How do you debunk people that does not believe in experimental facts?

[Vtile]

Also something like operational calculus have not been here too long, actually my grandparents were born before it were scientifically accepted if I have understood correctly. While this is not a science either but a normal polar representation of complex number as |r| L angle weren't mainstream not until like ww2. Science is usually right.

Errm, Calculus was devised independently by Gottfried Leibniz (b 1646, d 1716) and Issac Newton (b 1642, d 1726) so you must have very, very old grandparents! Complex analysis has been around since at least 1545.

Not operational calculus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_calculus and not polar representation with |r| L angle notation of complex number (|r|e^i*angle before it) weren't widely adapted not until of somewhere ww2 time period (atleast on electrical sciences).

Sorry, in the rather fragmentary English I took the 'operational' as a mis-chosen adjective, not as meaning 'Operational' (The capital letter makes a difference). Polar representation is as old as the hills, Leonhard Euler certainly used it. Perhaps you're right in that it didn't catch on in electronics until late, but I doubt it.

An aside: The first proper description of all the operations of Complex Algebra is down to Rafael Bombelli, which I kind of knew. What amazes me is that I can download a PDF of a full scan of his second edition of L'Algebra from 1572 with a single click. Thirty years ago if I'd wanted to see a copy of this I'd probably have had to travel to Bologna to read it in the university library there. (It's in 16th century Italian, I haven't a hope in hell of actually being able to read it in detail, but it's fascinating to get a glimpse into the state of the art in 1572.)

Interesting. Good to know that teh capital O makes a difference how one perceives that Operationa calculus/analysis. The note of the polar notation were a sidetrack and late addition, I should have phrased it better. I did spoke the notation, not actual complex calculus or analysis on that part. (With my perfect bad english, which I do not apologize .)

[hans]

Science is not a linear path at all. Sometimes it can take a long time for concepts to formalize or be adopted on a large scale. Some theories may make some educated assumptions, which are not proven formally until much later.

Example: Dirac Delta function. It's used in 1st year university math for analysing LTI systems, as well as introduction to control theory but also solving (partial) differential equations, Laplace and Fourier analysis.
Some of these concepts, like Fourier series, have been around since 1800s. However if you look up Dirac Delta function this concept along with distributions has not been formalized until WW2 & 1950s.

Are university engineers taught distributions? Nope. Too niche, too advanced. Yet for "fixing" some flaws in previous theories with regards to impulse function, it's used everywhere.

[Vtile]

My favorite are the flat-earthers. FLAT EARTH. They are real. It's unbelievable.

I've learned so much because of them. Not from them, but indirectly because of them, trying to genuinely humor their argument. I've learned about celestial navigation, astronomy, geometry and trigonometry, land surveying, and even network time protocol servers. All because of them and the idea that I should try to not rely on any authority because...of course it's all LIES!

It really is fascinating and sad all at the same time.

So they have been a usefull fools for you then.  Is the earth perfect sphere, nope, but still our popularized science usually approximate it as one.

[james_s]

It's a lot closer to a perfect sphere than it is to being flat though!

[technix]

My favorite are the flat-earthers. FLAT EARTH. They are real. It's unbelievable.

I've learned so much because of them. Not from them, but indirectly because of them, trying to genuinely humor their argument. I've learned about celestial navigation, astronomy, geometry and trigonometry, land surveying, and even network time protocol servers. All because of them and the idea that I should try to not rely on any authority because...of course it's all LIES!

It really is fascinating and sad all at the same time.

So they have been a usefull fools for you then.  Is the earth perfect sphere, nope, but still our popularized science usually approximate it as one.

We do have the trigonometry approximation that the limit of sine of an angle when the angle is close to zero is the angle itself.

[IanB]

not polar representation with |r| L angle notation of complex number (|r|e^i*angle before it) weren't widely adapted not until of somewhere ww2 time period (atleast on electrical sciences

I think it's important to recognize that mathematics is an art, not a science. Science deals with understanding the physical world, while mathematics is entirely conceptual, the product of the imaginings of the human brain. As such, the abstract notion of complex numbers being points or vectors in the complex plane goes way back in time to the beginnings of the theory. Just reflect that you get complex numbers by imagining there to be an imaginary number line perpendicular to the real number line, and the concept of magnitude and direction comes immediately from that.

Now mathematics is of course used as a tool in science, just as art of various kinds can often be used as a tool for many purposes (e.g. visual or cinematic art can be used as a propaganda tool). The failure of electrical engineers to adopt and see the application of certain mathematical concepts until around WW2 says more about the blindness of electrical engineers than it does about the lack of vision of mathematicians.

[BrianHG]

  I've just been to Nasa's new first Juno video release & a month back looking at some of the last Saturn videos from Galileo as it dives closer in to it's soon death.  It is truly disheartening, to see all those comments from so many individuals claiming that the Earth is really flat, all these images are fake & they are made up for political and anti-religious purposes after the insane feats of money, time, knowledge, engineering, materials, effort, and lives involved in pulling off these miracles which our for-fathers could not even begin to comprehend.

[cdev]

Those people are likely paid trolls. Its not so well known here in the US but its been clear to me for a long time that there are people actually being paid to be a****** online in order to "Shift the Overton window" on a great many issues. There, i said it. You wont read this in the news. Some of the people who went to the rallies of a certain political candidate were clearly these people. They figure heavily in online discussions where they try to drown out intelligent conversations. They get hired from ads looking for people to work from home. A growing number of them are not in the US, many are in Canada and more recently, the Philippines and India.

They are very well funded. Which should give people clues as to where that funding is coming from.

[Vtile]

It's a lot closer to a perfect sphere than it is to being flat though!

Yes, naturally. If someone is a bit inclined to believe conspiracy theories or theories that claims that earth is flat, it doesn't help that "science" is not saying the same in every place. It creates more room for these kind of unfortunate believes. I mean if you are sceptic for certain facts it doesn't mean you need to be a fool and believe something utterly stupid like that earth is flat or that stars are holes in the skydome.

We do have the trigonometry approximation that the limit of sine of an angle when the angle is close to zero is the angle itself.

??

not polar representation with |r| L angle notation of complex number (|r|e^i*angle before it) weren't widely adapted not until of somewhere ww2 time period (atleast on electrical sciences

I think it's important to recognize that mathematics is an art, not a science. Science deals with understanding the physical world, while mathematics is entirely conceptual, the product of the imaginings of the human brain. As such, the abstract notion of complex numbers being points or vectors in the complex plane goes way back in time to the beginnings of the theory. Just reflect that you get complex numbers by imagining there to be an imaginary number line perpendicular to the real number line, and the concept of magnitude and direction comes immediately from that.

Now mathematics is of course used as a tool in science, just as art of various kinds can often be used as a tool for many purposes (e.g. visual or cinematic art can be used as a propaganda tool). The failure of electrical engineers to adopt and see the application of certain mathematical concepts until around WW2 says more about the blindness of electrical engineers than it does about the lack of vision of mathematicians.

Hah, I'm sure you are physicist by mind and education. "Math is only a supporting science for physics, but don't tell this to mr.X (Math lecturer)." - one physics lecturer. Nodding for the rest.


... But I think I derailed the original topic now. Sorry about that.
I tend to avoid discussions to prove something for people that have faith and have certain religuous like believes (were it on politics or other topics). That doesn't mean I avoid contact with such persons, but the discussion on such topics is usually unfruitfull.

[TerraHertz]

Those people are likely paid trolls. Its not so well known here in the US but its been clear to me for a long time that there are people actually being paid to be a****** online in order to "Shift the Overton window" on a great many issues. There, i said it. You wont read this in the news. Some of the people who went to the rallies of a certain political candidate were clearly these people. They figure heavily in online discussions where they try to drown out intelligent conversations. They get hired from ads looking for people to work from home. A growing number of them are not in the US, many are in Canada and more recently, the Philippines and India.

They are very well funded. Which should give people clues as to where that funding is coming from.

I'm glad you said it. I get sick of pointing out (to zero effect) that flat-Earth, no-moon-landing, planet-nibiru, hollow-Earth, 5000-year-old-Earth, etc  types are mostly paid well-poisoners, with probably a tail of 80/20-rule useful gullible idiots. It's a simple propaganda technique - pollute public discussion forums with madness, and everyone who is not already aware of that technique gets the impression all online discussion is pointless. Mission accomplished for the Elites and their Globalist wing-men and other tribes, who really, really don't like the world public talking sensibly among themselves about real issues. Heavens, the peasants might actually decide to do something about the self-styled ruling class. Guillotines, and so on. Can't have that!

The trouble is, few people are aware of how ubiquitous propaganda and manipulation are in both the MSM and online media. Partly due to having been already conditioned to recoil from anything they can label 'tin foil hat conspiracy theories.' Two concepts there which were themselves injected into the public lexicon as deliberate propaganda thought-jamming exercises. Give people a pejorative label they can use to avoid actually thinking about something, and most of your thought-controlling work is done.

Incidentally, the no-moon-landings bullshit has a secondary objective. It's to destroy the sense of American national pride, and general cultural awareness of what science can achieve when directed towards lofty goals. (As opposed to rapacious corporate profit-above-all-else motivations.) It's another form of intellectual hobbling, all the better to fasten the slave shackles.

Speaking of well-funded destructive lying bullshit... youtube   /watch?v=AfG1myglfhY

[technix]

We do have the trigonometry approximation that the limit of sine of an angle when the angle is close to zero is the angle itself.

??

When someone cannot see beyond their immediate surroundings, they will believe in things like flat earth. It can be proved using basic math and physics and a little bit of calculus.

The entire point of science is to allow people to see faraway beyond the horizon, to see large beyond the planet, to see small less than a peck of dust, and to introspect how we should perceive the world.

[TerraHertz]

Speaking of 'what one can see with one's own eyes', I can see that the Moon is obviously a sphere, illuminated from the Sun.
So, the Moon is a sphere, but the Earth is flat?

I also find in my personal experience, that when someone keeps insisting on a thing that they'd have to be brain damaged to actually believe, then it's safe to assume they are deliberately lying. Your task then becomes to ferret out WHY they are lying. What are they hoping to achieve? Or who is paying them, and what do _they_ want?


"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent."
-- J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director 1924-1972, quoted in The Elks Magazine (August 1956).

"The greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."
-- President John F. Kennedy, at Yale University on Jun 11, 1962

"It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
-- William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence. An observation by the late Director at his first staff meeting in 1981. This observation reveals the mentality of cynicism which infests the US Federal control structures, and the reality that these structures regard the American people with total contempt. This attitude is the opposite to the noble concept of service to the American people which ought to inspire holders of public office, and therefore represents the epitome of decadence.

"What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires - desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."
-- Bertrand Russell, philosopher - "Roads to Freedom"

"You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me."
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Unknown, mistakenly attributed to Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels

"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."
-- Mark Twain

"Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true."
-- Buddha - Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta.

"People who believe that there is no major world conspiracy which involves a small number of people manipulating humanity through a hierarchical structure of control toward a New World Order, all have one identical factor in common. They have, in actual fact, not looked genuinely into the abundance of well-researched information on world conspiracy to see if there is one!"
-- David Icke

"In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
-- Theodore Dalrymple

"Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics ... It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing."
-- Vaclav Havel

"Even open-minded people will often find themselves unable to take seriously the likes of [Noam] Chomsky, [Edward] Herman, [Howard] Zinn and [Susan] George on first encountering their work; it just does not seem possible that we could be so mistaken in what we believe. The individual may assume that these writers must be somehow joking, wildly over-stating the case, paranoid, or have some sort of axe to grind. We may actually become angry with them for telling us these terrible things about our society and insist that this simply 'can't be true'. It takes real effort to keep reading, to resist the reassuring messages of the mass media and be prepared to consider the evidence again."
-- David Edwards

"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."
-- Frantz Fanon


Plenty more like these at http://everist.org/archives/links/__Freedom_quotes.txt

[X]

I had an extremely frustrating conversation with a decorator who believes that the pharmaceutical industry cover up all sorts of alternative medicines because they can't make money from them, he's ordered a Rife machine so he doesn't have to rely on 'big pharma'.

The same lot who despise "Big Pharma" are willing to rely on alternate medicine, which is the produce of a poorly regulated multi-billion dollar industry?
At one abode I was invited to, noticed there was a huge NaCl crystal that was hollowed out and had a CFL in the hollow. I thought they just had it as a cool looking lamp, so I commented "Nice light." The response I got was "Oh that's to stop the EMFs." Of course, the wi-fi router, numerous Apple products, PC, monitor, and the giant fluoro baton light on top would produce more "EMF" than this little thing can stop.


Whenever I encounter someone whom I reasonably suspect to be unreasonable, I occasionally bypass the debunking stage and use them as a source of entertainment. 

[Cerebus]

...and believe something utterly stupid like that earth is flat or that stars are holes in the skydome.

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But they're ever so small
That's why the rain is thin.

[cdev]

My own experience is based on peer reviewed research in medical journals which never make it into the public eye.

In the case of resveratrol,its because RESV improves multiple parameters involved in inflammation and healing, for example, it affects expression of a gene, SIRT1 and to give one example- that seems to promote healing of injured cartilage.

When you get a lot of research which leads to something working, thats mainstream, cutting edge science that should be publicized.

 You can get an idea of what I mean from the links below with the caveat that much of what the searches return is irrelevant. But maybe 20-30% of what you get back is useful.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=resveratrol+cartilage

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=resveratrol+knee

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=resveratrol+disc

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=resveratrol+arthritis

Also, in the US at least, "BigPharma" is definitely a poorly regulated multi-billion dollar industry,

There is a good website, http://pharmamyths.net which has a lot of good info debunking their claims. For example, the arguments they make on why drugs are so expensive in the US are based on total fabrications.

Quote from: X on Today at 07:48:48

The same lot who despise "Big Pharma" are willing to rely on alternate medicine, which is the produce of a poorly regulated

multi-billion dollar industry?
At one abode I was invited to, noticed there was a huge NaCl crystal that was hollowed out and had a CFL in the hollow. I thought they just had it as a cool looking lamp, so I commented "Nice light." The response I got was "Oh that's to stop the EMFs." Of course, the wi-fi router, numerous Apple products, PC, monitor, and the giant fluoro baton light on top would produce more "EMF" than this little thing can stop.


Whenever I encounter someone whom I reasonably suspect to be unreasonable, I occasionally bypass the debunking stage and use them as a source of entertainment. 

[CatalinaWOW]

A long time ago I was working in the electrical power industry, doing site surveys for customer purchased luminairs (street lamps).  I arrived at one older gentlemans location and he proceeded to explain to me that the power companies stored sunlight in those cylindrical cans up on the power poles and then fed into the light bulbs where it was released.

I could have told him he was totally wrong, angering him and possibly losing him as a customer for the overhead light.  I merely mentioned that he was on the right track and had some details wrong.  After some further discussion he was accepting the basics of power distribution.  And really, his concept wasn't totally wrong.  At that time our base power system distributed fossil sunlight.  Still does in large part.

A head on approach is seldom the best way to change minds.  The good ways take time and effort, nuance and understanding.  Not something that can be done wholesale, it has to be done retail.  One size does not fit all.  May be more effort than you have time and energy to invest.

[james_s]

A long time ago I was working in the electrical power industry, doing site surveys for customer purchased luminairs (street lamps).  I arrived at one older gentlemans location and he proceeded to explain to me that the power companies stored sunlight in those cylindrical cans up on the power poles and then fed into the light bulbs where it was released.

I could have told him he was totally wrong, angering him and possibly losing him as a customer for the overhead light.  I merely mentioned that he was on the right track and had some details wrong.  After some further discussion he was accepting the basics of power distribution.  And really, his concept wasn't totally wrong.  At that time our base power system distributed fossil sunlight.  Still does in large part.

A head on approach is seldom the best way to change minds.  The good ways take time and effort, nuance and understanding.  Not something that can be done wholesale, it has to be done retail.  One size does not fit all.  May be more effort than you have time and energy to invest.

Are you sure he wasn't just pulling your leg? That sounds like something my grandfather would have said just to be funny.

[f5r5e5d]

... the abstract notion of complex numbers being points or vectors in the complex plane goes way back in time to the beginnings of the theory.

not sure what theory is being referenced here but the square roots of negative numbers were 1st used in solving cubics in the 1500's

it took another few hundred years to be generalized to complex numbers, mathematicians remained skeptical of 'imaginaries' for an amazingly long time

Euler's work put complex numbers on a firm basis, but his understanding, methods were strictly abstract, 'arithmetic'

the geometrical interpretation began ~1800, in 1796 Gauss made a private notebook entry, Wessel published a very complete work in 1799 - which was totally ignored, only rediscovered by mathematical historians in 1890's

then 4-5 other's published before Gauss decided the idea had sufficiently 'ripened' and published in 1831 - his fame guaranteeing worldwide notice

the complex plane being variously called the Argand, Gauss, and now Wessel Plane

Vectors were even more delayed - the term 'vector' coined by Hamilton in 1846 for 'pure quaternions' was reworked by Gibbs in 1880 as today's universally taught 'Cartesian' Vector Calculus due to its success in rewriting Maxwell's Equations for Electromagnetism

and of course 'vector algebra' was 1st developed by Grassman before Gibbs or Hamilton - and again ignored until Clifford - who then dies in his 30's, the importance of his  and Grassman's work on a 'geometric algebra' being sidelined as a obscure corner of abstract math

[james_s]

I don't think they're paid trolls. If there's any way to get paid to troll people online I've never found it. I think it's no different than people who genuinely believe all manner of other ridiculous stuff. It's a mental illness of sorts to see complex conspiracies everywhere, based on the belief that the official explanation is wrong, no matter what it is. I don't give them credit for being smart enough to have some more complex motive, just like I don't give the government credit for being competent enough to flawlessly execute some ridiculously complex conspiracy for questionable gain.

[IanB]

not sure what theory is being referenced here

The rigorous footings of complex number theory, which goes back much earlier than the time of WWII as you indicated.

[f5r5e5d]

yes, the Polar Form is found in all Complex Plane work from Wessel onwards - what's bizarre to the modern mind is that the Euler Equation was published in 1748 and it took over 50 years for the Complex Plane interpretation to begin to appear, another 30 for it to be popularly recognized

the twisting history, multiple invention, unrecognized pioneers show that even in, at the time, cutting edge Mathematics had anti-factual dismsals, deniers

the Gibbs Vector Algebra vs Hamilton Quaternion Algebra 'war' of the late 19th century is full of examples of personal attacks, Professors behaving badly in print


and an amazing intellectual fail is Nobel prize winning Michelson apparently, to his death in 1931, still considering his Ether Drift experiment a failure, rather than a keystone for the development of Special Relativity

[CatalinaWOW]

yes, the Polar Form is found in all Complex Plane work from Wessel onwards - what's bizarre to the modern mind is that the Euler Equation was published in 1748 and it took over 50 years for the Complex Plane interpretation to begin to appear, another 30 for it to be popularly recognized

the twisting history, multiple invention, unrecognized pioneers show that even in, at the time, cutting edge Mathematics had anti-factual dismsals, deniers

the Gibbs Vector Algebra vs Hamilton Quaternion Algebra 'war' of the late 19th century is full of examples of personal attacks, Professors behaving badly in print


and an amazing intellectual fail is Nobel prize winning Michelson apparently, to his death in 1931, still considering his Ether Drift experiment a failure, rather than a keystone for the development of Special Relativity

While anti-factual deniers did exist, the real reason for the slow spread in popular use was that few people had any application for these mathematics.  To mathematicians it was a solved problem, and an occasionally useful tool.  The broader world of engineers and technicians had little need and little awareness.  It wasn't until the late nineteenth century with radio and and alternating current power transmission that widespread uses for these methodologies existed.

[cdev]

Right, but now if you want to get a good job, you need a solid underpinning in math. Many of the best careers make use of sophisticated mathematical concepts. If it doesn't need creativity, there is no need for people, increasingly.

Seems like many people who show disdain for science are debunking themselves.

The effect will be - the world will ignore them. If the US hitches its cart to science denial, the world has no shortage of innumerate people.

Willing to work for much less than ours.

In other words, the deniers will be their own - and our, worst enemies. You can't replace an education. What will they do with all those people?

[cdev]

Very well put.

Robert J. Lifton's term was "thought terminating cliches".

[cdev]

Think of it as one of a great many voter nullification and time nullification techniques.  When you're on top you have to be pretty creative to stay there, AND make people think they are in a democracy.