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Comment by mlyle | Hacker News Reader

I'd suggest being more humble.

- It's a debate, not a settled fact.

- When your opening salvo describes the other side as "stupid and ludicrous" you should not be surprised that some people respond with hostility in kind.

- Having studied something somewhat intensely for 20 weeks doesn't put your personal opinion on the subject on a higher standing than people who have studied this at a high academic level for a lifetime. You're free to make arguments, but not to proclaim absolute truths.

- For the particular article we're discussing: A galaxy that seems to have no rotational speed anomaly is a blow for both CDM & MOND theories, but it would seem to be a bigger blow for MOND (e.g. CDM anomaly could just be a weird distribution of dark matter).

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- I already agree it is a debate. It has been a debate for 40 years ever since Moti Milgrom first proposed modified gravity (MOND).

- I already was not surprised by the HackerNews crowd responding with hostility.

- I am pointing the HackerNews crowd to people who have studied this at a high level for a lifetime. Moti Milgrom. Stacy McGaugh. Pavel Kroupa.

- This article is actually a blow to bad journalism. This article is also an opportunity to call out that what "cold dark matter" is, is actually bad machine learning, where academics forcefit a new blob of invisible, noninteracting matter for every galaxy, which gives cold dark matter (CDM) no predictive power. Contrast with modified gravity (MOND), which models acceleration as sqrt(GM/R^2 * cH/(2pi)), which has predictive power.

> - I already was not surprised by the HackerNews crowd responding with hostility.

You -opened- with hostility.

> - I am pointing the HackerNews crowd to people who have studied this at a high level for a lifetime. Moti Milgrom. Stacy McGaugh. Pavel Kroupa.

And ignoring the other side, presenting it as settled.

Read your opening statement. It is not conducive to discourse. It just flames CDM without advancing any argument of its own.

Because you care about tone, which is a good thing, please read about how Milgrom, McGaugh, and Kroupa have been treated by cold dark matter (CDM) establishment.

Why does that affect how it's reasonable to discuss here?

It doesn't matter the topic: if I think, say, global warming critics elsewhere have been jerks, I still don't improve things if I talk in roaring hyperbole and dismissiveness in statements about it here. I won't get listened to, and I won't improve the quality of discourse.

From the first two site guidelines for comments:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Continuing on to:

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

As an example of how the cold dark matter (CDM) establishment behaves, http://astroweb.case.edu/ssm/mond/fanmail2014.html

... there's some other people, elsewhere, in academic circles, acting in a way you don't like.

So this is an excuse to be rude to different random strangers here, because they might (or might not) share some views with the people acting in the way you don't like?

I'm really patiently trying to explain this to you. "These other people were rude first" is never a good argument. It's even worse when the "other people" aren't here or a party to the discussion.

Hackernews like many online communities will repress interesting and rational truth seekers like you as they inconsciously value more an establishment or their ego/feelings or preconceived ideas over a logical argumentation as long as it lacks a stronger argument from authority or other logical fallacy that could make their brain cross a significant enough mental shortcut to update their beliefs.Sound argumentation only has limited power here and when you have a point the conversation will often digress to off-topic attacks instead of addressing your points. This systemic mental defense mechanisms leads rationalists from around the world to self-censor themselves or be downvoted to hell. Also eventually they risk being converted to the fallacies of the rest of the group-think. Be strong human and keep arguing, the world's needs you. Of course we all need an appropriate amount of epistemic humility (and not more), especially the proponents of the extremely epistemologically weak CDM theory.

Many thanks.

I hope the HackerNews crowd reads this and takes this seriously.

I think talking about CDM vs. MOND vs. other options is fascinating. I doubt any of these is the last word and that mankind will reach a better understanding with time.

But the poster in question opened with a salvo just denigrating all the other options without any information in defense of his view. This shouldn't be lauded. It opens no interesting line of discourse.

> But the poster in question opened with a salvo just denigrating all the other options without any information in defense of his view. That is true and untrue. He did not repeat himself but he made potent arguments (or links to external resources) (in fact much better ones than anyone else on this page) in other threads.

> He did not repeat himself

I never said he repeated himself. I just said his opening gambit in the conversation was a salvo that merely denigrated the other options without any information in defense of his view.

This tends to not invite productive discourse.

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