But you win. I just don't care anymore. Don't care.

I'm really serious.

I suggest that the forum users create a special thread, in which we all answer the same questions:

Where do you work?

Are you a scientist, or a technologist, both, or neither?

Are you a free thinker? Yes, no, do not know

Are you philosophically inclined? yes, no, don't care

How deep into the operationally defined "skeptic's critical classification" do we have to dig, before your self-professed qualifications start to smell iffy? (use the scale of 1 - everything believed, and 100 - Only Descartes' "cogito ergo sum" is considered empirically believable, and use a straight-line inclining scale of more points commensurate with harder degrees of skepticism.)

Do you treat sexually male children as if you were a catholic archbishop? Yes, No, No telling.

Do you cut up your sexually arousing dates into little pieces, freeze them, and cook them up into "meat pies" or "german salami" for your local church bazaar at christmas? Yes, No, often, seldom, gave it up.

I want to adjust that scale. I am not convinced by descarte.

WUX

My point is this: if you are going to brag about how smart, educated and intelligent you are, or how much more qualified you are than someone else you are trying to "debunk," then you should be willing to back up your claims and stop hiding behind a screen name.

If you do not lay it on the line and reveal who you really are and provide a way to verify why you are more qualified than someone else as you claim, then don't be surprised and indignant (and insulting) if you are challenged.

That's the point.

To Metalwing, do not, ever, divulge your real name and credentials on an internet site full of crazies. I'm sure you're intelligent enough to know this already.

I know. Many on here are my friends and they know who I am. But thanks for the obviously good advice.

There are trolls on this site.

I'm the one who posted the math, physics, and material science of the twin towers in my own words without the need for internet reference.

Most people know who the internet trolls are.

I hope you are not implying that Mingle is an Internet site full of "crazies."

JB bear with me for a minute here and dont take this personally.

This is your fault. Nothing malicious. Totally unintended, but nevertheless your fault.

We try to explain the science, thread after thread, and we find that you need remedial training/education in order to even understand the basics.

It is easy for us to take that base education for granted, but if you do not have a recent college level science education then many of these topics will just plain old be over your head. Often if there is a will there is a way. I know people without the university training who just plain old enjoy studying science on there own terms. They spend hours and hours reading about the gene expression, or discrete inheritance, or calculating vacuum fluctuations in de Sitter space. But these are the rare odd balls and often they can be very wrong as well and for often explainable reasons (they often skip ahead and dont do all of the basic training)

Now becuase you have not spent the time, yet you have a desire to understand, you tend to base your understanding on flawed reasoning.

Now after saying all of this, I think your curiosity is a good thing. My problem is that you are not really all that humble with your conclusions, and you tend to make conclusions from authority becuase you lack these fundamentals. Really nothing wrong with making conclusions from authority, we all do it to some degree becuase no one is a specialist in every field. HOWEVER, without the base foundation you cannot tell poop from gold when it comes to a scientific paper, and so even a rudimentary conclusion should not be reached. (That is being humble)

This is why its your fault, you want to know details, dont understand them when we give them to you, and then need an authority which to point to. BUT this is the internet, and we would be stupid to provide our personal information on here, not becuase we think YOU are going to do anything malicious with it, but because anyone could.

The answer: just take anything said here with a grain of salt, but and here is the key, do the same with your own conclusions from authority, and dont assume massive conspiracies of the scientific community to keep a rogue maverick scientist, or doctor down.

It just crossed my mind that those that claim to be expert in their field

and are reluctant to disclose their credentials on here could maybe

put a link to any papers they have had published on whatever subject

they are expert in.....Just Thinking

Yea, except that the papers have your name on them . . . AND if they are not specific to the topic at hand, then its irrelevant anyways. Which is my point, we have laymen who cant understand these complex topics calling into question a consensus based on a deep understanding and referencing their own authority figures who are considered less than authorities among there peers.

It is the rogue maverick researcher against the establishment meme and when it is ONLY that which is what compels someone to consider the authority credible, we have a problem.

That is the whole point of published papers.

If anyone on here have papers published on the topics they are discussing what is the problem.?

Everyone is entitled to question everything.

If some people claim to be experts then prove it...just saying.

The far better thing is to avoid having to reference an authority. Either withhold your opinion becuase you are a laymen and do not understand the science, or accept consensus.

ie, Do the hard work or shut up.

The problem with that is this. I have never really seen much from Metalwing about any scientific topic. Mostly I see him telling people that they "don't understand" or that they are "uneducated" blah blah blah.

I know what the extent of my knowledge and education is, so I do rely on experts in the field and if they have published papers, and if they have degrees and if they work in a certain field and do peer reviews then I rely on that and I respect that.

And yes, I take everything with a grain of salt anyway.

But when a screen name comes along and brags that he is more qualified than the experts I am quoting and continues to harp about how uneducated I am, and makes his entire post ABOUT ME and not about the actual topic, then okay, show me your qualifications. Don't expect me to take your word over some expert who is willing to show his.

IE: put up or shut up.

And so I take what he says with less than a grain of salt.

But Bushi, thanks for your take on it. I think you sort of missed the point though.

--->It is not about me or what I know, it is about reliance on experts who are qualified.<----

and nobody knows everything.

(We all rely on experts.)

And it is not that I really want to know any details about Metalwing and how qualified or unqualified he is. I really don't care.

I just think if he is going to stand on his qualifications to back up his authority to debunk and put down other scientists he should be willing to come out of the closet.

When I make claims I am often asked for my source. If you are going to seriously try to debunk or discredit my source, you should have the qualifications to back it up. You can't just say: "I'm more qualified" or "He does not understand the math."

I will take that with less than a grain of salt.

we all do the same thing, JB... we read something on the internet that agrees with what we think, and then post it... some is BS, some is not. you seem to think we are against you, when we are not... i'm just against the outright BS you sometimes post on here, like the metal turning to dust thing..... you can't really believe that, can you?

I agree that claiming that someone isn't qualified, or that they don't understand the math, doesn't have much value.

If I believe a source is valid, and someone else just claims they are wrong or ignorant, without any basis - I'm going to ignore this, whether or not they have credentials in the field.

I mean, a person can make that claim. Some people may believe, others disbelieve it, and people like me just ignore it.

Maybe I'm also missing the point, but it seems to me, JB, that you don't like it when Metal does this, and this whole business of pressing him for qualifications is your response to it... but I don't see the point.

Metal doesn't merely claim that a certain book or popular speaker is wrong or ignorant, he often also shows that they are, with evidence. We can ignore those claims that are not backed up by evidence or reason, and look at the arguments for those claims that are. I don't see any point in asking for credentials.

you all came up with those outrageous "Theories",so it is incumbent for you all to prove them!

Well, the next time he actually "shows" how someone is wrong please bring it to my attention. (I have never seen it.)

What I don't like is how Metal mostly tells everyone that they are ignorant including experts who disagree with him and he is "too busy" or "to above" trying to explain why they are wrong to people who "just don't understand."

If he has a general and vast knowledge he should be able to summarize and explain it to a lay person. There is no need to go into a lecture about how if a person wants to know, they should go back to college and spend years trying to find an answer. That's what "experts" are for.

Like I said, I don't want or care to see his credentials except when he starts going on about how much more qualified he is than other scientists. If he can't help a lay person to better understand, then he is useless. I can't learn a thing from a person like that who just makes condescending remarks about how I should go to school and learn something or just stay out of the science thread. It's just rude.

Yes, this point I understand.

There is the privacy issue, though... a lot of scientists or technologists on these forums can't let their colleagues know they are here, because then the stupoid things they say on the forums can cost their jobs.

I agree that bascially at least a level of education, major in university studies, and a few pertinent points of their job experience and/or job descriptions should be put down here if asked.

That is, some information that does not identify the person, but it gives an indication to name his or her level of knowledge.

I, by the way, never invoke my education. I hope to convince others with the facts I present, and how I link one fact to another, to arrive at a certain proof of my point. I personally dislike it when someone says some ill-thought out point, and defends it on the basis of his or her education. That is not fair, and in logic it's called "fallacy of appeal to authority".

There are times when authority is used well, like if someone asks what is the breakage strength of the average of spider web threads of all spider species. Then an expert might tell us, and we can check the fact. But in points where facts and logic are well-enough to see that an "expert" is saying the wrong thing, then I simply don't consider arguments that are built on appeal to authority.