Re: Pluto assassinated

sanjian wrote:
Antonio E. Gonzalez wrote:
On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 09:05:27 -0400, "sanjian" <sanjian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

We know those guys are making it up. Scientists, on the other hand,
we tend to put on a pedistol as knowing what they're doing
("Science" said it, so it must be right, and you're just a backwards
fool if you don't find the very fact that they said something to be
unconvincing, never mind the fact that their actual arguments were
shakey at best, and they have a history of reversing themselves at
regular intervals, who are you to question science, knave!), and
being completely without bias and self-interest.

Thing is, all they have on their side are fact and reality, which
they always use to prove or disprove their points. That new facts
occassionally come up doesn't change their overall conclusions much .
. .

Unfortuantely, they also have on their side conjecture, bias, pet theories, and too much sci-fi. Which is fine, I don't expect my scientists to be shining knights of truth and logic - I know it's humans that fill those jobs and scientists are just as prone to human flaws as everyone else. Plus, we all know scientists are just cut-rate engineers.

Scientists are cut-rate engineers? Not if you take the Physics Major, it isn't!! :)

Though yeah, some Physicists don't get their hands all *that* 'dirty', especially Particle Physicists and Astronomers. But really, when you're working with mirrors that are polished to the Micrometer, and lasers /particle beams callibrated to the Nanometer, Monkey Wrenches can be BAD tools... ~_~

OTOH, they *do* make big-assed gantries to support the Mirrors, and the Buildings for the Particle Accelerators are crazy weird Accurate and Huge. So even there, you can make a living watching and helping the Contractors to Get It Right(tm). Idiots will cut corners and place the instrument-mounts at the nearest millimeter/micrometer, when we *need* the nanometer. Yes, it's over a mile-distance separation, what the heck do you *think* we Mean? This is LIGOS, not your mother's kitchen!!! O_O

So some Scientists *have* to get their hands dirty, and kick Contractor Ass in even the areas where they supposedly don't have 'expertise'. It really depends on whether you're a Tool-builder Physicist or a Data-gatherer Physicist. Whether you build the tool or just let the software calibrate it. :)

But who *writes* the software to acquire the data? Physics/CompSci double-majors, that's who!! :)

But if you want some slightly more accessible Science, go Nuke. The Nuclear Physicists are *interesting* monkey-wrench Physicists, they blow stuff up for the DOE, studying explosive-fluid-flows, play with Strange Isotopes and 'risk' radiation, all that silly stuff... ;)

And Fermi coming home each night covered head-to-toe in soot... great stuff, great stuff. :)

(what, you thought my beef was along the science/religion lines? pshaw)

So, science/politics/Economy? Crazy *** that, even the Smart Scientists know they're heading into the Humanities when they go that far.

The whole of a Global Economy is *still* a damn-sight fuzzy thing, and people there are even weirder than normal. For my favorite Example- Damn Swedes run a Socialist State, sing Family-Friendly songs, build Family-Friendly *WarGames*, and do a dang-fine job of it, too!! Didn't anyone tell them that "what's good for Smurfs is not neccesarily good for humans", and tell them to stop the Smurfing-Communism??

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

Pure Pop Culture Stupidity, aint it? But the Swedes soldier on with what? 50%+ Taxes?? And an Evil-Cold Climate?!? And they *prosper*?!?! Crazy shi-, I mean, crazy sheep, Europe... Man, those Europeans love their fuzzy woolen helpmates, that's for sure... :)


and lets not bring the "cuddly" koala (pure Evil, that marsupial) into this, ok? Ecology is OFFLIMITS.
Jonathan Fisher
--
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