Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: Jonathan Kirwan on 24 Oct 2006 17:12 On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 21:03:14 +0100, "T Wake" <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> wrote: >> John: Larkin: >> One seriously good idea per decade is great in some fields. But you >> won't get that one if you murder tham all at birth. > >True but if you try to nurture every idea to see if it is good you will also >never get that one good one - as it will be drowned in the sea of wasted >time and money. > >The key is finding the balance. Sometimes good ideas are quashed. If they >are good, they survive this and prosper. Yes, as a practical matter, the approach is to let the proposer of ideas do their own diligence, first. Don't even bother wasting time on something someone else comes up with, unless they were bothered enough to show their own case and provide evidence that they understand the subject, as well. I mean, who else should care to plow in time if they don't and can't be bothered, themselves? Jon
From: Lloyd Parker on 24 Oct 2006 13:02 In article <t1msj214ga0dem1ntfhb5p3kq8cf52v0dn(a)4ax.com>, John Larkin <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: >On Tue, 24 Oct 06 10:27:14 GMT, lparker(a)emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) >wrote: > > >>>> >>>>Whether or not models are correct is not important to us. >>>>What is important that they provide accurately predictive >>>>tools for us to use. >>> >>>Does the science of evolution provide any accurately predictive tools? >>>Simple cases, like bacterial drug or temperature resistance, are >>>somewhat predictable and can be verified by experiment. But how about >>>macro things, like the creation of new genera and orders? Are past >>>creations at this level "predictable" after the fact? >> >>Predict the movement of a body in a 3-body system. >> >>> > >Given the masses, locations, and velocities, this can be done with >extreme accuracy for some amount of time. The time depends on the >precision of the inputs and the available computational resources. In >most cases, the time over which accurate predictions can be made is >extreme, billions of orbital periods. Pathological/chaotic cases can >still be predicted for usefully long times. Even the chaotic behaviors >have predictable statistics. But there is no exact solution. Therefore, we do not understand the movement of 3 bodies and we cannot model it. Weren't those your complainst about evolution? > >John > >
From: Daniel Mandic on 24 Oct 2006 18:42 Jonathan Kirwan wrote: > I mentally separate it. That is because I "see" the sciences as being > about understanding shared reality. About nature, in other words. > Mathematics is a universe of its own, a place where you can disappear > into and discover whole new territories unrelated to anything else. > Some mathematicians (many, really) believe that this space is not only > as real as nature, but fundamentally real in its own right. And that > conformance of nature to it is no accident. But that's another > discussion. > > > Surely my baddest, but. > That's too bad. It's one of my few loves of life. No, it's my weakest. :-| Math teaches us, the planar and to three direction expanding Nature (Information), aswell the orbits of our Neighbours (Planets, Stars etc...) to keep tab on. It is just an Interface. Human to Nature, like Assembler and Machinecode... But the 'Arameaic Numbering' (ours, as we know it) is limited. Otherwise, Mathematic is not limited to a numbering system, it stands over that and I dare to say, even over the Human itself. Best Regards, Daniel Mandic
From: John Larkin on 24 Oct 2006 20:46 On Tue, 24 Oct 06 17:02:26 GMT, lparker(a)emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote: >In article <t1msj214ga0dem1ntfhb5p3kq8cf52v0dn(a)4ax.com>, > John Larkin <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: >>On Tue, 24 Oct 06 10:27:14 GMT, lparker(a)emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) >>wrote: >> >> >>>>> >>>>>Whether or not models are correct is not important to us. >>>>>What is important that they provide accurately predictive >>>>>tools for us to use. >>>> >>>>Does the science of evolution provide any accurately predictive tools? >>>>Simple cases, like bacterial drug or temperature resistance, are >>>>somewhat predictable and can be verified by experiment. But how about >>>>macro things, like the creation of new genera and orders? Are past >>>>creations at this level "predictable" after the fact? >>> >>>Predict the movement of a body in a 3-body system. >>> >>>> >> >>Given the masses, locations, and velocities, this can be done with >>extreme accuracy for some amount of time. The time depends on the >>precision of the inputs and the available computational resources. In >>most cases, the time over which accurate predictions can be made is >>extreme, billions of orbital periods. Pathological/chaotic cases can >>still be predicted for usefully long times. Even the chaotic behaviors >>have predictable statistics. > >But there is no exact solution. Therefore, we do not understand the movement >of 3 bodies and we cannot model it. Weren't those your complainst about >evolution? Just because there is no universal closed-form solution for the 3-body problem doesn't stop anybody from modeling a given case. And only a tiny minority of delicately-balanced cases don't model fairly, or very, well, and even then we know *why* they don't model well. Earth-moon-sun is a 3-body system, and people were predicting eclipses pretty well a thousand years ago. Evolution, because it's mostly a qualitative theory, is not very testable, which is I suppose why people stake such dogmatic positions on so little hard evidence. That seems contrary to me: the less hard evidence for a phenom, the more range there should be for speculation. The very soft sciences, psychology and nutrition and such, are known for having wild faddish swings of dogma; remember when stress caused ulcers? remember when hydrogenated margarine was the healthier substitute for butter? John
From: Eeyore on 24 Oct 2006 21:27
T Wake wrote: > "John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message > > > >>>>> Reminds me of some physics conferences I've attended, where you had to > >>>>> watch your step for slipping on the blood on the floor. > >>>> > >>>>All topics have conferences like that. > >>>> > >>> > >>>I find physicists to be especially aggressive. > >> > >>Terseness isn't aggressive; it's efficient. > > > > "That can't work" is pretty terse, especially when it turns out later > > that it can work. > > "Wow, that is great. It looks cool. It sound cool. It has a trendy > presentation and has been posted all over USENET in capital letters. It has > lots of pretty looking documents and some young guy who keeps talking about > how Einstein was ignored early on supporting it. It has the potential to > solve the worlds energy needs. It will allow mankind to colonise Mars. It is > brilliant" - is not very terse and it is even worse when it is discovered > that it will never work (*). > > "That can't work" is indeed pretty terse and more often than not, it turns > out it actually can't work. > > For every hundred thousand crackpot ideas there is one brilliant one. How > should people react to new ideas? Habishi would be a good example... LOL @ Habshi. His ideas of using electricity CO2 and H2O to make petroleum are good for a laugh at least. Graham |