NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/physics/18452

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-08 | 6.3 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix
Date: 8 Nov 1992 23:35:26 GMT
Organization: Intel Corp., Chandler, Arizona
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Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
>[e-mail] (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>Science, when presented properly, admits its faults to examination
>>and discovery; it makes claims only about the logical deductions
>>calculated and the experiments conducted, and those claims are
>>only that the results are as they appear.
>
>Yeah but how often does this really happen.

I used to do it even in Literary Criticism classes (got
me an A++ on every paper I ever handed in).

"A man's got to know his limitations."
    -"Dirty" Harry Callahan, SFPD (Ret.)

>Every week my group has
>a session in which a paper from a peer-reviewed journal is presented
>and half the time the faculty wind up complaining about what a
>slipshod paper it is.

I didn't say science in the present can't suck; I only
said it beats the heck out of religion's rationalizations.

>>Scientific numbers come with error-bars and descriptions of
>>the method by which they were collected, in order to
>>document the methodology for further study and refinement.
>
>If you believe the error bars people publish I have a chi-squared
>I'd like to sell you.

If they describe their experiment fully they don't even
need to calculate the error bars, because I'll go over
their description and make my own estimates.  The fact that
these words can appear on your screen 2800 miles away
validates a great deal of their error bars, implied or
otherwise.

>>Theories come with descriptions of the paradigms in which
>>they were deduced, allowing examination of the gaps and
>>false bridges in the knowledge they convey.
>
>Wa-hoo.  Does this really happen?

I said, "properly," not "commonly."  It may take fifty or a
hundred investigators doing the same stupid little
experiment to converge on a consensus that the effect
claimed is actually observed.

Cold fusion is getting the thrice-over in a lot of places,
and people are finding some very strange things about the
electrolysis of (heavy/light) water at palladium electrodes.
But the question always remains that until someone groks it
correctly and explains it logically there may be something
missing from their reports that necessitates that someone
else will have to do it themselves to confirm or deny the
observation.  At this point we're all waiting simply for
the first drafts of the complete papers so we can dig for
the missing links that will explain the erroneous reason that
these people are getting 200-1000% ratios of heat-power-output
to electrical-power-input.

>Is there anybody out there
>who realistically presents the good points and carefully
>explains the bad points of his/her pet theory?

Einstein did.  Anyone who uses symbolic logic does.

>If there is,
>tell them from me they better start to get with the program
>if they want tenure.

Tenure?

Now THERE's something that is totally unrelated to science...

But you're right.  The economics of today's competitive,
non-questioning society result in a situation where slick
charlatans pass for the intelligentsia (I'm talking about
infomercials for personal improvement and any number of
talk and call-in shows on the television or radio, not Bill
Clinton (hell, I voted for Hillary, through him;
I hope he makes her Attorney General)).

>I've tried to keep my big mouth shut but I can't any longer.
>Your view of science as The Ultimate Self-Correcting, Fundamentally
>Truth-Approximating (tm) process does not describe well what I see
>goin' on.  One might say your view is not experimentally verified :-)

Facts and truth are two closely related things.

One can speak the truth and yet use facts that do not
approximate anything in reality.

If I say "I've seen the mountains and they look majestically
purple" I admit myself to any number of recourses including
atmospheric scattering and color-blindness, if geology doesn't
support my finding.  If I say "I measured a mountain once,
it was an inch tall, about the size of my thumb, which just
barely blocked it all out," I am hardly speaking gibberish,
since you know exactly what I'm saying and you know I could
have done it (but it really was an inch tall, since the
alluvial plain in which it was situated filled its valleys
all but one inch :-)).  If I say "screw it, I didn't make
the measurement because I was drinking my grant money away;
mountains are big, that's all I can say," then I'm conducting
what most people consider science in the latter half of the
20th century.

>The practice of science includes elements of exaggeration, personal
>grandstanding, appeals to higher authority, and instinctive behavior.
>I don't think one can separate the practice from the ideal, either.

Logical processes eliminate all of those factors.  If the
information doesn't fit into the symbolic arrangements,
then the logic disproves it.

>Science is definitely different from religion

The only real difference is in the postulates; science
starts from a few observables (some not yet proven, e.g.,
the limit of the speed of light) and mathematical
necessities, while religion starts from a few inobservables
(all--and they have a reason for this, in that it is one of
them--unproven).  From then on it's a repitition of that
method, bolstered by all the logic one can ensconse.

>but there is no point
>in bashing religion over this.  All it does is alienate people who
>value their religious beliefs.  Not only is this insulting, it's
>also foolish - why get people any madder at scientists?

You're dealing in a politicism that prevents a discussion
of the facts, and therefore supports the religious
status-quo against science.  Anyone who is offended by
having their beliefs disproved by an application of logic
and experiment deserves the full, bilious effect of any
adverse, emotional reaction they feel from it.

                --Blair
                  "Can't we all just get along."
                  -Rodney King