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A comment on Should Holocaust Deniers be Heard?. Parent comment

Re:Should Holocaust Deniers be Heard? by kenjackson on Thursday March 17, 2011 @12:08PM (#2336616)
What shouldn't be heard? For example, should reincarnation be heard? What about telekenesis or other psychic abilities? What about more off the wall things like murder is justifiable if you don't get caught? Or that cheating is actually a good thing if you can pin the fallout on someone unsuspecting? Or that most Blacks are werewolves who need to be staked in the heart for the sake of the world? Or that WWII never happened, but was invented by Marvel comics to sell Captain America? Or that Santa Claus is not only real, but its he who delivers the babies, since he killed all the storks?

At what point do we say, that point of view has so little evidence that hearing it is a waste of time, given time is a limited resource?

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Re:Should Holocaust Deniers be Heard? by yummyfajitas on Thursday March 17, 2011 @12:23PM (#2336702)
What about telekenesis or other psychic abilities?

Actually, I think studies purporting to prove psychic abilities are real is something that students should spend time on. Remember this article?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2068105

I skimmed the study in question. There are no obvious methodological flaws, and by the standards of psychological publishing, it was worthy of publication. It's my opinion that ALL students of psychology should read it critically, and understand why it doesn't prove that psychic abilities are real. (Then they should apply that same skepticism to the rest of psychology research.) It's a great exercise, just like doing easy integrals, or spotting flaws in proofs that 1 == 2.

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Re:Should Holocaust Deniers be Heard? by kenjackson on Thursday March 17, 2011 @12:27PM (#2336726)
But that article could be about virtually anything. Articles about things that are untrue, where methodology is wrong, can be substituted for anything and prove those things are true too (like how you can prove anything mathematically if you start with one incorrect premise).

I do agree that we should study how poor science is done. But there's a difference between studying poor science, and actually spending time trying to figure out how one might actually be the next Airbender.

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Re:Should Holocaust Deniers be Heard? by Jun8 on Thursday March 17, 2011 @12:46PM (#2336814)
The answer to that question should be always "nothing!" You have chosen examples in jest, to show how some assertions are unbelievable/silly; but other assertions, that you or I might find almost as silly are taken seriously (or were taken so until recently), e.g. "Do blacks/women/(other stigmatized group) have equal intelligence as man?", "Should we kill/neuter people with serious psychological illness", "Should we perform lobotomies".

Lack of discussion is never a good sign.

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