I, at least, do not flagrantly misrepresent myself in a pathetic attempt to give my utterances some kind of authority when they are among the most banal and platitudinous to be found on this or any forum.
After your frankly preposterous assertion that a scientist should never let observational data get in the way of a good theory, I’m afraid your credibility is in shreds with me. I’m sure you meant to say “a good hypothesis”, since a theory that is not ratified by experimental and observational data can never be a theory.
Hi there, sweetheart.
I am sorry that my credibility with you is in shreds. I was hoping to develop it with you, and to work up from there to gaining the intellectual respect of the neighborhood ground squirrels and other rodents.
I had stated in the post which seems to have gotten you all worked up, that a scientist told me that. “Never let mere data get in the way of a good theory,” was his quote, not my working principle. He was an astronomer, director of the laboratory where I worked at the time. He and I oft spent an hour after work at the little tavern across the street. I tried to convince him the value of my alternative ideas about God and the creation mechanisms, and he would explain why I was full of bull pucky.
Unlike you, he argued from a considerable body of knowledge in physics, engineering, and general science, so he did not need to make mindless, arrogant, assertions or offer irrelevant personal innuendos in the place of cogent arguments. He was good, and all my ideas stem from things learned from him and others. While a merciless debater, he always maintained a sense of humor.
His quote was his way of dealing with my complaints about a paper I’d reviewed, written by an esteemed astronomer with whom we both worked. I was complaining about its theoretical proposition and offered contrary evidence from my own observations. His remark, since become a quote, was his way of telling me to shut up, delivered with grace and good humor.
He had just invented it for my benefit during that conversation, and in my honor, subsequently used it several times in his arguments against my personal metaphysical theories.
If only you could read competently, you would have seen the humor and deflection in my post. (I’m sorry, I forgot which one.)
You could grow a sense of humor yourself to good effect, IMO. In the meantime, I’ll simply wish that your lack of grace or humor, obtuse argumentativeness, and notable absence of contributory thoughts, is a state out of which you may yet grow.
