From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
Subject: Re: Scientific Nazis (was: a new, improved proposed test, thanks to thomas david kehoe)
Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 23:35:13 GMT

Tag: 	TT Tom Tedrick
	TK Me
	RR Richard M. Romanowski

TT>rather than playing the role of
TT>"scientific Nazis", persecuting any heretics who deviate
TT>from whatever the current orthodoxy happens to be.

TK>I expect an apology for that simile.
TK>If you feel bullied, say so.  Call him a bully, but don't call him a Nazi.
TK>There is an inflation on that word anyway.

RR>	Why is it that the Nazis, with some measure of aristocracy and
RR>fashion sense, killed twelves million, and get to be the bogeyman, 
RR>whereas the Stalinists kill sixty-nine million and are never referred
RR>to as a stereotype of oppression?  [..]

I don't see the relevance of that.  People who do nothing but tell their
opinions in a.a are compared with mass murderers.  I complain about that.
Then you say there are even worse mass murderers than those mentioned...

TT>If you really want to develop the intuition needed to
TT>gain some insight into things like yoga, astrology, and
TT>so on, there are ways to do it, but unlike the materialistic
TT>science you are familiar with, it requires personal involvement.
TT>You can't understand it from the point of view of a detached,
TT>objective observer, [..]

TK>Yes you can.  But if you do, you can't believe in it at the same time.

RR>	You're both wrong.  You can test physics and believe in physics --
RR>you can test astrology and believe in astrology.  

Yuck - physics and astrology in the same context.

OK, I worded it poorly.  You can test astrology and believe in astrology,
but only
 - if it's a bad test that would yield positive results in any case or
 - if you don't let the outcome affect your belief or
 - if it's a test that I haven't heard of yet.

TT>You have to have
TT>certain experiences that will be outside the realm of the experience of
TT>the masses, [..]

TK>Ah, feeling elitist today?

RR>	How many Americans can read?  One third?  Believe me, people who
RR>bother to think ARE an elite.  Long live literacy -- and other elites!

Fine.  I just don't like people who only *think* they are an elite for
some irrelevant reason.

TK>By the way, that "heretics" word is again a try to push skeptics into one corner
TK>with the scum of the earth.  Personal attacks are the last refuge of people
TK>with no real arguments.

RR>	Bullpucky.  Personal attacks are a healthful form of exercise, 
RR>provided they're done with fists, and you help the guy up and have a beer
RR>with him afterwards. 

Broken noses, brain damage, and cauliflower ears are healthy?  Beer is healthy?

RR>	"Argument" -- since the time of the Greeks, we have glorified
RR>argument, and we get nothing more for our pains than humorless quibbling!

I didn't mean "argument" meaning "dispute" but "argument" meaning
"substantiation" or "reason".

RR>Did the Egyptians and Babylonians glorify debate and proof?  No, they 
RR>calculated and measured and were model scientists. [..]

In your eyes.

RR>	The best defense of astrology is that it works, much more efficiently
RR>than the upstart "psychology," which is expensive and interminable and never
RR>gets anywhere.

Old trick.  "Look at him over there - he's at least as bad as I am!"

RR>We cannot predict by astrology which slit the diffracting
RR>electron will choose -- but even our best physics cannot solve that riddle --
RR>so stop expecting astrology to conform to your petty rationalism!

Same old trick.  As I said, you don't have any real substantiation or you
wouldn't need rhetorics.  BTW, for someone who doesn't like Greek debate
culture, you're quite a sophist!

RR>	The sky holds beauties and profundities deeper than the well of
RR>Democritus, and you'd have it squeezed into the suffocating space between
RR>Newton and Faraday!  'Shame, sir, shame!  Your sword against a woman!'
RR>The Muse will bless physicists as readily as astrologers, but only when you
RR>are gracious enough to realize the finitude of human vision!

Even more irrelevant rhetorics.  All this can be used to justify not only
astrology but also every other crackpot theory from Velikovsky's collisions
to the Hypothesis Of Plaid Ant-Eaters Dwelling In The Center Of The Planet
Pluto And Continously Whistling "Baby Elephant Walk".

--
thomas kettenring, 2 dan, kaiserslautern, germany
Science is like democracy - it's not perfect, but it's the best thing available.