Different Opinions
May 15, 2007
budlight
A lot of times in the Motorcycling world there are very opinions on debates such as: How to break in your bike properly, Synthetic vs. Non-synthetic, How much Power bikes should have?, What grade of motor oil to use? and so on. Some of these debates may never be able to be proved empirically for all cycles, but it is important to keep an open mind. I recently read a speech by Michael Crichton entitled “Aliens cause Global Warming“, in which he shows time and time again that even some of the world’s most famous scientists (Crichton refers to them as Media Savvy) can be wrong time and time again. Crichton say “Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.” which reflects his comparing modern science to politics as what scientific agendas get pushed are the ones that the media focuses on. While the mainstream media doesn’t really focus that much on the motorcycling world (except to portray them as death traps), there have been many widespread rumors that always seem to be one-sided. Where are the differing opinions? Where are the scientific dyno tests? Motorcyclist magazine is finally starting to differentiate their compiled dyno results by which dyno machine they were run on, and this is the kind of stuff that the motorcycling world needs. On our Wiki I want to try to avoid consensus just for the sake of consensus. I think that is one of the major things that is killing one other wiki we all know of. I leave you with this second quote from Michael Crichton who by the way is one of my favorite authors.
“Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.” - Michael Crichton
