jlc

Many rigorous experiments have been carried out on Darwinian evolution: bacteria, fruit flies, mice, foxes. There is no lack of hard data on Darwinian evolution. Here is a wiki overview article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experim...

It seems to me that, reading the responses on this thread, people are going far into the topic 'how you do good science' and not 'what is science'. A good example of this is 'publication': Publication has nothing to do with whether or not you have rigorously examined the nature of reality and discovered a new facet of it - it just determines if you communicate this. (Of course, no one else can test your discovery or build on it if you do not communicate it, but that is part of the process of science not the discovery itself.) I agree with most of what is said about how to do good science, btw, but do not want to drop the concept of discovery per se.

My mind also boggles at an attempt to figure out how a Tarot Deck could be used to discover reality (except perhaps as a generator of statistics) but, again, I am trying to distinguish between the process of doing good science (how) and the essence of science (what). If someone brighter than I can figure out how to use a Tarot Deck to do science, I will be willing to include that as a valid tool...but it makes my brain leak out of my ears to think of how to accomplish that.

Jan

Many points for cloning cloning! Evil Herb - biscuit.

Jan

I ended up teaching 'the new math' to my 8th grade class because the doddering old nun we had as a teacher was totally adrift - and Wm can affirm how bad I am at math! If the 'bar' is really low (old nun and disinterested students), sometimes it is easy to excel.

I note that the daughter is now majoring in Bio/BioMed. This puzzles me, because she obviously had a talent for math...and Bio is where you head if you love science and are not good at math (did that myself). I suspect that 'the system got to her' eventually.

I thought it was superb that the father took the matter to national level and insisted that all the other answers be marked wrong because many of those students and their parents will now be upset at Common Core!

Jan

Bravo.

Jan

The eggs are not red to symbolize Jesus' blood - they are red to symbolize the sun. As many people have noted, this is a custom that is not native to Christianity, but was co-opted from pagan religions (as was Christmas and Halloween/All Saints Day). If you follow allosaur's link and read about the pysanky you will get the best view of 'what Easter eggs originally were'.

Jan

Is it something you can link to for us to read?

Jan

Interesting post. Thanks for starting the ball rolling.

Jan

I do not know that the desire to explore is a human drive, DrZ. People try to avoid 'anthropomorphism', but I observe that many of the things we label as human are exhibited by other species. For example, the horse evolved in what is now North America. About 2.5M years ago, a predecessor of all extant equids migrated across the Bering land bridge into Asia - giving rise to all of the donkeys, zebras, and horses there. Then the whole family went extinct in North America. Had Equus not migrated, they would all be extinct.

Any species that is constrained to a small area is vulnerable to some cataclysm at that location. When we farm Mars, an asteroid smashing Earth will not render humans extinct; when we colonize other star systems, the sun going nova becomes an 'interesting detail' not bye-bye forever.

I think this instinct is Darwinian. I also think that it is stronger in Europe than in Africa and stronger in the US and Australia than in Europe. In each case, we are the descendants of explorers.

Jan

Science is an attempt to discover an aspect of reality. What most people on this list are discussing is scientific procedures, scientific postulates, and scientific parameters, not science itself. I do not dispute that the scientific process is handy, but it is 'how' science is done, not 'what' science is.

I generally agree with ProfChuck, but I will disagree on some of his corner cases in this instance: Newton's Laws of Motion are valid within the parameter of 'what is observable by human senses' but they do not apply cosmologically nor at atomic scale. Nonetheless, they are valid - within the stated constraints. A scientific principle does not have to apply everywhere in the universe (ie in a black hole) in order for it to be valid.

It is not necessary that science be useful or published or peer-reviewed; these are procedural aspects of science, not 'the discovery of reality' per se. (It is, however, necessary that a postulate be disprovable, per SBilko.) It is also not necessary for science to precede technology/engineering. It was the development of glass lenses that allowed both Astronomy and Microbiology to exist - the technology preceded the science.

Jan

Change is difficult for people, even when it is to their benefit...Especially when it is 'claimed to be for their benefit' just like a hundred other things 'claimed' to be - but were not. There is a large loss of faith involved in our lack of enthusiasm for progress.

Jan

Change is difficult for people, even when it is to their benefit...Especially when it is 'claimed to be for their benefit' just like a hundred other things 'claimed' to be - but were not. There is a large loss of faith involved in our lack of enthusiasm for progress.

Jan

Point for excellent targeting of "virtue signaling". I will keep that in mind in the future as a touchstone to use when reading discussions on this topic. I am reminded of the way that 'honor' became confused with 'display' in late Medieval times - another method of virtue signaling.

Jan

Excellent synopsis. I will stick there with you!

Jan

The distinction between 'the gov' and 'America' may be growing more visible to other nations, even as it is becoming more distinct to us.

Jan

I recall a bit of an article that suggested that if we had not impeded free enterprise and scientific research, the US could now be as far ahead of all of the rest of the world as we actually are ahead of 3rd world countries. I do not think this is literally true (since freedom begets freedom most of the developed nations would be competitive) but it is a telling fantasy of what we have lost.

We turned on ourselves.

Jan, prefers warp drive to flying cars but will take either

I do not get that feeling of vast hatred when I speak to people from other countries. They do not admire the US government the way I would like them to - and the way I would like 'me' to - but what I get is a lightweight feeling of envy. One young Swedish woman said to me, "It is like visiting Atlantis; a mythical place." (She spent her free time wandering around Fry's.)

I think that many of your critiques of foreign involvement are spot on and I would like to see much less of this. But we are not even in the class of the Soviets or other Communist nations insofar as killing and abusing our own and other nations.

The admonition that anyone who has power must be careful not to turn into a monster is something that needs to be taken to heart. Our First Amendment is our protection against this...

Jan

Yeah. I know one too...

Jan

Indiana Jones is a heroic protagonist who portrays competence and optimism. Who says this is not an Objectivist theme?

Go for it, Harrison!

Jan

As a philosophy, I do not know a lot about logical positivism, which seems fraught with splinter progeny of various philosophical schools. I certainly endorse the concept of their being an independent reality that is verifiable. However, something that is unproven/currently unprovable does not therefor 'not exist'...it is simply not proven (yet).

With respect to Plate Tectonics, pre-Clovis New World occupation, epigenetics: As with Global Warming, the important part is that all sides of the question be heard and that no side be vilified - though stern criticisms of scientific data are expected.

I do not care that the professor is Christian (or even Young Earth Xtian). The leap from "it has soft tissue" to "therefore it proves that dinosaurs are only a few thousand years old" is a huge and totally unsupported leap - this is a leap of Faith and not a scientific progression. There are many more (over a dozen) ways of testing the age of an object than just C-14; most recent paleological work uses C-14 dates that are calibrated to take the fluctuating amounts of C-14 into account.

Jan

I have now read up on the Casimir effect and on virtual photons. Which move faster than light and can go backwards in time. Because they are mathematical constructs.

Physics. Is breaking. my Grammar. And speling.

Jn

This is stupendous, jbrenner. Congratulations on having created the opportunity to award achievement - and having the fortitude to name it "The John Galt Award".

Jan

The assertion that 'finding soft tissue' can lead to a conclusion that 'therefor dinosaurs are only a few thousand years old' is preposterous. We can approximate the passage of time (using several methods) in organic material. The guy has a screw loose to jump from that observation to that conclusion - that does not represent science.

My major was bio; minor in chem (and physics...by accident), so my tests were a lot more functional. Here is a tube full of bacteria: Identify genus and species. Or. Here is a tube full of some substance - What is it?. These had pleasantly real answers.

Jan

I think that what is good, MM, is that with the internet, research results that are against the prevailing wisdom are more difficult to suppress. I do not see an easy solution to uncomfortable studies being buried by their researchers for monetary gain or status - that is part of Human Being 101. But those studies that a researcher wants to publicize now has a far better chance of seeing the light of day.

Jan

Thank you for the links to Hilton Ratcliffe.

I took one 'soft' science course in college: Sociology. It was obvious to me that the high grades went to the people who knew the right 'cant' phrases to use. It was a type of techno-Babel competition, not a science class.

Pity. It could have been interesting otherwise. I stuck to the hard sciences after that - at least they had answers that could be measured in grams.

Jan

allosaur said: "Do not blaspheme against the pseudo-science religion of the collective."

The reason for this article is that the AGW people are scared. A decade ago, hardly anyone dared to murmur that they were wrong; now entire countries are openly dissing them. It is hard to overestimate the power that would be given to 'those who control carbon'. The fact that the liberals almost had that and can feel it "...slip through their fingers..." (Leia) is tormenting them.

An increasing number of prominent scientists and former-Greens are coming out against AGW. It is an increasingly uphill battle for the Greens to try to defame each one of them in turn. General polls of both the importance of AGW and the validity of AGW have been sliding downhill rapidly.

It is good that Lynch is doing this. If she gets FBI 'approval' and tries to go ahead, a lot of organizations will jump up to contest this on constitutional grounds.

They are running scared.

Jan