What better way to kick off this little compendium of modern lunacies than with the modern resurgence of geocentrism, the belief that the entire universe revolves around the earth? Professional scientists have done a good job already addressing this odd-ball conspiracy theory on scientific grounds (here's a good place to start: Geocentrism: Galileo was wrong?) More interesting to me is how there is more than a coincidence of spelling between geocentrism and egocentrism. This is true philosophically (check out EgoCentrism and GeoCentrism; Human Significance and Existential Despair; Bible and Science; Fundamentalism and Skepticalism). And it's also true live and in person. Check out this encounter with one of the geocentric pubahs, Robert Sungenis:
In Which the Universe Revolves Around Robert Sungenis – Part 1
In Which The Universe Revolves Around Robert Sungenis – Part 2
This Sungenis character sports a phony baloney "PhD" from a diploma mill in the West Indies and subscribes to just about every conspiracy theory under the sun (pun intended). He also is pretty much convinced that, despite his significant lack of qualifications, he's in a good position to set everybody straight on all things cosmological. Some nice bits.....
" Later on in the lecture, he actually said verbatim that if you did not believe in a geocentric universe you were atheist."
"Though he was pointing out numerous ad hominem arguments against a sun-centred solar system, he did not stop to consider that perhaps, jackasses can have good ideas too. Whether there was grand conspiracy or not, whether some heliocentrist killed a geocentrist in a duel or not, whether Galileo had a fun time poking dying people with a pointy stick – it's all irrelevant to the quality of the theories which they supported. Although Dr. Sungenis never considers his critiques a fallacy, could we hardly expect more from someone who has clearly never learned how to critically dissect science."
"As Tim Minchin says in Storm, "Hm that’s a good point, let me think for a bit; Oh wait, my mistake, it’s absolute bullshit." Dr. Sungenis defeats his very own point by referring to F = ma, which means that acceleration = Force/mass. Therefore, acceleration will decrease proportionally with the mass of the object, and the sun, which is far more massive, will accelerate less than a much smaller Earth. This point was never questioned, but I am truly curious as to how Dr. Sungenis fails to comprehend this basic observation about reality."
"I’m not sure what he would rather have – since Dr. Sungenis repeatedly attacked science for being stuck in a paradigm, does he want change, or doesn’t he? "
"Finally, he came to his piece de resistance, luminiferious ether. Not only has this concept been thoroughly debunked, he didn’t bother to explain what ether was, or why it had any sort of relevance to his theory. Honestly, I just don’t get it."
"Ultimately, Dr. Sungenis’ arguments fell into one of many fallacies: ad hominem attacks, nirvana fallacy, negative proof fallacy, appeal to authority, cherry picking… it goes on and on. Dr. Sungenis' talk was heavy on just that – talk – but it came up several furlongs short of anything a rational mind could call evidence."
"The debate finished with perhaps the most entertaining part of the evening – the cross-examination. Adam really excelled in this area. He asked Dr. Sungenis to define standard error, since he refused to acknowledge the negative data of Michelson-Morley. Dr. Sungenis stumbled through. He also returned to the wobble question with this delightful (paraphrased) exchange:
Adam: Is the universe homogeneous?
Sungenis: No.
Adam: Then how is it balanced?
Sungenis: I don’t understand.
Adam: If the universe rotates around the earth as a focal point with very little wobble, it must be balanced. How is a non-homogenous universe balanced?
Sungenis: Matter is proportionally balanced.
Adam: Can you prove it?
Sungenis: No, but I don’t have to!
"There were quite a few interesting moments in the question period as well. An astrophysics postdoctoral student asked Dr. Sungenis to define the dipole, quadripole and octipole – something he couldn’t do. She also rightly pointed out that of course we are at the centre of the observable universe, by sheer definition, since we can see a specific radius around us. Dr. Sungenis countered, utterly failing to appreciate the irony of his statement, that of course she might think that, since she had been indoctrinated over the course of her PhD."
"Dr. Sungenis’ arrogance, snideness and verbosity has left a horrible taste my mouth that I have not been able to get rid of, even a month later. If it can be said that all heliocentrists are atheists, then certainly we can generalize that all geocentrists are dickwads."
Which only goes to prove the old axiom that I just made up, Scratch a geocentrist, find an egocentrist.
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