Posted: Sep 23, 2011 12:34 pm
tnjrp wrote:
The point I was making is that somebody (other than Mr. Pitkänen himself + a few ardent fans who don't seem to be themselves physicists) should be interested in TGd by now even tho he isn't in the mainstream. It doesn't seem to be the case as far as I can tell.
A few ardent fans ? He has a following which is right up there with top bloggers like Carl zimmer. he gets equivalent number of comments. 7500 profile views for a free google blog is pretty high. I dont think thats a few people obsessively re-reading the one paragraph who wrote about himself.
And how can you tell how qualified his fans are exactly ? Their replies to him appear to be pretty technical points.
Whats the case here is that there is some kind of peevement going on here that Matti has any followers at all. Never mind this many.
Why ? A well known aspect of social psychology which i am sure you are aware. Well you might not be, it could be subconsious dislike of it. This aspect is the first follower effect. As soon as a lone theorist has a crowd of persistent first followers its the tipping stage to them gaining a mainstream entry/ and or at least signifies they are not isolated. It also says a lot as its notoriously difficult to get to first follower stage for any lone scientist in a hard area like physics. The majority of people working in institutions at high level have a problem getting this far.
What those outside the first follower crowd do is then try and label the first followers as defective. There are a wide range of reasons based on various anxieties for this which you can explain for yourself. i.e Why did you do all this ?
1. You try and minimize his product by post a thread on him called pseudoscience.
2. You try and minimize the quantity of his first followers.
3. You try and minimize the qualifications of his first followers.
Minimize, minimize, minimize. As i have shown all this is questionable, and so perhaps you should explain why you are so concerned to go to all this trouble. Care to actually get his work here and discuss it ?
Of course not, it might actually involve reading some of it.
I find his product pretty interesting. He can rattle of a post on just about any topic and re-synthesize it in such an interesting way into new directions without actually leaving the realm of hard science, i would say there is a hallmark of creative genius about this man.
Have you considered the way Matti re-integrates many different ideas then is quite willing to say he could be wrong, but heres an idea for you to think about might be the reason people follow his blog ? i.e. He actually produces something stimulating. Far more interesting than all those other science blogs that just cut and paste like they were still writing essays for university work.