Where Science Went Wrong (hilarious web site)
Quadibloc
share:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/p0/to_spread_science_keep_it_secret/
John Savard
Ilya2
Yes it is hilarious. Also completely wrong-headed -- for reasons
people already explained in the comment section.
Michael Grosberg
Strangely, this is the second "Less Wrong" article I ran into in the
last hour. The first was a piece of supposed Harry Potter fan fiction
(I think it's just using the HP-verse to explore some argument in
narrative form) I ran into in the comment section in Charles Stross'
blog. Coincidence? Or did you follow the same path, then found this
article while browsing the Less wrong website?
While on the subject, Yudkowsky wrote a brilliant story called "Three
World Collide" that explores moral relativism and rationality, through
a first encounter scenario in a far-future space opera setting. Very
thought provoking, and also very funny:
Quadibloc
> Yes it is hilarious. Also completely wrong-headed -- for reasons
> people already explained in the comment section.
I thought the article itself, near the end, gave the reasons why, in
the real world, such a thing would be wrong-headed.
Basically, if science were kept mysterious and secret... people
wouldn't know what kind of skills were needed to master it. So the
scientific priesthood would have the most difficult time getting new
recruits.
Of course, also, this sort of thing is anti-democratic. If a
scientific priesthood could protect us from being blown up in a
nuclear war started by politicians, it would be a good thing. But
there were _scientists_ among those who had the silly idea that the
world would benefit from Stalin having the atomic bomb too instead of
just the United States. Which pretty much rubbishes the theory that
scientists are more fit to rule than even people like Ronald Reagan
and George W. Bush... when they, unlike the scientists, are at least
kept on a leash by the electorate.
John Savard
Chris L Peterson
wrote:
>Of course, also, this sort of thing is anti-democratic. If a
>scientific priesthood could protect us from being blown up in a
>nuclear war started by politicians, it would be a good thing. But
>there were _scientists_ among those who had the silly idea that the
>world would benefit from Stalin having the atomic bomb too instead of
>just the United States. Which pretty much rubbishes the theory that
>scientists are more fit to rule than even people like Ronald Reagan
>and George W. Bush... when they, unlike the scientists, are at least
>kept on a leash by the electorate.
Well, it isn't clear if the world is or is not better off for Stalin
having the bomb. We can't do an experiment and see. The question is
inherently non-scientific, so there is no reason to think that
scientists should make a better (or worse) decision when a question like
it arises.
I do think a case can be made that scientists are more fit to rule than
non-scientists (as a very broad generalization only, of course). That's
because scientists have a rational way of thinking that is clearly
beneficial. The question, of course, comes down to whether they lack
some other equally important skill, such as diplomacy (again, broadly
generalizing). My own view is that rational, clear thinking probably
outweighs other factors, but who's to know for sure?
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Technocracy was one of the political theories that cropped up in the
first half of the 20th century, alongside Fascism, Leninism, etc.
It would have been a complete disaster, the epitome of "I know what's
best for you whether you like it or not" government. Everywhere the
Technocrats gained any sort of authority (they were too elitist to win
elections, but sometimes got appointed), they made a mess of it.
It could be argued that the sorry state of social sciences at the time
was much of why the Technocrats were either a joke or a disaster, but
there's also the fact that people who go into science and people who
go into government have very different interests and generally don't
develop the skill set that goes with the other field.
Scientists aren't all as rational as one might like, particularly
outside their own specialties -- ask the Amazing Randi, and he'll tell
you that scientists are the easiest people in the world to fool with
simple tricks. They expect things to be rational, and they expect
people to be honest, and that makes them suckers for a slick liar.
They've never learned not to be fooled.
Understanding how people think and react is far more important in
government than any understanding of the scientific method.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
trag
> I do think a case can be made that scientists are more fit to rule than
> non-scientists (as a very broad generalization only, of course). That's
> because scientists have a rational way of thinking that is clearly
> beneficial. The question, of course, comes down to whether they lack
> some other equally important skill, such as diplomacy (again, broadly
> generalizing). My own view is that rational, clear thinking probably
> outweighs other factors, but who's to know for sure?
My experience is that while (some) scientists may have a rational way
of thinking within their specialty, most of them do not apply that
skill outside their specialty. At the very least, this is true of
most of the engineers I've worked with.
Mike Ash
<jsn5u5hi177r8ln90...@news.eternal-september.org>,
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
> Technocracy was one of the political theories that cropped up in the
> first half of the 20th century, alongside Fascism, Leninism, etc.
>
> It would have been a complete disaster, the epitome of "I know what's
> best for you whether you like it or not" government. Everywhere the
> Technocrats gained any sort of authority (they were too elitist to win
> elections, but sometimes got appointed), they made a mess of it.
>
> It could be argued that the sorry state of social sciences at the time
> was much of why the Technocrats were either a joke or a disaster, but
> there's also the fact that people who go into science and people who
> go into government have very different interests and generally don't
> develop the skill set that goes with the other field.
>
> Scientists aren't all as rational as one might like, particularly
> outside their own specialties -- ask the Amazing Randi, and he'll tell
> you that scientists are the easiest people in the world to fool with
> simple tricks. They expect things to be rational, and they expect
> people to be honest, and that makes them suckers for a slick liar.
> They've never learned not to be fooled.
>
> Understanding how people think and react is far more important in
> government than any understanding of the scientific method.
If you want to see how it works in a more modern setting, take a look at
China. As pointed out by James Nicoll on his blog (but I can't find a
reference right now), the vast majority of the central ruling committee
of China has PhDs in various hard sciences.
As for whether that means it's good or bad, I think that would depend on
individual interpretation.
--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
Quadibloc
> If you want to see how it works in a more modern setting, take a look at
> China. As pointed out by James Nicoll on his blog (but I can't find a
> reference right now), the vast majority of the central ruling committee
> of China has PhDs in various hard sciences.
>
> As for whether that means it's good or bad, I think that would depend on
> individual interpretation.
The form of government in China, I would think, is clearly bad, but
I'm not sure the number of PhDs on the Central Committee has anything
to do with it.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> Technocracy was one of the political theories that cropped up in the
> first half of the 20th century, alongside Fascism, Leninism, etc.
Or alongside Social Credit, which would be a more apt comparison. But
Technocracy (tm) is not really the same thing as small-t technocracy.
Not everyone who thinks that scientists ought to run things also
believes that citizens should be issued production requisitioning
cards with a diagonal stripe across them, one way for men, the
opposite for women, so that productive men can't buy fine women's
clothing with which to bribe women.
> Scientists aren't all as rational as one might like, particularly
> outside their own specialties -- ask the Amazing Randi, and he'll tell
> you that scientists are the easiest people in the world to fool with
> simple tricks. They expect things to be rational, and they expect
> people to be honest, and that makes them suckers for a slick liar.
> They've never learned not to be fooled.
>
> Understanding how people think and react is far more important in
> government than any understanding of the scientific method.
And if the theory that being able to concentrate hard enough to do
mathematics correlates well with borderline Aspergers has any merit to
it...
John Savard
Quadibloc
> Well, it isn't clear if the world is or is not better off for Stalin
> having the bomb. We can't do an experiment and see. The question is
> inherently non-scientific, so there is no reason to think that
> scientists should make a better (or worse) decision when a question like
> it arises.
One would have to have a rather severe lack of common sense not to
think that keeping atomic bombs out of the hands of people like
Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-Il, Idi Amin, and so on, would not
be the most reasonable course.
And, statistically, scientists do actually seem less likely than most
people to, say, get drunk enough to think that climbing into the
gorilla cage at the local zoo would be a fine lark. Thus, one would
have entertained hopes that they would have done better at this Stalin
thing too.
John Savard
Chris L Peterson
wrote:
>Technocracy was one of the political theories that cropped up in the
>first half of the 20th century, alongside Fascism, Leninism, etc.
I'm not talking about technocracy, I'm talking about how effective
people with scientific training are as leaders. Very different things.
Quadibloc
Or, to put it another way, at least in hindsight (and perhaps the
distinction between hindsight and foresight in this case _does_ depend
on nonscientific factors, like the assumptions of one's social class,
who one regards as a credible source about world events and so on -
the conditions of the Great Depression being conducive to confusion in
these areas), handing the secret of the atomic bomb to Stalin's
minions...
seems to me like the sort of action which would qualify you for the
sort of award that sounds like it might be a prestigious award handed
out for an achievement in evolutionary biology...
but isn't.
John Savard
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>On Thu, 06 May 2010 11:39:46 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Technocracy was one of the political theories that cropped up in the
>>first half of the 20th century, alongside Fascism, Leninism, etc.
>
>I'm not talking about technocracy, I'm talking about how effective
>people with scientific training are as leaders. Very different things.
Um. The original premise of small-T technocracy was "people with
scientific training as leaders."
Herbert Hoover was the poster child for this particular movement.
Capital-T Technocracy is a much sillier thing.
Michael Stemper
>On Thu, 06 May 2010 10:38:40 -0600, Chris L Peterson <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>>On Thu, 06 May 2010 11:39:46 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>>Technocracy was one of the political theories that cropped up in the
>>>first half of the 20th century, alongside Fascism, Leninism, etc.
>>
>>I'm not talking about technocracy, I'm talking about how effective
>>people with scientific training are as leaders. Very different things.
>
>Um. The original premise of small-T technocracy was "people with
>scientific training as leaders."
>
>Herbert Hoover was the poster child for this particular movement.
Yabbut, he was such a great president that they named cities after him!
There were "Hoovervilles" all over the country. How popular can you get?
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Twenty-four hours in a day; twenty-four beers in a case. Coincidence?
Chris.B
psychological and biological weapons is adequate proof that they have
absolutely no place in a leadership role. Nobody put them in a torture
chamber to bring horrors which could, potentially, bring an end to
humanity. Or even the entire world as we know it. All they needed were
the funds, the facilities and blind patriotism. Such psychopathic
behaviour has few public sanctions. As do true, democratic elections
for leadership. Science may be rational but it displays few morals to
balance its study or exploitation.
A scientist is more likely to press a button to see if the world
actually ends as predicted than some deranged, religious psychopath.
Neither is capable of leadership for the long term benefit of the
majority. Most present forms of democracy are critically flawed but at
least the majority of candidates are not cold, calculating scientists
driven by an overdeveloped, morbid curiosity. Their defence may be
that science is innocent. But, even an unqualified fool can recognise
the dangers of exploitation of anything and everything science can
come up with.
History records that the greatest living minds of their time worked
on, or were responsible for, fiendish weapons. Politicians may be weak
and corrupt and afraid to go against the tide but at least they can be
relied on to behave foolishly enough to be removed at the next
election. The Nazis were much closer to science than any other recent,
leadership horrors. Much of what they did is still being exploited by
"peaceful nations". Many of those who carried out work leading to
inhuman atrocities were "snapped up" after the war so valuable was
their "work". Where others were expected to "fall on their swords",
rather than work for the evil Nazi war effort, scientists who caused
hundreds of thousands of agonising deaths were spared such moral
dilemmas and embraced for their valuable skills and knowledge.
Scientists hold no special place in society which places them above
the religious despot. Both are equally dangerous given enough power. I
do not place myself on a higher level either. It would be a bloodbath
if I was ever offered power. But at least it would be for the greater
good! ;-)
Quadibloc
> The mere fact that scientists work/ have worked on nuclear, chemical,
> psychological and biological weapons is adequate proof that they have
> absolutely no place in a leadership role.
In that case, the politicians who asked them to do so have no such
place either. Who is left?
John Savard
David Goldfarb
Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Strangely, this is the second "Less Wrong" article I ran into in the
>last hour. The first was a piece of supposed Harry Potter fan fiction
>(I think it's just using the HP-verse to explore some argument in
>narrative form) I ran into in the comment section in Charles Stross'
>blog.
No, your parenthesis is quite wrong. Yudkowsky is doing nothing less
than rewriting _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ from top
to bottom, changing things so that they're more pleasing to him.
("In what weird alternative universe would that girl not be Sorted
into Ravenclaw? If Hermione Granger didn't go to Ravenclaw then there
was no good reason for Ravenclaw House to exist.")
This means having a hero who's a rationalist. Having Harry Potter be
an 11-year-old who can plausibly be a rationalist creates other effects,
which in turn ripples through the whole plot, changing everything.
So while it is unabashedly propaganda for rational thought, it is
definitely fan *fiction*, not just exploring arguments. And
well-written, entertaining fiction at that. (It wouldn't have gone as
viral as it has, if it weren't.) Anyone who enjoys LWE's books
because they feature smart characters should check it out.
>While on the subject, Yudkowsky wrote a brilliant story called "Three
>World Collide" that explores moral relativism and rationality, through
>a first encounter scenario in a far-future space opera setting. Very
>thought provoking, and also very funny:
>
>http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/
I'll have to have a look at that.
--
David Goldfarb | "LUM-ber. *heh!* *heh!*"
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu |
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Scott McCloud, "Some Words Albert Likes"
Peter Huebner
d0eb49...@k29g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>, il...@rcn.com says...
It's not hilarious to me. It kinda makes me want to cry. The fellow who
wrote that seems to have no concept that there is a difference between
following a bunch of rituals for the sheep-mass-feelgood-factor and
digging away at the coalface of unexplained phenomena (or search for
unknown relationships between objects and or forces of whatever nature)
that requires a long hard arduous process of learning and building
understanding that is called knowledge and understanding, which is
simply too hard for, or simply beyond, [many][most] people. Even
relatively intelligent people for that matter. Belief is easy. Belief
and Faith make life easier, even - there have been studies published
about how religious people have less stress in their lives for instance
and tend to be more content. Live longer lives, even, compared to their
peers. (I only read a resume, a couple of years back or so, don't ask me
to come up with the source, plx).
Skepticism on the other hand is the basis of scientific thinking. The
fact that the author of that article wants to use one as to kindle
interest for the other to me is simply an expression of his own wooly-
headedness.
Ok, so I've known a nuclear physicist who went to a pentecostal church.
And I've known theologians who were dilligent scholars. It's not
mutually exclusive. But I think that the intersection/overlapping is a
fairly small one. The physicist simply held his religion and his science
in different parts of the brain - they never met each other day-to-day.
The people who aren't interested in the hard work involved in merely
getting to the point of being able to understand science will not be any
more or any less interested in putting in those hard yards never mind
what. There's a crapload of stuff you have to learn before you can
understand something as simple as e=mc2; years of hard yakka. What's
that got to do with being let/led through a black velvet curtain into a
smoke filled room and chanting hymns to the flying spaghetti monster?
Somewhat easier than the former, but not helpful w.r.t. kindling an
interest in algebra, or generating an understanding of large molecule
chains.
I know plenty of people, some of them in academia even, who go around
with the attitude "I don't want to bother to find out". "I don't want to
know how a computer works, I just want it to do what I want"(*) "I don't
want to know how social systems work, so long as I get my next research
grant to go slice rats' brains into samples that I can put under a
microscope"(**) ... I know many, many more 'simpler' people who already
think scientists are a secret society that works to keep The Truth and
The Secret Ancient Knowledge from The People, particularly with regard
to the healing powers of crystals, reconnecting with your dna (?!?) and
mind induced levitation & other psionic powers; not to mention the fact
that vaccinations cause Alzheimer's and spread diseases across the land:
an evil plot by scientists and doctors.
It doesn't induce them to want to join up though, it just makes them
hate science and learning.
Wooly thinker. Well meaning, perhaps, but wooly. It's hardly even bad
science fiction. And, as often, reality is stranger than ... or at least
much more complicated. I feel tempted to say: he should stick to
developing a time machine in his garden shed.
Anecdote: a year or two ago we had a young fellow staying at our house,
a carpenter by trade, who had found the website of a secret cult of
Tesla initiates on the web (secret?) who were about to teach him how to
build a car that would run without fuel, simply by way of capturing
cosmic energy by way of a specially developed Tesla antenna ... and he
was going to come by in his prototype within the decade. He had never
even heard of the conservation of mass, the relationship between work
and energy (although I'm pretty sure he had PRACTICAL experience of
that, dragging roofing beams up onto buildings), nor thermodynamics.
We await ...
-P.
)* (never mind that a minimal knowledge of firewalls, file systems and
hard drive capacity limits might keep the damn thing running)
)** (never mind that the knowledge of social systems might facilitate
the success of the grant application and keep the department head
supportively inclined)
Robert Bannister
> In article <u2v5u5t8psilg006u...@news.eternal-september.org>, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes:
>> On Thu, 06 May 2010 10:38:40 -0600, Chris L Peterson <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 06 May 2010 11:39:46 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>>>> Technocracy was one of the political theories that cropped up in the
>>>> first half of the 20th century, alongside Fascism, Leninism, etc.
>>> I'm not talking about technocracy, I'm talking about how effective
>>> people with scientific training are as leaders. Very different things.
>> Um. The original premise of small-T technocracy was "people with
>> scientific training as leaders."
>>
>> Herbert Hoover was the poster child for this particular movement.
>
> Yabbut, he was such a great president that they named cities after him!
>
> There were "Hoovervilles" all over the country. How popular can you get?
>
Dam' Hoover.
--
Rob Bannister
Brad Guth
Yes, by all possible means declare everything that's new and improved
as top-secret and/or nondisclosure rated, because only that way does
anything newish get mainstream noticed. “To Spread Science, Keep It
Secret” should work like a charm, because sharing and otherwise
telling the best available truths (no matters how the deductive
interpretation comes to past) isn’t worth squat.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/p0/to_spread_science_keep_it_secret/
"Scarcity", it's called in social psychology. What appears to be in
limited supply, is more highly valued.
“With science, I think, people assume that if the information is
freely available, it must not be important. So instead people join
cults that have the sense to keep their Great Truths secret. The
Great Truth may actually be gibberish, but it's more satisfying than
coherent science, because it's secret.”
As well as revisionism on behalf of anything needs to be cartel/cabal
hidden or kept as taboo, because ”whoever controls the past, controls
the future” / George Orwell
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents
and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents
eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with
it." / Max Planck
Brad Guth / Blog and my Google document pages:
http://bradguth.blogspot.com/
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddsdxhv_0hrm5bdfj
Brian M. Scott
wrote in
<news:6bd87172-e72d-4e77...@o11g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>
in sci.astro.amateur,rec.arts.sf.written:
[...]
> My experience is that while (some) scientists may have a
> rational way of thinking within their specialty, most of
> them do not apply that skill outside their specialty.
> At the very least, this is true of most of the engineers
> I've worked with.
Engineer != scientist.
Brian
Michael Grosberg
> In article <3f4a6cb0-f366-45df-b4b1-41830a3ca...@h9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
> Michael Grosberg <grosberg.mich...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Strangely, this is the second "Less Wrong" article I ran into in the
> >last hour. The first was a piece of supposed Harry Potter fan fiction
> >(I think it's just using the HP-verse to explore some argument in
> >narrative form) I ran into in the comment section in Charles Stross'
> >blog.
>
> No, your parenthesis is quite wrong. Yudkowsky is doing nothing less
> than rewriting _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ from top
> to bottom, changing things so that they're more pleasing to him.
I'm working my way through it now.It's brilliant - yesterday it kept
me awake up until 2:00 AM. The reason I'm wary of calling it fan is
fiction because of the "fan" part of fan fiction, not because it
wasn't proper fiction. Yudkowsky takes everything the readers of HP
(and Rowling herself) hold dear, and smashes it to little pieces, sets
it on fire, then stomps on the remains, singing a happy tune all the
while. I love it, but then I'm not a Rowling fan, only read that first
book and didn;t like it much.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On May 6, 11:57 pm, goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) wrote:
>> In article <3f4a6cb0-f366-45df-b4b1-41830a3ca...@h9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
>> Michael Grosberg <grosberg.mich...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Strangely, this is the second "Less Wrong" article I ran into in the
>>> last hour. The first was a piece of supposed Harry Potter fan fiction
>>> (I think it's just using the HP-verse to explore some argument in
>>> narrative form) I ran into in the comment section in Charles Stross'
>>> blog.
>> No, your parenthesis is quite wrong. Yudkowsky is doing nothing less
>> than rewriting _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ from top
>> to bottom, changing things so that they're more pleasing to him.
>
> I'm working my way through it now.It's brilliant - yesterday it kept
> me awake up until 2:00 AM. The reason I'm wary of calling it fan is
> fiction because of the "fan" part of fan fiction, not because it
> wasn't proper fiction.
You're either a fan or a masochist to do that much work over a series.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Michael Grosberg
I knew a mathematician who believed in astrology and filled lottery
tickets, always with the numbers 1-2-3-4-5...n, as they were exactly
as probable as any other combination. Which is true, but
a. If these number ever came out in a draw, accusations of cheating
would disqualify the results
and
b. If you're so good in calculating probabilities what are you doing
buying lotery ticklets in the first place?
I wish I knew him better, I never really figured out if the astrology
thing was true belief or just an affectation.
Martin Brown
> On Thu, 6 May 2010 07:01:15 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Of course, also, this sort of thing is anti-democratic. If a
>> scientific priesthood could protect us from being blown up in a
>> nuclear war started by politicians, it would be a good thing. But
>> there were _scientists_ among those who had the silly idea that the
>> world would benefit from Stalin having the atomic bomb too instead of
>> just the United States. Which pretty much rubbishes the theory that
>> scientists are more fit to rule than even people like Ronald Reagan
>> and George W. Bush... when they, unlike the scientists, are at least
>> kept on a leash by the electorate.
>
> Well, it isn't clear if the world is or is not better off for Stalin
> having the bomb. We can't do an experiment and see. The question is
> inherently non-scientific, so there is no reason to think that
> scientists should make a better (or worse) decision when a question like
> it arises.
It is hard to tell. Once the nuclear cat was out of the bag it was
inevitable that the UK, France, Russia and China would catch up. Klaus
Fuchs allowed the Russians to skip some development work, but their top
scientists were no slouches no matter what US propaganda might say.
Andrei Sakharov for instance who later became a peace activist was
instrumental in their H-bomb design and later in cosmology.
>
> I do think a case can be made that scientists are more fit to rule than
> non-scientists (as a very broad generalization only, of course). That's
I think scientists (and engineers) with a few notable exceptions see
things too much in black and white and are extremely bad at dealing with
cheats and liars. The latter is essential in the real world as diplomacy
seldom involves telling the truth and is very much closer to poker.
If Edward Teller had been President or even just slightly more
influential during the Cuban missile crisis the Earth would quite likely
be a smouldering radioactive ruin by now. We had a lucky escape that
President Kennedy ignored his paranoid hawkish advisers advice to "nuke
the Godless cormie bastards to Kingdome Come".
A comparison of Sakharov and Teller makes interesting reading. They each
did the crucial theoretical work to make H-bombs for roughly the same
reason but their characters were extremely different. See for example:
http://gadfly.igc.org/papers/sakharov.htm
A comparison slightly biassed in Sakharovs favour but not by much.
> because scientists have a rational way of thinking that is clearly
> beneficial. The question, of course, comes down to whether they lack
> some other equally important skill, such as diplomacy (again, broadly
> generalizing). My own view is that rational, clear thinking probably
> outweighs other factors, but who's to know for sure?
My instinct is that scientists rational approach makes them too
predictable for an optimum result. Game theorists and magicians can run
rings round scientists using sleight of hand.
Remember the famous endorsement of Uri Geller by Prof John Taylor?
http://www.urigeller.com/books/geller-papers/g19.htm
It was odd that the Amazing Randi could duplicate most of these results
without paranormal abilities and that Uri Geller could not do mind over
matter tricks on experiments designed by the magician.
Regards,
Martin Brown
Chris L Peterson
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>My instinct is that scientists rational approach makes them too
>predictable for an optimum result. Game theorists and magicians can run
>rings round scientists using sleight of hand.
My sense of things is different. Most of the scientists I know actually
have a very good sense of how things work, they are much less "black and
white" than most non-scientists I know, and seem to have a good
understanding of human nature.
To be more clear with respect to what I said earlier, I'm not suggesting
that most scientists would make good leaders, anymore than most
non-scientists. All I'm really saying is that I think it is possible,
even likely, that a person with good leadership potential who has been a
working scientist may be better than one who has some other skill set,
say law or medicine (if lawyers generally make bad politicians,
physicians seem to be worse).
Michael Stemper
>Chris L Peterson wrote:
>> On Thu, 6 May 2010 07:01:15 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>> Of course, also, this sort of thing is anti-democratic. If a
>>> scientific priesthood could protect us from being blown up in a
>>> nuclear war started by politicians, it would be a good thing. But
>> Well, it isn't clear if the world is or is not better off for Stalin
>> having the bomb. We can't do an experiment and see. The question is
>> inherently non-scientific, so there is no reason to think that
>> scientists should make a better (or worse) decision when a question like
>> it arises.
>Andrei Sakharov for instance who later became a peace activist was
>instrumental in their H-bomb design and later in cosmology.
According to Kip Thorne, some of the statements/questions from
Sakharov in the cosmology area gave Western physicists a strong
hint as to what areas of H-bomb design he was looking into at
the time.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Build a man a fire, and you warm him for a day. Set him on fire,
and you warm him for a lifetime.
Default User
"Michael Grosberg" <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:48d323e6-2697-432a...@e35g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> I knew a mathematician who believed in astrology and filled lottery
> tickets, always with the numbers 1-2-3-4-5...n, as they were exactly
> as probable as any other combination. Which is true, but
> a. If these number ever came out in a draw, accusations of cheating
> would disqualify the results
That seems highly unlikely to me. If no one had tha ticket when that
particular number was "drawn", then there would be no complaints of cheating
because there would be no winner. If there were ticket holders, invalidating
the result on whim would lead to lawsuits immediately. How would the lottery
officials then demonstrate that the results were not correct?
Brian
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Chris L Peterson wrote:
>>
>> Well, it isn't clear if the world is or is not better off for Stalin
>> having the bomb. We can't do an experiment and see. The question is
>> inherently non-scientific, so there is no reason to think that
>> scientists should make a better (or worse) decision when a question like
>> it arises.
>
>It is hard to tell. Once the nuclear cat was out of the bag it was
>inevitable that the UK, France, Russia and China would catch up. Klaus
>Fuchs allowed the Russians to skip some development work, but their top
>scientists were no slouches no matter what US propaganda might say.
My father worked on the Manhattan Project as a very junior scientist,
and he never believed all the paranoia and propaganda about "Soviet
atom spies," to the point he wasn't entirely sure there WERE any. He
said that once you knew a bomb COULD be built, actually doing it just
wasn't that big a challenge, and certainly wasn't too much for the
Soviets to figure out. They weren't stupid.
(Yes, I know the Soviets really did steal the information, but when
Dad was talking about this forty-five years ago that wasn't yet
established beyond all reasonable doubt. American propaganda was
usually less blatantly false than what the other side produced, but it
still wasn't very trustworthy.)
(Incidentally, Dad did part-time work translating Russian scientific
and technical articles from 1945 to 1980, and he said the Soviets were
behind us in most fields, but beat the crap out of the West in
optics.)
noRm d. plumBeR
>He said that once you knew a bomb COULD be built, actually doing it just
>wasn't that big a challenge, [...]
Lots of things are that way. If you know it can be done, that seems
to be the most uphill part of the battle. If you know it can't be
done, there's little point in trying.
Of course we -know- that the speed of light is an absolute boundary.
[Which personally I think is irrelevant since running into a small
object at even a significant fraction of lightspeed would be plenty to
screw up your day, and small multiples of lightspeed are still too
slow to go much of anywhere in a reasonable subjective time.]
If you -know- a thing can be done, that is one thing. If you -assume-
it can be done, that's another thing. Given the amount of stuff men
have "known" in the past, and learned later to be false, it makes one
wonder why assuming a thing can be done doesn't give the same boost
that "knowing" it does.
--
ewe spik flensh?
Wayne Throop
: Lots of things are that way. If you know it can be done, that seems
: to be the most uphill part of the battle. If you know it can't be
: done, there's little point in trying.
:
: Of course we -know- that the speed of light is an absolute boundary.
In much the same way, and with much the same class of justification,
that we know the laws of thermodynamics hold true. So, manufacturing
energy from literally nothing (not even the "vacuum energy") is just
about as likely as exceeding lightspeed.
And, interestingly enough, cosmological inflation pretty much
involves violating both of those, at least functionally.
So... I guess my point is, "you can get from point A to point B FTL" and
"you can sustain a chain reaction" are two very very very very different
kinds of "can be done"s (or, conversely, before they are done, "can't
be done"s). And to note that in some relevant ways, we *don't* know
that the speed of light is an absolute boundary (depending on precisely
what phenomenon you're talking about). Points. My *two* points are...
: If you -know- a thing can be done, that is one thing. If you -assume-
: it can be done, that's another thing. Given the amount of stuff men
: have "known" in the past, and learned later to be false, it makes one
: wonder why assuming a thing can be done doesn't give the same boost
: that "knowing" it does.
There are, of course, some science fiction stories about that.
One such yasid is from Analog in the '70s, where a guy buys a bunch
of weird mad-scientist-lair widgetry for his... well, for his lair
in a disused coal mine, and by and by, the whole thing blows up in a
many-tens-of-kilotons-TNT explosion. Examining his notes, the government
discovered he'd been working on some nuclear phenomenon which should have
lots of practical applications such as portable nuclear power generators,
and started a big project to duplicate the work (but more carefully,
of course). Turns out that the guy *thought* his notions would lead
to those applications, but he didn't have the resources to do it.
And couldn't get a grant, or anybody to listen to him. But he *did*
have the resources to set up shop in an abandoned coal mine (abandoned
not because there was no more coal, but because it was non-economical
to continue mining), grind up kilotons of coal dust dispersed into the
confined atmosphere in the mine over a long time, and light a match.
And then of course there's Heinlein's "Methuselah's Children", where the
world government believes the Howard Families have the secret of extreme
longevity, and when they escape, they reverse engineer it and come up
with the "secret" themselves. Neveryoumind that the Howard Families
had no such secret...
And so on and so forth.
But the thing is, the speed of light "barrier" is not the same kind of
thing as chain reactions, the sound barrier, longevity, or many another
"impossibility" which turned out not to be impossible. Don't confuse
impossibilities of the first kind (impossible for reasons of basic theory,
like energy conservation, or lightspeed invariance) and impossibilities
of the second kind (impossible for reasons of engineering difficulty,
like the sound barrier or reaching the moon). And then there's
impossibilities of the third kind, where nobody really said them,
like "bumblebees can't fly".
The boundaries between the categories aren't razor sharp, and things that
are only engineering-difficult can masquerade as theory-difficult (eg,
the bit that was common in some early space opera, where you can't have
a heat ray that heats the target hotter than the emitter, for reasons
of optics and thermodynamics... and then you have the laser to show
it wrong; and another example, the bit about cosmic inflation above),
and some ambiguity whether something like the sound "barrier" is of the
second kind or third kind). Plus a bit of difficulty as to where
to fit things like "continental drift is implausible, but
plate tectonics is OK".
But on the whole, very useful distinction to keep in mind, imo.
Because it's a regular ploy to cite cases of the second kind as support
for confidence that cases of the first kind will eventually be resolved,
if only people would stop being such negative nellies.
Just lumping all "impossibilities" together is counterproductive.
In the sense that it leads one not to make a probable-return-on-
investment judgment ... judiciously.
"You can't beat Captain Implausible. It's impossible!"
--- Pinhead Pierre, from Phineas and Ferb episode "Out of Toon"
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Default User
"noRm d. plumBeR" <se...@money.com> wrote in message
news:9sr8u5980dd4bahl9...@4ax.com...
> If you -know- a thing can be done, that is one thing. If you -assume-
> it can be done, that's another thing. Given the amount of stuff men
> have "known" in the past, and learned later to be false, it makes one
> wonder why assuming a thing can be done doesn't give the same boost
> that "knowing" it does.
To bring it to on-topic for RASFW, there has been at least one SF
tale(Raymond F Jones' short story "Noise Level") that featured convincing
scientists that something was doable in order to get them to replicate it.
But the "evidence" was faked.
Brian
Robert Bannister
> On Fri, 07 May 2010 12:03:27 +0100, Martin Brown
> <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> My instinct is that scientists rational approach makes them too
>> predictable for an optimum result. Game theorists and magicians can run
>> rings round scientists using sleight of hand.
>
> My sense of things is different. Most of the scientists I know actually
> have a very good sense of how things work, they are much less "black and
> white" than most non-scientists I know, and seem to have a good
> understanding of human nature.
>
> To be more clear with respect to what I said earlier, I'm not suggesting
> that most scientists would make good leaders, anymore than most
> non-scientists. All I'm really saying is that I think it is possible,
> even likely, that a person with good leadership potential who has been a
> working scientist may be better than one who has some other skill set,
> say law or medicine (if lawyers generally make bad politicians,
> physicians seem to be worse).
The few successful lawyers I've seen in politics didn't do such a bad
job. Less so for doctors, but it's not all that easy to tell whether a
doctor was any good or not. On the whole, (and there will be a lot of
exceptions to this) politics seems to attract people - lawyers, doctors,
teachers, business people... who were not actually very good at their
profession. Strangely enough, when they leave, most of them seem to step
straight into a directorship.
--
Rob Bannister
Derek Lyons
>But the thing is, the speed of light "barrier" is not the same kind of
>thing as chain reactions, the sound barrier, longevity, or many another
>"impossibility" which turned out not to be impossible. Don't confuse
>impossibilities of the first kind (impossible for reasons of basic theory,
>like energy conservation, or lightspeed invariance) and impossibilities
>of the second kind (impossible for reasons of engineering difficulty,
>like the sound barrier or reaching the moon). And then there's
>impossibilities of the third kind, where nobody really said them,
>like "bumblebees can't fly".
Nor I think did anyone really in the know think the 'sound barrier'
was some kind of unbreakable wall - like the 'unsinkable' Titanic,
that was largely a creation of the media that has taken hold in the
public imagination despite an utter lack of foundation.
By the time we attempted controlled manned supersonic flight, we'd
already had ballistic umanned supersonic flight for decades if not
centuries - E.G. bullets.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Edward A. Falk
Michael Grosberg <grosberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>I knew a mathematician who believed in astrology and filled lottery
>tickets, always with the numbers 1-2-3-4-5...n, as they were exactly
>as probable as any other combination. Which is true, but
>a. If these number ever came out in a draw, accusations of cheating
>would disqualify the results
>and
>b. If you're so good in calculating probabilities what are you doing
>buying lotery ticklets in the first place?
c. He's not the only one doing it, so he'll have to share the prize.
The only logical way to play the lottery is a) only play when the prize is
so bit that the odds are actually in your favor, and b) only play numbers
that can't be a birthday, thus reducing your chance of having to share.
--
-Ed Falk, fa...@despams.r.us.com
http://thespamdiaries.blogspot.com/
noRm d. plumBeR
sort of.
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
>But the thing is, the speed of light "barrier" is not the same kind of
>thing as chain reactions, the sound barrier, longevity, or many another
>"impossibility" which turned out not to be impossible. Don't confuse
>impossibilities of the first kind (impossible for reasons of basic theory,
>like energy conservation, or lightspeed invariance) and impossibilities
>of the second kind (impossible for reasons of engineering difficulty,
>like the sound barrier or reaching the moon).
Things that cannot be done because of engineering difficulty can be
"more impossible" than those that cannot be done because of basic
theory.
For example, making a working glider from logs and animal skins may be
"more impossible" than it would be for a flat-earther to sail to the
west and arrive from the east.
And now you will say, "But my statement assumes that the basic theory
is correct." And I will reply, "Exactly."
The real issue with FTL travel is not lightspeed invariance. If
accepted theory is correct and the speed of light is an absolute
limit, that is interesting but irrelevant. What matters is that
engineering difficulties will limit the movement of physical objects
at speeds far below lightspeed. It doesn't matter what the theory
says the maximum speed a physical object can attain might be, because
even if you had a method of propulsion that would drive a physical
object to lightspeed, you can't go a fraction that fast without
becoming a cosmic bug-smear; the engineering problems are sufficiently
insurmountable to make theory irrelevant. If you can't see ahead
faster than light, the physical limit on your travel will be half of
lightspeed less whatever speed is lost as time taken to decide against
collision and perform steering activities.
So given that we must wait for that kind of engineering problem to be
resolved, perhaps indefinitely, we have plenty of time to examine the
basic theory and see whether the data can be assembled according to
some alternate hypothesis that may allow us to sail to the west and
arrive from the east.
--
ewe spik flensh?
Martin Brown
He is also not a particularly smart mathematician either. Every possible
combination of numbers is equally likely to to occur but sucker bets
based on birthdays and house numbers mean that numbers above 31 are to
be preferred if you do not want to share the prize. 42 is also worth
avoiding thanks to H2G2.
If the draw includes mostly numbers under 32 then the jackpot is
typically shared by many people due to this effect. If the numbers are
mostly 32 or higher then a jackpot rollover is more likely.
The Irish lottery famously managed to have too many small prizes and a
team of mathematicians came up with a syndicate to hoover them up and
win the jackpot periodically with a net profit each time around.
Regards,
Martin Brown
Wayne Throop
: Things that cannot be done because of engineering difficulty can be
: "more impossible" than those that cannot be done because of basic
: theory.
True.
: And now you will say, "But my statement assumes that the basic theory
: is correct." And I will reply, "Exactly."
Why would I say that, when I've already given a counterexample?
Arguably, three examples (namely, heat rays, energy conservation,
and ftl).
: The real issue with FTL travel is not lightspeed invariance. If
: accepted theory is correct and the speed of light is an absolute
: limit, that is interesting but irrelevant. What matters is that
: engineering difficulties will limit the movement of physical objects
: at speeds far below lightspeed.
That's one of the things that matter, sure.
But it's still a mistake to suppose the "lightspeed barrier" is in any
relevant way similar to fission, nor yet is an issue for which the notion
that "if only you assume it's possible, a way will be found" is relevant.
: So given that we must wait for that kind of engineering problem to be
: resolved, perhaps indefinitely, we have plenty of time to examine the
: basic theory and see whether the data can be assembled according to
: some alternate hypothesis that may allow us to sail to the west and
: arrive from the east.
Coming up with a theory that allows for most anything you like
to be possible is trivial. It's not time to come up with theories
that's the problem.
Feynman made a comment about the popular notion that maybe laws of
physics were discrete rather than continuous, and it's just that the
granularity of the discreteness is too small to see; a cellular automaton
something like a giant game similar to Conway's "Life". His point was
that coming up with such theories is easy... it's coming up with a theory
that doesn't predict something contrary to observation (in that example,
spatial isotropy) that's the real trick of it.
See also (iirc) George O Smith's "The Fourth R" (aka "The Brain Machine),
for a scene illustrating misconceptions about the prevalence of flat earth
theory... in particular the popular myth that Colombus' contemporaries
thought the earth was flat. In fact, Colombus' contemporaries were right,
Colombus was wrong, didn't know where he was going, didn't know where
he was when he got there, and never realized where he'd been after he
got back. Now whether that's a cautionary tale about theorizing based
on what you want to be possible, or an illustration of how serendipity
can rewaard you for stupidity despite yourself is unclear, but I expect
the latter is not the way to bet.
Destiny has cheated me
by forcing me to decide upon
the woman that I idolize
or the hands of of an automaton.
--- Philip J Fry
noRm d. plumBeR
>: "noRm d. plumBeR" <se...@money.com>
>: Things that cannot be done because of engineering difficulty can be
>: "more impossible" than those that cannot be done because of basic
>: theory.
>
>True.
>
>: And now you will say, "But my statement assumes that the basic theory
>: is correct." And I will reply, "Exactly."
>
>Why would I say that, when I've already given a counterexample?
>Arguably, three examples (namely, heat rays, energy conservation,
>and ftl).
I dunno, it seems to be the case that we assume our assumptions to be
correct or we would have them out on the table instead of under the
assumption blanket. You personally might not actually have any
assumptions that are hidden from yourself, but I think most of us do,
even when we work at it.
>: The real issue with FTL travel is not lightspeed invariance. If
>: accepted theory is correct and the speed of light is an absolute
>: limit, that is interesting but irrelevant. What matters is that
>: engineering difficulties will limit the movement of physical objects
>: at speeds far below lightspeed.
>
>That's one of the things that matter, sure.
>But it's still a mistake to suppose the "lightspeed barrier" is in any
>relevant way similar to fission, nor yet is an issue for which the notion
>that "if only you assume it's possible, a way will be found" is relevant.
It would no doubt be a mistake if I was supposing that, but I think
that I'm coming at it from a slightly different angle.
The way I perceive you to be coming at it is that some things are
flatly impossible because of the way the laws of nature work, and some
things are effectively impossible because the engineering is
insurmountable, and everything else is possible if you want to put the
effort/resources into it. I may have that wrong, but that's how it
looks from here.
The way that I look at it is that some things are impossible because
the engineering is insurmountable, and although we have lots of
theories about the way the laws of nature work and many of them appear
to be correct, many things that have been assumed true have later
proven not to be quite so True. Man does not know "The Objective
Universe" at all because he's getting it through a couple of filters
that we call "perception" and "conceptualization" with a bit of
"logic" tossed in as seasoning.
So from this point of view, (a) if you don't care whether a thing is
done or not no problem exists, (b) if the engineering issues are
currently insurmountable you're stymied until they become
surmountable, (c) what remains is the set of problems that is
theoretically impossible, and those split into the part that (1) is
flatly impossible because of the way Objective Reality works and the
part that (2) is impossible because although we have a lot of theories
that work most of the time for most of the things we want to do, they
might not line up quite perfectly with Objective Reality as it
actually is (assuming that such a thing exists to begin with).
In other words I am not saying "if only you assume it's possible, a
way will be found" at all, what I am saying is that if one really
wants to do something that is theoretically impossible rather than
unreachable because of engineering considerations, it might behoove
one to look for assumptions so basic that the normal mind educated to
the PhD level or beyond can no longer recognize them as assumptions,
and once those are found examine the possibility that they are
incorrect. Just for grins, you know? If nothing else we might scrape
up an interesting sci-fi story; it provides potential entertainment
while we wait for engineering to progress.
Don't forget that during the educational process we learn a lot of
things, one at a time, then stash those as givens as we move forward
building upon them, and we need to do that because our minds are not
able to hold all of it together at once; we apparently need to
compartmentalize things in order to be able to work with them.
As an example of what I'm trying to express, take the lightspeed
limitation. Speed enters strongly into that question. Speed is a
matter of distance and time. If we were to somehow learn that time
itself is a "fiction of convenience" rather than something actually
existing within the Objective Universe, that would turn the whole idea
of FTL travel inside out and we'd have a whole new ballgame of some
sort.
<g><heresy> So there might be some real value to the idea that if it
is to progress to its maximum, science should be restricted to the
least intelligent, that the most intelligent among us should not be
constrained by level upon level of hidden assumption but rather left
to find ways to do whatever they can actually do rather than what we
have taught each other is possible (which, being possible, is a matter
of engineering). </heresy>
Science does not hold forth what is True, it simply presents the
theory that is currently thought most likely to be correct and not yet
disproven; when we confuse theory with Truth, we diverge from the
spirit of science as much as if we decided we could make faeries real
by simply believing in them. Neither one is real science, imo.
And if you can't work out the engineering, it's time to kick back and
drink beer no matter what the theories state.
--
ewe spik flensh?
Robert Bannister
> The Irish lottery famously managed to have too many small prizes and a
> team of mathematicians came up with a syndicate to hoover them up and
> win the jackpot periodically with a net profit each time around.
I wondered what had happened with our state lottery. When it first
started, I used to win $10-15 every 3-4 weeks, and then it totally dried
up. I had already guessed it was because of the big syndicates moving
in, but it hadn't occurred to me that they might be using maths.
--
Rob Bannister
Wayne Throop
: I dunno, it seems to be the case that we assume our assumptions to be
: correct or we would have them out on the table instead of under the
: assumption blanket. You personally might not actually have any
: assumptions that are hidden from yourself, but I think most of us do,
: even when we work at it.
Sure. Doubtless I do have assumptions I'm not really aware of,
and therefore don't really question. However, that doesn't make
FTL the same sort of problem as fission, from the standpoint of
"knowing it is possible, it's easy, so just assume it's possible".
That's still not a recipe for success.
: The way I perceive you to be coming at it is that some things are
: flatly impossible because of the way the laws of nature work, and some
: things are effectively impossible because the engineering is
: insurmountable, and everything else is possible if you want to put the
: effort/resources into it. I may have that wrong, but that's how it
: looks from here.
No, I'm saying that not all things are equally impossible, and that
approaching something like FTL as if it were in the same class of
impossibility as FTS(ound), or fission, or whatnot, is unlikely
to be a good method.
There's very little I'd put into the category of firmly, flatly,
absolutely, positively, impossible. Things that are true by definition
is just about it. Like, "it's impossible for a square to have any
number of sides but four" and "it's impossible for pi to have any value
but the transcendental value it... well... has". But still, even if
not ffap-impossible, some things are still more impossible than others,
so that the likelihood that they'd fall to the "just assume they
are possible" ploy varies widely.
( Yes, I went there. The pi-meter nonsense. Heh heh heh. )
: In other words I am not saying "if only you assume it's possible, a
: way will be found" at all, what I am saying is that if one really
: wants to do something that is theoretically impossible rather than
: unreachable because of engineering considerations, it might behoove
: one to look for assumptions so basic that the normal mind educated to
: the PhD level or beyond can no longer recognize them as assumptions,
: and once those are found examine the possibility that they are
: incorrect.
OK, fair enough. However, even so, not all assumptions are created
equal, either. If you want to solve the energy crisis, re-examining
the laws of thermodynamics is unlikely to have a good ROI.
However, cautionary note: the laws of thermodynamics (and optics) are
what was appealed to to "prove" heat rays are impossible. Nevertheless
lasers... and even non-laser methods to optically heat a target hotter
than a source do exist. So, thinking outside the box by examining
the assumptions that make up the walls is still a worthwhile endeavor.
Just not in any way that makes the laws of thermodynamics or the principle
of relativity good things to question in practice. How they combine
with other assumptions maybe, but historically they are pretty solid.
William December Starr
Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> said:
> If Edward Teller had been President or even just slightly more
> influential during the Cuban missile crisis the Earth would quite
> likely be a smouldering radioactive ruin by now. We had a lucky
> escape that President Kennedy ignored his paranoid hawkish
> advisers advice to "nuke the Godless cormie bastards to Kingdome
> Come".
I'm uncertain that there was enough firepower in the world's
arsenals in late 1962 to accomplish _that_. Are there any serious
studies on what the likely result would have been if the Cuban
missile crisis had gone Bad? (This _has_ to have been hashed out in
soc.history.what-if, though possibly at less than magnificent levels
of scientific vigor.)
-- wds
noRm d. plumBeR
>: "noRm d. plumBeR" <se...@money.com>
>: I dunno, it seems to be the case that we assume our assumptions to be
>: correct or we would have them out on the table instead of under the
>: assumption blanket. You personally might not actually have any
>: assumptions that are hidden from yourself, but I think most of us do,
>: even when we work at it.
>
>Sure. Doubtless I do have assumptions I'm not really aware of,
>and therefore don't really question. However, that doesn't make
>FTL the same sort of problem as fission, from the standpoint of
>"knowing it is possible, it's easy, so just assume it's possible".
>That's still not a recipe for success.
Wayne, I think that I never said that was a recipe for success, so
please don't blame me for having said it; on the other hand, assuming
the complement of one's assumptions to be the case and seeing where
that leads can very much be one method of succeeding, so I can't yell
too loudly that you read me to say something that I didn't quite say.
>: The way I perceive you to be coming at it is that some things are
>: flatly impossible because of the way the laws of nature work, and some
>: things are effectively impossible because the engineering is
>: insurmountable, and everything else is possible if you want to put the
>: effort/resources into it. I may have that wrong, but that's how it
>: looks from here.
>
>No, I'm saying that not all things are equally impossible, and that
>approaching something like FTL as if it were in the same class of
>impossibility as FTS(ound), or fission, or whatnot, is unlikely
>to be a good method.
>
>There's very little I'd put into the category of firmly, flatly,
>absolutely, positively, impossible. Things that are true by definition
>is just about it.
We could argue over values of "true by definition" but I'd agree that
the "by definition" category seems to offer approximately as many
impossibilities as definitions. <g>
> Like, "it's impossible for a square to have any
>number of sides but four" and "it's impossible for pi to have any value
>but the transcendental value it... well... has". But still, even if
>not ffap-impossible, some things are still more impossible than others,
>so that the likelihood that they'd fall to the "just assume they
>are possible" ploy varies widely.
>
>( Yes, I went there. The pi-meter nonsense. Heh heh heh. )
>
>: In other words I am not saying "if only you assume it's possible, a
>: way will be found" at all, what I am saying is that if one really
>: wants to do something that is theoretically impossible rather than
>: unreachable because of engineering considerations, it might behoove
>: one to look for assumptions so basic that the normal mind educated to
>: the PhD level or beyond can no longer recognize them as assumptions,
>: and once those are found examine the possibility that they are
>: incorrect.
>
>OK, fair enough. However, even so, not all assumptions are created
>equal, either. If you want to solve the energy crisis, re-examining
>the laws of thermodynamics is unlikely to have a good ROI.
Maybe, and maybe not; it certainly seems that one possible avenue of
approach when dealing with thermodynamic systems is to shift the
system boundaries around somewhat to see if there is a trend obvious
enough to notice. Closed systems are not the same as open systems and
system boundaries are mostly definitional.
>However, cautionary note: the laws of thermodynamics (and optics) are
>what was appealed to to "prove" heat rays are impossible. Nevertheless
>lasers... and even non-laser methods to optically heat a target hotter
>than a source do exist. So, thinking outside the box by examining
>the assumptions that make up the walls is still a worthwhile endeavor.
>Just not in any way that makes the laws of thermodynamics or the principle
>of relativity good things to question in practice. How they combine
>with other assumptions maybe, but historically they are pretty solid.
The phrase "historically they are pretty solid" smacks of the
assumptive "we've always done it this way so don't rock the boat", but
what historic solidity means to me is "these theories have not been
disproven yet", with the emphasis on "yet", because when one steps
over the line to assume them to be True because of limited historic
validation, it's time to nail the coffin shut and throw dirt on it.
--
ewe spik flensh?
Mike Ash
We actually just discussed this in here (rasfw), although I can't
remember the thread name.
The USSR's arsenal at the time was extremely small, and their arsenal of
stuff that might actually make it to the target (missiles, not slow
bombers) was smaller still. Dozens or hundreds, in the end. The US would
have emerged from the war with the "bloody nose" that the hawks claimed.
(Not that I consider the death of millions of citizens in a day to be a
"bloody nose", but life, for the rest, would have gone on....)
Even at the height of the arms race, when each side had tens of
thousands of warheads, "smouldering radioactive ruin" would have been
the outcome. It would have nicely wrecked both countries and many of
their allies, but decent parts of the world would escape. Haldeman's
Confederacion, formed from Southern Hemisphere powers that escaped the
superpowers' MAD, seems likely.
--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
Mike Ash
Mike Ash <mi...@mikeash.com> wrote:
> Even at the height of the arms race, when each side had tens of
> thousands of warheads, "smouldering radioactive ruin" would have been
> the outcome.
Murphy's Law of Perverse Typos strikes again. Of course I meant to say,
would NOT have been the outcome.
Greg Goss
>Nor I think did anyone really in the know think the 'sound barrier'
>was some kind of unbreakable wall - like the 'unsinkable' Titanic,
>that was largely a creation of the media that has taken hold in the
>public imagination despite an utter lack of foundation.
>
>By the time we attempted controlled manned supersonic flight, we'd
>already had ballistic umanned supersonic flight for decades if not
>centuries - E.G. bullets.
Whip tips. Test rockets.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
Wayne Throop
: Wayne, I think that I never said that was a recipe for success,
The context was solving problems. Starting with "create a nuclear
explosion", meandering over to "get from point A to point B FTL".
And whetehr just assumign the end is possible would lead to remarkable
progress for the FTL as was alleged upthread for fission.
I certainly thought that constituted a recommendation for the "assume
it's possible" school of problem solving. If, however, you don't *want*
to succeed in solving problems, and therefore aren't recommending recipes
for success in doing so, that's fine too.
My point is, not all problems are helped by assuming the solution
(and typically, a solution of some particular form) is possible.
And that fission and FTL differ in their helped-by-assumption status.
If you don't disagree with that, then fine. The rest is surplus.
I could have simply, flatly, stated the above, but I was foolish
enough to provide examples, with which many nits were picked.
Said nits seeming to me to be somewhat irrelevant to the case
the examples were in support of.
:: If you want to solve the energy crisis, re-examining the laws of
:: thermodynamics is unlikely to have a good ROI.
: Maybe, and maybe not;
No, it's pretty much definitely got really, really rotten ROI potential.
You are of course free to invest your own resources. But hopably
you won't expect me to follow suit.
: it certainly seems that one possible avenue of approach when dealing
: with thermodynamic systems is to shift the system boundaries around
: somewhat to see if there is a trend obvious enough to notice.
Which of course has nothing to do with questioning
the *laws* of thermodynamics.
: The phrase "historically they are pretty solid" smacks of the
: assumptive "we've always done it this way so don't rock the boat", but
: what historic solidity means to me is "these theories have not been
: disproven yet", with the emphasis on "yet",
No, it smacks of "they have proven useful in many cases, whether or not
we've always done it that way (indeed, whether we've "always done it that
way" is very nearly completely irrelevant, and for many of these things,
we haven't)", and the emphasis is more properly on "has been used to
make lots and lots of correct predictions". For example, if you use the
assumption of conservation of momentum to *predict* the neutrino, and
lo and behold they are discovered, the stock in conservation of momentum
goes up a tick. And the basic conservation laws are just festooned with
such things (though tranted often not as impressive as the neutrino).
If you instead emphasize "yet", then you're wasting your experience.
Better you should ask yourself if you are *applying* the rule correctly.
Historically speaking, and all. Which again, reeks of "when people
have tried it (whether or not it's traditional to do it)".
The sun may not rise in the east tomorrow.
However, I'm not going to spend much energy preparing
for alternatives.
Mike Ash
wrote:
> My point is, not all problems are helped by assuming the solution
> (and typically, a solution of some particular form) is possible.
Are *any* problems helped by that? I know it's a popular thing to say
around here, but are there any actual examples? I can't think of any
offhand. Of course that doesn't mean there aren't any, but I'd like to
know what the examples are. It seems like a lot of situations where
"it's possible!" spurs invention actually betray a lot more information.
For a hypothetical situation where the USSR is duplicating The Bomb
without the help of spies, you not only have "it's possible!" but that
it fits in a B-29, releases enough energy to flatten X percent of a
Japanese city, uses resources found in countries the US has access to,
that it was probably built by scientists who suddenly stopped publishing
a few years ago, and here are their areas of expertise, etc. etc.
mcdowella
> On Thu, 06 May 2010 08:31:53 -0600, Chris L Peterson
>
(trimmed)
>
> Technocracy was one of the political theories that cropped up in the
> first half of the 20th century, alongside Fascism, Leninism, etc.
>
> It would have been a complete disaster, the epitome of "I know what's
> best for you whether you like it or not" government. Everywhere the
> Technocrats gained any sort of authority (they were too elitist to win
> elections, but sometimes got appointed), they made a mess of it.
>
> It could be argued that the sorry state of social sciences at the time
> was much of why the Technocrats were either a joke or a disaster, but
> there's also the fact that people who go into science and people who
> go into government have very different interests and generally don't
> develop the skill set that goes with the other field.
>
A more modest relative of Technocracy is alive, and I suspect is doing
good. This is the handing over of small chunks of function to
specialists in a particular field. The poster child of this is the
independent central bank, given only targets from government and freed
from political interference. Another example was when governments
stepped back from handling detailed negociations on price when selling
wireless spectrum for mobile phones, and called in experts to design
the rules for auctions. In theory, the UK move towards evidence-based
policy, supported by social science and statistical surveys, is also
such a move, although the hard core activists disregarded evidence or
searched for policy-based evidence.
noRm d. plumBeR
>: "noRm d. plumBeR" <se...@money.com>
>: Wayne, I think that I never said that was a recipe for success,
>
>The context was solving problems. Starting with "create a nuclear
>explosion", meandering over to "get from point A to point B FTL".
>And whetehr just assumign the end is possible would lead to remarkable
>progress for the FTL as was alleged upthread for fission.
I don't recall any such Definitely Positive allegation.
>I certainly thought that constituted a recommendation for the "assume
>it's possible" school of problem solving. If, however, you don't *want*
>to succeed in solving problems, and therefore aren't recommending recipes
>for success in doing so, that's fine too.
"recipes for success" contain an implicit guarantee of success.
Guarantees contain an implicit possibility of failure. The concept of
a "recipe for success" is a logical fallacy.
>My point is, not all problems are helped by assuming the solution
>(and typically, a solution of some particular form) is possible.
I don't recall anyone stating that All Problems are soluable by any
means whatsoever.
>And that fission and FTL differ in their helped-by-assumption status.
I certainly do not know whether FTL differs from anything at all since
it's a problem that has not yet been solved and, not knowing the
solution, I can't possibly know what it is the same as or different
from.
It does however seem sensible that if a problem is believed to be
insoluable very few believers will waste their time working to solve
it.
If one was conspiracy oriented (not I said the little red hen) and one
wished the FTL problem not to be solved, one could probably accomplish
that by the simple expedient of convincing people that the problem is
insoluable. People are generally lazy and prefer to solve easy
problems anyway, so they're likely to be amenable to such a belief,
especially if it comes from the well-credentialed.
As for me, I don't know but the engineering problems associated with
simply going-very-fast without reaching more than a fraction of
lightspeed appear to make it a moot issue.
>If you don't disagree with that, then fine. The rest is surplus.
>I could have simply, flatly, stated the above, but I was foolish
>enough to provide examples, with which many nits were picked.
>Said nits seeming to me to be somewhat irrelevant to the case
>the examples were in support of.
>
>:: If you want to solve the energy crisis, re-examining the laws of
>:: thermodynamics is unlikely to have a good ROI.
>
>: Maybe, and maybe not;
>
>No, it's pretty much definitely got really, really rotten ROI potential.
>You are of course free to invest your own resources. But hopably
>you won't expect me to follow suit.
If you were to "follow suit" would that make it more or less likely
that success would be attained? Does ROI potential guarantee success
or failure?
>: it certainly seems that one possible avenue of approach when dealing
>: with thermodynamic systems is to shift the system boundaries around
>: somewhat to see if there is a trend obvious enough to notice.
>
>Which of course has nothing to do with questioning
>the *laws* of thermodynamics.
The *laws* of anything are self-enforcing; if it isn't self-enforcing
it isn't a *law*. Examining a *law* may teach you things about other
*laws*. Examining a regulation or a belief may show you where the
*laws* are and where they are not.
>: The phrase "historically they are pretty solid" smacks of the
>: assumptive "we've always done it this way so don't rock the boat", but
>: what historic solidity means to me is "these theories have not been
>: disproven yet", with the emphasis on "yet",
>
>No, it smacks of "they have proven useful in many cases, whether or not
>we've always done it that way (indeed, whether we've "always done it that
>way" is very nearly completely irrelevant, and for many of these things,
>we haven't)", and the emphasis is more properly on "has been used to
>make lots and lots of correct predictions". For example, if you use the
>assumption of conservation of momentum to *predict* the neutrino, and
>lo and behold they are discovered, the stock in conservation of momentum
>goes up a tick. And the basic conservation laws are just festooned with
>such things (though tranted often not as impressive as the neutrino).
Lots of stocks go up a tick. One of the most basic aphorisms of the
stock market is that "past performance is not a predictor of future
performance". Lots of people had their sell-stops knocked from under
them just a few days ago. Stock market analogies are a bad bet.
>If you instead emphasize "yet", then you're wasting your experience.
>Better you should ask yourself if you are *applying* the rule correctly.
>Historically speaking, and all. Which again, reeks of "when people
>have tried it (whether or not it's traditional to do it)".
>
>The sun may not rise in the east tomorrow.
>However, I'm not going to spend much energy preparing
>for alternatives.
The more we have, the more we are obliged to protect; the less we
have, the less we are obliged to protect. That goes for assumptions
as well as material posessions.
Oddly enough it's quite dark outside just now according to my visual
receptors; whether the sun comes up or not is irrelevant to my current
activities.
--
ewe spik flensh?
Quadibloc
> If one was conspiracy oriented (not I said the little red hen) and one
> wished the FTL problem not to be solved, one could probably accomplish
> that by the simple expedient of convincing people that the problem is
> insoluable. People are generally lazy and prefer to solve easy
> problems anyway, so they're likely to be amenable to such a belief,
> especially if it comes from the well-credentialed.
It helps if the well-credentialed are the only ones with a hope of
solving this sort of problem anyways. But the EPR experiment has sowed
seeds of doubt about the total impossibility of FTL even in their
corner.
At the moment, though, there is not a clue as to where to *begin
looking* for FTL, so if "prefer to solve easy problems" is translated
into "prefer not to waste their time fruitlessly", well, it makes me
very comfortable with being resolutely not "conspiracy oriented" in
this particular area.
If a clue comes forwards, it will be recognized.
> As for me, I don't know but the engineering problems associated with
> simply going-very-fast without reaching more than a fraction of
> lightspeed appear to make it a moot issue.
Well, if Einstein was totally wrong, and you could go faster than
light just by slapping on a bigger rocket, that would be true.
I think he's as right as Newton was, though - absolutely right except
for some relatively minor changes to be discovered much later - and so
any FTL drive would have to involve going outside of normal space.
Where the resistance of interstellar hydrogen would not apply.
So it would not seem at all strange to me if, even though without the
FTL drive turned on, just using rockets or ion propulsion or even
hydrogen bombs and pusher plates, we could not go much past 1% of
light speed, but with it turned on we could travel at enormous
multiples of the speed of light.
No one thinks it odd that our spaceships travel at tens of thousands
of miles an hour, yet no athlete has yet run a two-minute mile.
John Savard
Michael Stemper
>There are, of course, some science fiction stories about that.
>One such yasid is from Analog in the '70s, where a guy buys a bunch
>of weird mad-scientist-lair widgetry for his... well, for his lair
>in a disused coal mine, and by and by, the whole thing blows up in a
>many-tens-of-kilotons-TNT explosion. Examining his notes, the government
>discovered he'd been working on some nuclear phenomenon which should have
>lots of practical applications such as portable nuclear power generators,
>and started a big project to duplicate the work (but more carefully,
>of course).
This is n't an answer to your YASID, but I was struck by the similarities
between this description and some of the events that took place in _Skylark
of Space_.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Twenty-four hours in a day; twenty-four beers in a case. Coincidence?
noRm d. plumBeR
Our reasoning is different but our conclusion is the same. A bigger
rocket isn't going to do the trick. To move from Earth to anywhere
really interesting we need to find a shell-game to play with space and
time.
The hidden variable theory is imo the right direction but still
nothing more than the tip of the iceberg. I think we are not talking
about "a" hidden variable, or "a few" hidden variables. I think that
even though we have a significant body of knowledge that we find
useful and trustworthy, most of it is correct for reasons other than
those we accept as the causitives.
Assuming for a moment that we found a shell-game that would allow us
to instantly be somewhere else, the question of finding a
somewhere-else that isn't inside a star or otherwise instantly deadly
comes to the fore. The peek-and-scoot technique isn't going to result
in an overall "speed" exceeding lightspeed either imo.
All things considered it seems less likely that men will ever travel
to the stars than that we will "sufficiently advance" our
understanding of the actual universe within which we operate to be
elsewhere without going anyplace at all.
--
ewe spik flensh?
David DeLaney
>Assuming for a moment that we found a shell-game that would allow us
>to instantly be somewhere else, the question of finding a
>somewhere-else that isn't inside a star or otherwise instantly deadly
>comes to the fore. The peek-and-scoot technique isn't going to result
>in an overall "speed" exceeding lightspeed either imo.
Note that if the 'somewhere else' is in this same universe, then just about
ALL of it isn't inside a star, or even near one. (Though there could be
caveats connected to the shell-game that made needing to exit in a more-curved
part of space part of the game, of course.)
>All things considered it seems less likely that men will ever travel
>to the stars than that we will "sufficiently advance" our
>understanding of the actual universe within which we operate to be
>elsewhere without going anyplace at all.
Dave "at which time "It's A Small World After All" will become the UNIVERSAL
EARWORM" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
noRm d. plumBeR
>noRm d. plumBeR <se...@money.com> wrote:
>>Assuming for a moment that we found a shell-game that would allow us
>>to instantly be somewhere else, the question of finding a
>>somewhere-else that isn't inside a star or otherwise instantly deadly
>>comes to the fore. The peek-and-scoot technique isn't going to result
>>in an overall "speed" exceeding lightspeed either imo.
>
>Note that if the 'somewhere else' is in this same universe, then just about
>ALL of it isn't inside a star, or even near one.
So what are you thinking, Murphy is gonna blink and we'll get away
with it? From what I've seen he doesn't blink much. It's possible
that our postulated matter transmitter would feel most at home inside
a star and go looking for the things. But we don't know yet and
certainly can't count on much of anything; how thinly mass is spread
out might have nothing to do with it.
I've snipped the rest.
--
ewe spik flensh?
trag
> On Thu, 6 May 2010 08:41:43 -0700 (PDT), trag <t...@io.com>
> wrote in
> <news:6bd87172-e72d-4e77...@o11g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>
> in sci.astro.amateur,rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> [...]
>
> > My experience is that while (some) scientists may have a
> > rational way of thinking within their specialty, most of
> > them do not apply that skill outside their specialty.
> > At the very least, this is true of most of the engineers
> > I've worked with.
>
> Engineer != scientist.
While partly true, your equation is irrelevant to the conversation at
hand. Both engineers and scientists are folks who need a rational way
of viewing (part of) the universe in order to do their jobs
effectively.
And research engineers are scientists for any meaningful use of the
word.
Joe Pfeiffer
You can probably replace both "scientist" and "engineer" with
"competent professional". The statement's applicability is much, much
broader than either scientists or engineers.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)
Wayne Throop
::: to instantly be somewhere else, the question of finding a
::: somewhere-else that isn't inside a star or otherwise instantly
::: deadly comes to the fore.
:: about ALL of it isn't inside a star, or even near one.
: "noRm d. plumBeR" <se...@money.com>
: So what are you thinking, Murphy is gonna blink and we'll get away
: with it?
Haven't worked out the arithemetic, but I expect it's roughly akin to
crossing the street, while counting on Murphy blinking so that you're not
struck by a meteorite. Well... maybe safer than that, depending on just
where you're going.
"But I'm a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accident should
befall him...if he should get shot in the head by a police officer,
or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by
a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame some of the people in
this room."
--- Vito Corleone
Wayne Throop
:: one wished the FTL problem not to be solved, one could probably
:: accomplish that by the simple expedient of convincing people that the
:: solve easy problems anyway, so they're likely to be amenable to such
Oh sure. Nobody ever discovers anything revolutionary. Nobody ever
discovers the Wegener was right(ish) after all, or photons really do go
through both slits at once, or that the sun is older than a few million years.
: So it would not seem at all strange to me if, even though without the
: FTL drive turned on, just using rockets or ion propulsion or even
: hydrogen bombs and pusher plates, we could not go much past 1% of
: light speed, but with it turned on we could travel at enormous
: multiples of the speed of light.
:
: No one thinks it odd that our spaceships travel at tens of thousands
: of miles an hour, yet no athlete has yet run a two-minute mile.
So... these "spaceships" of which you speak operate by flipping a switch
that allows athletes to run at tens of thousands of miles an hour?
Otherwise... why is the one relevant to the other?
Robert Sneddon
<mam8u5d8hjv4s01ii...@news.eternal-september.org>,
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes
>(Incidentally, Dad did part-time work translating Russian scientific
>and technical articles from 1945 to 1980, and he said the Soviets were
>behind us in most fields, but beat the crap out of the West in
>optics.)
In John D. Clark's "Ignition!" he mentions that at one point in the
late 1950s a group of Russian rocket engineers published details in the
open scientific press of a rocket fuel/oxidiser combo which was superior
to the state of the art known to the US defence field. The Russians were
apparently under the impression the information they had made public was
actually widely known. It caused some head-scratching in the US, in part
because the thinking went that if the Russians thought this advanced
rocket fuel/oxidiser combination was common knowledge, just how advanced
was their secret stuff?
There was also research into fusion plasmas the Russians were carrying
out using tokamaks in the 1950s and 1960s when the US were using the
inferior stellarator machines to try and make, contain and sustain
plasmas.
--
To reply, my gmail address is nojay1 Robert Sneddon
DougL
> In article <3f4a6cb0-f366-45df-b4b1-41830a3ca...@h9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
> Michael Grosberg <grosberg.mich...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Strangely, this is the second "Less Wrong" article I ran into in the
> >last hour. The first was a piece of supposed Harry Potter fan fiction
> >(I think it's just using the HP-verse to explore some argument in
> >narrative form) I ran into in the comment section in Charles Stross'
> >blog.
>
> No, your parenthesis is quite wrong. Yudkowsky is doing nothing less
> than rewriting _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ from top
> to bottom, changing things so that they're more pleasing to him.
> ("In what weird alternative universe would that girl not be Sorted
> into Ravenclaw? If Hermione Granger didn't go to Ravenclaw then there
> was no good reason for Ravenclaw House to exist.")
>
> This means having a hero who's a rationalist. Having Harry Potter be
> an 11-year-old who can plausibly be a rationalist creates other effects,
> which in turn ripples through the whole plot, changing everything.
>
> So while it is unabashedly propaganda for rational thought, it is
> definitely fan *fiction*, not just exploring arguments. And
> well-written, entertaining fiction at that. (It wouldn't have gone as
> viral as it has, if it weren't.) Anyone who enjoys LWE's books
> because they feature smart characters should check it out.
And having said that. Neither of you gives a link to the story!
DougL
Gene Wirchenko
wrote:
[snip]
>If one was conspiracy oriented (not I said the little red hen) and one
>wished the FTL problem not to be solved, one could probably accomplish
>that by the simple expedient of convincing people that the problem is
>insoluable. People are generally lazy and prefer to solve easy
>problems anyway, so they're likely to be amenable to such a belief,
>especially if it comes from the well-credentialed.
Another approach would be to convince others that something else
that would be really neat to have but is actually impossible is
possible. Work on the impossible dream could suck up lots of
resources.
If it should somehow turn out to be possible (I can be mistaken),
I am a hero, and the success in this area will distract from... Hey,
you! Quit looking over there!
[snip]
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Robert Bannister
But who decides what their jobs are? Government and Big Business are not
always rational, and, come to that, who decides what "rational" is?
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> : "noRm d. plumBeR" <se...@money.com>
> : Wayne, I think that I never said that was a recipe for success,
>
> The context was solving problems. Starting with "create a nuclear
> explosion", meandering over to "get from point A to point B FTL".
> And whetehr just assumign the end is possible would lead to remarkable
> progress for the FTL as was alleged upthread for fission.
>
> I certainly thought that constituted a recommendation for the "assume
> it's possible" school of problem solving. If, however, you don't *want*
> to succeed in solving problems, and therefore aren't recommending recipes
> for success in doing so, that's fine too.
Even knowing the end is possible doesn't dispel all doubts. IIRC, a
number of scientists were not totally sure whether the first A-bomb
wouldn't set off a chain reaction in the atmosphere.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> All things considered it seems less likely that men will ever travel
> to the stars than that we will "sufficiently advance" our
> understanding of the actual universe within which we operate to be
> elsewhere without going anyplace at all.
>
One thing I'm sure of, taking in current restrictions on air travel: if
we ever get instant travel, the owners of the transmitter would insist
you turned up at least 24 hours in advance.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
I do see the relevancy: athletic records can only go so far before they
become unbreakable - this hasn't happened yet because of better health
and possibly drugs, but very few people would query that it will happen
sooner or later. On the other hand, a lot of very sensible people are
puzzled why FTL isn't possible.
--
Rob Bannister
Dimensional Traveler
--
Murphy was an optimist.
David DeLaney
You are Jan Darzek, and I claim $200 a day plus expenses.
Dave "not sure if that was the actual figure, by now" DeLaney
Quadibloc
> But who decides what their jobs are? Government and Big Business are not
> always rational, and, come to that, who decides what "rational" is?
Generally speaking, one knows what the job of an engineer and
scientist is the same way one knows what the job of a manager or a
clerk is. It is what he gets paid for, as opposed to what he does in
his spare time.
So if a professional electrical engineer wants to be an amateur
paleontologist in his spare time, fine, but this does mean that he
shouldn't be taken as an authority on paleontology - which is helpful
to know if he starts arguing on behalf of Creationism.
Basically, someone checked to see if he was a competent electrical
engineer. His competency as a paleontologist, on the other hand, had
not undergone any scrutiny.
John Savard
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<fr...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In message
><mam8u5d8hjv4s01ii...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes
>
>>(Incidentally, Dad did part-time work translating Russian scientific
>>and technical articles from 1945 to 1980, and he said the Soviets were
>>behind us in most fields, but beat the crap out of the West in
>>optics.)
>
> In John D. Clark's "Ignition!" he mentions that at one point in the
>late 1950s a group of Russian rocket engineers published details in the
>open scientific press of a rocket fuel/oxidiser combo which was superior
>to the state of the art known to the US defence field. The Russians were
>apparently under the impression the information they had made public was
>actually widely known. It caused some head-scratching in the US, in part
>because the thinking went that if the Russians thought this advanced
>rocket fuel/oxidiser combination was common knowledge, just how advanced
>was their secret stuff?
Huh. Don't think Dad knew about that one; he did translate some
Soviet chemistry articles, but no rocketry stuff. Not his field.
> There was also research into fusion plasmas the Russians were carrying
>out using tokamaks in the 1950s and 1960s when the US were using the
>inferior stellarator machines to try and make, contain and sustain
>plasmas.
Yeah, that one Dad DID know about; I'd forgotten it.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Lawrence Watt-Evans
I believe that it was the first H-bomb where that was briefly an
issue, not the Trinity bomb.
David Goldfarb
DougL <lamper...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On May 6, 3:57�pm, goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) wrote:
>>it is definitely fan *fiction*, not just exploring arguments. And
>> well-written, entertaining fiction at that.
>
If only there were some way of searching for web pages containing
key words or phrases, such as a story's title....
Okay, okay:
<http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality>
--
David Goldfarb |"Newsgroups trimmed back to rec.arts.sf.written,
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | in the hope of subverting society's traditional
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | values in a more focussed, netiquette-aware
| fashion." -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Martin Brown
> On May 10, 5:52 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>> But who decides what their jobs are? Government and Big Business are not
>> always rational, and, come to that, who decides what "rational" is?
>
> Generally speaking, one knows what the job of an engineer and
> scientist is the same way one knows what the job of a manager or a
> clerk is. It is what he gets paid for, as opposed to what he does in
> his spare time.
Although you could use that definition it quickly runs into trouble
because it assumes that the business has correctly aligned the
objectives of its employees with the objectives of the company. This is
seldom the case. Nowhere more so than in merchant banking where personal
bonuses can be huge multiples of annual salary. Banks have ceased to
exist because of reckless traders and poor systems oversight. We have a
global recession thanks to their "professional" conduct. It is not for
nothing that economics is called the dismal science! Where else would
you have Nobel laureates names linked to a major failure like LTCM?
Even in modest manufacturing endeavours I have seen places where stock
control was deliberately starved to make the end of year stock valuation
maximise the production and purchasing managers bonus whilst wrecking
production in January and February (quadratic on below some number). I
only got involved because they were blaming the MRP system for failing
to print. In fact they were arriving before everyone else and binning
it. In the old days MRP had to run overnight when terminals were idle.
There is an old maxim : what you measure gets controlled.
The corollary is that something else is left flapping in the breeze.
>
> So if a professional electrical engineer wants to be an amateur
> paleontologist in his spare time, fine, but this does mean that he
> shouldn't be taken as an authority on paleontology - which is helpful
> to know if he starts arguing on behalf of Creationism.
Historically amateur scientists were responsible for a lot of good
paleontology - and you can still find some professional hard scientists
arguing for Creationism. Amateurs do things for the love of the subject
- it doesn't say anything at all about how good they are at it.
Amateur fossil hunters and meteorite hunters tend to be pretty good at
finding new stuff even if they need help to identify what they find.
There is a genuine synergy with the professionals who mostly don't have
time to waste looking for stuff in the vast wilderness.
Same is true for supernova and cataclysmic variable hunts in astronomy -
amateurs have the edge at present over the professionals in terms of
spotting an outburst. This may not always be the case as visual comet
hunters are now almost out of business due to automated pro surveys.
>
> Basically, someone checked to see if he was a competent electrical
> engineer. His competency as a paleontologist, on the other hand, had
> not undergone any scrutiny.
Not necessarily. I know an amateur cactus grower held in such high
repute that for very rare new discoveries he is given some seed on the
very rational grounds that he is more likely to be able to propagate it
to flowering size more rapidly than the professionals at Kew.
He is still an amateur horticulturalist as that is not his day job and
he has no formal qualifications in the field. I think he does get paid
for some of it - at least payment in kind with new seeds and access to
materials.
Regards,
Martin Brown
noRm d. plumBeR
They'd probably want to stick cold hard things into all your orifices
too, the sadistic paranoid barstids.
However, "to be elsewhere without going anyplace at all" was not meant
to imply instantaneous matter transmission, so my orifices are
probably safe from the nasty orifice-pokers.
--
ewe spik flensh?
noRm d. plumBeR
Do you often mix apples :: with oranges : Wayne?
--
ewe spik flensh?
Quadibloc
wrote:
> Not necessarily. I know an amateur cactus grower held in such high
> repute that for very rare new discoveries he is given some seed on the
> very rational grounds that he is more likely to be able to propagate it
> to flowering size more rapidly than the professionals at Kew.
I am not trying to give an absolute rule that says that all amateurs
must be incompetent. Merely that those whose works are published in
peer-reviewed journals, those who hold impressive academic posts...
are, at least in the field of their specialty, a better foundation to
trust in to build your own self-consistent edifice of knowledge...
than self-appointed "experts" who proclaim that there is a BIG
CONSPIRACY to hide the fact that dinosaurs walked the Earth along with
men, that flying saucers are visiting us each day, and so on and so
forth.
Do you truly feel that I am giving unsound advice in so recommending?
I know I have no hesitation in choosing Newton, Einstein, and Darwin
over Gerard Kelleher, Brad Guth, and Ed Conrad.
Of course, having passed first-year calculus and the like makes it
possible for me to see that, no, I have not been brainwashed, but have
in my hands truth I can understand, verify, and work with. If
scientific orthodoxy were nothing more than faith in the most
impressive and conventional authorities, there would be nothing to
choose between the orthodox and the rebels.
It is precisely the ability to confirm science by experiment that
distinguishes truth from dogma, the expert from the charlatan, and
progress from ignorance.
John Savard
noRm d. plumBeR
>On May 11, 2:36�am, Martin Brown <|||newspam...@nezumi.demon.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>> Not necessarily. I know an amateur cactus grower held in such high
>> repute that for very rare new discoveries he is given some seed on the
>> very rational grounds that he is more likely to be able to propagate it
>> to flowering size more rapidly than the professionals at Kew.
>
>I am not trying to give an absolute rule that says that all amateurs
>must be incompetent.
Smart fellow.
> Merely that those whose works are published in
>peer-reviewed journals, those who hold impressive academic posts...
>are, at least in the field of their specialty, a better foundation to
>trust in to build your own self-consistent edifice of knowledge...
"better" is an important word.
>than self-appointed "experts" who proclaim that there is a BIG
>CONSPIRACY to hide the fact that dinosaurs walked the Earth along with
>men, that flying saucers are visiting us each day, and so on and so
>forth.
>
>Do you truly feel that I am giving unsound advice in so recommending?
Building "your own self-consistent edifice of knowledge" is best done
by oneself methinks. The materials you choose as its foundation ought
to be those you find most trustworthy. The more you build atop a
foundation, the more difficult it is to change the foundation without
tumbling the rest down.
>I know I have no hesitation in choosing Newton, Einstein, and Darwin
>over Gerard Kelleher, Brad Guth, and Ed Conrad.
"better" is an important word. "Most acceptable theory" should not be
confused with Truth.
>Of course, having passed first-year calculus and the like makes it
>possible for me to see that, no, I have not been brainwashed, but have
>in my hands truth I can understand, verify, and work with. If
>scientific orthodoxy were nothing more than faith in the most
>impressive and conventional authorities, there would be nothing to
>choose between the orthodox and the rebels.
>
>It is precisely the ability to confirm science by experiment that
>distinguishes truth from dogma, the expert from the charlatan, and
>progress from ignorance.
Repeatability and verifiability are useful in falsifying the
incorrect, but are not proof of Truth.
--
ewe spik flensh?
Martin Brown
> On May 11, 2:36 am, Martin Brown <|||newspam...@nezumi.demon.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> Not necessarily. I know an amateur cactus grower held in such high
>> repute that for very rare new discoveries he is given some seed on the
>> very rational grounds that he is more likely to be able to propagate it
>> to flowering size more rapidly than the professionals at Kew.
>
> I am not trying to give an absolute rule that says that all amateurs
> must be incompetent. Merely that those whose works are published in
I am fighting against the common misconception that amateurs are
necessarily incompetant. An idea that you seemed to be espousing.
Your "qualified" electrical engineer may have scraped a pass in an exam
a couple of decades ago but I can think of some that I would not let
anywhere near my own fuse box. I once had to administer hot sweet tea to
an ashen grey electrocuted US service engineer who forgot that UK mains
was 240v and tested for live with moist fingers! Another plunged the
entire site into darkness by dropping a spanner into the wrong place!
> peer-reviewed journals, those who hold impressive academic posts...
> are, at least in the field of their specialty, a better foundation to
> trust in to build your own self-consistent edifice of knowledge...
You are sailing dangerously close to an appeal to authority here.
You can have brilliant individuals with the highest academic credentials
who cannot teach students to save their lives. And they do have the
unfortunate effect of sounding exactly like the handwaving loons since
no one at their lectures can follow their reasoning. Relativity teaching
in electronics engineering courses often seems to follow this model.
I do agree in principle at least that it is better to listen to someone
of the stature of Prof Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and Chair of
the Royal Society who is an excellent communicator of modern science
than any of the nutters and netkooks listed below.
> than self-appointed "experts" who proclaim that there is a BIG
> CONSPIRACY to hide the fact that dinosaurs walked the Earth along with
> men, that flying saucers are visiting us each day, and so on and so
> forth.
>
> Do you truly feel that I am giving unsound advice in so recommending?
>
> I know I have no hesitation in choosing Newton, Einstein, and Darwin
> over Gerard Kelleher, Brad Guth, and Ed Conrad.
Of course not. The last 3 netloons are all in my kill file although
EdConman keeps morphing to evade it. Oriel36 only got through yesterday
because I was testing an unfiltered newserver - his babble is
predictable and easily simulated by a Shannon entropy based algorithm.
But you are on shakier ground with the electronics engineer Ivor Catt
(MA Cantab) who had some very strange ideas about electricity and
relativity and ranted about them incessantly in the pages of the UK
electronics magazine Wireless World (aided and abetted by the then
editor who also had a bee in his bonnet about relativity).
Wiki has a bit on him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Catt
Some of his ideas on wafer scale integration were excellent.
>
> Of course, having passed first-year calculus and the like makes it
> possible for me to see that, no, I have not been brainwashed, but have
> in my hands truth I can understand, verify, and work with. If
> scientific orthodoxy were nothing more than faith in the most
> impressive and conventional authorities, there would be nothing to
> choose between the orthodox and the rebels.
You have to keep that distinction clear. And it gets more than a bit
hazy in areas of bleeding edge research in string theory and cosmology.
>
> It is precisely the ability to confirm science by experiment that
> distinguishes truth from dogma, the expert from the charlatan, and
> progress from ignorance.
I don't approve of the way you want to claim truth vs dogma. Formal
proof of correctness is only possible in mathematics not in science.
Science by its very nature gives us a working description that matches
reality - it might or might not be correct, but as yet noone has found
an experiment that falsifies it. The opposite of ignorance is knowledge.
Regards,
Martin Brown
Quadibloc
wrote:
> Quadibloc wrote:
> > It is precisely the ability to confirm science by experiment that
> > distinguishes truth from dogma, the expert from the charlatan, and
> > progress from ignorance.
>
> I don't approve of the way you want to claim truth vs dogma. Formal
> proof of correctness is only possible in mathematics not in science.
>
> Science by its very nature gives us a working description that matches
> reality - it might or might not be correct, but as yet noone has found
> an experiment that falsifies it. The opposite of ignorance is knowledge.
That was another issue that I didn't want to touch on due to lack of
space. Yes, Einstein showed us that Newton didn't give us absolute
Truth, and so it may well turn out that Einstein didn't give us
absolute Truth either... if you don't count quantum mechanics as
having *already* proven that.
And it's in the very early days for string theory. Bringing in the
strong and weak nuclear forces seems to have solved the
renormalization problems of Kaluza-Klein, but, yes, we're still a ways
off from knowing if it's more than pretty mathematics.
My point is not to say that authority makes truth. But that if you
don't know the science yourself, it's just common sense to prefer
authorities who appear to be widely respected - at least if that
respect appears to have been obtained honestly, that is, without
coercion - to the "nutters".
The trouble is that people like Velikovsky and von Daniken can spin
pretty impressive and convincing arguments to a naive layperson. To a
person otherwise helpless against them, while authority may be a weak
reed, it is better than having no defense at all.
John Savard
Brian M. Scott
wrote in
<news:ae628eed-538c-4114...@37g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>
in sci.astro.amateur,rec.arts.sf.written:
> On May 6, 10:59 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On Thu, 6 May 2010 08:41:43 -0700 (PDT), trag <t...@io.com>
>> wrote in
>> <news:6bd87172-e72d-4e77...@o11g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>
>> in sci.astro.amateur,rec.arts.sf.written:
>> [...]
>>> My experience is that while (some) scientists may have a
>>> rational way of thinking within their specialty, most of
>>> them do not apply that skill outside their specialty.
>>> At the very least, this is true of most of the engineers
>>> I've worked with.
>> Engineer != scientist.
> While partly true, your equation is irrelevant to the
> conversation at hand.
It manifestly isn't an equation, and it is not irrelevant to
the statement to which it was a response: you cannot
legitimately use engineers as evidence to support a
statement about scientists.
[...]
Michael Stemper
>noRm d. plumBeR wrote:
>> All things considered it seems less likely that men will ever travel
>> to the stars than that we will "sufficiently advance" our
>> understanding of the actual universe within which we operate to be
>> elsewhere without going anyplace at all.
How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
>One thing I'm sure of, taking in current restrictions on air travel: if
>we ever get instant travel, the owners of the transmitter would insist
>you turned up at least 24 hours in advance.
I was originally going to point out that, absent any vehicle or fellow
travellers^W passengers, they'd have no sane reason for such a demand.
Then I realized that was totally irrelevant.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Visualize whirled peas!
Wayne Throop
: Do you often mix apples :: with oranges : Wayne?
More oranges and cranberries. The apples are more for
the cranapple juice... mmmmmm.
Wayne Throop
: Your "qualified" electrical engineer may have scraped a pass in an
: exam a couple of decades ago but I can think of some that I would not
: let anywhere near my own fuse box. I once had to administer hot sweet
: tea to an ashen grey electrocuted US service engineer who forgot that
: UK mains was 240v and tested for live with moist fingers! Another
: plunged the entire site into darkness by dropping a spanner into the
: wrong place!
Clearly, warning lights are flashing down in quality control.
However, I'm more wondering whether there's some conflation betrween
"electrical engineer" and "electrician" going on here. Sort of like
the difference between opthamalogist and optician, except more with
electrons than photons. But... maybe not.
Joseph Nebus
>Wayne Throop wrote:
>> : No one thinks it odd that our spaceships travel at tens of thousands
>> : of miles an hour, yet no athlete has yet run a two-minute mile.
>>
>> So... these "spaceships" of which you speak operate by flipping a switch
>> that allows athletes to run at tens of thousands of miles an hour?
>> Otherwise... why is the one relevant to the other?
>I do see the relevancy: athletic records can only go so far before they
>become unbreakable - this hasn't happened yet because of better health
>and possibly drugs, but very few people would query that it will happen
>sooner or later. On the other hand, a lot of very sensible people are
>puzzled why FTL isn't possible.
Besides, Batman already ran the two-minute mile, when he had to
get back to the Batcave from the other end while the Batmobile wasn't
available. And he did *that* just after running the mile the other way
in three minutes.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curiously, 'Batman' is in my emacs dictionary, while 'Batcave'
and 'Batmobile' are not. I offer no explanation, and merely note the
phenomenon.
Derek Lyons
>On Tue, 11 May 2010 07:54:56 +0800, Robert Bannister
><rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>>Wayne Throop wrote:
>>> : "noRm d. plumBeR" <se...@money.com>
>>> : Wayne, I think that I never said that was a recipe for success,
>>>
>>> The context was solving problems. Starting with "create a nuclear
>>> explosion", meandering over to "get from point A to point B FTL".
>>> And whetehr just assumign the end is possible would lead to remarkable
>>> progress for the FTL as was alleged upthread for fission.
>>>
>>> I certainly thought that constituted a recommendation for the "assume
>>> it's possible" school of problem solving. If, however, you don't *want*
>>> to succeed in solving problems, and therefore aren't recommending recipes
>>> for success in doing so, that's fine too.
>>
>>Even knowing the end is possible doesn't dispel all doubts. IIRC, a
>>number of scientists were not totally sure whether the first A-bomb
>>wouldn't set off a chain reaction in the atmosphere.
>
>I believe that it was the first H-bomb where that was briefly an
>issue, not the Trinity bomb.
Yes, the question was raised during the preperations for Trinity. The
matter was briefly studied, shown to be unlikely verging on
impossible, and quietly dropped. The significance has been vastly
overstated and amplified over time.
Here's the original document:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00329010.pdf
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Derek Lyons
> In John D. Clark's "Ignition!" he mentions that at one point in the
>late 1950s a group of Russian rocket engineers published details in the
>open scientific press of a rocket fuel/oxidiser combo which was superior
>to the state of the art known to the US defence field. The Russians were
>apparently under the impression the information they had made public was
>actually widely known. It caused some head-scratching in the US, in part
>because the thinking went that if the Russians thought this advanced
>rocket fuel/oxidiser combination was common knowledge, just how advanced
>was their secret stuff?
We did the same thing in reverse - Adm Rickover openly published much
information on our [Naval] nuclear power program, until he toured the
[then] new Soviet icebreaker Lenin. Seeing how far behind they were,
and much of what he thought of as obvious actually wasn't, he returned
home and promptly classified great swathes of basic technology and
engineering.
OTOH it was widely believed in the Fleet that we intentionally leaked
details of our SLBM fire and launch control systems (which had standby
and training modes in addition to the launch modes) in hope the
Soviets would adopt them and replace their systems which only had
'off' and 'launch' modes.
Derek Lyons
>My father worked on the Manhattan Project as a very junior scientist,
>and he never believed all the paranoia and propaganda about "Soviet
>atom spies," to the point he wasn't entirely sure there WERE any. He
>said that once you knew a bomb COULD be built, actually doing it just
>wasn't that big a challenge, and certainly wasn't too much for the
>Soviets to figure out. They weren't stupid.
>
>(Yes, I know the Soviets really did steal the information, but when
>Dad was talking about this forty-five years ago that wasn't yet
>established beyond all reasonable doubt. American propaganda was
>usually less blatantly false than what the other side produced, but it
>still wasn't very trustworthy.)
Your father probably didn't realize what many people still don't
realize today - that even though the *science* of a bomb is fairly
straightforward, the *engineering* is anything but. The two are often
confused even though they are radically different things.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> : Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk>
> : Your "qualified" electrical engineer may have scraped a pass in an
> : exam a couple of decades ago but I can think of some that I would not
> : let anywhere near my own fuse box. I once had to administer hot sweet
> : tea to an ashen grey electrocuted US service engineer who forgot that
> : UK mains was 240v and tested for live with moist fingers! Another
> : plunged the entire site into darkness by dropping a spanner into the
> : wrong place!
>
> Clearly, warning lights are flashing down in quality control.
>
Just another victim of industrial disease?
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
noRm d. plumBeR
>In article <84rl0r...@mid.individual.net>, Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> writes:
>>noRm d. plumBeR wrote:
>
>>> All things considered it seems less likely that men will ever travel
>>> to the stars than that we will "sufficiently advance" our
>>> understanding of the actual universe within which we operate to be
>>> elsewhere without going anyplace at all.
>
>How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
That's a good question, did somebody say you could do that? If you
find a working answer to that one let me know, just on the off chance
that I might be able to jimmy up a matter transmitter based on that
particular clue. Not saying that I could, or even that I consider the
question answerable, but that would be a huge clue to work from
wouldn't it?
I was instead referring to the ability to "be elsewhere without going
anyplace at all" as seeming more likely than FTL star travel (either
via very big rockets or via matter transmission). More likely, less
likely, here, there, those all seem like matters of relativity so to
speak.
--
ewe spik flensh?
Gene Wirchenko
Goldfarb) wrote:
>In article <76d59611-eb9f-4576...@i10g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,
>DougL <lamper...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On May 6, 3:57�pm, goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) wrote:
>>>it is definitely fan *fiction*, not just exploring arguments. And
>>> well-written, entertaining fiction at that.
>>
>>And having said that. Neither of you gives a link to the story!
>
>If only there were some way of searching for web pages containing
>key words or phrases, such as a story's title....
>
>Okay, okay:
><http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality>
Hilarious!
Chapter 4 was a hoot! Literal LOL and it takes a *lot* to do
that to me. I particularly liked "On the other hand, one competent
hedge fundie could probably own the whole wizarding world within a
week. Harry filed away this notion in case he ever ran out of money,
or had a week free." I love the or-phrase just casually dropped in
there.
I also like the chapter titles.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Gene Wirchenko
[snip]
> Curiously, 'Batman' is in my emacs dictionary, while 'Batcave'
>and 'Batmobile' are not. I offer no explanation, and merely note the
>phenomenon.
It is not curious. "batman" is a word. According to
dictionary.reference.com:
bat�man
/?b�tm?n/ Show Spelled[bat-muhn] Show IPA
�noun,plural-men. (in the British army)
a soldier assigned to an officer as a servant.
Sincerely,
Gene "Eye half uh spieling chequer" Wirchenko
Robert Bannister
How then are we constantly bombarded with "scientific" studies that
"prove" that butter, red wine, meat, eggs, bread, you-name-it, is bad
for you, good for you, bad for you, etc.? Or that the world is warming,
cooling, changing? Could it not be a question of "he who pays the piper"
and that qualified scientists are playing the tune requested in many
cases without reporting on the rest of the symphony?
I might trust the scientist, but I don't trust the person who is paying
him or her, and even university research is not above suspicion.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>> noRm d. plumBeR wrote:
>>> All things considered it seems less likely that men will ever travel
>>> to the stars than that we will "sufficiently advance" our
>>> understanding of the actual universe within which we operate to be
>>> elsewhere without going anyplace at all.
>> One thing I'm sure of, taking in current restrictions on air travel: if
>> we ever get instant travel, the owners of the transmitter would insist
>> you turned up at least 24 hours in advance.
>
> You are Jan Darzek, and I claim $200 a day plus expenses.
I've read most of those books, but I had completely forgotten that name.
I had to google it, and was surprised to find that Lloyd Biggle Jr. is
not a nom de plume - it looks so much like a made up name.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> On Tue, 11 May 2010 07:54:56 +0800, Robert Bannister
> <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>> Wayne Throop wrote:
>>> : "noRm d. plumBeR" <se...@money.com>
>>> : Wayne, I think that I never said that was a recipe for success,
>>>
>>> The context was solving problems. Starting with "create a nuclear
>>> explosion", meandering over to "get from point A to point B FTL".
>>> And whetehr just assumign the end is possible would lead to remarkable
>>> progress for the FTL as was alleged upthread for fission.
>>>
>>> I certainly thought that constituted a recommendation for the "assume
>>> it's possible" school of problem solving. If, however, you don't *want*
>>> to succeed in solving problems, and therefore aren't recommending recipes
>>> for success in doing so, that's fine too.
>> Even knowing the end is possible doesn't dispel all doubts. IIRC, a
>> number of scientists were not totally sure whether the first A-bomb
>> wouldn't set off a chain reaction in the atmosphere.
>
> I believe that it was the first H-bomb where that was briefly an
> issue, not the Trinity bomb.
I think you are correct.
--
Rob Bannister
Chris L Peterson
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>How then are we constantly bombarded with "scientific" studies that
>"prove" that butter, red wine, meat, eggs, bread, you-name-it, is bad
>for you, good for you, bad for you, etc.? Or that the world is warming,
>cooling, changing?
We aren't. It may seem that way to those who get all their scientific
knowledge from non-science publications, but the actual studies being
reported don't make any claim of proof, only of evidence. That is a flaw
in the way the mainstream press reports scientific findings, not a flaw
in the scientific approach to building knowledge.
>Could it not be a question of "he who pays the piper"
>and that qualified scientists are playing the tune requested in many
>cases without reporting on the rest of the symphony?
It has been known to happen. But it is rare, and such conflicts always
come to light if the subject is anything non-trivial.
>I might trust the scientist, but I don't trust the person who is paying
>him or her, and even university research is not above suspicion.
Which is why all reputable research reports fully disclose their funding
sources.
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>>My father worked on the Manhattan Project as a very junior scientist,
>>and he never believed all the paranoia and propaganda about "Soviet
>>atom spies," to the point he wasn't entirely sure there WERE any. He
>>said that once you knew a bomb COULD be built, actually doing it just
>>wasn't that big a challenge, and certainly wasn't too much for the
>>Soviets to figure out. They weren't stupid.
>>
>>(Yes, I know the Soviets really did steal the information, but when
>>Dad was talking about this forty-five years ago that wasn't yet
>>established beyond all reasonable doubt. American propaganda was
>>usually less blatantly false than what the other side produced, but it
>>still wasn't very trustworthy.)
>
>Your father probably didn't realize what many people still don't
>realize today - that even though the *science* of a bomb is fairly
>straightforward, the *engineering* is anything but. The two are often
>confused even though they are radically different things.
Since he was involved in engineering Fat Man, he SHOULD have realized
it, but I can't swear he did.
Dad's lab group was responsible for the shielding, so the infernal
thing could be made small enough to fit in a bomber without giving the
entire crew a fatal dose of ionizing radiation. Actually making it go
boom wasn't his department, but obviously his bunch needed to know the
basics so they'd know what it was they were shielding.
Robert A. Woodward
Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Quadibloc wrote:
> > On May 11, 2:36 am, Martin Brown <|||newspam...@nezumi.demon.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Not necessarily. I know an amateur cactus grower held in such high
> >> repute that for very rare new discoveries he is given some seed on the
> >> very rational grounds that he is more likely to be able to propagate it
> >> to flowering size more rapidly than the professionals at Kew.
> >
> > I am not trying to give an absolute rule that says that all amateurs
> > must be incompetent. Merely that those whose works are published in
>
> I am fighting against the common misconception that amateurs are
> necessarily incompetant. An idea that you seemed to be espousing.
>
It is necessary to assume amateurs are incompetent until they
proved otherwise (I see that this is cross-posted to
sci.astro.amateur, and while I will freely admit that many amateurs
have contributed to astronomy, I will point out that all had
demonstrated competence). Professionals, almost by definition, have
convinced either teachers, employers, or both that they were
competent.
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
David Mitchell
> On Tue, 11 May 2010 06:04:30 GMT, gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David
> Goldfarb) wrote:
>
>>In article
>><76d59611-eb9f-4576...@i10g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,
>>DougL <lamper...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On May 6, 3:57 pm, goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) wrote:
>>>>it is definitely fan *fiction*, not just exploring arguments. And
>>>> well-written, entertaining fiction at that.
>>>
>>>And having said that. Neither of you gives a link to the story!
>>
>>If only there were some way of searching for web pages containing key
>>words or phrases, such as a story's title....
>>
>>Okay, okay:
>><http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/
Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality>
>
> Hilarious!
At the risk of going all AOL, I thought so too, and I've never read the
original.
Brilliant.
--
=======================================================================
= David --- If you use Microsoft products, you will, inevitably, get
= Mitchell --- viruses, so please don't add me to your address book.
=======================================================================
Derek Lyons
>On Tue, 11 May 2010 18:08:21 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
>wrote:
>
>>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>
>>>My father worked on the Manhattan Project as a very junior scientist,
>>>and he never believed all the paranoia and propaganda about "Soviet
>>>atom spies," to the point he wasn't entirely sure there WERE any. He
>>>said that once you knew a bomb COULD be built, actually doing it just
>>>wasn't that big a challenge, and certainly wasn't too much for the
>>>Soviets to figure out. They weren't stupid.
>>
>>Your father probably didn't realize what many people still don't
>>realize today - that even though the *science* of a bomb is fairly
>>straightforward, the *engineering* is anything but. The two are often
>>confused even though they are radically different things.
>
>Since he was involved in engineering Fat Man, he SHOULD have realized
>it, but I can't swear he did.
>
>Dad's lab group was responsible for the shielding,
Fat Man didn't (intentionally) contain any shielding, nor did it need
any. The tamper and some other odd bits and bobs may have acted as
shielding, but that was a side effect of their primary purpose at
best.
>so the infernal thing could be made small enough to fit in a bomber without
>giving the entire crew a fatal dose of ionizing radiation. Actually making
>it go boom wasn't his department, but obviously his bunch needed to know the
>basics so they'd know what it was they were shielding.
Shielding doesn't decrease the size of the weapon, in fact rather the
opposite.
At Trinity, they handled the bare core with bare hands, which implies
they weren't too particular about the radiation hazards.