Sean at Cosmic Variance, in the context of discussing a "debate" between young-earth creationist and scientists, introduced what he calls "The Grid of Disputation."
This thought has led me to introduce what I hope is a helpful graphical device, which I call the Grid of Disputation. It’s just a reminder that, when it comes to other people’s views on controversial issues, they should be classified within a two-dimensional parameter space, not just on a single line of “agree/disagree.” The other dimension is the all-important “sensible/crazy” axis.
I felt the the "crackpots" field needed to be renamed.
That graph works.
ReplyDeleteIsn't part of problem when it comes to "controversial" issues and science that the non-scientific/ crackpot community isn't really trying to engage the scientific community. If they did they would submit for publication like real scientists do when they want to present a theory.