Outrageously complete and so so wrong explanations

[Pengwuino]

Something i noticed while laughing at the people on yahoo answers was that some people can make very elaborate and lengthy answers yet be completely wrong! I see that on this forum as well (and its fun when mods/science advisors tear them down). It's just amazing to see nearly page long explanations about things the poster seems to know absolutely nothing about. I mean after a whole page giving a detailed description of photons, i was almost convinced that the speed of light changed lineraly vs. the frequency. Then i laughed and dismissed the idiot because everything was wrong in his argument.

It's just kinda strange that people can be so blatantly wrong yet .. be very detailed in their... wrongness. I think people are full of it.

 

[Cyrus]

After reading this, I feel like you owe me the 10 seconds of my life you caused me to waste...:zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz: :zzz:


Don't you have a hobby, or something you should study? Like linear algebra?

 

[Pengwuino]

I know liner algbra by heart!

 

[Cyrus]

I know liner algbra by heart!

Then you better call a doctor.

 

[JamesU]

cyrus, have you not learned that about .01% of pengwuino's numerous threads are relevant to anything important?

 

[DaveC426913]

Something i noticed while laughing at the people on yahoo answers was that some people can make very elaborate and lengthy answers yet be completely wrong! I see that on this forum as well (and its fun when mods/science advisors tear them down). It's just amazing to see nearly page long explanations about things the poster seems to know absolutely nothing about. I mean after a whole page giving a detailed description of photons, i was almost convinced that the speed of light changed lineraly vs. the frequency. Then i laughed and dismissed the idiot because everything was wrong in his argument.

It's just kinda strange that people can be so blatantly wrong yet .. be very detailed in their... wrongness. I think people are full of it.

What tends to happen is that people develop these theories of theirs in a vacuum. The theories can get quite elaborate because there is no check-versus-established-science step and no experimental testing step. This is where normally they would discover that their theory is a dead-end.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Also, many times the person has no formal training. They read a few pop-sci books at the coffee shop and then consider themselves experts. I run into these types at work - the "I was too smart to go to school" crowd.

 

[Pengwuino]

What tends to happen is that people develop these theories of theirs in a vacuum. The theories can get quite elaborate because there is no check-versus-established-science step and no experimental testing step. This is where normally they would discover that their theory is a dead-end.

Wow i didnt think i got serious responses on this thread *cough* cyrus yommama *cough*. I think that's definitely a good explanation! I think a lot of conspiracy theories follow along the same line. It's interesting to think that there's so many governmental conspiracy theories that really only work when absolutely nothing else is considered. It's like... senator A secretly funded this organization that hired hitmen to kill a staff member with this super bad secret about senator A so that he would win the election against senator B... but then in reality, senator A sponsors senator B in another election 3 years later blowing the whole conspiracy out of wack and the theorist refuses to even talk about it.

Or screw that hypothetical idea, bring up the moon landing! That conspiracy needs a real vacuum thought process to work out well.. no pun intended.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The government conspiracy theories result in part because of a people who no longer trust their government. Once that trust has been betrayed, I don't think it can ever be won back. Cold war secrecy, Watergate, Contra-gate, what we learn about past activity, and probably another half dozen specific examples [Kent State] probably account for much of the distrust found in people my age. It has been earned.

One of the reasons that we find so many UFO conspiracy theories is the over-classification of information. When one receives a thirty,or forty, or fifty year old gov. doc - through the freedom of information act - which clearly describes a UFO encounter, but with 25%-75% of the information blacked out, of course people assume that the government is hiding information. They would be idiots to assume otherwise considering all of the black ink. I have learned that at least in some cases the information hidden relates to secret trips or activities that have nothing to do with UFOs. For example, why hide information in 1999 about a secret trip made to the Soviet in the mid-sixties by the late and once powerful US Senator Russell? But this is what happened. So many readers simply fill in the blanks with what they expect.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I was trying to find a link, but one government official stated that there are over one-billion classified documents that need to be reviewed before declassifying them. Meanwhile we are producing classified information at a rate probably ten or one-hundred times greater [or since 911, perhaps another order of magnitude or more] than what produced the billion docs already awaiting review. This creates a situation in which it is not possible to monitor even past government activities.

The stated irony is that most of it probably doesn't need to be secret, but by trying to contain so much classified information, it becomes more difficult to protect the information that is truly critical to our national interests.