On 12/05/2010 13:46, Quadibloc wrote:
On May 12, 2:58 am, Martin
wrote:
Showing where their claims conflict
with the known laws of physics is the way to do it and not by appeals to
authority.

Of course it is. However, to avoid being taken in in the first place,
people should take the claims of mavericks with a few extra grains of
salt.

Or a bucket full of salt as the emetic effect would be beneficial.

This is not to say that a grain of salt should not be used even
for what the authorities say.

John Savard

Appeals to authority should never be trusted unless the authority can
explain their reasoning. Even famous professors are sometimes wrong.

Stephen Hawking as a student famously shot down a paper presented at a
public lecture by Fred Hoyle who was at the time one of the most
prominent cosmologists when the orthodoxy was Steady State. History
shows that Hawking was right although Hoyle at the time was furious.

Fifth para on this website has a bit about that encounter.

http://campus.udayton.edu/~hume/Hawking/hawkingbio.html

Regards,
Martin Brown