Author Topic: I actually win one with Hunchbacked  (Read 27236 times)

Offline Count Zero

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2013, 01:47:17 PM »
Doesn't he mean "inconsistency"?  Hoax believers never know science; is it too much to ask that they maybe understand English?

Yes.  Yes it is.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2013, 01:52:36 PM by Count Zero »
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Offline gillianren

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #16 on: June 22, 2013, 02:06:02 PM »
Right.  I keep forgetting.
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Offline ChrLz

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #17 on: June 22, 2013, 07:09:36 PM »
he even said that when he looks at one of the photos or videos he knows that if he looks long enough he will find an 'incoherency".
"long enough"?
Long enough, and with:
- sufficient ignorance (of the environment and how photography/videography works)
- sufficient confirmation bias


Offline ka9q

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #18 on: June 22, 2013, 07:42:32 PM »
Hunchbacked is French, so I'm willing to cut him some slack. But he tends to persist with his rather idiosyncratic language even when he's informed of the correct terminology. "Incoherence" (as a noun) is one of his favorite words, so I like to use it in quotes.

Offline Chew

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #19 on: June 22, 2013, 07:55:47 PM »
But he tends to persist with his rather idiosyncratic language even when he's informed of the correct terminology.

Remember how many times we tried to tell him what was the proper abbreviation for the Command Service Module? Yeesh.

Offline gillianren

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #20 on: June 22, 2013, 09:41:47 PM »
Hunchbacked is French, so I'm willing to cut him some slack. But he tends to persist with his rather idiosyncratic language even when he's informed of the correct terminology. "Incoherence" (as a noun) is one of his favorite words, so I like to use it in quotes.


Okay, but here's my thing.  If he's going to argue in English, he needs to improve his English.  Gods know I speak no language other than English well enough to argue in it.  (I can order meals and a few other things in Spanish, I can talk about the weather in Gaelic, and I know scattered words in about a dozen other languages, and that's it.)  I admire the heck out of people who do.  I've never made fun of Jackie Chan's accent, because I know how awful I would sound if I tried to learn Chinese.  However, two of the people whose spelling/grammatical errors I jump on most are both non-native speakers, and I do it because they asked me to.  They're trying to improve their English, which they know isn't perfect.

I know we end up dealing with non-native speakers sometimes, and it always makes me wonder--why?  Are there no sites in their native language that they can bother, where they aren't fighting an uphill battle against science and English?  Sometimes, it's obvious that they're trying to improve their English, and that's fine.  I actually kind of admire that.  But when we get "English isn't my first language, so don't waste your time correcting me," I keep thinking that it's got to be easier to get your point across when you're actually fluent in the language.  Or even just working on improving it.  When you're struggling to make yourself understood, why are you wasting your time?
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Offline DataCable

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #21 on: June 23, 2013, 12:27:09 AM »
But when we get "English isn't my first language, so don't waste your time correcting me," I keep thinking that it's got to be easier to get your point across when you're actually fluent in the language.
But isn't that just an extension of the science-illiteracy mindset?  "I don't know science, but I can just learn enough buzzwords to bluff my way through it."  Same with a foreign language.  Scientific experts won't sway their ignorance, so why should native speakers?
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Offline gillianren

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #22 on: June 23, 2013, 03:08:03 AM »
Cognitive dissonance at work, I guess.  Literally everyone knows that words in foreign languages are not the same as words in yours, and the vast majority of people know that it takes more than speaking LOUD . . . LY AND SLOW . . . LY in order to make yourself understood in another language.  Science can be a lot more esoteric than that; there are things in science that don't make sense to a layman.  Science is one of those subjects where it's hard to know how much you don't know.  Foreign languages are not.  And yet.
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Offline smartcooky

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #23 on: June 23, 2013, 05:27:39 AM »
I think it was Asimov (or maybe Clarke) who said something like..

"No matter how eminent a scientist may be, when he speaks on any subject that is outside his speciality or area of expertise, his word can be taken no more seriously than that of a layman."

If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline qt

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #24 on: June 23, 2013, 06:33:04 PM »
I think it was Asimov (or maybe Clarke) who said something like..

"No matter how eminent a scientist may be, when he speaks on any subject that is outside his speciality or area of expertise, his word can be taken no more seriously than that of a layman."

Very well put.  A lot of people here seem to think self-identication with something called "science" (which doesn't bear much resemblance to what I think of as "science") makes you an expert in everything.

Offline raven

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #25 on: June 23, 2013, 07:59:26 PM »
Heck, it's even a trope! ;D
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Offline George Tirebiter

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #26 on: June 23, 2013, 11:43:40 PM »
I've seen a similar quote from biochemist Erwin Chargaff:

"Outside his own ever-narrowing field of specialization, a scientist is a layman.  What members of an academy of science have in common is a certain form of semiparasitic living."

Offline ineluki

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #27 on: June 24, 2013, 09:56:06 AM »
I think it was Asimov (or maybe Clarke) who said something like..

"No matter how eminent a scientist may be, when he speaks on any subject that is outside his speciality or area of expertise, his word can be taken no more seriously than that of a layman."

Then again, one would expect a  "scientist" to have the general knowledge of someone who finished High School, whereas most Hoaxers act and argue as if they just flunked Middle School.




Offline gillianren

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #28 on: June 24, 2013, 01:00:39 PM »
The problem with most of the HBs who actually argue the point (I maintain that we can know essentially nothing about those who don't) is that they seem to be ignorant of all relevant information.  That's not just science.  Here's the list off the top of my head.

Engineering
Photography
Stage Arts (specifically wirework)
Cold War Politics
Post-World War II History
Journalism
Physics
Aerodynamics
Orbital Mechanics
Psychology
Radiation
The Specific History and Psychology of Actual Conspiracies
Internal US Politics
The History of Test Piloting
Radio Communications
Television
Fluid Dynamics (that's the term I'm thinking of to explain behaviour in a vacuum, right?)
Geology

I'm probably missing some, but that's enough to get us started.

Now, it's perfectly acceptable to be at least somewhat ignorant of all of those things.  We live in an era of specialists, and you can't know everything.  Even my personal life goal of knowing at least something about everything leaves a lot uncovered.  However, there are some of those that it is inexcusable to be completely ignorant of, and at the very least, you should know that you don't know anything in a field.  If you've never studied geology, you should be aware of that and not make pronouncements in geology.  That's the real problem.  It isn't the ignorance.  It's the determination to argue despite ignorance.
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Offline Allan F

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Re: I actually win one with Hunchbacked
« Reply #29 on: June 24, 2013, 05:31:34 PM »
Throw in some chemistry, biology and regular math.
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