Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 "Ron Ritzman" wrote:
If you have a foolproof objective way of identifying the difference between the good and the bad tenacious advocates, I'd be grateful if you'd share it.
They're "good" if they are using it to fight "real" injustice in "real life". They're "bad" if they are using it to push a POV or get their way on a website. I'm not saying that people with alternative positions on issues shouldn't state their case. I'm saying that they should state it in a civil manner, see if it flies, and if it doesn't then go do something else.
OK, so let's take this test and try it on an article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons
Here we have a case where some very sincere people are campaigning to get the medical establishment to recognise a disease. The medical establishment refuses, saying this is just symptoms of already known diseases.
Read www.morgellonswatch.com if you have the time; the top two or three posts are a very balanced statement of the medical establishment's POV here.
I neither know nor want to know anything about Morgellons. There are clearly some people who believe that it is a validly distinct syndrome, and others who don't. It is not for us to judge which of them is correct. The fact that the medical establishment is in opposition is not in itself a valid argument against this concept. It is an argument from authority. We can only say what each side believes.
In broader terms definition is the sole responsibility of the proponents. Defining a phenomenon is not a scientific or falsifiable process. I can define something completely silly, and that definition will remain valid. The definition says nothing one way or the other about whether what I have defined has any connection with the real world. That comes later.
What I find happens frequently is that opponents expand definitions to include something that was not originally implied. They proceed to disprove their expansions and believe that they have debunked the whole thing.
Balancing the true believers on either side of such issues is not an easy task, but one has to begin from a position of respect for both sides. That cannot be accomplished if one is predisposed to dismiss eccentric views.
Ec