"What can "precise terminology" mean without any stable referent? Precision
_is_ about objective reality at least to some extent."
The referent could be different sorts of things, like waves or particles.
The true nature of things forever remains unknown, but self-consistent precise
descriptions are essential so that experiments can be conducted by different
observers.
> Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down.
"But it is NOT "just like ... climate change deniers". Are you seriously
making that equivalence?"
People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like
people on the right.
Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with "...", gosh, I
don't know why!
> It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or
> ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested
> in the evidence. That's what I mean by corruption.
"OK. I disagree, _if_ those people are up front that they put their monetary
or ideological goals first. It's not bad faith or corruption, then. And you
have to admit that by openly stating that activism is one of this new group's
objectives, then it's a bit of a leap to accuse them of bad faith or corruption
right off the bat. If it were bad faith, their true objectives would not be as
obvious as they've made them."
Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and
start arguing from authority. The premise that there are any particular
"positive" goals has not been demonstrated. It's just some
randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis
it is an assertion. At some point in their "inquiry" there exists the
possibility that their goals can be falsified. So lose the goals and follow
the evidence. The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity.
Marcus
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