[ExI] Do your own research

[William Flynn Wallace]

And I must conclude that today's science deniers tend to be ideological
stooges of the right.

John K Clark

Right on, Daddio, as someone used to say.  bill w


On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 9:34 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 7:58 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
> > *Being an astrophysicist does not entitle Ethan Siegel to speak
>> on behalf of all scientists. The notion that scientists should stay
>> in their own research lanes and not pursue questions or develop opinions
>> in other fields is ludicrous.*
>
>
> I'll tell you what's ludicrous, the idea that you must do your own
> research and every reader of the journal Nature or Science must personally
> reproduce every experiment in them before he can conclude that what they
> say is probably true. Can you imagine a microbiologist reproducing an
> astronomer's 10 year research project using the world's largest telescopes
> to determine the distribution of galaxies in the universe? Can you imagine
> an astronomer reproducing a microbiologist's 10 year research program to
> determine the expression of genes in a paramecium? I can't either.
>
> The history of scientists telling other scientists in very different
> fields how they should do their job is full of humiliating failures. I'm
> thinking of the eminent physicist lord Kelvin who told geologists that they
> got it all wrong and that the Earth was not billions of years old but only
> about 20 million; and the eminent astronomer Fred Hoyle who told biologists
> they got it all wrong and Darwinian evolution can't work and said those who
> are mathematical geniuses got that way because they received mathematical
> genius genes from viruses which came from outer space; and the eminent
> physical chemist Linus Pauling who told doctors they got it all wrong and
> that vitamin C could cure just about everything.
>
> If you're an expert in one field of science you must realize that it took
> you many years to obtain the necessary knowledge and skills to reach that
> level, and if you're not only smart but also wise you'll know that there
> are fields of science other than your own and conclude that experts in
> those fields may know more about them than you do. This is even more true
> if you're a civilian and not an expert in ANY field of science. So if the
> consensus of the entire scientific community is that COVID-19 is killing
> thousands of Americans a day, and it is, then it is logical for me to
> conclude that what they're saying is true, or at least closer to the truth
> than what anybody else is saying.
>
>  >* I must conclude that **Siegal, aside from the  hypocrisy of opining
>> on matters not astrophysical in nature, **is an elitist snob and
>> idealogical stooge of the left.*
>
>
> And I must conclude that today's science deniers tend to be ideological
> stooges of the right.
>
> John K Clark
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