I got into a bit of a debate about Elenin last night before I went out. I’d just like to clarify my point of view, because people were tending to shout me down before I had a chance to explain properly and people who hadn’t even heard of Elenin or bothered to research it were dismissing it by just saying “You can’t prove that. That’s just some crackpot bullshit”.
Which I think is really stupid. People sometimes expect these ridiculous and unreasonable standards of proof for things before they will believe they are even plausible, but sometimes that’s just not possible. We’ve never had a gigantic comet of this magnitude come so close to our planet and cause the sort of destruction that people are predicting, nor have we observed it up close on another planet so we just don’t know and it’s impossible for any discussion of Elenin to be anything more than speculation and educated guesses.
People say “Well NASA isn’t talking about it and the government isn’t warning us so therefore it can’t possibly be true”. Oh what faith ye have in your wonderful government. I bet you don’t think 9/11 was a false flag operation either, right ? Anyway, I’d just like to clarify where I stand on this issue.
Firstly I want to define some terms such as this word “belief” that’s bandied about all the time. Now to me, there’s four levels of understanding. There’s “knowing”, which represent an absolute certainty in something. I “know” that gravity exists. It doesn’t mean I can’t possibly be wrong, but it’s something I believe in with absolute certainty. “Belief” in something to me means, and this is hard to explain without using the word “belief” or “believe”, but to me it means that I think something is very plasuble and most likely to be fact. I don’t know it with 100% certainty, but I think I know enough about it that to me it is an as-yet non proven but most likely true assertation that I put creedence and trust in.
Then there are two other levels. There’s “faith”, which isn’t really relevant to this discussion but is where you believe in something regardless of there being any significant evidence, but you want it to be true anyway. And the final category is “interest” where you are interested in something and you think there are aspects about it that make it worth further investigation but that you haven’t made up your mind yet, but that you think it warrants further investigation at least.
Now, I “know” Elenin exists. It’s been seen and well documented by many scientists and there’s no reason to assume that it’s not true.
What do I think about these claims that it’s going to wreak havoc on the Earth ? Well, I “believe” that it’s going to have some effect on us. I tend to believe (See ? There are many varying levels of belief) that the recent spate of earthquakes around the world are probably related. I’m not completely convinced, but I think it’s plausible and there has been scientific theory going back half a century suggesting that certain alignments of heavenly bodies can cause seismic disruptions on a planet. I can’t say for sure that it’s the case, but I believe there’s a very good chance that is the case.
Do I believe that it’s going to tear our planet to bits and half the population is going to be decimated ? No. I am “interested” in that concept, but I am certainly not willing to say I “believe” in it, because there’s just not enough evidence to suggest that will happen. We have had comets pass by before, and that hasn’t happened in the past, but obviously there are many factors involved that I don’t understand and due to the nature of this one and its long orbit and many other factors that I can’t fully appreciate not being an astrophysicist, I just think it’s an interesting concept and I’d like to research it further to see if I think there’s more to it. Also, like most people, I don’t really want to believe that this could happen to our fragile little blue ball of mud and water, so like many people I have a tendency to doubt that which I don’t want to believe is true, but I am at least more open to the idea than some.
To say “There’s no PROOF !” is a bit silly. Noone’s claiming they have ultimate proof but there are learned scientists who think that it is gong to have a big effect on us and they have published papers on the subject. Other people have said “Hey, I can poke some holes in that theory and some of your assertions are a bit wrong” and the naysayers jump on this and say “See ! People think that guy’s wrong, therefore he is and it’s just crackpot pseudoscience”.
People think many things like string theory is bollocks, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possibly true and I hate the way people stick the label “pseudoscience” onto things they say haven’t been 100% proven. I’d like to direct the person who insisted that talk of Elenin was pseudoscience by directing them to the Wikipedia definition of the word.
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status. Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.
A field, practice, or body of knowledge can reasonably be called pseudoscientific when it is presented as consistent with the norms of scientific research; but it demonstrably fails to meet these norms.
Clearly Elenin theories are not pseudoscience because they are simply as yet unproven, they are not unprovable, which is the requirement for something to be classified as pseudoscience. Astrology is pseudoscience. Trying to understand the seismic repercussions of planetary alignments is not. If you went around sticking the label “pseudoscience” on everything we don’t understand fully, all of a sudden half the known world be under that category. There are many things we don’t understand about how the brain works, but that does that mean that study of the brain is pseudoscience ? Of course not, and anyone trying to stick the label pseudoscience onto a serious field of scientific research such as this is not being rational and merely trying to justify their skepticism with emotive terms like “pseudoscience” and “crackpot theories”.
It offended me that I was trying to link to valid scientific studies about Elenin and this person was saying “That’s just crackpot nonsense with no proof”. Well, where’s your proof that it’s not true ? Ok, I admit I won’t try and make you prove a negative, but that doesn’t mean that you can go around saying everything you don’t think is true is a “crackpot theory”. Many religious people consider that psychiatry is an abomination and a completely invalid field of study, but I guarantee you that every person with schizophrenia or bipolar or depression who has been effectively treated for their disorder wouldn’t think that.
Just because you personally don’t believe in something, doesn’t make it a “crackpot theory” and if you’re going to go around saying that and then call yourself a “scientist” in the same breath, well, frankly I don’t consider you much of an objective scientist.
Someone said “It sounds like you want to believe this stuff”. No. Not true. When my cousin first brought Elenin to my attention a few months ago, I went online and the first theories I read were by people with dubious backgrounds. People who’d written books on UFO’s and crop circles. And I don’t want to say that those things aren’t true, but most people would tend to consider those people a bit wacky and crazy. I said this to Andrew when I first looked into it, “I think the people who are being outspoken about this seem a bit nuts and I am reluctant to believe what they say, so I tend to think this is just nonsense, but I want to keep looking and see if I can find any better evidence”.
And I did that. I spent a few months researching it, on and off, sometimes spending all day reading up on it so that I could discuss it with him. And the thing is, I did find reputable scientists who had PhD’s in astrophysics who were talking about it very seriously. That doesn’t mean I think they are 100% correct, but there were enough of them talking about that I put some credence in it and I looked up a few of the details they were talking about so that I could understand the concepts better and yes, I think they have a point and it’s plausible that what they’re saying is true.
Will it happen like they’re saying ? I’d like to say “No”. Could it happen ? Yes, I believe it could. I think maybe they are overreacting, but personally, I am glad they are. Better that than to sit around going “MMMM, this is interesting but that’ll never happen so why bother telling people what I think”.
People say “If this were true, everyone would be talking about it. People in power and official people would be talking about it”. Well, I don’t think everyone is eager to rush out and start predicting the end of the world (other than religious people who seem to have no shame). It tends to make you look a bit silly when it doesn’t happen like you predicted. And as to the official people, is it not possible they may have a vested interest in not wanting you to know ?
A large percentage of people in the world who have looked into 9/11 are unequivocally convinced that it was an inside job. I mean, tower number 7 falling, and the massive amounts of thermite found in the rubble. How you can hear about that and not believe it was deliberate is beyond me, yet people will blithely shake their heads and say “No, that couldn’t possibly happen”, but it does. Look up Wikipedia and read the section on false flag operations being used a pretext for war. It doesn’t have as many as I think it should. This page details a few such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the Bali Bombing. I’m not positive I believe in the Port Arthur one, but I haven’t researched it so I don’t know. A lot of people right now are saying the recent Oslo “terror” attacks were a false flag operation. I haven’t read into that one either, but the fact is, many times, terrorist attacks are perpetuated by the government on its own people to further a certain political agenda.
To say that you trust your government to tell you the truth in light of all this is downright naive and this whole “If we were really going to be wiped out, NASA would tell us” opinion is nonsense. Could you imagine what would happen if NASA came out and said “Yep, we’re going to be totally fucked up by this comet. Most of you are gonna die” ? There’d be terror and riots and mayhem. Sure, half the stupid ignorant people in the world would just go “Nawwwww, the world hasn’t been destroyed so far, so why would it happen now ?” but lots more would run amok and society would be seriously messed up.
The governments of the world don’t want that. If they did believe this was going to happen, they wouldn’t care about Joe Bloggs who works for $5 an hour at Walmart. They would care about themselves and their families and be secretly making plans to survive this and continue the human race. Hell, that’s probably what I’d be doing too if I was in their position.
So look, I’ve told you what I believe. I believe there is some evidence to suggest that Elenin could be dangerous to us and that while I don’t want to believe it’s going to happen like people like Dr Omerbashich are predicting, I think it’s not unfeasible they could be right. Ultimately it doesn’t matter because there’s little I can do about it and I’m really not inclined to build an underground bunker or anything. If it’s possible, I may well head off into the hills or the outback during late September so that if it does happen, I can at least increase my chances of surviving, but I’m not going to make a big deal out of it, and most likely I’ll be too lazy to do that and I’ll just sit at home and wait to see what happens.
But if you don’t want to believe in it, and I’m certainly not going to force you or do any more than give you a few vague pointers to what people have said and suggest you do your own research, then that’s fine. But don’t label it “pseudoscience” or a “crackpot theory” or “without any evidence”, because frankly if it does happen, I sorta reckon you’re going to look a lot more stupid than me, than I will if it doesn’t happen.
It doesn’t hurt to take an interest in this and research what people are saying and if you want to take steps to avoid it, by all means. My cousin Andrew went so far as moving up into the Adelaide ranges because he thinks it’ll be safer up there. I’m not ready to do that yet, but I may take some simple steps to reduce my risk of getting fucked up by a big earthquake or tsunami or whatever. At the very least, I’m going to make sure I have a charged camera and empty memory cards come late September so that if the shit goes down, I can photograph it.
If you don’t want to believe, and you don’t want to even research it or consider the possibility, that’s fine. But don’t be a dick and call me a raging lunatic or a crackpot just because I think what they’re saying is plausible. Frankly, I am fairly sure that bugger all provable is going to happen and that in a bit over a month’s time I’m going to have to shrug and say “Oh well, I guess I got that wrong” because ultimately, people predict terrible things happening to the world all the time that don’t end up happening.
But sometimes terrible things do happen, and even when people did predict them we shrug it off and say “that’s a coincidence”. You just can’t win with some people. Even when you say “Look, don’t take my word for it, go and research it yourself” they say “Bah, that’s what religious crackpots always say”. So you’re basically damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Apparently having an unpopular theory or belief just opens you up to ridicule.
I’m not resorting to personal insults and calling you names in order to convince you it is true, so you shouldn’t use them to convince me it isn’t true. If you don’t want to believe, then don’t believe. But you don’t have to be a fucking DICK about it. You get what I’m saying ?
