Autonemesis

I'll take that as a "no" since in fact, you did not produce any citations. Before I spend any of my valuable time researching your claims, you need to give me a reason to do so. Proving that you know how to search Google for reactionary rants is uninspiring to me.

Can you produce any specific citations where this has occurred? Yes or no? I need hard evidence. Googling for reactionary rants about perceived slights at the hand of academia does not count as research, but it might count as masturbation.

JGL53

Well, let's start slow and work our way up to this. Now, what's your position on the on-going 'round earth vs. flat earth' controversy?

Dharma

only a scientist is "supposed to" use his mind...currently I believe the state of education is such that college deans are complaining that many students need remediation since their math/reading skills are so bad...now in such an environment scientists, i.e. doctors, Phd's, and other such experts have had a huge following...i.e. Dr. Atkins is one such example...and of course all of these dietary fads started on the basis of small incomplete findings...

Nazi scienitists used genetic studies to further a racist agenda and racist cults that lasts to this day (skinheads, kkk)...

Dr.'s and several scientists associated with huge companies know exactly how to use "science" to further their own profits...

Einstein has a cult following and many "scientists" were/are even afraid to question his theory until recently when someone might've proved that the speed of light in fact is not constant at the beginning of the expansion of the universe...

Another example of science posing as the one true supplier of knowledge would be the 'evolutionary theory" as well as other theories which are posing in school text books as undisputable facts when in fact they are only theories with as much basis in reality as the theory of God.

BDS

Here's a link to an out line of some of Kuhn's theories about how science works:

http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/Kuhn.html

Read the outlines of the first two chapters for an understanding about how politics and preconceptions influence and stifle scientific inquiry.

By the way, there's nothing sinister about this. It's just the political reality of academia.

Autonemesis

Are you incapable of answering my question? Is evidence of just one incident too much to ask of you?

Autonemesis

I have not read that book, but I am familiar with the ideas that you have mentioned it discusses.

Oh, I see where you and I have failed to connect. I never assumed that the employability of the scientist was a criteria for deciding whether a scientific idea or theory has merit. There are many scientists whose work was not appreciated or understood while they were living, I do not dispute that. Ideas that overturn paradigms take a long time to become established. But whether the researcher gets paid a salary or has tenure seems beside the point I was making.

Yeah, I agree. I don't think it affects my point, which is that eventually theories of merit push out theories of lesser merit. But it's true that paradigm-busters are often not recognized within their lifetime for their accomplishments.

JGL53

OK - how about the Scopes Trial, for example?

Y.B

:banghead:

Evolution is an observed fact. The theory of evolution is a scientific model that explains and predicts empirical findings.

JGL53

Just curious - what's your view of atomic theory and the theory of heliocentricity? Do you likewise reject them out of hand because they are also "only theories"?

Dharma

evolution is an observed fact with an unknown mechanism...these mechanisms of evolution are certainly presented as certain facts...i.e. natural selection...etc...