I declare a threadjack! :) Continued from the haltonarp.com thread...

Ari said:

Our comments are in strange order in this thread now. :)

*laugh* My fault; I mean it to be just a chain on the end :)

DGR said:

Well, here is a perfect example - Nereid's comment - a classic pseudoskeptic response

That was a bizarre sort of pot-shot. An exasperated and somewhat nasty snip at those who dare look for weakness.

(Zahn, despite a nasty tone, at least pointed to something that could be validated or invalidated)

Sciences are supposed to have someone on the lookout for 'weaknesses'. Biology certainly seems to manage that sort of regulation. Without it, we would not have known about the likes mass extinctions, neutral drift, punctuated equilibria, the Burgess Shale disproof of "inevitable steady progress" or the ability to control lifespan of creatures' descendents over time by controlling the age at which they reproduce (the "Methusela" flies and mice).

Cosmology has boxed itself into a weird corner. The outlook of the early 20th century combined with the technology of today would have been a great, lively match, and I daresay we would have made more progress in understanding the universe. Mission Accomplished has been declared too early; "all we need" are more troops working on the same plan?

So you poke at the edges. Why would you not do so? At the very least, inconsistencies would either help point the way to better explanations, or lead to more contorted explanations that belie the weakness of the paradigm. Anything else that comes along will need to be able to answer those fundamental inconsistencies.

Ari said:

I have sometimes wondered why people call themselves sceptics when they reject everything that is non-mainstream and accept everything that is mainstream. Real sceptic doubts everything. I try to be a real sceptic.

It's a matter of what you apply it to and how far. There are skeptics who do not apply such skepticism to their friends, family, politics or religion - something is always sacrosanct (there's another word for you :) and in mainstream science, you do usually expect the work to be "done for you". You either have to "appeal to authority" at some point or you end up doing a lot of the thought and legwork yourself.

How would you even start getting skeptical about Big Bang theory or the like?

I was fortunate for, in my youth, devouring Omni magazine when it was still a science magazine (it eventually turned into a woo magazine, and then it mercifully died) and seeing the steady state/Big Bang wars. I was also a Big Bang believer at first. Unlike particle physics and biology, though, the directions and reasons for Big Bang changing made me raise my eyebrows a little. Having a skeptical eye and knowing that moving targets are a bad sign started me down the road to further investigation.

It takes quite a lot of investigation to get a good idea as to what is wrong.

Debunking woo is a dang good idea. Homeopathy, chi, power of remote prayer, or even political woo like abstinence education or the possibility that sensitive e-mails delete themselves. The same eye can be turned to science. Many disciplines come up smelling like roses (evolutionary theory, geochronology, quantum mechanics, quantum computing), others slightly less so (quantum theory, for example, though... understandably so)

Of course, we ought to go even further as well, and I try to. We may have a community of alternative cosmology folks, but working towards the same common goal does not get us a free pass, either. I will poke and prod if I sense something inconsistent, not fleshed out, or addressing a non-issue. I hope y'all don't mind that ;)

Ari said:

I think we would need a lot of it, haltonarp.com had lot more members than we do, and it was sometimes as quiet as this place. First thing would be to tease our quiet members to become active posters. ;)

Oh, we can tease, but quite frankly, becoming a member is just nice - on here, anyhow - for the ability to have it remember what you've read so far. I'm just happy to have visitors, though I think folks like John Kierein and Vincent Sauve should be on here, too ;)

Ritchie said:

...sacrosanct (there's another word for you :)...

Well, that wasn't difficult, I could even quess it's meaning from the context. :)

Ritchie said:

How would you even start getting skeptical about Big Bang theory or the like?

I wonder if skeptical is something that you just are, so you couldn't start getting skeptical about anything, you would always be skeptical about everything.

Ritchie said:

Debunking woo is a dang good idea. Homeopathy, chi, power of remote prayer, or even political woo like abstinence education or the possibility that sensitive e-mails delete themselves.

One thing that should be heavily debunked is religion. I mean that while there's nothing bad in having a religion as such, but it currently manifests itself in so many bad ways (effects on education and science, brainwashing small children, wars... how large proportion of wars in the world are due religious issues?) that I think something should be done about it.

Ritchie said:

The same eye can be turned to science. Many disciplines come up smelling like roses (evolutionary theory, geochronology, quantum mechanics, quantum computing), others slightly less so (quantum theory, for example, though... understandably so)

I think that simple sanity check for mathematics would be in order. I mean that even if a theory is otherwise very succesful, it should be doubted if it suggests that it's turtles all the way down. Big Bang theory has its share of turtles all the way down concepts (inflation, space expansion, dark energy, ...), and it becomes even worse when we note that quantum physics (*cough* Copenhagen interpretation *cough*) is also incorporated to BB theory. In my eyes there is something very wrong if people start calling space expansion an observation.

Ritchie said:

Of course, we ought to go even further as well, and I try to. We may have a community of alternative cosmology folks, but working towards the same common goal does not get us a free pass, either.

I wonder if alternative cosmology folks really have "common goal". To me it seems that part of the problem is that almost everyone has their own pet theory which goes against all the other theories. Well, I quess it's the same thing that mainstream is doing; placing all bets on one horse, and then keeping on betting that same horse no matter what. I liked the approach we had in the "Building a cosmology" thread, instead of the approach of making up a theory and then finding all the supporting evidence for it while ignoring all the contradicting evidence and then entering the "my theory is bigger than yours" contest with full attitude.

Ritchie said:

I will poke and prod if I sense something inconsistent, not fleshed out, or addressing a non-issue. I hope y'all don't mind that ;)

I don't mind. I will do that myself. ;)

Ritchie said:

Oh, we can tease, but quite frankly, becoming a member is just nice - on here, anyhow - for the ability to have it remember what you've read so far. I'm just happy to have visitors, though I think folks like John Kierein and Vincent Sauve should be on here, too ;)

Well, I quess we just have to have so interesting discussions that people can't resist to join, where do we start?

Ari said:

I wonder if skeptical is something that you just are, so you couldn't start getting skeptical about anything, you would always be skeptical about everything.

I don't think that's true. There's a minimum knowledge limit on skepticism, otherwise one is simply being contrary. We only have a limited time on this planet, so what can you be educated about enough to be skeptical? Maybe there's something to be skeptical about in sports - I have no idea.

Religion's a pretty interesting one, for example. If you go with the nice excerpts and everyone around you believes it's true, you might have very little compunction to be skeptical of it. Most of the ex-religion stories I know are from encounters of another kind. On the Christian side of things, it could be encountering Baptist thought (which I daresay is more "extreme") when you're a Methodist, or encountering glossalia (speaking in tongues), or getting verbally abused for claiming that the bread and wine is not literally the body and blood of Christ. Combine that with unsatisfactory answers to the big questions ("is everyone else really going to hell?"), encounters with other religions, and maybe even writings of old philosophers like Epicurus (no, that is not going to be at the top of very many reading lists, no matter how cool he was).

Some people go partway down the path to being skeptical, but get attracted to a set of people or writings that provide answers that they either like, or feel obligated to support. Listening to a rant on natural remedies from a 'believer' is truly a painful experience.

In order to be a good skeptic, once you have enough to realize that something's going on that's not quite right, you can't necessarily figuratively stop at the first cafe on the side of the road and then reside there. The new thing you found to hang onto is not necessarily the right answer, and it's your duty to determine its status. It is not right just because it's not the mainstream.

The problem there, and I think this is how many end up sucked into woo, is that bias is easy to come by and hard to sort out. Whose writings on natural medicine would you trust? You may even know the natural medicine practitioners are biased, but there is always going to be a suspicion of agenda of any mainstream criticism.

Thorough skepticism is not the most "comfortable" place to be. You can't hide behind all the other troops - you have to sit out in the war zone, whether shooting or just hunkered down, and you have to second-guess the sergeants on your own "side". (It's an inappropriately violent metaphor, of course :)

Ari said:

One thing that should be heavily debunked is religion. I mean that while there's nothing bad in having a religion as such, but it currently manifests itself in so many bad ways (effects on education and science, brainwashing small children, wars... how large proportion of wars in the world are due religious issues?) that I think something should be done about it.

In North America and the Middle East in particular, that definitely seems to be the case. The big problem isn't religion itself, but abuse of power, prescribing solutions that deny the human condition, fearmongering, lying as a means to an end, fostering credulity, second-classing people (be it women, gays or foreigners) and falsely labeling sources of evil. That's not going to be what friendly Pastor Dan down the street is all about, but the likes of Phelps and Dobson certainly are, and moderate criticism of less-moderate is rare (and liable to get you in trouble if the Episcopalians are really being targeted by puritans as it seems).

Ari said:

I think that simple sanity check for mathematics would be in order. I mean that even if a theory is otherwise very succesful, it should be doubted if it suggests that it's turtles all the way down. Big Bang theory has its share of turtles all the way down concepts (inflation, space expansion, dark energy, ...), and it becomes even worse when we note that quantum physics (*cough* Copenhagen interpretation *cough*) is also incorporated to BB theory. In my eyes there is something very wrong if people start calling space expansion an observation.

Mathematics takes on its own air of truth, but it, like logic, means nothing if founded on bad axioms or premises. I don't think it's necessarily "turtles all the way down" that is the problem. Big Bang and String 'Theory' both started out with relatively elegant premises. You expect some modification over time, since the initial formulation is very likely too simplistic. There's no hard-and-fast formula that says "if they tweak this many knobs or add this many exceptions or come up with this many of this kind of odd unseen phenomena", then we start casting more doubt.

(Heck, I didn't even know there had been other options beside steady state and big bang until I was much, much older)

I find the quantum physics/cosmology tie-in to be really odd. I had no idea, until I read of the goings-on in String Theory and then further readings, how tied together they have been, and that String Theory is in some ways in trouble (which is "good"), but for the wrong reasons (it never anticipated an open/expanding universe, which of course we don't see as being the case regardless).

The Copenhagen interpretation is pragmatic but stupid, especially where it has been appropriated and devolved into the "observation creates reality". More to the point, it was a stupid place to stop - saying "yes, these are separate; shut up and calculate" is bad for progress. I think there is likely to be an underlying "reality" to quantum physics, though I know there are limitations on it (e.g. whatever that reality is, it has to be non-local or faster-than-light, since the simple "hidden variables" formulation does not work)

Ari said:

I wonder if alternative cosmology folks really have "common goal".

We have the goal of 'tearing down Big Bang Theory'. Many of us have the simpler subgoal of tearing down redshift = velocity as an axiom. When it comes to the commonality of what we propose as a substitute, then yes, it is a many-fractured thing :)

Ari said:

Well, I quess we just have to have so interesting discussions that people can't resist to join, where do we start?

Well, maybe it's time to say something offensive somehow! ;)

...or maybe with much shorter postings than I like to make? :)

Cheers!

Ritchie said:

I don't think that's true. There's a minimum knowledge limit on skepticism, otherwise one is simply being contrary. We only have a limited time on this planet, so what can you be educated about enough to be skeptical? Maybe there's something to be skeptical about in sports - I have no idea.

We really should define the word "skepticism" before we start arguing about it, but I disagree with you here. I don't think skepticism has anything to do with level of knowledge or amount of education. I think it's a state of mind, but I'm not quite sure if it's something that grows on you (learned from environment for example), or something that you have had since birth.

But maybe I'm just talking about doubting. What I'm talking about here is that when someone says you something (or you read something, or...), you doubt it until you have found out the truth. Important distinction to "being contrary" is that here you aren't contrary, you acknowledge that the thing you heard might be true but you aren't sure, so you doubt it. If I behave that way, am I a natural skeptic or just someone who always doubts.

An example for low knowledge level scepticism: A two year old boy has only seen one black cat. His father tells him that there are also white cats. Boy doubts that. Naive skepticism or simple doubting? I use word skeptical for situations like these.

Well, I peeked at Wikipedia's article on skepticism, and it seems to define skepticism similarily as I think of it. There's word "intellectual" mentioned in philosophical definition, but otherwise it seems to be about doubting. Of course we must remember to be skeptical about Internet documents, especially Wikipedia ones. ;)

However, I do think that even if one is not naturally skeptic, one can take a skeptical approach to some specific subject. Perhaps everyone has some amount skepton in their body, and for some it effects their thinking always making them constantly skeptical, and for some the effect of the skepton is triggered by some emotional event, for example someone might say something that goes against one's religion, and that immediately causes surge of skepton to one's brain causing an acute state of skepticism. Well, that's just a hypothesis at this point. :D

Ritchie said:

In order to be a good skeptic, once you have enough to realize that something's going on that's not quite right, you can't necessarily figuratively stop at the first cafe on the side of the road and then reside there. The new thing you found to hang onto is not necessarily the right answer, and it's your duty to determine its status. It is not right just because it's not the mainstream.

In my book, a good skeptic considers every subject very objectively trying to take it away from any secondary context (if it's mainstream or not for example). It is only right if facts say it's right. (Or the ultra-skeptic version that I prefer: It might be right if facts say it's right.)

Ritchie said:

The problem there, and I think this is how many end up sucked into woo, is that bias is easy to come by and hard to sort out.

I agree. Good skeptic recognizes this, and especially recognizes that he could be biased himself. If you don't recognize that, then... well, you are a pseudoskeptic, aren't you?

In that sense there really is not much difference whether you are suggesting that dwarf giant angels are pushing Earth around the sun, or that dwarf giant angels are not pushing Earth around the sun because it's not part of mainstream science. Both are equally woo-woo.

Ritchie said:

Whose writings on natural medicine would you trust?

I wouldn't trust anyone's writings on any subject (including myself). It's part of my skeptical philosophy, don't trust anything. That derives from the simple fact (although facts really don't exist :) ) that there's no real true or false, there's just different levels of might be's and might not be's.

Ritchie said:

Thorough skepticism is not the most "comfortable" place to be. You can't hide behind all the other troops - you have to sit out in the war zone, whether shooting or just hunkered down, and you have to second-guess the sergeants on your own "side". (It's an inappropriately violent metaphor, of course :)

That's true. There's not much point building a cosmology if one doubts everything, you have to make assumptions (at this point).

Ritchie said:

Mathematics takes on its own air of truth, but it, like logic, means nothing if founded on bad axioms or premises. I don't think it's necessarily "turtles all the way down" that is the problem. Big Bang and String 'Theory' both started out with relatively elegant premises. You expect some modification over time, since the initial formulation is very likely too simplistic. There's no hard-and-fast formula that says "if they tweak this many knobs or add this many exceptions or come up with this many of this kind of odd unseen phenomena", then we start casting more doubt.

Yes, I agree, but you also shouldn't start taking these ridiculous things as true. If only thing that saves your theory is introduction of dark energy, at that point you should start doubting the theory, not suggesting that dark energy is a real thing (but I'm not suggesting that you have to reject the dark energy concept either).

Ritchie said:

I find the quantum physics/cosmology tie-in to be really odd. I had no idea, until I read of the goings-on in String Theory and then further readings, how tied together they have been, and that String Theory is in some ways in trouble (which is "good"), but for the wrong reasons (it never anticipated an open/expanding universe, which of course we don't see as being the case regardless).

He-he. I haven't followed String theory stuff for a while. Is that really what's going on? Well, that's not actually funny. You take a huge pile of assumptions to determine that universe has open geometry, then you start rejecting things that don't fit to that assumption based on huge pile of assumptions. That's just wrong.

Ritchie said:

I think there is likely to be an underlying "reality" to quantum physics, though I know there are limitations on it (e.g. whatever that reality is, it has to be non-local or faster-than-light, since the simple "hidden variables" formulation does not work)

Well, my bone of scepticism always twists a little bit when I hear words "reality" and "quantum physics" in same sentence, but I don't know enough about it to say much else.

Ritchie said:

We have the goal of 'tearing down Big Bang Theory'. Many of us have the simpler subgoal of tearing down redshift = velocity as an axiom.

Well, partly agreed. I don't have a goal of 'tearing down Big Bang Theory' even if I don't think it's true. That's a skeptic in me once again; I think that Big bang theory is not true, but I'm skeptical of my thinking, so I have to acknowledge the possibility that BB theory is true.

Ritchie said:

Well, maybe it's time to say something offensive somehow! ;)

  ...or maybe with much shorter postings than I like to make? :)

I was thinking more along the lines of subjects we talk about. But I don't know what they should be. Safe bet would be to start talking about sex, drugs, and rock & roll. ;)

We really should define the word "skepticism" before we start arguing about it, but I disagree with you here. I don't think skepticism has anything to do with level of knowledge or amount of education. I think it's a state of mind, but I'm not quite sure if it's something that grows on you (learned from environment for example), or something that you have had since birth.

We should define "skepticism" as it is for the scientist.   I would say a scientist is being skeptical when he/she evaluates whether or not an idea has sufficient supporting evidence before accepting it into his/her catalog of facts or accepted (working) postulates or rejecting it as a scientifically viable alternative.  

But keep in mind a scientist cannot be skeptical about everything - because we would then have to know about everything.  Some accepted facts/postulates must be accepted based upon trust of other researchers. For example, when researchers calculate redshift distances, most of them now are using H0=70.   When they do so it is because they are trusting that the HKP got it right.   So as a matter of practice they do not approach H0=70 with skepticism.   It is accepted as usable fact.  

For those of us that are evaluating the reliability of the Hubble relation, a value of H0 is not accepted as fact until we have investigated it ourselves.

BTW, the use of the word fact here is in the same scientific sense as used when evolution is accepted as "fact"  - not to mean that the a concept is beyond falsfication, but rather that there is an absence of evidence to give reason to doubt its value as a truth or useful postulate.

This is one of the issues we face when trying to have a discussion about non-cosmological redshifts.   Our debate opponents take the view of a pseudoskeptic and dismiss the evidence for fallacious reasons - simply because they've accepted expansion and a tight hubble relation as a fact.  

That is the fine line between the skeptic and the person that takes mainstream views as doctrine.   If one refuses to look at scientific evidence that may contradict an accepted fact, one is not being skeptical of the new idea, but dismissing out of faith in the older idea. 

Dave said:

We should define "skepticism" as it is for the scientist.   I would say a scientist is being skeptical when he/she evaluates whether or not an idea has sufficient supporting evidence before accepting it into his/her catalog of facts or accepted (working) postulates or rejecting it as a scientifically viable alternative.

There's one bad thing in that definition; the "being skeptical" is subjective there. However, right now I'm not sure if "skepticism" can even be defined without subjectivity.

Dave said:

Some accepted facts/postulates must be accepted based upon trust of other researchers.

I agree with that, but...

Dave said:

For example, when researchers calculate redshift distances, most of them now are using H0=70.   When they do so it is because they are trusting that the HKP got it right.   So as a matter of practice they do not approach H0=70 with skepticism.   It is accepted as usable fact.

...I don't agree with your example. Value of Hubble constant is currently so uncertain, at least in my opinion, that it is wrong to use it as accepted fact (like you suggested next). Don't get me wrong, it's ok to use some value for Hubble constant as long as you include a discussion about uncertainties relating to that. So I quess what I'm saying is that while you have to "trust" the work of the others, you at the same time should be skeptical about it. You can be skeptical and still continue working.

Dave said:

This is one of the issues we face when trying to have a discussion about non-cosmological redshifts.   Our debate opponents take the view of a pseudoskeptic and dismiss the evidence for fallacious reasons - simply because they've accepted expansion and a tight hubble relation as a fact.

Or accepted anything that mainstream scientists say.

Dave said:

That is the fine line between the skeptic and the person that takes mainstream views as doctrine.   If one refuses to look at scientific evidence that may contradict an accepted fact, one is not being skeptical of the new idea, but dismissing out of faith in the older idea.

Agreed otherwise, but I don't think the line is so fine. I think the distinction between the two is quite clear, although it's rather difficult to define it in a general level.

...I don't agree with your example. Value of Hubble constant is currently so uncertain, at least in my opinion, that it is wrong to use it as accepted fact (like you suggested next).

I agree with this.   But the researchers we're attempting to communicate with have accepted H0=70 as fact.   I believe they would change their mind, but somebody has to give them a reason they'll accept.   The highly specialized nature of research contributes to this as well.   A researcher that is using H0=70 may know very little about the potential pitfalls in the process that led to H0=70.   It is impossible for any researcher to have expertise in all fields of astronomical research. 

Don't get me wrong, it's ok to use some value for Hubble constant as long as you include a discussion about uncertainties relating to that. So I quess what I'm saying is that while you have to "trust" the work of the others, you at the same time should be skeptical about it. You can be skeptical and still continue working.

The way I defined scientific skepticism, the scientist evaluates whether or not a particular fact has sufficient supporting evidence to accept as fact.   Once you accept something as fact, you do not re-open that unless something gives you a reason to re-open it.     If the researcher accepts the evidence for H0=70, then there is no reason to exhibit skepticism every time he uses H0=70.   But a skeptical scientist must always be ready to go back and re-evaluate the truth of an accepted "fact" in light of new results. 

The pseudoskeptic is one that refuses to consider new results or interpretations because those results would force the pseudoskeptic to abandon certain portions of his/her catalog of accepted scientific facts.

Taking a look at what Wikipedia has for definitions of skepticism, it's a little weaker and more general than the way I have been generally using it, so that probably caused a lot of the cross-confusion of what I was saying with what Ari was saying.

Ari said:

Or accepted anything that mainstream scientists say.

Now that is a little extreme! :)

There is an additional consideration... apart from being skeptical of current theory and work, which is good, although day-to-day work demands that you use H_o=70. Not falling prey to some myths of incorrectness (or correctness) is also very important. "I thought they disproved that once and for all" is a common-enough thought, though further observations may actually invalidate some of the rejections over time. Such folklore is powerful, and the impetus to put in the copious amount of work to prove 'whether it is still true' is hard to come by.

DGR said:

The pseudoskeptic is one that refuses to consider new results or interpretations because those results would force the pseudoskeptic to abandon certain portions of his/her catalog of accepted scientific facts.

I'm not sure that's the real reason. I think that pseudoskeptics have a different dynamic going on, and it's not necessarily related to fear of losing cherished concepts. It may stem from anger or arrogance or "scientific patriotism" or argument from authority, but I would surmise that for most of them, the possibility of their being wrong is very low.  I'm sure there are people with such cognitive dissonance, but I think you would find that more amongst researchers having an internal belief crisis but still having to play the game.

(P.S. I have to inject a silly quote -or a paraphrase if my memory of it is not so good - from Stephen Baxter's Moonseed: "I don't believe in astrology, but I'm a Scorpio, and Scorpios are naturally skeptical". I don't believe in astrology, but it's a fun quote for a double-take :)

Agreed otherwise, Dave, but a minor nitpick:

Dave said:

If the researcher accepts the evidence for H0=70, then there is no reason to exhibit skepticism every time he uses H0=70.

I don't think it's only about researcher accepting it, I think it has to be something that is generally accepted in the field before you can use it as a "fact". Value of H0 is that kind of thing, but galaxies ejecting quasars for example is not, so that can't be used as a "fact" even if a researcher would accept that as a "fact". I'm sure you agree with this, so I'm just nitpicking here, like I said.

Ritchie said:

Now that is a little extreme! :)

Yes, a little. But I do think that in some cases it is roughly the correct characterization.

Ritchie said:

Not falling prey to some myths of incorrectness (or correctness) is also very important. "I thought they disproved that once and for all" is a common-enough thought, though further observations may actually invalidate some of the rejections over time. Such folklore is powerful, and the impetus to put in the copious amount of work to prove 'whether it is still true' is hard to come by.

This is a good point. I've seen even professionals of cosmology falling to this trap. Then there's other, quite similar to that one (or perhaps a variation of the same thing) is to think that one problem disproves whole theory, or even groups of alternative theories. We have all heard them; "CMBR disproves steady state theory", "you can't have infinitely old universe because of entropy". Characteristic to that kind of thinking is that the problem is not always even a problem at all. That then is just a case of pseudosceptic using pseudoevidence, and many times with pseudoargumentation.

Ritchie said:

(P.S. I have to inject a silly quote -or a paraphrase if my memory of it is not so good - from Stephen Baxter's Moonseed: "I don't believe in astrology, but I'm a Scorpio, and Scorpios are naturally skeptical". I don't believe in astrology, but it's a fun quote for a double-take :)

Another quote, with similar spirit, from Bob Angstrom (in this BAUT forum post):

Bob Angstrom said:

There are three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can't.

I was floored when I saw this. I wonder if this is Bob's original, or if this is some kind of classic quote. See also the thing about the drunk right above this one. :D

Edited: I did some minor styling corrections.

Here's a fun example of a pseudoskeptic of sorts (or perhaps it is a slightly different affliction) in a totally different realm: databases.

IncisiveOne here starts off with a provocative statement in their second posting:

IncisiveOne said:

Outer joins are useful when the data "base" isn't, when it is a data heap (where you need to join to a non-existent row, the antithesis of a normalised database; where the modeler didn't know what the little circles on the crows feet meant), quite useless otherwise. For the sane, an outer join is a projection, not a fact. Sure, there are many data heaps out there.

TG responds:

TG said:

I am surprised to hear the opinion that outer joins are useless in a properly modeled database.

IncisiveOne responds:

IncisiveOne said:

Post an example (of a valid outer join in a properly modeled database), and I will respond.

Others chime in:

TG: Ok, I'll bite because I'm curious to hear your response. I can't vouch that this satisfies your conditions but...Here is an example from Books Online - Using Outer Joins
Vinnie881: I'm sorry, but someone needs to say it... The statement made that outer joins are useless in a properly modeled database is simply absurd.
WebFred: I agree with that!
blindman: "Sophomoric" is more accurate than "absurd".

IncisiveOne responds with the first volley in what people may recognize as fairly typical of the pseudoskeptic... or at least someone who merely never wants to be proven wrong:

IncisiveOne said:

Hah !

I can see that you people have the tar and feathers ready, you're spoiling for a fight; you've already placed me in the same basket case as the famous (or infamous) Pascal, whether that is accurate or not. No one is going to learn anything with that sort of attitude and name-calling on board. I am here to answer the seekers, not to fight with the responders; the seeker has been answered, so I will decline the invitation to being raped and pillaged. I thought there might be some open debate, but that requires open minds. Clearly in this forum, people hang onto their fixed opinions, their closed minds, and attack anyone who doesn't agree. Thank God, in my universe, the principles (not principals) are not quite that fragile; in fact the testing and modulating makes them stronger. But hey, to each his own. Forgive me if I stay away from your fires.

TG. Well, a textbook example demonstrating an outer join is exactly the opposite of what is required, because its explicit purpose is to demonstrate an outer join, and by definition is not either (a) reasonable example for demonstrating the opposite [that the outer join is not required] or (b) anywhere near a real world example.

Some people call him out for that. TG responds, though, in a decently calm manner:

TG said:

IncisiveOne,
Don't let the "name-callers, rapists and pillagers" scare you off.  I still want to hear your response to Michael's (real world) example. I'm wondering if you have one. Or perhaps you don't if your frame of reference has only been centered around basic transaction processing. Perhaps your "real world" doesn't have scenarios where you want to ask for, not the data facts present, but the absence of those facts. Is it that you have not needed to find products that aren't selling, invoices that aren't being paid, or rows missing from denormalized reporting tables, etc... I doubt you'll convince me that outer joins are useless but I'm open to hear more.

IncisiveOne said:

Ah, yes, you attackers are of the Gatesian education model; you wear your badge of vociferous ignorance quite proudly. Oh, and the attacks are all my fault, just as to the typical rapist, the rape is all the victim's fault. I should be thrilled.

There is no space for learning here. You've shut it out and bolted the door. Not suggesting everyone on this site is, but certainly the attackers are, not "just a bunch of dummies", but evidently confirmed and committed to whatever state you're in; scared of any truth that threatens their fragile state. And there is a lot out there that will, so you will need the social structure (herd mentality) of attacking any truth. The antithesis to learning of any kind. Buy hey, it's show business. Sorry for intruding on your contrived and controlled virtual reality, I thought it was a website regarding "SQL".

quote:
The Quote Of The Week would be more interesting if they actually said something about what they disagree with or why they think it is wrong.

It is a waste of time trying to explain anything intelligent to an idiot. It is an even bigger waste of time trying to idiocy to an idiot. Some of you may notice the order is relevant.

All the while not answering the question. More silliness at the site; it's quite amazing.

Definitely someone who should watch this video on open-mindedness, but who would very likely miss the point :)