Forum Rules Update

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Today the SFN forum rules have been updated to include a new rule:

 

Keep alternative science and your own personal conjecture to the appropriate forum (Speculations). Threads in the ordinary science forums should be answered with ordinary science, not your own personal hypothesis. Posting pet "theories" in mainstream science forums is considered thread hijacking.

 

This has been our policy for some time, but it has never been directly stated in the rules.

 

The entire forum rules announcement can be read here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/announcement.php?f=51&a=14

[Mr Skeptic]

Yay!

 

I think this would be more successful if pseudoscience&speculations were separate forums. Though then I imagine there would be more complaining if something were moved to pseudoscience.

[ydoaPs]

Is it permissible to reply with String Theory based answers?

[swansont]

Is it permissible to reply with String Theory based answers?

Context matters.

 

String theory is being discussed in peer-reviewed journals, so discussions of string theory certainly belong in the physics section. But answers to other questions should be answered with standard physics, not a theory still in development. I don't think we see string theory come up as an answer very much anyway, so I don't think this is really going to cause a change in posting habits.

[Bettina]

Is it permissible to reply with String Theory based answers?

 

You made me laugh today. Thank you.

 

Bettina

[ydoaPs]

No problem. Glad to do it.

[Graviphoton]

I agree with skeptic

 

There are subtle differences between psuedoscience and speculations. In fact, not far from my first set of posts in this forum, i made exactly the same postulation.

 

I suggest that speulations be removed, and made into its own domain.

[Graviphoton]

If the theory/speculation goes against mainstream, then it should be in pseudoscience. However, (if) a theory/speculation talks about a subject not well established in current mainstream science, then the theory is speculation, and no more.

[Klaynos]

I agree with your definitions, they used to be different but I can understand why they're combined, as long as people appreciate that it contains both it's fine...

[Phi for All]

I think this would be more successful if pseudoscience&speculations were separate forums. Though then I imagine there would be more complaining if something were moved to pseudoscience.

There's a reason the two are together. If the speculation goes no further than it's own thread, is falsified, has no math or can't stand up on its own without using fallacious logic, then most speculation involves pseudoscience at some point.

 

It's always been our hope that someday someone will post a good Speculation, support it with testing and strong arguments, run the gauntlet of devil's advocates that *is* this very SFN, and convince everyone that they might be right. We would have a great holiday with a parade and a real horse (not a pony) and Cheese Nips for everyone as we proudly elevated the thread in question from Pseudoscience & Speculations to it's appropriate Science sub-fora.

[foodchain]

There's a reason the two are together. If the speculation goes no further than it's own thread, is falsified, has no math or can't stand up on its own without using fallacious logic, then most speculation involves pseudoscience at some point.

 

It's always been our hope that someday someone will post a good Speculation, support it with testing and strong arguments, run the gauntlet of devil's advocates that *is* this very SFN, and convince everyone that they might be right. We would have a great holiday with a parade and a real horse (not a pony) and Cheese Nips for everyone as we proudly elevated the thread in question from Pseudoscience & Speculations to it's appropriate Science sub-fora.

 

 

 

I have to agree and disagree. If people did not ask questions, which are dumb or smart or whatever then we would probably have never gotten to anything really. I mean take any subject, evolution, relativity, it involved trial and error and asking questions in which not everything was right. So if you take that away and basically just focus on nothing but repeating facts, does not that make science or much anything some form of an encyclopedic robot and not much else? How do you grow from there? I mean scientists find out biological realities that do not perfectly agree with Mendel type thinking, which is pretty standard, so how do you go outside of such a box to make a discovery then? I think to ask any type of question scientifically ultimately is to speculate really to some extent, and then to label speculation to be = to pseudoscience I think basically lumps every current hypothesis about anything in the same realm of creation science.

[Graviphoton]

Well, don't mean to blow my own trumpet, but i thought i provided quite high-quality pseudoscience... errr,... speculations...

[ecoli]

I have to agree and disagree. If people did not ask questions, which are dumb or smart or whatever then we would probably have never gotten to anything really. I mean take any subject, evolution, relativity, it involved trial and error and asking questions in which not everything was right. So if you take that away and basically just focus on nothing but repeating facts, does not that make science or much anything some form of an encyclopedic robot and not much else? How do you grow from there? I mean scientists find out biological realities that do not perfectly agree with Mendel type thinking, which is pretty standard, so how do you go outside of such a box to make a discovery then? I think to ask any type of question scientifically ultimately is to speculate really to some extent, and then to label speculation to be = to pseudoscience I think basically lumps every current hypothesis about anything in the same realm of creation science.

 

 

That's we have the sub-forum in the first place. But, just because you want to engage in "out of the box" thinking (which is great) doesn't mean you can cast of the yoke of the the scientific method... which includes some sort of proof and experimentation.

[Phi for All]

I have to agree and disagree. If people did not ask questions, which are dumb or smart or whatever then we would probably have never gotten to anything really.

No one has said you can't ask questions.

I mean take any subject, evolution, relativity, it involved trial and error and asking questions in which not everything was right. So if you take that away and basically just focus on nothing but repeating facts, does not that make science or much anything some form of an encyclopedic robot and not much else?

Who exactly is taking your ability to question things away?

How do you grow from there? I mean scientists find out biological realities that do not perfectly agree with Mendel type thinking, which is pretty standard, so how do you go outside of such a box to make a discovery then?

You seem to think that all new discoveries in science came from unsupported, unscientific, outside-the-box-type thinking. This is definitely not true.

I think to ask any type of question scientifically ultimately is to speculate really to some extent, and then to label speculation to be = to pseudoscience I think basically lumps every current hypothesis about anything in the same realm of creation science.

Strawman. I never said speculation = pseudoscience. I said that most Speculations that are posted here are unsupported scientifically and usually end up using pseudoscientific claims to stay alive. If you could speculate on some new idea and use the scientific method to advance your thesis, your idea would be more easily reviewed and if no one could find fault with your methodology, predictions and conclusions, you wouldn't need pseudoscience at all.

[swansont]

Asking isn't the issue. The issue is that when people ask questions, they deserve answers from accepted physics. They sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering, not because Odin is cold and Fenris is hiding in his cave.

[foodchain]

I would just like to take a second to say that this site has helped me really in understanding many things that I would otherwise be confused on pretty much. I understand the structure and function of say physics a great deal more then when I first stated posting. This came about in my case I would say from a less then academic line of questioning though, and for that I would just like to say sorry:D

[Highball]

As I understand it, the scientific method turns upon the notion of the inductive translation of the results of an experiment to the creation of a general hypothesis or theory. A problem of induction is that conclusions drawn from observations, no matter how many, will always be demonstrated to be false, or as Popper illustrates the point, “no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white”, thus whilst scientific method can be used to prove the case in hand, while this cannot be used to prove the general case, it does enable the elimination of falsity. So, where does this concept of proof exist in the realm of original thought - yes experimentation is necessary to demonstrate false hypothesis, but the joy of science (for me) is the exception to the apparent rule that reminds us that reality isn't simple - after all its not that long ago that good old Sir Isaac thought that he'd wrapped it all up and he could give up and play golf! So, unless you have proof that Odin's lack of central heating isn't a contributing variable to the colour of the sky, then I say its a valid topic of discussion... or do you know that all swans are white?

 

Btw... didn't Popper also say that a scientific hypothesis must be refutable by experiment to be valid...? I'm just thinking about all those poor social 'scientists'