Why is there so much crackpot physics?

I see this idiosyncratic nonsense of Mr. Duffield's that time is not fundamental has resurfaced. The fact that our most basic and comprehensive theories of physics regard time is a fundamental concept seems to elude him.
Has he produced one single concept or equation using motion (instead of time) describing a physical system? Is there any way that can be done?
Oh yeah, pepperhead: take your hands in front of you and wiggle your fingers -- see motion is fundamental -- not time -- now look inside of a clock -- see there's no time hiding in there. That's what he calls physics.
:pigsfly
 
Back to the OP.
I've noticed in a few threads that there seems to be a reciprocity of respect among crackpots. They say things like, "well he doesn't have everything right but he's got some stuff right." Even though their forms of crackpottery are very unlike each other and often clash, there seems to be a tacit acknowledgment that "crackpots are okay." I see this as a subconscious acknowledgment that they are themselves crackpots.
 
Farsight said:
I was about to log off, but to show that I'm nothing like KK's ad-hominem aspersion:

I've answered this question before. You just have motion, it's there, it's empirical, you can see it happening. Clocks clock it up. Cogs move, the big hand moves, the little hand moves. Then you move into the kitchen and move your head and eyes to look up at the clock. Then light moves to your eye, and electrochemical signals move in your brain, and you think "the time is ten o'clock". Ever watched a science fiction movie where some guy has some gizmo that can stop time? It doesn't actually stop time. You can't see time moving or flowing or passing. The gizmo stops motion. And the moral of the tale is this: You don't need time to have motion. You need motion to have time.

Night night.
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This passage shows that you are exactly as I have described: you failed to show how we could describe a physical system without time.

As I have said before, it is not an ad hominem to address facts relevant to the topic at hand. We are discussing crackpot physics and your demonstration of certain phenomena that are at least reminiscent of crackpot physics behaviour.

Another of your unsavory behaviours is your claims of persecutions that you address rather than produce useful physics. Making these claims is a fairly bad way of distracting from the fact that I am correct in saying that you avoid questions, in part because they are a way of avoiding my questions.

So, in the thread for addressing your theory, would you please provide a description of a simple motion without using time, but with using some specific numbers and equations, so that we could understand how to produce time as an emergent property according to the physics you promote?

Surely being able to produce such a simple description is a prerequisite of being able to be an expert in this sort of physics.
 
Farsight said:
I was about to log off, but to show that I'm nothing like KK's ad-hominem aspersion:

I've answered this question before. You just have motion, it's there, it's empirical, you can see it happening. Clocks clock it up. Cogs move, the big hand moves, the little hand moves. Then you move into the kitchen and move your head and eyes to look up at the clock. Then light moves to your eye, and electrochemical signals move in your brain, and you think "the time is ten o'clock". Ever watched a science fiction movie where some guy has some gizmo that can stop time? It doesn't actually stop time. You can't see time moving or flowing or passing. The gizmo stops motion. And the moral of the tale is this: You don't need time to have motion. You need motion to have time.

Night night.
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Radioactive decay happens intermittently -- that is to say, at random times. What moves to time the decay of an unstable particle? If there is no time, only motion, what motion determines the half life of carbon-14 atoms?
 
TjW said:
Radioactive decay happens intermittently -- that is to say, at random times. What moves to time the decay of an unstable particle? If there is no time, only motion, what motion determines the half life of carbon-14 atoms?
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Well, in Farsight's world it is obviously all of those electrons going in circles just like the hands of a clock :rolleyes:!
 
Farsight said:
I haven't made a mistake. The various depictions of electromagnetic waves aren't something I've invented. I didn't invent the terms positive charge and negative charge.

All: do excuse ben m, his physics knowledge is poor, especially when it comes to electromagnetism. And he seems to suffering from some kind of professional jealousy. He often tries to assert I've made some error when I've done no such thing.
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How can there be professional jealousy when nothing about anything you have posted indicates you are any kind of professional. If we have misunderstood that point, please do list your academic background/s, research papers, textbooks or books written, reviews of your work by field specialist, professional positions held,
ANY of that. Pros tend to be proud of their profession and professionalism. I have not so far observed that from you in any way or kind. Exceptional statements require exceptional proof.
 
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Getting back on topic, let's consider how one might recognize crackpottery. Here are some lists of criteria:

John Baez has published his Crackpot index, and it covers a lot of territory. Here are some categories I've identified in it:
  • Erroneous, empty, and unsupported statements.
  • Failure to work out one's theory, including its mathematics.
  • Misspellings and typographical shouting (all capitals).
  • Considering oneself a genius.
  • Considering mainstream scientists closed-minded.
  • Considering oneself persecuted.
  • Claiming that mainstream scientists have been working toward one's theory, or are secretly acknowledging parts of it.
  • Looking forward to a triumph, including humiliation of the scientific establishment.

Martin Gardner's classic Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1952, 1956) has this list:
  1. He considers himself a genius.
  2. He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant blockheads.
  3. He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against.
  4. He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories.
  5. He often has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined.

John L. Casti in Paradigms Lost (1989) expands on a similar list by Daisie and Michael Radner in Science and Unreason (1982):
  1. Anachronistic thinking
  2. Seeking mysteries
  3. Appeals to myth
  4. A casual approach to evidence
  5. Irrefutable hypotheses
  6. Spurious similarities
  7. Explanation by scenario
  8. Research by literary interpretation
  9. Refusal to revise
  10. Shifting the burden of proof to the other side
  11. A theory is legitimate simply because it's new, alternative, or daring

Looking at this thread, some of the items in these lists look suspiciously familiar.
 
Kwalish Kid said:
So, in the thread for addressing your theory, would you please provide a description of a simple motion without using time, but with using some specific numbers and equations, so that we could understand how to produce time as an emergent property according to the physics you promote?
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Another aspect of crackpot physics you note here, Kwalish Kid, taking and trying to apply, as just a label, a word like "emergent". Without actually applying the concept or meaning such a label represents. Emergent properties are those that result from the interactions of large numbers of elements or repeated iterations of simple rules. Both require time as an a-prior consideration, for interaction in the former case and repeated iterations in the latter.
 
Farsight is quite fond of finding excuses to not address significant questions.

His recent actions to produce an excuse bring an interesting question to the front: http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/jref-t648.html

Farsight includes the following quotation, "I quit in protest of a number of ethical issues; foremost was what I perceived as the president, D.J. Grothe’s constant duplicity, dishonesty, and manipulation..."

I, myself, find Grothe to be disgusting and cannot fully support the JREF because of his continued presence. I also left these forums for a while in disgust at the support for misogyny and a priori rejection of philosophy that was rampant in these forums. So while I don't really find the challenges to the Million Dollar Challenge to be compelling, I do understand the issues of trust that someone like Farsight can try to use to lever a reader towards his position rather than using evidence from physics.

I suppose that this is an issue that has to be addressed at a larger scale, to ensure that physics (or science in general) education is not associated with people and ideas that will drive people away.

PS. I would avoid registering at those forums, as they are run by Farsight and, given his history of threatening libel suits and his residence in the UK, I would not want to provide him with too much personal information.

Edit: Thanks for the catch, edd.
 
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Kwalish Kid said:
Farsight is quite fond of finding excuses to not address significant questions.

His recent actions to produce an excuse bring an interesting question to the front: http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/jref-t648.html

Farsight claims, "I quit [the JREF Forums] in protest of a number of ethical issues; foremost was what I perceived as the president, D.J. Grothe’s constant duplicity, dishonesty, and manipulation..."
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From my parsing of his post, he's quoting someone else. He's not saying that himself.
 
Wow. Am I wrong or did he never once mention any of those things that he has against the JREF while he was an active member here?

(although if you read his post over there he doesn't come out and actually say anything, he just says "Then when you look around the internet, it would seem that all is not what it seems. See for example:")

I actually liked Farsight sometimes. He knew more physics than most of the other crackpots on here, and while it's not saying much, he knew more physics than me (I'm well aware of all the places where he was wrong, of course, but he does know some basics), and was often actually willing to discuss what he was talking about in a manner that you could even understand what he was trying to say sometimes. He still frustrated me because I felt he'd stop as soon as the discussion got to the point, and he posted in many threads as though his viewpoint was mainstream physics until someone pointed out that it wasn't (and even then he was reluctant to admit that, though at least he would admit it).

Anyway, some good discussions came up partly because of his posting here. So there's that.

But that post on his forum is just upsetting. I expected him to say things about how "JREF stifles dissent" etc. but not linking to "James Randi and Nazi Eugenics"

Anyway...
 
edd said:
From my parsing of his post, he's quoting someone else. He's not saying that himself.
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Indeed he is. That was written by Carrie Poppy: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/08/07/carrie-poppy-tells-all/comment-page-1/

See the thread about it here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248411

ETA: I see now that i visited Farsight's forum that he explicitely says it's from Carrie Poppy. I wonder how long it will take before Mabus starts posting there
 
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It is quite remarkable that so many contributors to this thread who have advocated "alternative theories" have been banned.
 
Kwalish Kid said:
Farsight is quite fond of finding excuses to not address significant questions.

His recent actions to produce an excuse bring an interesting question to the front: http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/jref-t648.html

Farsight includes the following quotation, "I quit in protest of a number of ethical issues; foremost was what I perceived as the president, D.J. Grothe’s constant duplicity, dishonesty, and manipulation..."

I, myself, find Grothe to be disgusting and cannot fully support the JREF because of his continued presence. I also left these forums for a while in disgust at the support for misogyny and a priori rejection of philosophy that was rampant in these forums. So while I don't really find the challenges to the Million Dollar Challenge to be compelling, I do understand the issues of trust that someone like Farsight can try to use to lever a reader towards his position rather than using evidence from physics.

I suppose that this is an issue that has to be addressed at a larger scale, to ensure that physics (or science in general) education is not associated with people and ideas that will drive people away.

PS. I would avoid registering at those forums, as they are run by Farsight and, given his history of threatening libel suits and his residence in the UK, I would not want to provide him with too much personal information.

Edit: Thanks for the catch, edd.
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Can you join them? I only glanced at a couple of threads but Farsight and John Duffield made 90% of the posts, I wouldn't be surprised if the other 10% were him as well.
 
Perpetual Student said:
It is quite remarkable that so many contributors to this thread who have advocated "alternative theories" have been banned.
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For those that are used to more naive audiences, posting on a skeptics' forums must be quite frustrating for them. Instead of being met with acceptance and/or reverence, their ideas and arguments are publicly exposed as the impotent and unsound drivel that they really are. Apparently for some that frustration manifests itself as repeated breaches of the Membership Agreement.
 
Guybrush Threepwood said:
Can you join them? I only glanced at a couple of threads but Farsight and John Duffield made 90% of the posts, I wouldn't be surprised if the other 10% were him as well.
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Even if non-Duffield humans are allowed in, I'll bet that they don't last long if they display any signs of expertise.
 
Perpetual Student said:
It is quite remarkable that so many contributors to this thread who have advocated "alternative theories" have been banned.
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Not really. In my experience and reading of and from talking to other persons in scientific areas, it is pretty common for persons with what we politely called
alternative theories to come to the field of science/ they are theorizing about with no functional education (other than self reading of some books or - worse - watching history channel or similar very dumbed down science shows), no knowledge of what went into developing the theory/ies they are claiming are wrong, no knowledge of the math done to develop those theories and no understanding of those maths in the theories AND a certain knowledge that they or the person who wrote a false science book they read (with assurance , apparently) that if it is in a book they took the time to read it must be true - it's the other people trying to hold them back/put them down who are reading the fake books promoting the fake theories because obviously they do not know what our crackpot knows. That is why other than carefully worded posts that denote their flaws (personal and scientific) carefully are all I bother with in response to them.OOPS_ the end point: (Edit) Their responses to such criticisms get them banned, not the idiot theories, the responses to having it pointed out that the theories (and thus them - doesn't have to be said, they know that) are ignorant/pathetic and revelatory of their lack of skill, knowledge, ability to function in science and general uselessness.
 
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There was this article that rang true to me:

http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/if-youre-surrounded-by-idiots-guess-whos-the-jerk/

the jerk culpably fails to appreciate the perspectives of others around him, treating them as tools to be manipulated or idiots to be dealt with rather than as moral and epistemic peers. This failure has both an intellectual dimension and an emotional dimension, and it has these two dimensions on both sides of the relationship. The jerk himself is both intellectually and emotionally defective, and what he defectively fails to appreciate is both the intellectual and emotional perspectives of the people around him. He can’t appreciate how he might be wrong and others right about some matter of fact; and what other people want or value doesn’t register as of interest to him, except derivatively upon his own interests.
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A non-jerk can read (say) Brief History of Time and respond "I can't make that work in my head, but I'd need to learn more to say." A jerk can read Brief History of Time and say "Rubbish, that doesn't work, I figured it out better in five minutes. What a lot of morons they let write these bestsellers." To be an actual argumentative crackpot, you do have to assume that your critics are all idiots.

Point being: Being a crackpot may be correlated with being banned/suspended. But crackpottery does not cause banning. Rather, the confounding variable is that being a jerk can lead to both crackpottery and to jerkish behavior that causes banning.
 
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