This Board Could Discuss....

[@ombomb]

fair point

 

[lljdma06]

Persoally I think the "how to argue" thread is rather patronising, fair enough make the point, but I assume the most people that would bother to view such a thread are not the people who would need to be told how to have a discussion with poeple, particularly not in that manner.

@ombbomb, check out the acclimitization thread in chit chat, and then check how many points in the "how to argue" posts have been broken. That is the kind of thread I'd much rather NOT see in the science section, though the topic is a great one for the science section. If it takes a somewhat patronizing 'how to argue' thread to point out to people so that our science sub-forum doesn't end up like that thread, then so be it.

I fully agree. While I admit to having had some fun, it is irksome to have to defend oneself against personal attacks for requesting evidence to support a "fact"

Actually just came from reading that thread myself, and I was extremely disappointed in what I thought was going to be a great topic. I don't think the "how to argue thread" is patronizing at all, especially after reading the acclimitization thread. That was a doozy. If we can debate, I like that word much better than argue anyways, like the civilized human beings that I know are in there somewhere, myself included, I think a topic like that would be in the forefront of items to discuss. In discussing any topic, it may be prudent to realize that perhaps there may be no winning a debate under certain circumstances, because the research may as yet be too new and not generally supported with large amounts of investigation and experimentation. There may not be enough evidence to support a paradigm shift (SAT word for the day) in relation to a specific topic.

I also advise caution in another area, and if this has been mentioned previously, I apologize, but it really deserves reiteration, in my opinion. If you are going to present evidence, it must be from a source that is documented correctly. Too much information on the web is presented without any source documentation whatsoever. If you use these types of sources in a debate, more than likely, you will called upon to verify its authenticity. When researching your evidence on the web, which can be a great source, refrain from using such websites, which often included articles written in those massive information websites (Wikipedia, ask.com, etc). I’m not saying that all articles from these places are unusable, but be sure to read and make sure that the writer correctly documents his/her sources. Also, it doesn't hurt to look at the sources they cite. An article that has source documentation is still a suspect article if upon checking the sources, you find that the sources themselves are not documented!

This section, however, doesn't always have to involve debate. I really think that this is an excellent location to read/review/discuss papers, experiments, and field research in our area. Perhaps even studies can be posted here, or even researchers can turn to us as participants for a study. That sort of thing would be nice, as a welcome break to constant, never-ending "debate".

llj

 

[OohFeeshy]

Looks like stunting is going to be the first big topic. There's several though, all in different places.

 

[steelhealr]

lljdma...good post. This area is for discussion and, being in the science world, it CAN get lively. But..that's OK. By trying to prepare here..with guidelines, posts and pre-discussion, we are hoping to get across that this place is to hopefully provide an area to:

• discuss topics of aquarism at a level that is based on evidence and scientific fact, or, to get to the bottom of things without opinion or personal experience
• educate ourselves
• get into an interesting area of aquarism and really pick it apart
• have fun

With this in mind, I am going over the suggestions for topics and hopefully we will start our first discussion.

SH

 

[steelhealr]

Two topics...one of which is a previous heated one..it's a challenge going out to redo it ...'scientifically'. Anyone up for the challenge? SH