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- Nov 10, 2013
Pseudoscience - Anti Vaxxers, Creationists, Anti Nuclear/GM fanatics, and other charlatans.
- Thread starter Judge Holden
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🔧 Actively working on site again.
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- Apr 20, 2014
The mainstream framework in phonology is called Optimality Theory, it started as a way to make computational linguistics easier but now there are a ton of linguists who honestly believe that there is a unique human genetic heritage composed of hundreds of mental "constraints" telling us which specific sound patterns to disfavor that get reranked every time we come in contact with language. It doesn't work at all (it involves the brain generating infinite data points and ranking them every time you say a word), but they are really sticking to their guns.
Probably outside the scope of this thread but it makes doing my own work a pain in the ass and honestly feels like dealing with Creationists.
Probably outside the scope of this thread but it makes doing my own work a pain in the ass and honestly feels like dealing with Creationists.
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There's a number of things that don't quite click like the massive inbreeding problem we'd have with only being the ancestors of two people and then having the gene pool cut even more with only Noah's family.
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Doesn't really answer much about the inbreeding problem (how did the DNA get damaged?).
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On the third page, they chalk it up to "sin" for badly damaging human DNA. Which really is just a giant load of "citation needed".
Which is all the creationist arguments, really, when the Bible is all they have to go on.
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A man on youtube named Myles Powers does some excellent videos about debunking various pseudosciences and conspiracy theories that I highly recommend checking out. Especially his videos where he debunks AIDS denialists (Yes, people like that actually exist).
In this particular one, he easily debunks homeopathy by making a solution of homeopathic bleach and drinks it.
In this particular one, he easily debunks homeopathy by making a solution of homeopathic bleach and drinks it.
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I honestly believe that evolution doesn't disprove creationism, and creationism doesn't disprove evolution. If there is a God, which I believe there is, then perhaps God used evolution to create us. I believe in God and evolution.
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.......the reality of evolution does indeed disprove biblical creationism. If things happened as the scientific theory states, and the evidence is overwhelming that it did, then that means that NO, things were not 'created' as they are ten thousand years ago. It conflicts with every story in the biblical genesis. Even if what you're proposing is 'intelligent design' or god-driven planned evolution or sommat, you still have to prove such a god exists before you can even hypothesize that it wanted all this shit to happen and intended it.
It's okay to believe in fairies if you really want to. Just accept that the evidence doesn't support this and in some cases also does a lot to break such claims apart like dry saltines under a tractor.
It's okay to believe in fairies if you really want to. Just accept that the evidence doesn't support this and in some cases also does a lot to break such claims apart like dry saltines under a tractor.
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Pssh, everyone knows Cain was the first vampire.
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I think the Creationist stock answer is that a god could just make a world that looked really old and had people's memories built in etc. (you'll find this on RationalWiki under "Last Thursday"). Also when Creationists talk about "argh evolution!" they're more likely referring to abiogenesis and the big bang theory etc. It's useless even having the debate because they've concocted an "um we're all in the Matrix duh" argument that axiomatically has no evidence for or against it.
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- Sep 6, 2013
Oh god. Those asshats.
This is just my own personal observation, but it seems to me that all of the "vаccines cause autism" fools are of a certain age or younger. I don't think any of them are old enough to remember polio, because otherwise they wouldn't be such complete fucktards. Seriously. Given the choice between getting polio and a small chance of getting autism, I'll say hand me the legos every fucking time.
Stuff like this crops up all the time, and usually it's promoted by some combination of true-believer and charlatan, both hoping for "funding" (often from government) to make their dream a cost-ineffective reality. Sometimes it sort of almost goes somewhere, though almost never where the creators hope. Remember how the segway was supposed to revolutionize transportation? As such things go, solar roads are actually on the better end of the snake oil spectrum because, unlike most such schemes, they are technologically possible. Functional prototypes have been made. The big problem with solar roadways is they have absolutely no chance of being economically feasible any time in the foreseeable future. As such they are not really an example of pseudo-science so much as pseudo-economics.
Yes. Yes it does.
Mostly because the definition of science has changed. Of course it's more correct to call them natural philosophy. Within its own context, alchemy is actually pretty respectable. I mean yes, their ideas about the universe were largely incorrect, but all pursuit of knowledge is at the mercy of the limitations of whatever knowledge it is based on, and you have to start somewhere. Mocking the alchemists for not being "true scientists" is like mocking Leibniz for not being a "true computer engineer". It's missing the point. Also it's important to remember Newton himself was an alchemist.
This is what happens when I start replying before reading the whole thread. Also abso-fucking-lutely a thousand million bajillion times this ☝!
Don't be sorry. You should be ragey. Polio was fucking horrifying.
To be fair, when nuclear power goes bad, it goes really really bad. This is why I am against nuclear power being in the hands of incompetent people. And cheap bastards who can't be bothered to pay for failsafes. And fuckers who worry about the cost of being better safe than sorry. Of course I feel the same way about things like offshore oil wells. I'm looking at you, British Petroleum…
The problem lies with the big difference between mainstream and so-called alternative medicine. Contrary to what most alternative medicine vendors would have us believe, it's not the source of the medications. Regardless of how they process them, mainstream drug companies get their raw materials from the same natural world as the herbalists (for example: aspirin comes from willow bark and doxil from italian castle dirt). No, the main difference is one of testing, analysis, review, and certification. When you get a mainstream medication you can know for damn certain the company selling it has studied the fuck out of it to know exactly what it's effects actually are, and purified it to the best of their ability. With alternative medicine it's all anecdotal, and you can also never really be certain what it is you are actually getting.
And that's just the stuff that isn't overtly harmful. Then there are alternative "medications" like cansema "black salve" which is still being hocked by snake oil charlatans as a miracle cure for cancer. Which is isn't. Seriously. This stuff is an absolute horror show.
It's proponents claim the black clumps that it causes to fall off of its users, leaving deep, open wounds, is the cancer being drawn out and slouged off. In reality it's their own skin, flesh, and bone dieing and falling out of them.
You just had to go and click it. Well don't say I didn't warn you.
Sounds like the handbook for raising a child to be Jace Connors.
Creationism isn't even a pseudo-science. There is nothing scientific about it, pseudo or otherwise. It's dogma. And no, it is not an "alternative theory" to anything. Because it isn't a theory. Again, because it's dogma.
More importantly, people who try to take the book of Genesis literally are missing the whole point of it. Seriously. I would have thought they would want to actually understand the bible instead of just misquote and misapply it.
Of course, evolution is itself not a theory either. It's an observed phenomenon. Darwin's was the Theory of Natural Selection.
Probably the worst thing about non-science (or nonsense) like this is how the same tired illogic and ignorance keeps popping up. Yes, Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection was intended, by Darwin, to explain macro evolution from simple organisms to complex ones. And it does. And even better than that, like all good theories it's predictive. Darwin used it to predict that eventually it would be discovered that whales evolved from a land based mammal. More than a century after Darwin, we finally found fossil evidence proving that whales did, in fact, evolve from land mammals.
This lead into another bogus common creationist "argument" against evolution. Yes, it's true Darwin didn't get everything 100% right out from the gate. For example, Darwin used a swimming bear as an example of where whales could have started, and we now know that it was actually from aggressive goats. And yes, it's true that Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection has had to be modified to fit better modern observations with additional theories (such as genetics and punctuated equilibrium etc.), but that doesn't in any way discredit the observed fact of evolution. Creationists, for some foolish reason, think it somehow does. Well Newtons Theory of Universal Gravitation was modified by Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but does that give creationists cause to deny that gravity happens?
And don't get me started on the fact that if intelligent design is somehow true (lolno), then that perforce means the almighty is an incredibly shitty, decidedly unintelligent designer. Just look at the idiotic path the voice box nerves have to take, for example. Why would an intelligent designer run them from the brain, down into the chest, under the aorta, and then back up into the neck to the voice box? Wouldn't it make more sense just to run them straight from the brain to the voice box? Why do creationists insist the almighty is so stupid as to do that? And I believe someone else has already mentioned the panda's half assed, jury rigged "thumb".
Despite what creationists think, Genesis actually has nothing to do with creation.
But again, a literal reading of Genesis is entirely missing the point, though the why of it is more a matter for Deep Thoughts. Suffice to say, when an "evolutionist" (usually self proclaimed) claims Genesis is "wrong", they are only demonstrating their misunderstanding of it. And when a creationist claims evolution doesn't happen because Genesis, they are also demonstrating their misunderstanding of Genesis. On the Origin of Species doesn't "disprove" Genesis (and vice versa) any more than Grey's Anatomy of the Human Body "disproves" Shakespeare's Sonnets.
Linguists seem uniquely driven to come up with insane suppositions on fields outside their bailiwick for which they have absolutely no business putting their noses into.
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I'm not saying I believe creationism or certainly young-earth creationism, but it's possible that there is a middle ground between the two. After all, it is really fair to assume that evolution=atheist, creationism=God with no other combinations? As for "alternative" it is an alternative but that doesn't necessarily mean EVERYONE agrees to it nor is it the 0% choice. Homosexuality went under "alternative lifestyle" for a number of years (does it still?), whereas "alternative medicine" (iffy) is promoted as such.
EDIT 2/2018: It's an old post. Disregard.
EDIT 2/2018: It's an old post. Disregard.
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the only people I've ever met who push for a "middle ground" are really creationists pushing for a literal interpretation of Genesis because the Bible must be 100% true and honest (a claim which isn't even found inside the Bible)
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Sib-fist to a fellow Vampire: The Masquerade fan.
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When they stay in their own universe, yes. I'll never forgive their parent company for what they did to D&D.
That faint whirring noise in the background? That's Gary Gygax doing about 3K RPM in his grave.
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- Dec 11, 2013
Yes, herbal remedies can work. But are you aware of what we call herbal remedies that have been proven to work? We call them "medicines".
But here's the thing about homeopathy. It's absolute DIRTY CRAPPED BRIEFS. Here's how it works: it's based on the whole "like cures like". So if you have a substance that causes your eyes to water and nose to get all stopped up then that same substance will cure you when you have those symptoms. So we take an onion. Then we mash it up, prepare it and dilute it in a 10 : 1 mixture with water. You then "energize" it by either shaking or tapping it. This is known as a 1x solution. But this is too weak so you take 1 unit of that and then dilute it again in a 10 : 1 mixture of water and energize it again. This is a 2x solution which is again too weak. You continue this dilution & energizing until you've hit about a 30x solution.
Now for those of you who have taken chemistry out there can tell me that once they've passed the 26x solution there is actually a chance that the resulting solution does not even have 1 molecule of the original substrate in it. It's literally just water at this point. But the woo woo crowd will tell you that the water holds onto the "memory" of the onion and the water is energized with the "essence" of it. Once you've reached 30x you take that water, sprinkle it on sugar pills and sell it for way more than it's actually worth.
So somehow the water remembers the onion but has forgotten all the other stuff that has been diluted in it. Never mind that that water has had, at some point, maybe arsenic, prozac or even feces in it. No, it just remembers the onion. That is some magic fucking water.
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That's the thing though, there are a lot of linguists who work realistically, either refusing to posit psychological structure until entirely necessary or working with neurolinguistics and animals to zero in on what counts as human language. Of course they're overshadowed because their results are less impressive. Chomsky popularized the "omg this pattern is kinda common in Europe, MUST BE GENETICS" crap. Throw around enough meaningless Greek letters and people will flock to it because it looks sciencey.
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So what? Finding a middle ground is only valid if it's between two equally valid positions. But creationism is not valid. At all. Trying to find a middle ground between a valid theory like natural selection and utter bunkum like creationism doesn't get you closer to the truth, it drags you further away from it.
Again, so what? Just because it's an alternative does not mean it's a valid alternative. Suicide is technically an alternative to taking a calculus final, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. In fact for every valid truth there are probably an infinite number of invalid, untrue alternatives. Creationism is just another of those falsehoods.
Things that are mainstream generally get that way for a reason: because they work. Alternatives to the mainstream are themselves only valid if they work better than the mainstream solution. And so because they work better then the mainstream solution, eventually they gain acceptance and become the mainstream solution. But creationism is not a better solution. In point of fact, creationism was the mainstream solution back when there was nothing better. For a long time natural selection was the upstart alternative, but time has proven it to be a better solution, so now it's the mainstream. Promoting creationism is just regressively clinging to obsolete, disproven, discarded relics of a more ignorant time.
Yeah, Chomsky was one of the ones I was alluding to, but I didn't want to mention him by name because it seems like every time someone disparages him the internets suddenly fill with rabid Chomsky fanboys. Suffice to say, he really should stick to what he knows and stay out of other people's business with his wild speculations.