Quote:
Originally Posted by Dynam0
Theories that lack empirical evidence are little more than wishful thinking. Sure they might be interesting what-ifs but I find a lot of unnecessary energy is wasted trying to validate ridiculous claims for the sake of some personal satisfaction (religion being a good example).
The adage "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is good to keep in mind here.
If a theory is considered "weird" then it would fall into the extraordinary category and to echo goldstinger, really wouldn't be worth talking about unless there are enough supporting facts to consider and talk about. Every example given in this thread so far has been pure conjecturing.
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I highly agree with you on that. Some theories, however interesting they are, don't help us learn more about ourselves or our surroundings. They remain merely as curious thoughts that go nowhere.
Even then, I still think there are good theories to talk about. Not all 'weird' theories have to imply extraordinary/religious stuff. We could be talking about our theories based on our observations on things happening around us, especially politics. For example, one could discuss about the seemingly terrible things presidents or some nations do, and give reasons as to why that's done.
And even if we were to purely talk about (mostly) baseless conjecture, I still find this a good and fun way to learn to think better about certain topics. There might be points one has neglected to evaluate, or perhaps through discussions, one might find out that their reasoning is very biased. Too often nowadays do people just present one side of the story without considering the full picture, and we end up with people who blindly side with a certain party or group. Even I make this mistake sometimes.
To sum up what I think of this thread, I consider it not just as a chitchat thread, but also as a chance to develop critical thinking skills and talk about theories that might have some ground to them. This could become a good critical thinking thread if we treat it as one.