The Group

Why do I take my time to listen to people who some would consider whacky? I guess it's because I firmly believe that we don't understand a lot. Over the next hundred years we are going to discover things that would make our head spin if we knew them today. So whatever the advances are going to be, we would consider them "whacky". Science, while largely a consensus sport, sometimes moves from the edges, not the middle. There are a lot of examples, and I'll save them for a later column.
So the premise is that to some degree loose speculation is fun, and perhaps useful. It's the fine difference between a hypothesis that only moves a few yards and a bold hypothesis that makes bold claims.
The interesting part is the question: how much speculation is a good thing? Ben Franklin obviously used his imagination to some degree, and was very productive doing it. Likewise for Thomas Edison. Edison tried scores of materials for the light bulb until he finally found one that work -- you can't tell me that he was making it up as he went along.
But what happens when you try this with any kind of group? Well, if my internet group is any indication, it's total chaos and lack of progress. Some people talk about UFOs, mixing up the concept with alien craft -- they're two different ideas. Some people want to talk about channeling and alien intervention. Some, angels and the forces of darkness.
Why so varied? That's a much harder question to answer, as each person speaks from his own experience. To some, I would suppose, dragons and aliens are not a great leap of the imagination. To others, aside from the entertainment value, there's not much there to work with.
Michael Shermer has made a good business out of debunking pseudo-science. I like Mike, but his constant use of Occam's Razor leads me to think that Occam might be a little in the eye of the beholder: I can see similar logic being used during the inquisition, for instance.
WTF? I'm not sure there is much to fix here. People are different, and that's a good thing. Celebrating our differences is probably a much better way of making progress than berating one another.