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Woo Argument Flowcharts

phildonnia said:
Pardon, but isn't this how scientific progress occurs?
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I think the meaning was that new laws of nature are not lightly adopted by the scientific community, and it's often a historical event if it does. Compare this against the mass of claims whose theories rest on new laws of nature.


As for Tai Chi, I think it would be rather to easy to flowchart his stratagem:

Make random semi-comprehensible one-liners ---> semi-comprehensible one-liners are challenged ---> Respond with another, slightly different random semi-comprehensible one-liner ---> slightly different random semi-comprehensible one-liner is challenged ---> Disappear and/or put challenger on ignore

Done!
 
I find it interesting to ask the woo what would make them change their mind... and if they avoid the answer (they always do... or they answer obliquely) then they have a faith based claim... not amenable to reason.

I ask the AGW deniers what the imagine the difference would be if the AGW was real and the kind of thing all people should be concerned about-- Because if AGW was incorrect, I'd expect to see a wellspring of scientists presenting their evidence in peer reviewed papers and telling people to relax--but instead I see more and more scientists and skeptics sounding the alarm bell--from many different areas of science--

The woo always have weird vague "loaded" questions they ask...and they ignore so many questions and attempts at getting them to clarify... they are forever playing semantic games to frame the issue into a question with some sort of implication... science aims to clarify... you understand more-- With woo--you hear a lot of words, but the aim is to obfuscate.... I always end up understanding less. Lots of words--nothing said.

Denial (like T'ai putting everyone on ignore), a complete lack of curiosity to the answer to the questions they ask, tangential arguments, and goal post moving are sure signs. They also tend to say things like "I'm skeptical of the skeptics" or "scientists have faith the sun will come up", etc. They'll accuse forum members and/or everyone else who disagrees with them as being part of some conspiracy or clique-- they blame their failure to communicate on others rather than the incoherency of their claims. The "orange" example above was an excellent example.
What are they trying to say?-- They are inferring something about skeptics being wrong, but they're not saying anything coherent enough to address.
 
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Oh... and try to get one woo to sum up what another woo just said-- they don't even understand each other, I suspect. I don't think creationists really understand other creationists... they just latch on to the part that makes sense with whatever it is they want to believe. Go ahead, try it. Really. Woos have to align with each other so they feel like they are making sense to someone other than themselves... but they can't paraphrase one another for the most part. They can't even engage in diaglogue with the people who seem to share their same warped version of reality.
 
Normal Dude said:
Every step in the explanatory portion needs to have either "Energy" or "Quantum _______" mentioned.
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Something like this?

woobingodl2.gif
 
Niobe--that's fantastic! Did you make it yourself? I might add some words--(energy, vibes, "inner knowingness", astral, ether, organic, "outside science", soul, "brains in vats", karma, darwinist, conspiracy... gosh there is so many) I bet we could come up with enough for many hours of woo bingo fun.
 
More words
- alternative
- complementary
- free energy
- Scientist know nothing (or words to that effect)
- testimonials.
- Eastern
- secret revealed
- Make money
 
rjh01 said:
More words
- alternative
- complementary
- free energy
- Scientist know nothing (or words to that effect)
- testimonials.
- Eastern
- secret revealed
- Make money
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oooh... those are good...

How about:
"law of attraction"
"doctors don't want you to know"
synergistic
 
How could you forget:

Magnetic
Crystal
Doesn't work when you watch me (is there a word for this?)
 
Rough draft. Suggestions?
 
Phrost said:
Beautiful.

We could probably flesh out the part about anecdotes to include assertions, "Faith", scripture, appeals to authority, etc.
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I like that. I'll see if I can come up with something prettier after work today.
 
Starthinker said:
How could you forget:

Magnetic
Crystal
Doesn't work when you watch me (is there a word for this?)
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oh... those are good... as for the latter "bad vibes" or "skeptics have negative energy"-- or it takes "faith" to work. What are some of the keywords of the AGW deniers? Creationists like to use words that mix up science and religion--like "scientism" or "evolutionarianism" or "Darwinism".

telepathic, out of body, astral, healing, manifest, qualia....
 
Activ-On (is that how it spelled?), 30C, ESP, chakra...

I think we should start another thread for this?
 
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