Comment by postmodest | Hacker News Reader

Comment by postmodest | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I am surprised by how many commenters seem to be anti-scientific comments or crypto-creationist arguments.

This is one study covering a form of life that was largely replaced during the Cambrian explosion, and took place right after massive glaciation , while the environment was very different to today, or even the Cambrian epoch.

The main point of the study is that Oxygen levels may have been lower than thought, which isn't "a problem for science" because "science" isn't even sure if the many fossils from that period were animals (and would require higher oxygen levels).

And for people here who didn't read the article: this isn't about the origins of _cellular_ life, or even multicellular life. Multicellular life had been around for tens of millions of years. And life itself had been around for billions.

This study asks "are we wrong about how much O2 COMPLEX life requires?" And we may be, Because the ediacaran had different life forms than we have now after the Cambrian explosion.

Which commenters are you referring to? You piqued my interest but nobody said stuff like “a problem for science” as far as I can tell. EDIT: this wasnt meant as a jab. I’m not well read in this topic so it’s hard for me to detect the “crypto creationists”.

Likely 'ezion' below, given various references to 'information' which is often a focus of Intelligent Design advocates.

Also it's an odd coincidence, but there is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezion-Geber - a city only mentioned in the Bible...

I've been noticing a lot of Christians on HN lately. I'm not saying it's a coordinated effort, but I've seen more in the past 2 weeks than I've seen in the past decade.

IMO, there's been a bit of a tonal shift on HN since the last reddit "crisis". Possibly related.

I came here from that event, but I’m your stereotypical left-wing atheist redditor. I guess the site is pretty heavily sectioned off, but I assumed that was the bulk of us.

Editing to add: this site has been so much better for my mental health. Still plenty of bad news about the environment and large corporations, etc. but I focus less on it, and much more on topics that rekindle my passion for science and technology.

If you've had an account for a decade, why are you using one that is 13 days old (ie the past two weeks)?

I usually lurk, then make an account with a random password if the urge to comment comes upon me. I'll use the account until I clear my cookies and repeat the whole process. Part of this is to dodge textual analysis by ML, part of it is because I don't like feeling too attached.

> Which commenters are you referring to?

Not OP, but this chap [1] retraces the early stages of Kant’s thoughts on mathematics [2]. (The commenter concludes it’s all made up because it’s difficult to think about. Fortunately, Kant went further, though he, too, ultimately deus ex machina’d the ending.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36863039

[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2184079

Ok fair, but I’m pretty sure that it was posted after the one I replied to.

Combined with this anti science astrology megathread created yesterday, I mean I am not surprised.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36840674

> I am surprised by how many commenters seem to be anti-scientific comments or crypto-creationist arguments.

You must have a hair-trigger definition of anti-scientific cryptocreationist because I don't see it.

IMO, drawing narrow boundaries around how scientific questions can be discussed is rather anti-scientific, since a search for the truth can't presuppose that truth.

Nah, you get used to spotting people sealioning and JAQing off. In this thread, ezion is likely a creationist of some sort and is asking either bad faith or ignorant questions. I recognize where those questions are coming from, having grown up religious.

It's great to ask questions about evolution if you're a creationist and you're trying to learn. It gets tiring to recognize that someone is looking to do a gotcha and ignore the explanation of why it's not a gotcha.

Fwiw I appreciate your comment a lot, it helps me make sense of why people are getting so agitated here.

So there's one, probably. Where are the "many" mentioned above?

You're misquoting the OP, "surprised at how many" can simply mean any existing at all, depending on one's expectations. More to the point though, this isn't "drawing narrow boundaries around how scientific questions can be discussed" or anything of the sort. It's recognizing some of the comments for what they are: bad faith attempts at pushing a religious agenda.

I accurately quoted the OP, which you must be able to see for yourself.

If OP meant "that one guy" instead of "many", they could always edit/reply to clarify. For my part, I can only respond to the ideas actually expressed.

You did not accurately quote the OP by editing "how many" down to "many".

HN isn't as convention-bound as we thought. I call it a good sign.

Not really a good sign. There's legitimate arguments to have, and then there's creationism, 5g causes covid, q-anon, etc that lower the quality of discussion because the people posting about that aren't actually interested in discussion.

But perspectives really do vary. And the popular epistemology is trash. And I think that we can afford to tolerate the independently minded.

> the popular epistemology is trash

Math is immaterial so science is fake isn’t a novel perspective [1], it’s literally 17th-century material and a symptom of America’s lack of philosophical education.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36863039

Is it? I think it's a symptom of lack of science and math education. No one who understands both of them would think that either is proof that the other one is "fake".

> I think it's a symptom of lack of science and math education

It's that, too.

Independently minded is great. Refusing to accept reality isn't something that's conducive to an interesting discussion, and I'm happy to have that filtered out.

Where "reality" is defined as "that part of reality which is deemed acceptable at this moment", otherwise known as the Overton window. Mention something which lies outside of it but still well within the domain of science - I'm not talking about creationism - and you'll soon find out "reality" deserves those scare quotes around it. Go have a look at the discussions around SARS2, around the efficacy or lack thereof of the experimental vaccines or whether masking really provides protection against these types of infections. There is legitimate science on both sides of the debate but only one side was welcome during the pandemic, those who cited the other side quickly got labelled and nullified. There are countless other areas where this phenomenon can be seen and where a label and nullification awaits those who dare to step over the line, I'm fairly sure everyone can think of a few of them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com