Read the pheromone thread, then come back and say that with a straight face.
To clarify, I don’t think he is ignorant about what science is or the way it is supposed to work. I disagree with the statement that he is “tone deaf to science”. His specific knowledge of any areas of science is a different matter!
Re the linked thread, I know zip about pheromones so I can’t comment. The issue of what “race” actually means and its relationship to genetics has been done to death on these boards, but not recently that I can recall. I can’t fault mswas for this:
since I have asked related questions myself in one of those threads (page 4).
(Discussion begins on page 3, before that it is all insult exchange.)
I haven’t been in the supernatural thread, but in the thread where statistics comes up, I’ll say mswas was debating fine. He wasn’t being a hypocrite because he thought he was making valid points using what he thought was good math (common sense - how can one person represent 250,000?).
IOW, he didn’t know that he didn’t know. He thought he knew.
I doubt there’s anyone on the board who hasn’t been fooled into thinking they thought they knew something that they really didn’t know.
Thanks matt, bup and devilsknew. I’ll try to be nicer to people when I get frustrated so that I don’t have to see you guys clarify a position when defending me in the future. 
Erek
You really don’t know context even if it bites you in the ass.
This post really shows who you are. MrDibble already pointed out that what **devilskew ** did was something all right, but that was not a defense. At the same time you pretend that you will change your ways, you still find a way to insult others, because you are cool with that kind of “defense”.
Thanks anyhow for confirming the OP.
I’d like to make a note for the record that this is the first time in the Pit thread dedicated to me insulting GIGObuster where I insult him personally.
You’re a fucking Tool.
Too late for that you certified Joker, go read Illuminatus to finish your whoosh.
Being tone deaf and ignorant are two different things. I could read all the music theory in the world, and learn how to read music, but I’d still be tone deaf. I haven’t seen much to indicate he has a deep knowledge of science, but then I haven’t seen any howlers either, so I withhold judgment. (I haven’t seen the thread on pheromes.) I have seen a lack of understanding of hypothesis generation and testing, and even why that is a good thing to do, so I stand behind my accusation of tone deafness.
Certainly not! Aristotle was neither ignorant nor superstitious, but his method of reasoning about the world was badly flawed, and led to error. That is in no way an insult - I doubt either you or I could have done better (or as well) living when he did. Saying someone is wrong is not saying they are stupid.
Remember Moonwatcher did that under the influence of the aliens’ teaching machine, and the aliens certainly did know science! Though I would say he did it after being shown a picture of what the bone could do when applied to the tapir. I’d say he murdered the other prehuman accidentally. He seemed surprised when he fell.
Nonetheless, I’m sure science like stuff did get done, but I’m speaking of a formal scientific method understood as a method, and not just one of a set of tools to explore the world. Mary Shelley may have been writing science fiction, but only Gernsback’s authors know they were writing science fiction, to use an analogy.
Actually I think “falsehoods” is harsh, sounding intentional. I’d say errors, since they made the best guesses they could. They also did some damn fine engineering. Besides your example, consider the Roman water system and the sophisticated plumbing found in Pompeii, something that would not be recreated for about 1800 years. Science does not produce knowledge where none was made before - it accelerates the production of knowledge by providing a means to weed out false paths and to better exploit productive ones.
Ancient “science” never got tested against the real world, but ancient engineering did. If you made swords, and your customers got killed by losing to a better one, you tended to try to find a better solution! Not so if you think that heavier objects fall faster and don’t think that testing this hypothesis has anything to do with science.
Actually you made that assumption about me. I never once disputed that hypothesis testing was a good thing to do. Not once.
May you be successful enough that future generations may say such a thing about you.
The tools that you call “Critical Thinking Skills” were assembled over a very long period of time.
Modern science is still the best guesses that we can make. We are certainly more enlightened now than we were 1000 years ago, just as we will be more enlightened in 1000 years, and many of the ideas that you find completely reasonable will be considered quaint.
Ancient science never got tested against the real world? Huh?
Erek
Illuminatus is fictional, and “Cosmic Trigger” is autobiographical of about 15 years of Robert Anton Wilson’s life preceding the writing of that book.
Now, I wonder why the book would get reviews such as this one:
I guess they got whooshed too. Just like Henry Miller.
"We’ve needed this for a long time " --Henry Miller, author of Tropic of Cancer r
I wonder why all of us are being whooshed by this book, but you’re such a genius that you were able to see through it without managing to even understand the subject matter.
Erek
Only taking into account how gullible he was for The Mothman Prophecies is enough to show how you will remain the same.
You’re full of shit. Don’t let anybody ever tell you different.
Erek
Too late for that too, you context codpiece. Others already told me different in this thread.
And while this is about the movie, this site points to what I knew before, and shows how gullible Wilson was for believing John Keel (the source of this nonsense):
He didn’t believe the Mothman Prophecies. He was speculating on the idea of infinite possibilities and wondering whether or not it’s possible that every possibility exists in it’s own alternate timeline, and therefore could it be possible that the Mothman Prophecies were true in one timeline, and only partially true in another.
But I’m so glad you feel intellectually superior over it. As long as you’ve got something to stroke your own ego about.
Grasping at straws. Sad and pathetic.
I agree. A talking mattress told me so.
GIGObuster, have a Prozac.
You’re free to think mswas is an idiot - why are you so damned mad about it? I’m just not getting it.
Did I say I was mad? 
mswas is a riot, after all that, I’m not taking seriously, I needed to be sure where he was coming from!
It is important to remember that Robert Anton Wilson himself has long lampooned and criticized new age beliefs. Seeing so called mystics go off the rail defending what is not true in this universe (I’m open to other universes) is amusing to say the least.
IOW, you really don’t want him to face the really mad **Skeptirati ** from the other timeline, believe me.
Pressed reply too soon:
Did I say I was mad?
**mswas ** is a riot, after all that, I’m not taking him seriously. I needed to be sure where he was coming from!
It is important to remember that Robert Anton Wilson himself has long lampooned and criticized new age beliefs. Seeing so-called mystics go off the rail defending what is not true in this universe (I’m open to other universes) is amusing to say the least.
IOW, you really don’t want him to face the really mad **Skeptirati ** from the other timeline, believe me.
I can’t really form any sort of respect for mswas any more. After dealing with crap like this in the racist thread that lead to the pheromone thread:
And then after a few rounds of scientific jabs and a few logical haymakers, the truth really comes out.
He starts off acting as if there is some accredited basis for his claim but it turns out to be a hypothesis based on absolutely no data. If he’d come out with this at first, it’d be a lot easier to accept than his continuous claims of being right only to grudgingly admit he might not be correct. How do you debate with someone who fabricates their side of the arguement?