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DataPacRat comments on How do you tell proto-science from pseudo-science? - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: DataPacRat 27 November 2013 07:15PM

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Comment author: DataPacRat 27 November 2013 10:19:40PM -1 points [-]

Hm... As an alternative category, how about "worth the effort of spending a few hours reading up on the details and implications" as opposed to "sufficiently unlikely that my time would be better spent looking for new rationalist (fan)fiction"?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 27 November 2013 10:28:55PM *  0 points [-]

Worth the effort to what end? For example, educational value of settled science is greater than that of almost any topic for which the question of being pseudoscience or "protoscience" even comes up (judged at the level where you are ready to study the topic).

Comment author: DataPacRat 27 November 2013 11:20:56PM -1 points [-]

I'm familiar with any given popularization of a scientific topic, and have read through and assimilated enough of the Sequences to start really understanding that there is always going to be a higher level of rationalism to aspire to. I also only have so many hours per day to devote to any given reading topic, and can only focus on any particular topic for so many months at a time before my concentration will flag. Thus, I'm hoping to get a head start now on what's most likely to become settled physics in the future - which will, of course, bring advantages of its own.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 29 November 2013 11:18:58PM 2 points [-]

I'm familiar with any given popularization of a scientific topic

Really?