Is science arrogant?

Scientists are arrogant ......Science is what we determine it is so if it is, then we are the reason it is arrogant.

Our beliefs and lack of open minds in the masses along with not thinking for ourselves is also responsible for science seeming to be arrogant.


But yea saying that if science can't figure it out then it's not true is very arrogant considering how very little we know about life and existence and space and even our own planet and history of humanity....


funding takes a bright man and makes him arrogant......

Declaring science arrogant is born of frustration. Mainstream science will not accept what many of us think we understand as the truth so we stomp our feet like children, calling them arrogant to make ourselves feel better.

The truth is the real arrogants are us here in the UFO research community. Many here do not believe they need to follow the rules of science (yes, there are rules). We think we have exclusive rights to what the truth, that somehow we know more than all of the scientists in the world. Many of us have a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is and how it works; indeed I doubt many of us have had an exposure to science beyond the high school level, yet we think we understand it enough to declare it arrogant, outmoded and outdated. Or we drop buzzwords like quantum physics and string theory without any real understanding of these terms of how science came about these ideas (if you equate quantum physics and string theory with UFOs then you do not understand the controversies over these among scientists). We promote the shoddiest science and forms of evidence to back up our hypotheses. Then we demand science accept our beliefs as truths.

reply to post by DoomsdayRex


You sound exactly like the types we are talking about.

I'm an electronics engineering major myself. I always like to offer people to drop me a free-body diagram to solve, or maybe even a circuit problem if you want (but to save me headache I'd ask for you to keep it simple series-parallel with no transients -- some circuits take pages of calculations to solve ).

So I am not scientifically illiterate. I am also very familiar with the scientific method in its most pure and abstract form. But I am also very interested in "paranormal" subjects and feel as though simply ignoring them, marginalizing them or even mocking them is not scientific in the least. To the contrary it is very close-minded and, yes, arrogant. The arrogance is fueled by what is the equivalent of mass media dressed up in a lab coat. Science is never decided by majority opinion. Only majority scientific opinion is.

[edit on 14-7-2009 by bsbray11]

No, but many scientists are.

reply to post by Donnie Darko


I think that Paleontologists, historians, can be arrogant. The majority are so set in their beliefs that they can't accept any other viewpoint.

Originally posted by bsbray11
reply to post by DoomsdayRex

 

You sound exactly like the types we are talking about.

I'm an electronics engineering major myself. I always like to offer people to drop me a free-body diagram to solve, or maybe even a circuit problem if you want (but to save me headache I'd ask for you to keep it simple series-parallel with no transients -- some circuits take pages of calculations to solve

).

So I am not scientifically illiterate. I am also very familiar with the scientific method in its most pure and abstract form. But I am also very interested in "paranormal" subjects and feel as though simply ignoring them, marginalizing them or even mocking them is not scientific in the least. To the contrary it is very close-minded and, yes, arrogant. The arrogance is fueled by what is the equivalent of mass media dressed up in a lab coat. Science is never decided by majority opinion. Only majority scientific opinion is.

[edit on 14-7-2009 by bsbray11]

Your education sounds awesome! While you may have a hard time finding a research grant for the study of "paranormal" research I can assure you that you can explore it.

I am willing to bet that nearly every single member of ATS would be more than enthusiastic about any research or studies you do in the field.

Thomas Edison was a holder of over a THOUSAND patents! He did research into crazy stuff that no one else even considered. Here is a dope quote from Wikipedia about one of his very first inventions.

...the invention which first gained him fame was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical.

PLEASE do not think you cannot use Science as an avenue to research Paranormal or unusual fields of research. If you could prove the existence of Ghosts or of a Soul or Spirit or or talking to the Dead in another realm you would NOT be suppressed in this day and age.

The reason that many people do not get excited about these fields of research is that there have been no breakthroughs in them for a LONG time. And it is not for a lack of trying!

HELL look at those stupid morons in Georgia who claimed to have Big Foot in a freezer within the past year! They had mainstream media lined up to examine the evidence and interview them. Reporters from ALL OVER THE WORLD were interested! CNN was headlining the story! It turned out to be a rubber costume.

Paris Hilton just fills in the gaps between Scientific Discoveries.

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers


I would LOVE to do that. I've come across all sorts of things that I would love to research, from various permanent magnet motor designs to "orgone" devices, remote viewing, subtle body energies, Eastern monks' minds and body energies, all sorts of things that are fascinating to me from a technical perspective. Unfortunately I don't have the resources for any of that at the moment. So the best I can do instead is try to try to satisfy my personal curiosity online or now and then buy a book that looks appealing to me. One of those books was by the Dr. Tiller of MIT that I just mentioned, and it was heavily-laden with controlled studies despite the subject matter showing that awareness and human intention operate on energies that science has yet to quantify, yet demonstrably influence electromagnetic energies in our bodies. I would love to be right there with him but I don't realistically think my situation right now would allow that, and he's already more qualified anyway. But we both feel that this is indeed the new and truly final frontier: consciousness itself. What is it? Where does it come from? How do you quantify it, or can you? Etc. I think many or most "paranormal" issues are deeply related.

reply to post by bsbray11


Myself I am really interested in doing some homemade FerroFluid experiments when I am more financially stable (you can make it yourself but the good stuff is not cheap!). I find the theories of Magnetism and Gravity to be AWESOME!

From what I understand about gravity if only two particles of dust existed in space separated by trillions of light years given enough time they would eventually gravitationally come towards each other. How cool is that?

You seem to know a lot about electricity. I bet you know a lot about magnetism. I think that FerroFluid is like an unexplored continent. There seem to be tons of experiments that have not been done with the stuff yet that anyone with a couple of bucks could set up.

And with media exposure like YouTube and sites like ATS who really gives a crap about if CNN will have a story about your discovery.

If you post a video showing how people can perform a repeatable experiment in their home to talk to to Grammy in the Afterlife you are going to get 5 billion hits on your video.

Then CNN will have no choice but to run your story because FOX will already be running with it.

Either that or the M.I.B. will have already flashy thingied you anyways.

Originally posted by bsbray11
You sound exactly like the types we are talking about.

Please, elaborate. How is pointing out the arrogance within this community make me one of "those types"?

My point is before we start attacking mainstream science as arrogant, we first need to reform our own ways.

Originally posted by bsbray11
So I am not scientifically illiterate.

You may not be, but many in the UFO research community are. Their exposure to science is solely within the confines of Ufology and that can be a very poor place to be. Often we do not seek to further our scientific education, which is only worsened by dismissing science as arrogant; after all, if we think they are arrogant then we think we have nothing to learn. Ultimately this attitude is harmful to us as a community and our goals. It creates an adversarial relationship with mainstream science and will serve to further isolate us.

I don't believe that science itself is arrogant, but many scientists are

This almost sounds like the same complaint people make about religion.
The Jesus message is great and all things good, but some of his followers are arrogant/stupid/extreme etc.

Anyway, I think the issue with some is that they appear to be bound to science in their beliefs. Much like any sceptic who requires proof before committing to belief.

Stating something is possble before having evidence gives the impression of open mindedness or being humble toward the things we do not know.

Stating you cannot believe something unless you see proof gives the impression of arrogance or being close minded

These are just impressions and opinions.

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex
You may not be, but many in the UFO research community are.

I was about to ask what the UFO community had to do with anything but then I realized this was the UFO forum, lol. Everything I was saying, I am just saying in general, about scientists. There is another thread on another part of this site about modern academia and how it is stagnant and only serves itself, ie everyone working below a tenured professor is simply trying to kiss ass to get tenure while the professor usually just churns out so many status quo papers every so often because his position requires it. I wouldn't know what kind of science is usually presented in this forum.

reply to post by TurkeyBurgers


Or your video will just become the subject of intense internet bickering and will never move past that stage.

I don't know if you could say I know much about electricity. It probably sounds blasphemous to some people but I don't think ANYBODY knows much about electricity at all. The math all works out with our multimeters but even my professors say no one knows what in the hell is going on down there. Magnetism is a complete mystery to science except through its predictable relationship to electric current. Dr. Tiller that I keep saying so much about has actually developed a theory for magnetic particles he calls "magnons" coupled to electrons through a "delta" particle that he theorizes to be 9th-dimensional, thus giving the relationship Maxwell discovered. And explaining why we cannot find a magnetic particle, because according to Tiller it exists at speeds faster than the speed of light and time does not apply to it in the conventional way that it applies to other particles we see and understand. Unfortunately I can't tell you much more than that because I have trouble conceptualizing a lot of what he talks about, but I agree it's extremely interesting.

You have to realize that any Scientist who can prove any of the "phenomena" you are referring to would be one of the most famous people in history to include all of the awards, financial grants, Book deals, Schools being named after you, interviews, celebrity status, wealth that would come along of a find of the caliber you are describing. And you want to say they would be "Afraid"?


Um, no they wouldn't. Not unless they could catch a live alien. A piece of evidence would just not be accepted as proof, no matter how good it was, unless it was actually an alien body.

And we don't even know how physical aliens are, so how the heck can we expect anyone to find one of those?

The coverup is disinfo, and brainwashing people not to see the proof. It's not that there isn't proof.

Do you think mainstream science is arrogant, especially about the paranormal?

YES! I find mainstream science to be intolerably arrogant. They are so confined in their 3rd dimensional thinking, & they can't even see that they're stuck in a little box. They can't possibly imagine that there might be something beyond their perception, even though they know about radio waves, gamma waves, ultra-violet light, infra-red, etc, that are invisible to them, but they exist. They also know about sounds that some animals can hear, but humans can't. So why are they so limited in their thinking? I've experienced things that would be considered paranormal. I find it highly insulting that they say it's "impossible" when I've experienced it! I guess ALL those people who have experienced things that they can't explain are just wrong? lol Why don't they just try to find a theory that fits the phenomena rather than denying the existence of the phenomena? So, yes, I would say that's pretty arrogant.

EDIT: Scientists also say they know about other dimensions, but they never seem to consider that they might actually affect us here. How many scientists try to explain paranormal phenomena using a multi-dimensional paradigm?

For example, if you go to SETI's site and read some of their articles, you'll realize they are not on the side of the ufologists. In fact, it seems their whole goal is to spend decades searching the sky aimlessly and say "we haven't found anything, so they're not here".

There is a video w/ Nassim Haramein, in which he shows a crop circle right next to SETI. One was like an image on a photo ID, encoded w/ all info. I guess the SETI people missed that somehow? Or maybe they thought it was some guys w/ planks stomping around in the middle of the night. lol

[edit on 15-7-2009 by faulconandsnowjob]

reply to post by faulconandsnowjob


Hey I found that video from Nassim Haramein of the crop circle next to SETI. I have heard of that crop circle before and have seen it analyzed as being shown to appear to be man made due to errors in the design of SETI image in the crop circle. I did NOT know that it was basically RIGHT NEXT to the SETI institute! That is cool. That guy Nassim Haramein has some pretty neat videos. I will check some of them out. One that caught my eye that I will look at is one involving Fractals and the Universe. One of my favorite books is the Fractal Geometry of Nature by the infamous Benoit B. Mandelbrot.


Here is the link to that video

www.youtube.com...

2 words:
Fermi paradox
(google is your friend)
granted, it's just one scientist, but he was pretty famous, and it shows that scientists actually would gladly aknowledge visitors from the stars, if they just left behind some evidence.

I have absolute respect and admiration for scientists who have managed to reconcile faith or their belief in the paranormal along with current scientific methodology. Such people have really done their homework, I think.

Originally posted by nethawk
I have absolute respect and admiration for scientists who have managed to reconcile faith or their belief in the paranormal along with current scientific methodology. Such people have really done their homework, I think.

Actually I don't think it should be an "us versus them" discussion about scientists. We can all learn the scientific method, and we can all perform scientific experiments in our back yard to collect evidence to prove some scientific principles. OK we can't all launch our own LISA satellites to measure gravity waves, but if scientists share the data with us we can review that too.

I think we should all take it upon ourselves to learn more about science, how science works, and then we can try to participate in the scientific process instead of standing outside of it criticizing it.

I admit science will be slow to accept some changes in beliefs, but the more scientific evidence we can acquire I think the faster those beliefs will change, and we can all try to be a part of the solution.

To think we are alone in this vast universe is being arrogant. We are obviously not alone. Not watched over by a god either but we are not alone. How can we simply say earth is the only planet with life. There are billions and billions of planets out there that we don't even know about yet. You can NEVER say you know there is no such thing as aliens.

One big problem w/ scientists is that many have built their careers on one paradigm. Any challenge to that paradigm threatens their position, so there is a lot of resistance to new ideas. One ex: the guy who posited plate tectonics theory was made a laughing-stock & nearly had his career destroyed. Now, it's accepted as self-evident.

Another problem is one that James Burke has complained about. The focus of study is so narrow, that people aren't looking at connections. So, they get more & more knowledgeable about less & less & don't see how it all fits in together. Nassim Haramein is a good example of a person who can put the pieces together.

[edit on 15-7-2009 by faulconandsnowjob]