Format
This format will guide the HSG systematically through the examination of Dr. Randell Mills’ theory of classical quantum mechanics and its comparison to available data. It will allow every list member–whether a critic, supporter or seeker–an opportunity to participate in the most thoughtful, scholarly fashion possible on an e-mail list. It will also maximize quality while minimizing volume.
- Be economical with your postings. Where possible, respond to several different articles in one post. That way every article can be worth reading, and we don’t have a needless combinatorial explosion in the number of messages that people have to read and respond to in order to keep up. Try to keep it down to one post per day.
- Do not assume that just because you have formulated a fiendishly clever objection to classical quantum mechanics (CQM) that there is no possible way to answer it. If you have an objection, ask a question–Dr. Mills has most likely been answering objections like yours much longer than you have been formulating them. Better yet, read the FAQ so the moderator doesn’t have to append [Read the FAQ] to your post.
- Remember that CQM attempts to mirror QM experimental results without invoking probability waves, zero point energy (ZPE), and other theoretical features which lie outside of the realm of experimentation. Mills asserts that all of the experimental evidence in favor of QM also supports CQM. See the FAQ.
- In general, we hope to see these kinds of posts:
- Questions about aspects of the theory and experimental reports
- Responses to questions
- Reports of independent experimental replication attempts
- Novel theoretical developments by group members based on CQM
- News items of interest
- Please follow the FiLCHeRS critical thinking guidelines.
- Dr. Mills has graciously agreed to participate in HSG, and keeping him participating is one of our main goals. Please keep in mind that Dr. Mills is a busy fellow and may not have time to answer your every inquiry. Others on the list may be able to help you better. In any case, please do not confuse thinking you have found an inescapable contradiction within CQM with a lack of a personal response to your inquiry.
- The contents of the FAQ are very much fair game for criticism and follow-up questions–your comments can only improve it.
- Theories should be judged on the basis of:
- Conformity to experiment
- Internal mathematical consistency
- Plausibility of physical interpretation
- Completeness of its description of nature rather than some subjective personal criteria for quality.
- Debates about abstract theoretical principles far removed from any experimentation are rarely profitable and often degenerate into philosophical discussions of little practical value.
Rules:
- No ad hominem (i.e. personal) attacks. This is not Usenet.
- No tautological arguments, e.g., don’t support the veracity of one part of QM (like the probability density interpretation) with some other related QM principle (like QM operator mathematics which describe probability densities). Such arguments are “not even wrong”.
- No blanket statements about how everyone knows that QM is unassailable experimentally and CQM makes no sense at all. Such rhetorical sound bites do not help us very much.
- All posters must have previously read the FAQ. No one wants to see the same question posted again and again.
- Flame wars will be unceremoniously doused.
- Circular threads will meet their ends.
- Lengthy unsupported rants or pontification (as defined at the moderator’s discretion) will be sent back for rewrite.
- “Me too” and “I don’t know much about physics, but” articles will be suppressed. Read the FAQ and lurk.
- Off-topic articles will not be approved.
- The moderators must make judgment calls about what they want published, and it is within their right to make editorial decisions which you may call arbitrary. This list is ruthlessly moderated to ensure that
- the articles do not waste your time
- Dr. Mills’ time is not wasted
- If you believe you have been treated unfairly, you may e-mail the HSG Ombudsman, Eric Krieg, ateric@phact.org, for conflict resolution. Eric is the undisputed king of skeptics.
Ten Attributes of Well-Written HSG Articles
identified | well-aimed | brief | delimited | polite | literate | edited | clear | self-contained | civilized
1. Identified
The subject line should appropriately identify your article to allow the disinterested to skip it and the deeply interested to file it systematically. If you digress from the main theme of a discussion thread, change the subject line to identify your new focus. Subject lines such as “Various” or “Miscellaneous” are worthless; exercise your ability to think in essentials and demonstrate that ability to your readers. You should include your full name (or a consistent pseudonym) in your signoff. Not only does this offer other list members the courtesy of letting them identify you as something other than nameless e-mail address, but it tells the moderator that your post was not truncated on its journey through many different mail server gateways.
For a brief period on HSG, we required identification of actual names and credentials. However, we learned that people would prefer to be classified according to the quality of their arguments rather than the authority given to them by their educational background. One could say Dr. Mills, who formal degrees are not in physics, could fall into this category as well. We’ll be completely tasteless and throw in Einstein and de Broglie. Also, some researchers may prefer to be anonymous rather than have it known that they are participating in HSG for professional reasons.
The original idea was to help readers decide whether or not a given poster was credible. Unfortunately, we learned that a PhD in physics is no guarantee of reasonableness.
2. Well-aimed
You are posting messages on a list that has more than 100 members. Your articles can be read by many, and they can be ignored. Don’t assume every member will read everything you post. Try to submit something of interest to more than a few list members. For example, mere assertions–whether positive or negative–about the value of someone else’s article are best accomplished through private e-mail or as a parenthetical comment at the end of some other message. Remember the limit of no more than one assessment per per person per document. If you feel you have to do more, you are probably not focusing your effort.
3. Brief
In written communication (other things being equal), the shorter, the better–given that you have all the data needed to make your point. The apology “I’m sorry this note is so long; I didn’t have time to make it shorter” is fine for private mail, but inappropriate for scientific discussion. The longer the submission, the more time you should have spent editing it. I suggest that you remove irrelevant formulations with which you’re in love and save them in a private file if you can’t bear to wipe them out totally. I’ve been told that novelist Ayn Rand said a good writer had to be prepared to “murder his darlings” in removing extraneous material from his writing.
4. Delimited
Try to stick to one fundamental point or theme in each assessment. Other issues should be appropriately subordinated to minimize digressions. It is better to focus on either content or method–not both–when pointing out what you believe are someone else’s mistakes. Because objective judgments of others’ methods require more analytical skills than most HSGers yet possess, because objective critiques of others’ methods require better writing skills than most HSGers now possess, and because people are not often receptive to criticism of their manner of thinking, your first choice for criticizing another person’s posting should be to focus on content, not method. (For your own education, the opposite will give faster payoff: improve your method.)
5. Polite
Rude comments are inappropriate in public discussions despite the examples set by our politicians. My suggestion for dealing with people who are rude to you (or to others you respect) is to ignore them. If you feel compelled to answer them, do it by private mail. If they’ve made some egregious error that you feel will mislead other readers, write an article narrowly delimited to that error; but focus on presenting the correct view. I believe that intentionally rude people thrive on attention from reasonable people. Starve rudeness by paying it no attention. In those rare cases where it is appropriate to respond to rudeness, address the public, not the offender, and explicitly point out the inanities, illogic, and crassness so strongly with such cold politeness that the offender would not even want to show his mother what you wrote.
6. Literate
Your writing reveals your thinking. Sloppy, careless writing is indicative of an untidy mind. Grammar books, dictionaries, and spelling checkers are easy to obtain. Some pet peeves of mine: “loose” where you meant “lose”; “principal” where you meant “principle”; split infinitives. I don’t mean to be fanatical about this. A compilation of mailing list messages is not an edited journal, nor should it be. I’ve noticed typos and spelling errors in my own postings, too; but there is a difference between not trying and not being infallible. Literacy in the context of HSG means taking the effort to read the assigned document and not dropping the context that there are other intelligent list members who have been studying Dr. Mills’ theory for years.
7. Edited
As mentioned in point 3, the longer the assessment, the more time you should have spent in the editing phase. If it’s long, have a friend read it before you ship it off to the list. In editing, take literally the words you’ve written and ask yourself if that’s what you really are trying to say. On HSG others will take your words literally, so please thinkbefore you post. If the article is longer than a page, you should have outlined it first. On topics that are particularly complex, a day’s rest between drafting and editing is necessary. Objective communication requires not dropping the context of the reader. On HSG, that context includes the reader’s willingness to pay a price in time and effort for the privilege of studying Mills’ theory in an electronic forum. When you disagree with someone, your default assumption should be that at least one of you needs to enlarge your context. Pay attention to your format, and remember that (1) you should limit your posts to 70 characters per line and 132 lines per post to avoid problems with older mail gateways, and (2) you should assure that each line in your post has a line break at the end of it. Use white space to facilitate reading.
8. Clear
Clarity should not be sacrificed for brevity. It is best achieved by illustrating abstractions with simple concretes. Borderline cases should be tackled only after the straightforward ones are made clear. Using a contrasting example also aids clarity. Clarity is also enhanced by integration. For example, what is the relation between your abstraction and other ones your reader already knows? Is your abstraction making (e.g.) a physical or a theoretical point? If it is physical, is it more fundamental than first principles (e.g.) or is it derivative from it?
9. Self-contained
Articles do not get to every location in the same sequence. Give enough contextual material to allow your reader to know to what you are replying. But don’t violate brevity, and do not clutter a posting by including others’ irrelevant material as a pseudo-insurance against the charge of context-dropping. Exercise and demonstrate your ability to think in essentials by summarizing that to which you are responding. Lengthy inclusions with “>” ( and worse: with nested “>>”) should be left to the lazy and semi-literate on other e-mail lists.
10. Civilized
Articles should not violate the bounds of good taste. If your article uses language that would keep you from getting invited back to a formal dinner party, you’ve gone too far. Please do not confuse vulgarity with candor. It should go without saying that articles should be legal. Fraud, slander, libel and blatant copyright violations outside of “fair use” will not be tolerated on HSG. By the way, the law recognizes all private communications as copyrighted by the author.
Many thanks to Bob Stubblefield for allowing HSG to borrow and modify these guidelines from the Objectivism Study Group.