You would prefer we just skip the whole process and consider everything mainstream right away? There's a reason things become part of the scientific mainstream, and it has a lot to do with initial skepticism, which then prompted additional testing. You can sit and watch the process in your own lifetime. See "ulcers."

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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!"

Which of the following means "skeptical"?

στοχαστικός?

δύσπιστος?

δυσπιστώντας?

méfiant?

Why does it matter, in regards to the topic at hand?

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

Good questions. I have no idea what the answers might be.

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

What do you mean ?

I would hazard it is about the discovery by two heretics (Medical Doctors/researchers) who rediscovered that most ulcers are caused by a bacteria, not stress. And that treatment by antibiotics worked, while the mainstream treatment didn't.

You can listen to their Nobel prize lectures online and hear, in their own words, the story of how the went against the mainstream, and how hard it was to get "skeptics" to accept that they were wrong.

And the two men were right.

While the discovery had been made at least five times before them, nobody believed, much less investigated. This speaks to the issue of the different kinds of "skepticism" that all fall under the label "skeptic".

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

I was sure I had posted a link about that discovery, but I'm unable to find it. Do you have a link to a news source?

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

That would be exactly what I meant. As to how hard it was to get the establishment to take them seriously, well, Lister had the same problem, after all. I won't deny that some things do get entrenched. But we're getting better, I think; the first tests that denied the efficacy of bloodletting were a very long time before it actually stopped being a medical procedure--they conducted one test with way too many variables, found that the bled patients had a better survival rate, and let it go. (I read about this recently.) Heck, even the guy who discovered that fresh fruit cured scurvy (pre the discovery of vitamin C) didn't believe his own studies after a while.

Sure, skepticism can be misplaced. But it's still better than blind belief, which killed people for a very long time because their humours were out of balance.

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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!"

Thanks Gilian and Robinson for you answsers. I was quite puzzled by your post about "Ulcers".

So , yes , in this sense and in this sense only , I can fully agree with you people.

Why not others?

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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!"

Actually it certainly does, that was a very common and very bad misunderstanding of how science works, though it admittedly does apply to some scientists.

Honest scientists know they aren't trying for The Truth, they're aiming for the best model given available data, ie. one with no contradictions with how the world is seen to actually behave.

For a model that has stood up to decades or centuries of testing they would expect the next set of data to not contradict either, but that doesn't make the model The Truth, it only makes it such a good model that it can be promoted from hypothesis to theory.

But most scientists would actually be delighted to be the first to make the experiment that proves a theory wrong or in need of adjusting, as that's one of the ways to get a ticket to Sweden.

Saying that scientists are not skeptical of the mainstream as galacsi seems to claim is being just plain ignorant of the constant testing of everything that goes on all the time or is confusing the actions of individual scientists for the actions of science.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

IMO that's a very optimistic point of view. Individuals and institutions do not work that way. And don't forget economic pressures.

I'll back up Galacsi on this. The level of certainty that's commonly expressed around here on such issues as global warming, evolution, the benevolence of vaccines, and even the non-existence of God, especially by the Bad Astronomer, is as far from Pyrrhic skepticism as you can get.

When you know that your theory is making accurate predictions to within one part in ten thousand, it's true that someone else could come in with a better theory and sweep up that last 0.0001%. That's where the uncertainty lies. That kind of uncertainty doesn't quite come so much into play when we're talking about the claims of most evolution denialists, and anti-vaccers. But that uncertainty is not expressed in those cases does not necessarily mean that none exists or none is acknowledged, only that it's up a different tree.

And also keep in mind that there's no law saying that everyone here is an honest scientist. The honest scientists in climatology quantify and publish their levels of uncertainty. What the Internet does is not guaranteed to be correlated.

When you have evidence against evolution and the benevolence of vaccines (the existence or nonexistence of God is not a matter of science to some people; the evidence is against it, but that doesn't generally matter to believers), I'll consider it. When you can come up with another explanation for treatment-resistant bacteria or the elimination of smallpox, I for one will be glad to hear it.

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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!"

Gillianren, if you're referring to my post above, I'm not questioning evolution etc. I'm just defending my assertion that Pyrrhic skepticism usually doesn't apply to scientists.

Have you ever read the IPCC reports, for one example? They certainly acknowledge uncertainties.

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

Pyrrhic skepticism means you acknowledge that, at least in principle, it's possible for the theory to be overturned or improved. Whether or not you think that someone who's challenging that theory can credibly do so is a separate matter.

There's also a certain amount of literary license to take into account. It would be silly to expect every scientist to always postfix every factual claim they make with, "but I could be wrong." Ideally every credible scientist can, in principle, be convinced to change their mind, sure, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't argue their opinions forcefully, and it doesn't mean that they have to chant 'maybe' as if it were a mantra all the time. It just means that they should be expected to be willing to change their opinions when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Which I thought was my point. Now, we have observed evolution and the efficacy of vaccines. Oh, absolutely. But sure, there could be another mechanism at hand. I, personally, doubt it, but just because we could always be wrong doesn't actually mean we are.

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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!"

I want just to remark that MAPNUT talked abour "Benevolence of vaccines" and not of "efficacy of vaccines" that not the same thing far from it. By example what it has been argued against influenza vaccines is not that they are not efficient but that they may contains dangerous substances like mercury or aluminum if I remember well. If you are not open to this kind of possibility you are not a sceptic.

I see no practical difference between what you call "efficiency" and "benevolence" ("benefit" might be a better choice of words).

How do you evaluate the benefit of a vaccine, if not by measuring its efficiency/effectiveness?

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

Mercury. Which was never shown to be a problem, and which is in essentially no vaccines anymore anyway. Again, if there is evidence and not speculation, I'll go with it. However, most of what's there is "OMG mercury!" "OMG autism!" There is no evidence. If you've got it, show it. If not . . . well, that's what skepticism's all about, right?

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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!"

Galasci, the last glass of water you drank may have contained plutonium ingots, the Titanic, a minor league hockey team, a convention of guys named Doug, and that weird stuff I scraped off the bottom of my shoe this morning. You should be open to those possibilities as well.

For what it's worth, a statement in the form of "may contain dangerous substances" is a claim that requires support. Without evidence, you shouldn't expect a skeptic to spend much time sweating your concerns.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Heh. You might be interested (or horrified) to know that "zOMG" is somewhat en vogue with the "everybody panic" sarcasm crowd these days.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Well, to be fair, there is evidence, but it comes in the form of a study based on fabricated data that was conducted by a researcher who was paid to come up with such a link. Not that that's the kind of evidence that could be reasonably described as compelling, of course.

I tend to be far more skeptical of things that involve somebody wanting my money, my time, or my attention. Things that don't directly effect my life I tend to not worry about as much.

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

I stand corrected!

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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!"

That has been challenged, it seems: Myth of Ostracism in Helicobacter pylori Discovery.

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

The Nobel prize winners give a detailed and interesting account of the whole experience. You can watch their lectures from Stockholm online.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/m..._lectures.html

But please, don't bother listening to a couple of Nobel prize winners. Or read their books. Because of course they must be wrong, and anonymous internet persons know better than them and stuff.

But seriously, the discovery of the H Pylori was made many times, and each time it was not believed. The Doctors that finally rammed a good idea down the collective throats of the worlds "know it alls", actually did so by accident. It is a fascinating story.

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

Appeal to authority. Nobel prize winners aren't necessarily right on all subjects. A Nobel only means they are believed to be impressively right on the topic that won them the award.

Some Nobel winners have been astoundingly and dangerously wrong on topics outside of their expertise. Linus Pauling (vitamin C overdosing, aka "expensive pee for fun and profit") comes immediately to mind.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Linus has been partially vindicated, and a current large trial on Vit C is being done. Because it helps kill cancer cells. They even know why now.

Another fascinating story.

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you