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Changes To The Challenge

At one stage scientists didn't believe that rocks could fall from the sky, that was a pretty preposterous idea.

Until someone demonstrated that they could. And then replicated it.

Has anyone replicated a PMM?

It's OK to postulate an absurd hypothesis (although I'd try and keep it mostly to myself) - but you have to make it work before anyone will take you seriously. Especially if it destroys the basic and well-tested rules of the universe...

ETA: Try this - think of something that has been invented in the last, i don't know, 50 years that when people looked at it didn't say - "Oh, yeah... That's a really obvious progression of what we already know."

In other words how surprising is the technology that we're inventing 'now' on a day to day basis?

ETA2:I'm actually interested to know if anybody can think of anything... I'm trying - I'll let you know.
 
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Nothing extraordinary was ever accomplished by a reasonable person
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AgingYoung said:
I'm looking for that quote and found one similar....

  • " ... the most important results in daily life are to be obtained, not through the exercise of extraordinary powers, such as genius and intellect, but through the energetic use of simple means and ordinary qualities, with which nearly all human individuals have been more or less endowed ..." Samuel Smiles

mean Gene
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When you say similar, you do realise it says exactly the opposite? Just as a little advice, when arguing that your average, reasonable person can't make big discoveries, it doesn't really help your case to provide quotes saying that most results are from ordinary things that everyone can do.

robinson said:
Errr...ummm...I know better than to step into this, but history has shown over and over, and still does, that simple, sound evidence has failed to convince skeptics, naysayers and cynics, and even fellow scientist. Over and over and over. It is so common, it doesn't even seem unusual, to have some new idea, or invention, dismissed, reviled, or ignored. Or attacked, ridiculed, mocked and destroyed.
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Yeah, they laughed at Newton when he invented gravity, Einstein when he made it better, everyone who did quantum, Maxwell, Boyle, Kelvin, the discoverers of new planets, Hubble, Shcrodinger, Feynman, Fermat, etc.. Oh, wait, no they didn't.

What is laughed at is when someone comes up with a idea that has little or no evidence or support. Very occasionally they are right, and in every case they are, this has been proved using simple, sound evidence. In the vast majority of cases, new ideas are dismissed because they are wrong, but obviously you never hear of them because a few decades later, no-one cares. While people who have no idea how science works hear about the few cases where someone right was laughed at, this is simply because they make good stories. Think of all the discoveries that have been made in human history. Now think of all the cases where a scientist was actually laughed at. It's so far out of the same ballpark that it's nearly come back in the other side.
 
Cuds,

The term 'reasonable person' is a fiction found in law. Although nothing extraordinary was ever accomplished by a reasonable person, very extraordinary accomplishments and even those most important results in daily life are the product of the persistent use of abilities available to most anyone. Everyone has their perspective yet I don't see the two quotes as being exactly opposite.
Just as a little advice, when arguing that your average, reasonable person can't make big discoveries…
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There's a difference between 'average' and 'reasonable'. I never argued this point you're attributing to me.

I still can’t find the author of the first quote.

Gene
 
Probably most people, either with extraordinary ability or average ability, coast from day to day. I think most people don't push the limits of their abilities. In the legal fiction of 'reasonable person' there's no distinction made concerning intellect. It's only a contrivance used for supposition (i.e. what would a reasonable person do in these circumstances).

mean Gene
 
robinson said:
I think any educated person in this modern world could give you examples. Everything from X-rays to airplanes have been considered far fetched, fanciful, ridiculous, even considered nonsense at the time of their practical applications.
And even more so twenty years before the fact. Plate tectonics, cellular endosymbiosis, ions, real hard science stuff, as well as life in the deep oceans, and life without sunlight, or oxygen. All of these concepts, or hard realities, were considered by the most learned of men, to be woo.

Actually, most educated people have no idea of what really happened with great discoveries. It isn't taught much. And this instant dismissal of ideas is ancient. I can guess it happened to the first person who used fire, or cooked meat. The rest of the tribe probably cracked his skull open for his efforts.
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Consider it part of the test. If something is a true discovery, it will survive derision and dismissal. Rational people tend not to win the lottery either, since they tend to not play. That's still short of a convincing argument to be irrational.

That's the curse of being a genious or a nut: you never know which you are.
 
Seek and ye shall find. I keep seeking and found something close to what I originally quoted...

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

-- George Bernard Shaw
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All resistance is futile! You will be assimilated!!

mean Gene
 
AgingYoung said:
...
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

-- George Bernard Shaw
...
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"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire



But I have to admit, Gene, I think I understand what you're driving at. However, at some point, the seemingly unreasonable man has to come up with some results.
Then, the seemingly reasonable herd of primates determine if they accept.
 
GzuzKryzt,

The mighty Master of the Multiverse knows these things. I really think you've created a monster here!

I'm real certain the herd of primates will get on board once I produce something. It's no easy nor small task overthrowing conventional wisdom. I know people don't want to talk generally about such a specific idea. I am very slowly getting my limited intellect around the idea of per-pet-ewe-woo motion. From what it seems, Newton was talking out his hat. lol. Ok, back to the drawing board...

Gene
 
Why does this thread keep getting so ridiculously off topic? Half this thread seems to have nothing to do with the mysterious changes to the challenge.

What is it now, 12 weeks?
 
Thank you, nok. You are very correct. I take some responsibility in derailing this thread.

I apologize for not responding to Gene and Robinson earlier. The reason, though, is that my responses would only derail this further. vIQleS and Cuddles picked up the ball and said what I would have, only better.

Yes, let's get back on track. Changes to the Challenge.
 
Yes, changes to the challenge. Most likely any changes will be prominently posted somewhere on the site. It shouldn't be hard to spot. I think they should up the ante.
13,070 views, and no changes yet.
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Lots of interest, Robinson.

mean Gene
 
nok said:
Why does this thread keep getting so ridiculously off topic? Half this thread seems to have nothing to do with the mysterious changes to the challenge.

What is it now, 12 weeks?
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Yeah, good on ya, mate!

i come in for my weekly bump and see all this off-topic stuff.

Is that official - announcement at TAM? I see nothing on the JREF site.

If so, It'll save me bumping it.
 
robinson said:
I think any educated person in this modern world could give you examples. Everything from X-rays to airplanes have been considered far fetched, fanciful, ridiculous, even considered nonsense at the time of their practical applications.
And even more so twenty years before the fact. Plate tectonics, cellular endosymbiosis, ions, real hard science stuff, as well as life in the deep oceans, and life without sunlight, or oxygen. All of these concepts, or hard realities, were considered by the most learned of men, to be woo.

Actually, most educated people have no idea of what really happened with great discoveries. It isn't taught much. And this instant dismissal of ideas is ancient. I can guess it happened to the first person who used fire, or cooked meat. The rest of the tribe probably cracked his skull open for his efforts.
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robinson,

All of the things you mention above are now generally accepted by the scientific establishment, thereby proving the proposition that simple, sound eveidence will convince the reasonable, reasoning mind.
 
I just discovered this conversation was redirected to

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2195108#post2195108

X-rays and airplanes were scoffed at, and derided, by most "reasonable" people at the time they were being used. The "reasonable" leaders of the USA didn't consider the airplane to be worth anything until after other countries started using them. Air travel, defense, mail, discovery, all these uses of aircraft were brought about by unreasonable men, who fought the status quo, who went ahead and did stuff, despite the cynics and the reasonble men who said it would never happen.
 
robinson said:
I just discovered this conversation was redirected to

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2195108#post2195108

X-rays and airplanes were scoffed at, and derided, by most "reasonable" people at the time they were being used. The "reasonable" leaders of the USA didn't consider the airplane to be worth anything until after other countries started using them. Air travel, defense, mail, discovery, all these uses of aircraft were brought about by unreasonable men, who fought the status quo, who went ahead and did stuff, despite the cynics and the reasonble men who said it would never happen.
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I don't understand your point, robinson. Are airplanes scoffed at now by any "reasonable" people? Sure, new things take time to become widely accepted. That does not change the fact that all of the things you have mentioned have become widely accepted. Therefore, your argument that sound, solid evidence does not convince reasonable men is disproven by your own examples.
 
Gr8wight said:
I don't understand your point, robinson. Are airplanes scoffed at now by any "reasonable" people? Sure, new things take time to become widely accepted. That does not change the fact that all of the things you have mentioned have become widely accepted. Therefore, your argument that sound, solid evidence does not convince reasonable men is disproven by your own examples.
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It would be unreasonable to have this conversation in two threads. Are we reasonable men or not?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2195185#post2195185

I'm going to move your post and reply to it there. Or would that be unreasonable?
 
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