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Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

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Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#31

Post by anonymouskimmer »

elpocko wrote: post #20
ncallaway wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> force people to behave in line with the best available evidence. I think this… really depends on the behavior. I think, pretty much universally we should never force someone to pretend their beliefs conform to such evidence. But, in certain circumstances, I think it’s absolutely appropriate to force people to conform to our understanding of the world. Consider exaggerating this principle to an extreme degree (to de…

> I think this… really depends on the behavior. > I think it’s absolutely appropriate to force people to conform to our understanding of the world. And I think... it's... appropriate to... use extreme violence to resist anyone who attempts to force me to conform to anything. Ellipsis.

Here's hoping that someday you aren't so tired that you're mentally out of it and someone doesn't have to force you to not cross the street while cars are driving.

Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#33

Post by smsm42 »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #21
smsm42 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you bet on the consensus science because it's probably right. And it was. Was it though? As I am seeing now, some early policies were flat out murderous (such as hosting COVID patients together with healthy people in nursing homes), some were practically useless mortality wise (like lockdowns) and some are very minimally useful or not useful at all (like mask mandates and mass-firing unvaccinated people). Some were…

Many of those policies didn't follow any science. And a bunch of them not working well is likely due to conflicting talking points from various of the powers that be. > some were practically useless mortality wise If any of the advice decreased the rate of infection spread they were likely to decrease mortality through the simple effect of making work easier for health care workers. Actual lockdowns worked for a long…

> Many of those policies didn't follow any science. And a bunch of them not working well is likely due to conflicting talking points from various of the powers that be.

Virtually all of them were sold by "trust the Experts" crowd, and supported and promoted by people that literally declared "I am the Science". We've got as close to experto-cracy as we could be without abandoning the democracy completely. So telling "this wasn't true science" has a large whiff of "true socialism has never been tried". I'd say we tried as much as we, as a society, could possibly do. If that didn't work, then the problem is not that we need more experts and have to trust them harder.

Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#34

Post by roenxi »

ncallaway wrote: post #9
roenxi wrote: post #3

This article is interpreting events in a way that casts a revealing shadow. There is a subtle and difficult concept - it is a terrible idea to force people to behave in line with the best available evidence. In this era, it is hard to point that out without mentioning COVID so, y'know. COVID. But it has been true for long before that and it'll be true after the COVID response is forgotten. People should be allowed to…

> force people to behave in line with the best available evidence. I think this… really depends on the behavior. I think, pretty much universally we should never force someone to pretend their beliefs conform to such evidence. But, in certain circumstances, I think it’s absolutely appropriate to force people to conform to our understanding of the world. Consider exaggerating this principle to an extreme degree (to de…

Well yeah, obviously for violent and threatening acts there is an exception. Which, I cheerfully point out, was never really a factor in the COVID policies which failed to prevent anyone I know from catching COVID. I think by this stage that literal - everyone I know caught it eventually with maybe 1 exception. So coughing or not coughing in someone's face has not actually made much of a difference RE catching the thing.

And it is interesting to note that the actual principle in the case you raise is that it should be illegal to do anything in someone else's personal space that they don't consent to, which has nothing to do with the state of science.

Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#35

Post by anonymouskimmer »

smsm42 wrote: post #33
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those policies didn't follow any science. And a bunch of them not working well is likely due to conflicting talking points from various of the powers that be. > some were practically useless mortality wise If any of the advice decreased the rate of infection spread they were likely to decrease mortality through the simple effect of making work easier for health care workers. Actual lockdowns worked for a long…

> Many of those policies didn't follow any science. And a bunch of them not working well is likely due to conflicting talking points from various of the powers that be. Virtually all of them were sold by "trust the Experts" crowd, and supported and promoted by people that literally declared "I am the Science". We've got as close to experto-cracy as we could be without abandoning the democracy completely. So telling "…

I have never heard any medical expert say that contagious patients should be kept in nursing homes.

There was a lot of cross-communication during the early days as politicians made statements that contradicted the CDC and other organizations, or were based on expensive interventions not available to the regular patient (such as the intra-bronchial tube UV light treatment promoted early on by Trump).

And yes, sometimes those organizational figureheads said stupid things (e.g. no evidence that masks are a good idea for healthy people, back in the era of the mask shortage, instead of legally mandating that masks be reserved for medical personnel) that were rightfully contradicted by other experts.

Social distancing and masking were both good ideas from the start, based on prior scientific knowledge.

Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#36

Post by smsm42 »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #35
smsm42 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of those policies didn't follow any science. And a bunch of them not working well is likely due to conflicting talking points from various of the powers that be. Virtually all of them were sold by "trust the Experts" crowd, and supported and promoted by people that literally declared "I am the Science". We've got as close to experto-cracy as we could be without abandoning the democracy completely. So telling "…

I have never heard any medical expert say that contagious patients should be kept in nursing homes. There was a lot of cross-communication during the early days as politicians made statements that contradicted the CDC and other organizations, or were based on expensive interventions not available to the regular patient (such as the intra-bronchial tube UV light treatment promoted early on by Trump). And yes, sometime…

> said stupid things (e.g. no evidence that masks are a good idea for healthy people, back in the era of the mask shortage

That wasn't "stupid", that was a cynical lie. I.e. if you believe masks worked, that would be a murderous lie, designed to sacrifice "less important" people to the advantage of "more important" ones. As I remember, it was admitted as such (a deliberate lie), though I remain unconvinced it actually had any effect at all in reality.

Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#37

Post by mayd »

ajross wrote: post #6
roenxi wrote: post #3

This article is interpreting events in a way that casts a revealing shadow. There is a subtle and difficult concept - it is a terrible idea to force people to behave in line with the best available evidence. In this era, it is hard to point that out without mentioning COVID so, y'know. COVID. But it has been true for long before that and it'll be true after the COVID response is forgotten. People should be allowed to…

I don't see how that follows at all. Academic arguments about the structure of the heavens are irrelevancies except to the people in the argument (and those threatened by it). Sure, absolutely: you don't censor opinions about astronomy just because they seem "probably wrong" or demand blind adherence to the best available theory. You do the science, because sometimes scientists are wrong. But pandemic advice isn't ab…

The scientific method is the only method of enquiry that is valid if you are doing science. In science, skepticism of every theory, new or old, is expected, encouraged and valued, because, according to the scientific method, every theory is potentially falsifiable.

Skepticism and consensus are conflicting concepts. Consensus has no place in science as method of determining truth. You cannot form a scientific conclusion based on socially or politically manufactured consent.

Never has this been more clearly demonstrated than during and after the recent Coronavirus panic. Facts were ignored, or even suppressed, "settled science" and "scientific consensus" were used as weapons to silence dissenters, by trashing their reputations, or threatening their jobs.

We are living in an age of Cargo Cult Science. Richard Feynman must be rolling in his grave.

Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#38

Post by credit_guy »

Copernicus and Galileo, yes, but not Kepler.

Kepler didn't just state that planets move on eclipses in general. Here's his three laws [1]:

    > 1. The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.
    > 2. A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.
    > 3. The square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to the cube of the length of the semi-major axis of its orbit.
The first two laws are extraordinarily specific heliocentric. He did not just state his laws, he backed them with numbers. With tens of thousands of observations tallied over many decades by Tycho Brahe and himself. Whoever claims Kepler did not have proof, has now idea what they are talking about.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_laws_of_planetary_m...

Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#39

Post by ajross »

mayd wrote: post #37
ajross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that follows at all. Academic arguments about the structure of the heavens are irrelevancies except to the people in the argument (and those threatened by it). Sure, absolutely: you don't censor opinions about astronomy just because they seem "probably wrong" or demand blind adherence to the best available theory. You do the science, because sometimes scientists are wrong. But pandemic advice isn't ab…

The scientific method is the only method of enquiry that is valid if you are doing science. In science, skepticism of every theory, new or old, is expected, encouraged and valued, because, according to the scientific method, every theory is potentially falsifiable. Skepticism and consensus are conflicting concepts. Consensus has no place in science as method of determining truth. You cannot form a scientific conclusi…

Meh. Distancing works. Masks work. Vaccines work. Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work. Herd immunity never happened. Seems from my perspective that "science" did its job pretty well. Were individuals wrong about stuff? Yup, happens all the time. But I don't see any lack of understanding in hindsight.

You seem to be making an argument about public policy, not science. And I refer to the comment to which you replied: different things, with different goals.

Re: Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all lacked proof

#40

Post by [deleted] »

credit_guy wrote: post #38

Copernicus and Galileo, yes, but not Kepler. Kepler didn't just state that planets move on eclipses in general. Here's his three laws [1]: > 1. The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci. > 2. A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time. > 3. The square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to the cube of the length of the semi-…

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