Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!prlb2!ronse
From: ronse@prlb2.UUCP (Christian Ronse)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Omni-Americans
Message-ID: <434@prlb2.UUCP>
Date: 17 Mar 88 09:11:32 GMT
References: <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <2790@gryphon.CTS.COM> <1221@uop.edu> <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP>
Organization: Philips Research Laboratory, Brussels
Lines: 76
Summary: sci.misc is not for the promotion of pseudoscience and superficiality.

In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William
Hopkins) writes:

[...]

> The only distinction between much science fiction and science fact is the
> distinction between past and future.

This shows that the depth of this guy's ``science'' is at the same level as
that of cheap paperback novels.

[much chatter deleted]

>    That's the problem: they've specialized, so they know practically nothing
>    about anything else.  Hence they utterly lack the capabilities to 
>    evaluate an outsider's claims on its own terms.
> 
>    Specialization is wrong, and also unnecessary.  People just have to learn
>    to learn more efficiently to overcome the so-called information 
>    explosion (which is really a communication breakdown.)
[...]
> Pardon me for the analysis, but I see a specialist who feels threatened by
> outsiders impringing on his "Sacred" knowledge -- which is why he speaks
> of them with such unwarranted hostility.
> The mere fact that one specializes (an UNnecessary evil in this society)
> is the problem.

We are no more in the Renaissance, where Pic de la Mirandole could know
everything in every scientific subject. If one wants to have a deep knowledge,
it must be in a restricted field. Just avoiding specialization is laziness,
cultivating superficiality, knowing very few things on everything.
Overspecialization is bad too, one should combine a deep knowledge in a
specialized field with a broad general culture (a gaussian-shaped
depth/breadth diagram). But who can say that every specialist in a field is
ignorant in other ones?

Specialists have the right to be angered when ignorants pretend to know their
field better. Real science is hard work, there is no place in it for lazy
superficial minds, and hard work deserves respect.

[etc.]

> >> That's why I think Omni is a sort of Trojan Horse for the marching morons.
> 
> Then I must be the first of the bunch, which is very strange since I'm known
> to be highly gifted in many fields with knowledge that is both broad and
> deep.

How modest he is! Real talented people don't have to boast about their gifts.
Their achievements speak for themselves.

				.....

And then this guy continues in further postings his propaganda for
Velikovsky...

Velikovsky was a psychoanalist, he did not know anything about scientific
astronomy. Did he try to verify if his elucubrations were consistent with the
laws of celestial mechanics? Did Mark William Hopkins make the calculations?

And I don't want to hear about the relationship of astrology to the obsevation
of seasonal cycles, etc.. I have never heard about an astrologer doing that.
They just repeat dogmas found in their books, which repeat, etc..

Next time someone tries to promote pseudo-science in sci.misc, he should first
give his scientific credentials. Otherwise it is better to move to
talk.religion.newage.

Christian Ronse		maldoror@prlb2.UUCP
{uunet|philabs|mcvax|...}!prlb2!{maldoror|ronse}

``So goodnight, kids, and remember...everybody has a pointer in their
  heart, set to that special someone...don't keep yours set to nil...''

		        		Basil Hosmer
		        		Kaptain Kloodge Saga