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Comment by cycomanic | Hacker News Reader

Your post does not really say anything, so it is somewhat difficult to know what exactly you're talking about. However the way this is written is very similar to the usual globalwarming sceptics, skin color intelligence crowd etc.. The general argument is always "we are just questioning the status quo, just want to look at all angles..." the reason why these positions are being called anti-scientific is because they are always politically motivated and try to prove this political ideology, while at the same time ignoring any counterevidence.

Similar to the documentary of those flat earth guys that try to disprove the earth is round, but all results show that it in fact is, so they dismiss their own evidence. That is what is unscientific.

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Name a single group of skeptical dissenters who you think are right. You can’t. But science is always proving itself wrong and just as it has always been, groups of dissenters will overtake the people who preside over convention, scientifically. So which one is it? Is science “finished?” Has everything been figured out or are you just not able to differentiate between dumb people and legitimate dissenters, as I pointed out above?

I'm not sure I understand why you think I can't name a group of critical dissenters that I think are right. For example I do believe that the "dissenters" who criticise string theory (google "not even wrong string theory" ) are at least correct in their "political" arguments that the focus on string theory funding might has painted us into a corner and held back scientific progress. Note I am not a particle physicist so don't know enough to judge any "unifying theory" as correct or incorrect. Similarly the people looking for a theory underneath quantum theory might be correct (I'm more sceptical about this, but again not enough of an expert to judge), and the Copenhagen interpretation is not everything.

So no science is not finished and yes our understanding of science still progresses. However, two things first it does not need "sceptical dissenters" to progress science. There are many areas in science where there are many "known unknowns" and where there isn't an established theory.

Moreover, even acknowledging that there are areas where "sceptical dissenters" might be right and change the established understanding, those will not come from a direction of questioning and ignoring the scientific method.

In other words someone ignores the scientific method he/she is not a legitimate dissenter.

But you need to be more specific ("butter bei die Fische" is the German expression), what are legitimate dissenters and how do you judge them as legitimate?

I dont even know which dissenters are supposed to be wrong or right. Are you talking about climate change or vaccines or racism as something that has role in shaping society? Or something entirely different?

Are you talking about dissenters that argue by politics and own wishes? Or dissenters who have alternative explanation of history? I dont know.

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