A lucid and logical response, but I notice you have to reword my question substantially in order to give that logical and rational response. I was not asking about believing in unproven things or about making decisions based on those beliefs. The only part that relates to my original question is below:
I'm not sure I'd call it a 'substantial' rewording, but rather one that details precisely what I mean by 'nonsense' (to avoid problems with definition). And when I say decisions, I'm basically meaning any action (no matter how small) taken involving the information in question. However, I acknowledge your point.
While I can understand your feeling that way, I hope you can understand that given the small amount of public funds allocated for such endeavors and the fact that you and I would no doubt differ in many particulars regarding the priority of various research projects, I don't consider that much support for your statement of "wasteful, unproductive and damaging to science".
Even relatively 'small' funds, if it is being spent frivolously, should be avoided. Again, I'm not suggesting it means the creation of global poverty and famine, but I'd argue that even five bucks given to the 'find Bigfoot' fund is wasted when it could be given to the 'find a treatment for HIV' fund.
The point is, at what point could something be seen as wasteful? It depends, of course, on what evidence there is to suggest that there is a 'good' (which is where the real discrepancy lies) chance of finding something. This relies on evaluating evidence that supports a claim, and determining where a theshold of probability lies.
If your neighbour told you he saw a goblin in his backyard, could he have five bucks to contribute towards a camera to capture it on film...would you give it to him? I'd doubt it, even if it was only five bucks. Why? Well, his evidence is anecdotal and weak, and that money could be better spent on something like your lunch.
I agree that it would be a sad world if we couldn't investigate speculations, yet it is a world of finite resources. Loch Ness has been searched high and low, people make their living on the loch, many locals drive past it every day...until there is substantial evidence highlighting something that has been missed, it's like searching your handbag over and over for your keys when you really should be looking somewhere else. I'm not arguing that somebody from Fort Augusta or Inverness driving out to the loch for a picnic who decides to go for a walk and keep their eyes open for bones is a huge waste, by any means, as the action is proportional to the evidence (small effort, small amount of evidence). Just like somebody looking for UFO's while laying on the beach is hardly a waste. But as resources are added, I argue that it becomes inproportional to the weight of evidence.
Actually you do quite well. I've been meaning to compliment you on your posts in the skeptics need to grow up thread. You brought up some good points I hadn't considered before and stayed calm despite the emotionally charged content of many of the posts. I've given up on that thread, but read it for several pages just to see what you had to say. I ended up putting slimething on ignore as a result of that thread. It was too tedious just to scroll though his rants.
Lol, thanks. Yeah, some people just don't seem to get the fact that no matter how good your argument is, if you come across sounding like a dick, nobody's going to listen.
I do appreciate the compliment, though.
I can agree with your last paragraph, but not much else. The "damage" you are discussing is pure speculation. I could just as easily speculate that investigating such things is beneficial to science and well worth it's cost just for the public relations aspect of it.
Speculation itself is not a bad thing. What is to be questioned is the stage at which speculation can be acted upon. Speculation should go through stages of action, relative to the evidence in support of it. If my dog disappears, it'd be reasonable to speculate that it escaped through a hole in the fence, and since there's ample evidence of this I might call the pound. There's minimal evidence that a UFO stole it, so I would consider it damaging to the process (you're wasting time, for instance) to ring the local air base and ask if they'd seen any unexplained aircraft in the vicinity.
You worry about the population doesn't know when speculation stops and science begins. Areas that are of great interest, such as nessie, are also a wonderful opportunity to draw people into discussion about it and illustrate such concepts.
True, and I concede you might have a point that such speculation could be useful for educational purposes. However, why is it with Nessie that people are admanant that we must search and search and search (when there continues to be no evidence that this is fruitful in supporting the claim), while other, far less exciting scientific endeavours (but perhaps much more useful to humanity) are given minimal resources to work with?
Athon
