caveman1917
Philosopher
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2015
- Messages
- 8,143
After some renewed discussion on the Ukrainian conflict in the politics section I decided to look at some relevant articles on RationalWiki. I noticed that the article on the MH-17 crash was still peddling a long-debunked CT claim regarding the flight ceiling of the Su-25 aircraft, so I corrected it. An, ahem, interesting experience ensued.
The claim in the RationalWiki article is that the Su-25 is limited to a flight ceiling of 7km. The only source provided for this is a pop-science article, which in turn references the Sukhoi website's page on the Su-25K (the K is an old export version with reduced flight characteristics). It even goes so far as to claim that an Su-25 flying at over 7km would defy the laws of physics.
References regarding the non-K versions of the Su-25 do clearly state a correct 10km flight ceiling, including export agencies in former Warsaw Pact states such as Bulgaria and Ukraine itself, as well as enthusiast websites. One can of course also find this in the main reference work on the Su-25, Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot by Alexander Mladenov (see the table on page 27). The most damning piece of evidence would be a flight video recorded by an Su-25 pilot and uploaded to youtube here which, at time point 5m33, clearly shows the altimeter showing an altitude of 8.7km and rising. This would, by the claims in the RationalWiki article, be direct evidence of defying the laws of phyics!
A sysop then immediately reverted the article back to its previous state using an ad hominem appeal (ie "your claim is wrong because you appear serious"). I reverted it back, pointing out that whether I appear serious or not has no bearing on the correctness of my claims and that he was employing an ad-hom. He then reverted it back, claiming that his previous argument regarding me appearing serious wasn't an ad-hom, with some more ad-hom appeals added to it and locked the article.
This shows several things one tends to see with conspiracy loons:
1. Making claims without evidence.
2. Refusing to engage with contradictory evidence.
3. The use of ad hominems in lieu of rational argument.
4. Especially, here, the claim that one must be "Pro-Putin" to dispute the claimed flight ceiling of an aircraft. This reminds of the retort CTers use in saying "you're just pro-government" when presented with evidence which contradicts their claims. Rational people would understand that one's political preferences have no bearing on the flight characteristics of an aircraft. The "Pro-Putin" is of course also a simple lie, but at that point I wasn't expecting anything better anyway.
Given these observations, is this what one can expect in general from RationalWiki - ie plain crackpottery? And if this is just an exception regarding one individual loon, this begs the question: why do loons get sysop powers there? Using an analogy with a scientific journal: it's one thing for a crackpot to have been able to slip a paper through, it's quite another thing for them to actually be on the editorial board.
The claim in the RationalWiki article is that the Su-25 is limited to a flight ceiling of 7km. The only source provided for this is a pop-science article, which in turn references the Sukhoi website's page on the Su-25K (the K is an old export version with reduced flight characteristics). It even goes so far as to claim that an Su-25 flying at over 7km would defy the laws of physics.
References regarding the non-K versions of the Su-25 do clearly state a correct 10km flight ceiling, including export agencies in former Warsaw Pact states such as Bulgaria and Ukraine itself, as well as enthusiast websites. One can of course also find this in the main reference work on the Su-25, Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot by Alexander Mladenov (see the table on page 27). The most damning piece of evidence would be a flight video recorded by an Su-25 pilot and uploaded to youtube here which, at time point 5m33, clearly shows the altimeter showing an altitude of 8.7km and rising. This would, by the claims in the RationalWiki article, be direct evidence of defying the laws of phyics!
A sysop then immediately reverted the article back to its previous state using an ad hominem appeal (ie "your claim is wrong because you appear serious"). I reverted it back, pointing out that whether I appear serious or not has no bearing on the correctness of my claims and that he was employing an ad-hom. He then reverted it back, claiming that his previous argument regarding me appearing serious wasn't an ad-hom, with some more ad-hom appeals added to it and locked the article.
This shows several things one tends to see with conspiracy loons:
1. Making claims without evidence.
2. Refusing to engage with contradictory evidence.
3. The use of ad hominems in lieu of rational argument.
4. Especially, here, the claim that one must be "Pro-Putin" to dispute the claimed flight ceiling of an aircraft. This reminds of the retort CTers use in saying "you're just pro-government" when presented with evidence which contradicts their claims. Rational people would understand that one's political preferences have no bearing on the flight characteristics of an aircraft. The "Pro-Putin" is of course also a simple lie, but at that point I wasn't expecting anything better anyway.
Given these observations, is this what one can expect in general from RationalWiki - ie plain crackpottery? And if this is just an exception regarding one individual loon, this begs the question: why do loons get sysop powers there? Using an analogy with a scientific journal: it's one thing for a crackpot to have been able to slip a paper through, it's quite another thing for them to actually be on the editorial board.
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