chronon said:
The trouble from my point of view is that there are often questions posted of the form 'I've read (in a popular science book), that such-and-such is the case, but it doesn't seem quite right'. My reply is generally, 'No it isn't right, don't always believe what you read in popular science books'. Unfortunately, this makes what I am writing look decidedly non-mainstream, and I often get into arguments with the "Science experts"
Something in a "popular" science book, if incorrect, can be refuted by reference to appropriate peer-reviewed sources. We frequently encounter such things over in the biology forum, indeed, such a question arose this past week, and that is how it was handled. Someone read something on an internet site which was backed up by some popular book, but when we went delving into the literature, there was nothing to support it, and some articles that clearly refuted it. We also quickly de-bunked the credentials the author of the book was claiming. In the process, we gained some knowledge about practical issues in toxicity studies. This was a useful exercise because there are sites all over the internet using that one popular book as the basis for their erroneous claims. However, we didn't just dismiss it out-of-hand, we dug into the relevant literature to determine whether there was any validity to the claim, even if it was outdated studies with conclusions that have been rejected by more current studies, and then to support the arguments against it.
she clearly does know enough physics to make a reasonable sounding argument
Again, I'm not going to respond regarding the specific person you keep bringing up, but to this statement in general. This is exactly what we're trying to keep in check, those who know just barely enough to make a reasonable
sounding argument to those who do not know the subject in depth (i.e., students and those without formal scientific education), but that is
not reasonable to those who do know the subject. These are the more dangerous posts, because they are not so outlandish to the lay reader as to be obviously wrong, so they need the assistance of those with scientific training to point out why they are wrong.
People with non-standard ideas have to be arrogant in promoting them
No, there is no place for arrogance here. Perseverant is always a good trait, and that means if your idea is rejected one place or you find it's not acceptable for discussion somewhere else, you continue to move along and find the place where people will listen, and you keep refining your argument to make it more convincing if it's not convincing yet. If your theory does have merit and you're not communicating that to others and arrogance is preventing you from admitting you might be doing something wrong or not explaining it adequately or that maybe there is a flaw in it somewhere, then you're just spinning your wheels and wasting everyone's time, including your own.
Maybe the expertise in the physics section will improve, but I don't see this being helped by more aggressive moderation, especially when this moderation can seem somewhat arbitrary.
As has been pointed out by others already, this is an important reason to define what our limits are and to maintain discussion within those limits so we don't lose the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff when the discussion extends beyond the limits of our expertise. This is actually a very good reason why even legitimate, well-grounded new theories would not be appropriately included here until they've passed muster of the peer-review process where appropriate experts
have determined it to be a legitimate, well-grounded theory. If someone is having difficulty understanding why their new theories, still under development, should be presented at a scientific conference or to colleagues with expertise in their area rather than on an internet forum that may not have a critical mass of experts in their area, then I have to question their ethics in releasing something to the general public before it has been appropriately modified and verified by other experts. That's simply not responsible science.
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So welcome back!
