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I feel strongly that "bunk" is an intentionally insulting word. So "debunking" is an intentionally insulting word.
It should not be applied to qualified scientists, who rarely falsify their publications.
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were these scientists debunking or refuting ... or revising ... a theory?
I think you've put your finger on it, W'ON. "Bunk" is not science. It doesn't even masquerade as serious science. It appeals only to the gullible and the credulous.
Scientists do not "debunk" theories they disagree with, as you have explained so cogently. They respect the mind and the intellectual process which produced the theory even if they disagree with it.
"Bunk" can never enjoy this kind of respect. It is, after all, just "bunk". If follows that it is far easier to debunk bunk than it is to refute science.
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Surely, in order to debunk something effectively rather than just getting up on your hind legs and saying "I don't think ..." or "I don't think ... " you need evidence.
Amen, CK. My qualification is that in an imperfect world, what you say applies in the long run -- but in the short run passions can rule; ask Galileo about his experience with the Inquisition.
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Right on, wwh. "Bunk" is an insult and one who "debunks" something is dismissing that thing as "bunk", also an insult.
Harry Houdini debunked seances. But no-one debunked Einstein. Some of Einstein's theories were flawed but they were never bunk.
One cannot debunk serious science or manifest truth because there is no "bunk" in these things to debunk.
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Dear Max: Here is a URL answering the phony allegations that Moon Landings were faked: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/Written by a planetary scientist, this is what I call genuine "debunking".
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Dear Max: I had no intention of picking on you. I'm still amazed that an expensive TV program could be so wasted.
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Damn! Heretofore I thought a Bunkerist was one who used to agree with the star of All In The Family.
The whole point was that for one to use the
word debunk, one must simply believe that one has trashed a myth.
But can't one properly call any theory "myth?" It is a story, whether developed by repeatable demonstration or by empirical observation, that makes sense of what one percieves of the world around him. I suspect that truly debunking a myth would be tantamount do denying existence.
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History is more or less bunk. - Henry Ford Leakey vs. Johanson is regarded as one of the Great Feuds in Science : Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever, by Hal Hellman, about which this can be found: excellent popular debunking of "story book" science history... Hellman presents us with a well written and carefully researched series of entertaining profiles about some notable debates in science (both old and current). These are informative and fun to read, but perhaps their greatest value for lay readers is in revealing the all-too human sides of the combatants. This discredits the "Story Book" version of science so often given in texts wherein noble scientists are portrayed as unblemished heroes fighting to bring light into the darkness against a purely non-scientific opposition. Here we see that even great scientists often squabble with one another and that they seldom epitomize rationality and objectivity.http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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