Tonington;1389107]Scientists also frown when their carefully chosen words are ignored. Dexter said people once thought the Earth was a sphere, which is an implied statement that most do not think that anymore. Your red herring distracts from the point he was making about how the conclusion that the earth is a sphere, was different from how those earlier philosophers concluded that the earth was flat.
Earlier scientists did not believe that the earth was flat, that was an artifact imposed in the dark ages, the facts are that philosophers knew the earth was primarily spherical for thousands of years. So your compound red herring does little to raise the debate to a better level.
I mean this is a case in point as well about what I said earlier. Science is self-correcting. New information changes how we view the universe.
Exactly my point, science
may be self adjusting of course, but it is also subject to the enormous external adjusting influence of capital. It is therefore my idea that money and power plays no small role in the supply, accuracy and availability of reliable trustworthy science purely arrived at by science alone and nothing but science..
Scientists also frown on statements implying a level of certainty that cannot be obtained from empirical observations, such as your statements about electric universe as the better hypothesis
There is absolutely no chance whatever that the electric model is not the observable superior in every way to the big bang and that it is refused its position by political rather than scientific demand.
A Habit of Lies - Preface
A Habit of Lies
- How Scientists Cheat
Chapter 1 - Cell Motility and Scientific Cheating
1.1
Introduction
1.2
Scientific Responsibility
1.3
Life through the Microscope
1.4
What is Described in "A Habit of Lies"?
1.5
What does "A Habit of Lies" aim to do?
Facts are like cows, if you look them in the eye long enough they generally run away. (Dorothy Parker)
1.1 Introduction
These are the facts, as announced in 1642 by Dr. John Lightfoot, later Vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. God created the heavens and the earth on October 23rd, 4004 BC, at nine o'clock in the morning. During the next six days, the Holy Trinity created man and all creatures now inhabiting the earth, as well as the fossilised remains of many now dead species.
These are the facts, according to modern science. Life began in the primordial soup that made up the earth's oceans some four billion years ago. For three billion of those years, evolution by natural selection gradually made life more complex and diverse, while the emergent life changed even the earth itself as primitive plants consumed the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere and replaced it with oxygen. The earth became cooler with this change in its atmosphere but soon the first animals developed to complete the cycle, consuming oxygen and returning carbon dioxide to the air. Life floated, then swam, through the seas until, about 400 million years ago, a short time in comparison to what had gone before, it sprouted and crawled its way onto the land. Animals have changed little since that time - reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals and men being but variations on some fishy mudskipper.
This work will not discuss whether the biblical or scientific descriptions of our origins is the true one. It will not seek to reconcile them but neither will it select one for ridicule; it will note that these two claims have more in common than is immediately apparent, particularly in respect of their social contexts. In fact, socially, it is difficult to distinguish them, with large, powerful groups proclaiming both as essentially factual.
Today's scientists might dismiss Dr. Lightfoot's calculations as baseless and suggest that the attention given his work reflected not its merit but his own elevated social status. They may claim that their own approach is free from such distortions, but "A Habit of Lies", a work about science not religion, will challenge such claims. Because it is a work about science it will treat "facts" as those generated by science but it does not suggest that Dr. Lightfoot's conclusions were insincere. Indeed, a principal conclusion will be that all facts, including those of science, owe a large part of their "factuality" to the social power of those who advocate them, regardless of whether the power so exercised is confined within science, or manifested in wider society. This book will review one field of biology, presenting its arguments and reasoning in a social, as well as scientific, context. The resulting portrayal of science will be very different from that found in most textbooks.
1.2 Scientific Responsibility
