Talk:2857: Rebuttals

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Ok, so...

  1. "...new evidence" (yes, possibly we can start with "...evidence", but let's start with the first contrarianism).
  2. "...inconvenient..." (so there's something we're saying is wrong with that new evidence?)
  3. "...led researchers to ignore..." (maybe could fold in with the inconvenience, but arguably ignoring is a 'third way' step in sidelining it, not even disagreeing)
  4. "...the prevailing consensus..." (another layer of implied position-taking where there is something to disagree with)
  5. "...the backlash against..." (to which others firmly took up the contrary)
  6. "It's become conventional wisdom that..." (and this is a counter-contrary perspective)
  7. "However..." ("...and I, for one, think that they're wrong about the whole thing!")

...well, by a very quick and dirty deconstruction. But, then again, I fully expect to be shown wrong in my delayering! 162.158.74.25 00:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't the inconvenient new evidence be the justification for the backlash against the prevailing concensus, not the reason why the new evidence is ignored? I'm not going to try to explain this comic, I'm lost already. Barmar (talk) 00:46, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
It was the backlash that ignored the new evidence. The new evidence wasn't adopted by the 'backlashers', as I read it, so couldn't be their justification. (Or at least that's how the conventional wisdom interprets it, which of course could be wrong!) 162.158.34.23 00:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree, and the first couple of paragraphs of the explanation are currently wrong in suggesting that the "prevailing consensus" is the one to which the researchers ignoring evidence ascribe. Instead we have a position that most scientists accept to be true and have done for some time ("prevailing consensus"), but this has inspired a revolt that is implied to be more emotively-driven than facts-based ("backlash") leading to revolt-inspired research ("has led researchers") uncovering evidence ("new evidence") which did not fit the revolting researchers' preconceived ideas ("inconvenient") and has therefore not been properly taken into account ("ignored"); however, this description of the situation is one that is generally assumed to be true, without critical thought or despite proof to the contrary ("conventional wisdom"), and Cueball is about to tell us why ("however..."). In truth, Cueball could be about to rebut any one of those things, but it is heavily implied to be the "conventional wisdom" that is in his view wrong, so there may actually be no prevailing consensus, or no real backlash, or no real research done because of that backlash, or no new evidence, or proof that that evidence could actually be useful to counter the prevailing consensus, or (and this again is most likely IMHO) it is wrong for people to assume that that the evidence was ever ignored. Therefore Cueball is about to support the revolting researchers, but only in rebutting the mainstream rebuttal accusing the rebutting researchers of failing to rebut contradictory evidence...172.69.223.169 10:05, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I impressed myself by correctly remembering that the author of "Structure of Scientific Revolution" was Thomas Kuhn. It was assigned reading in a philosophy of science class I took over 40 years ago, but I haven't had to think about it much since then. Barmar (talk) 00:43, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT: "Here is an image depicting the concept of a 'more rematic mainvisionist dogstream.'"

Looking for a way to depict the Title Text: "The mainstream dogma sparked a wave of dogmatic revisionism, and this revisionist mainstream dogmatism has now given way to a more rematic mainvisionist dogstream." Too garish? 172.69.79.142 00:52, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not typing color codes, but I figured it would make more sense to coordinate the color by compound word, not roots. So "dogma" would be one color, "mainstream" would be another, etc. And then "dogstream" would be two-tone. 172.70.178.11 09:47, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
On that topic, I think the description for "rematic" should be changed to more clearly reflect the combination of "revisionist" and "dogmatic"; I don't think it implies any relation to "remake", "remix", "refurbish" or "recycle", even if the ultimate meaning is similar (and I'm not sure that's the case anyway). 162.158.90.161 17:27, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

A simple explanation of "rematic mainvisionist dogstream" is that they are created by taking "re" from revisionist and replacing the "dog" from dogmatic which replaces the "main" from mainstream which then replaces the "re" of revisionist. Rtanenbaum (talk) 19:25, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

That's an excellent explanation, yet I'm still not sure I understand the comic. There may be just too many layers of meta. Barmar (talk) 16:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Unclothed evidence would certainly be inconvenient, to say no more, in the puritanical Church of Scientific Dogma. 172.70.210.40 17:39, 21 November 2023 (UTC)