At 20:21 17/09/2007, you wrote:
On 9/17/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
wrote:
Similarly, neutrality does not imply any need for
long-winded
debunkings, nor does it require labeling with such epithets as
"pseudoscience". Certain avenues of scientific investigation eventually
failed when more information became available, and eventually faded from
public consciousness. It is grossly disingenuous to attach retroactive
value judgements on these failed theories. That these avenues were once
pursued remains as an historical fact deserving of a proper
explanation. Anyone reading old material will encounter literary
references to these concepts, and should be able to find an explanation
about what the author is saying without wading through a lot of
polemics. The failure of many of these theories can often be stated in
one short paragraph that undermines a fundamental premise for the theory.
Ray;
With all due respect, quite a number of these "theories" are never
sufficiently credible to be properly called scientific in the first
place.
In which case we do not describe them as such.
I do not believe in being so neutral and open minded
that our brains
fall out and we fail to distinguish between serious science that
turned out in the end to be wrong on one side, and interplanetary
billiards a la Velikovsky, creationism, and the like on the other.
The credibility of Velikovsky's ideas have
nothing to do with the Pensée series. And
Velikovsky never described planetary "billiards".
Regards,
Ian Tresman
www.plasma-universe.com