What is "anti-science"?

[Tassman]

Not surprising given how disrespectfully you and some others in this thread have been treating him. I wouldn't stay long in a thread were people were slinging baseless accusations of dishonesty and deliberate misrepresentation at me either. Joel's been nothing but respectful towards you and others in this thread, while you've been, well...

[HMS_Beagle]

Joel's been nothing but respectful towards you and others in this thread,

No he wasn't. In fact he was given the benefit of the doubt far longer than his word twisting and deliberate misrepresentations deserved. I was only one of several who were the recipient of Joel's disingenuous and quite disrespectful "debate technique".

[Roy]

Not surprising given how disrespectfully you and some others in this thread have been treating him. I wouldn't stay long in a thread were people were slinging baseless accusations of dishonesty and deliberate misrepresentation at me either.

I don't recall seeing any baseless accusations. I do recall cases where the difference between Joel's characterisations and the original statements were highlighted, and also cases where Joel had repeated questions as if they had not already been answered, as well as cases where Joel was insisting on misleading terminology and trying to justify it by citing legitimate but obscure definitions. If Joel has left this thread, it is possibly not because he has been accused of malpractice, but because his shenanigans aren't gaining traction.

[JonathanL]

No he wasn't. In fact he was given the benefit of the doubt far longer than his word twisting and deliberate misrepresentations deserved. I was only one of several who were the recipient of Joel's disingenuous and quite disrespectful "debate technique".

I've been following along this thread since page 1. At most you've grounds to claim that Joel hasn't characterized/has misunderstood your arguments/posts correctly. Calling his behaviour disingenious however, is a claim to intent that you've yet to demonstrate. Not to mention your accusation that he's being disrespectful, which is quite ironic given that you've shown far worse disrespect to him in this thread than he has to you.

[JonathanL]

These certain "theist members" you speak about have no problem showing respect to atheists who reprocitate that respect. You're one of those atheists who seem incapable of doing that, hence why you're rarely given that respect.

[JonathanL]

I don't recall seeing any baseless accusations.

Then what do you call what HMS_Beagle has been doing in this thread? He's clearly been accusing Joel of having disingenious intent in this thread, without bothering to back up his claim even once.

I do recall cases where the difference between Joel's characterisations and the original statements were highlighted, and also cases where Joel had repeated questions as if they had not already been answered,

I don't agree with your characterization of what's been going on in this thread. I mean, in post #167 we have HMS_Beagle accusing Joel of "deliberat[ely] twisting" of HMS_Beagle's word, when in the very post he's quoting, Joel very specifically noted that he might have misunderstood what HMS_Beagle has been saying. I'd say that if anyone wanted to accuse Joel's detractors of being disingenious they would have a far better case for it (although not enough to convict) than anyone who wanted to accuse Joel himself of it.

And asking for clarification for answers that you don't understand fully is not the same as "repeat[ing] questions as if they had not already been answered".

as well as cases where Joel was insisting on misleading terminology and trying to justify it by citing legitimate but obscure definitions. If Joel has left this thread, it is possibly not because he has been accused of malpractice, but because his shenanigans aren't gaining traction.

Perhaps there's a reason why Joel is insisting on this "misleading" terminology other than disingeniousness? Have you considered asking him, instead of just baselessly accusing him of things that you're unable to prove?

[HMS_Beagle]

I've been following along this thread since page 1. At most you've grounds to claim that Joel hasn't characterized/has misunderstood your arguments/posts correctly. Calling his behaviour disingenious however, is a claim to intent that you've yet to demonstrate. Not to mention your accusation that he's being disrespectful, which is quite ironic given that you've shown far worse disrespect to him in this thread than he has to you.

I find having my words twisted and my views deliberately misrepresented multiple times to be disrespectful. If you think such actions are perfectly fine you have bigger issues than this board.

[JonathanL]

I find having my words twisted and my views deliberately misrepresented multiple times to be disrespectful. If you think such actions are perfectly fine you have bigger issues than this board.

I certainly don't find such actions to be perfectly fine. The problem is that you've yet to demonstrate that Joel has had dishonest intentions behind his words/posts, or that his behaviour/actions have been deliberate.

[JonathanL]

I mean, I could understand you guys if the one you were accusing of these behaviours were Jorge, given his less than stellar (to put it mildly) track record in this matter. But we're not talking about Jorge here, but Joel, who as far as I know has never been known for deliberate misrepresentation, dishonesty, or trolling on any other occasion on these forums (quite the contrary, in fact). I think he deserves the benefit of doubt, atleast until you guys are able to provide more compelling reasons as to why anyone should believe you when you guys accuse him of these things.

[HMS_Beagle]

I think he deserves the benefit of doubt.

He was given the benefit of the doubt. It was his decision to keep dishonestly misrepresenting what people said to him after being called on it by multiple posters.

[TheLurch]

I mean, I could understand you guys if the one you were accusing of these behaviours were Jorge, given his less than stellar (to put it mildly) track record in this matter. But we're not talking about Jorge here, but Joel, who as far as I know has never been known for deliberate misrepresentation, dishonesty, or trolling on any other occasion on these forums (quite the contrary, in fact). I think he deserves the benefit of doubt, atleast until you guys are able to provide more compelling reasons as to why anyone should believe you when you guys accuse him of these things.

So, i don't venture outside natural science, and this was the first time i'd come across him. I gave him the same benefit of a doubt as anyone else i didn't know. But there were a few patterns i saw that brought me around to questioning why i was giving him any such benefit:
The "let me rephrase that for you" followed by something completely opposed to what i said - even after I and others had clarified my statements.
The tendency to reiterate what he had said previously and not respond to any criticisms of the prior statements.
The pattern of dropping some arguments as if they had been addressed, and then returning to them a few days later as if nothing previously had been said.

Now, i'm not going to guess as to why Joel engaged in this sort of behavior - for all i know, it's as you say, and he's contributed valuable discussions elsewhere in the forum. But i'm not going to act as if the behavior isn't happening, because it's toxic to having a fruitful discussion. And i am here to discuss.

[Joel]

I'm looking right now at the traces from the LIGO detector, made during the detection of a black hole merger. The LIGO trigger systems are all automated - it was all recorded, processed, and analyzed by computer, so i'm not even relying on someone else to tell me about it. That's seeing the data.

Refusing to accept that the data was valid without building another two LIGO detectors and waiting for another merger would be what you were advocating.

Sorry, I've been absent.

I concede that my earlier dichotomy of being an eyewitness vs receiving testimony is not so black and white. Another gray area might be watching a video recording of an event, which is different from being there, and is different from hearing someone tell you about the event. In the case of a device that measures something and automatically records a record of the measurements, then, yes, examining that record is as close to eyewitness as anyone gets to that data. So it does seem I was misunderstanding you before.

Suppose that someone did build another LIGO detector, waited for another merger, and from that data came to the same conclusion(s) as you draw from the first LIGO detector. Would that person be anti-science?

[Roy]

Then what do you call what HMS_Beagle has been doing in this thread? He's clearly been accusing Joel of having disingenious intent in this thread, without bothering to back up his claim even once.

That's simply not true. Beagle explained why he felt Joel was being disingenuous in posts #125, #138, #141, #148, #150 and maybe others I've missed.

I don't agree with your characterization of what's been going on in this thread. I mean, in post #167 we have HMS_Beagle accusing Joel of "deliberat[ely] twisting" of HMS_Beagle's word, when in the very post he's quoting, Joel very specifically noted that he might have misunderstood what HMS_Beagle has been saying. I'd say that if anyone wanted to accuse Joel's detractors of being disingenious they would have a far better case for it (although not enough to convict) than anyone who wanted to accuse Joel himself of it.

Since you're so set on defending ingenuousness, you might try explaining why you linked to Beagle's short final dismissal of Joel ("Strike three, you're out.") and not to any of the earlier posts where Beagle did explain why he considered Joel was being dishonest.

And asking for clarification for answers that you don't understand fully is not the same as "repeat[ing] questions as if they had not already been answered".

It is when you haven't bothered to read the cited reference which can provide the requested clarification.

[oxmixmudd]

Sorry, I've been absent.

I concede that my earlier dichotomy of being an eyewitness vs receiving testimony is not so black and white. Another gray area might be watching a video recording of an event, which is different from being there, and is different from hearing someone tell you about the event. In the case of a device that measures something and automatically records a record of the measurements, then, yes, examining that record is as close to eyewitness as anyone gets to that data. So it does seem I was misunderstanding you before.

Suppose that someone did build another LIGO detector, waited for another merger, and from that data came to the same conclusion(s) as you draw from the first LIGO detector. Would that person be anti-science?

Not necessarily. But that person would need to be independently wealthy and would need the help of numerous experts which that person would need to trust implicitly to make the right decisions about how to build such a device. That trust and expertise would be itself built on trust in volumes of previously exercised scientific experiments, the sum of which would be impossible to validate in a similar exercise by any single human being. And then that project would need to be validated by other experts before anyone would trust its results.

It is impossible to build a complete, personal first hand knowledge of what we now call modern science. Trust in the work that has gone before is required, and without it modern civilization would effectively fall. However, we can create a reason to trust in that work simply by observing that 'it works'. We can send space vehicles to jupiter and observe it intensely and directly based on the work that has gone before. We can build computers and write algorithms that can parse big data, or (most of the time) predict the weather tomorrow, or analyze temperature data and determine the world is warming - all based on that work which has gone before and which no one can personally and directly verify for themself.

Some effort should be made by everyone to develop a reason to trust in the knowledge we have, but that effort needs to be based on rational assessments of what can be done toward that end, and tempered by the realization that all around us is 'proof' that it works and must at least mostly be correct. People who become scientists themselves will probably do a lot more in that regard than those that do not. But an ignorant lack of respect what has gone into making possible the monitor on which you are reading my words is part of what produces 'anti-science' sentiment. That and an all too frequent dose of megalomania coupled with dunning-kruger.

What amazes me is how many people can be led down the primrose path by such people - how easy it is for them to get followers and make money. Some of them even get elected to high political offices or are made advisors to people with major responsibilities. One can hope that reason, intelligence, knowledge might prevail - but a society built on such things seems - at least right now - to be an immensely fragile thing.

Jim

[TheLurch]

Sorry, I've been absent.

I concede that my earlier dichotomy of being an eyewitness vs receiving testimony is not so black and white. Another gray area might be watching a video recording of an event, which is different from being there, and is different from hearing someone tell you about the event. In the case of a device that measures something and automatically records a record of the measurements, then, yes, examining that record is as close to eyewitness as anyone gets to that data. So it does seem I was misunderstanding you before.

Suppose that someone did build another LIGO detector, waited for another merger, and from that data came to the same conclusion(s) as you draw from the first LIGO detector. Would that person be anti-science?

Again, it would help if, when talking about science, to use scientific terms. "Eyewitness" and "testimony" mean specific things in a legal context, but they're not used scientifically. When you say "eyewitness" for science, it could mean a variety of things - the person who performed the experiment, someone who watched them set the experiment up, someone who watched the data come in, etc. It's not every specific in a scientific context, and so it makes it difficult to convey meaning there. So it would be helpful if you dropped it in favor of terms that make your meaning clear.

People are building other LIGO detectors - one (VIRGO) will come on line later this year, another in Japan around 2020, and there's talk of a LIGO-India. These will increase our sensitivity and provide better locational information on the events. We'll see more things, and be better able to point telescopes at anything we detect. Obviously, that's not anti-science.

Anti-science would be refusing to accept that gravitational waves had been observed until you had built your own detector. Which is a direct analogy to what the flat earth crowd is doing.