Why do we have ATM here?

[EDG_]

Seriously. Why exactly do we have an ATM forum here? Have any ATM ideas proposed there ever been validated? Have any ATM "theorists" ever admitted they were wrong? I'm finding it hard to see any possible benefit there could be to having an ATM board here - it's certainly not educational.

[Maksutov]

Well, this is an astronomy and science BB.

A key component of science is to entertain all speculations, consider hypotheses that have supporting evidence, and then analyze these propositions in order to determine which are predictive enough to qualify as theories.

Without the speculation that is different from current thinking, this process would never get started.

Of course almost all ATM material gets bogged down in the hypothesis stage, but not all. That 1/1000 of one percent (or so) that makes it through that part of process is so valuable that it more than compensates for the balance which is correctly discarded.

[Josh]

Originally Posted by Maksutov

Well, this is an astronomy and science BB.

A key component of science is to entertain all speculations, consider hypotheses that have supporting evidence, and then analyze these propositions in order to determine which are predictive enough to qualify as theories.

Without the speculation that is different from current thinking, this process would never get started.

Of course almost all ATM material gets bogged down in the hypothesis stage, but not all. That 1/1000 of one percent (or so) that makes it through that part of process is so valuable that it more than compensates for the balance which is correctly discarded.

Exactly.

We try to provide a forum (literally) for people to nurture their ideas. There are (all too rare, admittedly) times when people take on board the suggestions and comments of people here and try to solve the problems that they hadn't thought of until getting others to look at their work or ideas.

Plus ... we live in hope

[EDG_]

Originally Posted by Maksutov

Well, this is an astronomy and science BB.

Which is kinda the point I'm making. The ATM ideas are neither of those.

A key component of science is to entertain all speculations, consider hypotheses that have supporting evidence, and then analyze these propositions in order to determine which are predictive enough to qualify as theories.

Right, but hardly any (if any at all) of the ATM ideas have any supporting evidence, and most seem to be touted by people who don't even understand the science involved in the first place (and usually don't want to). Have any in the history of this board been validated by observational data?

And it's one thing to entertain honest speculation (the genuine speculation and curiosity seems to occur on the Q&A board more than anywhere else, IMO), but most of the time it seems people come onto ATM with entrenched ideas that they already believe are right, and ignore all the science that's thrown at them showing them that they're plainly wrong. It just gives them a soapbox to preach from, and perversely only seems to strengthen their beliefs. It amazes me that those who choose to be the "scientific jury" there can put up with it, they must have the patience of saints.

Of course almost all ATM material gets bogged down in the hypothesis stage, but not all. That 1/1000 of one percent (or so) that makes it through that part of process is so valuable that it more than compensates for the balance which is correctly discarded.

Is it? I can't really see how it's worthwhile to put up with so much noise to get a fragment of possible signal that would probably collapse under closer investigation anyway.

I'll admit that I'm not particularly charitable toward ATM ideas. I've never seen one that stands up to scrutiny, and most of the time they only last any length of time because they're given attention in places like this. We're really not going to see another Einstein or Hawkings here.

[Michael Noonan]

Originally Posted by EDG_

I'll admit that I'm not particularly charitable toward ATM ideas. I've never seen one that stands up to scrutiny, and most of the time they only last any length of time because they're given attention in places like this. We're really not going to see another Einstein or Hawkings here.

As I say granted, however it is the proud stated aim that this board hopes one day to be the vehicle through which a new idea was brought into the mainstream.

Given that even 1/10000 of a percent is better odds than winning lotto and provided the ATMers abide by rules of civility it is a great way for people to expand their knowledge of real science while seeking to advance an idea.

If it were a dry forum of ATMers (ie lack of nice ones ) fair enough but the really good thing is that there are such real people here for those times other communities just don't share such enthusiasm.

Also if one looks at the image of today's new academics as presented in film and on television real forums like this need to nurture young interest for all it is worth lest the supply of brilliant minds dries out completely.

[sirius0]

Error of scale!
EDG_
Your argument is no different to closing a thread because a few are of topic.
Imagine if threads were closed just because most of the posters were off topic? The intent of the ATM is analogous to the OP for a thread. And it shouldn't be shut just because there are a few (quite a few) off topic posts/(ATM threads) as long as those constructivley engaged are aligned with the intent. Those threads that aren't tend to get closed. I have found my ATM experience quite positive. I find I can quickly decide whever an ATM is worthwhile by reading the OP.
One I started barely got a response. (Except for a couple who had their own agenda.) I see this as a good sign as it might have promise. Since then I have been revising my physics and maths as well as learning an unending lot of new theory because I want to see if i might be right. (i know this is doing things backwards and quite prone to error) I don't care if I am wrong that just means I will have learn't a lot once I realise that.

What I am saying is there are a lot of thinkers out there who are mathematically illiterate and will never be able to communicate in a formal way; but their ideas need to be heard. You just never know! (But you don't have to be the one to read it!)

These people if they feel they have a place will continue to foster scientific interest in the community via word of mouth and enthusiasm. If however, they are not allowed their contribution; then scientists might find themselves further down in the same bucket as teachers. Because the general populace does not have the maturity to drop the chip on their shoulder left there from their own school days.
(we must be cautious of percieved arrogance)
Politicians are often guilty of this. No if you expect the language of maths from every idea then try this.
Censorship+Chip on shoulder =No Funding!
There I have finally derived somthing!

[Maksutov]

Originally Posted by EDG_

[edit]We're really not going to see another Einstein or Hawkings here.

Oh?

How do you justify that? What do you base your conclusion on? Where is your evidence? Or are there some things, in your opinion, that the people of the BAUT were never meant to know?

Remember, in science there are no absolutes: everything is up for grabs, subject to criticism and the effect of consideration of new ideas.

Science throws out a lot of bathwater, but takes care to spare the occasional baby.

[Moose]

A more cynical reason: Even if there ends up never being a baby in the tub, it's still far better to have the bathwater there than all over the bathroom floor, dripping into the walls, staining the ceiling, etc.

One of the less attractive characteristics of the carousel ATMer (the bathwater) is the tendency to want to short-circuit the scientific process and claim their pet idea as having widespread "support" far, far too prematurely. This, unfortunately, caused confusion (particularly among those too new to the board to be familiar with the "usual suspects"), particularly when ATMers would camp in Q&A-type forums solely to promote their ideas.

Those who are proficient at training pets and raising children know that it's far easier to redirect a behavior to an acceptable outlet than to forbid it outright. ATM is restricted to the ATM forum and is thus labeled fairly clearly. Those reading it know to take the appropriate precautions.

[Noclevername]

Originally Posted by EDG_

Which is kinda the point I'm making. The ATM ideas are neither of those.

That's a blanket statement that certainly does not cover all ideas that happen to be against the mainstream. Yes, there's a lot of nonsense, and plenty of argumentative fanatics, but occasionally you get enough tiny flecks of gold in the mudslides of woo-woo to make it worthwhile.

[m1omg]

Originally Posted by EDG_

Seriously. Why exactly do we have an ATM forum here? Have any ATM ideas proposed there ever been validated? Have any ATM "theorists" ever admitted they were wrong? I'm finding it hard to see any possible benefit there could be to having an ATM board here - it's certainly not educational.

Are you saying that, for example, some my ATM opinions are inferior to you's mainstream?
Not every thing againts the mainstream is psedoscience!
Or I must belive "official view"?

[Maksutov]

Originally Posted by m1omg

Are you saying that, for example, some my ATM opinions are inferior to you's mainstream?
Not every thing againts the mainstream is psedoscience!
Or I must belive "official view"?

Originally Posted by m1omg

If you hate people who belive ATM things, do not read ATM forum!
END

And here we have the flip side of the OP.

Fortunately there's a large ATM middle ground, which the BAUT admins and mods do their best to maintain.

[Argos]

Maybe someday a big discovery will appear in these pages... In the process of debunking many things come to light.

[hhEb09'1]

Originally Posted by Josh

We try to provide a forum (literally) for people to nurture their ideas.

Although there is a lot of support for this point of view, I'm pretty sure that the origination of the BABB/BAUT ATM was grounded in the need to extract the noise of ATM theories from the general science discussion. IOW, it would be harder to maintain a discussion if the ATM points of view were constantly brought up in the middle of threads--ATM theories tend to antagonize each other even. As it is now, just a single ATM post can be moved to the ATM forum, and with very little objection, and virtually no disruption to the non-ATM discussion. Which is not to say that the non-ATM discussion is right, or wrong, just that it is widely-recognized that there is such a thing as a Mainstream and that a lot of people are interested in the Mainstream interpretation (even if it is only to help form their own ATM theory! )

Now, with its existence a fact, the ATM has taken on a bit of life of its own, and some people have expressed a hope that it might bear fruit. But, to answer the OP, it serves a far more useful and immediate purpose as well.

[Noclevername]

Originally Posted by hhEb09'1

Now, with its existence a fact, the ATM has taken on a bit of life of its own, and some people have expressed a hope that it might bear fruit. But, to answer the OP, it serves a far more useful and immediate purpose as well.

I wasn't aware of the history of it, but yes, a separate ATM section does tend to keep the wild horses fenced in.

The recently tightened rules on time limits/questions answered, etc. should help scrape off some of the woo and reveal more of the ideas worth considering.

[Tensor]

I would also point out that those who are refuting many of the ATM ideas, provide an education, in some aspect or other, to posters who are not ATM, but who may not be aware or confused about that particular aspect.

As far as an ATM poster having a valid ideas here, there is at least one member of this board* who has posted in ATM and has had several papers published in the journals. Not all of that poster's ideas are ATM, but those that are, do have enough supporting evidence that I am willing to consider those ideas as possibly valid, pending more research.

* I have not identified that person. If they desire to join in that is up to them. The long time members should know who I'm talking about.

[EDG_]

Originally Posted by Maksutov

How do you justify that? What do you base your conclusion on? Where is your evidence? Or are there some things, in your opinion, that the people of the BAUT were never meant to know?

No, just that Einstein may have come from outside the community, but he still worked within the scientific method. And that's why his ideas got accepted - he came up with something revolutionary and testable. And it got tested, and observation was found to match his hypotheses. And it predicted things that were observed too.

However, most of the preachers on the ATM board here wouldn't know the scientific method if it bit 'em on the backside.

I have nothing against ATM ideas that work within the scientific method (so m1omg can stop feeling so persecuted ). If they're testable and predictive then they're great. But most (if not all) of them aren't. And like I said, if they're genuine questions about alternative ideas (like, why doesn't X work this way, or whatever) then they're more in the realm of Q&A.

People have talked about "flecks of gold" and "saving the baby" etc, but again I have to ask - have any ATM ideas proposed or preached about on these boards ever been validated? Can someone point me to one that was?

Personally I suspect the reason that Moose and others suggested is closer to the truth - the ATM board is like flypaper, it attracts the "woo-woos" and means they don't pollute the rest of the board (or other boards) with their unsupported ideas.

If the rules were further tightened to say that any ATM ideas that didn't a priori have supporting evidence, testable results, and predictive behaviour would not be allowed then I bet the signal-to-noise ratio would shoot up (largely because only a handful at most would survive).

[Noclevername]

Originally Posted by EDG_

However, most of the ATMers here wouldn't know the scientific method if it bit 'em on the backside.

I have nothing against ATM ideas that work within the scientific method. If they're testable and predictive then they're great. But they're not.

Again, with the generalizations!

People have talked about "flecks of gold" and "saving the baby" etc, but again I have to ask - have any ATM ideas proposed or preached about on these boards ever been validated?

I don't know, have any? Since you're the one who is concerned about this, why not do some research and find out?

[Grey]

Originally Posted by Noclevername

I wasn't aware of the history of it, but yes, a separate ATM section does tend to keep the wild horses fenced in.

The recently tightened rules on time limits/questions answered, etc. should help scrape off some of the woo and reveal more of the ideas worth considering.

I think Pace is right about the original purpose of the AtM section. Actually, though, I think that the new time limit is likely to cause problems with this original purpose. That is, since an AtM proponent only gets one 30-day chance to defend their idea in the AtM subforum, after that, there's a possibility that they will go back to bringing it up regularly in other subfora. I've seen a couple posters doing that, now.

[Noclevername]

Originally Posted by Grey

I think Pace is right about the original purpose of the AtM section. Actually, though, I think that the new time limit is likely to cause problems with this original purpose. That is, since an AtM proponent only gets one 30-day chance to defend their idea in the AtM subforum, after that, there's a possibility that they will go back to bringing it up regularly in other subfora. I've seen a couple posters doing that, now.

So long as the Mods are on top of it, that shouldn't be a major problem. I've seen a few such ATMers in other subs get bounced right back to the ATM section if they brought up their "pet" hypotheses.

[EDG_]

Originally Posted by Noclevername

Again, with the generalizations!

Where's the generalisation?
Can you show me an ATM that is testable and predictive?

I don't know, have any? Since you're the one who is concerned about this, why not do some research and find out?

I'm asking people here who have been around longer than me if they know of any ATM ideas that turned out to be physically valid or provable. I sure as hell don't want to look up each thread in there to see if there's a "grain of truth" in them. It's interesting that nobody's provided a specific example of one that did work yet though.

[Noclevername]

Originally Posted by EDG_

Where's the generalisation?
Can you show me an ATM that is testable and predictive?

By definition, no. If it's tested, and works, and is predictive, it gets moved into the "mainstream" category. Some ATMs are just untested.

It's interesting that nobody's provided a specific example of one that did work yet though.

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. Lack of anecdotal evidence isn't lack of evidence. And frankly, most people just don't care as much about it as you seem to, so they don't bother.

Maybe you're right, and there hasn't been one-- yet. Doesn't invalidate the concept.

[Tucson_Tim]

Originally Posted by Tensor

I would also point out that those who are refuting many of the ATM ideas, provide an education, in some aspect or other, to posters who are not ATM, but who may not be aware or confused about that particular aspect.

Yes! I find that I learn many things from the folks who are "arguing against" the ATM idea.

[Moose]

EDG, goodness knows I'm not a fan of the ATM forum, but I have to express my curiosity about what has gotten you so fired up about this issue?

Are you seeking an end to the ATM forum? Are you finding it difficult to avoid where it is? Did Fraser stick you with the bandwidth tab? Why is this an issue for you?

[Fraser]

The ATM serves several valuable purposes, and we will never, never remove it.

1. It allows people outside the scientific mainstream to present their ideas to science-educated people. As several posters have said, you never know where the next great idea is going to come from. I've experienced this personally, and I wished there was a better community for me when I was trying to prove my ideas. We openly accept new ideas, and give people a forum to present them. It's only when people abuse this right that we need to discipline them. We must always be open-minded.

2. We try and demonstrate good techniques for challenging theories. Just because someone thinks they've got a better explanation for the beginning of the Universe, doesn't mean it's true. They need to present evidence, they need to show how their theory explains current observations, and makes predictions. They need to defend their theories properly, without losing their temper.

This teaches not only the theorists themselves, but more importantly, it shows to the hundreds of guests watching on the forum what we're doing. We don't let a claim stand without challenge.

[EDG_]

It just all seems rather futile to me though. Maybe I've just run into those ATMers who aren't actually interested in showing evidence for their claims and who don't seem interested in defending their theories in a satisfactory manner and who largely don't have a clue about the reality of what they're talking about and don't care either, I dunno - but it largely seems to be a waste of time trying to get people like that to present their ideas properly.

[Noclevername]

Originally Posted by EDG_

It just all seems rather futile to me though. Maybe I've just run into those ATMers who aren't actually interested in showing evidence for their claims and who don't seem interested in defending their theories in a satisfactory manner and who largely don't have a clue about the reality of what they're talking about and don't care either, I dunno - but it largely seems to be a waste of time trying to get people like that to present their ideas properly.

There are many, many people like that, no question. And they can make things frustrating. But they aren't the ones this forum is for. Gotta take the bad with the good.

[NEOWatcher]

Originally Posted by Noclevername

There are many, many people like that, no question. And they can make things frustrating. But they aren't the ones this forum is for. Gotta take the bad with the good.

Yes; those who are undecided, or those who just want to learn more about the subject.

Sometimes, a lesson, paper, explaination of an entire topic is hard to swallow. ATM adds a little to the entire learning experience by putting a little more practical slant to the topic. I have learned things from some of the arguments that maybe I wouldn't have learned the same way somewhere else.
Another bonus is that the discussion usually triggers many different types of explainations instead of just one person's way of using thier words.

It also helps by determining where the biggest confusion on a topic is because there is this give and take. Even if that give and take is mostly take.

[Fazor]

Yes; those who are undecided, or those who just want to learn more about the subject.

Sometimes, a lesson, paper, explaination of an entire topic is hard to swallow. ATM adds a little to the entire learning experience by putting a little more practical slant to the topic.

That's my argument to the "ATM section is worthless" idea. I, for one, don't have the formal training or knowlege that a lot of our members have. I know I'm not the only one. While I won't go touting a new ATM idea, sometimes one will come up that I think "Hey, I've kinda wondered if that could be true". Then, at least in the first bit of convo, I get good answers about the particular subject. Yes, the convorsations tend to degrade into frustrating "yes it is! no it isn't!" arguments, but there's still a lot of value there, at least to me there is. And I'm glad the mods and admins do the tough job they do to keep the ATM section running, 'tis no easy task.

[aurora]

Didn't someone once upon a time go through all the main ATM threads and classify them by outcome? I seem to remember someone doing that, maybe it would turn up in a search. That would at least give a historical overview, although that by itself is neither justification for or against.

[Tensor]

Originally Posted by EDG_

It just all seems rather futile to me though.

In almost all cases, it is futile, if the only purpose is to show where the poster is wrong. But, as I said, there are plenty of people here who don't actually know, or maybe misunderstand the scientific underpinings that show the ATM poster to be wrong. Just think of those people when you refute something. That is part of my motivation to post refutations in the ATM. This board does prize science education also.

Originally Posted by EDG_

Maybe I've just run into those ATMers who aren't actually interested in showing evidence for their claims and who don't seem interested in defending their theories in a satisfactory manner and who largely don't have a clue about the reality of what they're talking about and don't care either, I dunno - but it largely seems to be a waste of time trying to get people like that to present their ideas properly.

Again, in almost all cases it is a waste of time. That was one of the reasons for putting a 30 day limit on the discussion of a particular idea.