[WikiEN-l] Slander against scientists

[Ray Saintonge]

Toby Bartels wrote:

>Ec wrote in part:
>
>>Students of alternative
>>scientific theories are content to pursue their studies, and have better
>>things to do with their time than to go out attacking scientists.
>>
>You should hang out on alt.sci.physics.new-theories more often.
>(Not that I ever go there anymore, so no promises.)
>Still, these aren't the same sort of people as chiropractors,
>or even serious astrologers.
>
I had never visited there before.  So I had a quick look at random 
articles.  Someone was referring to accelerating assholes.  I 
immediately determined that the entire newsgroup was moving beyond my 
mental capacity at an exponential rate.

>>That something cannot be proven does not make it false.
>>
>No, but the attitude of the sceptic (which is most opponents of pseudoscience)
>is that something should not be *relied*upon* unless it's been verified.
>Let's assume for the sake of argument that chiropractic is pseudoscience
>but your family doctor's methods have been verified a good deal
>(by which I mean that they've survived several attempts at falsification).
>Then the sceptic's POV is that your family doctor is worth turning to
>but the chiropractor is more likely just a waste of your time --
>so if this POV has any credence in society, then it's dishonest
>to suggest that the chiropractor is as reliable as the family doctor.
>(This is a more subtle position than what I *think* RK is saying,
>and I haven't checked whether, say, Fredbauer is violating it or not.)
>
Subtlety does not appear to play a big role in RK's approach to a 
subject.   ;-)  but let's leave RK aside.

The argument that you are making seems probabilistic, and I can go along 
with that.  Any two approaches to a problem will have varying 
probabilities of success.  In many medical conditions chiropractic and 
standard medical techniques will have different  probabilities of 
success.  In very many of those conditions chiropractic's will be very 
near zero.  But dismissing chiropractors as utter charlatans does not 
lead to the conclusion that the standard medical doctor will perfect. 
 They too have often been sold a bill of goods by drug company sales 
representatives with fat commissions to protect..

>>In the spirit
>>of Kurt Gödel there are always things that cannot be proven within a
>>finite set of principles.
>>
>As a mathematician, I'm contractually obligated
>to refute misapplications of Gödel's theorems.
>Of course, you only said "In the spirit of" ....
>
It would be a shame if Gödel had no practical application!

>>Fermat's Last Theorem could not be proven for
>>300 years, did that make it false during all that time?  Were all the
>>people who insisted on its truth for three centuries to be called
>>pseudoscientists, or even more slanderously, frauds?
>>
>No, but anybody that maintained that it was a theorem
>would be called, at best, mistaken.  No mathematician
>would have *relied*upon* its truth, even one that believed it.
>Of course, we're not exactly comparing the same things here,
>scientific verification vs mathematical proof.
>
You really should try to get people in the other sciences to accept 
mathematical standards of proof. :-)

>>A basic concept of
>>logic is that the negation of the statement "All A are true" is "Some A
>>are false" and NOT "All A are false".  The fallacy of the excluded middle
>>ignores that simple principle.
>>
>
>Aside:  Constructivist mathematicians would argue that even
>"Some A are false" is too strong.  But that's irrelevant here.
>
My requests are more modest.  Consistency with basic logic, or 
consistent definitions.

Ec.