A Place for Conservatives

[Alfalfa]

Thank you NAOS. Now I feel just fine putting you on ignore since you refuse to add anything of value to this thread.

Welcome to the club buddy!

 

[NAOS]

Thank you NAOS. Now I feel just fine putting you on ignore since you refuse to add anything of value to this thread.

Rad.

 

[framer]

You do not understand the scientific method or the terminology that you are using.

Please read the question that I answered. Peer review does NOT take place in the public forum. What you are describing is NOT peer review.

On your peripheral points, Cold fusion is a great example. Pons and Fleischmann were peer reviewed and their paper that included their hypotheses were accepted in a journal. Acceptance in a journal is NOT the same as being accepted as a scientific theory. It was a very bad hypothesis. And a hypothesis that was immediately and mercilessly skewered by leading chemists and physicists as implausible. No one could repeat their experiments. And there it sits, in the dust bin. The scientific method at its best, disproving hypotheses at its core.

Yes, Einstein generated a great and healthy debate. They were challenging his peer-reviewed published hypothesis. And then the tried to disprove it over and over and over again. Leading up to the point general relativity and other ideas were eventually adopted as scientific theories.

The process you described was of quiet introspection, where people are just kindly checking each others work. That isn't what we have. Every newspaper has an article "Scientist clams groundbreaking new (fill in the blank.)" That process precedes most peer review. These battles are fought in the public before the peer review process and I would submit that taints the process. Once the scientist has been on Oprah, who the Hell cares what the review says. The dude is going to sell a million copies of his book. On the other hand, someone could have a perfectly plausible theory that is politically incorrect. How does peer review work for that? Are reviewers able to set aside their politics and personal beliefs and analyze the data on its merits? No. That isn't the way it works. On the other hand, you put forward a theory that enforces their beliefs it gets pushed to the top and skeptics are disfellowshipped. THAT is the process we have today for a lot of the sciences. Gender Studies, Nutrition, Climate Science, Economics, Social Science, and Parenting have all been tainted to some degree.

There is always an Inquisition, that never changes.

 

[Heathme]

Liberal hero Ted Koppel on liberal bias in the media:
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/n...trump-not-mistaken-about-biased-liberal-media

 

[Alfalfa]

What would happen if Heathme lost his internet connection and had to actually argue with someone face to face? :O

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

You don't evidence much understanding of what peer review is and how it works. That's quite a different thing than how media presents scientific news.

You want to know what the state of science is, you need to look at what is getting published in peer reviewed scientific journals. This has nothing at all to do with Oprah; what Oprah says or does is irrelevant to what the science is.

If you are butt hurt that "the other side" isn't getting enough airtime, the other side is not what conservative pundits, bloggers, and motivated reasoners say it is, but what the science says it is. There's not always an other side where it comes to science; there's often disagreement about details and specifics, but about the broad scope of things, related to, say, the science of evolution or human-induced climate change, there exists a broad consensus. There's really no other side on these issues, or not much of one.

Plus, I can guarantee you that IF there is indeed another side, the science will bear this out over time. Science really does self-correct. That's one of the beauties of the process. But it will be the science that does it, not motivated reasoning by conservative ideologues.

BTW, media tends to do a very bad job in disseminating scientific news, often misunderstanding or misstating the science, choosing to focus on wrong things, over simplifying, etc. But then they're motivated by ratings, not by scientific rigor. You're a fool if you rely on what's being reported by the media to form informed opinions of what the state of the science is.

 

[Zombie]

Rad.

LMAO

 

[Alfalfa]

I mean look at the certainty alfalfa is displaying. He has no damn idea and isn't an astrophysicist but he KNOWS damnit!!! I mean he may have more pieces than the average dude, but his certainty is bullcrap. There are people with more knowledge and accolades that disagree with his learned (not arrived at) conclusions, that aren't treated like heretics by the people that currently believe as he does.

I've displayed zero certainty about anything. I just explained the current state of cosmological understanding. I don't think the way you do. When I say heat death is the currently agreed upon outcome, I mean that a vast majority of practitioners in the field accept it as the best explanation for the information we currently have. Nothing more, nothing less. New information or insights might come about in the next 5 minutes and change that. I don't care. I have no money in the game. I'd just learn about the new things.

 

[framer]

You don't evidence much understanding of what peer review is and how it works. That's quite a different thing than how media presents scientific news.

You want to know what the state of science is, you need to look at what is getting published in peer reviewed scientific journals. This has nothing at all to do with Oprah; what Oprah says or does is irrelevant to what the science is.

If you are butt hurt that "the other side" isn't getting enough airtime, the other side is not what conservative pundits, bloggers, and motivated reasoners say it is, but what the science says it is. There's not always an other side where it comes to science; there's often disagreement about details and specifics, but about the broad scope of things, related to, say, the science of evolution or human-induced climate change, there exists a broad consensus. There's really no other side on these issues, or not much of one.

Plus, I can guarantee you that IF there is indeed another side, the science will bear this out over time. Science really does self-correct. That's one of the beauties of the process. But it will be the science that will does it, not motivated reasoning by conservative ideologues.

BTW, media tends to do a very bad job in disseminating scientific news, often misunderstanding or misstating the science, choosing to focus on wrong things, over simplifying, etc. But then they're motivated by ratings, not by scientific rigor. You're a fool if you rely on what's being reported by the media to form informed opinions of what the state of the science is.

You are a fool if you think popular culture does not have a thumb on the scale of scientific review. Grants fund science. A scientist doesn't get very far without funding. This has been true as long as there has been science. Not many self funders in the scientific community. Science has always been carried upon the kindness, or favor, of others.

Like I said, sometimes science works like you say. Other times it does not. I DO understand how it is supposed to work.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

I don't believe it, sorry. It happens all the time to liberals. There are no end of right leaning media sources; any conservative will have absolutely no difficulty finding media that will reflect his/her world outlook. Thus the ongoing persecution complex within the right is silly. The fact that so many right-leaning people flock to right-leaning outlets, moreover, is proof that they are not searching for unbiased news sources, and thus don't object to them per se, but rather prefer biased news sources reflecting their world views.

I further vigorously dispute your argument that the other mainstream news orgs (e.g., CNN, NBC, NYT, Wash Post, etc.) are equal to Fox. That is on its face a ridiculous and false assertion. Fox, at least its commentary and not hard news functions, is, for all intents and purposes, the propaganda arm of the Trump Admin. There's being biased (and I concede the existence of bias, everyone is human after all), and there's being a purveyor of propaganda. CNN is the former, Fox is the latter.

Your vigorous dispute is laughable. It might be true that Hannity is deeper in the pocket of Trump than any network opinion host has been for any other president, but Obama had more media members in his pocket than any politician other than possibly Bill Clinton. Do you remember how he made some of them tingle?

Your claim that right-leaning people seek right-leaning outlets is proof of something wrong about them falls apart completely when you consider where the left-leaning people tend to get their news.

And the idea that the playing field is even is laughable. When Hillary is under investigation she is allowed to sort through her emails to decide what is personal and can be destroyed, and what is relevant and needs to be turned in. Her associates are virtually all given immunity as some sort of investigative courtesy. When Trump gets investigated his associates are wiretapped, spied on, stripped of all their possessions in pre-dawn raids and indicted. Watching all of this unfold the left-wing media doesn't even seem to notice any disparity at all.

 

[framer]

I've displayed zero certainty about anything. I just explained the current state of cosmological understanding. I don't think the way you do. When I say heat death is the currently agreed upon outcome, I mean that a vast majority of practitioners in the field accept it as the best explanation for the information we currently have. Nothing more, nothing less. New information or insights might come about in the next 5 minutes and change that. I don't care. I have no money in the game. I'd just learn about the new things.

The vast majority accept what their professor told them because they have other fish to fry. I would wager that people that if you got a room full of people that have spent a lifetime of study in this exact area you would get a kaleidoscope of opinion about the nuances of the thing and perhaps a fistfight or two. A good portion of them would love to see the system break (the good ones anyway) because that invites opportunity.

I chose Big Bang because I think it an example of good science and process. There really isn't much politicization because most creationists and atheists are fine with their version of it. It is new science with a lot of good points and some weaknesses that is still ground worth fighting over. We aren't going to overturn gravity, I don't care enough to learn about string theory, so overturning Big Bang and cloning a mammoth are two of the main scientific hobbies I enjoy. Obviously I got a whole other wish list for engineering. . .

 

[Alfalfa]

The vast majority accept what their professor told them because they have other fish to fry. I would wager that people that if you got a room full of people that have spent a lifetime of study in this exact area you would get a kaleidoscope of opinion about the nuances of the thing and perhaps a fistfight or two. A good portion of them would love to see the system break (the good ones anyway) because that invites opportunity.

I chose Big Bang because I think it an example of good science and process. There really isn't much politicization because most creationists and atheists are fine with their version of it. It is new science with a lot of good points and some weaknesses that is still ground worth fighting over. We aren't going to overturn gravity, I don't care enough to learn about string theory, so overturning Big Bang and cloning a mammoth are two of the main scientific hobbies I enjoy. Obviously I got a whole other wish list for engineering. . .

Here's the thing. You are utterly ignorant on the subject. I know enough to know that your level of understanding of physics is extremely limited. And like you said, I'm not an astrophysicist. Imagine how laughable your arguments would be to an actual astrophysicist?

If you're gonna go around critiquing theories, and accusing those who are trying to explain them to you to be shills for the man, then you have to at least try to match their level of understanding. Not the decades spent actually studying it. But at least an effort.

For now, it's all just noise.