Egomania, understanding, and truth?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubba
...your ego seems to be preventing you from grasping my point…
…your ego seems to be preventing
you from seeing clearly.
… it is not relevant to my criticism of your posturing in this forum.
…you are
missing the point completely.
…You have been embarrassed by my criticism,…
…. Again, you seem to be
desperately trying to shift attention away from your behavior in this forum, which is my issue with you (and I
believe DST's and Belgareth's as well).
…Again, your attempt to assert authority supports the hypothesis that
you're more interested in being right than you are in learning the truth.
I've been through
this before, both with "strangers" to the Forum and more established Forum participants, and
1) think you have
made clear (in the excerpts above) the fact that MY ego is not the problem;
2) will not waste anymore of my time
discussing authority or truth with someone who isn't even interested in an attempt to read or understand my latest
peer-reviewed journal article.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubba
I'm very interested in why you would title a post about a
single paper "MOS not VNO+AOS processing of pheromones"
Many of my posts regarding the VNO debate
were deleted, and I was told after-the-fact to keep the topic in the Pheromone Research section. If you are
interested in comparing recent published information on the human VNO+AOS (or other) processing (since humans do not
have an AOS) of pheromones, please start a new thread there.
James V. Kohl
The Mind's Eyes: Human
Pheromones, Neuroscience, and Male Sexual Preferences
On a lighter note (hopefully), some quotes about
science...
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly
one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts.
MARK TWAIN:
There is
something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling
investment of fact.
KARL POPPER
There are men with bold ideas, but highly critical of their own ideas;
they try to find whether their ideas are right by trying first to find whether they are not perhaps
wrong.
THOMAS BROWNE:
No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer.
CARL SAGAN:
There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're
the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must
survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.
CLAUDE BERNARD (1813-78) French
physiologist:
Those who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed
to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations. Science increases our power in proportion as it
lowers our pride.
ALBERT EINSTEIN:
Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's
living at it.
HENRI POINCARÉ:
Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an
accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE:
The
First Clarke Law states, “If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost
certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.”
JACOB BRONOWSKI:
No
science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.
VERA RUBIN:
Science progresses
best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions.
MARIE CURIE:
There are sadistic scientists
who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
ALBERT EINSTEIN:
Only two things are
certain: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm
not certain about the universe.
ALBERT EINSTEIN:
Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language
comprehensible to everyone.
PIERRE PACHET, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872:
Louis Pasteur's
theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.
MAX PLANCK
A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its
opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows
up that is familiar with it.
Anonymously brilliant, anonymously stupid
BTW, although Mr./Ms. Bubba is clearly pointing us away from appeals to scientific authority, he/she
did give us some info about personal background:
"... For the record, I'm a practicing sensory
neuroscientist, just a couple of fields away from olfaction and pheromones."
The rule rather than the
exception on this forum has always been anonymous postings. I like that because:
* It encourages open
discussion about subject matter that many would perceive to be creepy and manipulative
* It encourages posts
that must stand or fall on their own ideas, without regard to who has the biggest PhD or whatever
Of course
posters are allowed to give their backgraound, claims to authority, or whatever else they want to put out there. And
people are also allowed to give that info whatever credence they feel it deserves (it's being open, it shows
expertise, it's a shameless attempt to shout down those less "qualified", it's a blatant commercial hijacking of
an opinion forum, or whatever).
I can see why some think background and authority are necessary to having a
worthy opinion here, but even more so I appreciate reading anonymous posts and evaluating them on their own
standalone merits. Personally I don't care what Mr./Ms. Bubba's credentials may be - I'm just glad he/she is
posting!
Bubba's profession unmasked!!
Mtnjim, Bubba mentioned professional background - see post# 48. Not that I think it matters - post # 61.