Where's a good crackpot when you need one?

[ubavontuba]

Note: This post is a split continuation from the thread "Cosmolgy/No dark energy?"

Is not there a difference in exploring heterodox ideas between presenting them as questions about the mainstream theories rather than as a polemic against them?

I hope questions, thoughtfully presented, will always be acceptable on this site with other possible solutions to those questions as well, and that would be a good antidote to 'boredom'.

Garth
__________________
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Blessed are they that can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.

Well, I personally try not to post my ideas as a "polemic against mainstream theories," but sometimes merely posing a thought will tend to come out that way. What better way for a blind man to define a room than to beat against the walls?

I feel there is a responsibility for us crackpots to listen to the expert opinions and attempt to learn from them, but to not ask questions or pose concepts for fear of being ridiculed simply leaves us uninformed (read dumb).

Isn't the mission of PF to educate? Must education be a one-size-fits-all paradigm?

BTW Garth, you're signature is especially enlightening and I think they are good rules of thumb.

 

[quantumdude]

I admit that I'm totally lost as to the context of this post, but as to the original question:

Where's a good crackpot when you need one?

Here's my answer:

http://www.sciforums.com
http://www.physicsmathforums.com
http://www.communities.ninemsn.com.au/browse.msnw?catid=297

Have a ball!

 

[arildno]

Geistkiesel and MacM are still holding court at sciforums, are they?

 

[quantumdude]

Geistkiesel and MacM are still holding court at sciforums, are they?

Yes. Yes, they are.

 

[ubavontuba]

I'm sure they might initially celebrate their victory over crackpottery, but the internet is full of physics forums that have likewise choked themselves to death.

Physics should be fun. Don't take yourselves so dreadfully serious.

This is where your "evidence" doesn't match the point of your post. The internet is full of physics forums that have choked themselves to death BECAUSE they are allowing such crackpottery.

Well, it actually goes both ways. Yahoo groups has especially suffered from both extremes. It seems that either the scientists feel overwhelmed and leave a forum to be overrun by crackpots, or they block the crackpots out and the discussions die. In either case, the fun stops. I think reasonable moderation and tolerance are the keys.

PF at one time WAS choking itself to death because we allowed such a thing. How are you, an admitted amateur, able to distinguish between legitimate, established ideas, with something that someone else came up with?

The same way you do. I read, listen and learn. Maybe you feel I'm somehow "cheating the system" by getting my information in the shorthand method I've been using here. Unfortunately, I haven't the resources for a formal education and books simply don't provide any feedback on questions and ideas pertaining to the material.

Do you not care that you could be telling your son "Oh yes, antigravity has been found. And Einstein's Relativity is wrong. And that hydrino? Physicists have accepted them."?

Certainly. I do not do any of those things. However I do stress critical thinking skills in regards to all knowledge.

If you peruse my posts, you will find that my more outrageous ideas aren't designed to refute established theories, but rather to hypothesize ideas built upon them. It's true that I also like to re-examine established theories too in order to better understand them (educate myself), but also I like to to test them in interesting (to me) ways. For instance, my "Gravity/acceleraton equivalent?" thread examines Einstein's own paper in a way I've never seen addressed before. As I've said, I can't get feedback like this from a book.

Again, as you have said, the internet is FULL of such places. Yet, there ARE still people who come here and simply, for some odd reason, could not stand the fact that this one, minority-in-number forum would DARE to keep crackpots out.

This is your perogative, but I don't think it's wise in light of the history of physics research. Many of the currently accepted fundamental concepts began as wild notions by amateur scientists (read crackpots). By eliminating wild notions, aren't you in fact eliminating the very innovative modes of thinking required in physics?

<shakes his head in disbelief>

Yeah, I'm with you here.

 

[ZapperZ]

Well, it actually goes both ways. Yahoo groups has especially suffered from both extremes. It seems that either the scientists feel overwhelmed and leave a forum to be overrun by crackpots, or they block the crackpots out and the discussions die. In either case, the fun stops. I think reasonable moderation and tolerance are the keys.

And what exactly is "reasonable moderation"? Everyone seems to want this, but like the concept of "intelligence", there's no accepted definition. To me, what we have currently IS a "reasonable moderation". So who decides? You?

If you peruse my posts, you will find that my more outrageous ideas aren't designed to refute established theories, but rather to hypothesize ideas built upon them. It's true that I also like to re-examine established theories too in order to better understand them (educate myself), but also I like to to test them in interesting (to me) ways. For instance, my "Gravity/acceleraton equivalent?" thread examines Einstein's own paper in a way I've never seen addressed before. As I've said, I can't get feedback like this from a book.

There's a difference between a question asking for clarification, and producing one's own theory. If you ask, someone will answer and try to explain. If you have your own theory, then submit it to the IR forum where people WILL tell you if you're wrong. As far as I can tell, you haven't done the latter to get "feedback" of your ideas. So why are you complaining?

This is your perogative, but I don't think it's wise in light of the history of physics research. Many of the currently accepted fundamental concepts began as wild notions by amateur scientists (read crackpots). By eliminating wild notions, aren't you in fact eliminating the very innovative modes of thinking required in physics?

And I've said this so many times, I am even getting sick of hearing this myself. Show me something within the past 100 years of something that has actually made an impact in physics that has not appeared in legitimate peer-reviewed journal. And tell me who are these "amateur scientists" that have made these "wild notions".

See, this is what separates you and me. If I were to make such a statement, I would BACK IT UP with specific examples. You, on the other hand, would settle simply by accepting someone making such a statement, because you didn't bother backing it up here. This is how we differ, and this is how crackpots can seduce you into thinking they're doing something legit. They KNOW that they can get away with a lot of stuff that most people don't even THINK of questioning.

I apply two differnt standards here. If someone seriously wishes to learn and is asking legitimate question, then the rules are very relaxed and every possible help should be given. However, if someone is proposing some theory or ideas that he/she came up with, then I would view it as if I'm refereeing any physics papers. If the rest of us have to go through the same thing, then you might as well get the same flavor of the rigor and scrutiny that is involved when one tries to produce something new and different.

The IR forum was established for this specific reason. If you want to test out your idea, go at it. Remember, you HAVE agreed to such rules when you signed up.

Zz.

 

[arildno]

Just a floating comment:
Actually, even if they wonder about the very same thing, it becomes quite easy after a while to find out by reading their respective posts who's the crackpot and who's the neophyte in need of guidance.
To have wrong ideas is not the same as being a crackpot..

 

[quantumdude]

ubavontuba,

I'm still not quite up to speed on the context of this thread, and the fact that you are talking in the abstract isn't helping, but let me see if I can help you understand why we do the things the way we do them.

Well, it actually goes both ways. Yahoo groups has especially suffered from both extremes. It seems that either the scientists feel overwhelmed and leave a forum to be overrun by crackpots, or they block the crackpots out and the discussions die. In either case, the fun stops. I think reasonable moderation and tolerance are the keys.

What Zapper was telling you is that PF represents a new type of case that does not fit the molds you know. PF is an example of a science website whose membership and activity actually exploded after we implemented tighter controls on crackpottery. Today we don't allow crackpottery at all on the site, and we are at an all time high. If you do not start to incorporate this data point into your analysis then I'm afraid your arguments are going to fall on deaf ears.

Your case seems to be that blocking out crackpots will cause an online community to wither and die. You will never convince a group of people to believe that when they already know that it has been disproved by counterexample, namely this website.

Many of the currently accepted fundamental concepts began as wild notions by amateur scientists (read crackpots). By eliminating wild notions, aren't you in fact eliminating the very innovative modes of thinking required in physics?

No and no.

First of all, the amateur scientists who come up with new ideas are not of the same ilk as those who read a few pages on wikipedia or on hyperphysics. They are people who have studied physics seriously, and many of them hold degrees in the subject. For one reason or another they weren't able to make a career in the mainstream but they continue their work, as they are driven by a passion for science.

And second, we do not eliminate the innovations by these talented individuals. In fact we encourage it, and we showcase it in our Independent Research Forum which is a subforum of General Physics. There are some very fine threads open there right now, and I am very proud that we have attracted such amateurs who are so creative and so talented.

That's about all I can say until you get more specific about your objections to the way we do things here. It would help if you could for instance cite a thread in mind that you feel was unjustly suppressed, or some specific example of moderating that you disagree with.

 

[ubavontuba]

These are excellent rules of thumb. However many "crackpot" theories meet these criteria.

This claim (and you're not the first to write such, here in PF) has yet to be substantiated (if you're interested, I can point you to a website where anyone is free to put up such claims, and try to defend them, using just these three criteria - PM me. Oh, and PF has its IR section; very few 'crackpot' theories have even got past the mild entrance criteria, let alone met just two of the three consistencies).

Mild as opposed too what? Not every good idea comes from a guy with a masters degree in mathematics. Besides, I'm not positing hypothesis that I feel are the answers to certain questions, but rather I'm only presenting embryonic concepts that may or may not have valid and interesting considerations.

Or maybe 'many' means something different to you than it does to me?

Perhaps. As you've noted below though, mine seem to meet your criteria.

For instance the theory proposed by the scientists from the article I referenced is apparently consistent with these criteria (it just seems far-fetched on the face of it).

I checked back, you seem to have provided several links - which theory did you mean?

This http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=253972006 .

Even my own examples of crackpottery above meet these criteria. For instance: If the universe's expansion is an acceleration and gravity is equivalent to acceleration, then who's to say that the acceleration isn't an effect of gravity? See? Internally consistent, consistent with well-established theories, and consistent with observation.

Indeed.

However, astrophysics and cosmology have long since been quantitative branches of science - for your 'example of crackpottery' to meet the criteria, you need equations, math, numbers and stuff. Otherwise all you have is a word salad, perhaps useful as a Kuhnian purgative, but 'calorie-free' in terms of its scientific content.

Not true. Virtually every concept in physics must first be derived from a notion. The math will rarely imply a new notion (for example, the math didn't tell us that neutrinos have mass). In other words, math defines the notions and can point toward new notions, but it doesn't think of its own accord. How many ideas have computers come up with?

Even the outrageous Heisenberg virtual mass thingy has its basis in known physics and hypothesized quantum gravity.

Remember, far-fetched is not equivalent to wrong. Einstein himself said it best: "For an idea that does not at first seem insane, there can be no hope."

Obviously this doesn't mean that all insane sounding ideas are good, but Einstein realized the importance of thinking beyond the accepted norm.

Indeed.

As you know, ideas are cheap - anyone can have one ("http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/nota-bene/believe-the-impossible.html" "). It's what you do with your ideas that counts; the really, really hard work is getting from the impossible idea to even an OOM test of it (though often it takes only a day or so to find holes in most crazy ideas).As has already been said, doing astrophysics and cosmology can be enormous fun, requires both creativity and discipline, and can leave you with highs that drugs cannot begin to match.

Right, but here you are implying that only professional scientists should bother to think at all. Just because I don't have all of the qualifications doesn't mean that I don't have a good and creative process of thinking. Maybe I haven't the ability to pursue my thoughts to their logical conclusions, but maybe a real scientist will see one of my ideas and think to himself, "Hey, that's very interesting..."

Unfortunately, this site has dedicated itself to thinking within the norm... to excising the fun of fluid and creative thought. This makes me sad (and bored).

Of course, it's your choice if you wish to continue to be sad, bored, and uninspired (just as it's your choice whether you stay here or not).

Right. However it is not my choice to see this site turn into a sad and boring shell of its potential.

It is true that crackpottery seems all too pervasive in more relaxed forums, but these crackpot ideas are actually excellent learning tools. By simply examining them and pointing out the errors in them, people learn the parameters of real physics.

There may be some merit to this.

However, as ZapperZ has said, PF is not such a place for this sort of thing (and you will find dozens, if not hundreds, of sites which do allow crackpot ideas to be posted; I suspect that few, if any, of those sites also have folk with even 1% understanding of the key aspects of modern astrophysics and cosmology, who are also prepared to spend their time debunking the crackpot ideas, let alone someone with a command of the field as good as Space Tiger's). We've tried this in PF, and it is boring in the extreme - the mind-numbingly narrow visions of almost all crackpot ideas is depressing, the almost universal inability to do even simple high school math or grasp the concept of OOM (order of magnitude) sanity checks is shocking (what on Earth did those folk actually learn in school??).

Maybe a crackpot rating is in order then? Maybe the more interesting crackpots can get a "Recognition" emblem stating something like "crackpot contributor" or "layperson contributor?" Perhaps these contributors can be used to help filter the really stupid ideas and questions out while being allowed to freely post (hopefully) not so stupid ideas and questions?

So here's a suggestion: why not start your own site, to implement the kind of nirvana that would make you happy (and excited)?Well, a testable prediction.

Ah, that would be good if all I wanted to do was espouse my ideas, but I'd like the chance to both learn about and possibly contribute (even if unlikely) to our understanding of the universe.

Hmm, it's now been how many months since PF got rid of TD and introduced IR? In that time, how many members has PF lost? how many new ones have joined? And when students want help with their homework, to which websites do they turn? The ones full of 'free-thinking' and crackpot ideas?

You are right in stressing the unique strengths of this site that many others haven't had, but the implication is that the site will become closed to the general populace and any chance to educate them too. Maybe a "credential check" should be initiated that prevents smart but uneducated fools like me from learning and participating?

I have however noted a definite decline in the give and take available here.

P.S. To ubavontuba. I understand that you will likely hope that a moderator will delete this posting due to your desire have 'proof' of your (crazy, easily refuted) idea about censorship (no, wait, it's censureship! Stupid Nereid, can't even spell). I suppose it's too much to hope that you know the history of science well enough to know that "Galileo was silenced! Galileo was right! I am being silenced! THEREFORE I MUST BE RIGHT TOO!" is a rather poor basis on which to pontificate about how science is actually done.

You wound me sir. I have never pontificated in this manner.

 

[AlphaNumeric]

Many of the currently accepted fundamental concepts began as wild notions by amateur scientists (read crackpots).

Lets have a quick check.

Quantum (field) theory?
Dirac - Degree, PhD and Fellowship from St John, Cambridge.
Heisenburg - Studied at Göttingen and Munich
Bohr - Copenhagen University
Planck - Professor at Berlin University
Schrodinger - Zurich, Sttutgard, Breslau

Relativity
Einstein - Degree and PhD from Zurich
Eddington - Masters (and Fellowship?) from Trinity College, Cambridge
Schwarzschild - Doctorate from Munich

Yeah, sounds like a bunch of rank amateurs to me!

If someone has mad an effort to learn about something and has an honest question about it, then asking what might be to others a trivial question is fine. It's the reason places like physicsforums exist I would imagine. To blindly wade into a discussion with 'My ill informed opinion is superior to the opinion of thousands of more informed people and exabytes (even zettabytes!) of experimental data, and I'll be damned if I'm changing my mind' does noones blood pressure any good. Unfortunately, the internet seems to be the perfect medium for such people to air their views...

 

[chroot]

You are right in stressing the unique strengths of this site that many others haven't had, but the implication is that the site will become closed to the general populace and any chance to educate them too.

What logic is the basis of this "implication?" The exact opposite of your implication has actually happened here! Far from being closed to the general populace, we actually welcome equally those who know science and those who wish to learn science.

You're not the first person to tell us that our site will die without crackpots. In fact, I was in the vangaurd group who decided to eliminate crackpots from this forum for good, and even some of our moderation staff had the same fear... but things just didn't happen that way.

As Tom points out, a lot of our continued success (measured in post activity, active membership, quality and timeliness of posts, you name it) is a direct result of our decisions in regards to crackpots, not in spite of them.

- Warren

 

[ZapperZ]

This http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=253972006 .

See, THIS is the EXACT example of why you buy handwaving arguments. I mean, things like this is fine as far as news reporting is concerned. But honestly, do you NOT see why it isn't sufficient for a scientific discussion? Seriously?

You cannot discuss this without looking at the exact work. Where was this published? What are their OWN assumption? You will notice that to be able to deduce the data, they also have to make use a number of assumptions, including accepting a "standard candle" to be able to know how far away things are. THESE implicitly make use of many established physics that they themselves are trying to modify.

Did you not think about such things?

Not true. Virtually every concept in physics must first be derived from a notion. The math will rarely imply a new notion (for example, the math didn't tell us that neutrinos have mass). In other words, math defines the notions and can point toward new notions, but it doesn't think of its own accord. How many ideas have computers come up with?

Not true! Every concept in physics has underlying mathematical definition. It is only AFTER one has understood what they are can one then let oneself free and explore and be creative. Here's something that may surprise you : the reason why we teach students all the established physics is so that when something new and unusual truly happen, they'll recognize it! It isn't so that they simply repeat everything we have taught them! You can't be creative about electrons or bosons or extra dimensions when all you know are the superficial descriptions.

And since when do you know so much about how scientific creativity occurs? Again, as before, you simply stated things like this without proof or even showing evidence. I strongly question the validity of your point of view considering your lack of evidence. Everything that you have tried to point out, such as internet site being "choked" to death, to the speculation of the possible drying of PF with such tight moderation, have been false. If I were refereeing your post, you have used faulty data to support your point of view.

Right, but here you are implying that only professional scientists should bother to think at all. Just because I don't have all of the qualifications doesn't mean that I don't have a good and creative process of thinking. Maybe I haven't the ability to pursue my thoughts to their logical conclusions, but maybe a real scientist will see one of my ideas and think to himself, "Hey, that's very interesting..."

Let's deal with the likelyhood of that occurring, shall we? Can you point out to me just ONE instance, ANYWHERE in the world on any internet forum, where such occurence has ever been documented? What you did was speculating, and speculating with no foundation on reality. You can't distinguish between speculation, and actual occurence. I can speculate too. I speculate that something like what you are proposing HAS NEVER HAPPENED. Thus, the likelyhood of it occurring is nil. So what did we lose? You are proposing that we are open to an event that has never happened, will likely never happened. Since when do you run your life based on the most remote possibility of an unusual event. Do you arrange your finances as if you WILL win a lottery some time down the line? That's what you want us to do here.

Right. However it is not my choice to see this site turn into a sad and boring shell of its potential.

We appreciate your concern, but it is anything but boring, and creativity abounds. Maybe you just don't know how creative some people are because, well, frankly, you don't know what is known and what isn't. Have you looked all over the physics forum? Again, if you are ignorant of what has been established and known, you can't tell about anything new even if it comes up and bite you on your rear end.

Besides, since WHEN are research front physics/astronomy/science work done on an open internet forum? Are you oblivious to physics journals? If you want creativity, go look there!

Can I suggest you look at old threads in the Feedback forum, because everything that you are bringing up here has been discussed at length. You are bringing in nothing new that we haven't heard already from previous quacks. And PF still have expanded inspite of many of the "dire predictions".

Zz.

 

[ubavontuba]

And what exactly is "reasonable moderation"? Everyone seems to want this, but like the concept of "intelligence", there's no accepted definition. To me, what we have currently IS a "reasonable moderation". So who decides? You?

Oviously not me. However, "reasonable moderation" to me means that polite and well stated concepts should be given polite and reasonable review. I feel that the real trouble with crackpots isn't their ideas, but rather their attitudes.

There's a difference between a question asking for clarification, and producing one's own theory. If you ask, someone will answer and try to explain. If you have your own theory, then submit it to the IR forum where people WILL tell you if you're wrong. As far as I can tell, you haven't done the latter to get "feedback" of your ideas. So why are you complaining?

My understanding of the submission sticky was that I'd have to back up my idea with math and experiments to prove its validity. Is my interpretation incorrect?

And I've said this so many times, I am even getting sick of hearing this myself. Show me something within the past 100 years of something that has actually made an impact in physics that has not appeared in legitimate peer-reviewed journal. And tell me who are these "amateur scientists" that have made these "wild notions".

Although it is true that contributions to physics by amateurs has become difficult due in large part to the expensive tools required to conduct basic reasearch, there are many available examples to consider.

Here's http://www.popularmechanics.com/specials/features/1762911.html?page=9&c=y"

Here's a http://www.sas.org/tcs/newsPage.html" devoted to them.

Here's a paper from a http://www.sas.org/conference2003/program.html" .

Some of these are older, but it's a great http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orchid/amateurs.html" . Note particularly David H. Levy (who can possibly refute his amateur contributions in astronomy?).

Here's a really interesting http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/pagepub/history.htm". Note particularly:

"9. 'The entrapment of large particles along the magnetic lines of force had been predicted in 1957 by an...amateur scientist, Nicholas Christofilos...He had sent his calculations to scientists engaged in such research, but no one had paid much attention to them. (In science, as in other fields, professionals tend to disregard amateurs.) It was only when the professionals independently came up with the same results that Christofilos achieved recognition.'28

There's tons more, but I'll spare you the endless references.

See, this is what separates you and me. If I were to make such a statement, I would BACK IT UP with specific examples. You, on the other hand, would settle simply by accepting someone making such a statement, because you didn't bother backing it up here. This is how we differ, and this is how crackpots can seduce you into thinking they're doing something legit. They KNOW that they can get away with a lot of stuff that most people don't even THINK of questioning.

Not true. I have always been able to back up what I have written in PF with references and I often ask others to provide references. What separates you and me then is that I don't arbitrarily prejudice other people.

I apply two differnt standards here. If someone seriously wishes to learn and is asking legitimate question, then the rules are very relaxed and every possible help should be given. However, if someone is proposing some theory or ideas that he/she came up with, then I would view it as if I'm refereeing any physics papers. If the rest of us have to go through the same thing, then you might as well get the same flavor of the rigor and scrutiny that is involved when one tries to produce something new and different.

Which precludes any possibility of an interesting notion put forward by one that is unable to work in the cappacity of a professional scientist. So sad.

 

[ubavontuba]

I admit that I'm totally lost as to the context of this post, but as to the original question:



Here's my answer:

http://www.sciforums.com
http://www.physicsmathforums.com
http://www.communities.ninemsn.com.au/browse.msnw?catid=297

Have a ball!

Thanks for the references. Since I seem to be burning my bridges here, I made need them.

 

[ubavontuba]

ubavontuba,

I'm still not quite up to speed on the context of this thread, and the fact that you are talking in the abstract isn't helping, but let me see if I can help you understand why we do the things the way we do them.

What Zapper was telling you is that PF represents a new type of case that does not fit the molds you know. PF is an example of a science website whose membership and activity actually exploded after we implemented tighter controls on crackpottery. Today we don't allow crackpottery at all on the site, and we are at an all time high. If you do not start to incorporate this data point into your analysis then I'm afraid your arguments are going to fall on deaf ears.

Right. Crackpottery is a nuisance. My complaint is more along the lines that the drive to eliminate crackpottery is possibly suppressing interesting ideas.

Your case seems to be that blocking out crackpots will cause an online community to wither and die. You will never convince a group of people to believe that when they already know that it has been disproved by counterexample, namely this website.

I'm not concerned about the website. I'm concerned about the the loss in value to education, learning and exchange of ideas.

No and no.

First of all, the amateur scientists who come up with new ideas are not of the same ilk as those who read a few pages on wikipedia or on hyperphysics. They are people who have studied physics seriously, and many of them hold degrees in the subject. For one reason or another they weren't able to make a career in the mainstream but they continue their work, as they are driven by a passion for science.

Agreed. In the beginning, even Einstein was such an example.

And second, we do not eliminate the innovations by these talented individuals. In fact we encourage it, and we showcase it in our Independent Research Forum which is a subforum of General Physics. There are some very fine threads open there right now, and I am very proud that we have attracted such amateurs who are so creative and so talented.

Yes. I will be spending some time there in the next few days.

That's about all I can say until you get more specific about your objections to the way we do things here. It would help if you could for instance cite a thread in mind that you feel was unjustly suppressed, or some specific example of moderating that you disagree with.

Sure, ZapperZ initially suppresssed my idea about the universe's acceleration (dark energy) possibly being caused by a falling outward (a sort of higher dimensional black hole). Of course this was one of my first posts, before I had a good clue as to the forum rules. I had since resubmitted the concept including a number of references and it remained.

However had I not been tenacious, my questions would remain unanswered and I'd still be as dumb as I was then (and I suppose I'm not much smarter now).

 

[ubavontuba]

What logic is the basis of this "implication?" The exact opposite of your implication has actually happened here! Far from being closed to the general populace, we actually welcome equally those who know science and those who wish to learn science.

That's all good. These are the things I like about PF.

You're not the first person to tell us that our site will die without crackpots. In fact, I was in the vangaurd group who decided to eliminate crackpots from this forum for good, and even some of our moderation staff had the same fear... but things just didn't happen that way.

I'm relieved to hear it.

As Tom points out, a lot of our continued success (measured in post activity, active membership, quality and timeliness of posts, you name it) is a direct result of our decisions in regards to crackpots, not in spite of them.

Well, then maybe I'm just plain wrong on all points. This wouldn't be the first time.

 

[quantumdude]

Right. Crackpottery is a nuisance. My complaint is more long the lines that the drive to eliminate crackpottery is possibly suppressing interesting ideas.

"Possibly" isn't good enough to warrant any changes in our policies. It is far more likely that interesting ideas will be lost if we allow crackpottery and risk the deterioration of our membership base that is well trained in science. Is it possible that someone who hasn't studied any science will see the answer that everyone else missed? Sure it is. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. As Louis Pasteur said, "Chance favors the prepared mind".

I also believe that a relaxation of our policies against crackpottery will certainly work against the objective of giving serious amateur scientists a credible venue in which to express themselves. If our IR section were to become sandbagged with the stuff that we used to allow in our (now retired) Theory Development Forum, none of the people who post to IR now would want to post there. But as it is, threads from this website are starting to appear in the references of papers submitted to the Los Alamos arXiv!

I'm not concerned about the website.

I don't think you understand. This website is the counterexample to your claims. PF is an experiment that has been remarkably successful since 2001. Every bit of experiential evidence that we have collected suggests uniquivocally that we are moving in the right direction.

I'm concerned about the the loss in value to education, learning and exchange of ideas.

Your concerns are unwarranted. By cutting down the noisy traffic we have retained and made a home for those members who are most qualified to educate and inform.

Agreed. In the beginning, even Einstein was such an example.

I'll note for the record that Einstein did in fact complete the requisite studies that prepared him to make his discoveries.

Yes. I will be spending some time there in the next few days.

Enjoy!

Sure, ZapperZ initially suppresssed my idea about the universe's acceleration (dark energy) possibly being caused by a falling outward (a sort of higher dimensional black hole). Of course this was one of my first posts, before I had a good clue as to the forum rules. I had since resubmitted the concept including a number of references and it remained.

However had I not been tenacious, my questions would remain unanswered and I'd still be as dumb as I was then (and I suppose I'm not much smarter now).

I did a quick search for it, but found that ZapperZ never responded to any thread that you started.

 

[quantumdude]

Regarding your answers to ZapperZ's challenge:

Here's http://www.popularmechanics.com/specials/features/1762911.html?page=9&c=y"

Here's a http://www.sas.org/tcs/newsPage.html" devoted to them.

Here's a paper from a http://www.sas.org/conference2003/program.html" .

Some of these are older, but it's a great http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orchid/amateurs.html" . Note particularly David H. Levy (who can possibly refute his amateur contributions in astronomy?).

Here's a really interesting http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/pagepub/history.htm". Note particularly:

I've examined all of the links and found nothing that satisfies ZapperZ's challenge. It looks like you are taking the "shotgun approach" to answering the challenge: throwing a handful of links out there and hoping for a hit. Can you cite an example of an amateur in the last 100 years who has advanced our knowledge of physics (not engineering or some other science) apart from the peer-review process?

 

[quantumdude]

chroot: You're not the first person to tell us that our site will die without crackpots. In fact, I was in the vangaurd group who decided to eliminate crackpots from this forum for good, and even some of our moderation staff had the same fear... but things just didn't happen that way.

uba: I'm relieved to hear it.

I think you've misunderstood chroot. We did eliminate crackpots from this forum for good. What "didn't happen that way" were the consequences you predicted. In fact the opposite has happened. That's what you don't seem to be getting.

 

[ubavontuba]

See, THIS is the EXACT example of why you buy handwaving arguments. I mean, things like this is fine as far as news reporting is concerned. But honestly, do you NOT see why it isn't sufficient for a scientific discussion? Seriously?

You have taken this out of context. In the "No dark energy?" thread I presented this as a humorous example of apparent wild speculation by "professional scientists."

You cannot discuss this without looking at the exact work. Where was this published? What are their OWN assumption? You will notice that to be able to deduce the data, they also have to make use a number of assumptions, including accepting a "standard candle" to be able to know how far away things are. THESE implicitly make use of many established physics that they themselves are trying to modify.

Right. It seems about as silly as I was alluding to, don't you think?

Did you not think about such things?

Yes. You've just taken it out of the context for which it was intended.

Not true! Every concept in physics has underlying mathematical definition. It is only AFTER one has understood what they are can one then let oneself free and explore and be creative.

Right. I clearly stated that math defines the notions. Why are you objecting to that? Our standard model definition of neutrinos was that they were massless. Experiments proved otherwise and now we mathematically define their mass. The math follows the observations and notions (generally speaking).

Here's something that may surprise you : the reason why we teach students all the established physics is so that when something new and unusual truly happen, they'll recognize it! It isn't so that they simply repeat everything we have taught them! You can't be creative about electrons or bosons or extra dimensions when all you know are the superficial descriptions.

That's like saying a caveman can't paint a pretty picture on the wall of his cavern without understanding optics and chemistry. Sometimes creativity takes unexplicable leaps forward.

And since when do you know so much about how scientific creativity occurs?

I read.

Again, as before, you simply stated things like this without proof or even showing evidence. I strongly question the validity of your point of view considering your lack of evidence. Everything that you have tried to point out, such as internet site being "choked" to death, to the speculation of the possible drying of PF with such tight moderation, have been false. If I were refereeing your post, you have used faulty data to support your point of view.

You may be right. I was relying on my personal experiences. I can refer you to a few dead Yahoo groups if you like. However, many have simply been removed and therefore no references are available.

Let's deal with the likelyhood of that occurring, shall we? Can you point out to me just ONE instance, ANYWHERE in the world on any internet forum, where such occurence has ever been documented? What you did was speculating, and speculating with no foundation on reality. You can't distinguish between speculation, and actual occurence. I can speculate too. I speculate that something like what you are proposing HAS NEVER HAPPENED. Thus, the likelyhood of it occurring is nil. So what did we lose? You are proposing that we are open to an event that has never happened, will likely never happened. Since when do you run your life based on the most remote possibility of an unusual event. Do you arrange your finances as if you WILL win a lottery some time down the line? That's what you want us to do here.

Fine, here are some examples:

This http://groups.yahoo.com/group/superconductivity/" has 4379 members. Note the low number of posts.

Here's http://groups.yahoo.com/group/modernphysics2/". Note how the activity has diminished to almost nothing.

Here's http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cosmologyandastrophysics/" that completely died and is now nothing more than a spammer site.

Yet another http://groups.yahoo.com/group/moderncosmology/" corpse.

This http://www.google.com/search?as_q=P...s_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images" turned up a lot of both active and dead forums. Peruse them to your heart's content. Note that some show up in the cache, but can no longer be directly accessed.

We appreciate your concern, but it is anything but boring, and creativity abounds. Maybe you just don't know how creative some people are because, well, frankly, you don't know what is known and what isn't. Have you looked all over the physics forum? Again, if you are ignorant of what has been established and known, you can't tell about anything new even if it comes up and bite you on your rear end.

Point taken.

Besides, since WHEN are research front physics/astronomy/science work done on an open internet forum? Are you oblivious to physics journals? If you want creativity, go look there!

I've viewed plenty. I've been a member of some. Some of the work is very interesting, but the format isn't usually very user friendly and you have to view a lot of "bleah" to get to the "cool."

Can I suggest you look at old threads in the Feedback forum, because everything that you are bringing up here has been discussed at length. You are bringing in nothing new that we haven't heard already from previous quacks. And PF still have expanded inspite of many of the "dire predictions".

I perused them and didn't see all of my specific issues addressed. Perhaps I missed something?

 

[ubavontuba]

I did a quick search for it, but found that ZapperZ never responded to any thread that you started.

No. He just deleted it and sent me a PM in regards to it.

 

[ubavontuba]

Regarding your answers to ZapperZ's challenge:



I've examined all of the links and found nothing that satisfies ZapperZ's challenge. It looks like you are taking the "shotgun approach" to answering the challenge: throwing a handful of links out there and hoping for a hit. Can you cite an example of an amateur in the last 100 years who has advanced our knowledge of physics (not engineering or some other science) apart from the peer-review process?

Perhaps you missed this reference?

"9. 'The entrapment of large particles along the magnetic lines of force had been predicted in 1957 by an...amateur scientist, Nicholas Christofilos...He had sent his calculations to scientists engaged in such research, but no one had paid much attention to them. (In science, as in other fields, professionals tend to disregard amateurs.) It was only when the professionals independently came up with the same results that Christofilos achieved recognition.'28"

P.S. It should be noted that successful individuals become known as "scientists" by definition.

 

[ubavontuba]

I think you've misunderstood chroot. We did eliminate crackpots from this forum for good. What "didn't happen that way" were the consequences you predicted. In fact the opposite has happened. That's what you don't seem to be getting.

No. I'm genuinely relieved to know that PF is doing well.

 

[Pengwuino]

I just checked out that sciforums.com website full of crackpots Tom pointed out, funny stuff! The place is liek the exact opposite of here. No moderation, no seemingly useful physics knowledge or experts, its funny, i should read in more. Politics section looks to be about the same as here though

Seems like you'd feel sorry for some wanna-be physicist fresh into the field in high school or maybe undergrad in college and they found their way onto that forum where more harm is done then good probably.

 

[Physics Monkey]

Hi ubavontuba,

I would like to say that I share your concern for education. I certainly find that dealing with reasonable crackpots can be both amusing and enlightening provided you already know what you're talking about . However, the best way to teach someone physics is not to simply set them loose with people who 99.99% of the time have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. It took many hundreds of years, many scientists, many more experiments, and countless false leads to reach the understanding we have today. The point is that modern physics, say, isn't something you can just figure out by talking in vague terms, but this is exactly what happens in "crackpot infested" forums on the internet. Sure students must one day be released into the world of controversy and independence, but it is critically important that they understand the fundamentals first. This procedure is safe because science is honest; the students can always go back and check what they learned for themselves, that's the beauty of it. I occasionally post on sciforums for precisely this reason, to give some genuine guidance to the genuine seekers. Without someone there to tell them the basics, they don't learn anything. That's why I think physicsforums does very well, people do want to learn about science, and you can actually do that here.

 

[AlphaNumeric]

I certainly find that dealing with reasonable crackpots can be both amusing and enlightening provided you already know what you're talking about .

Surely by definition a 'reasonable crackpot' doesn't exist? 'Reasonable uneducated people' certainly exist, and are those who are willing to learn from their mistakes or ignorance. A crackpot sticks to their preconceived guns no matter the evidence, the logic or number of people against them (though I suppose the number of people against them shouldn't really be a factor in the grand scheme of things).

Perhaps I'm slightly bitter for getting into the grand old 0.9r = 1 debate with a half-arsed troll on my home forum in the last 3 hours... It's statements like " I admit I don't know the theories you keep quoting. But i don't care. I simply think they're wrong." that warm your heart

with the desire to kill...

 

[Pengwuino]

Perhaps I'm slightly bitter for getting into the grand old 0.9r = 1 debate with a half-arsed troll on my home forum in the last 3 hours... It's statements like " I admit I don't know the theories you keep quoting. But i don't care. I simply think they're wrong." that warm your heart

I'll take it one step further! I was on this one forum where someone was saying relativity was wrong. Well this one girl/woman comes in who genuinly didn't know what relativity was and asked if someone could explain it to her, a non-scientist. Well another guy and I gave our best dumbed down explanations. Unfortunately, her response was basically this:

"Well wait, forget everything you know about physics! If you're traveling down a road at 0.6c and threw a ball at 0.8c, the ball woudl be traveling at 0.8 + 0.6c = 1.4c according to the guy on the ground" (fractional c notation inserted by me, didn't want to do the whole big number crap)

Yah... "forget about everything you know about physics". Now that i think of it, i should have responded by "Well, 20mph + 40mph is 180mph right? I'm simply forgetting everything i know about physics to do that computation". Hey, gallilean transformations are physics too right

 

[Nereid]

Perhaps you missed this reference?

"9. 'The entrapment of large particles along the magnetic lines of force had been predicted in 1957 by an...amateur scientist, Nicholas Christofilos...He had sent his calculations to scientists engaged in such research, but no one had paid much attention to them. (In science, as in other fields, professionals tend to disregard amateurs.) It was only when the professionals independently came up with the same results that Christofilos achieved recognition.'28"

P.S. It should be noted that successful individuals become known as "scientists" by definition.

Is that it?

Let's suppose, for the sake of discussion, that there is 1, 10, or even 100 such contributions, over the last 100 years.

Over that same period, how many crackpot ideas were there? If we assume that, prior to the advent of internet discussion fora, only 10% of crackpot ideas were even written down, let alone communicated via something like sciforums.com. How many crackpot ideas would there have then been, over the 100 years?

We can't know, but we can at least make some OOM estimates.

PF's TD section attracted some 2000 threads, in a period of 2 years (this is an OOM calculation), giving approx 1000 crackpot ideas per annum, just in PF. Multiply by 100, that gives 100,000. Upscale by a factor of 10, to account for all the crackpot ideas that, even in PF's TD history, never even made it here, and that's 1 million, over the 100 years.

Now, as a practical matter, consider a discussion forum in which between 1000 and 10,000 (new) crackpot ideas appear, every year. Based on our assumptions above, between 1 and 10 years are needed before just a single idea that advances physics appears (and that's taking the rosiest view).

Compare that with the fecundity of 'mainstream' physics. Let's just take astrophysics (I'm sure the results would be much more dramatic if we looked at all of physics). To date, there are some http://arxiv.org/year/astro-ph/06", an annual rate of 10,000. Not all those will advance astrophysics; let's be extraordinarily harsh and assume only 10% do, so we have 1000 advances in astrophysics, per annum.

(I think I'll stop here, the OOM estimates suggest a stark conclusion).

A final check - how well is PF's new IR section doing? Well, there are at least 3 independent submissions that look pretty healthy (call it 1), and the IR section has been going for barely 6 months (and to judge output, we should adjust for 'lead time'), out of perhaps a couple of dozen inputs (call it 100). That's a 'hit rate' of at least 1%.

Hmm, in the 'bad old days' we had 1000 new crackpot ideas a year, which produced nothing in the way of 'amateurs contributing to physics'; in the 'new days' we will have perhaps 1000 inputs a year to IR, which may produce 10 'amateurs contributing to physics'. During that same period, professionals will contribute 1000 advances to just astrophysics.

But wait! There's more!

Who was it that waded through the crackpot swamp? Who moderates IR? If we were to scale up TD, get PF onto slashdot twice every week, flood the internet with spam emails about what a wonderful place this is! post and have professionals (in research or teaching) and serious amateurs devote time and effort to seriously examine each crackpot idea! etc! what would happen? Well, for one, there'd be no Nereid here. At first I was amused with TD, and put some time and effort into reading and critiquing the ideas. I quickly found it depressing to even read most new posts, so I skimmed, and concentrated on only those which seemed to show at least the rudiments of at least a high school level of understanding (I once estimated that these comprised approx 1-3% of all threads). But that grew wearying too, and I stopped even going to that section.

uba, do you realize just how draining it is to have to even read that stuff (let alone critique it)? It is amusing for perhaps a week, maybe a month. The folk here at PF are volunteering their time and effort (no one gets paid).

So, on the one hand we have the uba proposal, which would require folk with competence to wade through perhaps 10,000 crackpot ideas (and remember, 'wade through' means engaging in possibly hundreds of post exchanges), which might, just might produce one 'amateur contribution'.

On the other hand, we have PF's new IR experiment, which has already produced some 'amateur contributions' to physics, out of a few dozen inputs.

 

[AlphaNumeric]

I think when it comes to 'WTF, I know I'm right!" I'd like to see (or rather, I probably woudln't!) the thread which can beat this :

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17312241

For reference purposes, I'm AlphaNumeric on there too. 42... 42 god damn ****ing pages! Thank god I was drunk!

And now it's back.

If it were relativity, I could (vaguely) understand, since it's a physical process and you require experiment to demonstrate it, but 0.9r?! It's logic for god sake.

/breaths into a paper bag repeatedly to calm down

The day someone invents the admin button which says 'Give electric shock to poster' I'll be a very happy bunny!

 

[Pengwuino]

haha see! These computer jerks think they're soooooooo right on things beacuse they got an A+ certificate at 13.

dont care about the math.

hahahaaha I am going to prove your math incorrect without using math! Take that!

 

[arildno]

For the record:
Nicholas Christofilos was a a Greek elevator ENGINEER, which means that he certainly had a decent background in maths and (classical) physics.

Engineers tend to be intelligent and clever fellows, with a passion for physics.
To call him an "amateur" is hardly correct, even though he must be called an independent researcher.

There can be many reasons why persons who are competent enough to do professional physics choose to pursue a career in engineering instead:
1. The topics in engineering seems more interesting
2. You are practically guaranteed a job you are qualified for; there aren't that many positions for "pure physics" researchers even in our days (and in earlier times, there was practically no such jobs, and full-time physicists more often than not had independent means of living, like Lord Kelvin and the de Broglie guys).

 

[Physics Monkey]

Surely by definition a 'reasonable crackpot' doesn't exist?

Haha, it certainly seems like a contradiction in terms.

 

[quantumdude]

Perhaps you missed this reference?

No, I didn't miss it. How could I? You highlighted it in your post.

"9. 'The entrapment of large particles along the magnetic lines of force had been predicted in 1957 by an...amateur scientist, Nicholas Christofilos...He had sent his calculations to scientists engaged in such research, but no one had paid much attention to them. (In science, as in other fields, professionals tend to disregard amateurs.) It was only when the professionals independently came up with the same results that Christofilos achieved recognition.'28"

That calculation is deducible from classical electrodynamics, which is 19th century physics. If he had done it before Maxwell's time then you would be onto a winner. But he didn't, so you aren't.

 

[arildno]

That calculation is deducible from classical electrodynamics, which is 19th century physics.

Which perhaps explains why an (elevator) ENGINEER would manage to do the calculations, as engineers, in general, should be regarded as the experts in applied&theoretical classical physics, rather than theoretical physicists primarily working on other fields of physics.

 

[ubavontuba]

Is that it?

Let's suppose, for the sake of discussion, that there is 1, 10, or even 100 such contributions, over the last 100 years.

Over that same period, how many crackpot ideas were there? If we assume that, prior to the advent of internet discussion fora, only 10% of crackpot ideas were even written down, let alone communicated via something like sciforums.com. How many crackpot ideas would there have then been, over the 100 years?

So, you're saying we shouldn't look for good ideas because there are so many bad ones? Do you know how many bad patents the USPTO has received over two centuries? Should we discard all patents because there are so many bad ones?

Do you have any idea how many stupid decisions governments have made over the centuries? Should we therefore discard the concept of government and live in anarchy?

Do you realize how wrong Columbus was to think he landed in India? Should we all go back to Europe (or wherever) to eliminate this mistake?

Do you know the number of failed genetic defects it took to create humans from primordial life? Should we just throw all of that evolution away to eliminate the traces of these mistakes?

Do you realize how many rocks must be dug out of the ground to find just an ounce of gold? Should we not bother with looking for gold?

Ideas are the ore of progress. You might need to get your hands dirty, digging for that one golden nugget.