Actually, “teaching the controversy” is more-or-less the basis for an entire education reform movement called computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), which advocates the construction of online systems which help people to better navigate complex controversies. When a subject becomes incredibly complex, I’m not quite sure that there exists an alternative which can support the formation of critical thinking (?). People need to be permitted to formulate their own meaning and opinions once arguments become sufficiently complex. That’s actually part of the message we see coming from the constructivist education reform movement.
Contrast that with Tom Bridgman’s approach, which is to convince people that since he has already determined for himself that the theory must be wrong, that the reader should not even bother to learn the Electric Universe. People generally use his website – which is strangely titled “Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy” – for the purpose of convincing others to be ignorant with them on the theory.
Is this the solution you’re looking for?
Bridgman’s fans seem to already be looking for a reason to avoid learning the theory and the arguments. They would rather somebody save them the effort of listening to both sides. The fact that there are rebuttals (by Don Scott) and then rebuttals to those rebuttals (and so on) should clue most people into the plainly obvious observation that this fits the concept of a controversy.
My guess is that many people simply get lost in the debate, become frustrated, and then give up. Probably many of those people do not actually understand what Bridgman was arguing in many instances, and I’m willing to bet that that is probably fine with Bridgman. Typically, when students don’t understand science, it’s considered the fault of the student. They must just be stupid. It seems that nobody stops to wonder if perhaps the arguments need to be presented better.
The critical thinker might begin to wonder if the apparent failure of the Internet to support complex debate might actually be having an influence upon peoples’ decisions to place faith in conventional theory which extends beyond their actual knowledge. The public, in that scenario, would generally tend to side on the “safe bet”, and that would tend to reduce the numbers of critics the scientists face in a general sense. If critical thinking was actually far more common than we see today, the education historian John Taylor Gatto has argued that at a certain point, this could actually become a destabilizing force for society.
There is a very thoughtful commentary on the “reasons for crankery” at http://www.ebtx.com/oats/cranknet.htm …
(bold is my own emphasis …)
The advancement of science requires - absolutely - what I call
“forced” induction (as opposed to “free” induction - what animals do).
This requires that you go off on your own to think independently. The
extent to which you “go off alone” determines whether you will become
an acceptable scientist or what you call a “crank”. Unfortunately, the
originality of your ideas is tied inextricably to the measure of your
“aloneness”.Other people act as guides and supports (a frame of reference) upon
which you can rely to “set you straight” when you stray into the realm
of the “illucid”. As I have said, “Self delusion is the bane of
induction”. I know this to be true from extensive personal experience.
It is a real struggle to keep one’s thoughts on track without the
assistance of other readily available opinion.Thus, if a scientist at Cern has a really bad idea, he may mention it
to a colleague who says, “Did you slip on a bar of soap in the shower?
Don’t you remember the “X” factor we were just talking about last
week?” And then the first guy says, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Forget it.” Now he’s back on track in less than ten seconds.Someone alone however, may struggle for weeks in the same situation,
unable to see a simple thing that another disinterested person would
notice immediately. He may pursue the wrongheaded matter to some new
bizarre conclusion and believe that he has found the Holy Grail. And
the more effort he has put into it, the less he will be willing to
give it up.Therefore, if you go off alone you tend to become a “crank”… but if
you remain with the herd you tend to discover nothing new, i.e. and
become a “pundit”.There is a Gaussian distribution here.
There are perhaps five or six thousand individuals who actually try to
do “forced induction” at the highest level. Half of them fall on the
left 'crank" side of the distribution and half fall on the right
“pundit” side. Each half needs the other.You could make the case that the “extremes” ought to be cut off. But I
would say, “Who is to decide the cutoff point?”. I certainly wouldn’t
want to make such a momentous decision. Hence, I don’t criticize other
people’s stuff in general since I understand how difficult it is to
produce anything at all.The same applies in the larger sense to wide groups of individuals. If
the “ship of science” (or one of its smaller boats) decides to drop
anchor and wait for the truth to come to it … they will stagnate and
you will find that many more “cranks” pop up to point out the paucity
of perpendicular progress … at the same time offering new and
evermore bizarre solutions to present problems.This is actually the present situation. The physics establishment has
decided that they can proceed by experiment alone (data gathering) and
that the data will tell them what to “induce” next.In fact, it will.
But this is the method of the animal population … free induction. It
is highly accurate but it takes forever to get where you want to go.
Hence, humans have opted for “forced induction” (they try everything
and see what works … fast progress with lots of mistakes). So their
relative stagnation has engendered a new “raft” of adventuresome
“cranks”.It really doesn’t matter though
As long as a free exchange of ideas is possible (in the political
sense), then I don’t see any need to protect anyone from either new
ideas or stultifying academia. The truth will win out easily and
eventually in an open forum.
You might think that you’ve managed to steer clear of the problem of crankism, but if society as a whole decides that crankism is the only real problem which must be solved in scientific discourse, then the ship of science can easily veer down a wrong path and end up in a stagnant harbor. Eventually, we’ll all die, and pass the remaining problems of science on to the next generation.
Success involves taking chances. Creativity in science is not a tumor which needs to be cut out. It’s the underlying force of change and progress which we must perfect in order to solve the most complex problems we face in science.
