mscottveach
New Member
In the Flat Earth debate, there's a specific kind of mistake that gets made
over and over again by people who argue that NASA is lying.
I call it Appeal by Jeranism but it probably already has a name.
It happens whenever someone looks at a photo or video that was
taken in space, then asserts that some element of it is incompatible
with being in space and then declares it fake.
For example, a person might look at footage of an astronaut
spacewalking, notice some particles moving across the screen,
assert that those are water bubbles and claim the video was
taken in a pool.
Obviously, in that form the argument has basically no power.
But I'm curious about the right way to discredit evidence...
- how does the scientific method (or similar) help scientists
from making those kinds of errors?
Would it be accurate to say that in the above example, the
person is implicitly suggesting a hypothesis that goes something
like "the particles are bubbles" but then are just assuming it's
true rather than testing it?
Let's say a mainstream scientist is reading about some result
and something about the evidence described in the paper makes
him doubt it's veracity. How would that scientist likely approach
the problem of discrediting evidence?
In other words, what could Jeranism do in his criticism of those
videos such that if he got to the result that they were faked, we
would all have to take it very seriously?
over and over again by people who argue that NASA is lying.
I call it Appeal by Jeranism but it probably already has a name.
It happens whenever someone looks at a photo or video that was
taken in space, then asserts that some element of it is incompatible
with being in space and then declares it fake.
For example, a person might look at footage of an astronaut
spacewalking, notice some particles moving across the screen,
assert that those are water bubbles and claim the video was
taken in a pool.
Obviously, in that form the argument has basically no power.
But I'm curious about the right way to discredit evidence...
- how does the scientific method (or similar) help scientists
from making those kinds of errors?
Would it be accurate to say that in the above example, the
person is implicitly suggesting a hypothesis that goes something
like "the particles are bubbles" but then are just assuming it's
true rather than testing it?
Let's say a mainstream scientist is reading about some result
and something about the evidence described in the paper makes
him doubt it's veracity. How would that scientist likely approach
the problem of discrediting evidence?
In other words, what could Jeranism do in his criticism of those
videos such that if he got to the result that they were faked, we
would all have to take it very seriously?