>In science, all knowledge is provisional, so it is belaboring the obvious to say
My point is that its not obvious to alot of people, thats why you see people acting like its the "truth". People are saying "You are an idiot/blind/dumb if you don't believe macro-evolution occurs." Does this sound like they realize that its provisional?
It reminds me of my math professor, who liked to say "Its like proof by intimadation. 'Its obvious! You can see that, can't you?'"
>Because all science is provisional, attaching a disclaimer to evolution, and not to other statements of scientific knowledge, gives the false impression that evolution is somehow more subject to doubt than other scientific knowledge.
I didn't pay attention to the Dover trial so please help me out here. Would adding "We are not sure if Evolution is correct but its generally understood to be the leading scientific thought." be dangerous? Because its wrong? Because it makes it look "weak"? Because "other's aren't doing it, so why should we"?
On one hand, you are saying that disclaimers are obvious and on the other hand you are saying that they give the wrong impression. Science should be blind and theories should hold up on their own merits, not on how they are presented or worded to be "more palatable to today's fashion/whim".
>Every science course I ever took began with an explanation of the scientific method.
Me too. And then by the third class, scientific method is tossed out the window. "Your experiments are wrong? You made a mistake, not that the science is wrong."
>No because you are leaving out the part about continually seeking ways to test and challenge these assumptions.
Ok, I continue and actively on a on-going basis to look at human interaction and human history for new ways to test and challenge the axioms originating from my religous text; which I still find they hold true, so far. Now does that make me a scientist performing science?
>I think that most scientists are aware that all scientific knowledge is provisional.
Look how many people will defend evolution, even though strictly speaking, they need to post-fix each sentence with ", maybe.".
Look how science is taught, with the assumption that everything written in the textbooks are true.
Look how people will base their scientific careers and life-work on things that may or may not be correct.
They may be aware of it, in some elementary/background sort of way, but they don't act like it. If they don't act like it, does it really matter that they give lip-service to it?
>Even fundamental theories are continually challenged.
Yes this does happen, but scientists only accept these things only if after resorting to everything in their power to resist change, including emotional reactions. For example; "God does not play dice.".
>All reasoning is contingent upon assumptions;
Yes I agree, but at what point is it acceptable to make theories into assumptions/axioms?
> What sets science apart is that scientists attempt to keep track of their assumptions, to remember that all conclusions are contingent upon those assumptions, and to constantly search for means of testing the validity of those assumptions.
I have the Old Testement/New Testement/Koran/"insert any religous text", which is a set of recorded assumptions. I base theories from these assumptions. From observation of human interactions and from human history I think that the validity of these assumptions remain true. Am I a scientist performing science?
>Actually, nothing is ever "proved" to be true in science.
I hate this argument.
"Nothing is proven in science, but we assume it is and act like it."
This is used because "Science needs to move forward with certain assumptions." which is the equivant of saying "We can't prove God exists but lets go to church on Sunday and do other things as if God did.".
It makes science the equivalent as blind-religous belief.
Newtonian physics are a good example of things that don't scale. They work for things between 1 cm and 100 km so shouldn't they work for very large and very small sizes?
Playing around with the concept of infinity (a number) require mathematical concepts that don't work with numbers between 1 and 100.
Human behave differently as individuals and in large groups.
Its sad when someone expresses an opinion on a scientific theory and the best thing anyone can come up with is mocking him with scientifically weak arguments. And it gets modded as funny.
>I don't play the cult of personality game or try to cultivate friendships with like minded people in the hopes that I'll get a following or clique going.
I don't believe this is true on a place where effectively everyone is annoymous. Do you know who I am?
>Who am I? Does it change the validity or invalidity of what I said?
Who am I? "GoofyBoy"? Does any really remember what my feelings are on any subject except this one?
Try this. Create an account. Take one article and post one taking one side. Take another article with a similar subject matter and take the opposite side. No one would call you out for that; no one would really cares.
>It shouldn't, but the partisan mind is programmed to look for ways to discredit what is said by attacking the person. Doing that against an anon-cow post is largely ineffective.
You do realize that the parent attacked becuase and using the fact that are an Anonymous Coward?
All of those examples you've given are explictly protected by laws (government restrictions, financial privacy) or professional standards (health care).
Think about when you subscribe to a magazine and then that company then transfers your name and address to others and start sending you junk mail.
> I think you would have to accept that most of the posts claiming to represent the "voice of Slashdot" are in fact going to represent the majority opinion of Slashdot readers
Um.. no.
The way moderation works does not represent the population of/. posters.
Look how many AC/trolls that are posted and are not modded up. (I'm not saying that they should be, I'm saying that they are also part of the "voice of slashdot" yet not modded up. And AC's can't moderate.)
Early posts are more likely to get modded up. Follow a new article and see the rate posts get modded up at the beginning vs. when there are 200 posts.
Late posts are not as likely to get modded up. Look at an older article and read through the posts, there are alot of good posts that never get modded up because its posted when the article is old.
Some posts get down to 0 or -1 but don't deserve it. Since some mods read at 1 and above they won't see it to mod up, which leads to an inequality of sorts.
Even if mods consistantly represent a single point of view, which is another question, not every post that gets modded, or not modded, is correctly modded.
First of all, thank you for your well thought out reply.
>Failing to turn over your tape, when it is known that they know of no crime committed, can not be an evil action.
I can't agree with this. I know there is a legal difference between investigating a know crime and a fishing-expidition. But there is a difference between "Doing right by the law." and "Doing right by your moral-code/God/Spagetti Monster". Just because its written as a law, is your right, doesn't mean that its _clearly and straightforward_ never evil.
Lets just say I stole something, a cop asks me if I stole something and I invoke my 5th amendment right to remain silent. Is my act of remaining silent evil or not evil? (Ignore my purely evil act of stealing) If you say that its not evil, how can you say that its good? I did something bad and now I'm running away from my punishment? Is this morally right? Is it good or not evil when a corporation commits evil and then uses every legal method under the sun to avoid punishment? Is it good when your child does something similar to avoid punishment? At the very least its not clear-cut for everyone. (Is not doing evil implies doing good? Another question to muddle things up.)
>It is no different than them asking to mount a camera in your bedroom, and another in your bathroom to watch 24/7 just in case someone breaks in, but they'll keep all the tape of you anyway beacause they can.
They are not asking to install something, they are asking for something that Google has right now. Google installed the cameras, the government is asking for the tapes.
>You presume they are investigating a crime.
In the end all they need is a resonable suspision that a crime is being committed and they will act like it (including telling you that they have a specific crime in question). Statistically, they are correct, and that may be enough to convince themselves and a judge.
>the "Ask So-and-So about such-and-such" Slashdot articles do essentially this already,
In general, most of them are pretty bad as they could have been answered by Google or are the "Do my homework" sort of questions.
>you're much more likely to find the good stuff amongst the +5 posts
No, you are more likely to get the "hive-approval" posts modded up. Eg - Anti-MS, Pro-OpenSource, Anti-?IAA, Pro-Apple, Anti-Bush, Pro-Science-funding. Regardless how intelligent or accurate or truthful it is. Suppose you disagree with any of these stances?
Once you freely connected to a search engine owned and controlled by a private corporation and freely submitted information, I think you've given up this right.
Please note that we consider this post important becuase it was voted by at least 5 people who may or may not be American citizens, may or may not vote in your state and may or may not be some 12-year old kid who should really be studying for his test tomorrow.
>which in your analogy would be like the police officer asking for a minute-by-minute update of every single thing that had happened in your life for a week period, down to the tiniest of happenings.
So you wouldn't give them tape of your security camera that you had on 24/7?
If I did, is that not doing evil? If I didn't, is that not doing evil?
>Why not set up a method in Slasdhot whereby YRO and related articles have a link that allows a registered user to forward his forum comments to his/her appropriate representative(s) in their district?
Why not email them directly if you care it? Or take the time and write a physical letter? Why would they even bother with a form letter and a url link?
>shouldn't our +5 Insightful comments be forwarded to our representatives and news agencies.
Yes, becuase if its modded up to +5 anything it MUST be the voice of the people. IT MUST BE!
The cops come to your door and ask questions about your neighbourhood and your neighbours because they suspect someone in the area committed some horrible crime. You refuse to answer saying that the questions are too broad and burdensome.
>It does not allow unprovable statements. It is either provably true or it does not exist.
Or its an axiom and then it effectively allows for unprovable statements.
And what about things that are not proven yet? Don't they use them in papers etc like they are proven/"the Truth"? I assume that Fermats Theorm was used in other proofs before it was "officially proven".
"this still useful theory one has "invented" an extra term that explains why the calculations come to the "wrong" number and which covers the errors in the theory : DARK ENERGY/MATTER so then the theory becomes :
1 + 1 + "unobservable dark xxx" = 3"
"We hard scientists, i.e. mathematicians, find this very funny."
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to troll but;
1. How do you feel about imaginary numbers? Can you really explain how how i = sqr(-1) and not feel like its a place-holder to make things "just work", like dark matter? I know that there is applications for it in reality and there is logic behind it, but sqr(-1) just does not make any sense and its used like "lets assume that it does work and, look at that, the math works out!"
2. How do you feel about math that involves dimensions of greater than 3? (how can you "prove" something that about a place/dimension that you've never been to and then laugh at how people have to handle things in our own place/dimension? How do you know that things don't break down dramatically between the 4th and 5th dimensions? Because of axioms?)
Its an uninsulated house (and a hole in the ceiling), I'm sure that the heater is going to work more than normal.
Think how much you make per hour. Think how much time you are going to spend setting up and maintaining the system. Think how much you will save in gas. Is it worth it?
Would it just be worth it to "suffer" with a cold house for a while because you want to save some $, rather than to go for a complex system?
Why not just manually change things manually? Any disconfort tempature-wise is just something you have to accept for saving $.
Think how much a system like this is going to cost and how much in man-hours its going to set up. Then factor in the time and effort to fine-tune it, adjust it on an on going basis. Is it really worth it to save on the heating bills?
>I advised them not to buy software from WalMart, or even to download it for themselves. I asked them to contact me, and I'd come over and find something that worked for them.
Thats a wonderful solution. What about people who don't have 24/7 access to you? And did you really go through all the code in the Linux kernal/OpenOffice/Firefox/Thunderbird?
>I think that a well-designed system can easily avoid the problems caused by unwitting users.
A well-designed anything can do anything. (Can't do it? It just simply needs to be better designed!). I have yet to see this magical beast. Linux is not it (since linux rootkits exists or user logs into root then rm -fr / everthing since he needs more diskspace.).
>I was recently asked to set up some computer systems at a seniors home.
Thats great. What happens when they go to Wal-Mart and want to buy some software?
Or when they want to hook up their brand-spanking new digital camera/mp3 player/PDA?
Lots of people are more bleed-edge than seniors.
>You may deny it, but the fact of the matter is that Linux systems won't get infected with spyware at this time. Sure, that may change in the future, but I'm doubtful about that.
You don't need a better code to prevent spyware, you need better users. Better system design/code will never beat out a user, unless the design is involves cutting the power to the computer.
Slashdot Mirror
>In science, all knowledge is provisional, so it is belaboring the obvious to say
My point is that its not obvious to alot of people, thats why you see people acting like its the "truth". People are saying "You are an idiot/blind/dumb if you don't believe macro-evolution occurs." Does this sound like they realize that its provisional?
It reminds me of my math professor, who liked to say "Its like proof by intimadation. 'Its obvious! You can see that, can't you?'"
>Because all science is provisional, attaching a disclaimer to evolution, and not to other statements of scientific knowledge, gives the false impression that evolution is somehow more subject to doubt than other scientific knowledge.
I didn't pay attention to the Dover trial so please help me out here. Would adding "We are not sure if Evolution is correct but its generally understood to be the leading scientific thought." be dangerous? Because its wrong? Because it makes it look "weak"? Because "other's aren't doing it, so why should we"?
On one hand, you are saying that disclaimers are obvious and on the other hand you are saying that they give the wrong impression. Science should be blind and theories should hold up on their own merits, not on how they are presented or worded to be "more palatable to today's fashion/whim".
>Every science course I ever took began with an explanation of the scientific method.
Me too. And then by the third class, scientific method is tossed out the window. "Your experiments are wrong? You made a mistake, not that the science is wrong."
>No because you are leaving out the part about continually seeking ways to test and challenge these assumptions.
Ok, I continue and actively on a on-going basis to look at human interaction and human history for new ways to test and challenge the axioms originating from my religous text; which I still find they hold true, so far. Now does that make me a scientist performing science?
>I think that most scientists are aware that all scientific knowledge is provisional.
Look how many people will defend evolution, even though strictly speaking, they need to post-fix each sentence with ", maybe.".
Look how science is taught, with the assumption that everything written in the textbooks are true.
Look how people will base their scientific careers and life-work on things that may or may not be correct.
They may be aware of it, in some elementary/background sort of way, but they don't act like it. If they don't act like it, does it really matter that they give lip-service to it?
>Even fundamental theories are continually challenged.
Yes this does happen, but scientists only accept these things only if after resorting to everything in their power to resist change, including emotional reactions. For example; "God does not play dice.".
>All reasoning is contingent upon assumptions;
Yes I agree, but at what point is it acceptable to make theories into assumptions/axioms?
> What sets science apart is that scientists attempt to keep track of their assumptions, to remember that all conclusions are contingent upon those assumptions, and to constantly search for means of testing the validity of those assumptions.
I have the Old Testement/New Testement/Koran/"insert any religous text", which is a set of recorded assumptions. I base theories from these assumptions. From observation of human interactions and from human history I think that the validity of these assumptions remain true. Am I a scientist performing science?
>Actually, nothing is ever "proved" to be true in science.
I hate this argument.
"Nothing is proven in science, but we assume it is and act like it."
This is used because "Science needs to move forward with certain assumptions." which is the equivant of saying "We can't prove God exists but lets go to church on Sunday and do other things as if God did.".
It makes science the equivalent as blind-religous belief.
Thats great modding. Ha ha, really funny.
Newtonian physics are a good example of things that don't scale. They work for things between 1 cm and 100 km so shouldn't they work for very large and very small sizes?
Playing around with the concept of infinity (a number) require mathematical concepts that don't work with numbers between 1 and 100.
Human behave differently as individuals and in large groups.
Its sad when someone expresses an opinion on a scientific theory and the best thing anyone can come up with is mocking him with scientifically weak arguments. And it gets modded as funny.
>I don't play the cult of personality game or try to cultivate friendships with like minded people in the hopes that I'll get a following or clique going.
I don't believe this is true on a place where effectively everyone is annoymous. Do you know who I am?
>Who am I? Does it change the validity or invalidity of what I said?
Who am I? "GoofyBoy"? Does any really remember what my feelings are on any subject except this one?
Try this. Create an account. Take one article and post one taking one side. Take another article with a similar subject matter and take the opposite side. No one would call you out for that; no one would really cares.
>It shouldn't, but the partisan mind is programmed to look for ways to discredit what is said by attacking the person. Doing that against an anon-cow post is largely ineffective.
You do realize that the parent attacked becuase and using the fact that are an Anonymous Coward?
All of those examples you've given are explictly protected by laws (government restrictions, financial privacy) or professional standards (health care).
Think about when you subscribe to a magazine and then that company then transfers your name and address to others and start sending you junk mail.
> I think you would have to accept that most of the posts claiming to represent the "voice of Slashdot" are in fact going to represent the majority opinion of Slashdot readers
/. posters.
Um.. no.
The way moderation works does not represent the population of
Look how many AC/trolls that are posted and are not modded up. (I'm not saying that they should be, I'm saying that they are also part of the "voice of slashdot" yet not modded up. And AC's can't moderate.)
Early posts are more likely to get modded up. Follow a new article and see the rate posts get modded up at the beginning vs. when there are 200 posts.
Late posts are not as likely to get modded up. Look at an older article and read through the posts, there are alot of good posts that never get modded up because its posted when the article is old.
Some posts get down to 0 or -1 but don't deserve it. Since some mods read at 1 and above they won't see it to mod up, which leads to an inequality of sorts.
Even if mods consistantly represent a single point of view, which is another question, not every post that gets modded, or not modded, is correctly modded.
First of all, thank you for your well thought out reply.
>Failing to turn over your tape, when it is known that they know of no crime committed, can not be an evil action.
I can't agree with this. I know there is a legal difference between investigating a know crime and a fishing-expidition. But there is a difference between "Doing right by the law." and "Doing right by your moral-code/God/Spagetti Monster". Just because its written as a law, is your right, doesn't mean that its _clearly and straightforward_ never evil.
Lets just say I stole something, a cop asks me if I stole something and I invoke my 5th amendment right to remain silent. Is my act of remaining silent evil or not evil? (Ignore my purely evil act of stealing) If you say that its not evil, how can you say that its good? I did something bad and now I'm running away from my punishment? Is this morally right? Is it good or not evil when a corporation commits evil and then uses every legal method under the sun to avoid punishment? Is it good when your child does something similar to avoid punishment? At the very least its not clear-cut for everyone. (Is not doing evil implies doing good? Another question to muddle things up.)
>It is no different than them asking to mount a camera in your bedroom, and another in your bathroom to watch 24/7 just in case someone breaks in, but they'll keep all the tape of you anyway beacause they can.
They are not asking to install something, they are asking for something that Google has right now. Google installed the cameras, the government is asking for the tapes.
>You presume they are investigating a crime.
In the end all they need is a resonable suspision that a crime is being committed and they will act like it (including telling you that they have a specific crime in question). Statistically, they are correct, and that may be enough to convince themselves and a judge.
>the "Ask So-and-So about such-and-such" Slashdot articles do essentially this already,
In general, most of them are pretty bad as they could have been answered by Google or are the "Do my homework" sort of questions.
>you're much more likely to find the good stuff amongst the +5 posts
No, you are more likely to get the "hive-approval" posts modded up. Eg - Anti-MS, Pro-OpenSource, Anti-?IAA, Pro-Apple, Anti-Bush, Pro-Science-funding. Regardless how intelligent or accurate or truthful it is. Suppose you disagree with any of these stances?
Once you freely connected to a search engine owned and controlled by a private corporation and freely submitted information, I think you've given up this right.
Dude, your wife surfs for kiddie-pr0n?
Dear Mr. Bennett
d =14492792
One of citizens of your state, x_man, would like you to inform you about an important issue regarding "EU Sofware Patent Argument to Reopen"
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174228&ci
Please note that we consider this post important becuase it was voted by at least 5 people who may or may not be American citizens, may or may not vote in your state and may or may not be some 12-year old kid who should really be studying for his test tomorrow.
Thank you for your attention.
>which in your analogy would be like the police officer asking for a minute-by-minute update of every single thing that had happened in your life for a week period, down to the tiniest of happenings.
So you wouldn't give them tape of your security camera that you had on 24/7?
If I did, is that not doing evil?
If I didn't, is that not doing evil?
Thats my only point.
>Why not set up a method in Slasdhot whereby YRO and related articles have a link that allows a registered user to forward his forum comments to his/her appropriate representative(s) in their district?
Why not email them directly if you care it? Or take the time and write a physical letter? Why would they even bother with a form letter and a url link?
>shouldn't our +5 Insightful comments be forwarded to our representatives and news agencies.
Yes, becuase if its modded up to +5 anything it MUST be the voice of the people. IT MUST BE!
And by your reasoning how big are MS's?
3 252582 49231
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/1
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/08/31/1
Is this an example of doing no evil?
The cops come to your door and ask questions about your neighbourhood and your neighbours because they suspect someone in the area committed some horrible crime. You refuse to answer saying that the questions are too broad and burdensome.
Is that doing evil or no evil?
>It does not allow unprovable statements. It is either provably true or it does not exist.
Or its an axiom and then it effectively allows for unprovable statements.
And what about things that are not proven yet? Don't they use them in papers etc like they are proven/"the Truth"? I assume that Fermats Theorm was used in other proofs before it was "officially proven".
"this still useful theory one has "invented" an extra term that explains why the calculations come to the "wrong" number and which covers the errors in the theory : DARK ENERGY/MATTER so then the theory becomes :
1 + 1 + "unobservable dark xxx" = 3"
"We hard scientists, i.e. mathematicians, find this very funny."
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to troll but;
1. How do you feel about imaginary numbers? Can you really explain how how i = sqr(-1) and not feel like its a place-holder to make things "just work", like dark matter? I know that there is applications for it in reality and there is logic behind it, but sqr(-1) just does not make any sense and its used like "lets assume that it does work and, look at that, the math works out!"
2. How do you feel about math that involves dimensions of greater than 3? (how can you "prove" something that about a place/dimension that you've never been to and then laugh at how people have to handle things in our own place/dimension? How do you know that things don't break down dramatically between the 4th and 5th dimensions? Because of axioms?)
Its an uninsulated house (and a hole in the ceiling), I'm sure that the heater is going to work more than normal.
Think how much you make per hour. Think how much time you are going to spend setting up and maintaining the system. Think how much you will save in gas. Is it worth it?
Would it just be worth it to "suffer" with a cold house for a while because you want to save some $, rather than to go for a complex system?
>WoW is supported on Windows, PPC Mac, and now x86 Mac. Can you guess why WoW has a huge Mac following and GW does not?
And you expect any other conclusion?
Thats like saying "Game X is available on the PS2 but Game Y is not. Guess why Game X is more popular on the PS2 than Game Y." Duh.
Why not just manually change things manually? Any disconfort tempature-wise is just something you have to accept for saving $.
Think how much a system like this is going to cost and how much in man-hours its going to set up. Then factor in the time and effort to fine-tune it, adjust it on an on going basis. Is it really worth it to save on the heating bills?
>I think that would be his solution no matter which OS was used.
Pretty ironic, that is my point in my original post.
>Linux works.
I use Linux and I know what works on it and what doesn't.
Look at the parent post; his solution is "Don't install anything unless I'm there and if you need something, I'll find a good alternative."
Does that sound like Linux works?
>I advised them not to buy software from WalMart, or even to download it for themselves. I asked them to contact me, and I'd come over and find something that worked for them.
Thats a wonderful solution. What about people who don't have 24/7 access to you? And did you really go through all the code in the Linux kernal/OpenOffice/Firefox/Thunderbird?
>I think that a well-designed system can easily avoid the problems caused by unwitting users.
A well-designed anything can do anything. (Can't do it? It just simply needs to be better designed!). I have yet to see this magical beast. Linux is not it (since linux rootkits exists or user logs into root then rm -fr / everthing since he needs more diskspace.).
>I was recently asked to set up some computer systems at a seniors home.
Thats great. What happens when they go to Wal-Mart and want to buy some software?
Or when they want to hook up their brand-spanking new digital camera/mp3 player/PDA?
Lots of people are more bleed-edge than seniors.
>You may deny it, but the fact of the matter is that Linux systems won't get infected with spyware at this time. Sure, that may change in the future, but I'm doubtful about that.
You don't need a better code to prevent spyware, you need better users. Better system design/code will never beat out a user, unless the design is involves cutting the power to the computer.