why does this site even exist?

[Brandon Sims]

SR corrected, or clarified what I said. I almost said specific "facts". Basically, my point was and still is we do NOT debunk entire theories. Care to dance around in circles in this thread also?

Nah dance with on the other thread and let me know one possible reason David was kidding

 

[JRBids]

What merit does you saying over and over we don't debunk entire theories have? I've posted the same thing over and over who cares if you don't debunk theories. You debunk statements then or claims

Cause we DON'T debunk entire theories.

Claims or either untrue
True
Or can't be proven.

So do you think we should simply post a claim and then state TRUE or FALSE with no evidence? Not getting your point here.

And you can't tell me in a website solely devoted to bunk that most of the bunk is stumbled upon lmfao. That's like cnn saying they get their stories on accident

I don't have to go looking for it, it gets posted on my time line every day. I see it as I go around the web. It's pretty easy to trip over. It's all over.

 

[Landru]

What merit does you saying over and over we don't debunk entire theories have? I've posted the same thing over and over who cares if you don't debunk theories. You debunk statements then or claims

Claims or either untrue
True
Or can't be proven.

And you can't tell me in a website solely devoted to bunk that most of the bunk is stumbled upon lmfao. That's like cnn saying they get their stories on accident

You have to understand the history of Metabunk. It grew out of Mick's other site Contrailscience.org. There were many counter arguments made by chemtrail believers and the site platform was not the most conducive for this interchange so Metabunk was born. You seem to want to argue for arguments sake. This is not our mission.

 

[tinkertailor]

And you can't tell me in a website solely devoted to bunk that most of the bunk is stumbled upon lmfao. That's like cnn saying they get their stories on accident

CNN is a news reporting entity, the journalists that work for it are being paid to find stories.
MB is a community of scientifically-minded people who want to stop the spread of bunk.
We are not paid for being here, there are no ads, no membership fees, we are hobbyists.
There is a difference.

Again I ask: why are you here?

 

[NoParty]

Here you have a consortium of people devoted to scouring the Internet for every ridiculous claim

...demonize it...

Brandon, who is your "consortium" with this kind of unlimited time?
(your 36 posts--so far--today suggest you may have more free time than most of us...)
I've been on the site about 2 and a half years & I sincerely don't know to whom you mean to refer

...and I'm not sure about "demonizing." That's a rather strong word.
Could you please provide examples of what you mean? Thanks!

Ok so if you debunk specific statements. 3 types of statements

1. True statement
2. False statement
3. Unprovable to be true or false

No, Metabunk probably couldn't debunk "True" statements even if we wanted to. And why would we want to?
Debunking false statements? Sounds useful!
"Unprovable to be true or false." Huh? I don't know what that means. Lots of things pass for "True"
on YouTube, though they're widely known to be false. Often people on this site take up the mantle
when someone says, essentially: "I heard x was true, but it sounds questionable to me..."
And that investigation can be very fruitful.
Surely you don't think all statements fit nicely into this weird trifurcation you're offering... (?)
Often the best statement is something like:
"Given what we now know, that looks to be true...but incoming evidence could certainly show it to be false..."

 

[Hama Neggs]

The purpose of the site is to debunk "theories"

Wrong. This site debunks false claims, not theories.

if something is a theory it has little to no factual basis.

In the case of "conspiracy theories", that is usually true, but in the world of science, a "theory" HAS to have supporting evidence, by definition.

Therefore a theory is already debunked as there are no facts to support the claim

There are CLAIMS made in support of a "theory". Whether those claims are factual is another matter, and THAT is what is addressed on this site.

if there are facts to support the claim

THAT is what we attempt to determine here. It's not a GIVEN.

And doesn't need to be debunked as you cannot debunk a fact thus the entire website is a logical fallacy

See above. Whether something is factual or not is not a GIVEN. It is a CLAIM being made which we explore.

 

[Hama Neggs]

My question is if there are only

The true
The untrue
And the unconfirmed

You left out the most important category: That which is untrue, but is being claimed as being true.

 

[Whitebeard]

Ok so if you debunk specific statements. 3 types of statements

1. True statement
2. False statement
3. Unprovable to be true or false

If the statement is true then it need not be on the site as its already a fact. Nobody is on here disputing if Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492

If the statement is false it need not be on the site because millions of false statements are made every day. Surely your not just finding every little thing someone says online that is not true? (You'd have your work cut out for you)

If the statement is unprovable with no factual basis then there is no point in posting it here because it can neither be debunked or proven correct. It can only be speculated upon which is not what this site is and is arguable the opposite of debunking

A nice bit of logical over simplification there...

How it really works

1 - If a statement is true it shows up here, people will say yup its true, and move on. Thus providing confirmation that said statement is indeed true. (By the way, ever seen the North Atlantic? It's more greenish grey than blue)

2 - A 'false' statement will only really register here if it is False, but others are claiming it to be true. Even then it depends on the impact of the lie. Eg... 'Watford FC are the best team in the premier league.' Obvious lie, but one of no real consequence, and is not metabunk worthy, best leave that to forums like 442. 'The MMR vaccine is highly dangerous.' Another falsehood, but one that could have serious consequences in the spreading of dangerous and potentially life threatening, but entirely preventable illnesses, when panicking parents start to believe it. Therefore the falsehood should be challenged and corrected.

3 - You can only determine if something is un-provable by looking at the evidence provided and concluding there is not enough hard evidence to decide the matter either way. But to reach that conclusion evidence still has to be evaluated.

 

[Mick West]

This site debunks false claims, not theories.

And more specifically false claims of evidence. If theory A is being claimed as being backed by evidence B, then what we'd investigate is evidence B. Because generally theory A is a lot more complicated, also being backed by evidence C, D, E, F, etc., which should be dealt with individually.

For example, chemtrails is "theory A". "Evidence B" is "contrails can't persist", evidence C is (say) "modern jet engines can't make contrails".

So we debunk B, C, D, E, etc. "Theory A" remains (because you can't prove an absence), but after enough debunking it is generally clear to most people that "theory A" is not backed by evidence, and the previous claims of evidence were all wrong.

 

[vooke]

Conspiracy theories are based on several specific claims of evidence whose veracity can be independently ascertained. MB's niche is rationally and objectively challenging such claims. But not all claims of evidence lead to conspiracy theories, so MB is not necessarily engaged in exposing conspiracy theories.

 

[Akantor]

this place is like troll central for people who have too much time on their hands and think they know better, think that their 'source' is more accurate. how can you have any argument when the words you use to debunk something are not those of your own but from a complete stranger who you have no relationship with? how arrogant must one be to assume that every copied article they steal from is the winning article of all disputes!

people who spend their time trying to crush the beliefs of others have an agenda. ..or else why do they do it? i would say they the psychology of the debunker is more likely mental damaged than that of their nemesis the conspiracy theorist. now post me an article from a the Tee Vee doctor telling me that i am wrong and you of course, as forever always, are right.

funny how this site even has the debunkers registered in other I.Ds pretending to be those crazy theorists.

care to argue that youre right and that im even more right than you?

I honestly don't know if you are joking or not but this site is NOT a "troll central" hence the politeness policy. The purpose of this website is to debunk specific claims. Not to "troll" others.

 

[Raccoon]

I smell a ban here very soon for mister IKnowWhoYouAre... Very very soon...

 

[Svartbjørn]

what would you do without people like me?

A lot, actually. People who enjoy science, like to get together and talk ABOUT science. Discuss where things scientific are going, discuss the possibility of life on other planets.. discuss the latest and greatest massive telescope that NASA and a few other scientific bodies are putting together that uses Phase Induced amplitude apodization to try to find another earthlike body in the Local Group.

Im sure the pilots that are here would love to sit n gossip about the coolest new people carrier thats being built, or the capabilities of a newer or updated Rolls-Royce engine. The hobby pilots would most likely enjoy talking about their newest aquisition or maybe moving from Fixed Wing to Rotary Wing aircraft after accumulating enough hours.

Personally, Id probably be discussing the abilities of the PIAA Telescope I mentioned earlier, or getting into an all out nerd fest over DragonCon, or ComiCon, or maybe get into a discussion about Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders Series.

The point is, all of the stuff I mentioned ALSO has bunk in it.. people will make claims about things that they misread, or misunderstood and someone will question it. This site, whether you like it or not, or whether you want ot admit it or not.. is about dialogue. Its not about tearing people down. The biggest indicator as to what's really bothering you is in your very first sentence of the second paragraph of your first post:

people who spend their time trying to crush the beliefs of others have an agenda.

Science isnt about belief... its about what can be proven by evidence or not. The other major difference between science and belief is that science actually enjoys being wrong.. the very point of science is to BE wrong, thats what experimentation and the Scientific Method are all about:

1) Identify the Problem
2) Collect Information
3) Form a Hypothesis
4) Design and Carry Out an Experiment
5) Analyze your Data
6) What are your conclusions?

The biggest issue most people face is that they form a conclusion about a problem, collect information force it to prove their conclusion (also called cherry picking), then either DONT experiment or conduct poor experiments, then try to force their information to fit their hypothesis... they get it all wrong. The evidence tells you what your hypothesis should be, you dont try to find evidence to support your hypothesis... doing so defeats the whole purpose.

To your original point though.. this website exists as a way to discuss things civilly and get people to think for themselves rather than relying on social media or whatever, to form their opinions for them. Some things, as you may have noticed, are hard facts and have been proven time and time and time again.. like gravity. Other things that are not as tangible, are backed by scientific evidence but no one is ever forced to take anyone's word for it.. thats why we provide links to where we found OUR research.. not as a way to say "haha you're wrong" but to show "hey guess what, there are more resources out there than you think.. here's where I found MY information, go see what YOU can find and lets talk about it."

Spoiler

 

[deirdre]

I smell a ban here very soon for mister IKnowWhoYouAre... Very very soon...

He posted that over 3 years ago. How soon is "very soon" ?

 

[Svartbjørn]

He posted that over 3 years ago. How soon is "very soon" ?

Holy crap... Whos the necromancer that rezzed the thread lol.. I didn't even realize that