My entire point was about the distinction between as you called it Scientism and science, skepticism and pseudo skepticism.
I didn't say anything about just blindly accepting whatever crazy idea floats into your Ritalin addled brain.
http://newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/n-885
This is more what I was getting at. Testable theory that challenges currently accepted models.
And lets not even get in to what scientists will do to acquire or maintain funding. If they BELIEVE they are right, and it's just a matter of time(money) before they will prove it, these people may find it easier to lie about their findings in order to maintain their dream. When it turns out they were wrong this can lead to a whole big mess. Especially when other scientists working on the same things see their work and take it for gospel cause they are told it's verified. Two years later it comes out that it was all bullsh1t and now you have all these scientists caught with their pants down for cutting corners and lying because of false assumptions.
That being said, science still 110% more reliable for real world info than any religious text you will find.
Some religious texts seem to have made predictions that came true, but it's always highly subjective and open to interpretation. Like when me and DJ were discussing the Vedas.
Oh well that just proves that we are all just highly developed characters in some kids sim game.
It's interesting, but not mind blowing. Who knows what kind of patterns you'll find if you look hard enough. If anything this suggests that our use of binary is something already found in nature. Oh wait, we already knew that.
"if its ok for shaolin wuseng to break his vow then its ok for me to sneak behind your house at 3 in the morning and bang your dog if buddha is in your heart then its ok"-Bawang
"I get what you have said in the past, but we are not intuitive fighters. As instinctive fighters, we can chuck spears and claw and bite. We are not instinctively god at punching or kicking."-Drake
"Princess? LMAO hammer you are such a pr^t"-Frost
That's because religious texts are, for all their baggage, simply observations of the world around them in the context of their understanding at that time. Yeah, they'll get a few things right. So what? I'd be more surprised if nothing were correct. And more worried.
This claim that science is becoming the new religion is just stupid. Sorry, being "open minded" to every BS claim under the sun is not productive. Bring evidence and you'll eventually be taken seriously. Let me add, you'll be taken seriously, IF the evidence is sound. Not like that crap in the thread here about monks levitating boulders with sound...
Last edited by SoCo KungFu; 08-26-2012 at 10:05 PM.
Yeah, SoCo, don't take what I said personally. It was by no means a shot at you and yours. I stand by the comment I made, but I will clear some things up for you. First, yes, I do know what it takes to acquire and maintain granted funds. I have personally been a part of that process, although I was not the principle on the grant and wasn't the one who had tyo justify the funds. But I was there and I was a part of all those discussions. Second... I never said it was a big problem. I'm just sayin, it does happen, and it will happen again. When you submit your research in order to receive further funding the fact checking isn't always as rigorous as it should/could be. They may go over the data with a fine tooth comb, but unless they insist on being a part of the process they don't really have a way to check your work in the kind of depth it would take to expose a clever fudging of the data to support hypothesis. Also it depends on the size of the grant and the importance of the work to those that are paying for it. If they give 40 million for Cancer research they will check much harder than they will for 100 grand to figure out why some fish is where it is and how it got there. They may spend a few hundred grand to justify 40 million, but they aren't going to invest much into verifying all the data submitted on a much smaller grant. That being said, I don't think it's a widespread problem and I don't think it's as common as maybe you think I was saying. But it does happen and it will happen again. Bias, on the other hand, is a problem. Like you said, it's a problem in all areas of all things. I agree. And I gotta say, doing cancer research for 10 bucks an hour is bullsh1t, man I hope you are still in school. That's the only way that wage makes sense, if you're a low paid intern. Otherwise, man... Wow, I respect the dedication, but ****. You must be a hungry motherfukcer. LOL
And I agree, science is not a religion and I don't feel the term dogma is as accurate as a handful of other words that make more sense. Also the term dogma creates bias because it is so associated to religion. I also agree about that what some people call "proof" is absolute bullsh1t.
I think we are much closer to the same page than you may have thought from what I wrote. I never said it was a widespread problem. All I was doing was showing how science can be abused when facts aren't checked properly and fully peer reviewed. And believe me, even today, a TON of federal grants are going to junk science and the idiots that perpetrate such idiocy. I won't even get into what is privately funded. So yeah, people who you deem as credible may not be able to get away with it, but there are those that do. It's very disappointing because it only puts fuel on the fire of those who don't really understand the whole peer review concept. They think peer reviewed means finding a few guys who think like you to give your trash some credibility. Unfortunately junk science makes real science look bad. Even if the more intelligent and/or educated know the difference, there's always that majority who doesn't know what they're being told is crap and have no way to check those facts. Some of those people are in position to either fund crap or sh1t on something that is actually really solid. I mean, how many real important projects have lost funding because of disinformation or misinformation? TONS.
It is getting much better though. It just isn't as easy to sell snake oil when we are all connected and have access to so much data that the average guy couldn't have found so easily even 10 years ago. Even the most rural areas are plugged in to the grid now. The world is getting exponentially smaller.