Comments on: The Cranks Have Broken In!

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:33:59 +0000

Thanks. And you’re right, it is actually one crank using different names; alas, he doesn’t seem to realize that his IP address is recorded with every comment.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, teases me by referring to this xkcd strip…

By: Suicyte

Suicyte — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:22:24 +0000

Eric,

I really admire you patience, discussing with these cranks. Or, more likely, one crank using different names.

By: George Brickstyn

George Brickstyn — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:36:36 +0000

Eric, as I said before (but you seem to also have some major attention deficit): do NOT blame many others if you´re the one to be desperately lost.

Never mind, it´s all too known that some underachievers crack once they see trailblazers and deflate even more when there is recognition for such pioneers.

Just a final remark for “parafilm Eric”: The real experts in string theory like Warren Siegel know too well that string theory must be made inherently 4D and thus predictive. So, don´t spread physical bogus on the web ever again.

George

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:05:44 +0000

You’re bonkers, but ok.

“String theory in 4D” is meaningless. We already have theories for four dimensions; they’re called Newtonian and Quantum Mechanics. Work well enough for things larger than a proton.

Now, I don’t know why you keep changing your name and posting under different personas, but sorry, Mr. Rick-Danny-Melissa-George. If you can’t recognize crap when you see it, I have low hopes for your future scientific success. Good luck.

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:30:13 +0000

Some of my students told me I should be dropping some lines in this debate. Eric said he is no expert in string theory. I am though. A string theory in 4 dimensions (instead of the usual 10 or more) plus its application to biological molecules and cancer disease and its treatment, as outlined by Radulescu, is by all means great stuff.

Rick

By: Danny Wilderspoon

Danny Wilderspoon — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:18:58 +0000

Now, I just wanted to have a laid back West Coast browsing session (after a great beach scroll), and what do I spot?! A nurd (from the East Coast??) called “Eric” blogging nonsense on McClintock, since let me quote Eric, “no one understood what she was doing”, but “everyone recognized as being great work” and “no way was she considered a crank”, yet she was “ridiculed, yes”. Boy, have you gone totally NUTS ?!

Since I was nevertheless curious to see what this is actually all about, I just checked out the work of this PNAS/arXiv guy Eric is obviously either too stupid or too jealous to understand. And I MUST say Radulescu has done great original work linking protein interactions with both emergent properties and the string theory.

I do not know of anyone who has made such synthesis before, and actually many of the observed, yet poorly understood phenomena in oncogenesis fit neatly into it, with additionally quite surprising consequences as to its future treatment in terms of involving also the normal-appearing cells. He has charted a new way, that´s for sure, and I don´t care who will work out the (mathematical and biological) details ultimately.

Oh, and I should say I´m faculty in an interdisciplinary department. So, no such talk as “I´m no expert for…” this or that, yet I keep blogging… Before someone tracks you down, Eric, I advise you to stop spreading nonsense on the web, otherwise some people above you might start not liking this waste of time of yours, as you admitted. Show the crowd that you can be self-critical, not just trashy, and then there is hope.

Danny

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:53:38 +0000

I do agree that Barbara McClintock was working quite isolated; no one understood what she was doing with transposons. But in no way was she considered a crank; she had some great experiements on recombination using cytogenetics in maize that everyone recognized as being great work. She was attacked for her transposon work, yes, and ridiculed, yes, and her being a woman had something to do with it, undoubtedly. But everyone was aware of her work, even if some thought it was just weird experimental errors, of which there were so many that one more was just dust in the wind.

Anyway, invoking the “poor, unaccepted-by-the-mainstream theorist” is often the first sign of crackpot-dom.

As for not understanding peptide string theory, I don’t think it’s a matter of my “not understanding” it; there’s nothing of substance to understand. The author invokes absolutely nothing that actually has anything to do with string theory, uses no mathematics to substantiate his work in any accessible publication, and what he does publish on arXiv (and cites in his article in PNAS) is pretty much meaningless drivel. I see no predictions for his models. i see no experimental confirmation of his results.

Just try actually reading his stuff; because I’m a scientist, I can read papers critically. Can you?

By: Melissa Seriamo

Melissa Seriamo — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:14:22 +0000

Hi!
I just came across this forum by chance. I almost feel like with my brothers when I had and still have to settle their quarrels. They trusted my sense of justice and it worked out quite well this way most of the times. Look guys, I have been in science for many years now, specifically in genetics, and what Eric stated in his last posting is simply NOT true.
It is common knowledge in genetics circles that Barbara McClintock was ridiculed and kept in the dissentient corner for DECADES, briefly she was considered a lonely “crank” (which, by the way, means nothing else than being an eccentric) until…well, until the first “hard” data came in (from bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics by changing the positions of their genes on the chromosome, yet not from her own beloved maize!) to support her unusual concepts. That her work was cited by Jacob and colleagues in the late 1950s is an honorable exception to the rule of that time, the rule being that McClintock´s ideas were “out” of the mainstream for long.
The lesson from all this? Read even more on the real facts in history and let TIME judge on seemingly new eccentrics.
But George is certainly right on one account: if some do NOT quite understand the peptide string theory, this is no reason for them to call it “pseudo-science”, as Eric did. Using this latter term unnecessarily disqualifies oneself.
We simply have to accept that there are a few individuals with this “feeling for the organism” like McClintock called it, yet they can often not present sufficient supporting data to convince the majority immediately. Ultimately, if the above theory should prove true, it will probably once again conform to Schopenhauer´s insight:

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

Have a nice day,

Melissa

P.S. If an investigator sees “seminal” potential in his own work, that may be considered as self-confident, no more. After all, this term boils down to something providing a basis for future development. That´s it. Therefore, just by considering the mere facts, there is nothing illegitimate for an author to ascertain this potential for his insights and data. Because otherwise there would be no real drive to proceed. I can only repeat myself: before beginning to “trash” on others, let TIME be the judge. Otherwise, we will have the McClintock story over and over again, with decades of wasted time and resources while (counterproductively) scoffing at creative, yet eccentric minds.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:41:17 +0000

Barbara McClintock was in no way considered a crank. If you read an early paper from molecular biology (say, the 1958 paper by Jacob and Wollman on the circular nature of the chromosome), her transposon theories were cited and taken quite seriously, though few people understood them at the time due to their immensely complicated phenotypes and experimental details. One should note that this was before the understanding of the structure of DNA, and so even in bacteria, things such as transposition or circular linkage maps were difficult to understand, let alone in maize.

Her theories were also completely based on the standard cytogenetic analytical methods of the times, and didn’t invoke pseudo-scientific concepts to justify her statements. She clearly understood her model organism.

Alas, it seems that cranks have some sort of alarm response, where exposing one will make others jump out and defend each other. Seems I should stop feeding the troll now.

By: The Real Ben

The Real Ben — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:19:36 +0000

So, let me get this straight. Eric makes a reasonable, skeptical comment on the nature of the field of “peptide string theory” (much more charitably, I think, than is warranted) and points out how a guy who cites himself and then proceeds to call his own work “seminal” has what I can only term ‘crank-like’ attributes.

Then, George responds with some mumbo-jumbo about how students don’t know everything, makes a bizarre argument about how Eric is somehow sniffing parafilm or something, and then lashes out at Eric for some PNAS/arXiv citation thing.

It seems almost unfair for me to make any comment on the quality of this debate…