WikiSynergy:Controversy

From WikiSynergy

Contents 1 Controversy is unavoidable 2 Engagement 3 Why is it like this? 4 Common cause

Controversy is unavoidable

All those who are involved in frontier ideas, as well as people who are skeptical of those ideas, are involved in controversy whether they like it or not. Only by keeping to a close circle of non-critical friends can those with "fringe" ideas avoid disputation. Science is by nature an adversarial process, in which the best idea -hopefully- wins the dialectical, Darwinian process to become dominant. The same is true of all logical ideas. Other, non-scientific and non-logical ideas go through an even more drastic survival process, becoming dominant purely by their appeal, without any intellectual moderation. Thus as human beings on the frontier of thought, we are in an intrinsically contentious position. We cannot avoid controversy unless we are willing to abandon our ideas and let them wither, so we must at least make sure that controversy leads to new and better understanding. That is one of the goals of this site.

Engagement

It is no wonder that people who hold frontier ideas avoid contact with skeptics, because such debates usually become nasty, and they go absolutely nowhere. It is extremely rare that both sides of such a debate are in command of the facts, and highly unusual when even one side knows what it is talking about. It is even more unusual when the facts are allowed to speak for themselves: humans naturally —and often unconsciously— put spin on things. However, a large number of skeptics will have most of the facts from a skeptical point of view. A large number of frontier thinkers will have all the facts on a subject from a frontier view. Since our choice is between contention and stagnation, we need to create an environment for engagement in which these facts are assembled in a progressive manner.

Why is it like this?

Skeptical groups are well organized. This is probably for several reasons:

1. They are often highly educated, and therefore know how to get things done.
2. They have a common cause: they are against bunk of all sorts.
3. They feel that bunk is a generalized threat to society.

Thus, they have been able to control the debate, as witnessed by the trouble we have in finding acceptable terminology for this site. Words such as fringe and believer are difficult to replace.

Common cause

In contrast, "believer" groups, individuals and concepts have much less in common. They often do not have common interests (as skeptics have "bunk"). They do not have a common cause, because their visions (no pun intended) differ. And they usually are not motivated by the fear of a general threat to society.

We maintain that "believers," those on the fringes or frontiers of human thought, have at least one thing in common: even when their ideas are good, they often do not know how to respond to their critics.

By pooling our resources in a collegial environment, we can integrate the best responses and other documentation available. We can do this in cooperation with skeptics, so that our readers will be able to clearly see both sides of the subjects, and clearly see who is correct.

In this way, we can form a bulwark against the uninformed rhetoric which so often dominates the debates. This will be useful to frontier thinkers, skeptics, and everyone else.