Re: Definition Challenge
- From: "topmind" <topmind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 1 Jul 2006 21:24:09 -0700
Mark VandeWettering wrote:
On 2006-06-29, topmind <topmind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mark VandeWettering wrote:
On 2006-06-26, topmind <topmind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As science is an inductive process, that means that assertions are always
considered provisional and judged according to their fit to the evidence.
"Reasonably consistent" is defined by fit to the evidence. If you are
incapable of understanding the fundamentals of scientific induction, then
that would explain why you continue to conflate your speculations with
science.
The problem is you, not me. I work well with precision.
That shattering sound you hear is all of talk.origins famous irony
meters simultaneously converting themselves to doorstops.
You have yet to provide any precise empirical observations, hypotheses,
predictions, or tests in several months on this newsgroup.
I only have to be as clear as SETI to make my point. SETI is cowboy
speculation.
For someone who is supposedly trying to make a point about intelligent
design, you sure do dedicate a lot of inches of print to talking about
SETI.
But anyway, in the words of Richard Feynman...
"In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the
war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they
want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to
make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the
runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two
wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo
sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait
for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The
form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But
it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo
cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and
forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something
essential, because the planes don't land."
You practice cargo cult science. You try to go through the motions that
you think other scientists do, but it doesn't work, because something
essential is missing. The planes just keep passing overhead...
The islanders made a *legitamate* hypothesis. They just happened to be
wrong. From an economic standpoint, one could argue that there were
more frugil ways to test the hypothesis so that intricate props didn't
have to be bult first. But that is an economic question, not a
scientific one.
The actually *did* test their hypothesis that certain buildings and
shapes triggered airplanes. They did science. (Note that if they copied
SOS signals, it may have actually worked once or twice. Thus, it is not
that far fetched.)
It was just an expensive way to go about it. I perfectly agree that
DNA-ID may be a poor expenditure of people's time (SETI also) compared
to other hypoths. But, nobody here has claimed that science is about
economics of human exploration effort.
It is similar to watching a bunch of moths around a street light and
speculating that light is the reason they come. Maybe it is the shape
of the streetlight, or some other reason such as the color. But it is
legit science to try the light theory first. Put up a light and see if
the moths come to it. If not, then go to the shape hypoth next. The
islanders were doing more or less the same thing. Pehaps they picked an
expensive ordering such that an expensive hypoth was done first when it
should have been last, but again that is economics. The islanders did
proper science, but bad economics.
Your scenario backs my viewpoint. Try something different.
Fine. Build your bamboo runways, and wait for planes.
Like the planes, my reply appears to have flown right over your head.
It is a case of A and B "changing" together by observation from
islanders. The islanders don't know whether A causes B, B causes A, or
there's some other factor C (war) that causes A and B to move together.
One way to find out (perhaps the only way in their shoes) is to test,
and that is exactly what they did. They had a plan to test for one of
these 3 possibilities, and they excercised it.
Whether it was the best test to try first is debatable, but again again
again, that is an economic question, not a scientific one. You people
appear not smart enough to tell the difference. I don't like to accuse
others of being dumb so readily (it makes me sound like my enemies to
spew like that), but at this stage I am running out of models to
explain your goofy lack of reasoning, articulation, and consistency.
Mark
-T-
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