Well, yes, peer review catches obvious errors. Obviously, if you are making a statement about some very specialized field (where there is a reasonable chance of discovering something new), something passing a peer review doesn't mean it's right. For instance, I've published three papers having to do early or completely with my alternative explanation of the Croatian toponyms in three different peer-reviewed journals. Yet, when I contacted somebody whom I considered to be the greatest expert on the topic, Dubravka Ivsic, she said my conclusions didn't seem plausible to her.That's what peer review it for.
What does that have to do with the logic I am taking a course on on the university, the Boolean Algebra, the Natural Deduction, the formal languages... Enlighten me, I just don't see the connection here.You obviously don't know much about logic
That's not exactly what we were discussing. OK, let's imagine there is an oracle machine that could accurately determine what's a current scientific consensus on some issue. Would it also be reliable in determining objective truth? Of course not. If it existed in the early 1900s, and you asked it whether luminiferous aether existed or whether particles had wave-lengths, do you have any doubt in your head it would have given you a wrong answer? Also, such an oracle machine doesn't actually exist. And people pretending that it did and that there was a scientific consensus on some issue there wasn't have caused devastating consequences.Do you understand now?
And what exactly do you mean by "mathematics"? Mathematics doesn't just deal with numbers and formulas - graph theory, for example, is also mathematics. Genetics, as well as computer science and linguistics often deal with mathematics such as graph theory.Especially in Biology and the soft sciences (though some mathematics can be applied).
I think it's not so much. Consider how many people were punished for what supposedly happened in Vukovar. If you are a solipsist (or just any form of skeptic), you will consider that immoral, because they were punished for the things we cannot know for certain they happened.If you are going to advocate for Solipsism, just know that it's a bit of a moral issue.
It's almost impossible to tell them apart, isn't it?I'm not equating corrupt politicians with incompetent politicians.
For all practical purposes, it does. If people define some situation as real, it's real in its consequences.People believing the scientists say something does not make it a theory.
How exactly would you suggest me to study English? And how do I know if I've studied it enough.I suggest you go and study it more, then come back.
An explanation of why my alternative explanation of the Croatian toponyms would be "soft science" arguably isn't anywhere on this thread by now.Can't you do a simple CTRL + F search?
That's not really an appeal to authority, I am not implying she is right. I simply tried to explain why I thought you were familiar with the arguments against animal testing.And yet you accuse me of an appeal to authority?
How do you know, you don't seem to be quite aware of her content? And don't say "because she is against FDA mandating animal testing", because that's circular reasoning.I don't trust Bite Size Vegan (and most of us here don't), she's kind of a woo, and supports a lot of bunk science.
I can name my reasons why I think she is actually more credible than other bloggers in this vegan world, she had qualified and well-respected dietitians (Michael Greger spoke quite a few times, and some other dietitians also) speak on her channel many times, and she had an actual neuroscientist talk about animal sentience on her channel.
I know, I encouraged everyone who was reading the Flat-Earth thread to read the thread on the TFES forum in which I supposedly explained my reasons for believing that Earth is flat. You are RedAppleGP, right? That guy who shared most Brimstone's political opinions, but was not nearly as scientifically literate (neither in social sciences nor in natural sciences) as Brimstone, right?What are you talking about? I am not brimstone. That's someone else.
I won't read it, as you were writing that before you knew literally anything about my hypotheses (and likely historical linguistics in general). What does my alternative explanation of the Croatian toponyms say? Why exactly is it "soft science"?You would've known my rebuttal if you were to read the first few pages of this thread.
Why don't you go to the thread about it on linguistforum.com and present your arguments there. There were a few "linguistics is not a real science"-people in that thread already who provoked a bit of a philosophical discussion.
I'll include a few excerpts from that thread, my name there is FlatAssembler, and Daniel is a PhD linguist and the moderator.
Daniel wrote:I'm not arguing for blind statistics at all! What I'm saying is that if you have a large sample, you'll probably be right on average. If you have a single data point, there's no reason to assume you'll be right that one time.FlatAssembler wrote:Why do you think those statistical methods work any better than common sense does? If you count the English dictionary equivalents of the Croatian words that start with a 't', do you think that a significant portion of them will start with a 'th'? Wouldn't the early loanwords and coincidences average them out?
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But that doesn't mean we should just dump the dictionary into a statistical program and see what happens! (And far too often non-linguists do something along those lines and claim they've solved a major linguistics problem like where the homeland of Indo-European was-- they're almost always wrong, even though, unfortunately, papers like that can get a lot of attention in the world outside of linguistics.)
Daniel wrote:I don't disagree with you that there are some things in linguistics (including some published papers) that don't take much background to understand. But there are vastly more things that take a lot of background (e.g., a PhD, or lots and lots of self study).
Daniel wrote:Well, yes. That's a good way of describing science, especially historical linguistics. Though you left out the systematic aspects (such as applying common patterns in sound change, or genuine efforts to self-falsify your theories, and considering alternative hypotheses).LinguistSkeptic wrote:He is making wild guesses based on questionable (if not just obviously wrong) premisses.In this case we're talking about languages/etymologies (not the whole universe), and the biggest problem in applying that definition is the question of falsifiability, in that from a practical perspective it will be hard to find any evidence to potentially falsify these hypotheses (given how little data is available). But we could potentially find evidence. In fact, that's not so unusual for science: there has never been, and probably will never be, a direct observation of a black hole, because by definition light cannot escape them, so we cannot observe them. But they can be studied indirectly, based on theoretical predictions (sometimes "wild guesses based on questionable premises"!), and by observing related things like a 'missing' large object with enormous gravity.Wikipedia wrote:Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Daniel wrote:You cannot evaluate them because you don't have any expertise in this field. It would not make sense for you to tell physicists they are wrong because you don't understand, or biologists, or computer scientists, or whatever. Your understanding is irrelevant to others being correct.LinguistSkeptic wrote:Excuse me, to me it seems like he is just bombarding us with controversial statements we can't evaluate.
Daniel wrote:What does "far-fetched" mean? Many etymologies are complicated, even ones we have direct evidence for. Therefore your objection is irrelevant. It's either this "far-fetched" etymology, or some other one. Etymologies are not always transparent and easy; why would you expect them to be?LinguistSkeptic wrote:Isn't such etymology, from so many words, extremely far-fetched?
You are making a common incorrect statistical assumption that unlikely events never occur. In fact, unlikely events occur every day. (I believe I wrote about this in earlier posts to FlatAssembler by the way.) What is unlikely is that a specific unlikely event occurs, but your objection would apply to any etymology because indeed any etymology is unlikely (and many are complex).
Daniel wrote:Nonsense, but OK. Yes, please, go away.LinguistSkeptic wrote:Social sciences don't appear to be real sciences. Trusting the mainstream social sciences has brought us things such as socialism and communism. Seems to me that I am better off thinking with my own head than trusting you guys.
Daniel (to FlatAssembler) wrote:That's the problem with the toponyms: you've crafted an explanation that is very difficult to falsify, both because of the little evidence (in support or against you) and because it requires a lot of expertise to even consider the question. But to be discouraging, here, I would caution you against thinking that by asking a harder question you have a better chance of being right, especially when you seem to be looking to challenge the mainstream views with everything you do.
I hope you get a general idea.Panini wrote: I feel compelled to object to the incorrect characterization of linguistics as a social science. Sociolunguistics is one, no doubt; the study of grammar is not