Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS
My point is quite simple.
Unless a strong focus and discipline is practised and promoted by scientists in doing their work ... and even in Amateur Science Forums such as this, we're all just pitting our own opinions against each other, which leads nowhere.
The value in science comes from how rigorously we resist the temptation to revert to our primal belief systems. Science offers us this opportunity, and freedom to do this .. and I personally choose to exercise this freedom, and gain from the opportunity of doing so.
Frankly, giving air-time to how sloppy any of us can be, in abusing carefully performed research done by others, to support what is a pre-conceived belief, in my view, is a complete waste of time and electrons in this forum. And .. yep .. that's an opinion … right there … and its unfortunate that it seems I have to spell this out in black and white terminology, but at least I can recognise it, for what it is.
Can we put aside these moot low-value points … and get on with some quality discussions?
Cheers
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Pretty much this whole forum is opinion, Craig. That's what usually comes about when you discuss anything. You read a paper, you comment on it, or on what other say, you get an opinion expressed. This comes with all the baggage of pre-conceived ideas and such. However, all i ws saying is that the corollary of the pro life position (as expressed by Warren) is just as valid as the rare or no other life position, which has been expressed by some scientists (e.g. Rare Earth Hypothesis). Neither has any definitive proof of their assertions. That's why it's a somewhat pointless debate because we only have one example of life, that's here, and all we're doing is extrapolating from that based on our fundamental opinions and how they influence what we study to derive our theories.
And now, I'll go clean up my mess I just dropped on the floor. Or, should I let the dog slurp it up
