On 14 May 1996, Kevin Spencer wrote:
> Does anyone else feel the same as I do, that the science orientation of
> this newsgroup would be better preserved if it was moderated? Another
> newsgroup, perhaps "alt.neuroscience.speculative" could be created for
> postings such as this. It seems to me that in recent months the signal-
> to-noise ratio of this group has declined. Or maybe it's just that I
> haven't had my coffee yet today. :)
>> Kevin
I certainly agree. And unfortunately, I do not believe it is possible
that people will voluntarily sort their posts out into
"alt.neuroscience.pure_fiction" and "bionet.neuro_science_". I'm sure
that many of these people don't even realise that what they are doing is
not science at all. (Feynman's "Cargo-Cult Science" depiction springs to
mind). However, barring someone having vast amounts of free time to review
posts, I suspect that the problem is insoluble. A certain amount of
harmless quackery can be tolerated - however, if it reaches a certain
level, I suspect it will begin to dissuade real scientific discussion
from this forum.
Simon.
