"Trusted Sources"

The study of religious or heroic legends and tales. One constant rule of mythology is that whatever happens amongst the gods or other mythical beings was in one sense or another a reflection of events on earth. Recorded myths and legends, perhaps preserved in literature or folklore, have an immediate interest to archaeology in trying to unravel the nature and meaning of ancient events and traditions.

Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters

Post Reply
uniface

"Trusted Sources"

Post by uniface »

I'm putting this here because no matter how confidently the people invested in a particular worldview regard it as "the true one," even 20 years later their own descendants are embarassed by it. Worldview, paradigm, weltanschauung, call it what you will -- it's a mental template that purports to represent "reality" and against which anything new or challenging is checked for (probable) "veracity." (And statements contravening it being a convenient trigger of outrage from true believers in the current picture -- both as to what it includes and, most importantly, what it excludes).

It can be helpful for people inclined to be didactic about what "science" is/isn't or can/cannot be to simply watch from the sidelines as the brain police Bosheviks attempt to impose their own belief system on people (and information) that expose it as fraudulent. With that in mind,

https://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/201 ... biography/

Whether you agree or disagree in the end is of less importance than your having seen -- possibly for the first time -- what some of us have been so familiar with for so long that we tend to carelessly assume others are (sometimes attributing disagreement to perversity rather than informational shortfall).
kbs2244
Posts: 2472
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:47 pm

Re: "Trusted Sources"

Post by kbs2244 »

Some call it "Pathological Science"
Note Irving Langmuir's definition.
The obvious current case is the hype about global warming being caused by human activity.

http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?secti ... e372f435d6

The history of scientific discovery is littered with examples of "pathological science." Just because we want something doesn't make it so.
The history of scientific discovery is littered with examples of "pathological science" -- an area of research where experimenters are tricked into accepting false results by a combination of subjective effects, unrecognized experimental errors, and wishful thinking.
The term was first used by Nobel-winning chemist Irving Langmuir in 1953. Langmuir described pathological science as an area of research that simply refuses to die long after it was given up on as false by the majority of scientists in the field. He called pathological science "the science of things that aren't so."
Post Reply