From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sat Aug 18 2001 - 14:52:29 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> Harvey does bring up some hard questions about how one deals
> with either tired old arguments, or texts full of pseudo-science.
> Two classic cases are the university mathematicians who would
> each week receive a number of "proofs" of Fermat's Last Theorem,
> and the barrage of pseudo-scientific papers written by Creation
> Scientists purporting to disprove evolution.
If someone has a problem with the claims of someone's posts, they should
be easily able to cite a rebuttal of the claims. I am sorry, but making
absurd claims doesn't negate the challengers responsibility to test the
claims. That IS what science is all about: claims should be verifiable,
repeatable, and it is only by failing to be able to verify or repeat the
claimed phenomenon that a challenger can dispute an absurd claim.
Those involved in the gun rights world have had to deal with this,
contesting the validity of Emory University Prof. Michael Bellisiles'
book "Arming America" in which he claims that probate records from the
colonial period 'prove' that only a tiny minority of Americans owned
guns. By his previous reputation, his book gained much public credence
in the media and the liberal intelligentsia without anyone checking his
claims. It was only when some people went and actually examined the
records he cited that it was found that they did not correspond with his
claims at all, and quite to the contrary, a majority of American males
did own guns during that period. Extensive checking of his references
now shows that most of them are misrepresentations, fabrications, and
other sorts of academic fraud, to the point where many liberal scholars
have dismissed his work, and even the gun control groups admit his work
was 'seriously flawed'.
We gun rights people could not just baldly say "his conclusions are so
absurd and contrary to what we know to be the facts that we don't even
need to test his work", despite the fact that the overwhelming majority
of Americans believe as we do.
Nor could we dismiss his work just because his work was quoted and
posted on anti-gun websites. The fact that they have an agenda that his
work supports did not immediately negate the validity of his claims.
That it was evident to pro-gunners that he was a fraud meant nothing, we
had to prove it.
It was only when his references were shown to be fraudulent that his
work could be dismissed. THAT is how science works.
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