snowflakeuniverse
19-September-2005, 04:26 PM
Advice for Bastions of the Establishment
Throwing out the baby with the bath water
I have noticed that there is generally a tendency to dismiss another person’s work entirely, for the sake of one or two ideas that may seem to be too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe, or they may simply be wrong. I say this after Maksutov’s Post # 20 and N C More’s post number 22 on the thread http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=32335 It is hoped that Maksutov and N C More do not take the following post personally, they are not guilty of the problem addressed here, the very fact that they respond to the works of myself and others after some review testifies to this, I am just trying to point out a pervasive problem within the “Mainstream”. )
The issue comes up after stating my support for the discoveries of O.K. Manuel’s work. While I may have some reservations about the extent or specifics of his theory, I cannot dismiss his work entirely. His discovery that some kind of extreme thermonuclear event occurred billions of years ago seems irrefutable, therefore it is justified to seek or present explanations for the observations. If one does not like the model proposed to explain the observational evidence, leave it at that and take it to heart that some kind of explanation must be out there. Maybe you have the imagination and skills to provide your own theory. Please, avoid the tendency to dismiss all of anyone’s work just because you do not believe in parts of the work.
This leads to a discussion of Tom Van Flandern, who also was grouped together with O.K. Manuel by Makstov
“Both of these gentlemen and their "against the mainstream" claims have little to no credibility in the scientific community nor in my book. “
I have had the pleasure to meet Dr. Flandern this summer and found him to be intelligent, insightful and fascinating. He is well educated with a Ph.D from Yale in Astronomy. A few years ago he presented a paper on the “Top ten reasons the Big Bang is wrong”. He has now extended it to 50 and could “include a lot more”.
I talked to Mr. Flandern about his controversial claims of evidence that there was once a civilization on Mars. I told him that that his opinion made it more difficult for others to accept his other work, and that even I had to respond with a fair amount of skepticism. He did not care. I got the sense that he was proud to risk his reputation for the sake of an idea or belief; few have such courage. Is he “absolutely” certain there was a civilization of Mars? Of course not, but to him the evidence supports such a belief.
As far as I am concerned, the chance that there was once a civilization on Mars to be slim, maybe one in a million, which is better odds than winning the lottery. If we did find irrefutable evidence of an old civilization on Mars, I would be doubly excited, not just because of the discovery, but because it would also justify Dr. Flandern. I cannot help but identify with a fellow “outsider”. (Also, of his 50 criticisms of the Big Bang, a fair number of them, in my opinion, are valid, and justified and should be reason alone to question if the model is entirely correct. There is also, I feel very, convincing evidence of a Big Bang). I would like to point out that Dr Flandern was absolutely right in predicting the results of the comet smashing experiment.
Which leads to the last point. I am truly thankful for this forum. Having discovered a fundamental advancement in theoretical physics, I find myself largely ignored from the “Establishment”. Trying to get a “peer review” is extremely difficult since “peer review” itself carries with it the built in bias to preserve the beliefs of the “peers”. When I presented my work at MIT this winter, undergrads and graduate students for the poster board presentation were great; some were even enthusiastic and believed they were witness to a major event. However all the professors at the oral presentation were cold, disinterested, and presumptive of the value of the theory. They just do not believe in anything other than what they already know. If a theory does not look like General Relativity and it involves gravity, the theory is assumed to be wrong and is dismissed. The following is a criticism I have heard several times, “It can not be that simple”, to which I have countered, “If that is the case, it should be easy to prove where I am wrong, it is easy for me to prove where General Relativity is incomplete, Einstein himself stated so.” The conversation usually ends there since I have been “pigeon holed” as a “crack pot”). Please, avoid the tendency to dismiss my work, or anyone “outside the box” without some kind of fair consideration. Failure to consider the validity in works of others, whether in or out of the “mainstream”, reveals a limit to the imagination and presents a threat to the advancement of science.
Snowflake
Throwing out the baby with the bath water
I have noticed that there is generally a tendency to dismiss another person’s work entirely, for the sake of one or two ideas that may seem to be too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe, or they may simply be wrong. I say this after Maksutov’s Post # 20 and N C More’s post number 22 on the thread http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=32335 It is hoped that Maksutov and N C More do not take the following post personally, they are not guilty of the problem addressed here, the very fact that they respond to the works of myself and others after some review testifies to this, I am just trying to point out a pervasive problem within the “Mainstream”. )
The issue comes up after stating my support for the discoveries of O.K. Manuel’s work. While I may have some reservations about the extent or specifics of his theory, I cannot dismiss his work entirely. His discovery that some kind of extreme thermonuclear event occurred billions of years ago seems irrefutable, therefore it is justified to seek or present explanations for the observations. If one does not like the model proposed to explain the observational evidence, leave it at that and take it to heart that some kind of explanation must be out there. Maybe you have the imagination and skills to provide your own theory. Please, avoid the tendency to dismiss all of anyone’s work just because you do not believe in parts of the work.
This leads to a discussion of Tom Van Flandern, who also was grouped together with O.K. Manuel by Makstov
“Both of these gentlemen and their "against the mainstream" claims have little to no credibility in the scientific community nor in my book. “
I have had the pleasure to meet Dr. Flandern this summer and found him to be intelligent, insightful and fascinating. He is well educated with a Ph.D from Yale in Astronomy. A few years ago he presented a paper on the “Top ten reasons the Big Bang is wrong”. He has now extended it to 50 and could “include a lot more”.
I talked to Mr. Flandern about his controversial claims of evidence that there was once a civilization on Mars. I told him that that his opinion made it more difficult for others to accept his other work, and that even I had to respond with a fair amount of skepticism. He did not care. I got the sense that he was proud to risk his reputation for the sake of an idea or belief; few have such courage. Is he “absolutely” certain there was a civilization of Mars? Of course not, but to him the evidence supports such a belief.
As far as I am concerned, the chance that there was once a civilization on Mars to be slim, maybe one in a million, which is better odds than winning the lottery. If we did find irrefutable evidence of an old civilization on Mars, I would be doubly excited, not just because of the discovery, but because it would also justify Dr. Flandern. I cannot help but identify with a fellow “outsider”. (Also, of his 50 criticisms of the Big Bang, a fair number of them, in my opinion, are valid, and justified and should be reason alone to question if the model is entirely correct. There is also, I feel very, convincing evidence of a Big Bang). I would like to point out that Dr Flandern was absolutely right in predicting the results of the comet smashing experiment.
Which leads to the last point. I am truly thankful for this forum. Having discovered a fundamental advancement in theoretical physics, I find myself largely ignored from the “Establishment”. Trying to get a “peer review” is extremely difficult since “peer review” itself carries with it the built in bias to preserve the beliefs of the “peers”. When I presented my work at MIT this winter, undergrads and graduate students for the poster board presentation were great; some were even enthusiastic and believed they were witness to a major event. However all the professors at the oral presentation were cold, disinterested, and presumptive of the value of the theory. They just do not believe in anything other than what they already know. If a theory does not look like General Relativity and it involves gravity, the theory is assumed to be wrong and is dismissed. The following is a criticism I have heard several times, “It can not be that simple”, to which I have countered, “If that is the case, it should be easy to prove where I am wrong, it is easy for me to prove where General Relativity is incomplete, Einstein himself stated so.” The conversation usually ends there since I have been “pigeon holed” as a “crack pot”). Please, avoid the tendency to dismiss my work, or anyone “outside the box” without some kind of fair consideration. Failure to consider the validity in works of others, whether in or out of the “mainstream”, reveals a limit to the imagination and presents a threat to the advancement of science.
Snowflake