Glass lacks a crystal lattice, thus it is not a solid. When defining phases of matter, we consider in which ways the distribution of matter breaks symmetry. All fluids (gases and liquids) are both isotropic and homogeneous. At equilibrium, every point in the substance has the same conditions, on average, as every other point and everything looks the same when looking in any direction. Gas and liquid have the same symmetry with the only difference being in the incompressible nature of liquids. In fact, you can cause liquids and gases to smoothly transition from one to the other without crossing any phase transition.
Solids have fundamentally different symmetry properties. Starting from a lattice point, one must travel along a special direction by a distance called a lattice constant to reach the next nearest point at which conditions appear the same. Crystals can exist in a number of different symmetry groups.
Condensed matter physicists will tell you that there are actually a huge number of phases of matter including smectics, cholesterics, nematics (e.g. liquid crystals), etc., that all break the isotropy and homogeneity of liquids in different, intermediate ways, compared to the full breaking that occurs in solids.
I am not prepared to accept that glass is a solid without evidence of crystal structure. Crystalline silicon dioxide, however, has another name -- quartz. Quartz is unambiguously solid. It possesses crystal structure as evidenced by the diffraction of probe beams sent through it and has properties quite different from amorphous silicon dioxide.
Also, I find agnosticism more basic to the philosophy of science than atheism. Atheism simply follows from a lack of evidence. Agnosticism corresponds to the refusal to assert truth a priori.
The label attached is actually very relevant. When you use the term "agnostic" to define someone's stance on a particular existence question you are failing to use the language in an accepted fashion. Agnosticism means that the individual makes no claims to special knowledge. That is all it means. If you claim not to be agnostic then you are claiming gnosis. You are claiming to have some direct revelation of truth.
Also, I must vigorously protest your claim that agnostics (in general) are prepared to accept a supernatural cosmic puppetmaster as a matter of faith. Most basically, this description applies to theists. Remember agnosticism only means that the person does not claim some direct revelation of truth. Please stop assuming that being agnostic requires a person to relinquish logic. This is simply not the case.
Please conform to this usage or I will not be able to understand your words. There is nothing contradictory about atheism and agnosticism. I find it misleading to put agnosticism on a poll that asks about one's stance regarding an existence question.
Yes, but lacking some kind of magical knowledge they lack gnosis, leading to agnostic atheism. Agnosticism comments on one's epistemological position. It doesn't have anything to do with the stance one takes regarding the existence of a particular entity.
If you look at the history of the United States, it would appear that religion is more persistent than language. Many people continue with their family religion, yet in a few generations families tend to end up speaking English.
I would argue that language is more cross-cultural, but with language being a defining characteristic of culture this doesn't really make any sense.
Good post. Just a small quibble about terminology: I understand a natural law to be an expression of empirical fact. I.e. it merely describes a relationship that anyone can verify to a stated level of precision by collecting their own data. A theory corresponds to a formal logical system that provides a predictive, explanatory model. As I understand it, there is no logical basis for a physical law. It does not arise from a theory that has a lot of empirical support. It precedes a theory.
I think that perhaps you mistake the agnostic stance. A lot of people mistakenly think it is a position on the fence taken by those who can't decide. On the contrary, agnosticism simply refers to those who do not possess direct knowledge (i.e. gnosis). Being agnostic does not mean being open minded to drivel. It means that I do not possess direct knowledge of the item in question. According to logic, the onus is on the claimant to furnish an example of that which they claim exists.
People who claim non-existence are, by default, gnostics, since it is impossible to logically demonstrate non-existence. They must assert non-existence through some magical knowledge. If they do not claim such then they are agnostic by default. Agnosticism actually doesn't specify a position on the existence question, it is a qualifier for one's epistemological position. However, logic suggests that you start with an empty set and only add statements whose truth can be verified. So, barring evidence, I begin without any existence statements and only add agents to my model when they can be demonstrated.
Having a working hypothesis about Harvey the Rabbit just strikes me as silly. I can propose a never ending list of entities that cannot be detected by any test. Will you fill your models with non-existence clauses for each of this infinite set? Have I not exercised power over you in making you assign importance to a word of my choosing and? Have I not forced ideas into your model that do not help to explain anything that you observe? Thanks, but I prefer to keep my slate clean and deal with ideas that I find useful rather than go around arguing with people about words that appear meaningless.
I disagree. As a scientist, I should simply refrain from building models that contain an agent labeled "Harvey the Rabbit". The proposition is completely meaningless either as an assertion or a negation.
You cannot negate existence of something by simply failing to have an example. It is illogical and untenable to insert statements negating the existence of "Harvey the Rabbit" into one's models. The model should simply not address any such agent or entity without a demonstrable benefit.
In the same way, it is illogical and untenable to claim non-existence of any god based on the absence of supporting information. Thinking that you are talking nonsense also does not imply that the scientist imposes non-existence clauses in his or her models. I can observe that you are talking nonsense because you are using words (like "Harvey the Rabgit") that cannot be adequately and consistently defined and shown to label some thing that I can perceive for myself.
(((By the way, I apologize for this wall of text. I have used white space, including separating ideas into paragraphs, but the preview always eats all white space and collapses the post into a wall-of-text. Anybody have any hints on how to avoid this?)))
I agree. Logically, agnosticism is the default position in the absence of evidence. I think this low rate is due to childhood indoctrination. This tends to lead to non-rational belief or rejection of the belief.
This shows the onset from the ballistic regime into the diffusive one. They can resolve the motions of the glass bead from single collisions all the way up to a statistical ensemble of them (on which scale Brownian motion is observed). I.e. this has more to do with classical statistical mechanics than quantum mechanics.
I don't see any proof of that in the article. The article implies that it was lack of initiative by Salk Institute that allowed StemCells to secure a patent on the technique: "The dispute comes down to access to a technique that Schwartz helped develop at the Salk Institute but the institute failed to patent. StemCells did."
Can you provide a citation that gives a detailed chronology?
In any case, Weissman comes off as a huge hypocrite by freezing out a research group with no commercial interests --- i.e., on the one hand he'll advocate for freedom to carry out this research, while simultaneously stymieing basic, non-commercial research with the other. This is what really bothers me about patents: They can enable commercial interests to erect a fence and keep out any public research in a potentially large area of science. Commercial interests can often secure funds to pay for licensing the patents. This usually is not in the budget for publicly funded research groups.
(My preview shows this appearing as a wall of text, even though I have included white space.)
How can StemCells be granted a patent for this technique? It would seem that Salk Institute can prove that it is prior art (i.e. that they utilized this technique prior to any patent claims by StemCells), invalidating the patent claim by StemCells.
Slashdot Mirror
Glass lacks a crystal lattice, thus it is not a solid. When defining phases of matter, we consider in which ways the distribution of matter breaks symmetry. All fluids (gases and liquids) are both isotropic and homogeneous. At equilibrium, every point in the substance has the same conditions, on average, as every other point and everything looks the same when looking in any direction. Gas and liquid have the same symmetry with the only difference being in the incompressible nature of liquids. In fact, you can cause liquids and gases to smoothly transition from one to the other without crossing any phase transition.
Solids have fundamentally different symmetry properties. Starting from a lattice point, one must travel along a special direction by a distance called a lattice constant to reach the next nearest point at which conditions appear the same. Crystals can exist in a number of different symmetry groups.
Condensed matter physicists will tell you that there are actually a huge number of phases of matter including smectics, cholesterics, nematics (e.g. liquid crystals), etc., that all break the isotropy and homogeneity of liquids in different, intermediate ways, compared to the full breaking that occurs in solids.
I am not prepared to accept that glass is a solid without evidence of crystal structure. Crystalline silicon dioxide, however, has another name -- quartz. Quartz is unambiguously solid. It possesses crystal structure as evidenced by the diffraction of probe beams sent through it and has properties quite different from amorphous silicon dioxide.
Also, I find agnosticism more basic to the philosophy of science than atheism. Atheism simply follows from a lack of evidence. Agnosticism corresponds to the refusal to assert truth a priori.
The label attached is actually very relevant. When you use the term "agnostic" to define someone's stance on a particular existence question you are failing to use the language in an accepted fashion. Agnosticism means that the individual makes no claims to special knowledge. That is all it means. If you claim not to be agnostic then you are claiming gnosis. You are claiming to have some direct revelation of truth.
Also, I must vigorously protest your claim that agnostics (in general) are prepared to accept a supernatural cosmic puppetmaster as a matter of faith. Most basically, this description applies to theists. Remember agnosticism only means that the person does not claim some direct revelation of truth. Please stop assuming that being agnostic requires a person to relinquish logic. This is simply not the case.
Please conform to this usage or I will not be able to understand your words. There is nothing contradictory about atheism and agnosticism. I find it misleading to put agnosticism on a poll that asks about one's stance regarding an existence question.
Yes, but lacking some kind of magical knowledge they lack gnosis, leading to agnostic atheism. Agnosticism comments on one's epistemological position. It doesn't have anything to do with the stance one takes regarding the existence of a particular entity.
If you look at the history of the United States, it would appear that religion is more persistent than language. Many people continue with their family religion, yet in a few generations families tend to end up speaking English.
I would argue that language is more cross-cultural, but with language being a defining characteristic of culture this doesn't really make any sense.
Good post. Just a small quibble about terminology: I understand a natural law to be an expression of empirical fact. I.e. it merely describes a relationship that anyone can verify to a stated level of precision by collecting their own data. A theory corresponds to a formal logical system that provides a predictive, explanatory model. As I understand it, there is no logical basis for a physical law. It does not arise from a theory that has a lot of empirical support. It precedes a theory.
Isn't religion (along with language) a prominent characteristic of ethnicity?
People who claim non-existence are, by default, gnostics, since it is impossible to logically demonstrate non-existence. They must assert non-existence through some magical knowledge. If they do not claim such then they are agnostic by default. Agnosticism actually doesn't specify a position on the existence question, it is a qualifier for one's epistemological position. However, logic suggests that you start with an empty set and only add statements whose truth can be verified. So, barring evidence, I begin without any existence statements and only add agents to my model when they can be demonstrated.
Having a working hypothesis about Harvey the Rabbit just strikes me as silly. I can propose a never ending list of entities that cannot be detected by any test. Will you fill your models with non-existence clauses for each of this infinite set? Have I not exercised power over you in making you assign importance to a word of my choosing and? Have I not forced ideas into your model that do not help to explain anything that you observe? Thanks, but I prefer to keep my slate clean and deal with ideas that I find useful rather than go around arguing with people about words that appear meaningless.
I disagree. As a scientist, I should simply refrain from building models that contain an agent labeled "Harvey the Rabbit". The proposition is completely meaningless either as an assertion or a negation. You cannot negate existence of something by simply failing to have an example. It is illogical and untenable to insert statements negating the existence of "Harvey the Rabbit" into one's models. The model should simply not address any such agent or entity without a demonstrable benefit. In the same way, it is illogical and untenable to claim non-existence of any god based on the absence of supporting information. Thinking that you are talking nonsense also does not imply that the scientist imposes non-existence clauses in his or her models. I can observe that you are talking nonsense because you are using words (like "Harvey the Rabgit") that cannot be adequately and consistently defined and shown to label some thing that I can perceive for myself. (((By the way, I apologize for this wall of text. I have used white space, including separating ideas into paragraphs, but the preview always eats all white space and collapses the post into a wall-of-text. Anybody have any hints on how to avoid this?)))
I agree. Logically, agnosticism is the default position in the absence of evidence. I think this low rate is due to childhood indoctrination. This tends to lead to non-rational belief or rejection of the belief.
This shows the onset from the ballistic regime into the diffusive one. They can resolve the motions of the glass bead from single collisions all the way up to a statistical ensemble of them (on which scale Brownian motion is observed). I.e. this has more to do with classical statistical mechanics than quantum mechanics.
I think you mean homonyms.
I think you mean homophones. ;)
I don't see any proof of that in the article. The article implies that it was lack of initiative by Salk Institute that allowed StemCells to secure a patent on the technique: "The dispute comes down to access to a technique that Schwartz helped develop at the Salk Institute but the institute failed to patent. StemCells did." Can you provide a citation that gives a detailed chronology? In any case, Weissman comes off as a huge hypocrite by freezing out a research group with no commercial interests --- i.e., on the one hand he'll advocate for freedom to carry out this research, while simultaneously stymieing basic, non-commercial research with the other. This is what really bothers me about patents: They can enable commercial interests to erect a fence and keep out any public research in a potentially large area of science. Commercial interests can often secure funds to pay for licensing the patents. This usually is not in the budget for publicly funded research groups. (My preview shows this appearing as a wall of text, even though I have included white space.)
How can StemCells be granted a patent for this technique? It would seem that Salk Institute can prove that it is prior art (i.e. that they utilized this technique prior to any patent claims by StemCells), invalidating the patent claim by StemCells.