Perhaps the ultimate nature of the universe is that there is no ultimate nature to the universe.
Why is there so much crackpot physics?
- Thread starter Perpetual Student
- Start date
Perhaps the ultimate nature of the universe is that there is no ultimate nature to the universe.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 34,767
Not really. Baggott is a former chemistry lecturer/researcher who's been out of academia for ~25 years, selling mediocre pop-sci books. OK his The First War of Physics was quite good (though not as good as Rhodes'), but it was littered with errors.
Farsight seems to like him, but them they both criticise current physics research without providing anything better.
He is thinking of the problem that science has still not provided a means for faster-than-light travel. Such inefficiency would never have been tolerated by businesses!
That's interesting. Apparently one of the objections was a philosophical incredulity in the idea of "action at a distance". It looks like Newton didn't have a particularly cutting philosophical answer to this. Nonetheless, this law of gravity was the right thing to pursue, ignoring the philosophical objections, pursuing it helped move the world forwards. Eventually we discovered GR and QM, raising whole new philosophical questions, but certainly making the previous questions look quaint and misguided. It's a good thing the philosophers were not allowed to derail Newton's study of gravity by demanding and intuitively-satisfying theory.
I'd like to point this out as a model for crackpots who want to reject dark energy and dark matter (or: the Standard Model, QM, GR, a fusion-powered Sun, etc. etc.) because of their philosophical dissatisfaction/incredulity. Sorry, crackpots: right now, given the evidence before us, dark energy and dark matter are the best scientific models for what the Universe is made of. You don't find that philosophically satisfying? Too bad. Maybe you're right, maybe today's dark energy and dark matter models will be upended. Maybe the next level of knowledge will satisfy your preexisting belief system. But if you want us to get there, you have to accept that at present people are going to study, and talk about, and hypothesize about, and try to observe, dark matter and dark energy. Intensive study of our best hypotheses will move the world forwards, even if those hypotheses turn out to be wrong. Don't try to derail it because you want a philosophically-pleasing theory right now.
BurntSynapse
Thinker
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2008
- Messages
- 247
No personal offense taken. Everyone is (regrettably) free to deliberately ignore any evidence they choose, while still considering their position worthy of consideration. I avoid such tendencies because I care more about following reliable processes and seek opportunities to have my mind changed.
Are we to take sounds in your head as evidence?
False. Experts in that field made the selection.
False, same as above.
False...and I even provided the book, page number, authors, and the exact text describing it multiple times here, and discussed this on slides in 2 presentations you refuse to watch. I think I've done more than what's fair and reasonable to justify this claim.
As your determination not consider evidence of incorrect assessments is clear, I won't waste either of our times further. Mine is especially constrained since the presentation you won't want to watch has led to a contract with NASA, (via the guy in the back who asked me to post it online), a new gig at PMI, and a VP position managing a project most people on this list seem likely to hear about by the end of the year.
Last edited:
BurntSynapse
Thinker
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2008
- Messages
- 247
That's perhaps the most commonly cited.
The fact that we've always tried to understand nature is unrelated to whether something is amiss.
If you consider the overwhelming consensus that a revolutionary paradigm change is needed to be in error, we can simply agree to disagree.
Such an opinion would be naive. A great 2006 Teaching Company course came out on Audible just recently on the nature of scientifi inquiry by Jeffrey L. Kasser I'd recommend it for long road/plane trips to anyone interested in the field.
He discusses another topic you might be interested in which relates to the Feynman quote in your sig. In the most recent presentation on www.starshipvlog.com I actually at the very end how lack of parallax refuted the heliocentric hypothesis, after which advocates simply moved the goals posts. Kasser discusses the major problem of refuting evidence: it doesn't tell us (or Feynmann) what part of the theory is wrong. All we know is that there is a break in the chain, not which link.
Last edited:
Actually, I spent considerable time digging into the published literature on this. It's pretty thin, remember? These authors ABC wrote a book and a few articles; virtually nobody in history of science has cited their ideas; the few scholarly citations I found seem to disagree with ABC's conclusions.
So, yes, I think the question of "why should we believe this cog-sci-history framework" is a legitimate question, to which "because experts" is NOT a legitimate answer. First, in the social sciences, there is no general expectation that "experts", nor even consensus among experts, have access to criticism-proof truths about the world. Second, you've latched onto a theory---presented by one expert and disputed by others---which is hardly even a candidate for a general truth.
godless dave
Great Dalmuti
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2007
- Messages
- 8,266
I would like to see evidence of this "overwhelming consensus".
Reality Check
Penultimate Amazing
To agree to disagree there first has to be something real to disagree with, BurntSynapse
.BurntSynapse, can you back up this unsupported assertion with some evidence, e.g. that 99% of scientists think that a "revolutionary paradigm change" is needed.
If this is the project management paradigm change that you are fantasizing about then there is no disagreement - you are just wrong. As ben m has pointed out scientific projects are managed according to the best available project management principles. You cannot apply project management to scientific research basically because projects have specific goals and scientific research is open ended.
Perpetual Student
Illuminator
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2008
- Messages
- 4,852
Labeling my comment "naïve" is -- well, naïve. Or perhaps you did not understand my meaning.
There is very little indication that we have any hope of understanding the ultimate nature of things. Consider something very simple, like an electron. What is this thing we call an electron, that acts as a particle -- sometimes, a wave -- sometimes, can be described mathematically as the quantum of a field, has charge, has spin, has mass, but has no measurable spatial extent? You see: all we can do is describe its features and behavior -- not what it is in human (or macro) terms.
Do you really think that will ever change?
Instead of directing us to videos and tapes, why don't you just tell us what these people (like Kasser) have to say.
BurntSynapse
Thinker
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2008
- Messages
- 247
I've explained the obscurity of cognitive and philosophical researchers studying revolutionary paradigm change enough times that attempting *yet again* strikes me as a waste of all our time, but I will offer an analogy:
Physicists are far outside mainstream baseball, where the overwhelming majority of baseball officials, players, and fans regarded (or perhaps still do regard) corked bats as providing significant advantages in distance. Assume we point out that the overwhelming opinion of a very small group of specialists on that particular topic (within baseball physicists) is that the generally accepted corked bat beliefs are false. Next, assume a baseball fan asks if we can support our claim about the narrow group by providing evidence from the general baseball community, who overwhelmingly believe the opposite. This group has with no relation to our narrow claim.
If this question which does not reflect an understanding of our claim, follows dozens of earlier mischaracterizations of our claim, and no accurate representations which we have patiently tried to make clear dozens of times, over weeks or months, and the references we provided are typically ignored...well, at some point, we must simply acknowledge the fan or fans appear unwilling to part with their belief that corked bats hit further, and go our own way.
To such fans, any claims that reasonable evidence exists must be false, and its probably better for everyone if we tell them what they need to hear: "No," we should say "we can't give you any evidence like that."
Last edited:
godless dave
Great Dalmuti
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2007
- Messages
- 8,266
I don't understand how that analogy applies to the study of physics.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 34,767
And the evidence on which it is based. This is reminding me of other wooster claims.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 34,767
It doesn't.
W.D.Clinger
Philosopher
On the other hand, it does apply to BurntSynapse's advocacy of quaternions. He asked whether quaternions could revolutionize physics, which does not reflect any useful understanding of quaternions or physics. He continued to refer to quaternions, often obliquely, usually in connection with mischaracterizations of others' explanations or claims. So far as I can recall, BurntSynapse has made no accurate representations concerning quaternions, as we have patiently tried to make clear dozens of times, over weeks or months. BurntSynapse has typically ignored references we've provided concerning quaternions and just about any other technical issue he's pretended to discuss.
At some point, we must simply acknowledge that we might as well try to explain mathematics and physics to a corked bat.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 34,767
But physicists understand quaternions, they're not new any more (and this is an apt day to remember Hamilton).
They did revolutionise physics, as an extension of complex numbers into a higher dimension, and are still used today. However vector algebra is easier to work with for many purposes.
I studied them as an undergraduate, many years ago. I've even done the canal walk (twice, one with Gell-Mann)
Yes this appears so. Oh well......
I looked back through the thread. I can't find any explanation except, "Yeah, it's obscure, because history-of-scientific-revolutions is a small field". If there is more of an explanation, sorry, I can't find or recall it---can you provide a link to the post?
History-of-scientific-revolutions is NOT a small field. The History of Science Society has over 3000 members. There are four HoS faculty at my university alone, outnumbering (say) Africanists or Medievalists or geochronologists or East Asian art historians. There are twenty or thirty journals in the field. Thomas Kuhn's book sold 1.4 million copies and one of the most-cited academic studies of all time.
I repeat, I hunted through the citation records on this. The records showed that there are enough historians in this field to criticize the work. The records showed that no one has used the work.
Imagine you were a defendant in a courtroom. Imagine that the evidence against you was a spot of blood which had been fed into a machine which claimed it was a DNA match to you. Imagine that the prosecutor explained the machine the same way you've explained ABC/CSoSR.
Prosecution: "This is an expert technique, developed by an expert."
Defense: Has anyone used it before?
P: "No, it's a very obscure technique. Of course. You don't find DNA analysis machines at the supermarket, it's a specialized field."
D: So, what makes you think this works?
P: "The expert who invented it studied it very carefully. He's the expert, not me, I just read the results."
D: A few independent experts who have heard of the machine have written that it doesn't work.
P: <silence>
D: Other machines required validation by independent experts over many years; why should we trust your word on your new and untrusted machine?
P: I am an award-winning prosecutor and your stupid questions show that you don't understand this important machine. You are not worth talking to.
Case closed, right?
You can also construct analogies to physics. Suppose someone came onto this board proposing a new cosmology satellite program based on the theories presented in this book by this Nobel prize winning expert. Yes, it's an obscure book, but this is a specialized field so that's what you expect. But it's very important stuff---just read it, the implications are huge. (And the book? Cosmic Plasma, by Hannes Alfven.) If we don't do this, it means we're abandoning good management principles, and listening to the same bunch of people---and the same failed techniques---that have given us a world without rocket-packs or superpowers of any sort.
Last edited:
Reality Check
Penultimate Amazing
No you have not, BurntSynapse. You have made vague assertions about stuff that you think should happen.
The obscurity of these people makes
just wrong. If not one knows about these people then there is no consensus. There are a few obscure people hiding away.
An wall of text that is not an analogy is also not an explanation.
Last edited:
Reality Check
Penultimate Amazing
BurntSynapse: Evidence for an overwhelming consensus for a paradigm change
Still unanswered (unless your reply was you saying you were wrong about the "overwhelming consensus"):
Still unanswered (unless your reply was you saying you were wrong about the "overwhelming consensus"):
To agree to disagree there first has to be something real to disagree with, BurntSynapseOriginally Posted by BurntSynapse
If you consider the overwhelming consensus that a revolutionary paradigm change is needed to be in error, we can simply agree to disagree.
BurntSynapse, can you back up this unsupported assertion with some evidence, e.g. that 99% of scientists think that a "revolutionary paradigm change" is needed.
BurntSynapse
Thinker
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2008
- Messages
- 247
It doesn't say anything about physics.
It applies to whether or not discussion is worthwhile when talking to someone emotionally attached to a particular view or position to the degree that they simply refuse to understand yours.