10KW LENR demonstrator (new thread)

[Stubby]

Enough derailing already

[ScottL]

Good job in pointing out the obvious. Yes, they had larger protective stores around their brain, glad you're reading.

Your effort to explain away your mistake failed. Human and neanderthal brains overlapped in size, so using that as your example was pointless. Neanderthal brains were probably slightly larger but there aren't enough specimens to be certain.

What are these mythical "protective stores" around the brain? Surely you are not talking about the thicker skull as that doesn't effect the actual brain size comparison?

The difference in skull shape suggests a different brain development but that is not what you compared.

What mistake did I make? I said bigger brain sizes are a mutation, how is that a mistake? What are you implying exactly? Did you assume some implication there that I didn't make? As for stores, researchers have implied larger grey matter stores in the Neanderthal brain due to faster development time vs homo sapiens. Back on target, what was my mistake? What did I compare exactly? I said one has a larger brain than the other and that is due to a mutation.

[GIThruster]

That's silly, Tom. The subject we're on is example enough. Evolution is not falsifiable, and it has not been observable nor repeatable until this single experiment. Despite this it has been adopted as a tenant of faith by the vast majority because it has great explanatory power, but the uncritical acceptance of this doctrine has been almost universal for many decades, and there are many severe punitive actions taken against academics who don't accept the doctrine. This is the way people are, Tom. Pretending scientists are above such things is quite contrary to the facts.

Why do you think the subject of ID raises such emotions in you? You don't think the people who posted what you referenced don't believe what they're saying? Of course they do. Yet you're angry with them. Why is that? The reason is obvious. It's because they disagree with a foundational belief in your noetic structure, and having that belief questioned generates angst. You're admitting your emotions on the issue, but not where they come from.

Scientists ostracize Creationists because their theory denies the foundational beliefs of most scientists, which in turn generates angst in the majority, and punitive actions. This is the scientific and academic community acting precisely as older institutions like the church for exactly the same reasons. Generate angst in the anyone, and you have a problem. Generate it in those in power and you're a heretic. Generate it in those who have the ability to punish you and they will.

People like to tell themselves they're rational, and that their science background is so superior they have little in common with the ancients. They're tolerant. They'd never have anything to do with persecutions the way Galileo was persecuted. After all, that was a Middle Ages, pre-scientific institution--not academia. Trouble is, it was academia. In Western Europe, all academics happened inside the church. It was people just like everyone here using this forum who persecuted Galileo, and these same kinds of people persecute any one who questions things like evolution, for exactly the same reasons that Galileo was persecuted. This dynamic has absolutely nothing to do with science, religion or world view. It's entirely a function of psychology and the consequences of how our noetic structure operate. In this, we are no better than our forebears.

It may be that "the scientific community continually questions itself" but this has always been true of the religious community. There is enormous span where people are free to believe what they like about most things inside religion. It is only when you look at a belief that is emotionally and functionally foundational, that questioning it generates angst, anger, etc.

[Skipjack]

That's silly, Tom. The subject we're on is example enough. Evolution is not falsifiable, and it has not been observable nor repeatable until this single experiment. Despite this it has been adopted as a tenant of faith by the vast majority because it has great explanatory power, but the uncritical acceptance of this doctrine has been almost universal for many decades, and there are many severe punitive actions taken against academics who don't accept the doctrine. This is the way people are, Tom. Pretending scientists are above such things is quite contrary to the facts.

What a pile of stired shit!

[KitemanSA]

That's silly, Tom. The subject we're on is example enough. Evolution is not falsifiable, and it has not been observable nor repeatable until this single experimen.

Jesus, you silly GIT, evolution, like gravity, is NOT a theory or hypothesis. It is a name that is used to label specific facts. The fact just ARE. Evolution IS! "How" it is remains an issue. What makes the subject a science is that the theories that have been used to explain it (including Lysenko's and Darwin's) have been falsified and replaced by better theories; though Darwin's theory had some aspects that still are considered correct (e.g., natural selection).

[GIThruster]

I'm sure there are more zealots in the crowd. Anyone else want to prove my point?

[tomclarke]

OK, I'm going to disagree with most of this. But there are difficulties with terminology. So I'll start by defining terms:

Evolution (short for Darwinian theory of evolution) theory which explains the mechanism whereby different species can evolve to fit ecological niches through reproduction, mutation and natural selection.

This theory has been elaborated on since its first clear conception by Darwin (who was himself building on some earlier ideas). In particular advances in modern genetics mean that we understand the precise role of genetics in this process. That leads to some issue about selection of genes as distinct from selection of phenotypes. There are some other issues about speciation (punctuated equilibria etc) which have also been elaborated. As you would expect science is not static. Nevertheless Darwin would recognise modern evolutionary theory as containing most of his ideas.

That's silly, Tom. The subject we're on is example enough. Evolution is not falsifiable,

Yes it is. If, for example, we found that within a species population adaptation for greater fitness under changed conditions did not occur.

If, for example, we found a species which could not have evolved from other life on earth (we now can track genetic similarity very well across all phyla).

Either observation would provoke intense interest and the search for some non-Darwinian mechanism.

and it has not been observable nor repeatable until this single experiment.

Continued investigation of the earth DNA record (current and past) yields new observations which can be considered and used to test or modify evolution. Indeed this happens, many issues about speciation etc remain open.

Despite this it has been adopted as a tenant of faith by the vast majority because it has great explanatory power, but the uncritical acceptance of this doctrine has been almost universal for many decades, and there are many severe punitive actions taken against academics who don't accept the doctrine.

OK. This is the parallel "academic establishment is bad" dogma. Yes evolution has great explanatory power. The evidence for it is overwhelming for this reason. It is however not fixed, and active work continues.

Academic freedom is pretty good. All sorts of academics can have and promote batty ideas. Perhaps you had better give a more precise description of the academics who have lost their jobs because they don't accept evolution? Perhaps you mean that teachers who refuse to teach evolution and advance instead some alternate non-theory with no scientific evidence are fired?

What do you expect? Would you want electromagnetism taught by somone who spent 50% of the lecture course arguing that Clerk-Maxwell's Laws appeared correct but did not explain how forces were experienced by electrons. The time would be taken up with a woolly and unsubstantiated explanation about invisible nanoscopic intelligent pixies who followed electrons, the pixie movement would impart a force to the electrons. Much time would also be spent raising factually incorrect but apparently good arguments about why Clerk-Maxwell's laws did not cover all situations.

This is the way people are, Tom. Pretending scientists are above such things is quite contrary to the facts.

Sure, scientists are human, make mistakes, have petty vendettas, even try to get each other fired for personal reasons. Scientific theories on the other hand have the great advantage that they come from thousands of different workers each with different preconceptions and the whole system is biased towards change. That is, somone who comes up with anomalous new evidence, or a different coherent theory, finds it easy to publish that (if it is of worthwhile quality or particularly novel. Novelty can excuse lower quality). That means there are whole loads of speculative incorrect ideas floating around what is commonly accepted. And that is as it should be.

Why do you think the subject of ID raises such emotions in you? You don't think the people who posted what you referenced don't believe what they're saying? Of course they do. Yet you're angry with them. Why is that? The reason is obvious. It's because they disagree with a foundational belief in your noetic structure, and having that belief questioned generates angst.

I am not irrationally angry over the matter, and were I talking to such people trying to persuade them I would be much more polite, listen respectfully to their points of view, etc.

With respect I disagree with your assumption here that strong emotions can only be motivated by challenge to noetic structure (whatever that is). I agree that somone who's approach to knowledge is faith-based, with ideas accepted internally without challenge from some authority whether scientific establishment or religious, could have such irrational anger.

I don't accept that my anger in this case comes from that cause. I am myself somone who has never accepted scientific theory or anything else on authority. I was very slow to learn arithmetic when first taught it because it did not make much sense to me, in spite of ending up with an scholarship to Trinity College Cambridge taking entrance exms a year early. I'm not saying this makes me a good person, but it shows that my attitude towards new ideas has always been to work them out for myself.

In this case, if you want a psychological analysis, I would say my anger comes from a (slightly irrational, I agree) dislike of people who deliberately lie, or who when engaged in debate try to win arguments by making polemic statements which support lies. Of course polemics can be made on both sides of any issue, and I don't mind some polemical argument - I just object when it takes the place of clear factual debate. The link I posted was full of polemic masquerading as scientifc debate. It makes me cross.

You're admitting your emotions on the issue, but not where they come from.

One thing I've learnt over many years is to have some humility and caution when attributing motives for others. We can never know for sure what motivates another. Hell, we often get grievously wrong what motivates ourselves (so you must evaluate my statements above on their merit). We project our own biasses when thinking about others, and we also have less information to go on.

Scientists ostracize Creationists because their theory denies the foundational beliefs of most scientists, which in turn generates angst in the majority, and punitive actions.

I could not say. I mean, there are lots of scientists. No doubt some of them do have a religious approach to science.

I see no evidence of this "angst in the majority". Nor any evidence that the majority have this religious/accepted authority/foundational belief issue you hypothesise. Since we are here speculating about other's state of mind with no evidence it is of course diffciult for me to contradict what you say. And would probably be pretty difficult in any case, for the above reasons.

This is the scientific and academic community acting precisely as older institutions like the church for exactly the same reasons.

You are moving here from individuals to institutions. Whereas people are the same, although I would hope and expect that scientists on average tend to be less dogmatic and more questioning (they are rewarded for ideas contrary to accepted views), institutions are not the same.

Do I need to enumerate the many factors different between the institutionalisation of religious and scientific beliefs, and the relative ease of changing one versus the other?

Generate angst in the anyone, and you have a problem. Generate it in those in power and you're a heretic. Generate it in those who have the ability to punish you and they will.

I think this broad statement is an over-generalisation, although undoubtedly this process does sometimes exist. It is too non-specific a statement to test.

People like to tell themselves they're rational, and that their science background is so superior they have little in common with the ancients. They're tolerant. They'd never have anything to do with persecutions the way Galileo was persecuted. After all, that was a Middle Ages, pre-scientific institution--not academia. Trouble is, it was academia. In Western Europe, all academics happened inside the church. It was people just like everyone here using this forum who persecuted Galileo, and these same kinds of people persecute any one who questions things like evolution, for exactly the same reasons that Galileo was persecuted. This dynamic has absolutely nothing to do with science, religion or world view. It's entirely a function of psychology and the consequences of how our noetic structure operate. In this, we are no better than our forebears.

OK, that is quite a noetic structure of its own. Re Galileo, I would like to distinguish between the Church hierarchy persecuting Galileo, and the then scientific community doing so. I would also point to the lack of a Roman Inquisition now, indeed the lack of any hierarchical authority structure.

The Galileo question is interesting and combines science and politics. Scientists at the time were quite free to theorise all sorts of things, and adopted Galileo's ideas to some extent. The issue was that scientific ideas contrary to Church dogma (geocentric view in this case) required a high standard of scientific proof:

Bellarmine found no problem with heliocentrism so long as it was treated as a purely hypothetical calculating device and not as a physically real phenomenon, but he did not regard it as permissible to advocate the latter unless it could be conclusively proved through current scientific standards. This put Galileo in a difficult position, because he believed that the available evidence strongly favoured heliocentrism, and he wished to be able to publish his arguments, but he did not have the conclusive proof necessary to satisfy Bellarmine's requirements

from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Galileo could no provide this proof and indeed his theory was also wrong. The correct theory (heliocentrism + elliptical orbits) had to wait a while for Kepler with a better theory and also more carefully collated observations. Of course, with hindsight, we can see that Galileo (heliocentrism, circular orbits) was more correct than the established views, but at the time the evidence was not so compelling.

My point is that the Galileo affair is often used as a prime example of scientific persecution when in reality Galileo was scientifically out on a limb, and his refusal to recant was more a personal than a religious issue. It is also worth pointing out that Galileo's supreme scientific contribution came from his later work, in prison, on the motion of objects on inclined planes.

I'm not here arguing for religious dogmatisation of scientific views, of course, and I'm glad it does not exist now. But scientific progress is about patience: good ideas stay in the pot and triumph in the end from weight of observatioinal support.

It may be that "the scientific community continually questions itself" but this has always been true of the religious community.

Yes, and the result has been some good philosophy. But of course religious ideas have never been subject to the rigor of the scientific method, constrained by ever-moving observations, whereas science has. Darwin's theory, you will remember, emerged from the detailed observations that Darwin made in the Galipego islands.

There is enormous span where people are free to believe what they like about most things inside religion. It is only when you look at a belief that is emotionally and functionally foundational, that questioning it generates angst, anger, etc.

That might be true of religions - I would not know, but again I suspect it is an over-generalisation. Surely religious people, as others, have a wide variety of internal motivations and reasons for anger.

I would expect that your "noetic system belief contradiction" hypothesis for anger would apply more often to religious people, who claim to hold noetic belief systems (is that good terminology?) primarily important, than scientists, who don't. But that is speculation on my part and you will see I am being careful in attributing motives to others.

Best wishes, Tom

[tomclarke]

Enough derailing already

I'm all for more derailing!

[Joseph Chikva]

A revolution the equal of the industrial revolution is not more interesting than debating the "settled science" of AGW and Intelligent Design? Really?

Your problem is that you call "revolution" the thing that in reality is a primitive falsification. As Rossi could not or did not want to make very simple experiment of released heat's measurement which every middle school pupil able to conduct. Where is "revolution"?
You did not answer - did Rossi not try to sell his non-certified "1 MW plant" to any interested person in April-May of past year?
If yes, why that time he did not need certification and today he needs?

And this is only marketing trick: "I sold one plant and mythical "customer" is very happy" and now people are arranged in long turn to buy further plants. Buy and if you will not be satisfied we will return you your money. Revolution or fraud?

[Skipjack]

...a lot of great things in the above long post.

I agree with everything he said and feel exactly the same way.

[303]

fruit flies can adapt to stimuli within a few score generations, & Darwin didnt stick around for thousand of years to watch finches , so evolution moves faster than GIT seems to believe

ID is revisionist nonsense, the church has made clear its beliefs for thousands of years, but now science & logic have revealed most of it to be false, and the evidence for evolution overwhelming, they resort to appropriating these breakthroughs for themselves , arguing god even cleverer than we thought.

Yet human body isnt great, with multiple design flaws, genetic mutations, if you argue for intelligence in the design, you must acknowledge the stupidity in it too

[GIThruster]

The subject we're on is example enough. Evolution is not falsifiable,

Yes it is. If, for example, we found that within a species population adaptation for greater fitness under changed conditions did not occur.

You do realize it is impossible to find something does not occur? You cannot prove a negative. I reiterate, it is impossible to falsify the theory of evolution. Philosophers of science have long understood this as one of its significant weaknesses so far as what constitutes a "scientific theory".

Academic freedom is pretty good. All sorts of academics can have and promote batty ideas. Perhaps you had better give a more precise description of the academics who have lost their jobs because they don't accept evolution?

Oh please. . .almost all of academia is based upon completely subjective relations between teachers and students. If the instructor gets what he wants the student succeeds. If the instructor does not get what he wants, it does not matter how gifted and insightful a student is, nor how well he/she has mastered the material. Academia is as corrupt at its core as Hollywood. I can't count the number of times I saw high school teachers and tenured university profs receiving sexual favors for grades. In any event, most serious universities censor the work of their profs so they are not implicated in crackpot notions. Work that can't pass peer review is not an acceptable subject for consideration and we all know it's publish or perish. Just as example, there are no institutions I am familiar with that will allow a student to do his or her doctoral thesis on ZPF physics, because most physicists consider it crackpot. Sonny White tried to focus his doctoral work at Rice on ZPF and was denied. This is the standard, not the deviation.

Just search if you want examples of persecution of academics, by academics based upon things like Evolution or AGW.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/pro-i ... lty-27659/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... n-why.html

I am not irrationally angry over the matter, and were I talking to such people trying to persuade them I would be much more polite, listen respectfully to their points of view, etc.

I didn't say anyone was irrational. I said it is normal human psychology to experience angst when one's foundational beliefs are challenged. For most people, Evolution is a foundational belief. Challenging it makes people anxious and anxiety makes them angry.

Yoda: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. . .

With respect I disagree with your assumption here that strong emotions can only be motivated by challenge to noetic structure (whatever that is).

I did not say this either. I said challenges to ones foundational beliefs generate anxiety. I did not say they are the only cause of anxiety.

"Noetic Structure" is the parlance of epistemology to denote the network of beliefs one has, their coherence with one another, the cognitive dissonance that comes from lack of internal consistency, etc. Challenges to a belief occur when there is lack of external consistency between a belief and an outside proposition or observation. Challenges to a belief in the structure always have consequences to other beliefs do to coherence--the logic of the structure. When one's beliefs are challenged there are always emotional consequences and when a foundational belief is challenged, anxiety is the norm. Even people who thoroughly understand this epistemic/psychological dynamic suffer anxiety when their foundational beliefs are challenged. Everyone who believes in Evolution experiences some sort of anxiety when that belief is challenged, and especially atheists who have so much riding on the outcome, experience severe anxiety. That's why the emotional responses from those I termed "zealots" above. Skippy has to believe in Evolution since he's an atheist.

I am myself somone who has never accepted scientific theory or anything else on authority.

I like to tell myself the same thing but of course, we're both kidding ourselves. We hold opinions about issues we have not so thoroughly invested ourselves in on many things. We probably both understand the value of suspending judgement on things we've not ourselves investigated, but if you ask yourself long and hard, you will find you hold beliefs that you did indeed accept on authority. Your choice of car. Your choice of neighborhood. Your choice of news source is a perfect example of this. You act as you believe they're trustworthy but we all know there are no trustworthy news sources in this post-modernist age, where all pretense toward objectivity has flown out the window. We all know we all ought to be watching both Fox and MSNBC, as well as several other news sources on a daily basis to get a balanced view of the world, but we don't. Why? Because looking at the opposing view causes angst generated by having one's noetic structure challenged. It's emotionally easier to get your news from those who agree with your views and won't challenge your beliefs.

I would say my anger comes from a. . .dislike of people who deliberately lie. . .

Me too, but the people who wrote the post you linked to were not deliberately lying. They believed what they posted. So you do indeed suffer this same emotional consequence to having your beliefs challenged that I'm talking about. So do we all.

I see no evidence of this "angst in the majority".

The world is replete with such evidence, from mob interactions at football games to the angry rants here about "stirred shit". It's everywhere.

You are moving here from individuals to institutions. Whereas people are the same, although I would hope and expect that scientists on average tend to be less dogmatic and more questioning (they are rewarded for ideas contrary to accepted views), institutions are not the same.

I'd like to think this too, but we do have all the examples of the academic community ostracizing those who doubt Evolution, those who doubt AGW, etc. If you're an ID person, good luck in getting into an Anthropology PhD program. If you're an AGW doubter, good luck in getting into an Environmental Sciences program. You will not be admitted unless you at least pretend to adopt the majority opinion, or unless you shag your graduate supervisors.

Re Galileo, I would like to distinguish between the Church hierarchy persecuting Galileo, and the then scientific community doing so.

You can't. They were the same thing. If anything, it was those most involved in academics who most violently responded to Galileo's theory, not the church hierarchy. I am not here defending dark age religious institutionalization which I could count the flaws of all day. Just saying, it was the scientists who were most deeply disturbed by Galileo's theory, because they had the strongest grasp of the consequences to changing their beliefs. This is normal. If someone comes up with evidence that all life on Earth was "created" by a being or race of beings that planted it here, the scientists will be the first to get hysterical. I would note to you too, that if you haven't read it, there are several excellent explanations of this dynamic as illustrated in history, to be found in Thomas Kuhn's excellent little book http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scienti ... omans+Kuhn

But of course religious ideas have never been subject to the rigor of the scientific method, constrained by ever-moving observations, whereas science has.

True, but it is not the province of theology to make the same sort of observations. Theology typically is defined as a response to a sacred text and interpreting it. This has historically included just as rigorous an evaluation process as science, but the source material is not observation of the world but rather observation of the text. In its own way, theology is just as rigorous as science and has a far longer tradition. This hasn't saved theologians from suffering angst when their beliefs have been challenged. Precisely the same dynamic is involved when people are persecuted for their scientific views, as when they are persecuted for their religious views--this "challenge to foundational beliefs". There are additional reasons too, but they often are in common as well. The Church in Rome deliberately founded the Jesuit order to persecute and destroy the dissenting churches at the time of Luther because these posed a political challenge to the hierarchy in Rome. In like manner, those who persecute AGW "doubters" do so because they threaten the vast funding available to every quack who claims he's a climate scientist.

It's pretty telling to note and separate out these political reasons for persecution from the psychological ones as there are plenty to go around. When the ancient druids tried to murder Patrick to stop him preaching in Ireland, it was for political reasons--they were competing for acceptance. When ZPF'ers talk trash about M-E physics, it is likewise for political reasons--they're competing for funding.

But that is speculation on my part and you will see I am being careful in attributing motives to others.

I should own that it's likely that in making these broad statements, I haven't pointed out nearly enough of the exceptions and other details. I am however just trying to make the general case and we can always note there will be exceptions.

[tomclarke]

The subject we're on is example enough. Evolution is not falsifiable,

Yes it is. If, for example, we found that within a species population adaptation for greater fitness under changed conditions did not occur.

You do realize it is impossible to find something does not occur? You cannot prove a negative. I reiterate, it is impossible to falsify the theory of evolution.

You cannot prove anything in science. But you can disprove something, and the two situations I posit are both well-defined counter-examples to evolution. They would lead to re-evaluation of the theory, and probably result in some change. either a new mechanism, or a set of circumstances in which evolution does not work, etc.

Philosophers of science have long understood this as one of its significant weaknesses so far as what constitutes a "scientific theory".

Philosophers of science are not usually scientists and on this matter many of them talk rubbish (they do not, of course, agree).
I suggest "Four Modern Irrationalists" by David Stove for an appreciation of how mathematical understanding of Bayesian probability theory has affected philosophic positions some of which are just wrong in the light of Bayesian techniques.

Academic freedom is pretty good. All sorts of academics can have and promote batty ideas. Perhaps you had better give a more precise description of the academics who have lost their jobs because they don't accept evolution?

Oh please. . .almost all of academia is based upon completely subjective relations between teachers and students.

No

If the instructor gets what he wants the student succeeds. If the instructor does not get what he wants, it does not matter how gifted and insightful a student is, nor how well he/she has mastered the material. Academia is as corrupt at its core as Hollywood.

I don't know which bit of academia you know. But where I work we are not corrupt. Not one little bit.

I can't count the number of times I saw high school teachers and tenured university profs receiving sexual favors for grades.

It is a sackable offence where I work. And we are very careful (the temptations can be strong - but any such is an abuse of teh student/teache rpower relationship. When you understand that reality the temptations are easier to ignore.

In any event, most serious universities censor the work of their profs so they are not implicated in crackpot notions.

Rubbish. Evidence please.

Work that can't pass peer review is not an acceptable subject for consideration and we all know it's publish or perish.

That is a different issue. Many crackpot ideas get published in peer reviewed journals. They only have to have some merit, and be written up properly. But scientists who do not do science can be sacked. And no publication is a pretty good comparator.

Just as example, there are no institutions I am familiar with that will allow a student to do his or her doctoral thesis on ZPF physics, because most physicists consider it crackpot.

All it needs is an academic who sees it as a viable subject. But of course that means there must be enough material for review of the relevant literature and publication. Where the physics contradicts a lot of existing stuff it can be difficult to make a case (because there is no evidence, too many problems). So there may not be so. I don't know. Neither do you.

Sonny White tried to focus his doctoral work at Rice on ZPF and was denied. This is the standard, not the deviation.

There is enormous variety in institutions. You do not get a free choice of topic at any institution - somone has to be interested enough to supervise. But equally there is no censorship, and the enormous number of academics all free to follow batty ideas in a PhD means things are veru open globally, though not at individual institution where the academics in a given department may have no batty ideas or batty ideas different from the ones a given student likes.

It is also often true that a good otential student can go do a University with a self-proposed idea and find someone prepared to supervise, even when it is bizarre. I know such an example in our institution, friend of mine.

Just search if you want examples of persecution of academics, by academics based upon things like Evolution or AGW.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/pro-i ... lty-27659/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... n-why.html

Ummm... Don't you think:
(a) Both those topics are highly political
(b) The publications you reference take a specific political view and publich polemics?
It is very easy to make somone losing their job etc for proper reasons look like persecution through a one-sided write-up, as I'm sure you are aware.

But even if there are occasional cases of malpractice throughout the world - institutions are not perfect, that so incredibly far from your position, which is that some types of fruitful research are impossible to conduct they are so censored.

I am not irrationally angry over the matter, and were I talking to such people trying to persuade them I would be much more polite, listen respectfully to their points of view, etc.

I didn't say anyone was irrational. I said it is normal human psychology to experience angst when one's foundational beliefs are challenged.

Then you don't understand science. A scientist who experienced angst when fundamental theories he holds are challenged would be a neurotic wreck within a week, an also a bad scientist. Any decent scientist would find the challenge invigorating and exciting - except it would probably be trivial and so a waste of time.

For most people, Evolution is a foundational belief. Challenging it makes people anxious and anxiety makes them angry.

I am not the expert on people you appear to be. But certainly scientists don't behave like that with any scientific theory. Especially when you teach a theory you learn to explore all challenges. It is, as I say, invigorating. And often you learn something in the process of defending a challenge.

Yoda: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. . .

With respect I disagree with your assumption here that strong emotions can only be motivated by challenge to noetic structure (whatever that is).

I did not say this either. I said challenges to ones foundational beliefs generate anxiety. I did not say they are the only cause of anxiety.

You made that assumption in my case.

"Noetic Structure" is the parlance of epistemology to denote the network of beliefs one has, their coherence with one another, the cognitive dissonance that comes from lack of internal consistency, etc. Challenges to a belief occur when there is lack of external consistency between a belief and an outside proposition or observation. Challenges to a belief in the structure always have consequences to other beliefs do to coherence--the logic of the structure. When one's beliefs are challenged there are always emotional consequences and when a foundational belief is challenged, anxiety is the norm. Even people who thoroughly understand this epistemic/psychological dynamic suffer anxiety when their foundational beliefs are challenged. Everyone who believes in Evolution experiences some sort of anxiety when that belief is challenged, and especially atheists who have so much riding on the outcome, experience severe anxiety. That's why the emotional responses from those I termed "zealots" above. Skippy has to believe in Evolution since he's an atheist.

That is a rant. A set of generalising assertions given with no evidence and which I know in some cases at least to be false. And, as I've pointed out, the whole point of science is to challenge and change theories. Your disrespect for scientists and lack of interest in science is very evident here, because you define science as a body of beliefs, not a process whereby theories are challenged and new theories proposed.

I am myself somone who has never accepted scientific theory or anything else on authority.

I like to tell myself the same thing but of course, we're both kidding ourselves. We hold opinions about issues we have not so thoroughly invested ourselves in on many things. We probably both understand the value of suspending judgement on things we've not ourselves investigated, but if you ask yourself long and hard, you will find you hold beliefs that you did indeed accept on authority.

speak for yourself

Your choice of car. Your choice of neighborhood. Your choice of news source is a perfect example of this. You act as you believe they're trustworthy but we all know there are no trustworthy news sources in this post-modernist age, where all pretense toward objectivity has flown out the window. We all know we all ought to be watching both Fox and MSNBC, as well as several other news sources on a daily basis to get a balanced view of the world, but we don't. Why? Because looking at the opposing view causes angst generated by having one's noetic structure challenged. It's emotionally easier to get your news from those who agree with your views and won't challenge your beliefs.

I am truly sorry for you. I can see that your view of the world is indeed post-modern and very depressing. On, for example, AGW, I read opposing blogs with scientific information rather than polemics. Say scienceofdoom and realclimate - both have a polemic element but both have a lot of hard debated (in comments from people capable of debating the math) content. And my math is good enough to follow the debates. So I can be well informed. Were I not in that fortunate situation, or did I not have enough time to follow AGW issues as recreation, I would then rely on views of other scientists. With the possibility that a scientific consensus may be wrong but the much greater likelihood that it is right especially when it has been progressing and checking or changing ideas for 50 years as climate research.

I would say my anger comes from a. . .dislike of people who deliberately lie. . .

Me too, but the people who wrote the post you linked to were not deliberately lying. They believed what they posted. So you do indeed suffer this same emotional consequence to having your beliefs challenged that I'm talking about. So do we all.

OK. Maybe you were careless here but your above comment is a polemic answer to a serious point. I have very little respect for you here if you continue to assert it after checking.
You take only one half of my either/or, not quoting the other half. The post in question obeyed the or half - it was polemic used as substitute for science. And I bet the writer knew it. He just wanted to convince readers irrespective of the rational merits of the case.

I see no evidence of this "angst in the majority".

The world is replete with such evidence, from mob interactions at football games to the angry rants here about "stirred shit". It's everywhere.

The world is full of people who get angry, do stupid things, etc. That is quite distinct from the world of intellectual scientific discourse being dominated by angst. Indeed a football thug is (I strongly suspect) not motivated by feelings of angst.

You are moving here from individuals to institutions. Whereas people are the same, although I would hope and expect that scientists on average tend to be less dogmatic and more questioning (they are rewarded for ideas contrary to accepted views), institutions are not the same.

I'd like to think this too, but we do have all the examples of the academic community ostracizing those who doubt Evolution, those who doubt AGW, etc. If you're an ID person, good luck in getting into an Anthropology PhD program. If you're an AGW doubter, good luck in getting into an Environmental Sciences program.

Give me examples please. On ID, since the position is scientifically fraudulent with not a serious leg to stand on anyone who adopted it would rightly not get far. On AGW, doubters abound within the scientific community. I think you mean people with polemical and scientifically unsupportable political views.

You will not be admitted unless you at least pretend to adopt the majority opinion, or unless you shag your graduate supervisors.

examples please.

Re Galileo, I would like to distinguish between the Church hierarchy persecuting Galileo, and the then scientific community doing so.

You can't. They were the same thing. If anything, it was those most involved in academics who most violently responded to Galileo's theory, not the church hierarchy. I am not here defending dark age religious institutionalization which I could count the flaws of all day. Just saying, it was the scientists who were most deeply disturbed by Galileo's theory, because they had the strongest grasp of the consequences to changing their beliefs. This is normal. If someone comes up with evidence that all life on Earth was "created" by a being or race of beings that planted it here, the scientists will be the first to get hysterical. I would note to you too, that if you haven't read it, there are several excellent explanations of this dynamic as illustrated in history, to be found in Thomas Kuhn's excellent little book http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scienti ... omans+Kuhn

Oh dear. I was afraid you would get to Kuhn. Read David Stove, above. I have zero respect for Kuhn's views on science. He was not a scientist. He is incorrect.

But of course religious ideas have never been subject to the rigor of the scientific method, constrained by ever-moving observations, whereas science has.

True, but it is not the province of theology to make the same sort of observations. Theology typically is defined as a response to a sacred text and interpreting it. This has historically included just as rigorous an evaluation process as science,

no. I'll give long argument elsewhere if you are interested. Textual criticism is quite different from scientific criticism, and not capable of converging to objective truth.

but the source material is not observation of the world but rather observation of the text. In its own way, theology is just as rigorous as science and has a far longer tradition.

You don't understand why science is rigorous if you think this. Long argument elsewhere if you like.

This hasn't saved theologians from suffering angst when their beliefs have been challenged.

Perhps they do

Precisely the same dynamic is involved when people are persecuted for their scientific views, as when they are persecuted for their religious views--this "challenge to foundational beliefs". There are additional reasons too, but they often are in common as well. The Church in Rome deliberately founded the Jesuit order to persecute and destroy the dissenting churches at the time of Luther because these posed a political challenge to the hierarchy in Rome. In like manner, those who persecute AGW "doubters" do so because they threaten the vast funding available to every quack who claims he's a climate scientist.

It is clear that you cannot differentiate between science and theology. So you consider scientific views to be held in an identical manner to theological beliefs. But this is incorrect. It is in fact vastly reductionist.

But that is speculation on my part and you will see I am being careful in attributing motives to others.

I should own that it's likely that in making these broad statements, I haven't pointed out nearly enough of the exceptions and other details. I am however just trying to make the general case and we can always note there will be exceptions.

I think you are perhaps projecting one view of science (yours?) in which beliefs are held and promoted, rather than theories investigated and changed (finding a hole in an existing theory, or proposing a new theory that explains observations). The latter is the stuff of scientific life. It is certainly what motivates the scientists I know.

Lets compare:
GIT scientists: corrupt, faith-based, angsty when theories change, have no interest in advancing the field, have sexual relationships with students.

TC scientists: honest, curious, interested in finding holes in existing theories, or developing new better theories, find serious challenge to strongly held theories very exciting, may be tempted but do not have sexual relationships with students, for moral as well as career reasons, love intellectual debate.

Now doubtless real scientists share something of both stereotypes, and you can find extreme examples if you look hard enough. But which to you seems more accurate?

[Skipjack]

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[GIThruster]

Philosophers of science are not usually scientists and on this matter many of them talk rubbish. . .

Kuhn's BS, MS and PhD in physics and history of science were all from Harvard. To pretend he is not qualified on the subject of his remarkable work is pretty ridiculous. If you want to disagree with him, say what it is you disagree with and maybe we can discuss it.

There is enormous variety in institutions. You do not get a free choice of topic at any institution - somone has to be interested enough to supervise.

One of Sonny's doctoral advisors is a ZPF guy. Sonny was denied the opportunity to do his PhD on ZPF theory because it is considered crackpot and therefor unsuitable for a dissertation. How much more an example of academic bias and censorship can you ask for? People are denied dissertation topics, inclusion into academic programs, tenure and made victim of every other form of academic punishment possible, based upon their views and many other inappropriate criteria and this is NORMAL inside academia. There all all sorts of corruption in academia. You admit on the one hand professors sometimes try to get each other fired, and then on the other say there is no corruption where you work? I don't think you understand how batty some of what you're writing here sounds. You live and work in the world's only nirvana, where there exists no corruption? Do you have any idea what you sound like? All human institutions include some corruption, and the fact educational institutions have to have rules against the teachers shagging their students is adequate evidence of this.

Textual criticism is quite different from scientific criticism, and not capable of converging to objective truth.

Well you're here talking about stuff you don't understand, Tom. "Textual criticism" is one very specific and wholly unsuccessful school of theology. It is one of the two branches of the equally unsuccessful "Literary Criticism". As C. S. Lewis remarked, it was not even capable of getting at the meaning of his work written contemporaneously with the one doing the criticism. How much less then can it hope to come to grips with stuff that is 2-3,000 years old? In any event, modern exegetical methods are based upon inductive and deductive reasoning in manner very similar to science--it is the subject matter that differs. My point was and is that theology has much in common with science and its study is just as rigorous. Theology is often capable of deriving truth. Science never is. Science is the pursuit of fact, not truth. These are entirely different pursuits, hence the difference in focus I already noted. In short, science can't ever tell you that you should love your neighbor which is a matter of truth. Theology can't ever tell you why the sky is blue, which is a matter of fact.

It is clear that you cannot differentiate between science and theology. So you consider scientific views to be held in an identical manner to theological beliefs. But this is incorrect. It is in fact vastly reductionist.

Looks like we're at an impasse. I'm disappointed you have stooped to so mischaracterize my thoughts like this, Tom. I find it difficult to believe you are not capable of understanding what I wrote. You're here sounding guilty of the very stuff you say makes you angry.

But where I work we are not corrupt. Not one little bit.

I just cannot take you seriously on this issue. How can anyone possibly make such a claim? Are you omniscient? I'm sorry we couldn't have a more adult conversation than this but this is just seriously deluded nonsense. We are not ants. All human institutions include corruption.