Skeptic Project

In Peter Joseph's recent radio podcast on 2010/6/30 at BlogTalkRadio, he addressed many criticisms that people have posted on The Zeitgeist Movement's forum:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/peter-joseph/2010/06/30/the-zeitgeist-movement-weekly-report-63010-with-pe</p>

A few of them stood out as common criticisms I've seen on the Conspiracy Science forum. Take this one for example:

#12: "There is nothing scientific about The Venus Project and a Resource Based Economy because there is no scientific evidence to support the claims."

Peter's response:

This statement can only be correct if one was to ignore the 80 years of scientific investigation done by Jacques Fresco. Jacques has hundreds of inventions, patents, and has personally described to me the various methods he uses in his lab to consider issues regarding technology, transportation, infrastructure, and the like.

More importantly, actually, the scientific foundation of The Venus Project and, hence, The Zeitgeist Movement does not even really rest with Jacques Fresco or The Venus Project's ideas alone. It really rests with the whole of scientific inquiry and the very methodology of scientific theory itself.

As Jacques has stated, we wish to update society to incorporate the most advanced understandings we have into the social system for the betterment of everyone. This is an interdisciplinary approach.

The problem today is that we have all of these amazing technical solutions we read about just sitting on the sidelines: nanotechnology, molecular engineering, there's just so many interesting things, advanced forms of solar radiation capturing, I could go on and on about these advancements, aeroponics, hydroponics, all sorts of complex vertical structures, anyway.

But the problem is that we see these things but there is no way for them to be made economically feasible at this time in the current model. They are often too sustainable or too radical to the established order where the change required to maintain profitability for the current power establishments in those industries is too long and therefore they just simply fight the technology because they don't want to endure the transition because they'll lose lots of money or lose their power.

The Zeitgeist Movements wants to harness advancements, these advancements, immediately, and put them all together and, hence, update the social system as a whole in a unified way.

Now, that said, let's not forget the basic premise of the Venus Project which is resource management as the starting point for relevant decisions. And this isn't an opinion. This is what physical law demands for our survival, in a very simple sense. This is utterly scientific by every account.

So, that claim holds next to zero merit. Why anyone would say that is to dismiss just about everything we've ever referenced and talked about.

Comments?

80 years of scientific investigation done by Jacques Fresco.

This opening line is a misnomer, Jacques childish anecdotal stories and questions are not scientific research, they are the mere curiosities of a human mind. How does this work? what is that for? why did you do that? etc...
If he had conducted 80 years of scientific research he would have amassed an immense ammount of published papers and peer reviewed works by now, since he has not a single one we can safely say what peter considers scientific research is not what the scientific world would dictate as real scientific work

The scientific process is not just about a man going out into his garden and watering the plants while dreaming up what the world will look like in 300 years and then going inside and drawing pictures of it and adding a few back stories.

The scientific process requires the same man to come inside and posit his idea into a fully workable and testable experiment that can be broken down into segments that can all be repeated by anyone else to prove the experiment to be a good one. The results the experiments provides must be repeatable, and only then can a conclusion be drawn that will agree with the hypothesis put forward. Since Fresco has none of the above whatsoever its a fallacious statement of Peters.

Scientific method requires the following:

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.
Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methodologies of knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to dependably predict any future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many independently derived hypotheses together in a coherent, supportive structure. This in turn may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.
Among other facets shared by the various fields of inquiry is the conviction that the process must be objective to reduce biased interpretations of the results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, thereby allowing other researchers the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established.

Read this for a further bit of information on their lack of science :

http://anticultist.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/the-science-that-is-missing-and-completely-wrong-in-the-venus-project/</p>

I need not even bother going any further because his opening sentence is the only thing that needs addressing to prove his entire belief incorrect.

TZM/TVP accepts a lot of unproven theories, which are all required for a RBE to work:

- We can produce abundance of basically anything (if you can't you have to restrict people from using stuff, or some will get pissed off)

- We can automate all jobs or find enough volunteers to keep a moneyless society running (...but you don't even know how many jobs there are or how many robots you need)

- We can eliminate crime

These aren't proven. These are "I believe we can do this". And the means to get there is something like "We will make global resources common heritage of all people, and we will use science".

And saying that you will use science, isn't by itself scientific. Especially when you have done anything but science in the past (just take a look at how TZM "arrives" at decisions). :)

I fail to believe company's choose to ignore better more efficient ways of doing things and new technology's just because they don't feel like changing, if that were the case cars would not be built by robots and phone company's would not be using fiber optic cables......
no, these new ideas and technology's that peter talks about that are "sitting on the side lines." are still being test or not as good as what we currently have.

"Not so fast, Fasty McFasterson."

Best thing in this shitty thread.