David Bailey brought up and exemplified a good point in the excellent Marisa Ryan thread:
A principle which I had posted in a huddle room in my research lab/company was "One who truly understands an idea, should also be able to offer its most profound critique.' This embodied a principle I later called, intra ludio. It was a reminder to the scientists and techs, to not get too assured in their knowledge of a testing series' ergodicity, and how certain they were as to what the anticipated implications would be. In our critical path sessions - I did not choose a 'Devil's Advocate' nor allow people to attempt to enforce that they were the smartest skeptical person in the room. Rather I challenged the team via this notion - one should be the foremost critic of their own most favored and best understood contentions - that I needed to see such circumspection in order to observe professional and scientific maturity.
(note: this is the opposite of what Jeff Bezos uses in his executive sessions at Amazon - that method produces hordes of enormous egos who are only successful by default, not by competence)
As a result, two year experienced techs, were not afraid to raise ideas nor concerns (even more important - cuz things in the lab could literally explode and endanger lab occupants) - and two decade tenured scientists would be required to challenge old dogma's before the group. At first this was ego-deflating for some. But after a while, most found that they were indeed teaching so much to the techs and junior researchers, that it became inspiring to manage series testing in such a fashion. It was fun, but even more importantly, was effective. The team got it, and worked very well together under that philosophy. My team retention rates were extraordinary and people sought to work for the company.
(note: as a reader may have gleaned, this is part of the reasons why I disfavor fake skepticism... but that is another track of discussion entirely. :))
One key sign of appeal to authority, is when an assertion is assumed to have had all of its loose ends wrapped up, and the implication is raised that there are no longer any questions of critical merit which remain and no falsifying/outlier data which exists of any significance. Any gaps in our understanding constitute peripheral and non-critical adjustments to standing theory.
I am an evolutionist and believe that science's past ability to predict, by means of the morphological feature classifications and progressions of life (phylogeny), the DNA-confirmed speciation from a common origin of life, into its current array of expression - remains the crowning achievement of science. That being said, I also possess some critical concerns about both evolution as a philosophical/paradigm panacea, and extrapolation of its tenets into the origin of life, nature of spirit and ontological basis of our existence. Not that this is a bifurcation (my apologies); however, to keep the discussion focused:
What do you anticipate ID might actually mean. The idea of Yaweh sitting on a cloud doing biochemistry doesn't really appeal to me - not least because some areas of evolution involve an arms race between two species!
A principle which I had posted in a huddle room in my research lab/company was "One who truly understands an idea, should also be able to offer its most profound critique.' This embodied a principle I later called, intra ludio. It was a reminder to the scientists and techs, to not get too assured in their knowledge of a testing series' ergodicity, and how certain they were as to what the anticipated implications would be. In our critical path sessions - I did not choose a 'Devil's Advocate' nor allow people to attempt to enforce that they were the smartest skeptical person in the room. Rather I challenged the team via this notion - one should be the foremost critic of their own most favored and best understood contentions - that I needed to see such circumspection in order to observe professional and scientific maturity.
(note: this is the opposite of what Jeff Bezos uses in his executive sessions at Amazon - that method produces hordes of enormous egos who are only successful by default, not by competence)
As a result, two year experienced techs, were not afraid to raise ideas nor concerns (even more important - cuz things in the lab could literally explode and endanger lab occupants) - and two decade tenured scientists would be required to challenge old dogma's before the group. At first this was ego-deflating for some. But after a while, most found that they were indeed teaching so much to the techs and junior researchers, that it became inspiring to manage series testing in such a fashion. It was fun, but even more importantly, was effective. The team got it, and worked very well together under that philosophy. My team retention rates were extraordinary and people sought to work for the company.
(note: as a reader may have gleaned, this is part of the reasons why I disfavor fake skepticism... but that is another track of discussion entirely. :))
One key sign of appeal to authority, is when an assertion is assumed to have had all of its loose ends wrapped up, and the implication is raised that there are no longer any questions of critical merit which remain and no falsifying/outlier data which exists of any significance. Any gaps in our understanding constitute peripheral and non-critical adjustments to standing theory.
I am an evolutionist and believe that science's past ability to predict, by means of the morphological feature classifications and progressions of life (phylogeny), the DNA-confirmed speciation from a common origin of life, into its current array of expression - remains the crowning achievement of science. That being said, I also possess some critical concerns about both evolution as a philosophical/paradigm panacea, and extrapolation of its tenets into the origin of life, nature of spirit and ontological basis of our existence. Not that this is a bifurcation (my apologies); however, to keep the discussion focused:
If you are an evolutionist - what is your most profound critique of the construct?
If you are a creationist - what is your most profound critique of the construct?
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