the emporers non existent new cloths were only so
clearly visible to the much more sophisticated grown ups weren't they.
Certain areas of science today (by far the majority) have taken on a very
different philosophy to the scientific method. One that we should all be
very concerned about I think. Science by concensus. You know the way it
goes. "Everyone agrees with me, so you are certainly wrong." If you ask
for that list of 'everyone', they then rapidly and rancidly apply add
hominem attacks.
What has recently taken place at the University of East Anglia and the IPCC
puts any argument that science is today still scientific completely to rest
It's not even a matter of whether their conclusions are right or wrong, it's
how they are doing it that should be of very very great concerne. The fact
that so few aren't in the least concerned is even more worrying. If I
couldn't, or refused, to supply the source-code and data for a computer
application I were to write for any company that had any kind of security
policy they would be absolute fools to accept it. Paying tens of thousands
for a untrustworthy computer application is one thing, but a multi million
dollar international taxation scheme based on same principals is something
else again. Whilest such things are going ahead largely unchallenged by
supposed scientists and researchers only a fool would put his trust in
science today. Fortunately for some there are a great many of them
apparently.
Regards,
Vince

From: Vince Morgan on 17 Jul 2010 22:26

From: Androcles on 17 Jul 2010 22:50

"Vince Morgan" <vinhar(a)TAKEOUToptusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:4c4265ef$0$7966$afc38c87(a)news.optusnet.com.au...
|
| "eric gisse" <jowr.pi.nospam(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
| news:i1t725$q6f$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
| > Benj wrote:
|
|
| >
| > What makes sense is that you clearly don't have a firm grasp on how
| science
| > is actually done in the 21st century.
|
| I think the IPCC has given many a much clearer view of how science CAN,
and
| is being done in the 21 century. And not only that it CAN be done by hand
| waving, lack of method, lack of transparency, stacking the peer review
| process etc etc. , but it is also teaching us all that if you have a large
| enough political body behind you, you can not only completely disregard
any
| geniuine critisism by your peers, but that of anyone else for that matter.
| The IPCC is now absolute PROOF that science doesn't have to be
'scientific'
| in the 21 century. If you can get enough peers to claim that they agree,
or
| just make up some numbers to suggest they do, then today you can claim
your
| theory and or research is largely infallible. If the tree ring data
doesn't
| fit the measured temps, then make a hocky stick out of it and see if it
will
| fly anyway. And when you get caught out you appeal to the political
| authority to fix it whilest you take a leasurely vacation. Later
returning
| with the caim that you have been completely exonerated. Exonerated by
whom?
| The political authority of course. This is NOT science and a child can
see
| that. But then again, the emporers non existent new cloths were only so
| clearly visible to the much more sophisticated grown ups weren't they.
| Certain areas of science today (by far the majority) have taken on a very
| different philosophy to the scientific method. One that we should all be
| very concerned about I think. Science by concensus. You know the way it
| goes. "Everyone agrees with me, so you are certainly wrong." If you ask
| for that list of 'everyone', they then rapidly and rancidly apply add
| hominem attacks.
| What has recently taken place at the University of East Anglia and the
IPCC
| puts any argument that science is today still scientific completely to
rest
| It's not even a matter of whether their conclusions are right or wrong,
it's
| how they are doing it that should be of very very great concerne. The
fact
| that so few aren't in the least concerned is even more worrying. If I
| couldn't, or refused, to supply the source-code and data for a computer
| application I were to write for any company that had any kind of security
| policy they would be absolute fools to accept it. Paying tens of
thousands
| for a untrustworthy computer application is one thing, but a multi million
| dollar international taxation scheme based on same principals is something
| else again. Whilest such things are going ahead largely unchallenged by
| supposed scientists and researchers only a fool would put his trust in
| science today. Fortunately for some there are a great many of them
| apparently.
| Regards,
| Vince
|
I have the following criticism of your otherwise excellent post.
"etc etc. ," -> etc. etc.,
"geniuine" -> genuine
"critisism" -> criticism
"21 century" -> 21st century
"hocky" -> hockey
"leasurely" - > leisurely
"emporers non existent new cloths" -> emperor's non-existent new clothes
"grown ups weren't they." -> grown-ups, weren't they?
"very very great concerne" -> great concern
"same principals" -> same principles
"Whilest" -> Whilst
I cannot fault the gist of your missive but you need an editor, my friend.

From: Szczepan Bialek on 18 Jul 2010 14:55

"franklinhu" <franklinhu(a)yahoo.com> wrote
news:af75e346-82d1-4bd3-b176-8d050f9eccd2(a)k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com...
>
> So, if I try to publish
something about "electrostatic gravity" as long as I back it up with
some logic, this should be allowed. However, I think in most cases, it
is not allowed since we all know that gravity isn't electrostatic in
nature - right?

No. We know from Aepinus that gravity and electrostatic are the same.
We now know that Moon dust levitate. We know that the Earth has the exces of
electrons and for thie reason the gravity constant measured by Cavendish is
too low.

>So no one is allowed to read about how gravity could
possibly be electrostatic.

Aepinus is in Britannica. Everybody can read.

>Now, it would be great, if forums were only moderated for rude
behavior and legibility and the forums were there to help collaborate
on new ideas rather than just shoot them down for fun. But, we have
human nature to contend with and I'll take what I can get - long live
sci.physics!

Sci.physics.electrostatic - is it a wrong idea?
XXI century needs the new electrostatics.
S*

From: PD on 19 Jul 2010 11:44

On Jul 17, 1:24 am, franklinhu <frankli...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 16, 9:00 am, PD <thedraperfam...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jul 16, 10:44 am, Marvin the Martian <mar...(a)ontomars.org> wrote:
>
> > > On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:51:19 -0700, PD wrote:
> > > > On Jul 15, 2:00 pm, Benj <bjac...(a)iwaynet.net> wrote:
> > > >> I'm sure you all know that the censored forum supported by Scientific
> > > >> American, Physics Forums, has taken over "moderation" of
> > > >> Sci.physics.research. Or should I say taken over censorship of it.
>
> > > > Moderation is not censorship, though anyone on the wrong end of the
> > > > stick could equivocate.
>
> > > True enough, moderation is not censorship. But your logic is flawed;
> > > censorship can be imposed by "moderators".
>
> > Moderation is imposed by moderators. Whether that is perceived as
> > censorship is in the hands of the beholder.
>
> Censorship is too broad a term. The real question is 'what is the job
> of the moderator in these forums?' I would think that the moderator
> should filter out personal insults and irrelevant topics and other
> such non-science junk. I think what the OP complains about is that
> even if someone posts a perfectly well researched and thought out
> topic that meets EVERY standard of scientific inquiry, that if it
> disagrees at all with the current scientific thought, that it will be
> disallowed in the forum. Anything which deviates from the status quo
> is being considered 'junk', when it should not be. I don't believe it
> is the job of the moderator to decide that something that someone
> submits must be wrong and therefore doesn't allow them to be
> published. They should only look at whether the arguments are
> presented in a sensible manner and may be of interest to someone else
> interested in the same topic - nothing more. So, if I try to publish
> something about "electrostatic gravity" as long as I back it up with
> some logic, this should be allowed. However, I think in most cases, it
> is not allowed since we all know that gravity isn't electrostatic in
> nature - right? So no one is allowed to read about how gravity could
> possibly be electrostatic. This is what the OP is complaining about,
> not just some random censorship. There ought to be moderation
> standards which strictly forbid the moderation of the types of ideas
> that may be posted - a freedom of speech right. But that never happens

I think your ideas on moderation are what YOU want them to be. I also
believe that your notions of what "satisfies EVERY standard of
scientific inquiry" need some refinement. In the customary practice of
science, the investigator bears the burden, for example, of looking up
all existing experimental data that are relevant to the claims of a
proposed model. The investigator also bears the burden of looking up
any theoretical work of previous investigators that may have bearing
on the proposed model. There is more to scientific inquiry than
coherence of logic or orderliness of presentation.

For example, you obviously have not looked at previous work that
investigated an electrostatic basis for gravity. So you don't have a
grip on what problems those theories ran into and what your version
must also address. That burden lies on YOU, not on others to reveal to
you.

>
> With regards with sci.physics.research, that forum is lucky to get 1
> post a day. How uninteresting is that? How useless is that - there
> isn't any real discussion going on and I doubt anyone spends much time
> on that forum for that reason. Not open and not interesting. If
> sci.physics.research wanted to be interesting, they'd just moderate
> out the non-science junk so that posters would know that all ideas are
> allowed. But here in the wild west of sci.physics, there are lots of
> posts and lots of people like yourself who are willing to fling
> yourself into long conversations on just about anything.

Well, here you see you have an expectation of a group that may be
different than those who are active in the group. To a lot of serious
investigators, they would rather see one quality post a day than a
free-form discussion of several responses a day of lesser quality. You
find it uninteresting. So stop using that forum.

>
> But of course, the problem here is that nobody is here to collaborate
> on ideas here either. It merely serves as a shooting gallery where the
> "real" scientists take shots at the crackpots. Case in point, I just
> wrote a lengthy article describing how to calculate the atomic line
> spectra and intensity using only Rydberg formulas. This is feat which
> has apparently never been done before. I'd think it would be a pretty
> big deal, but in the shooting gallery of sci.physics, nobody has taken
> a shot at it with zero substantial responses.

And here I would comment that I do not believe any of the science
groups serve well or are INTENDED to serve as a forum of scientific
collaboration in the usual sense. That's simply not what it's for. If
you were hoping that sci.physics is a place where you can work with
other scientists and collaborate to produce a publishable work, then
I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place.

>
> Why? I can only guess it is becuase this is a shooting gallery, and if
> you can't take a shot, you don't. I painted a huge target, but no one
> is willing to shoot at it. The only other reason is that if what I say
> is correct, it completely blows away the foundations of the quantum
> mechanical atomic model which has been saying it is impossible to make
> such formulas for years and makes all the "real" scientists look like
> fools for not having discovered it themselves long ago - it show just
> how far into their shells they have withdrawn to completely ignore
> obvious results. To say anything would be to admit defeat.

Sorry, but this is self-serving crapola. It's a cheap "dare-ya"
tactic. It's a foolish taunt, "If you don't rise to my challenge, then
it's because you're quaking in your boots." Has it ever occurred to
you that what you propose just isn't of much interest?

>
> Now, it would be great, if forums were only moderated for rude
> behavior and legibility and the forums were there to help collaborate
> on new ideas rather than just shoot them down for fun. But, we have
> human nature to contend with and I'll take what I can get - long live
> sci.physics!
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Actually, the leftist who can resist being a dictator when handed a
> > > little power is rare.
>
> > That may be so, but keep in mind that a lot of societies DELIBERATELY
> > choose someone to exercise that kind of control over certain aspects
> > of their lives.
>
> > Such is the case with subscribers to moderated forums. They are
> > choosing them BECAUSE they are moderated. They are not choosing them
> > because they are the only things available and they have to suffer
> > with the fact that they are moderated.
>
> > I will reiterate that there are AMPLE opportunities to publish
> > information in a completely unmoderated fashion, and in such a way
> > that they can be easily discovered. There is no ADDITIONAL need to
> > break the moderation in a moderated forum, so that unmoderated
> > information is displayed to that audience. To do so would make that
> > forum undesirable to the audience that subscribed to it.
>
> > There are unmoderated forums and moderated forums, with subscribers to
> > each. It does absolutely no good to desire the abolition of moderated
> > forums.
>
> > > Interesting that you support such abuse and shutting down of dialog.
>
> > > And yes, the staff of "Scientific American" abandoned science for left
> > > wing politics decades ago. It's a worthless rag now.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -