The thoughts at OB even when I disagree with them are far more coherent than the sort of examples given as thought gone wrong. I’m also not sure it is easy to actually distinguish between “thought gone wrong” in the sense of being outright nonsense as drescribed in the linked essay and actually good but highly technical thought processes.
OB isn’t a technical blog though.
Having criticised it so harshly, I’d better back that up with evidence. Exhibit A: a highly detailed scenario of our far future, supported by not much. Which in later postings to OB (just enter “dreamtime” into the OB search box) becomes part of the background assumptions, just as earlier OB speculations become part of the background assumptions of that posting. It’s like looking at the sky and drawing in constellations (the stars in this analogy being the snippets of scientific evidence adduced here and there).
That example seems to be more in the realm of “not very good thinking” than thought gone wrong. The thoughts are coherent, just not well justified. it isn’t like the sort of thing that is quoted in the example essay where thought gone wrong seems to mean something closer to “not even wrong because it is incoherent.”
Ok, OB certainly isn’t the sort of word salad that Stove is attacking, so that wasn’t a good comparison. But there does seem to me to be something systematically wrong with OB. There is the man-with-a-hammer thing, but I don’t have a problem with people having their hobbyhorses, I know I have some of my own. I’m more put off by the way that speculations get tacitly upgraded to background assumptions, the join-the-dots use of evidence, and all those “X is Y” titles.
OB isn’t a technical blog though.
Having criticised it so harshly, I’d better back that up with evidence. Exhibit A: a highly detailed scenario of our far future, supported by not much. Which in later postings to OB (just enter “dreamtime” into the OB search box) becomes part of the background assumptions, just as earlier OB speculations become part of the background assumptions of that posting. It’s like looking at the sky and drawing in constellations (the stars in this analogy being the snippets of scientific evidence adduced here and there).
That example seems to be more in the realm of “not very good thinking” than thought gone wrong. The thoughts are coherent, just not well justified. it isn’t like the sort of thing that is quoted in the example essay where thought gone wrong seems to mean something closer to “not even wrong because it is incoherent.”
Ok, OB certainly isn’t the sort of word salad that Stove is attacking, so that wasn’t a good comparison. But there does seem to me to be something systematically wrong with OB. There is the man-with-a-hammer thing, but I don’t have a problem with people having their hobbyhorses, I know I have some of my own. I’m more put off by the way that speculations get tacitly upgraded to background assumptions, the join-the-dots use of evidence, and all those “X is Y” titles.