Yeah, Alex and I are deliberating this very point now - the three categories of obfuscator: The pretend asleep, the apparatchik and the methodical genius who knows that the community is onto something valid, but fears it greatly. Still working on that one. :)
Agreed. It took me 14 years of deep working in one early profession (markets and trade), in order to develop its first quantum shift in thinking. And understanding only came after being exposed to myriad sources and immersion in trial-by-fire projects attempting to apply their wisdom.
Philosophy is similar - this has taken me 40 years to develop. But here are at lest excerpts from my blog site - where I catalog my thoughts. If you find a philosopher who has already thought all this through and expressed its tenets under another name - let me know and I will discipline my jargon accordingly. It can be found at
The Elements of Hypothesis.
Orphan Question
/philosophy : pseudoscience : sciebam/ : a question, purported to be the beginning of the scientific method, which is asked in the blind, without sufficient intelligence gathering or preparation research, and is as a result highly vulnerable to being manipulated or posed by means of agency. The likelihood of a scientifically valid answer being developed from this question process, is very low. However, an answer of some kind can almost always be developed – and is often spun by its agency as ‘science’. This form of question, while not always pseudoscience, is a part of a modified process of science called sciebam. It should only be asked when there truly is no base of intelligence or body of information regarding a subject. A condition which is rare.
Example: 'Are ghosts real?' 'Is there an afterlife?' (Although somewhat extreme examples, the point is, by asking these questions, in this manner, one has already lost the battle of skepticism, and fake skeptics exploit this)
Sciebam
/philosophy : science : method : sciebam/ : (Latin: I knew) An alternative form of knowledge development, which mandates that science begins with the orphan/non-informed step of ‘ask a question’ or ‘state a hypothesis’. A non-scientific process which bypasses the first steps of the scientific method: observation, intelligence development and formulation of necessity. This form of pseudoscience/non-science presents three vulnerabilities:
First it presumes that the researcher possesses substantially all the knowledge or framework they need, lacking only to fill in final minor gaps in understanding. This creates an illusion of knowledge effect on the part of the extended domain of researchers. As each bit of provisional knowledge is then codified as certain knowledge based upon prior confidence. Science can only progress thereafter through a series of shattering paradigm shifts.
Second, it renders science vulnerable to the possibility that, if the hypothesis, framework or context itself is unacceptable at the very start, then its researcher therefore is necessarily conducting pseudoscience. This no matter the results, nor how skillfully and expertly they may apply the methods of science. And since the hypothesis is now a pseudoscience, no observation, intelligence development or formulation of necessity are therefore warranted. The subject is now closed/embargoed by means of circular appeal to authority.
Finally, the question asked at the beginning of a process of inquiry can often prejudice the direction and efficacy of that inquiry. A premature or poorly developed question, and especially one asked under the influence of agency (not simply bias) – and in absence of sufficient observation and intelligence – can most often result quickly in a premature or poorly induced answer.
Science conducted under this truncated method - can only be changed through Kuhn-Planck paradigm shift. When the dualism community emulates this, they play into the game of fake skepticism, and thereafter continue the status as an Embargo Hypothesis.