To all of those asking me what I think of , consider this.
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To all of those asking me what I think of <insert wild, untrue assertion>, consider this.
It's easy to hate on stuff, but it's not my style.
I have to steel myself for every debunker piece I do.
I'd much rather be excited about what we're discovering and what's actually real.
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John Carlos Baezreplied to StartsWithABang last edited by
@startswithabang - if it's easy, why do you have to steel youself for it?
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StartsWithABangreplied to John Carlos Baez last edited by
@johncarlosbaez Do you not encounter tasks in your life that are easy to do, but that you loathe doing?
Let me assign you manual data entry of 1000 random email addresses into an Excel file, for instance.
It's easy! Would you have to steel yourself for it?
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John Carlos Baezreplied to StartsWithABang last edited by
@startswithabang - I was just joking. But since we're getting serious here:
A task like manually entering lots of data fills me boredom which sucks my energy away, so I may have to steel myself for it - where I guess "steeling" is a process of summoning reserves of energy.
A task like ripping a crackpot to shreds does not fill me with boredom - it's actually fun, an opportunity for humor. However, I've done it enough so that I know that it winds up making me look bad unless I'm careful. I've gotten credible threats of lawsuits, which are irksome. And I could be doing more useful things. So these days I avoid it.
Maybe refuting crackpots just bores you, which makes you different than me.
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StartsWithABangreplied to John Carlos Baez last edited by
@johncarlosbaez It has many negatives for me.
It bores me. It saddens me. It angers and upsets me.
It not only sucks my energy away, but it often only serves to amplify the voice(s) that promoted the nonsense to begin with.
It requires enormous attention-to-detail and is like chasing a noxious fart with the goal of "vacuuming it out of the air."
Now why don't I tell you how I really feel.
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John Carlos Baezreplied to StartsWithABang last edited by
@startswithabang - Okay, interesting. Refuting crackpots doesn't bore me at all - my natural instinct is to dive into it with malicious glee, using the sarcastic sense of humor I normally keep carefully leashed up.
I've just learned that it's not a good thing to do. So instead I wave my hands, sigh, and roll my eyes.
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StartsWithABangreplied to John Carlos Baez last edited by
Consider the recent, "there is no dark matter and dark energy, but instead I invoke tired light plus evolving fundamental constants, and ignore a whole slew of lab constraints to conclude the Universe is 26.7 Gyr old."
Here was the debunker piece I wrote: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-13-8-or-26-7-billion-years/
Here was my follow-up when I got asked about it a year later: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/new-study-disprove-dark-matter-dark-energy/
I think I did a great job, and it wasn't worth it. It feels like it was all a colossal waste of energy and time.
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John Carlos Baezreplied to StartsWithABang last edited by
@startswithabang - if you're writing about bad science because you're seeking to change the behavior of the people who do it, and you don't actually 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦 doing this, then it's a waste of time.
If you're trying to help keep people from getting fooled by bad science, then it's a noble thing to do, not necessarily a waste of time. But unless it's fun for you, you should let people who enjoy it do this job.
Personally I write about crackpots and other scientific mistakes because:
1) I like making fun of people. (I'm not saying this is good, but I have to admit it.)
2) I find it fascinating how sitting right next to good science there is not-so-good science, and bad science, and so on until we get to complete madness. It's fascinating to try to *define* what counts as good science, and it's fascinating how people can be motivated to put a lot of energy into completely nutty science, not just out of charlatanism (which would be easy to understand), but often out of some sincere but extremely misguided attempt to figure out the world.
Both of these led me to write the Crackpot Index, which is a mixture of analysis and mockery.