My Thoughts on Comments

In the article of the ISC (Indian Science Conference) controversy (about ancient Indian space-planes) from firstpost, the comment section was open, and nearly 300 people commented. However, of those, I read around 50 or 60, yet not one struck me as particularly credible.

It may have just been that this was only really big news in India, and as a result (nearly) everyone who commented had an emotional stake in the argument. Or, also likely, I just had trouble understanding everything they said and alluded to, as I am unfamiliar with the people, books, and myths they talked about.

Anyhow, here are 3 comments which I felt were particularly not credible.

A

1.

This comment doesn't seem to be expressing too much, but I can assume base on the author's position that he hopes for this aeroplane discovery to be true for whatever reason (whether it's because it just seems cool, or he's patriotic, and wants India to have this scientific discovery under its belt)

2.

I can't really tell what beliefs this person may hold, beyond that India had spaceships 7000 years ago.

3.
With this comment, the most immediate hit to the comment's credibility is the grammar and spelling. However, I think to some extent I should ignore it, because India has so many languages, and English, though widespread, isn't easy, and I feel I can safely assume GCM, here, just doesn't have it 'down-pat' yet.
However, he does us "n" instead of "and" which shows me that he isn't even trying with some of it, which loses him some credibility.

Apart from that, it seems to me that he tries to take the high road, not even trying to explain, because he assumes that the opposition's arrogance makes it not worth-it to make his point. As a result, his point is not well-supported.

B

1.
This comment definitely expresses some fear that India (I assume his home country) may lose credibility in the scientific community as a result of the speakers at the ISC.

2.
I can also assume that he is Hindu, which adds to his outrage at these people with whom he doesn't want to be grouped together. Unfortunately, it also shows that he more emotional stake in the argument.

3.
This example is on the more-credible side of the spectrum, But he resorts to calling RSS chumps, and saying that all Indians should say Rss doesn't represent them, even though, I'm sure it does represent quite a few at least.

C

1.
Much like the first comment, this one doesn't really express any fear, but a sense of nationalism. He counts this proposed achievement of ancient space-planes as partially his own, which, if someone tries to disprove it, could make him anxious about his and his country's standing. essentially, he, like so many other commenters, has a strong personal attachment to the argument.

2.
This person directly shows his belief that the ancient of his country attained space travel, but also that others only disagree because of their own nationalism; he says they are jealous of his country.

3.
Just like almost every other comment, this one shows personal stake in the argument. He also implies that jealousy is the sole reason people criticize this proposal. He doesn't even seem to consider that people criticize it because it just seems absurd, and requires some factual support.


Reflection:

After reading Charles' and Clayton's blogs, I realized that one thing that is very important to consider when analyzing comments is to not decide whether it is good or bad at the start. Clayton did a very good job of this, as he didn't let the fact that  a comment was, for example, in the non-credible group cloud his analysis. He still noted the good parts of the comment that were reasonable.
Likewise, any credible comment can have flaws that make it not perfectly credible, just good enough.

My Controversy

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/cover-story/Pseudo-science-must-not-figure-in-Indian-Science-Congress/articleshow/45698353.cms

This article from Mumbai Mirror talks about how a NASA scientist created a petition to stop a particular presentation at a prestigious conference in India back in January.

It seems odd that someone would be so against a single idea that he would publicly denounce it. Until, that is, you learn that they are proposing that ancient planes in India could fly in all horizontal directions (including backwards) and through outer-space to other planets.

They did end up presenting, but this is still an interesting argument, because on one hand it's almost definitely bogus.

 (** Science-y rant; not necessary to read** I mean, if a plane can fly through space, it wouldn't even need to be a plane anymore. It would just need to be a capsule that could get in and out of the atmosphere. Because if any vehicle has the capability to travel from planet to planet within reasonable time frame [which they said it could do], that speed would produce so much air resistance within the atmosphere that A. it would be far more efficient to go 60 miles up first [which, to a vehicle that would regularly travel hundreds of millions of miles {~370,000,000 to Jupiter} within the solar system, or 5X10^15 miles {1/100 the way across just this galaxy} if outside of the solar system, would be too trivial not to be worth it], and B. it would be quicker because that same speed would probably destroy the vessel (so they would need to slow down), or at the very least with the same amount of energy, outside of the atmosphere, there wouldn't be any air to slow it down, so it would go faster. And certainly, if a freshman in college can realize this within half an hour, a race of super-intelligent people who could actually make this thing would realize these things, too. PLUS, going that quickly in-atmo would be very loud, and people all over the planet (which is where the team making this proposal said this thing went) would have taken note of extraordinarily loud thunder on clear days. So, it wouldn't have been very smart to travel "continent-to-continent" in-atmo. Alright, now you're thinking "but what if it had some ability to avoid wind resistance, perhaps like a bubble in space-time that surrounded the craft?" Well, yes, that's a reasonable thing to assume of a theoretical craft that can travel planet to planet, and then it could also travel through the atmosphere just like they said. However, then I'm pretty sure the main point of their presentation would be "ancient space ship from india", as it certainly would not be an aeroplane, because aeroplanes by definition rely on the air to fly in the first place. Not to mention that fact that spaceships are waaaaay more interesting than planes. **end science-y rant**) 

And as Dr. Ram Prasad Gandhiraman argues, if we allow things like this to be presented as science, it could hurt the reputation of the scientific community.

But then on the other hand, can someone really just look at something, say "that's outrageous!" and have it be dismissed completely? Who gets to be the one who can decide? Or should science treat every proposal equally and only once a theory is proved to be false though a standard process, should it be dismissed?

I think it may have done more harm to just outright say they could not present their ideas. this would give the impression that science is biased. This way they could be dismissed once they gave their full proposal, and could be shown to not have any grounds for their assertions. This gives the impression that still any idea has a chance to be proven by the scientific community. It just needs merit.

Calendar Reflection

Sullivan, Matthew. "Something_to_see_here_3" 8/18/2007 via flickr. 

Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic licence

Well, I've looked it over, and it seems I have some time between doing things and not doing anything to do more things. For the most part, I can do my work at home after class, and fill in whatever I don't finish on Saturdays. 

I DON'T MEAN TO SAY I'LL WAIT TO DO ALL SIX HOURS ON SATURDAY, but... well... you know... If it comes to that, I can.

It definitely won't come to that. Probably.

Yeah, I'll probably do a third of my homework on Saturday. But the rest I can fit into after-class time. Mostly.

Calendar reflection reflection:

In all seriousness, I have a pretty open schedule, and I don't foresee any problems fitting in the six hours a week. Especially after reading about some of my peers' workloads (I didn't comment on any posts, though). I'm impressed with how little time some of you give yourselves for unscheduled fun to just browse reddit, play video games, nap, or whatever else. 

My Writing Process

Buckle up, passengers, because we're about to go on a roller coaster journey of me, explaining how I write. By the end, you'll know my writing style as well as I do (it's pretty basic).

1. My writing type:

Jacobs, Aaron. "Asleep at the Wheel" 11/17/05 via flickr.
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Licence

I am definitely a procrastinator when it comes to wring papers.

I've never felt that I was a good writer, and maybe because of that, I try to write as little as possible. But of course, since I write as little as possible, I never get better, and it's a never-ending cycle.

2. The other categories:

Of course, I eventually start writing, but when I do, it's only ever because I have to. But when I do, I fall mostly in the "heavy reviser" category. (I never do any pre-writing work, unless it's required.)

The part of the heavy revisers category I don't really fit into is the bit about "revising" my paper. I've (historically speaking) usually just revised once each assignment to save myself from a 50-70% on a paper.

3. Effective?

no.

But really, the major drawback of my writing style is the lack of writing. Certainly, if my goal is to write a good paper, I fail every time. But my goal has really always just been to not have to write much, so in that sense, I guess it works pretty well.

4. Should I try a different style?

Absolutely, if I have to. If I spent more time working with my ideas to get them to the reader, I'm certain I would be able to. I've just always been too lazy.


Reflection

After reading some other writing process posts from Jessi Grossman and Chingiz Boldyrev, I can see that other people can at least see some aspects procrastination in themselves, but mostly they've given examples to strive for. From Chingiz's post, I can see that (through not procrastinating) allowing myself more time to do more work on a paper by revising, it will be more complete.

And from Jessi's post I learned a different technique that I could try, but mostly, I just need to find whatever works best for me in producing good work.