Quantiative Science Before Galileo

[Bret Cahill]

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?

That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?


Bret Cahill

 

[Jeff Rubard]

On Jul 10, 4:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

 

[Orval Fairbairn]

In article
<76a4ae3a-0f1e-459b-99e6-6ec231a394f6@k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
Jeff Rubard <jeffrubard@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 10, 4:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences. Nor does a PhD in physics qualify one to
perform open heart surgery.

One has to consider the scientific pedigrees of those "scientists"
signing onto the global warming postulate.

--
Remove _'s from email address to talk to me.

 

[dorayme]

In article
<o_r_fairbairn-D3BA6B.23394311072010@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.n
et>,
Orval Fairbairn <o_r_fairbairn@earth_link.net> wrote:

In article
76a4ae3a-0f1e-459b-99e6-6ec231a394f6@k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
Jeff Rubard <jeffrubard@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 10, 4:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

--
dorayme

 

[keithw86@gmail.com]

On Jul 12, 12:48 am, dorayme <dora...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

In article
o_r_fairbairn-D3BA6B.23394311072...@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.n
et>,
 Orval Fairbairn <o_r_fairbairn@earth_link.net> wrote:



In article
76a4ae3a-0f1e-459b-99e6-6ec231a39...@k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
 Jeff Rubard <jeffrub...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 10, 4:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"? ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

 

[Bret Cahill]

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

"Psychology, the queen of sciences."

-- Nietzsche

 

[Bret Cahill]

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

Generally the "hard" sciences have more sig figs so people tend to
think they are better understood.

It's really interesting to hear someone in math and physics talk to a
good biologist or medical researcher. The "hard" scientist will keep
exclaiming in disbelief, "you mean biology is a _science_?"


Bret Cahill


"The number of sig figs possible is inversely proportional to value of
the measurement."

-- Bret's Tweaker Conjecture

 

[Bret Cahill]

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

"To say philosophy hinges on science is to stand Truth Herself on Her
head."

-- Nietzsche

 

[spudnik]

and Gauss said, numbertheory, implicitly implying that
there was a king of the sciences ... probably co-equal.

so, what is the surfer's canonical value of pi; like,
can you prove it?

"Psychology, the queen of sciences" is her, saith Nietzsche

thus&so:
oops; I meant, of course, as discovered in the 2nd and
the 0th millennia c.e. -- God-am period.

I'm just saying, Go jump into a clear pool of spacetime!

thus&so:
whoah, time-lapse satellite views; aperature radar,
scanning the Face on Mars get-together ... look,
I see him -- it's Dick, and he appears to be talking
to himself, but y'never know with "digital;" ueah,
I'm very sure that the Face will eventually resolve
into Dick Hoagland, age three, kind-of like in 2001,
The Movie dot company, or the Hyperdimensional Orangework Clock?
as for surfer's statement, you didn't include it and
I often do not deign to link to strange googol results --
what am I, the Math Marketing Board ... I mean,
I went to the last meeting, which was also the first one,
and why haven't I received my damn "per diem," yet?
well, I wonder which countries are going to take the dare,
to implement the pentagoogol to factor all numbers
of physical import, except for cryptoblats. or,
which innovative corporate start-ups? (Bucky F. had an idea
that was similar, if not completely bogus,
re "Scheherazade numbers" (I mean, as far as I could say,
it was absolutely bogus, but then, so was 17291...
esp. the factorial (172911 .-)

Did surfers statement about general relativity actually answer these

thus&so:
wow, a parallelotope associated with *every* Hilbert space?

Geometric embeddings of metric spaces by Juha Heinonen.

thus&so:
yes, and prime gaps, sounds as if it could be related
to prime frequencies -- yahoo! (tm)
seriously, you're just talking about Venn diagrams; eh?

There is only one; one is the loneliest number1

really, truly saith1

--BP's Next Bailout of Wall St. etc. ad vomitorium,
Waxman's *new* cap&trade (circa '91).
http://wlym.com

 

[Immortalist]

On Jul 10, 4:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

It worked and that is how long it took to form such theories. But some
evolutionists believe that physics is wired into us as instinct, but
it only has to be accurate enough to stay alive with it in an ancient
environment where those intuitive physics evolved;

Intuitive Physics Biology, Engineering and Psychology (Inborn Pre-
Wired & Instinctual)

The mind is composed of a large number of mental modules each designed
to solve a specific problem. For example, there is one mechanism for
perceiving three dimensions, another for anger, another for falling in
love. The mind is like a Swiss Army knife; i.e., it has lots of
specialized tools. There is no such thing as general intelligence,
general learning, or any other general ability to solve problems.

1. Intuitive Physics

The most fundamental mental tool is an intuitive physics:
understanding how objects fall, roll, and bounce. Its foundation is an
appreciation that the world contains objects that persist when out of
sight and that obey laws; it is not a kaleidoscope of shimmering
pixels or a magic show in which things disappear and reappear
capriciously. Philosopher and psychologist William James described the
world of the infant as a "blooming, buzzing confusion," but recent (?)
experiments have shown that babies are not as confused as James
thought. Infants as young as three months are visibly surprised when
an experimenter rigs up a display in which objects seem to vanish,
pass through each other, fly apart, or move without having been
pushed. As one psychologist summed up the results, "a blooming,
buzzing confusion" is a good description of the life of the parents,
not the infant, who is perfectly able to interpret all the blooms and
buzzes as outward signs of persisting, law-abiding objects.

But some objects do seem to defy physical laws. As evolutionary
biologist Richard Dawkins noted, if you throw a dead bird into the
air, it will describe a graceful parabola and come to rest on the
ground, exactly as physics books say it should, but if you throw a
live bird in the air it may not touch land this side of the county
boundary. These apparent scofflaws are living things, and we interpret
them not as weird springy objects, nor as law-defying miracles, but as
obeying a different kind of law, the laws of an intuitive biology.
Living things are sensed to house an internal essence, which supplies
a renewable source of energy or oomph that propels the animal (usually
in pursuit of a goal), gives it its form, and drives its growth and
bodily functions.

2. Intuitive Biology

This intuition guides the way people in all cultures treat the living
world. Foragers are fine amateur biologists who classify local plants
and animals into categories that often match the professional
biologist's genus or species. The intuition that organisms are driven
by an internal constitution also allows foragers to predict their
movements and life cycles. Straight tracks tell of a beast aiming for
a destination, at which it can perhaps be surprised; a flower in the
spring may provide fruit or a nutritious underground tuber in the
fall. The same intuition inspires foragers to try out plant and animal
parts as medicines, poisons, and food additives,

Children distinguish the living from the nonliving early in life.
Infants expect objects to move only when launched by a collision, but
expect people to start and stop on their own. Preschoolers reason
about animals by ignoring appearances and focusing on their innards.
When asked what would happen of you removed the insides of a dog,
leaving a shell that looks like a dog, children say it is not a dog
and can't bark or eat dogfood. But when asked what would happen if you
removed the outsides of a dog, leaving something that doesn't look
like a dog at all, they say it's still a dog and does doggy things.

3. Intuitive Engineering

A third way of knowing is intuitive engineering, the understanding of
tools and other artifacts. Tools appear in the fossil record millions
of years before modern skulls do and must have been a major selection
pressure for the expansion of the brains that make them. Today's one-
year-old hominids tinker with sticks for pushing, strings for pulling,
and supports for holding things up. Before they enter first grade,
children have different intuitions about artifacts and living things.
If you make a lion look like a tiger with costumes or surgery,
children say it is not a tiger but still a lion. But if you make a
coffeepot look like a birdfeeder, they say it just is a birdfeeder.

These children are aware that artifacts are defined not by their shape
or constitution but by what someone fashioned them to do. A store
selling "chairs" might be stocked with anything from stools and dining
room sets to beanbags, hammocks, foam cylinders, and wooden cubes. A
stump or elephant's foot becomes a chair if someone decides to use it
as one. The only thing that "chairs" have in common is that someone
intends them to hold up a human behind.

4. Intuitive Psychology

No law of physics, biology, or engineering, however, can explain, or
predict, human behavior. For that we need intuitive psychology--the
conviction that people are driven by invisible, weightless mental
states such as beliefs and desires. We mortals can't literally read
other people's minds, but we make good guesses--by listening to what
they say, reading between the lines, watching their face and eyes, and
trying to make sense of their behavior. Like the other core
intuitions, the rudiments of mind reading are first exercised in the
crib. Infants make eye contact and track their parents' gaze,
especially then they are uncertain why a parent is doing something.
Three-year-olds know that a looker generally wants what he is looking
at, that you can't eat the memory of an apple, and that a person can
tell what's in a box only by looking in it.

Conclusion

A child's precocious understanding of these four domains--psychology,
biology, physics, and engineering--suggests that the brain is prepared
for them. Indeed, some patients with brain damage cannot name living
things but can name artifacts, or vice versa, implying that artifacts
and living things are stored in different ways in the brain. And some
kinds of mental disorders seem to impair some domains and leave others
spared. People with autism, for example, seem to lack an intuitive
psychology, whereas those with Williams Syndrome are competent
intuitive psychologists but are spatially and mechanically
challenged...

.....how stone age minds grasp modern science. Formal sciences grew out
of their intuitive counterparts. The conviction that living things
have an essence, for example, is what impelled the first professional
biologists to try to understand the nature of plants and animals by
cutting them open and putting bits of them under a microscope. Anyone
who announced he was trying to understand the nature of chairs by
bringing them into a laboratory and putting bits of them under a scope
would be dismissed as mad, not given a grant.

But modern science forces us to make some changes in our thinking,
including turning offparts of the intuitions out of which it grew.
Newton's first law states that a moving object continues in a straight
line unless acted on by a force. Ask college students what happens to
a whirling tetherball that is cut loose, however, and a depressingly
large minority, including many who have taken physics, say it would
continue in a circular path. The students explain that the object
acquires a "force" or "momentum" that powers it along the curve until
the momentum gets "used up" and the path straightens out. Although
erroneous, the students' beliefs are completely understandable since
we evolved in a world with substantial friction that makes moving
objects slow down and stop, not in a lab with pucks gliding on air
tables.

Modern science also pries our intuitive faculties loose from the
objects they usually apply to and aims them at seemingly inappropriate
ones. To do mathematics, we primates--visual animals--invented graphs.
These allow abstruse concepts to present themselves to our mind's eyes
as reassuringly familiar shapes: "Y=mx+b" is a straight line,
differentiable functions are smooth curves. They also allow
mathematical operations to be performed by doodling in mental imagery:
to add a constant, mentally shove the line upward; to multiply, rotate
it; to integrate, color in the space beneath it. To do chemistry, we
stretch our intuitive physics and treat the essence of a natural
substance as a collection of tiny, bouncy, sticky objects. To do
biology, we take our way of understanding artifacts and apply it to
living things--organs as machines "engineered" by natural selection--
and then to their essences, the molecule of life. To do psychology, we
treat the mind as an organ of a living creature, as an artifact
designed by natural selection, and as a collection of physical
objects, neurons.

According to a saying, if you give a boy a hammer, the whole world
becomes a nail. If you give a species an elementary grasp of
psychology, biology, and mechanics, then for better and worse, the
whole world becomes a society, a zoo, and a machine.

http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/463evolpsyIQ.html
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1997_09_naturalhistory.html
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0013.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6119068/Gazzaniga-Conversations-in-the-Cognitive-Neurosciences

> Bret Cahill

 

[Immortalist]

On Jul 11, 8:39 pm, Orval Fairbairn <o_r_fairbairn@earth_link.net>
wrote:

In article
76a4ae3a-0f1e-459b-99e6-6ec231a39...@k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
 Jeff Rubard <jeffrub...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 10, 4:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

We were all scientists at one time;

TRYING TO EXPLAIN REALITY

Putting Yourself in the Right Frame of Mind:
One good way to approach the concept of reality is to look at how the
first people who wondered about it tried to explain it. To understand
what these thinkers say, however, you should be in the same frame of
mind they were in. So be patient and try to imagine the following
scenario; it's all for a good purpose.

You are on a tropical cruise and you're having a terrific time. The
people are friendly and the weather is great. On the last night of the
cruise, however, you have too good a time and drink too much champagne
at the captain's farewell party. You decide to take a walk around the
deck to clear your head. As you stagger along, the ship unexpectedly
runs into heavy winds and rough seas. The ship lurches, and you fly
across the deck. As you try to get up, a huge wave crashes over the
ship. The ship pitches again, and you are washed overboard.
Unfortunately, no one realizes you're gone until the ship returns to
port. Your disappearance is a mystery.

The good news is that when you were thrown overboard, you grabbed hold
of a log in the water, and the winds and currents carried you to a
small island nearby. You are safe. The bad news is that you don't have
the faintest idea where you are. In fact, your head hit a stanchion
before you went overboard, and you have a ferocious headache and
complete amnesia. You do not know who you are, where you came from, or
anything about your past.

Worse than that, you remember almost nothing of what you learned
through your years of schooling. You know you need food and water, but
beyond that, your mind is blank. It works, but it's empty. Really
empty!

So here you are, a sentient, intelligent creature surrounded by a
complex world. Light turns into darkness as a disc in the sky that is
too bright to look at moves across the sky and sinks into the waves.
When this happens, the sky sometimes changes into different colors.
Then countless smaller lights appear that move very slowly. After what
seems like a set period, the darkness goes away and the bright circle
returns—but from the other side of the island. The sky is usually
blue, the breeze warm and comfortable. But sometimes for no reason
dark gray objects cover the blue, and drops of water, loud noises,
hard winds, and lines of light come from the sky. Then the blue
returns. Food grows on the trees, and even replaces itself. You also
see other living beings, but they are different from you. Some live in
the water, others fly through the air. What does it all mean?

If you can imagine this situation, you can imagine your confusion and
fear. You are in an exceedingly complicated place. And because you
have a human mind, you also wonder about everything that is happening.
Your fear is mixed with curiosity.

Explaining Your New World:
Having come this far, now try to imagine how you would understand this
world you know nothing about. First, you would probably attempt to
find some order in what you see. You would distinguish between the
things around you that move (animals, birds) and those that stay put
(plants, rocks). You would distinguish patterns—light (day) followed
by dark (night). You would also see that much about what happens is
unpredictable—the weather, for instance. Eventually you would develop
some sense of what your world consists of.
But describing things would not be enough for you. You would want to
understand what goes on, and why. How would you do that? How would you
explain, for example, the fruit on the trees, the passing storms in
the sky, and the coming and going of the bright disk? Think about that
for a minute.

An Anthropomorphic Explanation:
Chances are your first explanation would be neither philosophical nor
scientific. The human animal is by nature very nervous, and you would
probably feel fear and awe at the great powers you witness in action
around you. Feeling pressed to calm yourself and to make some sense of
what you see, you would start interpreting your world in the only
terms you know—your own human ones. You would probably believe that
other living beings cause what happens. You would personify things,
imagining that everything you see is alive like you, with a will and a
personality of its own. You would come to think that the winds blow,
the clouds move, and the plants grow because they want to. You might
even conclude that these natural occurrences express the will of one
or more superior, incomprehensible being whose actions may be benign,
or hostile, or completely arbitrary and indifferent.

Whichever explanation you come up with, your account of reality could
be called anthropomorphic—that is, your account would be given in
human form. ("Anthropomorphic" comes from two Greek words: anthropos,
"human," and morphe, "form.") Such an interpretation of reality
explains things in terms of who is responsible for them, not simply
what happened. And to the extent that your explanations consist of
stories about divine beings, this kind of thinking is also called
mythic. (Mythos is the Greek word for "story.") The anthropomorphic,
mythic mode of explaining reality obviously leads more in the
direction of religion than science, and this was essentially the
direction taken by the earliest human societies.

Notice what all this means for your understanding reality on your
island. I come to you and say, "Tell me, what exists, what is real?"
Your answer would not be that of twentieth-century Westerners—"what is
real is what I perceive with my senses." It would probably be more
like, "First, there is what I can see—the trees, the water, the
animals, and the sky. Then there is what I cannot see—the powers that
bring the storms and make the light come and go." Your conception of
reality would include material and nonmaterial things, you may very
well project human characteristics onto either, and you might even
imagine some of them as the equivalent of gods.

A Natural Explanation:
You'd probably start with an anthropomorphic, mythic account of
reality. But eventually some questions occur to you. You attempt to
test the wind, the sea, and the trees on your island, you try some
"experiments" to see if particular actions anger or please the gods
that rule them. Eventually, you conclude that what you do doesn't
affect things, that you cannot communicate with them, or at least that
they do not respond. Perhaps you decide these gods do not exist. Now
your thinking might go in a different direction. You might considet
the possibility that you and the events around you are all part of the
same system of natural, impersonal forces. You hypothesize that
everything that happens has a cause, and that these causes somehow lie
within the events themselves. Exactly how isn't immediately apparent,
but, you think, if you looked long and hard enough, you could figure
it out. You assume that the nature of the world around you can be
grasped by your mind. In essence, you opt to explain your world in
terms of some concept of nature. When you take this path, you are
following the steps of the first philosophers.

[anthropomorphic] An anthropomorphic account of something explains it
in human terms. For example, an anthropomorphic interpretation of
reality explains things in terms of who is responsible for them, not
simply what happened. Such an account regularly appeals to the notion
of divine beings.

Before Philosophy, Mythic Explanations:
The earliest human beings found themselves barraged by experiences
they did not know the meaning of, much as you were on the island. Some
of what happened was wonderful; some was terrifying. Along with their
fear and confusion, however, these people also had a basic impulse to
try to make sense of the world around them. We are curious creatures,
and we naturally want to understand what is happening around us.
That's why we're called Homo sapiens—"thinking man."

The first explanations we came up with about the world were
anthropomorphic and mythic, just like yours on the island. For about
2000 years before the Greeks tried their hands at explaining the
world, a number of major cultures in Egypt and Mesopotamia had
invented their own elaborate, but decidedly unphilosophical,
explanations of reality. These ancient cultures wove their myths into
highly organized religions. Every event was the product of actions
taken by a variety of gods and goddesses....

Adapted from "Discovering Philosophy"
Thomas White 1996
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0135080037/qid=1036465417/

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences. Nor does a PhD in physics qualify one to
perform open heart surgery.

One has to consider the scientific pedigrees of those "scientists"
signing onto the global warming postulate.

--
Remove _'s  from email address to talk to me.

 

[Immortalist]

On Jul 12, 7:04 am, "keith...@gmail.com" <keith...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 12, 12:48 am, dorayme <dora...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:



In article
o_r_fairbairn-D3BA6B.23394311072...@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.n
et>,
 Orval Fairbairn <o_r_fairbairn@earth_link.net> wrote:

In article
76a4ae3a-0f1e-459b-99e6-6ec231a39...@k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
 Jeff Rubard <jeffrub...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 10, 4:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require
the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based
upon various sociology methodologies is a necessary part of a large
part of hypothesis testing and verification. Hell hard science
requires grammar baby, and much more, else how would scientists even
explain anything, cept for deaf dumb and blind mathsheads who crunch
and get fat on numbers.

Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a
scholarly process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the
awarding of funding for research. Publishers and funding agencies use
peer review to select and to screen submissions. The process also
forces authors to meet the standards of their discipline and thus
achieve scientific objectivity. Publications and awards that have not
undergone peer review are likely to be regarded with suspicion by
scholars and professionals in many fields.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

 

[John Stafford]

(attributes lost - sorry!)

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require
the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based
upon various sociology methodologies

Peer review is not based upon any social science whatsoever. A person
chooses those to review an article.

 

[Arindam Banerjee]

On Jul 11, 9:32 am, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?

Good question. I would say that 100% of all well-paid and
institutionalised theoretical physicists are in on the biggest
conspiracy+scam the scientific world has ever known. e=mcc is
bollocks.
Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee

That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

Actually, einsteinian relativity is about just that, somehow
maintaining the Aristotlian model of the Earth being the centre of the
universe. For when we make the Earth move, einstein's theories crash
to the ground. Earlier, I have spent a long time explaining this.
Won't bother again, just making a point till I come up with
experimental proof.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require
the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based
upon various sociology methodologies is a necessary part of a large
part of hypothesis testing and verification.

Just putting "hard" into quotes shows some dependency.

Has anyone even bothered to precisely define or list the differences
between "hard" and "soft" sciences?

I mentioned sig figs in "hard" vs epidemiological studies in "soft."

Before Galileo there was no distinction.

Some believe Galileo made science into a science.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require
the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based
upon various sociology methodologies

Peer review is not based upon any social science whatsoever.

So you can evaluate the peer review process to the same precision, the
same number of sig figs as, say, the gravitational constant?

Or are you saying that peer review isn't based on any science
whatsoever?


Bret Cahill

 

[spudnik]

certainly if 97% of instutionalized climatolgists believe
that "global" warming is not an oxymoron, misnomer and/
or a nonsequiter, down to modelling a simple glasshouse
at some lattitude, I could infer a similar conclusion
about the Department of Einsteinmania -- the shelves
of your local library, or bookstore -- The Musical Dept.

but trying to aver that e=mcc is not quite fundamental, and
also simply an extension of Liebniz's *vis-viva* -- which,
I think, was a sort of correction of Galileo's notion,
which was (algebraically) linear -- is some thing that
you don't seem to be able to demonstrate, in spite
of your technical experience with antennae.

so, we're not exactly waiting with breath-baited
for your FTL drive etc., til you can show us
some physical consequence of abandoning that,
and using this -- what ever it may be,
trade secrets to be held as necessary.

anyway, the real hoax has a pedigree,
teh 2nd Chruch of England, Secular -- Newtonianism,
not that his **** is wrong, algebraically.

Ptolemy's epicycles are a more obvious hoax, though,
given the broad knowledge of the equinoxes.

conspiracy, world has ever known. e=mcc is bollocks.

Actually, einsteinian relativity is about just that, somehow
maintaining the Aristotlian model of the Earth being the centre of the
universe. For when we make the Earth move, einstein's theories crash

--BP wants you in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Brit. quags;
les ducs d'oil, servicing the Gulf and Alaska for Californicators!
http://tarpley.net

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:20:16 -0700 (PDT), Immortalist
<reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Jul 12, 7:04 am, "keith...@gmail.com" <keith...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jul 12, 12:48 am, dorayme <dora...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:



In article
o_r_fairbairn-D3BA6B.23394311072...@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.n
et>,
 Orval Fairbairn <o_r_fairbairn@earth_link.net> wrote:

In article
76a4ae3a-0f1e-459b-99e6-6ec231a39...@k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
 Jeff Rubard <jeffrub...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 10, 4:32 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require
the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based
upon various sociology methodologies is a necessary part of a large
part of hypothesis testing and verification. Hell hard science
requires grammar baby, and much more, else how would scientists even
explain anything, cept for deaf dumb and blind mathsheads who crunch
and get fat on numbers.

Grammar is a science? What a bunch of BS. You must be one of those
soft-in-the-head researchers. ...or maybe an English major.

Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a
scholarly process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the
awarding of funding for research. Publishers and funding agencies use
peer review to select and to screen submissions. The process also
forces authors to meet the standards of their discipline and thus
achieve scientific objectivity. Publications and awards that have not
undergone peer review are likely to be regarded with suspicion by
scholars and professionals in many fields.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

Is this supposed to be relevant?

 

[keithw86@gmail.com]

On Jul 13, 11:12 am, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require
the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based
upon various sociology methodologies is a necessary part of a large
part of hypothesis testing and verification.

Just putting "hard" into quotes shows some dependency.

Has anyone even bothered to precisely define or list the differences
between "hard" and "soft" sciences?

Deals in the concept or falsifiability == hard. Deals in squishy
feelings == soft.

I mentioned sig figs in "hard" vs epidemiological studies in "soft."

Before Galileo there was no distinction.

Some believe Galileo made science into a science.

Newton.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:39:16 -0700 (PDT), Bret Cahill
<BretCahill@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Or are you a conspiracy theorist who believes 98% of the scientists on
the planet are in on a conspiracy?
That's about the same percentage who held that the Sun went round the
Earth.

When did who believe that?

Bret Cahill

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere /they/ chose.

Please define "scientist."

Please don't.

I do not consider social "scientists", ie. political "scientists,"
sociologists, psychologists, etc. to be qualified to comment on issues
regarding the hard sciences.

Well, that is unwise of you. There are many issues "regarding th
hard sciences" that the hard scientists would be least qualified
to comment on.

Yet you believe that those in the "soft sciences" are qualified to
comment on the "hard sciences"?  ...particularly those that are not
well understood?

I would offer one example of how the hard sciences absolutely require
the soft social sciences. Peer review, which is a social science based
upon various sociology methodologies is a necessary part of a large
part of hypothesis testing and verification. Hell hard science
requires grammar baby, and much more, else how would scientists even
explain anything, cept for deaf dumb and blind mathsheads who crunch
and get fat on numbers.

Grammar is a science?  

That's _his_ point. Language certainly isn't a hard science.

It's not a "soft" science, either! <sheesh>