Ok. Suppose I phrased it somewhat differently:

I've been reading some books and articles, and watching some videos, in which professional physicists criticize the current practices of some areas of physics on the grounds that they have substituted abstract math for experimental contact with the world. I do tend to agree with this point of view; but of course the physicists being so criticized would disagree, and I lack the professional competence to have certainty on the matter.

That said, I am sharing these links with the forum because they are interesting and educational in and of themselves, whether you agree or disagree with their point of view.

Would that be better? — fishfry

In my opinion, there's a danger in the very idea of "debate" -- as if we're qualified to judge whether there's even "two sides" to the story. I don't think, most of the time, we're even competent enough to make that judgement. Again I refer to creationism, 9/11 truthers, holocaust denial, anti-vaxxers, climate change denial, etc. To even say "I've read both sides of this debate, and I align myself with x" is itself ridiculous. Flat earthers are out there -- does that mean we should read their books and conclude that there's debate?

That being said, for those of us who aren't experts in a given domain, it's our responsibility to weed out who to listen to. This is a very tricky thing, and we're living in the midst of a real dilemma of this very thing.

For me, I go with the whatever consensus is reached among experts. The vast majority of the time, I turn out to look like a genius because of that simplistic, 3-year-old strategy. I'd say that's a good rule of thumb for anyone. If one wants to learn more about a topic, listen to them. That's not to say dissent is not valuable -- it is. But within boundaries.

It seems to me, if I'm reading you correctly, that I am entitled to opine (ignorantly as it happens in this instance) on Wittgy; but not on Witten. I wonder if you can help me understand the distinction. — fishfry

You're entitled to opine about anything you want. But since you asked for my opinion: I don't take either very seriously. Not just from you but from anyone. If I know a little something about a topic, and someone has something to say that I find interesting on a philosophy forum, then I take it from there. 95% of what I read here is so uninteresting to me that it's not worth bothering with. I'm sure you feel the same way.

When it comes to science, especially mathematics and physics, I have less patience for people's armchair opinions. It's much easier to be a bullshitter in philosophy (and sociology, and literary criticism, etc) than it is in the hard sciences. In my opinion. And so yes, I do perhaps come down more harshly on that class of opinions.

Do you at least take my point? — fishfry

I do.

The OP is about TPF being cluttered up with "Stupid Physics" posts. — EricH

Yep.

But happy to extend the analysis more widely, it that helps explain what is going on.

I was thinking in terms of appeals to authority - that there are, I would suggest, strong grounds for thinking that 2+2=4, and that those who disagree here have made a fundamental mistake; and that this is so, even if they have invented for themselves good reason to think that 2+2=4 is somehow problematic.

...that there is an authority vested the skills of mathematicians and physicists who have done the hard stuff, so if @jgill says your maths is rubbish, then your maths is rubbish.

That having watched a few dozen videos on youtube does not give you licence to re-write General Relativity.

That having watched a few dozen videos on youtube does not give you licence to re-write General Relativity. — Banno

Yes indeed.

There is nothing wrong in trying to simplify the message that science has established through complex analysis. — Gary Enfield

See my last post. First, do the work so that you know what it is you are simplifying. Because that's why it might look, to those who have not done the work, that

..the scientific zealots are not prepared to compromise even when the facts are presented to them. — Gary Enfield

...like if someone were to propose a theory about the size of the universe without presenting the maths to back it up.

I wonder if pop science has something to do with this... so in presenting science without the equations, writers make it look like science does not need the equations. So folk think they are doing science when all they are doing is making shit up.

:100: :smirk:

@tim wood I just watched the Nima Arkani-Hamed video it was awesome. Thank you! Just amazing stuff. Now I know what an amplituhedron is! It's a simple geometric structure whose volume gives you the answer to Feynman diagram calculations that used to take hundreds of pages.

There was another really cool insight early in the lecture. He noted that the Lagrangian formulation of Newtonian physics was a hidden clue to quantum theory, but that only became clear in retrospect.

That having watched a few dozen videos on youtube does not give you licence to re-write General Relativity. — Banno

I think this is related to the Wiki effect. There's knowing things and knowing "about" things. If I want to know about quantum field theory for example I can just skim the relevant WIki page and know enough to yak about it online ... despite that fact that don't know it. These days it's so easy to know about, and imagine that you know. You see it all over. Like last March when everyone suddenly became an armchair epidemiologist. It's human nature.

The OP is about TPF being cluttered up with "Stupid Physics" posts. — EricH

Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa. I hijacked the thread. Or perhaps I exemplified the thread by making a stupid physics post :-)

I just watched the one n infinity in physics... it might help those who are participating in Can it be that some physicists believe in the actual infinite?... a thread that shows the "bad" is not limited to physics, but extends to mathematics. — Banno

I haven't watched that one yet but /r/badmathematics is one of my favorite Reddit rooms.

Maybe I should watch that vid. I always tend to get annoyed whenever physicists start talking about infinity, because it doesn't seem to relate to the mathematical infinity that I know and I end up thinking they're doing bad physics or bad math. Ok I should watch the vid.

This thread is an example of why science has become so dangerous. Take heed. — MondoR

Love that. Yes, science is dangerous. To cranks and charlatans, and folk who make confused assertions about determinism and truth.

I tried to get annoyed at what she was saying, but failed. She is intelligently careful.

I tried to get annoyed at what she was saying, but failed. She is intelligently careful. — Banno

I seem to recall seeing this vid a few weeks ago and it annoyed me. I don't remember the details and no need to re-trigger myself :-)

In my opinion, there's a danger in the very idea of "debate" -- as if we're qualified to judge whether there's even "two sides" to the story. I don't think, most of the time, we're even competent enough to make that judgement. — Xtrix

But one doesn't have the time to get a Ph.D. in physics and a Ph.D in climate science and a Ph.D in epidemiology in order to have an opinion on these things. And even if I had a spare eight or so years to get a physics PhD, it would take another ten or whatever years to get to the level of what these professionals are talking about. So one must learn to absorb what one can and make the best informed decision possible. Because at the very top of any profession there are the biggest differences of opinion. Surely you can't be saying that I can't have an opinion from just a little bit of study. Modern life is too complex. We must all "know about" things, which takes ten minutes in lieu of "knowing" them, which takes ten years.

Again I refer to creationism — Xtrix

I don't believe in creationism ... but what gives me the right to say that? Do I have to get a PhD in divinity studies too? And become a priest as well?

And on a serious note, though I don't believe in creationism, I am a bit of a student (ie watched a bunch of Youtube videos) of criticism of Darwinian evolution. There are some valid points being made. There's a lot we don't know. Science is never settled.

, 9/11 truthers, — Xtrix

It always strikes me as a bad sign of our postmodern world that when we want to marginalize and dismiss someone's ideas, we accuse them of being interested in the truth. How quaint! Don't they know that narrative is all that matters?

The 9/11 commission report was a very shoddy piece of work. The commission's own co-chairs Hamilton and Keane said publicly that the commission was set up to fail and that the Bush administration blocked them at every turn. There are still many unanswered questions about the event.

One doesn't need to believe that Dick Cheney personally gave the order to want to find out what really happened. Don't you? The government's account is seriously incomplete and riddled with problems.

holocaust denial, — Xtrix

In some countries holocaust denial is a crime punishable by prison. I believe in free speech. I believe in the right of holocaust deniers to say their piece. I supported the ACLU's position in the 1977 Skokie case and I still support that position today. If Nazis don't have free speech then nobody has free speech. This I believe.

anti-vaxxers, — Xtrix

This isn't the time or place, but "anti-vaxxer" is a loaded term. Which vax and what circumstances? And if the covid vax works, why did everyone in Congress stay home or wear masks the other night at Biden's speech? They're all vaxed. In your worldview is there such a thing as individual critical thinking? The government says jump and you say, "How high?" That's how the Germans got themselves into trouble once. Dissent is crucial in a free society.

climate change denial, — Xtrix

I don't mean to trigger you with my political opinions, this is not a political thread. But I tend to be open minded about things. The climate is changing constantly. Who could possibly deny that? When people say "climate change denial" they really mean that the developed world should put a boot on the neck of the developing world. It's a very complicated and nuanced set of issues that are not addressed by smears and slogans.

etc. — Xtrix

I've always been open to alternative ideas and by nature I'm a contrarian. If you didn't want to hear my opinions you shouldn't have asked :-)

To even say "I've read both sides of this debate, and I align myself with x" is itself ridiculous. — Xtrix

But it's the PhD problem again. It takes a lifetime to become competent at anything, let alone everything. But you need to form judgments to function in the world. What do you suggest? Truly I AGREE WITH YOU that it would be better if before I form a judgment on climate I become a professional climatologist; and before I form a judgment on physics I should become a physicist. But your position is not practical. I hope you can see that.

Flat earthers are out there -- does that mean we should read their books and conclude that there's debate? — Xtrix

Oh I love flat earth theory!. There are some very interesting philosophical aspects. Someone should start a thread on it sometime. Sabine Hossenfelder has a video about it. She made the insightful point that although flat earth theory is nonsense, it nevertheless raises questions for scientists in how to communicate with the public. How DO we communicate scientific ideas to people who will never have the time to become experts? You don't want people to get their opinions from pop science, so how SHOULD they learn what scientists think is true? I think you may have worked yourself into a contradiction.

That being said, for those of us who aren't experts in a given domain, it's our responsibility to weed out who to listen to. This is a very tricky thing, and we're living in the midst of a real dilemma of this very thing. — Xtrix

Yes. I agree with that. Who should we listen to? In the past year we've been told to listen to "science," but professional epidemiologists and infections disease specialists have many differing views on covid. Social media and the mainstream media have ruthlessly suppressed all but the official government view. That's not good in a free society. You want more debate, not less. And yes it's hard to know what's true.

For me, I go with the whatever consensus is reached among experts. — Xtrix

Without becoming an expert yourself? Contradiction! Of course you do agree that we don't have the time to become subject matter experts on every important question. We MUST simply accept consensus; or, if we are contrarians, reject consensus! After all if you look at the history of the world, you would be right more often than you were wrong if you REJECTED every consensus. Geocentrism was "settled science" for 2000 years. And did you know that the data actually fit the geocentric theory better than it fit the Copernican theory? Copernicus had the sun at the center of concentric circular orbits. The numbers did not fit. It was Kepler who figured out that orbits were ellipses with the sun at one focus. THEN they got the data to fit correctly. Scientific knowledge is very hard won; never "settled"; and always subject to revision.

The vast majority of the time, I turn out to look like a genius because of that simplistic, 3-year-old strategy. — Xtrix

Ahem :-) And like I said, over the LONG term, you would look like a greater genius REJECTING the consensus view on almost everything. Feeling sick? Here are some nice leeches to bleed the bad humours out of you. Fire? It's caused by phlogiston, everybody knows that.

The consensus view almost always turns out to be wrong. That does not mean that you go around rejecting everything we know is true about the world. That would be silly. It DOES mean that healthy skepticism and independent thinking are virtues in individuals and societies. When the government tells you that we must invade Iraq because Saddam has WMDs, do you wave your flag and mindlessly support the war? How did that work out? How about Afghanistan? That war had virtually unanimous support in 2001. Now we've been there 20 years, we control LESS territory now than we did the day we invaded, the opium crop is at record levels thanks to the protection of the US Army (we're on the side of the dope dealers, if you don't know that look it up), and if and when we finally leave, the entire world will see that the US has just lost another war. Since 9/11 we've created more terrorists than we've killed, we've violated international law, we've become a torture regime, and in the end the Taliban are going to retake control of Afghanistan and we ended up turning Iraq over to the Iran-favoring Shiites instead of the Sunni Iran-hater Saddam.

But you know, at the time it was the consensus. Which is exactly why you should have tried to think it through for yourself. Why did we invade Iraq when they had zeroto do with 9/11? Because Saddam had WMDs? Turns out the administration lied the country into war. But that's ok. The government lied the country into the Vietnam war too. Gulf of Tonkin? Never happened, but LBJ got his excuse to escalate the war on behalf of the generals and defense contractors.

I'd say that's a good rule of thumb for anyone. — Xtrix

I say it's the most mindless, dangerous, and wrong thing you could possibly do. SOMETIMES the consensus is right and sometimes it's fatally wrong. The Soviet Union collapsed shortly after their own debacle in Afghanistan. Then we went in and executed the same failed strategy against the same people, and we're getting the same results. But man was the Afghanistan war ever a consensus. The whole country loved that war in 2001.

You have to think for yourself.

If one wants to learn more about a topic, listen to them. That's not to say dissent is not valuable -- it is. But within boundaries. — Xtrix

It's fair to say that you and I have different worldviews.

You're entitled to opine about anything you want. But since you asked for my opinion: I don't take either very seriously. Not just from you but from anyone. — Xtrix

I never tell anyone to take me seriously! This is an anonymous internet discussion forum.

But when I give an opinion I try to back it up, and maybe even if someone disagrees with me they may get an insight or two. Maybe the examples of Afghanistan and geocentrism will make you reflect on your feelings about the weight we should give to consensus. Maybe not.

If I know a little something about a topic, and someone has something to say that I find interesting on a philosophy forum, then I take it from there. 95% of what I read here is so uninteresting to me that it's not worth bothering with. I'm sure you feel the same way. — Xtrix

That's true for everyone. There are a lot of new threads every day and a lot of posts in each thread. It's like a buffet. You pick what you like.

When it comes to science, especially mathematics and physics, I have less patience for people's armchair opinions. It's much easier to be a bullshitter in philosophy (and sociology, and literary criticism, etc) than it is in the hard sciences. In my opinion. And so yes, I do perhaps come down more harshly on that class of opinions. — Xtrix

Well that's the funny thing. It comes down to personality. I am a born contrarian, always have been. I don't know why. Whenever society picks up a lot of steam on any issue, I'm always one to think that's a bad sign, that they're probably doing the wrong thing. That's just me.

But we weren't really talking about opinions on physics. I didn't say I don't believe in quarks. I said that the direction of the field may be off on the wrong course, based on some actual physicists who have written books to that effect. That's more philosophy of science than science.

I do. — Xtrix

So glad!

I hope you don't reply to my political opinions, that is not what this thread is for. I may have been having some fun coming down on the side of Nazis. Well actually I oppose Nazis. I support free speech for Nazis because I support free speech for everyone. Free speech used to be a liberal virtue. Lately it's not. I think that's a bad sign.

But 9/11? Don't you want to know the truth? You can't have studied the matter very much if you think the government did an investigation. Again, that does not necessarily mean that Dick Cheney gave the order, or that Mossad did it, or that "Lucky Larry" Silverstein blew up the buildings because they needed a fortune in asbestos remediation. I assert no particular alternate theories. I just want to know the truth. That makes me a 9/11 truther, and proud of it.

I'm what they call a heterodox thinker. You say flat earth? I would be happy to write a few hundred words on why it interests me, and why it offers valuable philosophical insights, even though it's wrong. Kierkegaard did the same. You say climate, I ask you how many third-world peasants must die because the liberal elite raise the cost of energy. Quite a few, as it turns out. None of these issues are remotely as simple as you seem to think.

Here's a piece on how environmentalism hurts the poor. I didn't read much of it and don't necessarily endorse the author or the site on which it appears. I only want to show you a different point of view. Here's a para:

the cost of climate policies is already falling most heavily on today’s poor. Subsidies for renewable energy have raised costs of heating and transport disproportionately for the poor. Subsidies for biofuels have raised food prices by diverting food into fuel, tipping millions into malnutrition and killing about 190,000 people a year. The refusal of many rich countries to fund aid for coal-fired electricity in Africa and Asia rather than renewable projects (and in passing I declare a financial interest in coal mining) leaves more than a billion people without access to electricity and contributes to 3.5 million deaths a year from indoor air pollution caused by cooking over open fires of wood and dung.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/matt-ridley-exposes-environmentalists-take-moral-low-ground-defend-rich-poor/

Can you see that "climate denial" is a buzzphrase that shortcuts critical thinking?

:up: :100: PBS SpaceTime FTW.

I wonder if pop science has something to do with this... so in presenting science without the equations, writers make it look like science does not need the equations. So folk think they are doing science when all they are doing is making shit up. — Banno

Scientism. Science wants to rule the world, have the say on "how the world really works". So of course there has to be an ideologically loaded, simplied "version" of science aimed at the masses who don't have the necessary education to understand science for what it is.

Such is the price for wanting to be the arbiter of the truth.

..the scientific zealots are not prepared to compromise even when the facts are presented to them.
— Gary Enfield

...like if someone were to propose a theory about the size of the universe without presenting the maths to back it up. — Banno

Exactly - although the point in that thread was about the speed of expansion being faster than the current speed of light, rather than the size of the Universe as you have just implied. The maths concerning the speed of expansion, (based on known & accepted values for certain parameters), was very specifically laid out, together with the evidence to back it up.

Nobody challenged the calculation, or provided any evidence to counter the opinion - they just offered a bizarre inflation theory with no physical evidence to support it, and gave calculations of current speed of light values - instead of providing justifications for saying that it couldn't be exceeded despite the evidence to the contrary. The invite is still there to do so.

Given that there were two theories which had validity, did we get that acknowledgement, or did we get attempts to smear the counter-argument to inflation?

Meh. Here's Gary's response to the explanation given: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/514048

I'll leave the discussion there, not here.

PBS SpaceTime FTW. — Pfhorrest

Yep. He's the best.

Science wants to rule the world... — baker

Nonsense.

If you don't tell why, then I can't reply.

The consensus view almost always turns out to be wrong. — fishfry

So often, that would seem to be the consensus.

It doesn't seem to help much.

If you don't tell why, then I can't reply. — Banno

Sorry I don't know what this was in reference to. I wrote several posts late last night and I'm just checking my mentions. What did I say?

The consensus view almost always turns out to be wrong.
— fishfry

So often, that would seem to be the consensus.

It doesn't seem to help much. — Banno

I think it's very helpful. If one remembers how often the US government has lied the country into war, one might tend to be skeptical of the next beat of the war drums. If one side of an epidemiology debate is promoted constantly by the MSM and the government, and the other side is de-platformed, banned, suppressed, and actively shut down (as has been the case), one might at least cast a skeptical eye on the government story. And by other side I don't mean the jerks who go into stores and pick mask fights with clerks. I mean reputable senior scientists who dissent from the official party line and aren't allowed to be heard.

There are always indicators. When everyone falls into lockstep on a narrative, that's when to be skeptical. When there's a Rush to Judgment, that's when to be skeptical. Skepticism isn't the same as reflexively denying everything that people accept. It's just a question of stepping back and trying to sort things out for yourself. It's more a mental habit than a hard and fast rule.

I agree with you that in a given moment you can't always tell when something's going to turn out to be right or wrong. But there are always clues. In the run-up to the Iraq war, a million people marched against the war nationwide. They just didn't get any tv coverage as the administration said that they hoped "the smoking gun doesn't turn out to be a mushroom cloud." They used Condoleezza Rice, a woman with high public approval, to scare the hell out of the country. I saw them do it. It smelled like a lie to me at the time.

Likewise the whipping up of hostility to Russia by the Dems. Starting after the 2016 election and continuing to the present moment. Russia's not our enemy. Their GDP is $1.4T, ours is $21T. California's GDP at $3.2T is larger than Russia's. We're being propagandized again.

I seem to recall seeing this vid a few weeks ago and it annoyed me. I don't remember the details and no need to re-trigger myself :-) — fishfry

↪fishfry If you don't tell why, then I can't reply. — Banno

...and yet, of course, I did reply, so falling into a contradiction of my own making. Oh, well.

It's just that something's being the consensus view is insufficient to show that that something is wrong. SO recognising that something is the consensus view is not all that useful.

It's just that something's being the consensus view is insufficient to show that that something is wrong. SO recognising that something is the consensus view is not all that useful. — Banno

I advocate a skeptical stance toward all government-induced hysterias and promotion of narratives that make no sense yet allow no dissent. You're saying there's no hard and fast rule. I agree. But there are indicators. The relentless 24/7 MSM barrage, the deplatforming and marginalizing of dissent are clues. If you don't see this I guess I can't say it any better. Do you remember the mood in this country in the runup to the Iraq war? Iraq didn't have a thing to do with 9/11 and that was perfectly well known at the time; but by the time the MSM and the government were done, a majority of the country believed Saddam had been responsible. I don't mean to cherry-pick this one example, but it's a doozy. Yet people keep falling for the propaganda. They'll have no trouble lying us into the next war.

Yep..

It's just that something's being the consensus view is insufficient to show that that something is wrong. SO recognising that something is the consensus view is not all that useful. — Banno

You might be interested in taking a look at John Hand's Cosmosapiens. He discuses physics, and well every other major science in very, very interesting ways, often always going against the mainstream, but it a quite respectable manner and evidence heavy manner. The best science book I've ever read.

But I'm missing many... :wink:

But one doesn't have the time to get a Ph.D. in physics and a Ph.D in climate science and a Ph.D in epidemiology in order to have an opinion on these things. — fishfry

True. Again, this is why I said it's tricky, but in the end a good rule of thumb is go with the consensus, if there is one -- and especially when it's an extremely high one (evolution, climate science, relativity, electromagnetism, atomic theory, germ theory, and so on).

, 9/11 truthers,
— Xtrix

It always strikes me as a bad sign of our postmodern world that when we want to marginalize and dismiss someone's ideas, we accuse them of being interested in the truth. How quaint! Don't they know that narrative is all that matters?

The 9/11 commission report was a very shoddy piece of work. The commission's own co-chairs Hamilton and Keane said publicly that the commission was set up to fail and that the Bush administration blocked them at every turn. There are still many unanswered questions about the event.

One doesn't need to believe that Dick Cheney personally gave the order to want to find out what really happened. Don't you? The government's account is seriously incomplete and riddled with problems. — fishfry

So you're a 9/11 truther. Got it. I'll skip the rest of your post. Be well.

So you're a 9/11 truther. Got it. I'll skip the rest of your post. Be well. — Xtrix

As are Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton, co-chairs of the 9/11 commission.

The two co-chairs of the Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, believe that the government established the Commission in a way that ensured that it would fail. In their book Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission describing their experience serving, Hamilton listed a number of reasons for reaching this conclusion, including: the late establishment of the Commission and the very short deadline imposed on its work; the insufficient funds (3 million dollars), initially allocated for conducting such an extensive investigation (later the Commission requested additional funds but received only a fraction of the funds requested and the chairs still felt hamstrung); the many politicians who opposed the establishment of the Commission; the continuing resistance and opposition to the work of the Commission by many politicians, particularly those who did not wish to be blamed for any of what happened; the deception of the Commission by various key government agencies, including the Department of Defense, NORAD and the FAA; and, the denial of access by various agencies to documents and witnesses. "So there were all kinds of reasons we thought we were set up to fail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_9/11_Commission

Do you really believe a full investigation was done and that the full truth is known?

Or is it that you realize that there wasn't a real investigation and the truth is not known, but you're ok with that because, well, it's the consensus? Of whom, exactly? It's actually NOT the consensus!! Only 46% of the world believes Al-Qaeda did it (2008 numbers). By your own logic you should agree with them!

Peace, friend. Or are you one of those always eager to send someone else's kids off to war?



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polls_about_9/11_conspiracy_theories

One doesn't need to believe that Dick Cheney personally gave the order to want to find out what really happened. Don't you? The government's account is seriously incomplete and riddled with problems. — fishfry

Because pissed off Saudis can't decide to fly planes into buildings all by themselves?

Because pissed off Saudis can't decide to fly planes into buildings all by themselves? — frank

Because the government did a piss-poor, shoddy simulation of an investigation. Please see my post above containing the words of Hamilton and Keane, the co-chairs of the 9/11 commission, telling us it didn't get at the truth.

Do you hear what I'm saying? I didn't post an alternate theory and I didn't post something from Alex Jones. I posted the words of the co-chairs of the commission. They could have chosen to say, "We want the American people to know that we got to the bottom of this." They did the opposite. They told the world that the Bush administration blocked them from getting to the bottom of it.

Which part of what they said causes you to not want to be interested in finding out what the late, great Paul Harvey would have called, "the rest of the story?"

I understand, though. A lot of people really don't want to know what happened that day. "19 Arabs because they hate our freedoms." Well we have a lot fewer freedoms since then, maybe the Arabs like us by now. If not we'll invade and torture some more of them.

When does the Freedom of Info Act take effect? 25 years?

Yes, maybe the buildings were brought down by dynamite. Maybe JFK wasn't killed by Oswald. Maybe Pearl Harbor was planned (or allowed). Maybe we DID fake the moon landing. If you want to doubt everything -- especially things that are "important events" -- that's your business. In that case, spend the rest of your life debating creationists and flat earthers.

Again -- when it comes to science, and I'm neither an expert nor have time to reach an even intermediate level of knowledge, I go with the consensus view. As we all do for everything else -- everything that hasn't been manufactured to be "controversial," I mean. Manufactured controversy which leads to all kinds of armchair "theories" that "could be true," because science is "never settled," after all, and a lot of it is "just theory," etc. I have no time to waste on nonsense like that. Life is too short.

What the government says about something hardly makes it a scientific consensus. Nor does public opinion -- as most can't identify the US on a world map. Hardly the same thing. Different than, say, what civil engineers say about the impact of planes crashing into buildings. You're confusing categories.

Thinking for yourself and healthy skepticism is important. But notice the italics. Letting your imagination run wild and questioning everything always, under the guise of simply being a "contrarian" (a very self-serving view), is completely hopeless. But you're welcome to it.