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On July 23 2015 13:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 13:36 Thieving Magpie wrote:On July 23 2015 13:12 Cascade wrote:On July 23 2015 12:03 IgnE wrote:
Dr. Atkins obviously Ah, you misunderstood. I was asking for an uneducated person coming up with something controversial that later turns out to be true. Dr. Atkins an educated person that came up with something that sounded plausible but later turned out to be false. :D Atkins was not false in his conclusion that his diet would make you lose weight. Fat shamers were false into thinking losing weight is the same as being healthy. Sure, but what did Atkins say? Did he say it would help you lose weight, or did he say it would help you become more healthy? Is Atkins a quack, or is he still right on a semantics technicality?
I think Atkins was technically a quack for saying carbs => diabetes 2
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On July 23 2015 14:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 14:01 IgnE wrote:
What's wrong with Atkins? Wasn't he healthy? Atkins was overweight. He lost weight with a low carb diet. He used the diet to help obese people lower their weight. His plan got published in Vogue magazine and was devoured by the public. That's how a weight loss diet got translated into a healthy diet.
So what was wrong with the diet exactly?
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On July 23 2015 14:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 13:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 23 2015 13:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:On July 23 2015 12:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 22 2015 23:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:
History is filled with obviously wrong scientists that turned to have been correct only in hindsight. The goal is not to trust all scientists, the goal is to continue the distrust and hampering of new science so that only the truly infallible results float to the surface. For every galileo there are thousands upon thousands of quacks--those quacks are the reasons for such harsh ridicule of fantastical sciences. I care less about who comes up with a scientific hypothesis, and care much more about how much evidence there is for the claim. The scientific community does one hell of a job on trying to pick apart weak ideas, and if an explanation actually becomes so strong that it's considered a scientific theory after reaching consensus, I'd say that's damn good. Obviously, it's important to understand the material on your own (and not just assume things are correct via argument from authority), but how many examples are there where a quack fools the scientific community into elevating an idea with a fantastic reputation, but not actually present any evidence for it? I mean, that's the entire structure of the scientific method... (I would also note that this is different than merely falsifying previously accepted ideas with new evidence, because those original scientists weren't trying to fool the community, nor were they arbitrarily coming up with bullshit but pretending they had actual evidence... they weren't quacks.) Galen defined medicine for about 1000 years The greeks for longer than that In fact, every scientific theory that gets changed or amended as new evidence shows up are literally the products of "quacks" who created false conclusions from evidence--but was the closest we could get at the time. The Atom was definitely the smallest thing in the universe--until it wasn't. And neutrinos with their whole ignores solid objects magic was definitely just some random guys ideas--until it wasn't. Heck, a lot of String Theory is not much different than the quacks we see everyday. Solid sounding theories without observed evidence to validate them. As we learn more in the future, these quacks and their ideas will be verified or falsified. But don't pretend that "science believers" have somehow transcended base human traits. My statement made in the parentheses was meant to clarify that I'm not merely talking about accepted ideas that were eventually refuted by new evidence (as that's how all science operates, making the original claim of yours meaningless), but instead ideas that actually tricked the scientific community based off no evidence at all/ quackery. As in, a bullshit hypothesis slipped past the called-for skepticism of the scientific community (where there was actually an ability to falsify that idea at that time) and so the scientific community failed at filtering out obvious quackery. And I'm not sure what Galen has to do with it; he was a Greek physician and surgeon (and philosopher) whose medical research influenced a ton of scientific disciplines ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen ). That's pretty much the opposite of some random quack making up bullshit that shouldn't have passed scrutiny of the scientific community of that time. His work was not only great at the time (which is the metric we're dealing with), but was also helpful for future advancements of science and medicine. Maybe I'm reading too much into your original claim/ being too harsh on what you said, but I interpreted it to mean something like this: Quack/ Fake scientist fabricates an idea, doesn't have any evidence for it (or more importantly, there is already existing evidence that refutes it), and proposes it to the scientific community anyway. Then the community fails at vocally refuting it (even though current research already falsified it), and it passes on to become celebrated as something significant instead of the general consensus saying "lol no scrubs, gtfo". I interpreted it this way because I'm fairly certain that 99.99% of quacks/ fake scientists get crushed in the scientific community because the real experts know that it's bullshit, which is why you have these jerks circumvent the scientific process and do other shit (like appeal to governments to get their crap posted in public school science textbooks, a la Creationism/ Intelligence Design). The real community of scientists is appropriately skeptical and properly rejects their claims, which makes me hesitant to agree with your claim that we shouldn't be trusting scientists due to the non-scientists who pretend to be scientists. And obviously, there's no way for scientists to know they have "truly infallible results", because scientific claims- by definition- are not irrefutable/ unfalsifiable. Galen's scientific method was cutting up animals and seeing that they did bleed and have puss, proving that the humors theory of health was true. The idea that being unhealthy was the product of imbalance of humors leading to puking/bleeding as the form of medicine was practiced until well into the modern era (post american civil war) It's literally quack science that was considered true for the majority of written human history. The only real thing Galen gave us was the practice of writing medical knowledge down and passing it on. A lot of what he wrote down and passed along was wrong--but the process he passed down was pretty good. Every scientist without observable evidence is a quack scientist because he literally only has an idea that what he believes--but does not have evidence for it. String Theory, a large portion of quantum physics, whole sections of theoretical mathematics, etc... Sure, you and many other scientists find the logic of these ideas relatively sound, but that's not really the point is it? Which is why I call it quack science. The reason quacks exist is because there are enough people out there who find their idea "relatively sound" much like string theory is "relatively sound" to many physicists ang GMO's being evil is "relatively sound" to hippies. But is it observed? Is there evidence for it? Or is it just a logic knot that sounds good--for now. Sometime in the future, those ideas will be linked to physical evidence and observed phenomena--and once that happens they will stop being quack ideas. Some will be shown to actually be quack ideas such as the humors theory, while some will be shown as good ideas like calculus. But during the interim its important to not forget that its just a bunch of ideas that sound good enough for most of the scientific community to be okay with it.
You have this big problem where you don't understand how science works, but think you do.
Let's take an example that i am more comfortable with: Newtonian mechanics (NM). Through a lot of history, these were thought of as basically "Mechanics is figured out". Then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, it turned out that there were cases in which they didn't work (really small things and really fast things). Thus, new theories of mechanics, namely Quantum Mechanics(QM) and Special Relativity(SR) were developed. Does this make Newton a quack, and all of the scientists who agreed with his theory people who were fooled by him?
No. Because NM still works in the realm in which they could previously tested. Both the predictions of QM and SR converge against those of NM for stuff that is big enough in the case of QM or slow enough in the case of SR.
Scientific theories generalize from observable phenomena, and try to make predictions from thereon on, like in the "running against a hard thing" example mentioned earlier. This inherently means that new evidence may require a change in the theory, or overturn a theory completely. This is a normal part of the scientific process. Theories are always and constantly tested in regards to how they stand up to new evidence.
It is not about "sounding good". A theory is a device to make predictions. As long as these predictions fit the results, the theory is not disproven and can continue to be used. If it stops doing that, it needs to be amended. This does not mean that everyone before that was either a quack or fooled, simply that in the realm of that limited evidence, the theory worked, and now with more evidence it needs to be changed. You make this sound dirty. But it is very normal. In your mind, is every single piece of science "quack science"? Because every scientific theory (except for mathematics i guess) is by definition falsifiable (and thus in your mind quack science). Theories that are not falsifiable are called "Pseudo Science", because being falsifiable is a main part of a scientific theory. This is silly.
In the case of mathematics it is even more silly. If you did not make a mistake in your calculations, mathematics describes objective truths. I can't even understand how you can come to the conclusion that it is "quack science" just because you can not imagine complex numbers or whatever else you didn't dislike. Mathematics is a science based on deriving results by using logical operations on predefined axioms. It is very much the science that can claim the most to have "objective truths".
This whole "open to scrutiny" business also means that basic scientific theories have been brutally tested. Which means that whatever you thought up in your garage with a few magnets and a ferret on LSD has already been tried out, and it turns out that it doesn't violate the conservation of energy.
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On July 23 2015 13:15 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 12:01 Cascade wrote:On July 22 2015 23:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:
History is filled with obviously wrong scientists that turned to have been correct only in hindsight. The goal is not to trust all scientists, the goal is to continue the distrust and hampering of new science so that only the truly infallible results float to the surface. For every galileo there are thousands upon thousands of quacks--those quacks are the reasons for such harsh ridicule of fantastical sciences. Isn't "filled" a bit exaggerated word here? At least in decently modern science, say last 100 years or so. How many times has it happened since 1900 that someone without any education comes up with something going against current consensus which later turns out to be correct? Personally I can't name any, but I won't pretend to have researched the subject.  Off the top off my head? Gregor Mendel (19th century, but ridiculed and forgotten until 20th century) and Alfred Wegener. In many ways hereditary epigenetics is Lamarckian evolution, and that was still held up as one of those absurd and obviously wrong hypotheses in my high school biology classes. Although it is hard to really argue that any of those three were without education, they were without formal education in the field of their discovery. Then again Albert Einstein also didn't have a formal education in research: he studied to become a teacher.
Thanks for listing these people, but I don't think any of them fit the garage genius I was after. It seems like the biologists were actually scientists (switching field of research is very common, you are still a scientist). Einstein did study to a teacher, but then he got a PhD in physics. "On 30 April 1905, Einstein completed his thesis, with Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Experimental Physics, serving as pro-forma advisor. As a result, Einstein was awarded a PhD by the University of Zürich, [...]" -wiki. Reading on wiki, he was at no point a self proclaimed genius with highly controversial ideas. He was just damn talented and smart.
I am going more for the people that are coming straight from high school, or at most a couple of years of undergrad studies, and then leave the standard academic path (before getting any training in doing research) and do their own research, to reach some miraculous finding that the everyone else fails to recognise. And then they go on for years and years to push this theory of theirs. I have had people come into my office with their printed book on their theories asking if I have 15 minutes for them to explain it. (It always takes more than 15 minutes...) I ask if they have published their work in a peer reviewed journal. No they say, but [insert excuse], and they have this book (and this webpage here) that contains everything I need to know. As I understand, none of the ones you mentioned ever were anywhere close to that. Correct?
So while there have been controversial scientists around that later turned out to be right, I am not sure much useful have come from the kind of people I described in the second paragraph. But again, I'm not very knowledgeable on science history, or history at all for that matter. 
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On July 23 2015 14:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Every scientist without observable evidence is a quack scientist because he literally only has an idea that what he believes--but does not have evidence for it. String Theory, a large portion of quantum physics, whole sections of theoretical mathematics, etc... Sure, you and many other scientists find the logic of these ideas relatively sound, but that's not really the point is it? Which is why I call it quack science. The reason quacks exist is because there are enough people out there who find their idea "relatively sound" much like string theory is "relatively sound" to many physicists ang GMO's being evil is "relatively sound" to hippies. But is it observed? Is there evidence for it? Or is it just a logic knot that sounds good--for now.
What... Umm...
Ok, I see how you can get this idea from the way science is reported in popular media. They will write an article about this scientist that made a brilliant discovery that will change the world in all possible ways, and will sound as if everyone are very excited and so on. After 2 years you haven't heard about it anymore, and it turns out it wasn't as great as previously though. they will interview this cosmologist, that will start with "according to our theory, " and then go on to explain the implication of their theory that they themselves find pretty speculative, but then the news channel cuts the interview (the "according to our theory" and "this isn't veried by experiemnts yet" won't survive the editing, trust me), and what you hear from the TV is a person sitting and spouting nonsense that there is no evidence for.
So well, if you go to scientific conferences, if you talk to the scientist in question, if you read their papers, the tone is very very different. I realise it's not something you will have the time and motivation to actually do, so I can't do more than ask you to trust me on that. Not sure if there are any sources for that statement, but there are large quantities of material of scientists complaining about popular media, so I guess that is an effect of it... Anyway, science IS evidence based. Incredibly much so compared to almost anything else. I mean, it's not like science is the perfect empirical machine. There are definitely issues, but what you describe is pretty insulting tbh.
Problem is that there is no economic incentive for media to be accurate, while there is a huge incentive for them to get viewers. Which mean that careful statements about "well we got this theory, it really isn't very certain and we haven't managed to find any data that supports it yet, but well, we find it pretty cool and maybe it will pan out eventually" doesn't sell at all.
Also, don't group string theory (would love to have empirical evidence, but doesn't and other scientists are shunning them for it) and quantum mechanics (have incredibly sound empirical backing) and mathematics (don't need empirical evidence). And "GMO being evil" shouldn't go in that group either, but I don't think you implied that.
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On July 23 2015 12:01 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2015 23:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:
History is filled with obviously wrong scientists that turned to have been correct only in hindsight. The goal is not to trust all scientists, the goal is to continue the distrust and hampering of new science so that only the truly infallible results float to the surface. For every galileo there are thousands upon thousands of quacks--those quacks are the reasons for such harsh ridicule of fantastical sciences. Isn't "filled" a bit exaggerated word here? At least in decently modern science, say last 100 years or so. How many times has it happened since 1900 that someone without any education comes up with something going against current consensus which later turns out to be correct? Personally I can't name any, but I won't pretend to have researched the subject.
George Lemaitre would be my favorite example. Priest shows up on scene with calculations that disagree with Einstein, then 2 years later Hubble proves he's right with observational data.
Wegner a dramatic example for the degree to which his theory was ridiculed until decades after his death, when it became painfully obvious.
And some fields, like Psychology, are still so much in their infancy that no-one really has a damned clue what's right about much of anything. (*slight* exaggeration, but less than you'd think; lot less six-sigma surety there than pretty much any other real field in science.)
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Zurich15365 Posts
On July 23 2015 22:37 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 12:01 Cascade wrote:On July 22 2015 23:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:
History is filled with obviously wrong scientists that turned to have been correct only in hindsight. The goal is not to trust all scientists, the goal is to continue the distrust and hampering of new science so that only the truly infallible results float to the surface. For every galileo there are thousands upon thousands of quacks--those quacks are the reasons for such harsh ridicule of fantastical sciences. Isn't "filled" a bit exaggerated word here? At least in decently modern science, say last 100 years or so. How many times has it happened since 1900 that someone without any education comes up with something going against current consensus which later turns out to be correct? Personally I can't name any, but I won't pretend to have researched the subject. George Lemaitre would be my favorite example. Priest shows up on scene with calculations that disagree with Einstein, then 2 years later Hubble proves he's right with observational data.
A physics PhD who also studied math and engineering, and who had studied cosmology, stellar astronomy and numerical analysis at Cambridge, Harvard, and MIT for years (WP). Hardly "someone without any education".
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On July 23 2015 22:37 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 12:01 Cascade wrote:On July 22 2015 23:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:
History is filled with obviously wrong scientists that turned to have been correct only in hindsight. The goal is not to trust all scientists, the goal is to continue the distrust and hampering of new science so that only the truly infallible results float to the surface. For every galileo there are thousands upon thousands of quacks--those quacks are the reasons for such harsh ridicule of fantastical sciences. Isn't "filled" a bit exaggerated word here? At least in decently modern science, say last 100 years or so. How many times has it happened since 1900 that someone without any education comes up with something going against current consensus which later turns out to be correct? Personally I can't name any, but I won't pretend to have researched the subject. George Lemaitre would be my favorite example. Priest shows up on scene with calculations that disagree with Einstein, then 2 years later Hubble proves he's right with observational data. Wegner a dramatic example for the degree to which his theory was ridiculed until decades after his death, when it became painfully obvious. And some fields, like Psychology, are still so much in their infancy that no-one really has a damned clue what's right about much of anything. (*slight* exaggeration, but less than you'd think; lot less six-sigma surety there than pretty much any other real field in science.)
Psychology doesn't count as science education.
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On July 23 2015 17:48 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 14:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Every scientist without observable evidence is a quack scientist because he literally only has an idea that what he believes--but does not have evidence for it. String Theory, a large portion of quantum physics, whole sections of theoretical mathematics, etc... Sure, you and many other scientists find the logic of these ideas relatively sound, but that's not really the point is it? Which is why I call it quack science. The reason quacks exist is because there are enough people out there who find their idea "relatively sound" much like string theory is "relatively sound" to many physicists ang GMO's being evil is "relatively sound" to hippies. But is it observed? Is there evidence for it? Or is it just a logic knot that sounds good--for now.
What... Umm... Ok, I see how you can get this idea from the way science is reported in popular media. They will write an article about this scientist that made a brilliant discovery that will change the world in all possible ways, and will sound as if everyone are very excited and so on. After 2 years you haven't heard about it anymore, and it turns out it wasn't as great as previously though. they will interview this cosmologist, that will start with "according to our theory, " and then go on to explain the implication of their theory that they themselves find pretty speculative, but then the news channel cuts the interview (the "according to our theory" and "this isn't veried by experiemnts yet" won't survive the editing, trust me), and what you hear from the TV is a person sitting and spouting nonsense that there is no evidence for. So well, if you go to scientific conferences, if you talk to the scientist in question, if you read their papers, the tone is very very different. I realise it's not something you will have the time and motivation to actually do, so I can't do more than ask you to trust me on that. Not sure if there are any sources for that statement, but there are large quantities of material of scientists complaining about popular media, so I guess that is an effect of it... Anyway, science IS evidence based. Incredibly much so compared to almost anything else. I mean, it's not like science is the perfect empirical machine. There are definitely issues, but what you describe is pretty insulting tbh. Problem is that there is no economic incentive for media to be accurate, while there is a huge incentive for them to get viewers. Which mean that careful statements about "well we got this theory, it really isn't very certain and we haven't managed to find any data that supports it yet, but well, we find it pretty cool and maybe it will pan out eventually" doesn't sell at all. Also, don't group string theory (would love to have empirical evidence, but doesn't and other scientists are shunning them for it) and quantum mechanics (have incredibly sound empirical backing) and mathematics (don't need empirical evidence). And "GMO being evil" shouldn't go in that group either, but I don't think you implied that.
I think we have very different definitions of what a Quack is.
If it doesn't have empirical evidence--its quack science to me. And trying to argue that ____ doesn't need evidence does not refute it.
To you, quack science is based on pedigree. Does he have certification? Does he have degrees? If not, then he's a quack.
Those are not the same definitions so lets stop before we go down the semantics rabbit hole.
One of my daily responsibilities for my job is vetting scientists. For the most part, academics are pretty useless in real world research especially in the field of atmospheric and statistical model building. I spend most of my time having to figure out if they've actually built any models that has been tested, or if they've actually used real world data gathered now and not just hypothetical data sets. For the most part--academics don't know anything. They throw buzz words around and have pretty slide shows. But when we give them satellite data 1-2 days old 90% of them freak out and complain that they don't have enough time and information to do anything.
So my definition of quack is very much more broad than yours. I've met too many "educated" PhDs who don't know a damn thing about actually doing research, which means that little piece of paper you call a degree doesn't mean much to me at vetting someone's skill sets. I need something harder, I need real world data and real world evidence or its just quack science to me.
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On July 23 2015 22:45 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 22:37 Yoav wrote:On July 23 2015 12:01 Cascade wrote:On July 22 2015 23:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:
History is filled with obviously wrong scientists that turned to have been correct only in hindsight. The goal is not to trust all scientists, the goal is to continue the distrust and hampering of new science so that only the truly infallible results float to the surface. For every galileo there are thousands upon thousands of quacks--those quacks are the reasons for such harsh ridicule of fantastical sciences. Isn't "filled" a bit exaggerated word here? At least in decently modern science, say last 100 years or so. How many times has it happened since 1900 that someone without any education comes up with something going against current consensus which later turns out to be correct? Personally I can't name any, but I won't pretend to have researched the subject. George Lemaitre would be my favorite example. Priest shows up on scene with calculations that disagree with Einstein, then 2 years later Hubble proves he's right with observational data. A physics PhD who also studied math and engineering, and who had studied cosmology, stellar astronomy and numerical analysis at Cambridge, Harvard, and MIT for years ( WP). Hardly "someone without any education".
Most atheists assume priest = uneducated. Its an honest mistake for the random TLer to make.
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On July 23 2015 17:04 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 14:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:On July 23 2015 13:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 23 2015 13:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:On July 23 2015 12:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 22 2015 23:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:
History is filled with obviously wrong scientists that turned to have been correct only in hindsight. The goal is not to trust all scientists, the goal is to continue the distrust and hampering of new science so that only the truly infallible results float to the surface. For every galileo there are thousands upon thousands of quacks--those quacks are the reasons for such harsh ridicule of fantastical sciences. I care less about who comes up with a scientific hypothesis, and care much more about how much evidence there is for the claim. The scientific community does one hell of a job on trying to pick apart weak ideas, and if an explanation actually becomes so strong that it's considered a scientific theory after reaching consensus, I'd say that's damn good. Obviously, it's important to understand the material on your own (and not just assume things are correct via argument from authority), but how many examples are there where a quack fools the scientific community into elevating an idea with a fantastic reputation, but not actually present any evidence for it? I mean, that's the entire structure of the scientific method... (I would also note that this is different than merely falsifying previously accepted ideas with new evidence, because those original scientists weren't trying to fool the community, nor were they arbitrarily coming up with bullshit but pretending they had actual evidence... they weren't quacks.) Galen defined medicine for about 1000 years The greeks for longer than that In fact, every scientific theory that gets changed or amended as new evidence shows up are literally the products of "quacks" who created false conclusions from evidence--but was the closest we could get at the time. The Atom was definitely the smallest thing in the universe--until it wasn't. And neutrinos with their whole ignores solid objects magic was definitely just some random guys ideas--until it wasn't. Heck, a lot of String Theory is not much different than the quacks we see everyday. Solid sounding theories without observed evidence to validate them. As we learn more in the future, these quacks and their ideas will be verified or falsified. But don't pretend that "science believers" have somehow transcended base human traits. My statement made in the parentheses was meant to clarify that I'm not merely talking about accepted ideas that were eventually refuted by new evidence (as that's how all science operates, making the original claim of yours meaningless), but instead ideas that actually tricked the scientific community based off no evidence at all/ quackery. As in, a bullshit hypothesis slipped past the called-for skepticism of the scientific community (where there was actually an ability to falsify that idea at that time) and so the scientific community failed at filtering out obvious quackery. And I'm not sure what Galen has to do with it; he was a Greek physician and surgeon (and philosopher) whose medical research influenced a ton of scientific disciplines ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen ). That's pretty much the opposite of some random quack making up bullshit that shouldn't have passed scrutiny of the scientific community of that time. His work was not only great at the time (which is the metric we're dealing with), but was also helpful for future advancements of science and medicine. Maybe I'm reading too much into your original claim/ being too harsh on what you said, but I interpreted it to mean something like this: Quack/ Fake scientist fabricates an idea, doesn't have any evidence for it (or more importantly, there is already existing evidence that refutes it), and proposes it to the scientific community anyway. Then the community fails at vocally refuting it (even though current research already falsified it), and it passes on to become celebrated as something significant instead of the general consensus saying "lol no scrubs, gtfo". I interpreted it this way because I'm fairly certain that 99.99% of quacks/ fake scientists get crushed in the scientific community because the real experts know that it's bullshit, which is why you have these jerks circumvent the scientific process and do other shit (like appeal to governments to get their crap posted in public school science textbooks, a la Creationism/ Intelligence Design). The real community of scientists is appropriately skeptical and properly rejects their claims, which makes me hesitant to agree with your claim that we shouldn't be trusting scientists due to the non-scientists who pretend to be scientists. And obviously, there's no way for scientists to know they have "truly infallible results", because scientific claims- by definition- are not irrefutable/ unfalsifiable. Galen's scientific method was cutting up animals and seeing that they did bleed and have puss, proving that the humors theory of health was true. The idea that being unhealthy was the product of imbalance of humors leading to puking/bleeding as the form of medicine was practiced until well into the modern era (post american civil war) It's literally quack science that was considered true for the majority of written human history. The only real thing Galen gave us was the practice of writing medical knowledge down and passing it on. A lot of what he wrote down and passed along was wrong--but the process he passed down was pretty good. Every scientist without observable evidence is a quack scientist because he literally only has an idea that what he believes--but does not have evidence for it. String Theory, a large portion of quantum physics, whole sections of theoretical mathematics, etc... Sure, you and many other scientists find the logic of these ideas relatively sound, but that's not really the point is it? Which is why I call it quack science. The reason quacks exist is because there are enough people out there who find their idea "relatively sound" much like string theory is "relatively sound" to many physicists ang GMO's being evil is "relatively sound" to hippies. But is it observed? Is there evidence for it? Or is it just a logic knot that sounds good--for now. Sometime in the future, those ideas will be linked to physical evidence and observed phenomena--and once that happens they will stop being quack ideas. Some will be shown to actually be quack ideas such as the humors theory, while some will be shown as good ideas like calculus. But during the interim its important to not forget that its just a bunch of ideas that sound good enough for most of the scientific community to be okay with it. You have this big problem where you don't understand how science works, but think you do. Let's take an example that i am more comfortable with: Newtonian mechanics (NM). Through a lot of history, these were thought of as basically "Mechanics is figured out". Then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, it turned out that there were cases in which they didn't work (really small things and really fast things). Thus, new theories of mechanics, namely Quantum Mechanics(QM) and Special Relativity(SR) were developed. Does this make Newton a quack, and all of the scientists who agreed with his theory people who were fooled by him? No. Because NM still works in the realm in which they could previously tested. Both the predictions of QM and SR converge against those of NM for stuff that is big enough in the case of QM or slow enough in the case of SR. Scientific theories generalize from observable phenomena, and try to make predictions from thereon on, like in the "running against a hard thing" example mentioned earlier. This inherently means that new evidence may require a change in the theory, or overturn a theory completely. This is a normal part of the scientific process. Theories are always and constantly tested in regards to how they stand up to new evidence. It is not about "sounding good". A theory is a device to make predictions. As long as these predictions fit the results, the theory is not disproven and can continue to be used. If it stops doing that, it needs to be amended. This does not mean that everyone before that was either a quack or fooled, simply that in the realm of that limited evidence, the theory worked, and now with more evidence it needs to be changed. You make this sound dirty. But it is very normal. In your mind, is every single piece of science "quack science"? Because every scientific theory (except for mathematics i guess) is by definition falsifiable (and thus in your mind quack science). Theories that are not falsifiable are called "Pseudo Science", because being falsifiable is a main part of a scientific theory. This is silly. In the case of mathematics it is even more silly. If you did not make a mistake in your calculations, mathematics describes objective truths. I can't even understand how you can come to the conclusion that it is "quack science" just because you can not imagine complex numbers or whatever else you didn't dislike. Mathematics is a science based on deriving results by using logical operations on predefined axioms. It is very much the science that can claim the most to have "objective truths". This whole "open to scrutiny" business also means that basic scientific theories have been brutally tested. Which means that whatever you thought up in your garage with a few magnets and a ferret on LSD has already been tried out, and it turns out that it doesn't violate the conservation of energy.
You don't have much knowledge in just what happened with Galen do you?
Galen had a conclusion passed down to him that the body was fluids in a state of balance. He looked for evidence to support that conclusion, and wrote it down. That became the basis of medical knowledge until post-american civil war. He was literally a quack scientists who had great results (bleeding a few pints from someone would first give them euphoria, so they felt better, and then put them to sleep--the rest curing majority of the ailment complaints) but no scientific proof as to why it worked. Most of his methodologies would still work today for most complaints (pretty much anything that doctors tell you that you need bed rest for) and so it passed muster and anything that went against it was vilified for centuries (such as surgery, disease research, etc...) because during the era of humors based medicine--those were the quack sciences that everyone ridiculed. Scientists would be fired for suggesting them as true kind of bullshit.
What that tells me is that we won't ever know if the knowledge we have now is just another galen. Just another methodology that is right 90% of the time, but is actually completely wrong. So yeah, I don't believe in disavowing theories outside of the norm. I won't necessarily believe them--and I'll need a lot of real world data before I give it the time of day--but simply getting it right most of the time is exactly what set back medicine for many many centuries.
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On July 23 2015 23:28 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 17:48 Cascade wrote:On July 23 2015 14:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Every scientist without observable evidence is a quack scientist because he literally only has an idea that what he believes--but does not have evidence for it. String Theory, a large portion of quantum physics, whole sections of theoretical mathematics, etc... Sure, you and many other scientists find the logic of these ideas relatively sound, but that's not really the point is it? Which is why I call it quack science. The reason quacks exist is because there are enough people out there who find their idea "relatively sound" much like string theory is "relatively sound" to many physicists ang GMO's being evil is "relatively sound" to hippies. But is it observed? Is there evidence for it? Or is it just a logic knot that sounds good--for now.
What... Umm... Ok, I see how you can get this idea from the way science is reported in popular media. They will write an article about this scientist that made a brilliant discovery that will change the world in all possible ways, and will sound as if everyone are very excited and so on. After 2 years you haven't heard about it anymore, and it turns out it wasn't as great as previously though. they will interview this cosmologist, that will start with "according to our theory, " and then go on to explain the implication of their theory that they themselves find pretty speculative, but then the news channel cuts the interview (the "according to our theory" and "this isn't veried by experiemnts yet" won't survive the editing, trust me), and what you hear from the TV is a person sitting and spouting nonsense that there is no evidence for. So well, if you go to scientific conferences, if you talk to the scientist in question, if you read their papers, the tone is very very different. I realise it's not something you will have the time and motivation to actually do, so I can't do more than ask you to trust me on that. Not sure if there are any sources for that statement, but there are large quantities of material of scientists complaining about popular media, so I guess that is an effect of it... Anyway, science IS evidence based. Incredibly much so compared to almost anything else. I mean, it's not like science is the perfect empirical machine. There are definitely issues, but what you describe is pretty insulting tbh. Problem is that there is no economic incentive for media to be accurate, while there is a huge incentive for them to get viewers. Which mean that careful statements about "well we got this theory, it really isn't very certain and we haven't managed to find any data that supports it yet, but well, we find it pretty cool and maybe it will pan out eventually" doesn't sell at all. Also, don't group string theory (would love to have empirical evidence, but doesn't and other scientists are shunning them for it) and quantum mechanics (have incredibly sound empirical backing) and mathematics (don't need empirical evidence). And "GMO being evil" shouldn't go in that group either, but I don't think you implied that. I think we have very different definitions of what a Quack is. If it doesn't have empirical evidence--its quack science to me. And trying to argue that ____ doesn't need evidence does not refute it. To you, quack science is based on pedigree. Does he have certification? Does he have degrees? If not, then he's a quack. Those are not the same definitions so lets stop before we go down the semantics rabbit hole.
I think you and I were arguing semantics over Quack as well, so I'm happy to back off our conversation too
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On July 23 2015 23:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 17:04 Simberto wrote:On July 23 2015 14:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:On July 23 2015 13:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 23 2015 13:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:On July 23 2015 12:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 22 2015 23:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:
History is filled with obviously wrong scientists that turned to have been correct only in hindsight. The goal is not to trust all scientists, the goal is to continue the distrust and hampering of new science so that only the truly infallible results float to the surface. For every galileo there are thousands upon thousands of quacks--those quacks are the reasons for such harsh ridicule of fantastical sciences. I care less about who comes up with a scientific hypothesis, and care much more about how much evidence there is for the claim. The scientific community does one hell of a job on trying to pick apart weak ideas, and if an explanation actually becomes so strong that it's considered a scientific theory after reaching consensus, I'd say that's damn good. Obviously, it's important to understand the material on your own (and not just assume things are correct via argument from authority), but how many examples are there where a quack fools the scientific community into elevating an idea with a fantastic reputation, but not actually present any evidence for it? I mean, that's the entire structure of the scientific method... (I would also note that this is different than merely falsifying previously accepted ideas with new evidence, because those original scientists weren't trying to fool the community, nor were they arbitrarily coming up with bullshit but pretending they had actual evidence... they weren't quacks.) Galen defined medicine for about 1000 years The greeks for longer than that In fact, every scientific theory that gets changed or amended as new evidence shows up are literally the products of "quacks" who created false conclusions from evidence--but was the closest we could get at the time. The Atom was definitely the smallest thing in the universe--until it wasn't. And neutrinos with their whole ignores solid objects magic was definitely just some random guys ideas--until it wasn't. Heck, a lot of String Theory is not much different than the quacks we see everyday. Solid sounding theories without observed evidence to validate them. As we learn more in the future, these quacks and their ideas will be verified or falsified. But don't pretend that "science believers" have somehow transcended base human traits. My statement made in the parentheses was meant to clarify that I'm not merely talking about accepted ideas that were eventually refuted by new evidence (as that's how all science operates, making the original claim of yours meaningless), but instead ideas that actually tricked the scientific community based off no evidence at all/ quackery. As in, a bullshit hypothesis slipped past the called-for skepticism of the scientific community (where there was actually an ability to falsify that idea at that time) and so the scientific community failed at filtering out obvious quackery. And I'm not sure what Galen has to do with it; he was a Greek physician and surgeon (and philosopher) whose medical research influenced a ton of scientific disciplines ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen ). That's pretty much the opposite of some random quack making up bullshit that shouldn't have passed scrutiny of the scientific community of that time. His work was not only great at the time (which is the metric we're dealing with), but was also helpful for future advancements of science and medicine. Maybe I'm reading too much into your original claim/ being too harsh on what you said, but I interpreted it to mean something like this: Quack/ Fake scientist fabricates an idea, doesn't have any evidence for it (or more importantly, there is already existing evidence that refutes it), and proposes it to the scientific community anyway. Then the community fails at vocally refuting it (even though current research already falsified it), and it passes on to become celebrated as something significant instead of the general consensus saying "lol no scrubs, gtfo". I interpreted it this way because I'm fairly certain that 99.99% of quacks/ fake scientists get crushed in the scientific community because the real experts know that it's bullshit, which is why you have these jerks circumvent the scientific process and do other shit (like appeal to governments to get their crap posted in public school science textbooks, a la Creationism/ Intelligence Design). The real community of scientists is appropriately skeptical and properly rejects their claims, which makes me hesitant to agree with your claim that we shouldn't be trusting scientists due to the non-scientists who pretend to be scientists. And obviously, there's no way for scientists to know they have "truly infallible results", because scientific claims- by definition- are not irrefutable/ unfalsifiable. Galen's scientific method was cutting up animals and seeing that they did bleed and have puss, proving that the humors theory of health was true. The idea that being unhealthy was the product of imbalance of humors leading to puking/bleeding as the form of medicine was practiced until well into the modern era (post american civil war) It's literally quack science that was considered true for the majority of written human history. The only real thing Galen gave us was the practice of writing medical knowledge down and passing it on. A lot of what he wrote down and passed along was wrong--but the process he passed down was pretty good. Every scientist without observable evidence is a quack scientist because he literally only has an idea that what he believes--but does not have evidence for it. String Theory, a large portion of quantum physics, whole sections of theoretical mathematics, etc... Sure, you and many other scientists find the logic of these ideas relatively sound, but that's not really the point is it? Which is why I call it quack science. The reason quacks exist is because there are enough people out there who find their idea "relatively sound" much like string theory is "relatively sound" to many physicists ang GMO's being evil is "relatively sound" to hippies. But is it observed? Is there evidence for it? Or is it just a logic knot that sounds good--for now. Sometime in the future, those ideas will be linked to physical evidence and observed phenomena--and once that happens they will stop being quack ideas. Some will be shown to actually be quack ideas such as the humors theory, while some will be shown as good ideas like calculus. But during the interim its important to not forget that its just a bunch of ideas that sound good enough for most of the scientific community to be okay with it. You have this big problem where you don't understand how science works, but think you do. Let's take an example that i am more comfortable with: Newtonian mechanics (NM). Through a lot of history, these were thought of as basically "Mechanics is figured out". Then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, it turned out that there were cases in which they didn't work (really small things and really fast things). Thus, new theories of mechanics, namely Quantum Mechanics(QM) and Special Relativity(SR) were developed. Does this make Newton a quack, and all of the scientists who agreed with his theory people who were fooled by him? No. Because NM still works in the realm in which they could previously tested. Both the predictions of QM and SR converge against those of NM for stuff that is big enough in the case of QM or slow enough in the case of SR. Scientific theories generalize from observable phenomena, and try to make predictions from thereon on, like in the "running against a hard thing" example mentioned earlier. This inherently means that new evidence may require a change in the theory, or overturn a theory completely. This is a normal part of the scientific process. Theories are always and constantly tested in regards to how they stand up to new evidence. It is not about "sounding good". A theory is a device to make predictions. As long as these predictions fit the results, the theory is not disproven and can continue to be used. If it stops doing that, it needs to be amended. This does not mean that everyone before that was either a quack or fooled, simply that in the realm of that limited evidence, the theory worked, and now with more evidence it needs to be changed. You make this sound dirty. But it is very normal. In your mind, is every single piece of science "quack science"? Because every scientific theory (except for mathematics i guess) is by definition falsifiable (and thus in your mind quack science). Theories that are not falsifiable are called "Pseudo Science", because being falsifiable is a main part of a scientific theory. This is silly. In the case of mathematics it is even more silly. If you did not make a mistake in your calculations, mathematics describes objective truths. I can't even understand how you can come to the conclusion that it is "quack science" just because you can not imagine complex numbers or whatever else you didn't dislike. Mathematics is a science based on deriving results by using logical operations on predefined axioms. It is very much the science that can claim the most to have "objective truths". This whole "open to scrutiny" business also means that basic scientific theories have been brutally tested. Which means that whatever you thought up in your garage with a few magnets and a ferret on LSD has already been tried out, and it turns out that it doesn't violate the conservation of energy. You don't have much knowledge in just what happened with Galen do you? Galen had a conclusion passed down to him that the body was fluids in a state of balance. He looked for evidence to support that conclusion, and wrote it down. That became the basis of medical knowledge until post-american civil war. He was literally a quack scientists who had great results (bleeding a few pints from someone would first give them euphoria, so they felt better, and then put them to sleep--the rest curing majority of the ailment complaints) but no scientific proof as to why it worked. Most of his methodologies would still work today for most complaints (pretty much anything that doctors tell you that you need bed rest for) and so it passed muster and anything that went against it was vilified for centuries (such as surgery, disease research, etc...) because during the era of humors based medicine--those were the quack sciences that everyone ridiculed. Scientists would be fired for suggesting them as true kind of bullshit. What that tells me is that we won't ever know if the knowledge we have now is just another galen. Just another methodology that is right 90% of the time, but is actually completely wrong. So yeah, I don't believe in disavowing theories outside of the norm. I won't necessarily believe them--and I'll need a lot of real world data before I give it the time of day--but simply getting it right most of the time is exactly what set back medicine for many many centuries.
I think it is very much unfair to compare Galen to someone like Andrew Wakefield, and shoving them in the same category of "quackery" means that your definition of quackery is wrong.
Would someone performing the same research as Galen TODAY be a quack? Well. Hell yeah. But when Galen actually did his research, he actually followed the scientific method insofar as it could be understood in HIS TIME. He experimented, and discovered these things. That his discoveries were ultimately wrong, doesn't mean he did not operate according to the best of his scientific ability. A quack willfully IGNORES evidence in order for his theory to fit. Something that I think Galen would have been horrified at.
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They actually dd ignore evidence--but not for the same reasons people do today. Academia back then believed in pure logic over empiricism. I it could be explained with logic in some way, then it did not need evidence.
So they would start with an axiom "people are not normally sick, but sometimes they get sick" and conclude that people are in a state of being well, and then "become" unwell.
It made sense to them logicaly, so there was no need to confirm it with further study. The studies done at the time were attempts to confirm this conclusion. And that's how medicine worked until the 1800's.
However--it is also an academic practice no longer perpetuated and so it sounds backwards. But it only sounds backwards in hindsight. To Galen's credit, he did go one step further than most before him and actually cut up animals to learn about them medically--although he did not go the extra step of actually testing the initial hypothesis.
To their credit, the humors theory works majority of the time and is still practiced today. "Sweating out" fevers, "puking out" flus, "coughing out" phlem, etc... Are still things deemed okay in practice despite having the opposite reasons that humors theory suggests for them to be used for. Galen's work, like Newtonian Physics, works enough for most cases that no one really tried testing the hypothesis until the Black Death hit the University of Paris.
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your Country52798 Posts
On July 24 2015 01:12 snakeplitzskin wrote:
You don't.
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On July 23 2015 23:28 Thieving Magpie wrote:
I've met too many "educated" PhDs who don't know a damn thing about actually doing research, which means that little piece of paper you call a degree doesn't mean much to me at vetting someone's skill sets. I need something harder, I need real world data and real world evidence or its just quack science to me.
Yeah, like a phD is just a little piece of paper. You're somehow forgetting about the giant peer-reviewed thesis describing all the research you've been doing for years. It's not like you can get your phD by passing one exam.
And just because the guy's field of expertise is not perfectly what you need, doesnt mean it's a quack. I have a phD in astrophysics, working on a very particular thing, and so i don't know shit about how to deal with data from another telescope. And I don't consider myself a quack
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On July 23 2015 23:28 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2015 17:48 Cascade wrote:On July 23 2015 14:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Every scientist without observable evidence is a quack scientist because he literally only has an idea that what he believes--but does not have evidence for it. String Theory, a large portion of quantum physics, whole sections of theoretical mathematics, etc... Sure, you and many other scientists find the logic of these ideas relatively sound, but that's not really the point is it? Which is why I call it quack science. The reason quacks exist is because there are enough people out there who find their idea "relatively sound" much like string theory is "relatively sound" to many physicists ang GMO's being evil is "relatively sound" to hippies. But is it observed? Is there evidence for it? Or is it just a logic knot that sounds good--for now.
What... Umm... Ok, I see how you can get this idea from the way science is reported in popular media. They will write an article about this scientist that made a brilliant discovery that will change the world in all possible ways, and will sound as if everyone are very excited and so on. After 2 years you haven't heard about it anymore, and it turns out it wasn't as great as previously though. they will interview this cosmologist, that will start with "according to our theory, " and then go on to explain the implication of their theory that they themselves find pretty speculative, but then the news channel cuts the interview (the "according to our theory" and "this isn't veried by experiemnts yet" won't survive the editing, trust me), and what you hear from the TV is a person sitting and spouting nonsense that there is no evidence for. So well, if you go to scientific conferences, if you talk to the scientist in question, if you read their papers, the tone is very very different. I realise it's not something you will have the time and motivation to actually do, so I can't do more than ask you to trust me on that. Not sure if there are any sources for that statement, but there are large quantities of material of scientists complaining about popular media, so I guess that is an effect of it... Anyway, science IS evidence based. Incredibly much so compared to almost anything else. I mean, it's not like science is the perfect empirical machine. There are definitely issues, but what you describe is pretty insulting tbh. Problem is that there is no economic incentive for media to be accurate, while there is a huge incentive for them to get viewers. Which mean that careful statements about "well we got this theory, it really isn't very certain and we haven't managed to find any data that supports it yet, but well, we find it pretty cool and maybe it will pan out eventually" doesn't sell at all. Also, don't group string theory (would love to have empirical evidence, but doesn't and other scientists are shunning them for it) and quantum mechanics (have incredibly sound empirical backing) and mathematics (don't need empirical evidence). And "GMO being evil" shouldn't go in that group either, but I don't think you implied that. I think we have very different definitions of what a Quack is. If it doesn't have empirical evidence--its quack science to me. And trying to argue that ____ doesn't need evidence does not refute it. To you, quack science is based on pedigree. Does he have certification? Does he have degrees? If not, then he's a quack. Those are not the same definitions so lets stop before we go down the semantics rabbit hole. One of my daily responsibilities for my job is vetting scientists. For the most part, academics are pretty useless in real world research especially in the field of atmospheric and statistical model building. I spend most of my time having to figure out if they've actually built any models that has been tested, or if they've actually used real world data gathered now and not just hypothetical data sets. For the most part--academics don't know anything. They throw buzz words around and have pretty slide shows. But when we give them satellite data 1-2 days old 90% of them freak out and complain that they don't have enough time and information to do anything. So my definition of quack is very much more broad than yours. I've met too many "educated" PhDs who don't know a damn thing about actually doing research, which means that little piece of paper you call a degree doesn't mean much to me at vetting someone's skill sets. I need something harder, I need real world data and real world evidence or its just quack science to me.
I know dozens (probably hundreds?) of PhDs and PhD students (as a PhD student myself, I've collaborated and talked with many of them), and 0 of them know nothing about research. Mainly because you can't get a PhD without doing rigorous research. (As far as STEM/ academia is concerned, at least... I'm not sure of the criteria needed for a PhD in something else.) If there's any way you can get away with getting a PhD without writing a dissertation on information you've researched or gathered, please let me know. But I know people work their asses off (often for 4-10+ additional years) to get those three letters at the end of their name.
EDIT: We're not talking about diploma mills/ unaccredited schools/ fake doctorates right? Like how Kent Hovind doesn't actually have a legitimate doctorate. (I actually read his "dissertation" that his diploma mill school accepted, and I wrote better papers in 3rd grade.) I assume we're talking about actual scientists/ professionals...
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It's mostly the problem of academics transitioning into industry. They all want perfect information with no deadlines when the truth is that we need to have a forcast in a weeks time using little to no information to decide on which direction to move from a business standpoint. Most of them are used to being given 4-10 years to make something of work and not have to prove it's importance every few months.
So what did we learn? We learned academics are crap at coding, are crap at database management, have no idea how to fund dynamic projects, have no idea what are the best ways to gather data in a short budgeted time frame. And who are only good at analyzing information already found for them.
This doesn't make them quacks, this makes them useless for our research team. (Atmospheric, Geologic, Genetic, and Statistical research specifically)
It is the reason that having a degree doesn't disqualify someone from being called a quack. That what I use to determine if someone is stupid is what they can actually give us more than what degree they have.
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EPT
