Slashdot Mirror

To be fair, a lot of people have written a lot of books, that Slashdot readers should have read. Not remembering a name, other than the context "guy who carries lots of electronics with him", is perfectly acceptable.

The electronics kit you're referencing is too new for some of us. My kit was from the late 1970s or early 1980s. I say that because that's when I used one of those "### in 1" electronics kits. I haven't seen mine for over 20-some years. I have no idea who the author of the accompanying book was.

If you pretentious enough to say anyone worthy of being here should know Mr. Mims, you should also be aware that you're spelling his name wrong.

Forrest Mims is the most widely read electronics author in the world. His sixty books have sold over 7.5 million copies and have twice been honored for excellence by the Computer Press Association. His "Engineerâ(TM)s Notebook" series of books for RadioShack are entirely hand-lettered and hand-illustrated to re-create the look of Forrestâ(TM)s own laboratory notebooks.

http://www.forrestmims.org/bio...

Here's Mims' account of the Scientific American controversy:

http://www.forrestmims.org/scientificamerican.html

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass if he believes in evolution or not, as long as he writes about topics he has knowledge of. I don't think it's relevant unless you're teaching science or trying to pass laws against teaching evolutionary science.

That said, the fact that he belongs to the National Science Teachers Association and Texas Academy of Science, yet buys into creationism, is... disappointing. Actually, that's an understatement - "mind-boggling" is more like it.

First: Look up Forest Mims III and research his life story and the things he tells people. He is totally encouraging. Don't let his creationist thinking scare you. (I'm not a creationist either, but if you want to learn things in the world, you have to be able to work with difference.)

Second: Unless you're a natural, you're going to need some personal (re-)training, most likely, about how to think about acting, creativity, invention, business, and so on; Be on the lookout for it. Investigate different scenes to find personal contacts, research, and perpetually experiment. You can totally do this, but you'll want someone who can answer your questions and make a personal connection with you, an emotional connection.

Third: Not directly what you're going for, but perhaps something you might want to consider -- forming or joining a society for performing such work? Research Bucketworks for an example. There's a group doing DIY/DIWO bio lab research in the LA area. In Seattle, there is Jigsaw Renaissance. There are lots of more special purposed groups as well out there.

I was a die-hard evolutionist until well into my 30's. I have an MS in engineering.

I carefully considered the evidence for goo-to-you evolution, and have found it to be highly tentative and speculative. I am assuming the respondents to this survey were rejecting goo-to-you, not finch beaks getting bigger and smaller.

Similarity of DNA? Maybe evolution, but maybe not. Designed systems also share similar "DNA" so to conclude that similarity is the result of evolution requires significantly more evidence than has currently been uncovered. And, keep in mind that the history regarding evidence for evolution is replete with hoaxes and outright falsifications. The most recent being Leakey's, one of the most respected in his field, until now.

I studied the history of origin of life research and discovered that there are no known pre-biotic pathways that would lead to the origin of life.

I read the rhetoric of the leading defenders of Darwinism and found that most resort to censorship and ad-hominem attacks towards doubters and skeptics.

(Read this article about Forrest Mims and Scientific American: http://www.forrestmims.org/scientificamerican.html for one of many examples of this)

Is the hypothesis of RMNS evolution falsifiable? If so, what is the alternative hypothesis? Some other form of evolution? Design, perhaps?

For many the design hypothesis is not considered to be scientific, so to a large extent, evolution is one of the few scientific hypothesis whose true alternative hypothesis is disallowed on a technicality. What is the technicality? Well, there are many that are cited, but they are all reasons that ultimately point to a philosphical objection to design, rather than a scientific one.

Flying spaghetti monster, I hear? Who knows. Inferring design is not the same as identifying the designer. For me, given what we know today, design is much more satisfying than spontaneous generation, which is where purely naturalistic science leads. Origin of the universe? "Oh" the physicists say, "that's due to a quantum fluctuation in nothingness."

And the creationists are ignorant? Look, you can't rig the outcome and call it science. Science is always tentative, and the evidence we have today points clearly to design as well as to micro-evolution. Its not necessarily an either-or question.

If you are truly concerned about the state of science eduation in the US due to this report, it may be your science education that is wanting.

As an EE who started off with one of those 50-in-one kits when I was 8, I have a few recommendations. I had a 200-in-one, but the more impressive projects on it required so many wires it was nigh-impossible to get things to stay working. Put one in and two fall out.

You can start with one of those kits, but once you get to the point where you'll really learn what you're doing, go look for books and kits separately. Look for books by Forrest Mims III and Don Lancaster (TTL Cookbook and CMOS Cookbook are classics). Check their sites out as well.

As for parts sources, for online shopping, I'd recommend Digi-Key. Jameco is a little pricey, but they have some really interesting parts, including a lot of older stuff. All Electronics is a place I used to buy from a lot; they have a lot of manufacturer surplus parts, so it's kind of like shopping in a flea market or surplus auction. Another surplus shop is MPJA. Newark and Mouser are good places to look when you want some specific part that Digi-Key doesn't have.

For starters, you'll want to buy a modular breadboard, and one of the pre-cut wire kits for them. Or, if you want to blow some more dough, you might want to get one of the Analog Design Lab or Digital Design Lab things that has a bunch of things like power supplies, LEDs, and switches integrated into it already. Also look for parts assortments, like resistor and capacitor assortments (e.g. Digi-Key items RS125-ND and PHD1-KIT-ND). If you're going to be doing digital work, you'll probably want to get lots (20 or so) of 10K resistors (for pullups) and 0.1 uF capacitors (for decoupling).

Radio Shack is where you go as a last resort. Their selection is lousy and prices are worse.