George Herbert wrote:
On 9/17/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@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.
That's applying to-day's hindsight to the limited knowledge of former times. Science involves applying certain principles of investigation to a subject. When those processes yield negative results it does not mean that the efforts were unscientific. Judging the theories as not credible even before the hypotheses have been tested is just as unscientific as your characterisation of the proponents.
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.
"Brains falling out" is not scientific language. A fair treatment of Velikovsky's ideas is best done without preconceptions. Being fair still has plenty of room for finding theories wrong.
The latter are not science, and we do a disservice to the readers if we call them that.
Science is a process. We also do them a disservice when we do not give them the opportunity to draw their own conclusions.
Ec