WTF happened to the Science forum?

[beam me up scottie]

I can't stand it anymore.

Pseudoscience almost always looks so harmless, how can we possibly view it as a threat, people ask.

Why do you get so worked up about it, why do you care what other people believe?

We must all work for the big pharma/medical mafia industry, we're told, we're helping them disguise the poison delivered to our kiddies in hypodermic needles.

Anti-science crusaders hide behind the "science" peddled by political appointees that were installed by religious troglodytes.

Hypocritical and blind, they plug their ears and join in a chorus of "la la la la la-I can't hear you-la la la la la" as they willfully ignore scientific experts and joyfully parade around admiring their own shameless ignorance.

So we soldier on, countering it when we can, mocking it when we can't, desperately hoping that a Democratic administration will be voted in so that the nightmare will end.

And then, one fine day, you log on to DU, excited to be nearing the end of an 8-year jihad against science, only to find that DUers have, by proxy, appointed RFK "vaccines=mercury=autism" Jr. as head of the EPA, FDA, and every other head position at governmental science-related agencies ending with the letter 'a'.




Stop the damn planet.



Fuck it, just slow it down a little.

[realisticphish]

1. i want a "woo" forum

they stay there, and the adults can talk about science in Science (gasp!)

which, i guess was what The Meeting Room was, but it was always so vague

[beam me up scottie]

2. I actually miss the Meeting Room.

The closest thing we have to it now is the Dungeon, and I avoid that place like the plague.

[JitterbugPerfume]

21. I loved the meeting room

it was a nice mixture of woo and non woo !

[beam me up scottie]

22. It was fun, wasn't it?

Always a free-for-all, like the DU version of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrBDivsSe3k">The Sweet's Ballroom Blitz!

[trotsky]

9. They should bring it back as the Ooga Booga forum.

The woos seem to have embraced that slam with glee, believing of course that their candles and healing energy brought us the 2008 election (but shhh... let's not talk about 2004).

[TZ]

3. woos are left wing fundies

They can't stand seeing anything that contradicts their worldview. And since the science forum frequently does that they have to speak up because you know those dangerous scientists (especially the ones that non-scientists have never heard of) must be stopped!:banghead:

[beam me up scottie]

6. That's it exactly.

And like right wing fundies, they use propaganda and hyperbole in an attempt to convert everyone else.

Go ahead and inject yourself with mercury, shill, just don't try to kill my babies!

[Orrex]

4. I have grown to sympathize with the mods' position

The Healthscare Lounge has obviously been woo-infested for years, and despite dozens of alerts on threads explicitly offering utterly bogus medical advice, few of these are ever locked or deleted. I've come to understand that this may, in part, be due to the fact that the mods aren't trained medical personnel (quite understandably), so they might not be comfortable taking one DUer's word over another's; how are the mods to know whether or not I'm right when I assert that this or that thread is quackery?

The Science forum has become more of the same (and worse, in a way). At least people aren't likely to engage in life-threatening practices based on what they read there, but there's still a whole lot of nonsensical bullshit being proffered by the believers. And, again, the mods might not be equipped to assess the particulars of (seemingly) cutting-edge physics or astronomy.

A Woo Forum would be most welcome, but I suspect that those who wind up there would deride it in much the same way that the denizens of the 9/11 Forum likewise decry their unjust consignment to The Dungeon. And every time a thread is cast into the Woo Forum, you can be assured that the authors will yell and scream that they're being censored or suppressed.

Because we're all shills for Big Science who fear The Truth, of course.

[nickgutierrez]

5. I haven't been on this planet for all that long...

...but I've come to regard with the highest of skepticism anybody who talks too long about having "The Truth" on their side. Especially if they can't prove it without resorting to insinuations and innuendo.

[semillama]

13. Where were you before? n/t

[beam me up scottie]

7. Me too.

Many many moons ago Skinner told us they would keep pseudo-science threads out of the Science Forum, and they have, but when a legitimate thread is breached by rogue woo, there is little the mods can do about it.

I would hate to see it turn into the Dungeon II, though, maybe they could bring back the Meeting Room.

[trotsky]

8. No fucking kidding!

VACCINES CAUSE TEH AUTISM!

U R AN INDUSTRY TOOL IF YOU OPPOSE RFK JR.!! OMG!!1!

GLOBAL WARMING IS TEH GAY!~!!1

Science is dead in the Science forum.

[TZ]

10. I think the most pathetic thing I've seen

was someone who was losing an argument with you turning to attack your screenname TROTSKY! -we all know with a name like that you can't possibly know anything...:rofl:

[realisticphish]

11. ha ha seriously?

user name burns are IMDB-forums-worthy

[TZ]

12. here ya go!

Not just once but a whole subthread..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=228&topic_id=45936&mesg_id=45991

[realisticphish]

14. hahaha

with an accusation of shillhood to boot

[trotsky]

15. Naturally!

I've seen that movie more times than I can count. It even finished with an ignore! LOL

[beam me up scottie]

16. R.I.P.

Perhaps Obama will surprise me and ignore the obvious appeal of appointing celebrity woo woos to important positions.

[moggie]

18. Jenny McCarthy for Surgeon General!

[beam me up scottie]

19. I know that should be funny,

but after 8 years of going "No he di-int!", I'm afraid I will need a transplant in order to regain my sense of humor.

[Odin2005]

17. The "vaccines causes Autism" BS really pisses me off.

I have Asperger's Syndrome so that BS they are spewing is F-ing personal. :grr:

[beam me up scottie]

20. You should thank the crusaders.

Of course they care more about people than becoming saviors.

Don't they?