things to expect when someone presents their dodgy theory, and advice for dodgy-theory-promulgators
These things seem to come up often, whenever someone presents their dodgy theory on the internet (and probably in other fora as well):
1) The implication, or outright statement, that the reason their theory is greeted with skepticism by those with actual knowledge of the field is not because the theory is ill-backed up and flies in the face of known evidence, but because the skeptics are afraid of being disproven. Usually either because they're arrogant and would hate to be proven wrong, or because they've got something (time, tenure, reputation) invested in the prevailing theory, and don't want to lose it.
2) When they're met with disagreements and doubts, to say something like, "I thought this was a forum for open discussion!" as if "open discussion" is necessarily equivalent to, "Hmm, a very interesting idea, my good sir," and can never include responses such as, "Well, I think that's bullshit," or "Um, that seems a bit weird, would you mind giving some evidence of that?" Then to imply or state that their point of view is being repressed, because a bunch of people opining that your theory sucks is censorship. Or at least it made you feel sad inside, which is like censoring your SOUL.
3) Allusions to knowledge, or additional proof of their theory, which would totally vindicate it, if the skeptics were aware of it. But somehow these bits of evidence never get shown. Possibly because the poster just "doesn't have the time," (despite the time to initially present their theory, and bitch when people disagree) or already TOLD it to everyone (i.e. vaguely and arrogantly alluded to it, without giving details or references), or because it's not worth it to waste energy convincing a bunch of people who are so obviously closed-minded and biased against the poster.
This occurs on topics ranging from creationism to metaphysics to linguistics.
Oh, and advice for dodgy-theory-promulgators:
It's not that prevailing theories are never wrong. History shows that they often are. But a new theory generally replaces an old one because it interprets the existing evidence in a superior way, and possibly incorporates new or previously-problematic evidence. Not because, oops, all the existing evidence was totally erroneous but there's some secret little-known evidence pointing in the opposite direction.
Therefore, you'd do better to horribly twist the existing evidence in some bizarre way, than you would ignoring it outright, because that way people can't bring up obvious points of evidence against your theory. You already used that evidence!!!!! And so you can get down to arguing interpretation, which takes more effort to disprove, so maybe your opponents will just sigh and give up. And that means you win!!!!!!!!! Clearly they saw the futility of arguing against your unlistening irrationality juggernaut of a theory. Now if only they could stop being in denial about how they're wrong and you're right.
1) The implication, or outright statement, that the reason their theory is greeted with skepticism by those with actual knowledge of the field is not because the theory is ill-backed up and flies in the face of known evidence, but because the skeptics are afraid of being disproven. Usually either because they're arrogant and would hate to be proven wrong, or because they've got something (time, tenure, reputation) invested in the prevailing theory, and don't want to lose it.
2) When they're met with disagreements and doubts, to say something like, "I thought this was a forum for open discussion!" as if "open discussion" is necessarily equivalent to, "Hmm, a very interesting idea, my good sir," and can never include responses such as, "Well, I think that's bullshit," or "Um, that seems a bit weird, would you mind giving some evidence of that?" Then to imply or state that their point of view is being repressed, because a bunch of people opining that your theory sucks is censorship. Or at least it made you feel sad inside, which is like censoring your SOUL.
3) Allusions to knowledge, or additional proof of their theory, which would totally vindicate it, if the skeptics were aware of it. But somehow these bits of evidence never get shown. Possibly because the poster just "doesn't have the time," (despite the time to initially present their theory, and bitch when people disagree) or already TOLD it to everyone (i.e. vaguely and arrogantly alluded to it, without giving details or references), or because it's not worth it to waste energy convincing a bunch of people who are so obviously closed-minded and biased against the poster.
This occurs on topics ranging from creationism to metaphysics to linguistics.
Oh, and advice for dodgy-theory-promulgators:
It's not that prevailing theories are never wrong. History shows that they often are. But a new theory generally replaces an old one because it interprets the existing evidence in a superior way, and possibly incorporates new or previously-problematic evidence. Not because, oops, all the existing evidence was totally erroneous but there's some secret little-known evidence pointing in the opposite direction.
Therefore, you'd do better to horribly twist the existing evidence in some bizarre way, than you would ignoring it outright, because that way people can't bring up obvious points of evidence against your theory. You already used that evidence!!!!! And so you can get down to arguing interpretation, which takes more effort to disprove, so maybe your opponents will just sigh and give up. And that means you win!!!!!!!!! Clearly they saw the futility of arguing against your unlistening irrationality juggernaut of a theory. Now if only they could stop being in denial about how they're wrong and you're right.