Jump to content

Longest Running Thread EVER


Recommended Posts

On September 16, 2018 at 7:55 PM, Bazza said:

 

OK, I finally read the thing by Hughes.  I think he is not exactly attacking a straw man, but he's close enough to doing so that IMO it is better to see him as calling out some sloppy writers wanting to sell books rather than building a strong philosophical construct.  The opinions he attacks, or at least the presentations the authors make of them, seem nothing like rigorously enough supported to give adequate backing to their sweeping implications; even I see that, and I am nothing like well-grounded in philosophy.  Now, if all you want is to fire a shotgun load of rock salt at the large population of internet idiots who like to cherry-pick stuff they don't really understand and denounce conventional philosophy and other humanities because it tickles their prejudices ... then Hughes's article is jolly good stuff.  But I want to emphasize I don't think much of the people who take cheap shots at the humanities either, and I do not take their unconsidered pronouncements as beng worth noticing.  Since I don't live near, or even downwind of them, they don't annoy me enough to care about them.

 

It happens wearyingly often to folks who live in physics departments, that treatises arrive from unknown authors without real training in physics, treatises which purport to show relativity is wrong, or quantum mechanics is wrong, or Big Bang cosmology is wrong, or something like that.  If you burn a few minutes of your life that you'll never get back in trying to read any of them, it is very rapidly apparent that none of the authors understand what they are trying to disprove, much less understand the phenomena and evidence that led to the acceptance of these ideas in the physics community.  It is not a misrepresentation to say: these people have never actually read anything Einstein (e.g.) wrote, but they sure know it's capital-W Wrong and they are bound and determined to let you know that.

 

(FWIW, the sad departure of Nyrath from the Star Hero boards came about because a person with mod powers kept weighing in persistently and quite fatuously about things like this, specifically about relativity and the Fermi Paradox.)

 

I have never asked my colleagues in the Philosophy Department if they get incoherent ramblings like this as well.  I assume the evolutionary biologists do, though more often what they get are just hate-filled hellfire-and-damnation denunciations.

 

Anyway ... the first one is aimed at an opinion that I believe is nowhere near as common among people actually in the science racket as you and the author seem to think.

 

Hopefully I'll have time to crack open the second before Wednesday (at which time classes start and my big chunks of discretionary time go away).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...