jeremyjr

Is this about what you may have a problem with?? Or you have all the answers in the book? Being a moderator in this place do not make you "authority" in any topic. But the abuse of "authority" is a common motif in many "experts" that try to "extend" their expertise outside of the boundaries of their field. We already had mentioned here the devastating effect of that abuse of authority in the real advance of science or at least in its slowing down, Lavoisier comes to mind. It is really interesting that you mentioned that example, the "flying pattern" of many butterflies appear sometimes so "chaotic" that many will try to "debunk" such flying pattern as the movement of an inanimated object. Simplistic arguments are pervasive in people without real observational experience.

Life not based in carbon is a theme that already had appeared in scientific journals, for example in the 2007 article "From plasma crystals and helical structures towards inorganic living matter" quoting: "It is concluded that complex self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter that may exist in space provided certain conditions allow them to evolve naturally." So the idea about living organisms naturally evolving in "empty" space is a very plausible idea with solid "scientific" backing. http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/9/8/263/pdf/njp7_8_263.pdf

In a very concrete sense evolution as a mechanism "discovered" many things: locomotion, flying, vision, etc. And ultimately it discovered "intelligence" with us. The laws that govern Evolution very likely are common in any form of Life, not necessarily only in Life based on carbon. So in the same way that evolution "discovered" "intelligence" with us it could had "discovered" other things that for us could only be produced by other intelligent beings: like moving freely in empty space, moving faster than any of our fastest vehicles, airplanes or rockets, maybe Evolution "discovered" some physical laws that we are unaware of. Some people had tried to see any "unexpected" or complex phenomenon as a manifestation of "intelligence", we have just to remember that we are the result of a "mechanism" that could had created many extraordinary things that may look at first sight as the product of "intelligence" but ciuld be simply manifestations of very advanced or different life forms that not necessary are "intelligent".

This is something that had been studied by sociologists of science: 1-The Plight of the Obscure Innovator in Science: http://www.nih.gov/about/director/ebiomed/history1.htm " Given these diverse roadblocks against obscure innovators, the surprising thing may well be that some unrenowned innovators, in science at least, have escaped the struggle, not that so many haven't. This note urges a systematic historical study to estimate the incidence of resistance. If such a survey shows that obscurity plus originality often lead to temporary or permanent oblivion, the case for structural reforms in science will become immeasurably stronger than it is now." 2- The Scientific Straightjacket: The Power Structure of Science and the Suppression of Environmental Scholarship: http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/81ecol.html " Dissident scientists in communist countries receive wide publicity for their causes. But what of cases of suppression in the West? How do those who challenge the scientific establishment fare? And why have environmentalists become the chief target of those who seek to preserve the status quo?" 3- Strategies for dissenting scientists: http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/98jse.html " Those who challenge conventional views or vested interests in science are likely to encounter difficulties. A scientific dissenter should first of all realize that science is a system of power as well as knowledge, in which interest groups play a key role and insiders have an extra advantage. Dissenters are likely to be ignored or dismissed". 4- Scientific dissent and public policy: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/embor.2013.8/abstract " The temptation to silence dissenters whose non-mainstream views negatively affect public policies is powerful. However, silencing dissent, no matter how scientifically unsound it might be, can cause the public to mistrust science in general." So suppression is real and it had happened and it is happening. The rosy picture that some people want to portrait of science and scientists is as detached from reality as many of the views that they support.

I had mentioned before that in any post that I ever made in this forum only one topic will be explicit or implicit, in this case is implicit but it had creep in some posts that contradictory were trying to preempt it, the censors of this forum are really in a bin in that regard. The denial of the reality of meteorites by Lavoisier was based essentially in ignorance and preconceptions on his part, now you can replace "meteorites" by the implicit topic and Lavoisier by any known scientist today, or opposing poster of this forum to that reality and you will get a valid statement. That is the more relevant and current example that I can provide because I am personally involved in that.

Bravo!! Exactly: perception is projection.

Science in a certain sense is about evidence, that is true. But science is a human endeavor and as any human endeavor is entangled with "human nature". Nationalism had creep many times in "science", priority disputes always had a nationalist flavor, Newton-Leibniz comes to mind, many scientific discoveries made in one side of the iron-curtain during the cold war were ignored and/or attributed to scientists of the same side, etc.

If you do that you will definitely be working with me not against me. I challenge you to do it.

That will be "unexpected" coming from you, but I definitely welcome that. A "path" always is bidirectional and your intended goal could actually get transfixed in its opposite.

"Experts" will always get entrenched in their "expertise" and always will tend to dismiss what is outside of their area of expertise. New ideas or facts unknown to "experts" in a given area automatically will put in danger that "expert" status, these experts know that and their first reaction always will be rejection. "Experts" always will be for the continuity of the "status kuo", they usually are an "anti-revolutionary" force.

Taking the "word" of "experts" on faith/on trust is perhaps the more damaging aspect of "modern science", that makes the group of experts and their "followers" dangerously close to a religious organization, dogmatism and complacency are a common ingredient on that setting and this very forum is an small sampling of that.

The lack of self reflection is very common: Scepticism is very important but many people are unable to apply scepticism to scepticism itself. This section of the forum mention pseudo science, but the censors of this section are unable to spot it in "scientific arguments". But they abuse their authority in any possible opportunity: using pseudo science as an "argumentative" tool itself.

Even when the numeric superiority of the opposing group to the new ideas or facts could be overwhelming, that superiority is an illusion, only a small number of "key figures" are really important in that struggle, the rest are just "followers" people that will take on faith/on trust what these key figures may say or claim. It will be enough that one or two of these key figures fall to the opposing side for the whole opposition to crumble. And the reason for that is very simple: they lack the strength of conviction that give you knowing the truth by yourself, that strength is infinitely superior to any coming from somebody that think that they know the truth just by taking on trust what the key figures had claimed. The Lavoisier opposition to the reality of meteorites is the standard case of an authority abusing its authority to impose their views, in the Lavoisier case he lacked the observational experience to back his claims, but he still made them and by doing that he slowed progress. Today we have many Lavoisiers denying realities that they had not even tried to witness, history repeat itself and we are unable to learn from it.

In these "struggles" to accept reality the group presenting the new ideas or facts always is very small, but quantity is always a very bad measure of strength, this small group always had with them a powerful "weapon": the truth, that give them a force of conviction that the almost absolute majority opposing them lack.

Science is done in spite of "Official Science" and the many examples mentioned clearly show that. But today again, a new science is in the making also in spite of Official Science, with very modest first steps but with very solid grounds and very concrete "subjects of interest", the systematic observation of these subjects of interest will reveal new details and information that will allow to start generating general principles or classifications, exactly as it happened in Biology or other fields with concrete "subjects of interest". As it happened in Alchemy before Chemistry, today there is an amalgamation of myths with facts, but the systematic study of these very concrete subjects of interest will allow to separate the myths from the facts. Maybe in the future, in books about this new science this period will not even be mentioned as Alchemy is rarely mentioned in any Chemistry book.

Observational claims/facts can not be "explained away" they have to be independently verified and understood. That kind of "new" facts will never be resolved from a keyboard or a blackboard, these facts are the domain of people that "do" and are foreign to people that just "talk". Am I gloating? That is a real possibility, having so many "bright" opponents and knowing that no amount of cunning "arguments" will ever make them right, I know by heart, without a shade of doubt that they are wrong because I have first hand multiple confirmations of that "new" reality as recent as yesterday and evidence of that reality continues to grow worldwide. It is really amazing how people that supposedly should be "informed" are really completely "out of the loop".

Valid ideas or facts on reality are very similar to extremely contagious germs: they spread in the minds of people very quickly, even in the minds of the people opposing these ideas and facts, once "inserted" it will stay there like an unwanted companion, and curiously some posts in this thread are a clear indication of that. The "idea" already had been "inserted", even in a very small amount people where that "insertion" had already happened are more "ready" to accept the "new" reality.

Even when the "side" opposing the new facts about reality could have an overwhelming support, that side will always "lose" because their position is based on false assumptions about reality, many times on incomplete knowledge about reality and or contradictory views of reality. As any person that had worked on modeling knows, even if the tools and "language" used to describe a fixed model are different the end results, if done consistently, will be "isomorphic". Reality is the ultimate model that we all try to "model" hence any consistent descriptions of that model that is reality will tend to be "isomorphic", the new facts that the opposing side will try to suppress will appear even in many of the opposing side accepted facts or collected evidence, time is the ultimate equaliser and the losing side have always time against it.

I am just an small element, on one side of the struggle to "accept" reality, the side that is introducing "new" facts, extraordinary facts, that side is always very small at the beginning, the opposing side, the losing side, is always overwhelming superior in number and "supporters", but they always will offer a defense in retreat, nothing can stop the acceptance of "reality". It appears that almost all this forum members are in that losing side of this "struggle".

The world is literally full of cardinals, as in the Cardinals in Galileo's time, the rarity, the "anomaly" are the Galileos, Trevor J Constable is a Galileo of this time.

The "suppression" of new ideas, facts, evidence supporting these new ideas or facts is a common trait of any "organized" human groups: scientific circles, religious groups or ufo believers. All share common worldviews and all will offer strong resistance to any new ideas or facts that will place questions marks to their cherished ideas. Many UFO believers frequently talk about some "cover-up", etc. But later they will suppress any references to the implicit topic in this thread. That is why it had been said that the only cover-up is in people's minds, nothing more nothing less, and this forum is a perfect example of the resistance to even consider new facts, that reaction is pervasive everywhere and is independent of any professional training that any person may have.

Suppression of new ideas or facts is a common occurrence in many human groups. For example in Ufology, Ufology is not a science fundamentally for one reason: Ufologists as a rule never had done systematic observations of their subjects of interest. Can you imagine a biologist trying to build any theory of living beings without any direct and systematic observations of living beings? Or relaying on "sightings reports" of animals from unprepared and casual observers? Very likely any theory coming in that way will be detached from reality as been the case with almost anything coming from ufologists. But one Ufologist did systematic atmospheric observations: Trevor J Constable and he made amazing discoveries, but his discoveries had been ignored/dismissed by the same Ufologists that never did any systematic observations of the sky.

Suppression to new ideas and facts is the norm not the exception, we are fundamentally conservative and intrinsically reject "new" things. We are essentially not different that we were two thousands years ago or five hundreds years ago, we are in essence not different than the people that burned Giordano Bruno. We do not burn people alive today but we burn people socially. It is in our very nature.

Building "accurated" models of reality can be considered as a sophisticated expression of the "survival instinct" present in any living being, humans as sentient beings had tried that explicitly by the development of the scientific method and its wide application in almost all branches of human knowledge. Many times these models of reality are extremely simplifications of the reality that we try to understand, then understanding the model many times gets confused with understanding reality. Reductionism we know now that have intrinsic limitations( the incompleteness theorems), the "tendency" of trying to "explain" new properties using simple ones is bound to fail, emergent properties or new facts will be impossible to "deduct" from simple principles for the simple fact that these new facts are fundamentally independent from previous known principles or axioms. Theories will get more complex, new notions will be completely foreign to no initiated. Being closed to fundamentally new facts or ideas is in contradiction with the very notions that science had brought to us and ultimately makes our models of reality inaccurate and place our very survival as species in very unsecured grounds.

Dogmatism and closed-mindeness are not the absolute property of "science types" or religious people. The implicit "topic" in this thread that I can't mention but others already had done for me is also "rejected" by UFO believers and there the similarity between groups with "strong beliefs" gets clearly in the open. That is why I had said before that debunkers/science types and UFO believers are two faces of the same coin: On one side UFO belivers have a very concrete "expectation" of what they think is out there and on the other side debunkers/science types have a very simplistic, cartoon-view of the world, both groups have strong preconceptions that make them unable to accept facts that are in contradiction with their very own preconceptions and expectations.