No worries, Chris. When I saw Jar's response on Friday I assumed it was a new proposal, not one from a few days before. I didn't notice the date on your post.
Chris, I don't want to suspend you, I just want rational dialogue from you. Rational and intelligent people can disagree about the shortest route to the mall or about whether string theory will ever replace the standard model, but not about whether you need eggs to make an omelot or whether people can fly by flapping their arms. There's an assumption that we all live in the real world and have a fair handle on the difference between fantasy and reality. EvC Forum will not play host to discussions that are not well grounded in reality.
There are plenty of loons and whackos out there. I prefer colloquial expressions for describing such people, but to put a more formal glazing on it, they are people who can't draw rational conclusions from evidence, or who know very little but don't let that stand as an impediment to drawing conclusions.
Here's a nice example of nonsense from a recent issue of
New Scientist. This comes from the section in the back called Feedback, which is a collection of notices about boneheaded articles in the recent press and literature:
"Like zero-point energy, tachyon moves faster than the speed of light and is omnipresent...At the point of the speed of light, tachyon interacts with the subtle organizing energy fields (SOEFs). Becoming energized, the SOEFs convert tachyon energy into whatever frequencies are needed to bring balance to the being...SOEFs are the 'cosmic glue' that holds all forms together. They are the matrix upon which physical and subtle bodies are formed. Tachyon, pure life-force energy, is converted by the SOEFs into the exact frequencies needed to maintain and restore perfect balance to a life form."
This is obviously absurd nonsense, and here's another example:
Furthermore as I pointed out in the CPT thread, the problem is compounded by the nature of conventional PT theory. It is difficult to envision disconfirming evidence of PT (relative to CPT) with all that time. Comparing CPT geology to Modern geology, the latter rather fails the virtue of refutability in the philosophy of science. This virtue of theories is a matter of degree measured by the cost of retaining the hypothesis in the face of imaginable events. The degree is measured by how clearly we cherish the previous beliefs that would have to be sacrificed to save the hypothesis. The greater the sacrifice, the more refutable the hypothesis. Modern geology gives very little sacrifice--so much so that it would require something like finding a human skull in cambrian rock record to even begin to be questioned. In fact, I can't think of too many other imaginable events except like anomalies in the fossil record that would be considered candidates for disconfirming evidence. So much more of modern geology's survivability is in the virtue of conservism and generality than in refutability.
If it looks familiar, it should. It's you in
Message 4 arguing for the legitimacy of CPT in the absence of evidence, and why mainstream theories in geology are suspect because of the strength of their evidence. (Of course, you could easily argue you meant something else as this paragraph is a wonderful example of impenetrable prose.)
There are no words to convince a perpetual motion machine believer that no such thing is possible. Argument, equations, logic, he's impervious to them all. This principle generalizes. There are no words or arguments or logic to turn aside a
believer in anything. It doesn't matter what is believed or why, the belief is impervious to any challange. Overturning it simply can't be done. There are no interventions to help someone caught in the throes of irrational belief.
So to argue with such people is to tilt with windmills. Only they can turn the lightbulb on for themselves, no one can do it for them. In the meantime, here at EvC Forum
believers who are particularly persistent in pushing irrationality and illogic receive temporary suspensions.
You need evidence, Chris. There's no way around it. With all the words and arguments and formal logic and evasiveness you're only fooling yourself. Just as a mathematician who at the end of day finds he's proved that 1 equals 0 knows he made a mistake somewhere in the derivation, you know in your heart that if at the end of your arguments you conclude that theory can be valid without evidence that somewhere along the line you've made a serious mistake.
| -- | Percy |
| | EvC Forum Director |
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