- #1
Another God
Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
- 988
- 4
Greg...hmmm...how do I go about this. hehehe... Um, thanks to a thread that I was participating in several months ago, I have had this idea in my head which I think would be an incredibly ...brilliant thing to happen. But it will be hard to make happen. I knew straight away that it would be a bit of a task to make it happen, and had no idea how to go about making it happen. Ironically I never thought of approaching you (even though the idea came from this website... )
So now you are curious...what is this idea? Well, the basic idea is to set up "Public Arenas" where the two (or even three if need be) most knowledgeable people from some particular fields are left to log in and debate with each other. When I say most knowledgeable, I mean litterally that: I mean we find someone who is, say, really knowledgeable about physics and we ask them: "Who is the most respected physicist alive today who advocates theory X?" Take a simple poll, and figure out who the most respected leaders of each field is. Figure out what areas of contention in the various fields are, and find representatives of these fields, request their participation, and let them debate it out, at their own free will.
We set this up for every field and ever topic which has any sort of valid contention in it. I don't know what contentions will be included (I'm not really knowledgeable about anything enough to sugest them, but to give a vague idea of what I am talking about: Dawkins camp vs Gould camp debate. Idealism vs Realism. Quark vs String (or whatever I don't know physics well enough :p) But anyway, you get the idea.
So, we figure out the fields where there is a real contention between the leading people, and we give them the opportunity to debate it out between themselves, without interference from anyone (at their own will, with no deadlines etc, and only they are able to participate in that particular arena), all the time while the public can log in at any time and read what has been written: The public can watch the debate.
Connected to each arena there would be set up a "Public Discussion Forum" where the public can discuss what the professionals are saying, discuss what they think etc...
So that is the basic idea. If you like it so far, we can discuss more details, play with the idea, refine it, and in the end I hope (this is my little dream) make a really big deal out of it. In my mind, this will become a 5 or 10 yearly event in which people will feel incredibly priveledged to represent their field, and do their best to express exactly why what they believe is true. Idealistically, this will become a world renowned website, and respected worldwide as a monument to the advancement of the knowledge of the human race...
Why I came to you (and PF as a community) with this idea:
I had no idea who on Earth you could approach with this idea. The only thing I could think of would be to simply do it myself (and I would like at the very least to be a part of it), but I realized that you greg, and the community of brilliant people we have here is the perfect place to start! Why? Because you know how to make great websites. You have some great experience in this field, and you make stuff happen. I love it. As well as that, we need to
1. Figure out what topics are worthy of professional discussion
2. Need to figure out who will represent the opposing sides of each discussion
And there are a whole range of people present in these very forums who have enough experience in various fields to start discussing these ideas and figure it out. These people will alos know the true representatives of those particular beliefs etc. And with this knowledge base we have here, we can start getting a foothold on this giant task.
Combined, this may all actually happen.
So: What do you think? If you are at all interested, then let's discuss this more indepth. I have some really well thought out ideas on this, but we need to figure it all out together...
Thanks!
Shane
So now you are curious...what is this idea? Well, the basic idea is to set up "Public Arenas" where the two (or even three if need be) most knowledgeable people from some particular fields are left to log in and debate with each other. When I say most knowledgeable, I mean litterally that: I mean we find someone who is, say, really knowledgeable about physics and we ask them: "Who is the most respected physicist alive today who advocates theory X?" Take a simple poll, and figure out who the most respected leaders of each field is. Figure out what areas of contention in the various fields are, and find representatives of these fields, request their participation, and let them debate it out, at their own free will.
We set this up for every field and ever topic which has any sort of valid contention in it. I don't know what contentions will be included (I'm not really knowledgeable about anything enough to sugest them, but to give a vague idea of what I am talking about: Dawkins camp vs Gould camp debate. Idealism vs Realism. Quark vs String (or whatever I don't know physics well enough :p) But anyway, you get the idea.
So, we figure out the fields where there is a real contention between the leading people, and we give them the opportunity to debate it out between themselves, without interference from anyone (at their own will, with no deadlines etc, and only they are able to participate in that particular arena), all the time while the public can log in at any time and read what has been written: The public can watch the debate.
Connected to each arena there would be set up a "Public Discussion Forum" where the public can discuss what the professionals are saying, discuss what they think etc...
So that is the basic idea. If you like it so far, we can discuss more details, play with the idea, refine it, and in the end I hope (this is my little dream) make a really big deal out of it. In my mind, this will become a 5 or 10 yearly event in which people will feel incredibly priveledged to represent their field, and do their best to express exactly why what they believe is true. Idealistically, this will become a world renowned website, and respected worldwide as a monument to the advancement of the knowledge of the human race...
Why I came to you (and PF as a community) with this idea:
I had no idea who on Earth you could approach with this idea. The only thing I could think of would be to simply do it myself (and I would like at the very least to be a part of it), but I realized that you greg, and the community of brilliant people we have here is the perfect place to start! Why? Because you know how to make great websites. You have some great experience in this field, and you make stuff happen. I love it. As well as that, we need to
1. Figure out what topics are worthy of professional discussion
2. Need to figure out who will represent the opposing sides of each discussion
And there are a whole range of people present in these very forums who have enough experience in various fields to start discussing these ideas and figure it out. These people will alos know the true representatives of those particular beliefs etc. And with this knowledge base we have here, we can start getting a foothold on this giant task.
Combined, this may all actually happen.
So: What do you think? If you are at all interested, then let's discuss this more indepth. I have some really well thought out ideas on this, but we need to figure it all out together...
Thanks!
Shane