Philosophy proved useful, definitely!!!

[Cerberus]

THE MOON LANDING WAS FAKED!@!$

That's what she (Cerberus) means.

That's 'around the corner' stuff. Pluto, Mars etcetera are at the extreme end of the universe, relatively speaking.

I'm a 'he', incidentally - not that it matters.

 

[Cerberus]

Because the 'evidence' promulgated by the so-called cosmologists is essentially populist speculation couched in a most condescending fashion (as if to gullible children?), and the 'photographs' are merely CGI. In short, I'd need more than that to convince me that there's more to it than a 'jobs for life' subterfuge for those who work in the space industry.

That was a lot to digest. Although the purported subterfuge might be well worth exploring, what captures my attention is your articulation of thought. How is the evidence speculation, and why do you think the photos are evidence for the real underlying issue--which isn't whether or not Pluto is a planet.

What's unfortunate is the impact presentation can have on an issue. The Pluto controversy could have been overted had it not been center of attention. Whether Pluto is a planet question has been a distraction to the underlying issue--which is how to classify planets. It's not how to classify Pluto (per se) that matters. It's the underlying classification system itself, to which Pluto need not even be thrown into the limelight.

Of course, the ramifications can't go without notice, but just as the classification of insects or rocks cannot be created without human thought, the connection between the systems themselves and the objects classified have a scientific basis despite our involvement. For instance, some solar objects "suck up all the other material around it", and that is a natural fact independent of our recognition that it's true.

The evidence to which you regard as speculative doesn't appear to me as speculative.

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/speculate?s=t ?? Don't believe everything you read in (the scientific?) papers!!

 

[bilby]

Any news organization that isn't actually doing the research themselves is going to have to take the word of the people proving the evidence. When the Higgs boson was supposedly found, they pretty much have no choice than to trust the claims of the scientists.

Actually they do have a choice, the alternate one to what you asserted being to not trust the claims of the scientists, which is what I'm doing - or not doing?

Good for you in saying 'supposedly found' though. I detect a little scepticism ensconced in those two words - welcome to the club!!

Actually, there is another choice. If there is reason to disbelieve what the guys at CERN are saying, then you could build your own particle accelerator.

One of the characteristics of science is that people don't just publish results; they also publish their methods, so anyone else can reproduce those results.

If you doubt their claims about the Higgs boson, then all the information is available for you to run the tests yourself. Obviously you will need funding - so you will need to find someone else who has deep pockets and has reason to be skeptical of the CERN claims; Perhaps the US government, or a consortium of US corporations could be persuaded to mistrust European scientists to the point of bankrolling your project; or maybe the Chinese or the Russians, or both.

For sure, none of the teams at CERN (and there are competing teams, each of whom would be happy to blow the whistle if they thought the others were getting it wrong, or cheating) would object to the establishment of a second facility to test their results.

The motto of the Royal Society - Nullius in verba - means 'Take nobody's word for it'. Scientists don't want you to believe the journalists reports of their results; they want you to learn the science, check their work, and then move on to discover the next big thing.

That you are too lazy to do so is not their fault.

 

[Cerberus]

Actually they do have a choice, the alternate one to what you asserted being to not trust the claims of the scientists, which is what I'm doing - or not doing?

Good for you in saying 'supposedly found' though. I detect a little scepticism ensconced in those two words - welcome to the club!!

Actually, there is another choice. If there is reason to disbelieve what the guys at CERN are saying, then you could build your own particle accelerator.

One of the characteristics of science is that people don't just publish results; they also publish their methods, so anyone else can reproduce those results.

If you doubt their claims about the Higgs boson, then all the information is available for you to run the tests yourself. Obviously you will need funding - so you will need to find someone else who has deep pockets and has reason to be skeptical of the CERN claims; Perhaps the US government, or a consortium of US corporations could be persuaded to mistrust European scientists to the point of bankrolling your project; or maybe the Chinese or the Russians, or both.

For sure, none of the teams at CERN (and there are competing teams, each of whom would be happy to blow the whistle if they thought the others were getting it wrong, or cheating) would object to the establishment of a second facility to test their results.

The motto of the Royal Society - Nullius in verba - means 'Take nobody's word for it'. Scientists don't want you to believe the journalists reports of their results; they want you to learn the science, check their work, and then move on to discover the next big thing.

That you are too lazy to do so is not their fault.

There is 'tangible (real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary) science' and I have the greatest admiration, gratitude, and respect for those who practice it, and there's faux science, and I can tell the difference.

 

[bilby]

Actually, there is another choice. If there is reason to disbelieve what the guys at CERN are saying, then you could build your own particle accelerator.

One of the characteristics of science is that people don't just publish results; they also publish their methods, so anyone else can reproduce those results.

If you doubt their claims about the Higgs boson, then all the information is available for you to run the tests yourself. Obviously you will need funding - so you will need to find someone else who has deep pockets and has reason to be skeptical of the CERN claims; Perhaps the US government, or a consortium of US corporations could be persuaded to mistrust European scientists to the point of bankrolling your project; or maybe the Chinese or the Russians, or both.

For sure, none of the teams at CERN (and there are competing teams, each of whom would be happy to blow the whistle if they thought the others were getting it wrong, or cheating) would object to the establishment of a second facility to test their results.

The motto of the Royal Society - Nullius in verba - means 'Take nobody's word for it'. Scientists don't want you to believe the journalists reports of their results; they want you to learn the science, check their work, and then move on to discover the next big thing.

That you are too lazy to do so is not their fault.

There is 'tangible (real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary) science' and I have the greatest admiration, gratitude, and respect for those who practice it, and there's faux science, and I can tell the difference.*

*Citation needed.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The Pluto controversy could have been overted had it not been center of attention.

There's been a controversy about that?!

You all seem to have so much fun out there!

Whether Pluto is a planet question has been a distraction to the underlying issue--which is how to classify plan-ets.

It just shows that modern science is sidereal junk!

Look at how things were done in the past! There, no problem: Pluto never was a planet then!

Planet -- One of the seven celestial bodies, Mercury, Venus, the moon, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, visible to the naked eye and thought by ancient astronomers to revolve in the heavens about a fixed Earth and among fixed stars.

We should all move back in these happy times where the good folks were immune from the sort dreadful controversies plaguing our brain cells nowadays.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Pluto waffle? Sorry, can you be specific and explicit in your claim? You said "If someone tells the BBC they're an expert at something it will believe everything they say without the least demand for proof or evidence". That's quite something to say. What is your specific claim and what is the evidence to back it up?
EB

Any news organization that isn't actually doing the research themselves is going to have to take the word of the people proving the evidence. When the Higgs boson was supposedly found, they pretty much have no choice than to trust the claims of the scientists.

The crucial point here is that the BBC is indeed a news organisation. It's not it's business and not in it's charter to believe or not what it's guest experts say.

That being said, once it's on air, very many people can listen and criticise as much as they like. I would think the BBC people to be reasonable and careful enough about whom they trust to give a competent run down of the main points about anything.

In the end, though, people like Cerberus aren't articulate enough to make their point, if ever they have one, more convincingly than the BBC's guest experts. No one who is not an idiot would switch to Radio Cerberus I think.

BBC expert one - Cerberus nil.

And that's the end of the shipping forecast.

Er, why am I saying that exactly?!
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Any news organization that isn't actually doing the research themselves is going to have to take the word of the people proving the evidence. When the Higgs boson was supposedly found, they pretty much have no choice than to trust the claims of the scientists.

Actually they do have a choice, the alternate one to what you asserted being to not trust the claims of the scientists, which is what I'm doing - or not doing?

Good for you in saying 'supposedly found' though. I detect a little scepticism ensconced in those two words - welcome to the club!!

Yeah?

Sooo, the BBC has its own opinion about this or that expert... and you, you have some different opinion? How interesting.
EB

 

[untermensche]

This shows there is a great difference in encouraging free thinking as opposed to being told what to think.

But philosophers already knew that.

 

[fast]

What? What did I say?

 

[fromderinside]

Well King, this case is closed. On King. On you huskies.