Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: unsettled on 5 Feb 2007 11:46 Ken Smith wrote: > In article <eq78r8$8qk_002(a)s1004.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, > <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: > >>In article <J7udnR8smt-TQFjYRVnyhwA(a)pipex.net>, >> "T Wake" <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> wrote: > > [......] > >>>It is odd that you have a lower opinion of your nation than the people who >>>get accused of being "anti-US." >> >>I just know how people work. > > > So it really is true that you have a low opinion of the people of the US. > Have you considered that the logic that has led you to this conclusion may > be a reductio ad absurdum argument against the assumptions that went into > the argument. > > The american people are not stupid. The American people have an average IQ of 100, meaning half the population has a lower than 100 IQ. ��It's appalling -- it's really astounding,� said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at California State University at Fresno. �Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That's not saying much for the remainder.�� --The Washington Post, December 25, 2005 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14823087/ We see the consequences in this newsgroup as well as in this thread, although we have an international participation. > They can deal with more than one > issue at a time and they can handle shades of gray. It is clear from reading sci.physics and this thread that simply isn't as true as you seem to think it is. > A democracy involving > a large number of people is usually wiser than the individual members in > the long run. The more stupid an individual is the more apathetic they seem to me to be as a generality (as dangerous as generalities generally are.) :-) > Mistakes get corrected and a stable path is taken. Wen the brighter element gets involved and sometimes gets into head on clashes with the more vocal of the dunderheads. For the most part how much real thought do you thing a popular actor or actress gives to the causes they promote? How much research do they do before making career enhancing political statements? How much credence would you have given to Marilyn Monroe had she spoken out against the US involvement in Korea in favor of Communism and China? > The > public can get swept away by motion but so can one person. The masses do > it less often and recover better. When I was in my 20's, 30. and 40's always thought the electorate, as a group, made the best of all decisions. I was naive and overly optimistic. The electorate is way too easily led about by the nose by "popular causes." > Authoritarians always assume that they or their chosen leader is special > and better than the people. In a democracy, they tend to accept the "win > at any cost" ideas. We saw this under Nixon. To them Watergate started > off as just another part of the way to win an election. They would not > trust the people to elect the right guy. The result was very bad for the > US. I think it was much more a personal issue with Nixon. He'd been at bat before and struck out. He saw this as his last chance, rejecting honorability out of hand. Those around him might have had other reasons. It was up to Nixon to say no, we don't operate that way. Nixon is an excellent case proving that the electorate cannot be trusted, out of hand, to elect "the right guy." Compound that with Agnew's misconduct and you're seeing a real mess made "by the electorate".
From: George O. Bizzigotti on 5 Feb 2007 09:36 On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 03:46:55 GMT, mmeron(a)cars3.uchicago.edu wrote: >So? Before fission was discovered (and, mind you, the discovery >wasn't prompted or helped by anything Szilard did) it didn't matter >what he backed. After it was discovered, it didn't matter again since >nearly everybody else backed the same. >The point (I'm reiterating here) is that Szilard didn't prove anything >in 1933 or any time prior to the empirical discovery of fission, and >that even if you give him the credit for being one of the people who >though about such possibility early on, non of his thinking >contributed in any way to the discovery, or pointed the way to it. I certainly agree with Mr. Meron's assertion that Szilard's theoretical work was in no way "proof" of fission, but it may go too far to state that the discovery was not helped by anything Szilard did. Many experimental scientists are influenced in their choice of reserach topic by the "hot" theoretical work of the day (and vice versa). I'm not an expert on the history of physics, so I'll pose the question: would Meittner and Hahn have done the first fission experiments in 1938 in the absence of Szilard's theoretical work? If one dates the proof to Fermi, one can similarly ask whether he would have been able to get the resources to build the first experimental reactor in 1942 without Szilard's and Meittner's work. My strong suspicion is that these discoveries would have been made eventually, but that Szilard's work hastened them by pointing out the possibility in theory. Regards, George ********************************************************************** Dr. George O. Bizzigotti Telephone: (703) 610-2115 Mitretek Systems, Inc. Fax: (703) 610-1558 3150 Fairview Park Drive South E-Mail: gbizzigo(a)mitretek.org Falls Church, Virginia, 22042-4519 ********************************************************************** -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
From: unsettled on 5 Feb 2007 11:54 Ken Smith wrote: > In article <5957f$45c717a0$4fe75e8$6780(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, > unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: > >>Ken Smith wrote: > > [....] > >>>When new stuff gets put in, these days, it gets plugged in. Even stuff >>>that you normally think of as permanent will have a way to plug and unplug >>>it. This reduces the skill level needed to do a safe installation. >>> >>>BTW: In California, nothing is permanently installed. It may tumble out >>>the door any minute. >> >>We're consumer oriented here in the US rather than union >>oriented, for the most part. > > > The US is also very safety oriented. In China, I asked for an extension > cord. The took a length of zip cord, stripped the ends, folded them over > and pushed them into the wall outlet. In the UK it appeared to me that every power cord had a fuse in the plug. OTOH they're known for their "ring" circuits with high ampere fusing. Safety in one way, not so very safe in another. > It solved the problem of getting power to the bench but it didn't solve > the problem that the voltage varied all over the place.
From: unsettled on 5 Feb 2007 11:55 Ken Smith wrote: > In article <45C73828.399B1286(a)hotmail.com>, > Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > >> > [....] > >>>>We're consumer oriented here in the US rather than union >>>>oriented, for the most part. >>> >>> Well, THAT was a one hundred percent meaningless remark. >> >>No doubt it was meant to be profound in some pathetic PHB management way. > > > Its a good thing I read this before I responded. I was about to say "Oh > no I'm sure Eeyore will understand" over in the other split from here. > > I guess it proves that even I can be wrong. Who'd have thought! LOL
From: T Wake on 5 Feb 2007 11:55
<jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message news:eq79n9$8qk_008(a)s1004.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com... > In article <45C6525A.BB423643(a)hotmail.com>, > Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >> >> >>jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >> >>> Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >>> > >>> >There's a Cambridge Mass too. >>> >>> Son, that is a town; it is not a school. >> >>City actually. Same as ours. > > I think it's a town. I'd have to check what it's carter is. > I don't remember a mayor of Cambridge. >> >>Cambridge is a city in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, United > States. >>It was named in honor of Cambridge, England. >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge%2C_Massachusetts >> >>The city of Cambridge is an old English university town and the > administrative >>centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge > > The difference between town and city is the style of government. Do you think this applies universally? |