I think you are completely missing my point (but maybe I am completely missing your point). Let me try again... I am not focusing on physics (or climatology or chemistry or physiology or "the hockey stick graph") per se. I am simply commenting on human nature.
*I* think that scientists (not just medical researchers, but also physicists) are susceptible to groupthink.
*I* think that more than a few "incorrect facts" that have been published in textbooks and journals (physics journals, not just medical journals).
Do you disagree with these two "facts"? Do you think these are simply "fantasies"?
Given these two assumptions (and my own personal experiences with human nature), I can only conclude that the researcher who published (either inadvertently or intentionally) one of those "incorrect fact" might well have at least a subconscious bias toward other research that confirms those same "incorrect facts", thereby reinforcing a fallacy. I do not think that "deciding how to deal with facts" is always as simple or obvious or free from bias as we would like to think.
That is really all I was saying.
Tim Folkerts
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Jack Uretsky
Sent: Sat 1/1/2011 11:17 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] [BULK] Re: "The Truth Wears Off" by Jonah Lehrer in The New Yorker Dec 13, 2010.
I see nothe in your postings that are supported by facts. It is easy to
speculate that the world might be different than it is, espectially when
the alternate world might be less threatening. It is known that the
omotoa; response to bad news is disbelief, an example is the refusal of
the belgian populace to support the building of bomb shelters prior to
WWII. Your fantasies are uhelpful to the process of ceciding how to deal
with facts.
Regards,
Jack
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley