Just added “Freedom of Science” to the blogroll. Pretty whacky style, but a very similar agenda to mine, in this case aimed at “Newtonism” specifically as the problem rather than “scientific objectivism” more generally in my case. Freeing knowledge from academic categories.
But very similar rationale too, about the easy option associated with the immensely successful “marketing and branding” of Newtonism, or in my case the memetics of the hyper-rational.
No human identity, but “Freedom” responded to Island’s post mentioned in my previous post below.
(Post Note – Dec 19th – I see Domenic has picked-up on Island’s conjecture and is following the logic of where the maths exists to support it …. comment thread ensues … all that is required is one open mind.)
Reality check here, Ian.
When the person (pioneer1) behind “Freedom of Science” asked a physics community to comment on his Newtonic Oath, people thought he was serious until they checked out his website. Have a read:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=197935
Strangely, pioneer1 writes on his own blog that he got some “very nice comments” from the people at physicsforums, even though the consensus was that his site was a joke. Is pioneer1 so clueless that he can’t tell when people are disagreeing with him and even making fun of him, or is this his unethical way of ‘marketing’ his Newtonic Oath to people who don’t bother to follow-up on what the physicsforum thread says. Really, Ian, why do you think well enough of people like this to add them to your blogroll?
No reality check required … the phenomenon I’m recording is that anyone whith whacky ideas in the science community is ridiculed. I have nothing to say for or against the content of pioneer’s ideas (yet), just that his agenda parallels mine. Don’t see anything “unethical” there either …. just because one person who disagrees with him uses the word. I already said his “style” was a bit whacky for my taste, but I see no evidence his motives are not sincere.
The last couple of posts in that thread do in fact point out than many a scientist has been branded a crank before being accepted as right.
He’s one of a number of such people I’m tracking (Island is the archetype).. being the subject of ridicule doesn’t make anyone wrong. In fact it’s symptom of science’s paranoia – see my Maxwell stuff, (Nick that is, not Mark.) and Josephson (Nobel-prize-winning), amongts others. My agenda, is that when any community rejects someone as a crank, there is almost certainly an issue worth understanding – right or wrong.
And just for the record Glenn, in case this turns into a thread … I’ll just point out that the only time you ever comment on my blog is when you want to disagree, or score a point, when you think you’ve got one over on me. I called that “tiresome” once before.
This is my agenda, you realise; you prove my thesis, that the dialectic is culturally engrained.
And this is the method of science too .. to refute / disprove … should be kept locked-up in the laboratory of empirical experiment, and not let out into society, where we need “coalitions of the willing” to make any useful progress.
Just one person who disagrees with him? Another reality check. No less than five physics experts on that thread agreed that the Newtonic Oath was a joke along with the rest of pioneer1’s website. One poster labeled it “crackpottery”. Is it any wonder that part of a crackpot’s agenda for a “better science education” is a campaign to eliminate name calling? Naturally! How convenient!
Maybe thanking his abuser’s for taking him seriously (when they haven’t) and for giving him “very nice comments” (when they haven’t) is a strategy to generate sympathy from folks like yourself, Ian, but for the rest of us all it really does is make him look dense and help us confirm our suspicions. It is the conspiracy theorist type with a broken BS detector who thinks that yelling “Crackpot!” is a symptom of some protector-of-the-status-quo and a sure sign of the Grand Paranoia of Science. The rest of us realize that experts in a certain field can really tell when someone doesn’t know what they are talking about.
And, as I said, one called it “unethical”. I wasn’t keeping score, I was responding to a word you used. “No less than five physics experts … etc” Do me a favour, and remember the point. Ditto, who’s keeping score ?
Given his anti-Newtonism agenda his “oath” is almost certainly the joke … but I’d need to read more, I haven’t read the thread you are referring to.
My point is that when one is branded a crank by the many, something interesting is happening – it doesn’t say who’s right or wrong. My only sympathy with Pioneer so far is his agenda, as I said.
I’ll add you to the list who see him as a crank. Again, as I said at the moment I’m neutral on his content. You see that as crank-by-association. Your choice.
Back to my agenda, after all it’s my blog … the tiresome bit … do you have anything positive to say, about anything ?
The only parallels I have seen with his agenda and yours are an anti-establishment mindset and a misguided desire to reform Science.
I am very positive about dialectic which is the core of reasoned argument. Part of me is dismayed that the physics forum people resorted to rhetoric to label pioneer1 a crackpot or a joker. Part of me also understands that the energy expended on arguing the obvious is not worth the effort.
Anti-establishment, anti-the-obvious yes. That equals a source of novelty. The road less travelled.
Reform misguided science, misapplication of scientific methods, yes. Explicit in my agenda.