Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to Symptoms of Pathological Skepticism.

In Defense of Pathological Skepticism.
Hank — (archived)

Those aren't controversies, they're more akin to deliberate fraud. They are fantasies deliberately perpetrated for personal gain by cynical opportunists and supported by the refusal of so many to accept the responsibility of thinking for themselves and accepting the consequences of intellectual and creative failure. You can always spot them because when challenged they always retreat into the same old excuses: conspiracies, hidebound orthodoxies determined to "hide the truth", accusations of closed-mindedness in their critics, or invocations of previous successful challenges to the scientific paradigms of their day. Yes, Galileo was persecuted, but you ain't him.

You can't prove a negative. No one can prove there is no Bigfoot, or that there are no UFOs. Perhaps they do exist, even scientists must concede they don't necessarily violate any known physical laws! But the point is that the scientific community is under no obligation to drop everything it's doing and rush out to investigate your claims. It's up to advocates of these positions to gather and present the incontrovertible evidence themselves, in a forum and a format that lends itself to skeptical scrutiny. This is the discipline we have accepted for ourselves, and if you're not willing to do so too then don't feel miffed because we refuse to play your game.

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