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Fair enough. But this happens in every biologically relevant discussion.. Every time results are reported on mice, someone will criticize that it wasn't done on
by fifnir 7y ago
Fair enough. But this happens in every biologically relevant discussion.. Every time results are reported on mice, someone will criticize that it wasn't done on humans, as if biologists are complete ignoramuses and not intimately familiar with the strengths and limitations of their own science.
If an engineer presented a model of a bridge and someone jumped in to say "buh, but you didn't ACTUALLY BUILD the bridge so this is worthless", people would rightly tell him off, wouldn't they? Why is this low-effort criticism of biology allowed ?
- dang 7y agoIt's allowed in the sense that people are allowed to be wrong and/or ignorant because that's what most of us are on most topics. We can't stop that any more than King Canute could stop the waves. The important question is, what's the best way to handle it if we want to have an internet forum that doesn't suck? Experience teaches that the answer is: the patient supply of correct information by people who do know about a topic. I don't mean to minimize how infuriating it is to be surrounded by a flood of ignorance and wrongness. But that's the situation you're in if you're knowledgeable. Railing against it only makes things worse. Being able to contain the annoyance, so that it doesn't drive your communication, is a hard prereq for doing something good about it.
- pvg 7y agoKing Canute was supposed to stop the tide, you couch alluder.
- dctoedt 7y agoNo, he was demonstrating to his fawning courtiers that he couldn't stop the tide. (Apologies in advance to the parent commenter @pvg if my irony / sarcasm detector is out of calibration.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]