21 replies to this topic

[rjag]

There are gajillions of web sites out there for anyone to deny science if they wish to.

Denying science or challenging theory? There are many examples where the science was 'settled' and a few 'heretics' didn't agree and they were pilloried and then all of a sudden new 'facts' were discovered and the prevailing opinion had no choice but to change.

Would you challenge the credentials of these experts?

Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.

Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F.” — Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University in Time Magazine’s June 24th, 1975 article

“That virus is a pussycat.” — Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988

Eisenhowers farewell speech

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

[AllseeingEye]

Somehow perusing this thread I am persistently reminded of a that jewel of a line from the movie "Red Planet", where English actor Terence Stamp, playing a scientist-philosopher in the film, says "I changed to Philosophy when I realized that Science couldn't answer any of the really interesting questions". Indeed.