Target of skepticism

[Ginger Rogers]

see, told you I'm not a scientist! :D But you see my point

[Admin]

For the most part, lay people like myself, have to believe what scientists tell us

Yes. What skepticus was alluding to is the Argument to Authority that religions rely on and making the analogy that science is the same.

Where it breaks down however, is in the relevance of such authority. The major and crucial difference is that the authority of religion cannot be tested. If something is the word of God then that’s it – end of story.

With science however, the claims that we accept on authority can, potentially, be tested. In fact for science to be accepted it has to stand up to skeptical scrutiny; therefore science can back up its claims.

So, the quick layman’s terms answer is that yes we do accept science on authority much of the time, but we have good reasons for doing so. Science is an evidence-based method - religion relies on dogma.

We have faith in religion but we can trust in science.

[Skepticus Rex]

...we can trust in science.

hopefully. :) only joking. but as i said earlier, it is possible.

anyhoo, evidence of people and theories being dismissed for reasons other than scientific merit:

immanuel velikovsky (a zionist). he did lots of things, but the most controversial was a catostrophic cosmology he worked on. i won't go into details, but his theories included predictions on the nature of Venus, which were later verified by probes, and several other ideas of his are now part of scientific consenus.
at the time, any form of catastrophism, especially involving biblical ideas of global floods, was despised by uniformatarians (including darwinists), and people proposing such theories were often attacked.
when he tried to publish his book worlds in collision, his publisher (macmillan, who also publish/ed science textbooks) was threatened with a boycott of all its scientific publishings by several prominant scientists and universities. macmillan then passed on the book to another publisher, one with no scientific connections. this meant it was immune to blackmail, but it also undermined the credibility of the book.
velikovsky was thrust to the margins of the scientific community, and even though many of his theories are now established, he is still known for his work having no scientific merit.

Wilhelm Reich (a pschotherapist cum natural scientist). he noticed some effects which implied the possible existance of a form of biological energy. he apparantly made detailed notes of his experiments with protozoa, but i can't find any reference to anyone else scientifically testing his conclusions.
his books were burnt by the nazis (he was jewish, and his research involved sex), and later, after moving to the US and developing a therapy based on his bioenergy, a series of articles attacking him triggered an investigation by the american FDA, who suspected he was selling a quack cancer cure. i can't find any details of the investigation, but they concluded that he was, and a judge ordered his books burnt (in 1954 in the 'land of the free'). from what i've read he didn't claim it would cure cancer at all, just that it appeared to be able to boost the immune system to destroy tumours.

this last example isn't someone being ostracised by the scientific community, since he isn't a proffessional scientist, but some of the things he was attacked with show the attitude i'm trying to demonstrate
richard milton (a scientific journalist). he wrote several books pointing out apparant problems in neo-darwinist evolution and also expressed concern about how many scientific discoveries might be lost due to the attitude i'm proposing here (including the examples above, funnily enough).
various critics (quite a few scientists, including richard dawkins) called him personally several things including 'stupid' and 'mentally ill'. one of his articles was removed from a journal when richard dawkins told the editor that milton was a 'secret creationist'. milton denies that he is any such thing.
i have never seen anything actually addressing the issues he raises. apparantly personal attacks on him and his supposed beliefs are enough to debunk scientific theories.

[Physiotherapist]

If you want to find out more about Reich, then Alexander Lowen's books might be helpful. He had his own therapy with Reich and then went onto develop his own practice. Lowen was a teacher, lawyer and latterly a doctor and has written many books in which he talks about Reich.

[Mojo]

anyhoo, evidence of people and theories being dismissed for reasons other than scientific merit:

immanuel velikovsky (a zionist). he did lots of things, but the most controversial was a catostrophic cosmology he worked on. i won't go into details, but his theories included predictions on the nature of Venus, which were later verified by probes, and several other ideas of his are now part of scientific consenus.
at the time, any form of catastrophism, especially involving biblical ideas of global floods, was despised by uniformatarians (including darwinists), and people proposing such theories were often attacked.
when he tried to publish his book worlds in collision, his publisher (macmillan, who also publish/ed science textbooks) was threatened with a boycott of all its scientific publishings by several prominant scientists and universities. macmillan then passed on the book to another publisher, one with no scientific connections. this meant it was immune to blackmail, but it also undermined the credibility of the book.
velikovsky was thrust to the margins of the scientific community, and even though many of his theories are now established, he is still known for his work having no scientific merit.

I'd be interested in knowing which of his theories "are now established".

[Skepticus Rex]

Ironically, some of the concepts Velikovsky originally put forward in the 1940s, which at the time were heretical, are in fact much more widely accepted within the mainstream today. These include:

* The idea that global mass extinctions were caused by Earth colliding with an extraterrestrial body (particular the anomalous iridium levels at the Cretaceous boundary, which marked the destruction of the dinosaurs).
* The neo-Darwinist ideas of punctuated equilibrium in evolution.
* Velikovsky's arguments that electromagnetism must be given greater consideration in astronomy can be seen in the light of the subsequent discoveries such as the Van Allen belts, the sun and planets have extensive magnetospheres, and that the "vacuum of space" was in fact found to be permeated with charged plasma (the "solar wind").
* The idea that cometary impacts could have precipitated "dark ages" within historical times (eg the AD Dark Ages in Europe)

However mainstream academia contends that their acceptance of such ideas has little or nothing to do with Velikovsky's work, which is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions by academia.

[wollery]

Velikovsky? :o

You're including Velikovsky as an example?

Velikovsy?

Oy vey. Velikovsky's work (if you can call it that) was about as unscientific as you can get. He started from the premise that the bible and other mythological stories were 100% accurate and then tried to account for them with physical astronomy. This involved having planets bouncing around the solar system like billiard balls. That's why he proposed extinction being caused by collisions, nothing to do with anything like physical evidence. That's why he proposed EM being more important, he had to have some mechanism to throw the planets around.

His predictions about Venus weren't confirmed by probes, since what the probes showed was a planet which is millions of years old. Velikovsky said that it was ejected from Jupiter (whose chemical makeup it does not resemble, not even close) as a comet, whizzed about the solar system in ways that aren't physically possible, screeched to a halt in its present orbit and suddenly changed from a comet into a planet!

Please note, I am not dismissing this out of hand. I've looked at Velikovsky's stuff and there's not one shred of real science in it. His predictions are worthless because they result from a wild fantasy which bears no resemblance to anything approaching reality. That a few minor bits of what he suggested turned out to be not entirely innacurate is neither here nor there. This should all be plain to anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about science who reads his stuff. The "scientific establishment" didn't disregard it because it went against their cherished views, they disregarded it because it's a load of complete bollocks.

I'm afraid that I don't know enough about Wilhelm Reich or Richard Milton to comment on their cases yet. I'll read up on them and get back to you.

[Mojo]

from what i've read he didn't claim it would cure cancer at all, just that it appeared to be able to boost the immune system to destroy tumours.

In what way would boosting the immune sysyem to destroy tumours not be curing cancer?

[Skepticus Rex]

The "scientific establishment" didn't disregard it because it went against their cherished views, they disregarded it because it's a load of complete bollocks.

however, at the time they didn't know it was complete bollocks. they disregarded it from a preconcieved idea that it was bollocks. i wasn't saying it's right, I think most of it's bollocks, however, there are parts of his theories that were correct, but they were also dismissed, because of the nature of the rest of it.
that's the reason i didn't want to use these examples, because although they are examples of the scientific community ignoring (or even attacking) things because they disagree (without further research to refute it), they are people that have been proven wrong (or havn't been proven either way yet), and so people think it doesn't matter that they were dismissed.

In what way would boosting the immune sysyem to destroy tumours not be curing cancer?

what i meant was, he didn't go around saying "i've cured cancer, give me money and i'll cure your cancer", he was doing further research into it at the time.

[wollery]

however, at the time they didn't know it was complete bollocks. they disregarded it from a preconcieved idea that it was bollocks. i wasn't saying it's right, I think most of it's bollocks, however, there are parts of his theories that were correct, but they were also dismissed, because of the nature of the rest of it.

Actually that's not accurate. The basic tenets he was working from were bollocks. That renders any conclusions he comes to bollocks, whether or not some of them later turn out to be accurate.

I'll give you an example of how starting from crap can give you a prediction that turns out to be accurate, but doesn't alter the fact that it's all crap. When I was a lowly PhD student a couple of friends and I were being very silly over lunch and decided to come up with a new theory of cosmology. We decided that since everything in the Universe rotates or orbits something else it follows that the whole Universe must rotate, and is probably a sphere. This has the upshot that, due to centripetal acceleration, all galaxies should be receding from the centre of the Universe, and the further out from the centre they are the faster they'll be travelling. This gives the result that if you are at the centre of the Universe every galaxy you look at should be redshifted, with the magnitude of the redshift being proportional to its distance. It's a theory which starts from a basic tenet, makes two predictions, namely that galaxies should be receding, and that their recession velocities should be larger the further away they are. Both of these predictions turn out to be correct. Does this mean that parts of our theory were correct? Of course not, because the theory is fundamentally flawed. Nothing can move faster than the speed of light, and in order for the overall rotation to not be apparent (which it isn't) the rotational velocity of distant galaxies about the Universal centre must be faster than light! The predictions are worthless, because they are based on a flawed premise. The science is wrong from start to finish, despite making some predictions which turn out to be correct. As an aside we also decided that since the Universe was a sphere it probably had a solid boundary, and eventually the galaxies would run into this boundary at high velocity. We called it the "Rotating Universe, Splat!" model. :D

that's the reason i didn't want to use these examples, because although they are examples of the scientific community ignoring (or even attacking) things because they disagree (without further research to refute it), they are people that have been proven wrong (or havn't been proven either way yet), and so people think it doesn't matter that they were dismissed.

As I said earlier, Velikovsky's work was dismissed because upon reading it, it becomes clear that it is almost impossible to describe as science. It's that wrong, from start to finish!

I had hoped that you were going to give examples of people who's work had been dismissed or attacked without any basis, regardless of whether or not they were right. Velikovsky certainly doesn't fall into that category, and from what I've been reading about Wilhelm Reich, his case doesn't either. I couldn't find many sites that aren't rabidly pro-Reich (i.e. they talk about him being a martyr) and obviously have an axe to grind, but those that I did all say that other people failed to find the Orgones that he claimed to have discovered. This suggests that other researchers tried to replicate his work and failed. They also say that the book burning incident has been exagerrated, what actually happened was that the court ordered the destruction of labelling attached to his Orgone collectors, which had been deemed he was selling on false pretenses, i.e. that they could cure all manner of diseases. He was prosecuted by the FDA on charges of fraud, in that he was claiming a medical benefit for which there was no evidence (now why can't they do that to homeopaths?). He was jailed for contempt of court because he kept selling his collectors after he had been ordered not to. The court records, and FDA records are available for public scrutiny.

what i meant was, he didn't go around saying "i've cured cancer, give me money and i'll cure your cancer", he was doing further research into it at the time.

He claimed that his Orgone collector was benificial to health, despite there being absolutely no evidence to back up these claims. His notes have been studied by others who have found nothing in them to support his assertions.

Still need to read up on Milton, but I'm not holding out much hope, although I'm keeping an open mind.

[Skepticus Rex]

Nothing can move faster than the speed of light, and in order for the overall rotation to not be apparent (which it isn't) the rotational velocity of distant galaxies about the Universal centre must be faster than light!

that is exactly what i mean.
current understanding has it that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and therefore you dismissed your model on that premise.
if it was possible that things could move faster than light, then your model might well have worked.
i'm not saying that there is anything faster than the speed of light, but remember nothing is certain.

He started from the premise that the bible and other mythological stories were 100% accurate and then tried to account for them with physical astronomy. This involved having planets bouncing around the solar system like billiard balls. That's why he proposed extinction being caused by collisions, nothing to do with anything like physical evidence. That's why he proposed EM being more important, he had to have some mechanism to throw the planets around.

and that is bollocks to you because you are starting from the assumption that those mythological stories are completely false. there is no evidence that they are false (lack of evidence isn't evidence), just as there is no evidence they are correct (not that i know of, anyway).
if those stories were correct, no matter how unlikely that is, then velikovsky's theory makes sense, doesn't it?
so although it was unscientific to use unproven, anecdotal evidence to base a theory on, it's also unscientific to say something is impossible due to lack of evidence.

now, i'm not saying that velikovsky's theories are right, or even anywhere near right. but the fact is, he was dismissed because everyone knows the bible is a load of crap, which is not a scientific fact.

if people have tried to reproduce Reich's work and failed, then i agree they were right to dismiss it. i hadn't found any reference to any such tests, but thats probably a gap in my research

[Mojo]

Still need to read up on Milton, but I'm not holding out much hope, although I'm keeping an open mind.

Here's his website: http://www.alternativescience.com/

[Mojo]

and that is bollocks to you because you are starting from the assumption that those mythological stories are completely false. there is no evidence that they are false (lack of evidence isn't evidence), just as there is no evidence they are correct (not that i know of, anyway).

There was no evidence that the stories are correct. There was also no evidence that planets bounce around the solar system like billiard balls, that Venus was ejected from Jupiter, that Venus was once a comet, or that comets' tails are edible (that was another of his: manna fell out of the tail of the comet as it passed overhead). There was no evidence supporting Velikovsky's ideas. That is why they were not seriously entertained.

if those stories were correct, no matter how unlikely that is, then velikovsky's theory makes sense, doesn't it?

But as you have said, there is no evidence that these stories are correct. Without evidence that these stories are correct, Velikovsky has no evidence supporting his ideas.

so although it was unscientific to use unproven, anecdotal evidence to base a theory on, it's also unscientific to say something is impossible due to lack of evidence.

It is unscientific to accept something as a theory if it has no supporting evidence. It doesn't matter who puts it forward: a theory without evidence is not going to be accepted.

[Skepticus Rex]

It is unscientific to accept something as a theory if it has no supporting evidence. It doesn't matter who puts it forward: a theory without evidence is not going to be accepted.

physicists currently believe in a substance called dark matter. this is a theoretical substance that was proposed in order to explain the discrepancy between the observed mass in the universe, and the predicted mass from the big bang theory.
dark matter is said to exist in theory, when it is really just hypothetical (like velikovsky's ideas)

evolution was a widely accepted theory before any transitional fossils were found, and before the genetic evidence that is used to support it.

it was my impression that hypotheses are generally accepted (when there is no established alternative) until evidence is found for or against them. this definately appears to be the case with hypothese popular in the scientific community.

PS. as i keep saying, it doesn't matter that velikovskys ideas have been proven wrong now. at the time they were dismissed as fantasy, there was no evidence either way. his theories were just as possible as any others, except his were disapproved of due to their nature

[Mojo]

physicists currently believe in a substance called dark matter. this is a theoretical substance that was proposed in order to explain the discrepancy between the observed mass in the universe, and the predicted mass from the big bang theory.
dark matter is said to exist in theory, when it is really just hypothetical (like velikovsky's ideas)

the discrepancy between the observed mass of the universe and the predicted mass is evidence that something is wrong either with the observations or with the theory. Dark matter is a hypothesis put forward to explain the discrepancy, and a reasonably parsimonious one. Basically "perhaps there's something we can't see". You do see the difference between this and the kind of fantastic stuff Velikovsky came up with, don't you?