"Independent Thinking" vs Appeal To Authority In Science
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From: Bret Cahill on 13 Jul 2010 12:21 > Killfile for the oxygen thief, Bret Cahill. Flattery will get you know where. Bret Cahill
From: Bret Cahill on 13 Jul 2010 12:34 > > ...If a person says that he knows the answer to some question or > > problem, and then tells us what he knows, his claim to know is > > intended to end debate on the topic. > > Really? Usually it is intended to enable the debate to move on to a > further stage. You mean like in one of those liberal western societies? I was just discussing those places a few weeks ago. Some science guy said that the question was if China was going to go in some direction like ancient Greece or like ancient Rome. Western civilization took off with the debate . . . Bret Cahill
From: AM on 13 Jul 2010 13:10 Bret Cahill wrote: >>> ...If a person says that he knows the answer to some question or >>> problem, and then tells us what he knows, his claim to know is >>> intended to end debate on the topic. >> Really? Usually it is intended to enable the debate to move on to a >> further stage. > > You mean like in one of those liberal western societies? > > I was just discussing those places a few weeks ago. Some science guy > said that the question was if China was going to go in some direction > like ancient Greece or like ancient Rome. Western civilization took > off with the debate . . . > > > Bret Cahill > > China's economy is proceeding at too fast a rate. They will have a crash at sometime, it's only a matter of when.... Right now they actually need us more than we need them. When we (the US) stop buying their stuff, they can/will have a bigger problem then us. It's in their best interest (s) to help the USA as much as possible right now. -- AM
From: Androcles on 13 Jul 2010 13:35 "Richard Dobson" <richarddobson(a)blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message news:Cm0%n.208050$Yb4.97895(a)hurricane... | On 13/07/2010 16:02, Androcles wrote: | .. | > Einstein had no kit when he wrote it, you need no kit to respond to it. | | 'Nuff said, really. Does this neo-post-modern non-experimental approach | apply to physics in general, or just to Einstein? | | | Richard Dobson | There is a mini-cult that surrounds him -- Minkowski, Lorentz, Weyl... then there are the cosmologists, the black Hawking holes and the big bang gangbangers, and at the other end of the spectrum the atom smashers that refuse to run a 27 km long vacuum tunnel in a ring under the Alps any faster than 11 kHz without upsetting the god of modern physics. To do so is literally unthinkable blasphemy. "What is the LHC? The protons will be accelerated in opposite directions in the Large Hadron Collider, an underground accelerator ring 27 kilometres in circumference at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Crashing together in the center of ATLAS, the particles will produce tiny fireballs of primordial energy. LHC will recreate the conditions at the birth of the Universe -- 30 million times a second. Relics of the early Universe not seen since the Universe cooled after the Big Bang 14 billion years ago will spring fleetingly to life again. The LHC is in effect a Big Bang Machine. (Portions of this text are paraphrased from an article written by Dennis Overbye in the New York Times on May 15, 2007, with permission.)" http://atlas.ch/what_is_atlas.html#3 Portions of this text are quoted hyperbole suitable for readers of Superman, Batman and Spiderman comics. No Catwomen were harmed. Of course such a monumental cave is worth every penny as a monument, it is the modern equivalent of the Egyptian pyramids and gives the same immortality to Einstein as the pyramids did to Cheops; and just as useful. In 5000 years our descendent archaeologists will say it was built by alien visitors, it is far too perfectly round to have been dug out by beer-swilling dullards like ourselves with our strange mythologies, churches, temples and minarets like this one to call the people to prayer. http://www.meritweb.com/seattle/seattle/space_needle.jpg Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton must be turning in their graves.
From: Richard Dobson on 13 Jul 2010 19:27
On 13/07/2010 18:35, Androcles wrote: > > "Richard Dobson"<richarddobson(a)blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message > news:Cm0%n.208050$Yb4.97895(a)hurricane... > | On 13/07/2010 16:02, Androcles wrote: > | .. > |> Einstein had no kit when he wrote it, you need no kit to respond to it. > | > | 'Nuff said, really. Does this neo-post-modern non-experimental approach > | apply to physics in general, or just to Einstein? > | > | > | Richard Dobson > | > There is a mini-cult that surrounds him -- Minkowski, Lorentz, Weyl... then > there are the cosmologists, the black Hawking holes and the > big bang gangbangers, and at the other end of the spectrum the atom smashers > that refuse to run a 27 km long vacuum tunnel in a ring under the Alps any > faster than 11 kHz without upsetting the god of modern physics. To do so is > literally unthinkable blasphemy. > Hmm - you said no kit was needed to "respond" to Einstein; yet you wish the LHC could be ramped up somehow specifically to disprove him (or rather in particular, I assume, the limit of c). So QED, a piece of kit might be just what you need. Of course, this being a conspiracy-rich list, the reason they can't is because they won't, rather than because they can't. I confess I have not heard of that particular conspiracy theory before. Independent thinking takes so many unpredictable forms! Heaven forbid the limit of c might actually be real. I suppose if they could get it colder than Absolute Zero (another pesky limit - who thought ~that~ one up?) they might manage it - budget permitting of course. > Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton must be turning in their graves. > On the contrary, I have it on the Very Best Authority that they (plus a few others) are loving ever minute of it, although with some impatience, and saying to anyone who cares to listen "You ain't seen nothin' yet - watch this Space!". Sadly no kit has so far been developed that will enable everyone to hear their Words; so you will just have to take my Word for it. :-) Richard Dobson |