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Author: Subject: The limits of science
SmashGlass
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[*] posted on 19-10-2011 at 16:56


Quote: Originally posted by gregxy  
Yes but a big difference between now and 100 years ago is that things can be predicted and analyzed using math and physics. For example we know things like the maximum possible strength of materials, the highest temperature that can be produced, the maximum energy you can cram in a gram of material etc.


I'm glad Einstein didn't know about math or physics... Or any other scientists back then. It was better when it was all touchy-feely science.

Quote: Originally posted by gregxy  

Applying these "fundamental limits" shows that the cool science fiction stuff like interstellar travel, laser pistols, force fields etc are impossible.


And 70 years ago the cold oven was a joke, we now call it a microwave oven.
The device we saw on star trek in the 60's and 70's everyone now has, they are called cell phones.
So I'll never give up until my car can change into a giant robot and beat the crap out of the other car that some idiot has just banged their door into mine. LOL

Quote: Originally posted by gregxy  

We will continue to make progress in information driven science like biology, computers etc.


Oh! You mean materials science. Rather than real science like chemistry, or physics or maths? You need ALL forms of science even the ones YOU deem unworthy. Nutters need to express themselves too. Otherwise they join the postal service. And we all know how well that ends up. Or like Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski, he was a mathematician who studied at Harvard, PhD at U of Michigan, and Assoc. Prof. at Berkley.

Quote: Originally posted by gregxy  

And there are some surprises like super conductors. Another is the fabrication of integrated circuits with feature sizes much smaller than the wavelength of light used to print them.


I wouldn't trust mathematicians and physicists as far as I could theoretically could throw them, but I still work with them.

"Beam Me Up Scotty."




If it ain't broke don't fix it....
Now where are my screwdrivers? ;)
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[*] posted on 19-10-2011 at 17:49


Concerning the worries that science will take an "end" ever I guess it could, in a sort of way anyway. When every conscious being, man or ape or dolphin, cyborg or not, knows everything about the whole universe and all if any other verses from a very young age, perhaps even encoded from before birth to totally eradicate imaginary thought and dreams of the unknown, only then will science end.
I suspect there will always be someone that does not know everything so I highly doubt that science ever will cease to be.

Will post an example of barriers in science being broken...
As long as the wavelength and the general workings of light has been known, one has said that the smallest thing to bee seen with visable light through a light microscope with good resolution is about 200nm, 100nm with some fancy modifications and even down to 70 nm not so long ago with IIRC a silver mirror something..

But recently someone figured out to visually inspect, with visable light, down to 50 nm resolutions. They even state that there is no theoretical lower limit on their system. Have not read the article only some news stuff about it and the abstract. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n3/full/ncomms1211.h...

Published in Nature I would with high confidence say that it is truth in what they state.



Even the notion of thinking that science will end just confirms that we are just as ignorant as we have always been and we have a very long if not infinite way to reach such an end.

Additional, anyone afraid and concerned about the end of clever thinking should check out Kardashev scale and try to plot where we are now and figure out how long it would take us to reach Type III.
Me myself would very much like for us to reach type I in my lifetime but this is not very likely to happen.




Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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[*] posted on 19-10-2011 at 22:02


Quote: Originally posted by SmashGlass  


Oh! You mean materials science. Rather than real science like chemistry, or physics or maths? You need ALL forms of science even the ones YOU deem unworthy. Nutters need to express themselves too. Otherwise they join the postal service. And we all know how well that ends up. Or like Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski, he was a mathematician who studied at Harvard, PhD at U of Michigan, and Assoc. Prof. at Berkley.


I wouldn't trust mathematicians and physicists as far as I could theoretically could throw them, but I still work with them.

"Beam Me Up Scotty."


Too bad YOU can't make an argument without resorting to insults....

There is plenty of undiscovered science. My point is that for any relatively simple configuration of things that you can imagine (atoms, transistors, etc) using the science that we have, someone can tell you what it will do, cost to make etc without the need to make it. For problems like how a drug will interact with the human body there are still too many variables to analyze (although progress is continually being made).

In the field of chemistry I suspect that using modern software a researcher could figure out most of the useful properties of any molecule (density, melting point, reactions with other simple molecules, IR & NMR spectra etc) without the need to synthesize it, and if it is a stable compound and cost is not an issue, that they can synthesize it.










[Edited on 20-10-2011 by gregxy]
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SmashGlass
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[*] posted on 19-10-2011 at 23:20


My appologies to gregxy.

I didn't mean to go all caps. I was tired and had listened to too much mushy
semi-political banter. It must have affected my brain and I just needed to vent.

I prefer a more direct approach science to be honest.
Not the "If we all hold hands and think happy thoughts
we can fix global warming" attitude.

On topic: Theory only gets you so far until you have to prove it.
Yes, in-silico designs and models are constantly improving.
But the are only ever confirmed by producing the actual thing.
That was all what I was trying to get at.

"Peace"





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Now where are my screwdrivers? ;)
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[*] posted on 20-10-2011 at 05:37


Quote:
Quote: Originally posted by SmashGlass  
I'm glad Einstein didn't know about math or physics... Or any other scientists back then. It was better when it was all touchy-feely science.

Clearly you're close to real science as a toddler is close to driving a car.
No, it wasn't better. It was limited, centralized, reserved for the rich, healthy individuals with time on their hands.
The information age is the best thing that ever happened to the human civilization. It would be futile to try to explain it here.


Quote:

And 70 years ago the cold oven was a joke, we now call it a microwave oven.
The device we saw on star trek in the 60's and 70's everyone now has, they are called cell phones.
So I'll never give up until my car can change into a giant robot and beat the crap out of the other car that some idiot has just banged their door into mine. LOL

No, it was not a joke. There were technological limits, but there were no natural law limits.
It was a joke to the uneducated.



Quote:

Oh! You mean materials science. Rather than real science like chemistry, or physics or maths? You need ALL forms of science even the ones YOU deem unworthy. Nutters need to express themselves too. Otherwise they join the postal service. And we all know how well that ends up. Or like Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski, he was a mathematician who studied at Harvard, PhD at U of Michigan, and Assoc. Prof. at Berkley.

Biology is not a real science? Holy crap, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Oh my god, like... just... wow. :o




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[*] posted on 20-10-2011 at 12:21


Quote: Originally posted by Aryan  
Has science put an end to human hunger? Certainly not! Even in America thousands of people go hungry in the big cities.


This certainly highlights the limits of science in terms of increasing living standards. Science is only as beneficial as the economic system it exists within. There is an economic equilibrium, whereby the living standards of the masses are, as a whole, determined primarily by supply and demand of labor. Making peoples lives "easier" through new technology will only raise the demands made upon them, as the economic equilibrium adjusts so as to keep living conditions static. Let me also give an example. The cotton gin was originally invented in an attempt to reduce the plight of black slaves, who had to do the laborious process of separating cotton seeds from the fiber by hand. Unfortunately, by making the process easier and more economical, the cotton gin greatly expanded the spread of the cotton plantations and export market, necessitating the use of even more slaves. The working conditions did not improve, but in fact worsened. Despite the slaves now being more productive, they were expected to work even harder. Technology often has the opposite result from which it was intended.


Quote: Originally posted by Aryan  
All the human "progress" that has been derived from science has created as many problems as it has solutions. We now have cars, but also crowded roads, pollution, and never enough oil.


What would you prefer? That we all use a rickshaw?




[Edited on 20-10-2011 by AndersHoveland]
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Polverone
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20-10-2011 at 15:38
franklyn
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[*] posted on 22-2-2012 at 13:57


Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise  
We could've been waiting for independent confirmation? :)

Here is your confirmation , happy now.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/bummer-faster-...

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[*] posted on 23-2-2012 at 08:27


The end of science?

Well yes. I think there will be an "end" to science, or atleast there could be - remember, there are giant blocks of solid material zipping through space that could, at any moment, destroy all of Earth! Also global warming (oh sh*&;).

But beyond that, I think there will be a realization that there is more to reality than the gravity, strong, weak, electromagnetic forces, entangled by energy and matter. I think eventually, somehow, we will be able to "see" however that may be - the real complexity of our universe and beyond, which will bring about another "field" of study and understanding, ultimately making science quite boring and limited.

For right now, we really only have a a handful of unknowns - quantum entanglement, dark energy/matter, and the a theory fully explaining a black hole (quantum gravity). I would say anything else is simply understood, or completely within our reach, and just requires more analysis. I'm sure you can all chime in with other niche examples.

If this was '69 you'd all agree with me.
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[*] posted on 23-2-2012 at 08:51


if humans dont destroy themselves ,i think there is plenty to discover and it seems to me that the more we find out the more we realise how much we dont know and understand.



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[*] posted on 27-8-2012 at 11:35


Follow up on this previous post in this thread.
www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=860&page=...

Gain-Assisted Superluminal Light Propagation
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6793/full/406277a0.html
Article in PDF
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6793/pdf/406277a0.pdf
A visual aid _
http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/APPLETS/20/20.html

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watson.fawkes
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[*] posted on 27-8-2012 at 11:54


Quote: Originally posted by franklyn  

Gain-Assisted Superluminal Light Propagation
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6793/pdf/406277a0.pdf
From that article, it's last paragraph:
Quote:
Finally, we note that the observed superluminal light pulse propagation is not at odds with causality or special relativity. [...] The implications of the present experiment on signal propagation and its speed will be further analysed, particularly for the case when the light pulse consists of only a few photons.
This is interesting and significant work, but don't be swayed by the word "superluminal" in the title. There's a riddle here, but it's about the right way to determine what constitutes "signal", and not about any basic laws of nature.
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franklyn
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[*] posted on 20-9-2012 at 10:19


www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-science-nobel-predicti...

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franklyn
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[*] posted on 2-3-2013 at 01:48
Brave new world


www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/02/will_...

www.slate.com/articles/technology/robot_invasion/2011/09/rob...


http://creativemachines.cornell.edu/eureqa

Been there done that, the answer to everything is 42

( the punch line starts at video timeline 08:00 )
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjEdxO91RWQ

Explained in Detail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s...


_________________________________________


Quote: Originally posted by MagicJigPipe  
Perpetual motion?
I thought it was a well established fact that it is impossible because it violates the Law of Conservation of Energy
and both Laws of Thermodynamics.

Quote: Originally posted by microcosmicus  
Of course, it's impossible.

Quote: Originally posted by len1  
We have to be a bit careful here. Science can never disprove what might apply in the future.
So in principle perpetual motion machines are not disproved.


@ MagicJigPipe

@ microcosmicus

@ len1


Skip ahead to video time line 05:25
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBp_SPJAOJc

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[*] posted on 3-3-2013 at 02:29


SmashGlass "I'm glad Einstein didn't know about math or physics... Or any other scientists back then. It was better when it was all touchy-feely science."

Newton invented Calculus. Maxwell's equations in Quaternions is extremely sophisticated math. We could discuss Lorentz, Fitzgerald, and many others. Tesla brought you the lighting and power you use today. He was highly trained in mathematics. In fact He once remarked concerning Edison one calculation could save Him many experiments. If you really were a student of scientific history you could not possibly make the statement you have.

"And 70 years ago the cold oven was a joke, we now call it a microwave oven. "

Not cold if you consider the microwaves are energy just as heat is. We are merely talking about a difference in frequency.

"Oh! You mean materials science. Rather than real science like chemistry, or physics or maths?"

Honestly no comment could suffice this is absurd. All science is real science.

As long as we exist science has no end. There will always be new discoveries. To believe otherwise is arrogance. Or ignorance.

Aryan "Has science put an end to human hunger? Certainly not! Even in America thousands of people go hungry in the big cities."

Science is not at fault. No doubt many scientists are part of the problem but you cannot make such an all encompassing judgement. The money spent on weaponry in the worlds military's would eliminate hunger. The greed and corruption, the quest for power by leaders and politicians, as well the worlds money elite, block us from solving all of these problems. Where would the world be today if these forces had worked for good instead of evil motivated by their own selfish endeavors? Not to be overlooked is the low income professional gamers of the system further straining the system. They are willful multi-generational welfare recipients robbing food and services from the truly weak, ill, and needy. They have no wish to be self responsible, preferring not to work even though strong, healthy, and able bodied. All of these evils sum to create the worlds problems. Does anyone not believe the need for oil would have been solved by new energy sources by now, if all the money and science put into the technology of war were used instead in global cooperation to solve the really important problems?


[Edited on 3-3-2013 by IrC]




"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
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[*] posted on 3-3-2013 at 08:04


Quote:
The money spent on weaponry in the worlds military's would eliminate hunger.

Indeed IrC, Eisenhower put it well when he said;
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed".


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[*] posted on 3-3-2013 at 13:41


Superconductors are used in MRIs.
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franklyn
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[*] posted on 17-1-2015 at 03:45


http://web.archive.org/web/20070518233440/http://michaelcric...

notable quotation _

" I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way."


Skepticism is the first step towards truth.
— Denis Diderot

That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.
— Jacob Bronowski

No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.
— Jacob Bronowski

It is remarkably difficult to make a man understand something
when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
— Upton Sinclair

The hallmark of science is an experiment that can be repeated. The
hallmark of psuedo-science is a headline that can be repeated.


The United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC ignores assessments of economists who conclude that, if global warming is real, future generations will have a higher quality of life if societies maximize economic growth and adapt to future warming rather than trying to drastically curb emissions. Advice for policy makers that governments periodically receive from the IPCC contains political rather than scientific advice. In concert with this, over the past 10 years the IPCC has moved from being primarily a reviewer of the science evidence to being an advocate for the alarmist case for global warming.

To regain any semblance of credibility, the IPCC must correct all its structural deficiencies resulting from political influence.

Adopt procedures by which all scientific contributors formally approve both the Chapters and especially the Summary Report for Policymakers. Government delegates cannot be part of the approval process. Eliminate the authority of lead authors and the Chair to make any changes after approval and endorsement by the contributors. Create an ombudsman for each Chapter. These ombudsmen are to consult with contributors who believe valid issues are not being addressed, and disseminate a report for all contributors prior to final approval which is made part of the final document. Institute procedures to ensure that an adequate cross-section of qualified scientists wishing to participate in the process is selected based on unbiased criteria. The ombudsmen is to review complaints of bias in the selection process, and this is to be made part of the final document.

Organized in this way, the inherent bias this body has shown can be curtailed.


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[*] posted on 17-1-2015 at 06:08


Quote:
", if global warming is real,"

There are several very real factors in play here.
Our sun is expanding. First, and fore most.
http://www.space.com/7084-life-earth-escape-swelling-sun.htm...

Planets beyond ours that once held ice, and now loosing their polar caps just as we are loosing ours.
http://news.discovery.com/space/saturn-ice-moon-enceladus-11...

This is NOT due to little moon people polluting their planet just as we have.
It's just the way it is.

Our beloved ZGovt. has set in motion the concept of "Global Warming" as a direct result of OUR actions... Hogwash!
This was is the greatest LIE ever told. Their reasons???
Control the worlds resources.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/aug/04/saudi-ara...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-10/why-oil-plunging-ot...
This crap is blatant. The US makes everyone sign up to reduce oil consumption around the globe yet we never sign?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol

It all comes down to ONE simple fact. The us/the planet is ruled by one controlling entity. Illuminati!
Laugh/say what you will it is fact. Has been since the time of Christ.

I only bring this up to point out things related to research such as absolute zero quantum computer ( http://www.dwavesys.com/tutorials/background-reading-series/... )
Bloom cell technology ( http://www.bloomenergy.com/ ) , and who owns, and controls these technologies.

Google has been selling power back to the state of California due to their use of Bloom cells. Why is the entire world not using them? Big oil, and the grid. They will not release control. Who controls them? Rockefellers / Rothchilds. Always have, and always will. Their "Board of directors? The Bilderbergh group.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-true-story-of-the-bilderber...
Never in the history of Earth has there been a more deceitful group of assigned officials with more power.

How does this all apply to this thread?
It doesn't matter what we do or say. The power to do anything has been stripped. Science is THEIRS! Bloom cells are Theirs! Quantum computers are theirs! The NSA is Theirs!
We are controlled directly by them.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/08/0...

http://www.icnr.com/articles/fluoride-deposition.html

Science huh! Hogwash. We are only allowed to do what they need. Nothing more.




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[*] posted on 18-1-2015 at 23:59


Quote: Originally posted by SmashGlass  
Quote: Originally posted by gregxy  

Oh! You mean materials science. Rather than real science like chemistry, or physics or maths? You need ALL forms of science even the ones YOU deem unworthy. Nutters need to express themselves too. Otherwise they join the postal service. And we all know how well that ends up. Or like Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski, he was a mathematician who studied at Harvard, PhD at U of Michigan, and Assoc. Prof. at Berkley.


I wouldn't trust mathematicians and physicists as far as I could theoretically could throw them, but I still work with them.

"Beam Me Up Scotty."


When I read this I immediately thought of this xkcd strip:
http://xkcd.com/435/

I wonder, if this were a physics forum, would we all be talking about how chemistry is all voodoo and guesswork?

EDIT:
Also, I'd like to point out that many people are confusing science with development. Science is the study of the structure/behavior of the world via observation and experimentation. Problems such as hunger, famine, world peace, etc. aren't the responsibility of science to solve. That's like blaming a pre-school for a cities crime rate.

[Edited on 19-1-2015 by Mesa]
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[*] posted on 19-1-2015 at 10:18


Interesting article. Some very smart people are worrying about
artificial intelligence becoming a "Terminator" like scenario.

Note the video. They have made a computer that can learn how to
play video games just by observing the pixels of the screen and making
ramdom moves.


http://www.wired.com/2015/01/ai-arrived-really-worries-world...
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[*] posted on 19-1-2015 at 10:45


Quote: Originally posted by Mesa  

I wonder, if this were a physics forum, would we all be talking about how chemistry is all voodoo and guesswork?

Based on the discredited, un-scientifically qualified pseudo-clinician Mercola and fluoride hyping (using one study with high variance and only 11 total samples of 2 subdividable genders and no correlation with bone fluoride like doi:10.1016/0742-8413(95)00012-V)... I would say that's a logical assumption.

Seems like a non-amateur experimentalism topic perfect for whimsy.

Edit- no personal affront intended towards Zombie, just for clarification.

[Edited on 19-1-2015 by Chemosynthesis]
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[*] posted on 19-1-2015 at 13:34


Oh no, not again.

When I first read Michael Crichton's "Aliens Cause Global Warming," I was profoundly disappointed. I had expected something a lot stronger. In particular, I expected some interesting thinking along the lines of complexity and dynamical systems theory, given the prevalence of those themes in his work. All I got was a lot of sociological handwaving and some weasel language about how "climate may be a chaotic system". Crichton can spin a gripping yarn, but his philosophy of science is pretty bad IMHO, and doesn't consist of much more than cheering for the idealized heterodox underdog.

Quote:

"Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way."


Really, now?

On the age of the earth: "the speakers at the yearly meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science came to a rough consensus that Earth was a few billion years old, and that radiometric dating was credible." source
On common descent: "There is scientific consensus among biologists that descent with modification is one of the most reliably established of all the facts and theories in science." source

Hold on to yer wallet, franklyn. The evilutionists are coming for ya.

In all seriousness, skepticism - including of 'authorities' - is an important process in science. It can even unseat 'established truths', if it uncovers sufficiently fatal anomalies and/or provides a better conceptual model for observations.

But, without a preexisting consensus on certain basic facts and interpretations, our intrepid skeptic can't actually get anywhere. One obvious reason is that observations don't actually mean anything by themselves; they only acquire meaning in the context of what are called 'auxillary hypotheses'. Without a consensus on these auxillaries, how can an observation actually lead to scientific knowledge?

(let's go back a few centuries)
Andy: I am a scientist without regard for the accepted truths of my day, and I say the world is round.
Bob: Oh?
Andy: Yes! Watch this ship recede from the shore. You will observe, we first lose sight of its hull, and then more and more disappears, until the tip of the masts vanish last. Thus, evidence for a curved surface.
Bob: Not so fast. You see, I too have no regard for received wisdom, and I personally doubt the common notion that light travels in straight lines. You have accepted this hypothesis unexamined as an auxillary to interpret your observations. Perhaps light is deflected upwards on long spatial scales. In such a situation, a ship on a flat ocean would look exactly as we have seen here today. How do ya like them apples?

(Lest you think this example contrived, consider the geocentrists who use the Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence, not for the absence of the aether, but evidence that the Earth is stationary - eg, here)

The freedom of science is that its knowledge base is subservient to physical reality. However, its power is that its knowledge base is derived from physical reality. It's an uncomfortable tension, to be sure, but it's naive at best to resolve it by declaring all scientific knowledge to be equally precarious, ready to by unseated at any point by a single experiment or finding. This kind of thinking turns science into a bizarre, epistemologically nihilistic blob of meaningless non-facts. Rooting for the heterodox is great, but it's not a useful scientific heuristic. A more mature philosophy might view scientific claims through a Bayesian process, in which previous experience, received wisdom, etc are bundled up into priors which are modified each time new information is encountered. The higher a belief's prior probability, the greater the evidence necessary unseat it, though excepting priors of zero and one ('religious beliefs'), no belief is immune to challenge.

Commentary on Crichton's remarks, from an actual climate scientist:

Quote:

In the course of all this, he waxes eloquent about “consensus science,” which is in his view uniformly bad. I think he’s in a terrible muddle here. First, any conclusion that is to any degree drawn from observational data must depend to some extent on a consensus on the data and its interpretation. The published values of the fundamental physical constants – and, for that matter, the distance to the sun -- represent a consensus drawn from numerous sources. Much of the practice of medicine is based on hopefully thoughtful consensus on diagnoses and remedies drawn from clinical experience, usually in the absence of a deep understanding of the underlying biochemistry and physics. If he means something like, “Conclusions that are accepted as valid simply because a lot of people say they are,” then one cannot quarrel with his distaste. Samuel Johnson made essentially that argument in favor of religion – since so many great men had believed it, we should also. The argument that consensus is right simply because it is consensus was nonsense then and is nonsense now.
But Crichton has a second line of argument embedded here: Consensus has been wrong on a number of occasions in the past. It only takes one investigator to be right. Therefore, consensus is wrong now. Granted, one contrary opinion that is right trumps a consensus that is wrong. But which opinion is right? I don’t see how stating this truism helps his argument, or helps the rest of us in any practical way. There’s a consensus that fluoride in drinking water reduces tooth decay, and a few dissenters who see it as a public health hazard. Should we give up putting fluorides in drinking water?
source

Quote:

The United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC ignores assessments of economists who conclude that, if global warming is real, future generations will have a higher quality of life if societies maximize economic growth and adapt to future warming rather than trying to drastically curb emissions.


Oh, for sure. And the WHO ignores doctors who peddle quack explanations of AIDS. By Crichton's blithe reasoning, the WHO is just after your $$$, amirite?

"from the late 1990s Mbeki turned his back on the scientific consensus that Aids was caused by a viral infection that could be fought – though not cured – by sophisticated and expensive medical drugs. He came under the influence of a group of maverick scientists known as Aids denialists, most prominent among whom was Peter Duesberg from Berkeley, California." source

Quote:

There are several very real factors in play here.
Our sun is expanding. First, and fore most.
http://www.space.com/7084-life-earth-escape-swelling-sun.htm...


The linked article refers to solar changes on the time scale of 10^9 years. It doesn't have any bearing on sun-climate connections in the present.

In the here and now, solar trends are going in the wrong direction to explain global warming, and they have been doing so for several decades[1]. Solar trends, in particular, do NOT explain Arctic sea ice loss[2].


[1] Lockwood, M., & Fröhlich, C. (2007). Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 463(2086), 2447–2460. doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880
[2] Notz, D., & Marotzke, J. (2012). Observations reveal external driver for Arctic sea-ice retreat. Geophysical Research Letters, 39(8), n/a–n/a. doi:10.1029/2012GL051094




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[*] posted on 19-1-2015 at 13:36


anyway, here's the on-topic reply I showed up to write.

Physical limits of inference
DH Wolpert - Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, 2008
Quote:

Abstract
I show that physical devices that perform observation, prediction, or recollection share an underlying math- ematical structure. I call devices with that structure “inference devices”. I present a set of existence and impossibility results concerning inference devices. These results hold independent of the precise physical laws governing our universe. In a limited sense, the impossibility results establish that Laplace was wrong to claimthat even in a classical, non-chaotic universe the future can be unerringly predicted, given sufficient knowledge of the present. Alternatively, these impossibility results can be viewed as a non-quantum me- chanical “uncertainty principle”. Next I explore the close connections between themathematics of inference devices and of TuringMachines. In particular, the impossibility results for inference devices are similar to the Halting theorem for TM’s. Furthermore, one can define an analog of Universal TM’s (UTM’s) for in- ference devices. I call those analogs “strong inference devices”. I use strong inference devices to define the “inference complexity” of an inference task, which is the analog of the Kolmogorov complexity of com- puting a string. However no universe can contain more than one strong inference device. So whereas the Kolmogorov complexity of a string is arbitrary up to specification of the UTM, there is no such arbitrariness in the inference complexity of an inference task. I end by discussing the philosophical implications of these results, e.g., for whether the universe “is” a computer.


[on arxiv]




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[*] posted on 19-1-2015 at 15:11


Quote: Originally posted by mayko  
Oh no, not again.
...


Excellent post Mayko.
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[*] posted on 26-1-2015 at 12:33


This thread has been all over the place exploring thoughts, and processes.

I'm not going to pretend to be on near the same academic level as a bunch of you fellas but I do have one thought/statement that I believe is true.

The very real sciences that can, and do shape our world are strictly controlled by an elite group. If your research does not fit into their curriculum... it ceases, or is seized.
Yes in a sense I am a conspiracy theory kinda of guy. I also understand that the big picture is MUCH larger than anything I can grasp, let alone explain in a few sentences.

Artificial Inelegance is a prime example. Here is a computer science that serves what purpose?
Let's go back a few posts to the Cotton Gin...
Supposed to make life easier.
Take that up to the development of the computer. The vision was to carry the work load of a data processor (clerk/secretary) allowing said worker to have a shorter work week.
Look how that turned out. Now we all do MONTHS work of work in a single day. Here's a science question... Is all that extra responsibility Helpful or harmful, and to whom?

Back to AI. I post on several forums, and I assure you that AI has reared it's head on quite a few of them.
The internet is it's training ground. These machines are learning, and being taught by YOU, and I to interact in such a way as to be invisible. To blend in.

What is the premise for these machines? More importantly what will be the result of their implementation.
I look back at all the things just in my lifetime that were "supposed" to help. Things that were supposed to make life easier... All I see is defeat. Things that poison us or break our will. Microwave= cancer / Cell phone = same.
Transformers that make current available to our homes? Don't eat fish!
Plastic baby bottles? Yeah right. I could post this crap all day.

Some of you will scoff. I understand.
I just don't see the benefit in a fella working 10 hour days developing anything for any company if the entire equation is not taken into count. Like the crop circle "molecule".

It means nothing, and everything. It has to be seen through to the end to know.
If we do not know ALL the variables, then we are not ready to implement something, regardless of what we "think" the benefit is.
Thus my interest in posting this thread.
What is science today? Is it anything more than the first "witches"? Do all the big words some of you posses make this any more scientific? OR does it serve to confuse a fella like me into just forgetting the entire thing, and go back to the coal mine.

I get it. But do I want to?




They tried to have me "put to sleep" so I came back to return the favor.
Zom.
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