Thread: I have been here a minute. Here are my observations

This forum seems to be a place for only "mainstream" science. Anyone who posits a alternative or complimentary theoretical view is chastised, ridiculed and censored. This seems to be a place for only teenagers. Most of this belittling comes from the moderators.
WTF is wrong with you all?
Has modern science really become dogmatic? Are we so arrogant in our ways to think that we know it all and that our current view point is all beautiful and correct?
Must I remind everyone here that if it wasn't for the fringe viewpoints and alternative thoughts on theoretical points we would not have our current scientific basis. Thompson, Tesla, Maxwell, Faraday, Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Dirac, Bohr, Rutherford, Descartes...All these men had cockamamie ideas, most of which were rejected by the science/society of the time. If any of you think that our science is currently in a position to be arrogant, then you have truly misunderstood the nature of the universe.
Forums like this are for expansion of ideas, for understanding perspectives, viewpoints, bringing about scientific inquiry through investigation, experimentation. We should not be so attached to one theory or another when it comes to science. We should approach everything with an open mind and with the intention of exit. Only until the evidence based upon natural phenomenon, observation tell us it is a correct interpretation.

Originally Posted by ObserveNature

This forum seems to be a place for only "mainstream" science. Anyone who posits a alternative or complimentary theoretical view is chastised, ridiculed and censored. This seems to be a place for only teenagers. Most of this belittling comes from the moderators.
WTF is wrong with you all?
Has modern science really become dogmatic? Are we so arrogant in our ways to think that we know it all and that our current view point is all beautiful and correct?
Must I remind everyone here that if it wasn't for the fringe viewpoints and alternative thoughts on theoretical points we would not have our current scientific basis. Thompson, Tesla, Maxwell, Faraday, Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Dirac, Bohr, Rutherford, Descartes...All these men had cockamamie ideas, most of which were rejected by the science/society of the time. If any of you think that our science is currently in a position to be arrogant, then you have truly misunderstood the nature of the universe.
Forums like this are for expansion of ideas, for understanding perspectives, viewpoints, bringing about scientific inquiry through investigation, experimentation. We should not be so attached to one theory or another when it comes to science. We should approach everything with an open mind and with the intention of exit. Only until the evidence based upon natural phenomenon, observation tell us it is a correct interpretation.

We can tell crackpot ideas from novel ones.

Originally Posted by AndrewC

We can tell crackpot ideas from novel ones.

Lol thanks Andrew. It is an observation from many other forums as well. Although, just because someone's theory doesnt agree with your own, doesnt mean it is a crackpot idea.

Originally Posted by ObserveNature

Lol thanks Andrew. It is an observation from many other forums as well. Although, just because someone's theory doesnt agree with your own, doesnt mean it is a crackpot idea.

I can tell a crackpot when I see his posts. You don't like it, there are plenty of crank forums. Feel free to post there, this is a mainstream science forum.

Originally Posted by ObserveNature

This forum seems to be a place for only "mainstream" science.

Yes, that is correct. There are many other forums where people are free to discuss "fringe" or "dissident" science, but this isn't one of them, I'm afraid. Sorry.

Originally Posted by ObserveNature

Anyone who posits a alternative or complimentary theoretical view is chastised, ridiculed and censored. This seems to be a place for only teenagers. Most of this belittling comes from the moderators.

Seeing as I am the only moderator to have posted on here in the past three years, could you perhaps show me an example of where I belittled anyone?

Originally Posted by ObserveNature

Forums like this are for expansion of ideas, for understanding perspectives, viewpoints, bringing about scientific inquiry through investigation, experimentation.

This forum was formed expressly as an off-shoot of another forum - the scienceforum.com, with the idea that the kind of discussion you describe above was fine at thescienceforum.com, but because of the nature of these issues there was also a lot of "noise" in those discussions, so thephysicsforum.com was created as a place where there was to be none of that "noise" and only discussion of "mainstream" physics is allowed.

At the other forum, when someone came along asking a question about, say, Special Relativity, the discussion would inevitably descend into meta-discussion as to the validity of the theory, alternative theories, various anti-relativists would then pipe in and the answer to the original question, the "mainstream" answer, would be lost amongst the "noise".

This forum is just for the "mainstream" answers.

I just thought i would re-post this from a discussion in alternative hypothesis (what is time) because it helped me. I find it difficult sometimes that i am not heard but it doesn't help to play the blame game or get emotional, after all aren't we asking the membership here for help. If i may make an observation in return it seems unlikely you have only been here a minute and this is your first post, my first thought was you have created another profile because you are ashamed of what you have previously wrote, true or not i distrust the way you have gone abou4 it. That said ON i don't completely disagree with you.

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09-09-2014, 12:24 PM
Quote Originally Posted by Gerry Nightingale View Post
There is NO WAY

that any of what I just wrote regarding energy would have a "prayer in hell" of ever being thought as having any merit, because to think any different would destroy "modern physics" in

an instant!)
No, I don't think that modern physics would be destroyed, Gerry, and I'm not sure why you do. Scientists are always considering pretty wild ideas -- just look at what we have today: Black holes! Dark matter! Dark energy! The uncertainty principle! Wave-particle duality! These are so astonishing to the lay mind that many rebel against it ("QM makes no sense; it must be wrong!" and so on). So if one looks at the history of science with an open mind, it becomes clear that "thinking different" is not a problem for science. Instead, it is precisely the way science has advanced.

Now, what does run into difficulty is the notion that merely thinking different is sufficient. Make no mistake: It is not. Ideas are a dime a dozen (if that). Everyone has one or a hundred. Everyone. Just witness this and other fora. Of necessity, nearly all of those ideas are wrong. The few successful ideas have always come from people who have a deep knowledge of the theories they seek to extend or overturn. That knowledge is essential for, without it, one cannot know where the weak bits are, what the poorly tested (or untested) regimes are, etc.

And one must add to that the requirement that any new theory must replicate all of the successes of the old, while also going beyond. Very, very few theories meet this high bar (and the bar gets higher with each added bit of experimental support for the current theory). So, whenever someone comes along claiming a superior theory (and this happens all the time), it is natural for science to regard such a claim as extraordinary (and thus require extraordinary proof of the claim). And if the claim offers no quantitative predictions, the "theory" can't even be called that. It's more properly regarded as a philosophical position, or a statement of one's personal aesthetics. These count for zero on their own. Yes, they may be very important to the individuals who come up with the ideas, but to science, not so much.

Given the above, you can perhaps better appreciate the seemingly hostile reception such ideas encounter. It isn't the result of fear by a hidebound orthodoxy, so intellectually ossiifed that new ideas are rejected summarily. Rather, it's a weary response by a community that has seen the same movie a countless number of times.