A conversation between friends

[vlaiv]

4 minutes ago, andrew s said:

However I am sure super sleuth @vlaiv would call me out.

Regards Andrew 

Edited 1 minute ago by andrew s

I actually managed to read first version and were about to ask - did you mean that as the animal or one of 7 deadly sins?

[andrew s]

Sorry too much wine on the last day of my holiday!

Oh yes and a total inability to spell. 😊.

Your no sloth!

Regards Andrew 

 

[robin_astro]

13 hours ago, andrew s said:

Having given a talk at a joint BAA/AAVSO meeting I often get invited to publish in such journals.

As an interesting twist on  this I have recently been getting spam invitations to joint the "editorial panel" of one of  these, presumably in some attempt to give them an increased air of credibility, though they must be getting desperate if they think approaching me would give them that 😀

[Paz]

I don't understand any of the maths but the suggestion that you can establish the mass of a thing by working out the dimension of one of its components and leaving many other  variables unknown seems dodgy.I

Does this discovery mean that I could now work out the mass of a block of cheese just by knowing the dimensions of a cheese particle?

Having said that there is a long history of ideas initially considered crazy that eventually turned out to be right. 😲

[Marvin Jenkins]

2 minutes ago, Paz said:

I don't understand any of the maths but the suggestion that you can establish the mass of a thing by working out the dimension of one of its components and leaving many other  variables unknown seems dodgy.I

Does this discovery mean that I could now work out the mass of a block of cheese just by knowing the dimensions of a cheese particle?

Having said that there is a long history of ideas initially considered crazy that eventually turned out to be right. 😲

Especially that really weird one about everything going round the sun! After all that work with epicycles…..

[Zermelo]

1 hour ago, Paz said:

Does this discovery mean that I could now work out the mass of a block of cheese just by knowing the dimensions of a cheese particle?

This feature of his "theory" is one that should ring alarm bells. It is similar to many others that have a mystical aspect to them, whereby everything is interconnected and therefore you can deduce the properties of the whole from any part.

 

2 hours ago, Paz said:

there is a long history of ideas initially considered crazy that eventually turned out to be right

And there is the problem. Radical new theories are often resisted fiercely at first. That's OK where that resistance takes the form of a genuine, evidence-based debate about the merits of the new theory. We shouldn't incur the effort, expense and disorder of a revolution unless there is a good justification. But sometimes, some exponents of the established order just dismiss challenges out of hand, leaving them open to a charge that they are no better than the people who espouse palpable rubbish.

The response to that is sometimes "I know real science when I see it", which may be true, but is open to attack at a philosophical (or even logical) level. I think that one positive to come out of the covid experience has perhaps been an evolution of the understanding of science by at least a part of the general public. They have seen that talking about "The Science" (as some politicians did) is often an over-simplification of a complex and dynamic situation. The challenge is to move to a more sophisticated and nuanced appreciation of science, while simultaneously repelling the subjectivist nonsense that has become ever more fashionable over the last 60 years.

It is interesting, though, that even without analysing this particular example in the way that Vlav has, my BS meter was sounding like a klaxon. Possibly, as I said before, because these theories tend to share some common tropes.

 

 

 

[Marvin Jenkins]

A BS Meter? Do FLO sell those?

I have no problem with alternative ideas, hence the thread. But you can drawn down avenue that turns out to be either the answer to everything or a complete falsehood.

Marv