They are the standard way in "academia"... not here. We do ask people to describe what they think of each piece of evidence.Painterman wrote:Concerning the citations in my previous post, I posted them because you asked that I "bring to the forums attention these laboratory experiments you keep mentioning". Citations like that are the standard way to bring experiments to people's attention.
Imagine if Simon just linked to The Public TV archives of 9/11 & said "go look for yourself"... instead he provides helpful gifs & jpegs & even a 3hr movie to help explain what he's found.
Neutral readers can disagree with Simons conclusions if they so wish... they certainly can't say that they have no idea where he got them from!
As to the "Beam Balance method" I've quickly read it... I must say it stretched my understanding of the words "laboratory" & "objects" to their limit!
A two floor underground test facility in a giant vacuum chamber & 27 tonnes of Mercury, 2 tonnes of Copper & 2 tonnes of Tantalum (plus all the sensitive calibration equipment & control equipment) is NOT what I imagined.
Either way as a neutral layman the experiment sounds like quite a good one to me & it seems to at least try & limit the problems of Cavendish's experiment which JLapage mentioned.
However it should be clear to anyone including Stephan Schlamminger (who has since gone on to join NIST... an organization I'm assuming you've heard of) that his experiment is not very "repeatable"... unless at immense expense.
Hence the problem with "modern academia"... shadowy government organizations that take "taxpayers" (read- useless mouthbreathers) money & perform mysterious experiments that we just have to trust are being done correctly & reported correctly (or even being conducted at all... there's no imagery I can find of such an extraordinary set-up).
I wonder when we can expect an "insider leak" to fatally compromise that "conspiracy theory"?
At the end of the day it seems to be a question of faith... you have faith in Schlamminger. JLapage & ICfreely don't.
I'm not sure if Cluesforum has a position on "religious freedom" but I, for one, think it's a good thing and I'm happy that you trust Schlamminger. Can you not see though that there is perhaps some justification in the alternative position of JLapage & ICfreely?
Myself I can only imagine what I would do if I was given, say, a million pounds of stolen money and asked to prove whether or not "Nukes exist". Even assuming I could justify the hypocrisy of taking the cash (perhaps I could say it'll count as a, much needed, "audit" for where peoples money has been going all these decades) would I...
(a) Go off on my own to Enewetak & come back six months later saying "Yay" or "nay"? Anybody who disagrees with my answer is declared "irrelevant" or "a nut".
(b) Realize the immense responsibility that has been given to me & take a large group of people... "sceptics" (Simon, Hoi, smj), "believers" (Peter Kuran, Alex "The Winker" Wellerstein, Carey Sublette), "Professionals" (I'll need some scuba divers for sure) & "neutrals" (some randomly selected people; a Buddhist monk, a cricketer... a car mechanic) to Enewetak & record diligently everything that we do, find or don't find? Heck we're all paying for the expedition anyway!
The incredible arrogance of somebody who could choose option (a) is what I find most startling.
Perhaps that's why you're managing to rub people up the wrong way yourself Painterman?
You are promoting some of the most arrogant creatures in the world and doing so in a rather distasteful tone.
My suggestion for you would be also to join Simon on his skype call... as well as realize the "Faith based" nature of your own position.
PS
The image of smj & Alex Wellerstein listening to Simon playing guitar on a ship in the Pacific sure makes me chuckle.