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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (323029)	1/25/2007 7:08:15 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577020

One theory after another. Some have argued that string theory might be seen as a recent or current example. Global warming as another. Many more in the past. I'm not talking about frivolous totally stupid fads. Perhaps "fad" in your mind implies such uselessness or stupidity. I'd be open to using another word. Some ideas become hot ideas or popular ideas. The fads aren't even always bad, they bring new resources and viewpoints to areas that may be important or interesting. OTOH sometimes false ideas even become the accepted idea and questioning them gets discouraged, even if they should be questioned. Or even if the idea doesn't get too firmly established as the absolute truth, it strength gets overstated. This can effect the science, or perhaps more likely just what ideas are communicated by scientists to the wider world, and how they are communicated. The point is scientists are not immune to jumping on bandwagons, or making overly confident statements about their ideas. They might tend to be more dispassionate and objective about their ideas that the random person off the street, but they are human, not perfect paragons of objectivity. You can't just ask "what do most scientists say" even for the answers about the scientific part of every controversial issue, and esp. not about the economic consequences or proper political response.