Eddie and Tim Work It Out?

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

Yes, that is quite obvious, and no one here ever said or implied otherwise, but that doesn’t stop Mercer from jeering when people use terms like “scientific argument” or “scientific debate”. He has many times (albeit not so much here as elsewhere) indicated not merely that evidence and data are needed for good science (which everybody grants), but that argument or debates aren’t central to scientific activity. And that contradicts what you have just said. You have said that scientists are “arguers by profession” – something very different from his characterization of scientific activity. He has always represented scientific activity as primarily research, based on a hypothesis, to uncover data. He has never stressed the “argument” aspect of science as you do.

Less complaining, more substance, please.