Lying liars: Wakefield and Rose

[andygates]

I'm filled with smiles today to see that the BMA are heartily spanking Andrew Wakefield, the doctor whose bogus - knowingly bogus - research started the whole stupid false MMR flap and gave credibility to a whole generation of vaccine-phobic woo-mongers telling people that a shot will turn their kids into Rain Man, (here, buy this crochet spiral chicken liver instead, it'll purge toxins and align your native reiki chakras).  Wakefield, you are a lying liar. 

And I'm filled with weary to see that the latest Final Nail in the coffin of global warming, yes, there are so many final nails that you have to wonder whether there's any wood at all or, for that matter, room for a body (alas, it aten't ded and aten't dying: eppur si riscalda no matter what the lying liars write) -- *breathe* that this latest Final Nail, Rose's piece in the Daily Mail about Himalaya glaciers, is a big fat lying lie.  The boffin at the heart of the story, Murari Lal, was heinously misquoted and fibbed over; the story pretty much made up out of whole cloth.  Rose, you are a lying liar.

Comments

[carldem.livejournal.com]

Not straw man.

That is what science is about, or are you renaming what you're doing as "science".

You of course realise just blankly throwing up a claim of "strawman" without identifying the falacy is a "Strawman" falacy. As it is not relevant to the discussion and although easily disproveable, it doesn't add anything to your point.

Which brings us to the cirrect application of the ad homein. As such silly strawman attempts, when you should know better, point to the likelihood that you are personally standing on shakey ground in your analysis of the topic, leading to a high probability of a similiar loose analysis of the original topic.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

It's a perfect straw man: you're suggesting that nothing can be known outside that which can be known personally. It's a tempting position to take but, as out technological culture shows, it's untrue.

And it's always been untrue: biologists don't have to re-trace the voyage of the Beagle and dig ammonites out of Lyme Bay to have valid skills. Astronomers don't have to dig wells at the equator. The whole point of the scientific method is that you can reliably stand on the shoulders of giants.

That's why the scientific method has made more progress in the last 350 years than all the woo in the world before it, after all.

[carldem.livejournal.com]

"Stands on the shoulders of ..."

Each scientific theory may stand on the shoulders, but if you go look up the detail of proper scientific process (aka applying the technology) you'll notice that each investigation results on in a theory. The more times the theory is tested then the higher probably, the higher confidence level that said result _might_ apply in a similiar situation (for no two events can be exactly the same).
To deny this is to a kind of "lay-faith" about the scientific principles. And yes the increase of probablity does mean that a naturalistic religion (ie process) based on interative testing should give a model that we can take at faith value. (which is why the people wanted to people the anti-immune doctor).

But there's where the speculatioin comes in. We haven't been able to test some of these things, only give levels of confidence. If a hypothesis says the global warming will change by 2 degrees in the next year and it moves by 5 then the scientific theory is wrong. It doesn't prove it "more right" just because went in the right direction, and they can't do as I have seen so many PhD students do and rebuild the results values from their data just qualify their funding/paper!!!! If it's out of window of the results then their model is incorrect, and that means when it gets put into application elsewhere, in the field, it's confidence level is way off. But to back such theories then is a "denial faith" no different from Moonies, or proponents of the guys on anti-immunisation (or early cold fusion)

[carldem.livejournal.com]

...people wanted to people the anti-immune...
=
...people wanted to believe the anti-immune...

Sorry error in the first editing.