Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: Daniel Mandic on 18 Oct 2006 14:38 John Larkin wrote: > Brainstorming is a > mechanism to increase mean IQ, but as you say, it's fragile and not > easy to arrange. One bad player can poison a brainstorming session, > and on usenet there are plenty of bad players available. Have you hit something hard with your head? > One on my brainstorming "rules" (and all brainstorming rules are > better kept hidden, enforced by stealth) is that no ideas be supressed > until they've been exposed and considered. The way to make that happen > is to substitute the enabling rule that there's no difference between > presenting an idea and making a joke. A good brainstorm is > recognizable by the laughter it generates. Lots of the jokes turn out > to be excellent ideas, after a little kicking around. You will find yourself in a closed circle, every single one fucks the next one. > Yesterday we evolved an absurd speculation on the subject of dac > trimming into a new product idea, absolutely unrelated to the original > issue, one we can charge a heap of money for. You mean an anal-speculator? Digital Audio controlled Trimming? > Brainstorming is magical when it works. 1938, Hitler. Germany. > John Best Regards, Daniel Mandic
From: lucasea on 18 Oct 2006 14:46 "John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:6vhcj257beh7bgi1u0iac8m5mshbm5cmsr(a)4ax.com... > On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 06:40:17 GMT, <lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > it's their destiny. As someone pointed out, many of the great > scientists (Newton, Einstein) were Believers, and it didn't damage > their creativity or math skills. I bet both were taught Creationism > big-time. Maybe, but there's a big difference between the Jewish/Catholic (and most Protestant sects') teachings, which take most New- and Old-Testament stories as allegorical, and Christian Fundamentalism, which treat those stories as literal truth (this is the basis for the name "Fundamentalist"). An allegory about the formation of the universe is a lot less damaging than a fairy tale that is to be taken literally. >>If you're suggesting that ID is a viable scientific theory, then the onus >>is >>on *you* to come up with the experiments that will test that theory. > > I'm suggesting that, given a big problem (and the universe is a *big* > problem) and no viable much less testable theories, there's no cause > for being hostile to any suggestion, and more than for being convinced > of any truth. If they make no useful predictions and aren't testable/falsifiable, they don't belong in science class. Period. String theory, and the resulting outcomes, are in a slightly different class from ID/CS. String theory is essentially mathematics, and not physics, and is the only credible attempt (so far) to develop a mathematical construct that unifies the electroweak force and gravity, and finally provide a unified theory that explains all forces from a fundamental perspective. It has not yet yielded any testable predictions, but I think that is from a perspective of being far from complete. Ultimately, I think string theorists do hope that the unification of those two forces will ultimately provide new insights into physics that do provide testable theories. The difference between it and ID/CS is that string theorists are at least making a serious attempt to explain a physical phenomenon in a way that may ultimately provide testable results. ID/CS shortcuts all that, and says "it's true because the Giant Spaghetti Monster said it's true." I don't see any possibility of that leading to any testable hypotheses. If you think otherwise, then give me such a hypothesis, and test it, and I'll be more than happy to have it taught in science class. Personally, I tend to be of the opinion that gravity is a non-fundamental force, in much the same way that centrifugal force is non-fundamental, in that it is a side result of inertia in a non-inertial (rotating) frame of reference. Gravity is a result of the curvature of space-time that is described by Special Relativity. This may ultimately make it impossible to unify the different forces in a meaningful and useful way, but I think we're a long way from knowing whether or not that is true. In any case, there's a good reason cutting-edge stuff like this isn't taught in high school science classes--the students just don't have the basis of experience needed to critically evaluate a such a new entity. > What concerns me more is dogmatic anti-Belief, wherein people > violently reject possibilities because they are afraid of even > slightly sympathizing with "religious nuts." Another strawman. Nobody is doing anything of the sort. Beliefs are fine, where they belong--in a religion or philosophy class. > In other works, relax. This is one point on which *no* credible scientist will ever back down...nor should they. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 18 Oct 2006 14:53 "John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:iuicj2hq5e3gsabtq0pk16l20eiqsnradv(a)4ax.com... > > My particular interest is understanding where ideas come from, and why > some of them get squashed. When Townes was trying to get his first > maser to work, his department head was convinced it was a waste of > time. Townes broke the idea to a Nobel laureat who promptly told him > that the maser couldn't work because it violated the rules of > thermodynamics. He later reconsidered. That's a great little parable, but it's not especially relevant, since it's told after the fact. Not all wacko ideas are viable new theories. There is a good reason that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, which frequently take an extraordinary amount of work, which frequently requires an extraordinary amount of hard-headedness to ignore the critics. It's the scientific process, and it's a pretty good way to make sure that what we think we know about our world really is true to the best of our understanding--in a sense, it's a very effective way to sort out belief from useful theory. That's not to say belief is in any way less useful or less important than science, it's just that we have to be careful not to conflate the two. Your parable also doesn't mean that we should immediately drop everything to embrace every new theory that comes along, so that we don't miss something like the maser. If it is a useful new idea, there will be those with hard heads who see to it that it becomes a tested and accepted theory. Until that point, it is not something that should be taught in high school science class. It is useful to teach those sorts of things at the upper college and especially graduate levels, because those students are mature enough to know that they're being taught about those lines of research in order to broaden their perspective about what is possible in research. Eric Lucas
From: Lloyd Parker on 18 Oct 2006 10:58 In article <4sqcj2tqtkrvk561qtdu7ssk8bh8q6ofbc(a)4ax.com>, John Larkin <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: >On Wed, 18 Oct 06 10:46:48 GMT, lparker(a)emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) >wrote: > >>In article <879bj21r9ffat4i1pbkbjffvfb2bag6d5r(a)4ax.com>, >> John Larkin <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: >>>On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:07:18 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan >>><jkirwan(a)easystreet.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>>>>>They are prohibited by law from engaging in politics, and >>>>>> that's reasonably well enforced. >>>>> >>>>>Not in churches, they're not. >>> >>>Churches may not donate money or substantial resources to political >>>candidates. Would you have a prohibition against members of a >>>congregation discussing politics? How about members of the Sierra >>>Club? The NRA? The ACLU? MADD? >>> >>>There have been some recent legal actions against churches that have >>>broken the no-politics rules, and against some secular nonprofits, >>>too. >>> >>>> As a musician in a group that happens to play >>>>>for church services a lot, I've been to services of quite a few >>>>>denominations...and many of them preach politics from the pulpit, to the >>>>>extent of telling their congregation for whom they should vote. That is a >>>>>big problem, in my book. >>> >>>Of course it is; you don't want their candidates to win. >>> >>>John >>> >>> >>The League of Conservation Voters puts out a voter's guide; the LCV is not a >>tax-exempt organization because of this. Why are churches allowed to put out >>voter's guides? > >If they do, and if it's illegal, they should be stopped, naturally. >Ditto Sierra Club and all the rest. > >John > The Sierra Club is also not a tax-exempt. There IS the Sierra Club Foundation, which is, but it doesn't do the lobbying and attempt to influence people on issues. You can join the SC, you can contribute to the SCF, or both, but you do them separately.
From: T Wake on 18 Oct 2006 15:12
"JoeBloe" <joebloe(a)thebarattheendoftheuniverse.org> wrote in message news:83ccj2lc8934ekjchf37cl3hqo7in9k1kh(a)4ax.com... > On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:09:32 +0100, "T Wake" > <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> Gave us: > >>Well, all I said was we could meet up > > > No, that isn't "all you said". Oh look, the monkey is back. Go on then, what else did I say? Where did I say I was going to do anything other than give you the chance to live up to your claims? |