h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Your arguments would carry an awful lot more weight FM if you adhered to your own self made criteria by expressing your own thoughts (by honing up your thought processes and your writing skills) less emotively and more coherantly."

Excuse me, but there is nothing wrong with my writing skills (if you had read my entries then you wouldn't say this) or my thought processes. I have spelled out my objections time and time again. The argument is very simple. Certain ideas are demonstrably false. Such ideas are, like it or not, *scientific* ideas *because they can be falsified*. Claims to the contrary are either disingenuous or misguided. Now, as Gnomon has stated, crystal therapy and the suchlike *can* and *have* been shown to be false. Therefore they should not be in the EG, which is a factual guide.

Now, if I am not making myself clear then it is neither my writing skills nor *my* processes of ratiocination that are lacking. It is the comprehension skills of the reader. This subject *was* being discussed dispassionately until all and bloody sundry decided to join in. I suggest that if you are going to take exception to any jibes then you start with 'sanctimonious twerp' first of all: language *I* have not used.

>> would you really want me back in the fold? I mean, I brought a lot to the EG. I think it's fair to say I was a good Scout and an even better writer. <<


As an h2g2 Researcher, you either want to join in and help, or you don't. If you do, then you do so in a manner that shows respect for others. If you don't feel you can do that, don't do it. There are plenty of members around h2g2 who have no problem with being called 'Researchers' who've never had any intention of researching, and I'm sure their contributions are still valued by those who read them.

I'm not interested in helping to create martyrs here though. In fact, I'd always advise against martyring oneself. For one thing, it's impossible to get that last nail in. For another, it's very difficult to get down again with only one free hand.

That's an image that will never leave me.

I don't want to be a martyr. I didn't invite this lot around here to start laying into me. I just perceived that there is a problem with some of the material that gets into the EG. And I'm not the only one.

On the subject of 'respect': I have a great deal of respect for people. It's some *ideas* that I have no respect for: I don't care how fervently people believe in them. I wish that others could draw the distinction between disrespect for people and disrespect for the beliefs they hold.

Ah... thats fine - until you discover pseudo knowledge actually might be knoweldge.

I seem to remeber heretics were burned and new idea like "why gravity" and which planets spun round other planets...and whether the earth was flat or spherical were ridiculed.

Who is *anyone to decided what is knowledge or pseudo knowledge.

I'll give a subjective example:

I have read that you have stated unambiguously that you are an athiest

Lets say, for the sake of the example I hold wildly differing views. Lets assume I spend my whole existence devoted to the worship and understanding of some nameless deity

I don't agree with your views :- I feel sorry, sad, even that you and I will never agree about something that *I* consider (subjectively) vital.

I don't see me trying to ridicule or dismiss your knoweldge, despite the fact that I beleieve (or know) about different ideas.

I don't see me trying to judge or EDIT your ideas. As long as your views are expressed coherantly and factually I am quite content to hear them.

Unfortunately, *my ideas do not have the same common vocabulary as your ideas

They are, infact, incompatible.

Does that fact make my views or your views less valid than the other?

I think not.



Generally speaking, no new or previously unknown idea is popular. It doesn't have to be. But let it be heard/seen/read so that each and every person can make their own decision as to its veracity

Who has the final vote?

I still hear subjectivity and not impariality in this particular debate

None of us is focussing totally on a now redundant idea, because new ideas have been raised since.



Possibly because we're a Community?

And one of our communally held agreements is a "Guide" to Life, the Universe and Everything.

"Who is *anyone to decided what is knowledge or pseudo knowledge."

Oh, just people who look for external evidence and come to conclusions upon it, I suppose. There *are* some ideas that are refutable, I'm afraid. Whether or not God exists is not one of them, and it's outside the scope of this 'discussion'.

Oh, just standing up for some outdated concepts, such as truth and accyracy, that's all.<<

<<sanctimonious twerp<<

Whats the difference in the scale of cheap gibes?

They're both cheap, they're both angry... the only difference is that *you expressed yourself one way...and the other poster expressed themselves in another!

Just because *you wouldn't have used the "twerp" vocabulary, doesn't make the view less valid. Its just not the way you would have expressed yourself.

I find it far easier to read your views when you express yourself dispassionately. As soon as I read your expression of communication degenerating into (what I perceive) as a hissy fit (This lot ploughing into e...for example) I simply turn off.

Its all a matter of communicating clearly and consistently, FM

(Oh yes: and FTR I was replying to Gnomon's point in my previous posting. I don't know (and I'm completely indifferent) to yours or anyone else's religious/spiritual beliefs. I was using that example, purley as that - an example using a metaphor that might bridge our lack of common vocabulary, but which encompasses something that we might both posibly understand)

I agree; we don't seem to be going anywhere with this - except for possible acrimony.

Which would be sad. I'll calling it a night for myself.

If I feel I can copntribute more at a later date, I will

I hardly felt that my last posting was acrimonious. More a sort of weary shake of the head.

Our role here is not to prove or disprove anything; it's merely to document it. The existence of a *belief* in things such as Crystal healing is a matter of fact. That's what (I think) those entries should aim to address, and if we've failed to do that, then I'm sure we'd appreciate help to put things right. They should be balanced - neither solely advocating the practices or iconoclastically dismissing them out of hand. While there may be little evidence of crystal healing working, there is documented evidence of the placebo helping to some extent.

If, however, you believe that we should only document hard, scientific fact, then I'm afraid you're wrong. Simple as that.

(And this is not addressing FM - his own writing speaks for itself, I think.. I just have to be mindful that any message left by an Italic has a habit of being quoted back - we received an email for Abi the other week. She left two h2g2 three years ago!)

Exactly: I couldn't agree more. But I think that given what we know about it, the kind of entry that would do the subject justice is unfortunately the kind of entry that Gnomon advocated. If you look at the Wikipedia entry on the same subject it comes to the conclusion that there is little demonstrable benefit other than placebo effect.

No, I *don't* think we should document *only* hard scientific fact. I have written entries myself that have nothing to do with that. What I *am* saying is that a *certain subset* of ideas fall unambiguously into the category of being verifiable or falsifiable. When they end up being false, we shouldn't include them in the EG, period. We also should not entertain claims that have no rational basis without the author stumping up some justification for so doing. There are however ways of writing about such subjects that don't end up presenting belief and fact, and *I* recommended the feng shui entry simply because it was a model of how to do such writing.

Truth has taken on a very subjective quality in some circles. The White House denies any link between climate change and carbon dioxide emissions (or even that climate change is happening). George W. Bush says 'the jury is still out on evolution'. The fact that I'm getting so exercised about the same kind of thinking going on here is because I still value what this site stands for. It took this entire thread to make me realise how much.

Which is surely a good thing

morning all! feeling better??

RJR

I'm very glad you said that.

Good good! I'm pleased to be of help!

I see that the posting I made that sparked this whole acrimonious exchange of views off has reappeared. Obviosuly I'm reassured by this development.

There is an insidious modern trend that has increasingly become apparent when sttrongly held beliefs are being discussed. It is that *what* someone says about a contentious is less important than how other people *feel* about what that person says. The worst that could have been said about my posting is that it is trenchant. But it was attacking nobody in particular. It was not offensive, homophobic, racist, whateever. It *was* attacking the idea that out of a perverted sense of 'balance', all views and beliefs somehow deserve equal credence and respect. So someone yikesed it because they thought it might upset someone else.

I have been called a 'sanctimonious twerp' in this thread who listens to nobody else. I happen to have very strong views about certain issues, especially our capacity as a race for almost endless self-delusion. And as to 'listening': believe me, I've listened plenty. The difference is that I've gone away and *thought* about what is being said: something my father, God bless him, drummed into me ever since I showed the capacity to think for myself. I simply haven't heard anything likely to change my mind, that's all. And I don't think I'm going to.

Vicki Virago asked about acupuncture. Well, here it is: A25910039.

TRiG.

An exemplary treatment of a controversial topic.

I'm sure you've all heard of Thabo Mbeki. He's the president of South Africa and has just sacked a minister because she advocated using evidence-based medicine for treating AIDS, instead of herbal remedies. For not standing by his claims that AIDS was not a sexually transmitted disease: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2160801,00.html

That's where the kind of thinking that I've been railing about eventually ends up. It's not a great deal further down the slippery slope. In the case of Mbeki, it's people's lives he's playing with. The magnitude of the potential consequences are different here, admittedly, but the net results are the same: money and time is wasted on crap and people don't get better.

And if anybody doesn't like the idea that this kind of thinking makes me angry, they can just sod off.