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[RadRuss]

And speaking of the moon, don't forget there's a secret alien base on the other side, we just can't see it.  The astronauts saw it!  You can't deny the proof!

This, of course, assumes we landed on the moon at all...I'd like to pit these conspiracy nuts against each other.

[Corpus]

I like the Hollow Earthers - if by 'like' I'm allowed to mean ridicule.  Especially the ones who argue that there's no gravity - it's just that the Earth is increasing in size.  ie. you don't fall down, the ground comes up to meet you...

Ridiculing people serves no purpose whatsoever.

Besides, it's possible that what they say is true. Have you ever been to space and seen for yourself that the earth is curved? I'm guessing you're not the source of any of the evidence upon which you base your scientific beliefs. How do you know that all research is not corrupted, somehow, and that it isn't censored and manipulated by the world governments? You don't.

I'm not suggesting that such things are likely or plausible. However, I doubt very much that you can prove them - absolutely - not to be the case.

Keep an open mind and think objectively, or you're no better than the people you ridicule.

EDIT: Unfortunately, I must admit that I find it difficult to keep a straight face when I hear these people's circular non-logic. Still, I do my best to consider what they say objectively. Nobody's perfect. My mum thinks I'm cool.

[Akhel]

I don't think you have to "keep an open mind" about things like that. Same way you don't have to keep an open mind if I tell you I am actually George Sailboat, a demon from the year five billion who is looking for his ice cream (which just happens to be inside your right eyeball).

Sorry, I got a little bit too excited about the whole thing.

I don't get to tell my story very often, you know.

[Chris Whitman]

Please, let's not turn this into a religious war. You have your beliefs, others have theirs. Neither can be proved. What do you hope to gain?

I don't want to get into the whole 'WAS JESUS REAL!223@!' debate specifically because I'm tired of talking about it, but I would like to mention that I consider the sacrosanctity of belief to be a very harmful notion. There's always room for debate on any point, and I think everyone is compelled to give reasons for believing the things they believe.

Very few people actually believe in hard-line relativism. For example, if I make the claim that I went to the store earlier today and bought delicious Chinese hot sauce, either I did or didn't. As far as we can ascertain, reality provides for no middle ground where for some people I did go to the store and for others I stayed home. Similarly, if I make a claim about the existence of a 2000 year old Jewish wizard who rules our planet from beyond the stars, either he exists or he doesn't. If I claim he does, and you disagree, we can't both be right.

It's the compulsion of skeptical inquiry to question your beliefs, and I just don't think it's fair to let anyone hide in a tower of 'faith-based reasoning.' After all, if I borrow five dollars from you and, upon coming to collect on that debt, I simply tell you that I 'have faith' that the original lending never happened, is that a reasonable approach? For some reason, however, we have been culturally indoctrinated to accept this sort of reasoning when it applies, not to lending money, but to issues surrounding the ultimate fate and purpose of our lives and the universe.

Not all things can be disproven, but some can be, and some can be demonstrated as wild conjecture. It may be all well and good to let someone believe in supernatural wizards so long as those wizards don't tell them to hurt anyone, but how would you respond to some who alleges that the Holocaust never happened or that all non-whites should be slaves? The ability for rational argument is something we need. It lets us stand up against all the madness in the world.

So, I don't know, sometimes it isn't worth the effort to debate certain issues, but I'd never so far as to say it is 'all right' for two people to hold mutually exclusive beliefs. After all, someone has to be wrong.

[Corpus]

things like that

Well, see, that phrase's significance depends entirely upon your own personal outlook, as well as the values and commonly-accepted beliefs of the society in which you were raised.

The trouble with that is that every society is different. If every society is different, no society can ever be proved to be "right" or "wrong"; such a judgement would, of course, have to be made by someone whose decisions depended, to a significant extent, upon the values of his or her society. Etc., etc.

There was a time when people tended not to think that they had to keep an open mind about things like the world being round. I mean, the world being round? That's like saying that God doesn't live in the sky!

[Chris Whitman]

Also, "It's good to be open minded, but not so open minded that your brain falls out."

Being open-minded doesn't mean that you should forget about parsimony, and just because all ideas should be evaluated on their own merits doesn't mean those merits are equal.

Also also, ridiculing people can be hilarious, and serves an excellent purpose of getting rid of people who don't have genuine arguments, or who do not want a real debate in the first place. For example, I openly ridicule 'intelligent design,' because it's a smokescreen. It's random conjecture that has managed to work its way up to a legitimate belief in the minds of some people because of repeated insistence and lies about its scientific validity.

It's a waste of time to evaluate some ideas at this point. It's a waste of time to consider that the Earth could be flat. We know that the Earth is round. The ancient Greeks knew not only that the Earth was round, but approximately how large it was. Our ideas are always worth questioning, but beliefs which have been obviously false for thousands of years are rarely worth reevaluating (and certainly not without reason). Yes, there is always uncertainty. Yes, we can never be entirely sure that some random speculation from thousands of years ago isn't actually true, but we also have brains and we are capable of using these to seriously evaluate the likelihood of such propositions.

I have a limited number of days on this Earth, and I'd rather not waste them debating whether or not water is wet.

[Corpus]

Clearly, it isn't.

Hmm, I dunno, anyway. The whole limited time thing is a good argument, but, for me, the question is, where do you draw the line? When does an idea become worthy of your time?

This has gone totally off-topic. Sorry, gentlemen.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

All of the anti-fluoridation stuff I've seen is completely oblivious to the concept of trace elements/micronutrients, and seems to declare that because fluoride is toxic in large quantities, it can't possibly be good for people. On the other hand, drinking water isn't the most accurate way to mete out anything, but I'm not sure what kind of quantities we're talking about i.e. what the room for error is regarding the relative positive and negative effects. Certainly, no-one will be poisoned by fluoride in the water supply.

I think that's a simplification of it, from what little I know of it. There are detectable differences between people who don't have fluoride in their water supply (like much of the world) and those that do (like the US and Canada). Those differences can't just be discounted.

And "Certainly, no-one will be poisoned by fluoride in the water supply" is in fact inaccurate, there are several cases of fluoride poisoning each year just from the water supply in hypersensitive individuals, including deaths. The question isn't whether some people can be poisoned by it, because they can, the question is whether it's harmful to most people rather than just those rare cases.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

btw...what is the Tesla Water Station and HAARP? I don't believe I have ever heard of those.

Just search for HAARP in Wikipedia. The idea is that several physicists, including one involved in the project, have gone public saying that HAARP could be used as a weapon more powerful than any nuclear bomb, instantly able to destroy any area on earth. The Russian government, including Putin, has also expressed concerns that it could be used that way. But the US and the people who work at it, and actually somewhat convincingly, argue that in its current stage and at its current power levels that is impossible (although they don't deny that something like what those physicists fear is theoretically possible).

Regarding Tesla, the idea is that HAARP is actually based on one of his designs which was acquired from his missing papers after his death. After Tesla died apparently all his personal notes and experiments just disappeared, and some believe it was a CIA confiscation and that it led to HAARP, which has an eerie similarity to something Tesla envisioned (a machine which would use the ionosphere to gain unlimited energy and which would be able to instantly destroy anything with any degree of accuracy you wanted).

[Chris Whitman]

I think that's a simplification of it, from what little I know of it. There are detectable differences between people who don't have fluoride in their water supply (like much of the world) and those that do (like the US and Canada). Those differences can't just be discounted.

What differences are you talking about?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

There's a summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy

As I said, I'm not an expert on this issue and still on the fence. I'd like to look into it more before deciding one way or the other. But there is a good case for both sides, and I think it's foolish just to discount the other side as not knowing the difference between trace levels and larger amounts, because that's obviously not the case.

My current thoughts are that even if it's beneficial and does more good than harm (which I'm not sure of, because, as that Wikipedia article mentions, rates of dental decay are no more in countries or areas without it than with it), it's a bad idea to mass medicate people without their consent.

[Al King]

...and I think it's foolish just to discount the other side as not knowing the difference between trace levels and larger amounts, because that's obviously not the case.

I was referring only to the anti-fluoridation stuff I've seen, through youtube and the like, hence my wording. Discarding any argument out of hand is naturally bad practice.

[Gorman]

I was referring only to the anti-fluoridation stuff I've seen, through youtube and the like, hence my wording. Discarding any argument out of hand is naturally bad practice.

That is precisely the logic used by intelligent design advocates. There are plenty of arguments you should discard without much thought.

[Al King]

I was referring only to the anti-fluoridation stuff I've seen, through youtube and the like, hence my wording. Discarding any argument out of hand is naturally bad practice.

That is precisely the logic used by intelligent design advocates. There are plenty of arguments you should discard without much thought.

That's because the bases of their arguments are incorrect or they are logically flawed, and their bias and the reasons for it are blatant. On the other hand, I am not in possession of all the information with regards to water fluoridation, and I don't currently have any reason to believe that those who are against it have another agenda. Discarding something 'out of hand' indicates to me not considering anything at all about it and discarding it on the basis that you do not agree with its conclusion. So, no, I'd say that discarding an argument entirely out of hand is always bad practice.

[Movius]

All these conspiracy theories pale in comparison to the greatest of them all: Alternative 3.

I recommend watching it if you want to have your mind well and truly blown.

[Stij]

Mmhm.

Personally, I don't like it when otherwise non-political forums cross over into political material like this. All it takes is one or two immature or overly agressive people to start a forum-wide flamewar. I'm not saying any of you guys are like that (you seem like a pretty level-headed crowd), but I'm saying it's possible.

In any case, I'm not touching this thread with a ten foot pole.

[dustin]

Quote from: Pacian on March 31, 2008, 02:13:45 pm
I like the Hollow Earthers - if by 'like' I'm allowed to mean ridicule.  Especially the ones who argue that there's no gravity - it's just that the Earth is increasing in size.  ie. you don't fall down, the ground comes up to meet you...

Ridiculing people serves no purpose whatsoever.

Besides, it's possible that what they say is true. Have you ever been to space and seen for yourself that the earth is curved? I'm guessing you're not the source of any of the evidence upon which you base your scientific beliefs. How do you know that all research is not corrupted, somehow, and that it isn't censored and manipulated by the world governments? You don't.

Am I allowed to not believe the earth is increasing in size instead of their being gravity because I have done first hand experiments on the subject? 

[Melly]

We're all in the Matrix.

Oblivious fools!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Mmhm.

Personally, I don't like it when otherwise non-political forums cross over into political material like this. All it takes is one or two immature or overly agressive people to start a forum-wide flamewar. I'm not saying any of you guys are like that (you seem like a pretty level-headed crowd), but I'm saying it's possible.

In any case, I'm not touching this thread with a ten foot pole.

Some forums restrict arguments to a politics/religion/arguments subforum, that seems to work well.

[Chris Whitman]

There's a summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy

It's certainly interesting stuff, although I'm not sure that I'm swayed one way or another regarding anything on Wikipedia (politically sensitive information on Wikipedia tends to be intensely biased). I do have a few general points to make, however:

A lot of the studies quoted refer to lab rat testing. As I understand it, the legitimacy of medical testing on rats is under some pretty heavy fire for its generally dubious results. I'm not sure what the general accuracy of the testing is, but this is something which is under considerable debate. Typically, having tests on lab rats alone is cause for mild suspicion, but I think the results are overestimated on the Wikipedia page, especially considering that there are a multitude of conflicting studies throughout the page.

Pointing out the differences between people in countries which have water floridation over those which do not is extremely misleading. You could easily list hundreds or even thousands of cultural, dietary and chemical exposure differences between North America and the small scattering of European and Asian first-world countries who are on the list. This conjecture is weaker even than statistical correlation, considering correlation implies a linear relation between the two things.

Many of the studies on humans featured on the site are highly suspect. The strongest studies listed for IQ disparities between flouride-using and non-flouride-using populations, for example, give overlapping CIs. The CIs themselves are relatively large, giving a maximum relative error of as much as .2. Confidence levels are not given. The paper reviewing the study greatly exaggerates the accuracy of the data. I don't have time to analyse all the material in detail, as I have a whole bunch of exams to study for, but I don't see anything particularly convincing.

This stuff looks like it's all over the map. People without even a rudimentary knowledge of stats have seemingly quoted studies at random regardless of their accuracy or relevance. I'm not saying there's no validity to their claims, but the evidence on the page is not convincing.