I tried to hold back from this, but I'm sorry to say that I have a pseudo-rant/ramble that I need to get off my chest.

In the thread "Mass Exodus from the Big Bang Begins", started by imported_WINSTON, I had a few problems with how it opened up. Now, this thread isn't about the big bang theory at all - I'm not focusing on that. What I AM focusing on, is the style of argument in general, which seems to be pretty common amongst some people that go against the mainstream.

First of all, there were the cliche "don't believe a minority view - keep the mainstream in power" perception. I don't agree with this, but I'm not focusing on that for now.

This part was the part that made me fidget in my chair a bit. It's pretty annoying to not only be accused of only following a mainstream idea because it's mainstream, but ALSO suggesting that the only reason to give up a mainstream idea was because it was no longer becoming mainstream. This is... illogical, in my eyes.

Basically, this is the basis of my little ramble: If a million people believe something that's wrong, that doesn't make it right! If a billion people believe something that's wrong, that STILL doesn't make it right! Arguing that a bunch of people believe in something, even if you do have the true statistics and aren't just making it up, does not automatically make the claim true.

Opus from Bloom County made a similar note. According to him, a million penguins watched a plane fly from one direction to the other. As the plane flew above them, a million penguins fall onto their backs from watching the plane. And as he said: "If a million penguins do a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing."

(I'm not claiming that believing in a theory that's against the mainstream is necessarily stupid, I'm just quoting Opus).

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Many logical fallacies end up in ATM arguments.

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My son is my universe.

Yeah, true, but sometimes I want to focus on a single one when I find it glaring, obvious, and used a lot.

...

...

Okay, so that still doesn't explain why I'm focusing on this one. I'll work on that.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Hey, can we all post our pet peeves (re ATM 'arguments'? )?

Mine is:
"Look at all these things the {insert mainstream theory here} CAN'T EXPLAIN {insert long, or short, list here}!!!!!!!!!!!
Because {mainstream theory} can't explain these things, therefore my {insert ATM idea here} must be right!"

Of course, no ATM idea is ever presented in such a stark way, but when you follow the logic of the ATM idea, as presented, it has the same structure.

hmm...

Eh, why not? Though it wouldn't necessarily follow the title of the thread, I don't have a problem with it.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Mine is similar! "Look, this is interesting". No it can't possible be right because mainstream has an explanation, and I'm sure I can find things wrong with it that make the whole idea untenable.

Fortunatately we can both see through such crude overgeneralisations, even if it seems that way sometimes.

Regards,
Ian Tresman

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Ian Tresman
plasma-universe.com

the point is that if the Big Bang lost it's support in numbers then it would no longer be considered Mainstream. If it was no longer considered mainstream then Nereid would be forced to move any discussion of it to the ATM section as any mention of this alternative would be met with hostility and the accusations of psuedo-science.

So the question you must ask is what makes something Mainstream if it is not the number of professionals that support the theory?

I don't think that the Big Bang is losing mainstream status. I think the Big Bang needs another look because of new evidence. But there's nothing going on that requires tossing out the whole theory and trying to write a new one that doesn't match basic observations, doesn't work within known physical laws, and doesn't stem from a foundation of assumptions.

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My son is my universe.

The thing is, a lot of times scientists will know something that the main populace will not. When scientists debate, they usually do so with facts, not opinion. They do so not based on whether or not an idea is "new" or "old", "mainstream" or not. They do so based on evidence and expertise.

When the main populace disagrees, they usually use anecdotes, and quote whatever source agrees with their opinion. There are many people that are willing to change their opinion as they see actual factual evidence that's contrary -- others won't. You get a mix.

However, consider this: Throughout the world, there are at least 2 billion people that are very impoverished. Even more than that have little to no education or literacy. Throughout the world, as well, one could probably reasonably estimate that 5 billion people don't know what a lot of the top scientists know.

Any way you look at it, arguing from the place of, "Well, the majority of people in the world KNOW that...", doesn't really work.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Despite my belief that Big Bang cosmology is bunkum, I'll be the first to support your statement that the Big Bang needs to be examined after any new evidence. And the same goes for any new theory.

I should also mention that just because a theory does not match observation is not reason by itself to throw out a theory, otherwise the Big Bang would have been tossed out long ago. Not enough neutrinos? Change the theory. Stars older than the Universe? Change the theory. Not enough galactic mass? Change the theory.

As for working within known physicsal laws, I should point out that theories such as plasma cosmology work within laws that have been demonstrated in the laboratory, whereas Big Bang theory creates its own... dark matter, dark energy, black holes and creation from a singularity, all have no empirical basis whatsoever.

Regards,
Ian Tresman

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Ian Tresman
plasma-universe.com

Ian, please don't bother to use this thread to prove your theory right or wrong. I'm not a moderator, so I can't really stop you, but I don't really want this thread to be about a discussion on the Big Bang, Cold Creation, Plasma Theory, or proof that the chicken ate the egg that came before it out of jealousy for being second.

This thread is mainly going on about some logic fallacies that we see that annoy us. Personally, I was very annoyed with the Argumentum Ad Populum in one of the recent debates. Sometimes, mainstream supporters also use logical fallacies, usually when they themselves don't know a lot on the subject. I've been one myself - I've always defended Evolution, for instance, and only recently did I really have the evidence to actually do so without going off personal belief and perception. It doesn't make what I said wrong, just meant that my argument itself was flawed.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

There are times to throw out a theory, we just haven't found that reason for the strongest theories around, yet. Relativity, Big Bang, so on have yet to be falsified even though some evidence may seem to do so at first. I don't see it as merely, "whoops! Gotta change the theory again!" It's updating it, adapting it.

It would be illogical to change a theory in a way that takes it away from past observations just to make it fit the new observations (excepting when the new observation shows the old ones to be directly flawed). Adapting a theory means reconciling the two observations under the same physical mechanism.

If a new theory can't do that, its not correct no matter how many times the old theory has been updated!

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My son is my universe.

The one that annoys me, and I doubt it has a name, is "The mainstream disagrees with me, so they're covering things up." Or "protecting their position." Or whatever excuse we're going with today. This especially annoys me when there is no actual evidence that the mainstream is as wrong as the theorist, whoever they are, claims they are.

No mainstream theory is without holes, this we know. And scientists are working all the time to fill those holes. However, until and unless your "new" idea (these ideas are so seldom actually new, and many were falsified decades ago) can do what the mainstream theory does and more, you can't use "but it doesn't explain everything" as an explanation for why it should be thrown out.

Another one that annoys me is "telling me to research something is an ad hominem attack!" For once and for all, no, it isn't. It is a statement that your argument has flaws that you don't have the information to see. If I tried to argue nuclear physics, it would pretty quickly become clear that I haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about. Ergo, before I argue it, I should go back and study it. I can't say what's wrong with a theory I don't understand in the first place. (Unless what's wrong with it is, well, everything, and I can't understand how you'd have an idea that directly contradicts science that even I know.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

"Telling me to research something is an Ad Hominem attack!"

Would they even say something like that if "Ad Hominem" wasn't thrown around a bit in the fora? I mean, no insult to the fora or the participants, it's just one of those buzzwords that people latch onto and lose all the meaning of.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

No, Argumentum Ad Populum is scientific way!!

All who believe easy to make lead to become gold vote here. We all become rich!!!

Hmm... I LIKE the sound of that.

But if we all made gold, how would we all be rich? That's like saying if the Government gave everyone a billion dollars, we'd all be rich. It doesn't work that way :P

(...but we could vote that it does, then it would work! HAH!)

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I think there's a quotation mark or two wrong or misplaced, but this and your next post Ian raise a very interesting point:We already have a thread, here in ATM, on the extent to which ATM cosmologies assert physical laws, principles, etc as being more fundamental than theories (ColdCreation is claiming that the 'conservation of mass' and the 'conservation of energy' are in some sense more fundamental than any theory which may choose to contain them).

The ATM section of BAUT operates, for ATM ideas, on a much weakened version of the way astrophysics, the planetary sciences, and cosmology work in universities and research institutions - gleeful and fervid attacks on and challenges to the ideas presented (there is no equivalent in BAUT for mainstream ideas - nothing we could do here in BAUT could hold a candle to what a PhD candidate has to go through to defend her thesis, for example).

Generally though, it seems there's quite a deal of misunderstanding of how science - and astrophysics in particular - actually works ('change the theory' is what science is all about )!

Hmm, I think I'll start a thread on this ...

He, he, he... My contribution:

poster A: X!
posters B, C, D: X is wrong! See, it's contradicted by Y and Z.
poster A: Yeah, but I never said X.
posters B, C, D: Then what did you mean by 'X'?
poster A: Clearly, I meant W.
posters B, C, D: O.K., but that can't be right, either! See, it's contradicted by Y and Z, too.
poster A: X proves that's wrong.
posters B, C, D: But we've already shown you that X is wrong. You even retracted it!
poster A: No, you haven't.
posters B, C, D: Aaaargh. (They all spontaneously combust.)

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Well, on one hand, I can see why some would see it as a brush off and an indication of intellectual arrogance. Something along the lines of "Come back when you know something little boy." On the other hand, there are times when it is warranted, especially when the person it is directed at has displayed a basic lack of understanding of the underlying science. As long as the recommendation is made dispassionately, with specific references to study materials, it need not be insulting.

Then, on the gripping hand (with apologies to Niven&Pournelle) there are those who view any criticism of their state of knowledge as an insult. Sometimes it may be, but many times it's simply an accurate assessment made without any moral judgement.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli