[chunky1994]

Again, there is nothing wrong in critiquing his scientific ideas.

Being generous even if he's flat out wrong about Oumuamua, stating that "he has fringe ideas" as a response to an article about the reaction to fringe/fanciful ideas in science is doing him a disservice and not really discussing the article at hand or the points contained therein.

Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[jacquesm]

What if there is no baby?

[chunky1994]

Then indeed there would be nothing to take issue with. However to make the analogy extremely tenuous (at best), one needs to show that there is no baby, rather than just claiming there isn't.

[jacquesm]

I think in most cases the onus to prove that there is a baby is on the one making the claim that this is so. Besides the impossibility of proving a negative.

[mannykannot]

Speculation, by definition, lacks proof. Where would we be without speculation? Speculation has to range wider than proof for there to be any intellectual progress.

Galileo, whose name is invoked frequently in these discussions, speculated broadly and was often wrong.