What's copyrightable in an almanac is the presenation and exposition of the facts, not the facts themselves.
Yes, and if you read the fine article, it's the collection of facts that is proposed for protection, not the individual facts themselves. Again, I would say that this is fair; putting together a large database is hard work. You're free to create your own database using the same methods, and put it in the public domain. Why should you be free to reproduce someone else's database in its entirety (or a substantial portion) without permission, even if it is a large collection of publicly available knowledge?
Collections of facts have enjoyed copyrightable status for a long, long time. That's what an almanac is.
It doesn't mean you can't quote a fact from an almanac, just that you can't steal large portions and claim them as yours.
A dictionary is like a database of words. The dictionary provider doesn't own the particular words, they own the collection of them. Sometimes dictionary makers put false words in there to catch competitors stealing their lists.
Putting together a database can be very hard work and if someone can just rip off the whole thing, it makes providers think twice before they bother to do it.
Similarly, "fact" is not merely an emphatic form of "theory".
I might as well theorize that black holes don't exist at all; who owes what now? Oh, right, nothing changes, because theories aren't facts .
Yeah, which is why it's silly that they ever had that bet. How could anyone ever win it? They might as well have set the stakes to be "The Jupiter moon of your choice".
Theories aren't facts, you're right, but I hope you're not one of those who believes facts don't exist and that "everything's a theory". Most theories try to be, after all, the simplest explanation that fits the available facts. I always get annoyed when someone makes the leap from: "theories change", to: "there are no scientific facts and I can't prove that I exist".
One statement is science, the other is epistemology (see also: fancy word-play).
It's not cool to respond to your own post but in the unlikely event it's read I'll take the heat. I was thinking about how silly my math was, because a small nudge might have a huge effect on the outer orbit, but a relatively small effect on the perihelion.
The more I think about it, the more I think that we could someday be in a position where we're just gonna get hit, practically no matter what we do. Other times we could have a good opportunity to save ourselves. It depends on the relative projected angular momentums of earth and the rock at the projected collision point.
When people talk about explosions and asteroids, they're usually talking about trying to "disintegrate" the asteroid. That's silly. Why not just have a small nuke go off somewhere near it while it's still a long way from earch? You only have to move it a TINY bit, if it is a long way out, and it will miss us by a couple million miles. Seems like these mining robots would be a lot harder to build than an old fashioned nuke.
Just explode it far enough away that it doesn't even come close to breaking up the rock, just pushes it a tiny bit away from us. Then we probably won't have to worry about that rock again for a million years.
Otherwise, I'd hate to be the one to have to build those robots.
The more lead time we had, the farther away it would be when we got to nudge it. The earth is only 8,000 miles across. So, worst case scenario, we have to move it its relative trajectory enough so that it has changed by 8000 miles when it gets to us.
So, worst case (rock is going to hit the earch dead on, we need to nudge it 4000 miles), we would need to add about 0.45 miles per hour per year of lead time we have (how long before the rock will hit us can we get the missile next to the rock, NOT as how long before the rock will hit us will we know it is going to hit). I got this number like this:
Diameter of earth (called DEE) = 7926 miles
Hours in a year (called YH) = 8760
DEE / YH =.9
We'd only ever need to nudge it by half the width of the earth, so 0.45 mph in the right direction would do the trick, if we could get the bomb(s) out there at least a year before it hit.
I'm sure the physics are more complicated than that, but I think the idea is pretty sound.
So perhaps what we need to do is spend more money and time looking for these things, to give us enough time to take care of it.
Of course, it mainly works for asteroids. who can predict the Oort Cloud?
The question of how much energy it would take to add 0.45 mph to X mass rock I leave as an activity for you. For a big rock, it's a lot of energy, but still doable. For a smaller rock, we could probably get away with a few months lead time.
The earth travels round the sun? Hum, strange cos current theory say it only does so if looked at from the correct frame of reference.
This particular physics argument is far more than we can hash out here. Just out of curiosity, however, from what possible frame of reference would we be able to observe the earth not going around the sun?
Let's make this simpler:
The sun emits electromagnetic radiation in various wavelengths. It's a scientific fact. All sorts of theories have emerged from this fact.
Do you agree? Or do you believe that there is even a 10^-65 chance that some day we will discover the sun does not give out light?
I still want to know what you think the motives behind my beliefs are. If it helps I am agnostic and have been performing scientific research for about 7 years now.
With all due respect, I must say I'm surprised. You used the phrase "just a theory", which is usually a sure tell for either a creationist or an "intelligent design" advocate. You also argue like them.
Scientific method, you know, the technique used by real scientists to invent amazing things such as computers, has at its core the assumption that a theory, no matter how long standing, is still just a theory. Why? because it is impossible to prove thier correctness. They are "the best we can do". To describe such a theory as an absolute fact is disingenious. Does that mean these theories have no use? Most definatly not. The reason they persist is their utility.
You continue to conflate facts and theories. You say that I am "[describing theories] as absolute fact". In fact, I've done no such thing, but instead tried to get you to understand the difference between scientific theory and factual observation. And you may not realize you are talking philosophy here, but if that is the case you are speaking their language from ignorance. You can try to intermix them as much as you want, but those things we can directly measure and have measured are established facts. The theories try to explain the facts.
In fact, the standard definition of a theory is: the best explanation that fits the available facts. You seem to think I don't know what a theory is. I do. You don't. You are absolutely right that a core of scientific understanding is that theories can (and should) be challenged (though your phrasing - "just a theory" - betrays your motivations. no scientist would say that, they'd say, "best available theory", or something of the sort).
However, no scientist would describe the fact that the earth moves around the sun as "the theory of the earth travelling around the sun", or "just a theory". The earth travels around the sun. It's a fact. For you to call it a theory proves that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
What you're doing is taking a basic misunderstanding of scientific methods and applying them to your misguided worldview with flawed logic, and at the same time trying to suggest that scientists would agree with you. They wouldn't. If you want to persist in your views, you have every right. If you want to call it science, that is your right as well. It doesn't make you correct.
Re:Piers Anthony advocates DRM
on
Singularity Sky
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm "punishing" him for rank hypocrasy.
It's your right of course, and I agree with you on Disney, for more than just their DRM stance. The ironic thing with Piers is just that you would never know what his position was unless he had taken the time out of his day to answer your missives. Your sort of attitude is probably one reason many authors don't go to the trouble. They're bound to offend some people with whatever views they hold.
As far as DRM goes, I think you're putting the cart in front of the horse. It's more important (to me) that the copyright terms be reasonable in the first place than whether they use some silly copy protection scheme or proprietary formatting scheme.
If there was a reasonable law that said all copyrighted material had to be published into the public domain after a reasonable time, say fifteen years, who cares about DRM? Good luck getting that out of the Disney Congress though.
and nobody has ever won the copy protection battle.
Well, that's almost entirely true. There is one example I can think of though, in which a company won a pretty big skirmish....
There's no copy protection in Quake3. However, there is a proprietary key that is required to play on the internet. If you give this key out to anyone, you can't both play at the same time, and you also run the risk that the person you gave it to will also give it out, and that eventually you won't be able to play on the internet. Noone has been able to reverse engineer legit keys, because the algo is secret, and is server-validated.
Of course, one could run a rogue server that didn't care about keys, and rogue clients could connect to it, but most of the servers out there are legit.
Re:Piers Anthony advocates DRM
on
Singularity Sky
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Piers Anthony will never see another dime from me. He wrote in one his newsletters last year that he can't see "why some people get so outraged about protections on digital works". He often claims to hate tyranny and love personal liberty but is completely unable to see the connection those things have to DRM.
What's that got to do with whether you enjoy his fiction? It's like the Seinfeld where Elaine refuses to eat at Poppy's pizza place because he's against abortion.
Hell, I like some of L Ron Hubbard's stuff, and we all know what a psycho he was (he invented scientology, in case you didn't know).
The fact that he was even willing to discuss stuff with you is pretty impressive, even if you disagree. You may have no idea what other authors feel about your pet political issues, because they never interact with the public. Piers should be punished because he does interact with his fans?
Now the question becomes how confident are you that an event will happen. Earth orbit the sun 99.9999999% confidence. The position of an orbiting electron 0.00000000001% confident.
You're evading the real issue - I know with 100% certainty that the earth is orbiting the sun RIGHT NOW.
Now, to prove that it will always orbit the sun, you move into the territory of theory. But it is a fact that it's happening right now, and you need to acknowledge that.
If you argue that maybe the sun isn't really there, or that what we see with our own eyes may not really be there, you are arguing about the philosophy of science, or epistemology (the theory of knowledge), and many epistemologists would not agree with you either.
Real scientists, who actually perform science and invent amazing things like computers and nuclear reactors would agree that some things are facts, and that other things are theories based on our observations of the facts.
The boundary between fact and theory is often blurred because a theory that has been around for a long time without showing flaws is often treated as an absolute. In effect an incontrovertable fact. It is not and will never be
incontrovertable.
Once again, you ignore what I say and cling to your logical fallacy. The following is NOT a proof:
Long held theories are sometimes regarded as facts.
Sometimes long held theories are disproven
There are no facts whatsoever.
Three does not follow from one and two. It's a non-sequitur. Furthermore, you're starting to commit another logical fallacy - argumentum ad nauseum. Just because you repeat it over and over again does not make it true. Before you say I'm also repeating myself, you are the one who is asserting a position - that nothing can be known with certainty. You have to prove that with some kind of logic, not just by repeating yourself and resorting to non-sequiturs.
If you take the definition of "fact" (as some dictionarys do) that a fact is:
"something which is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information"
Then we would probably be in total agreement.
Actually, I like the definition you got out of the dictionary much better:
something that exists and can be seen, felt, tasted, etc., especially something which is unusual or interesting:
Something that can be observed with the senses is a pretty good definition of a phenomenon. It's also a reasonable definition of a fact.
I understand that science is sometimes wrong and that even that sometimes whole shifts in thinking occur. I also realize that psuedo-scientists use this fact to claim that everything in science is uncertain. This is patently untrue. Some things ARE certain. Some things are facts, and it is on these facts that theories are based.
The fact that some things which were perceived as facts in the past are now known to be untrue does not in any way prove that all facts are uncertain. There is a name for this logical fallacy in latin - Non Sequitur.
The facts are the ones that we can see, feel, touch, hear, taste, or smell.
You can make convoluted philosophical arguments that the nature of reality is illusory. You can argue about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. I just don't see any reason to believe the former or care about the latter. I can see that the earth goes around the sun, even from the vantage point of earth. You can tell me that I can't prove that I can see that. I say you're misguided.
That sort of thinking never could have built the computer, or the jet airplane. It's mental masturbation.
More to the point, nothing can ever be proven . If I see a ball fall to the ground, I can't prove that it is under the influence of gravity - I can't even prove that the ball exists.
I have to point out that you did not make up this argument. You are referencing epistemological *theory*, which is rather ironic I think, given the circumstances.
I also must point out that not everyone agrees that it is impossible to prove that the ball exists, or that that is an especially valid question to ask in the first place. If I don't exist, what's the point of trying to define gravity anyway?
Real science takes observable *facts* and explains them with *theories*. Yes, there are such things as facts, and nearly all scientists agree with me. Personally, though I find it very fascinating, I don't count epistemology as a science, and a lot of other scientists feel the same way.
If you believe gravity is not a fact, I invite you to levitate.
The *fact* is, organisms change over time. We've observed it in nature and in the geological/archaeological record. The *theory* of evolution *explains* the observed *facts*. Period.
We have not observed the earth orbiting the sun for ever. Therefore we can only assume that it will. We can build theories, such as that of gravity, to model our set of observations. But they are based on the assumption that our set of observations is comprehensive and indicative of all behaviour that the sun and earth can undergo.
It is an observed FACT that the earth orbits the sun. Where in my post did I say that it was a fact that it has always done so?
The rest of your post is restating what I already said: The theory of gravity attempts to explain the observed facts. Call them "observed phenomenon", if you like. The definition of phenomenon is (dictionary.com):
1. An occurrence, circumstance, or fact that is perceptible by the senses.
Note that the word fact is used, right there in the first definition.
This idea that there are no scientific facts is a cancer. A lot of people believe it, it just so happens that many of them are not scientists. I'm not saying the philosophy of science is worthless, clearly we got the scientific method of empirical research from that branch of thinking. The ironic thing is that you are spouting epistemological *theory* to support your case that there are no scientific *facts*. Not that I agree for a moment that you have succesfully done so, nor will I agree with your misguided interpretation of epistemology.
You are making the all too common mistake of conflating observations and mechanisms (the "all science is just a theory" belief). The observation that the earth orbits the sun is inarguable. The theory of gravity is up for grabs.
Be careful here. Science is not set up to prove things. Science is only set to disprove things. Sure, you can make a conjecture and a prediction about how things will occur, but that is not science. A theory is a hypothesis that has been tested and never FALSIFIED. Just because it has never been falsified does not mean it WILL be.
It may seem like I'm picking nits, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding that almost everyone has about science. It does not PROVE things, it DISPROVES them. What you are left with in the end gives you a *reasonable* idea of how things are.
You're lecturing me on epistemology, certainly one of the building blocks of science. Unfortunately, and I say this with all due respect, you are wrong.
There are theories in science, which are usually built to describe a mechanism to explain observable *facts*. The earth revolves around the sun. This is a fact.
The *theory* of gravitation describes the scientific mechanism behind the *fact* of the earth revolving around the sun.
You say I have a fundamental misunderstanding, but it is you who are conflating two ideas which are often misunderstood: theories and facts!
.in the back of room, in a tone certain to make you know you shouldn't have forgotten the one "logy" that all but turned Evolution upside down from the sixties on...:)
Yes, Velikovsky was sorta right about something wasn't he?
MY GOD PEOPLE. You are criticizing the Bush Administration for being stupid and you can't even spell the words "controversial" or "doctering." "Your" in the context of your subject line should be "You're", which is a contraction for "You are."
"Administration" beings with a vowel, and should therefore be preceded with the antecedent "an" not "a."
If you are going to throw intellectual stones, make sure your brain isn't living in a glass skull.
I love Slashdot. A bunch of illiterate, reactionary, left-wing nutcases hurling insults at people smarter and more successful than they are.
It's all part of the vast right-wing conspiracy. That guy wasn't really a lefty, he just posted some lefty crap using very bad grammar and spelling to get people to think that leftys are stupid. It's an ingenius plot, and I have to give him credit for it.
Faulty logic if I ever heard it. The only fundamental fact in science is that everything should be questioned, that nothing is ever proven. For the record, I think the theory of evolution is the best one on the general subject that we currently have, but that's an aside. Another aside, I know someone else who says things like "If you disagree with me, you are wrong." Hint: he holds a job very high up in the current administration.
The epistemological argument that "nothing can ever be proven" is a useless statement. You don't get any mileage out of it when you are trying to build a nuclear reactor. It's kind of fun, in a way, to bandy about such meaningless bits of philosophy. But in the end they only serve to coddle this inclusive, relativistic culture we have created by making people think there is no such thing as fact or truth.
It's a fact that the earth goes around the sun. I can even prove it. To show that this is not a fact, you would have to resort to tedius, twisted philosophical arguments. To prove it, you just have to observe nature for a while.
It weren't no epistemologists what built the atom bomb. Do atom bombs exist? Well, let's just say that I don't want to be around one when it explodes to find out.
Also, I don't see how anyone could say "the fact of evolution" with a straight face. Facts are demonstrable; what most people consider evolution, the change of one species into another over time, has never been demonstrated. There is a theory that some scientists have used to explain the wide variety of speieces evident in the world, but it's not a fact.
First off, speciation is not the only form of evolution, and even if it were true that we had never observed it (it is NOT true however), that would not be a disproof of evolution. It's one of the many false disproofs that pseudo-scientists love to use, but it has no basis in the actual, erm, science.
Evolution has occurred, and that is a fact. And my face is straight.
There is no such thing as the "fact of evolution". You should really check your sources on that one. It's called a theory for a reason.
Actually, you should check yours. You are obviously very misinformed if you believe that it is only a theory that organisms change over time (i.e., through evolution). The "theory" refers to scientists trying to explain the available *facts*. If you believe that organisms do not evolve over time, you discard radioactive dating, archaeology, paleontology, biology, and many other ologies too numerous to name.
Evolution happened. That is a scientific fact. The *theory* is trying to explain how it occured.
Having said this, I don't think it's wrong, and I agree wholeheartedly with their conclusions, but I find it silly that they refuse to accept it's a political statement.
That's a tautology. Your reasoning - the scientists are releasing a scientific paper. Their conclusions have political ramifications. Therefore they are making a political statement.
The fact is, the scientists are releasing a paper about science, and the fact it has political ramifications is just sad. Scientific facts are not political. They just exist.
By your reasoning, every textbook about evolution is a "political statement". Obviously, because there are politicians who disagree with it, it must be a political statement.
The shallow-minded slashdrones will say "Bush is evil, these scientists are 100% correct!" Instead, how about doing some research of your own in order to come to a conclusion? You'll probably find that the truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle.
When it comes to political questions, sometimes the truth is in the middle. When it comes to science questions, such as whether or not global warming is happening and whether or not we are contributing to it and whether or not the icecaps are melting into the ocean at an alarming rate, well, the scientists are correct, and the administration is wrong.
Human carbon dioxide emissions raise the overall temperature. It's proven, and it doesn't need more study. If you disagree, you are wrong, just as wrong as you are if you disagree with the fact of evolution (as opposed to the *theory* of how it happened.) There is no middle ground here, there is science, and there is expensive wishful thinking in the form of industry/government supported pseudo-science.
2. When I get a few minutes, and I'm rather pissed off at something, I pull up one of my default response templates. Ie, received E-Mail of Penis enlargement pill/patch/voodoo dance, and simply send an E-Mail back saying:
"Hi, I'm interested in your penis enlargement patch. Please send me some information on your product."
I have a really hard time believing you. Spammers don't use their real address when spamming, for the most part. Sometimes they make it up, other times they use someone else's address to cause trouble for them. They give you a web link to their product.
If they included a real email address, the bounces and angry emails would make it nigh impossible to find the email from their potential customers. Back in my more naive days, I tried your approach and never even one time did the address in the email turn out to be a real address for the spammer.
If you had said that you visit the website and find a contact email link, I'd believe that, though you'd have to be fairly masochistic to click on one of those links. Reducing your spam volume by responding directly to the spam I don't buy for a minute. So what's the real story?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, and if you read the fine article, it's the collection of facts that is proposed for protection, not the individual facts themselves. Again, I would say that this is fair; putting together a large database is hard work. You're free to create your own database using the same methods, and put it in the public domain. Why should you be free to reproduce someone else's database in its entirety (or a substantial portion) without permission, even if it is a large collection of publicly available knowledge?
It doesn't mean you can't quote a fact from an almanac, just that you can't steal large portions and claim them as yours.
A dictionary is like a database of words. The dictionary provider doesn't own the particular words, they own the collection of them. Sometimes dictionary makers put false words in there to catch competitors stealing their lists.
Putting together a database can be very hard work and if someone can just rip off the whole thing, it makes providers think twice before they bother to do it.
You: Blah blah whitelist blah blah blah trusted senders blahblahblah challenge-response bling bling.
Me: Blah blah Amazon sent blah blahblah blah automated email blahblahblah didn't get my tracking number crap crap.
Your reply: blah blah bleh seperate email for business and orders bluh blah blibity blah blah
My reply: (*cough*)hit.
Are you sure you didn't buy V A 1 G R A?
I might as well theorize that black holes don't exist at all; who owes what now? Oh, right, nothing changes, because theories aren't facts .
Yeah, which is why it's silly that they ever had that bet. How could anyone ever win it? They might as well have set the stakes to be "The Jupiter moon of your choice".
Theories aren't facts, you're right, but I hope you're not one of those who believes facts don't exist and that "everything's a theory". Most theories try to be, after all, the simplest explanation that fits the available facts. I always get annoyed when someone makes the leap from: "theories change", to: "there are no scientific facts and I can't prove that I exist".
One statement is science, the other is epistemology (see also: fancy word-play).
It's not cool to respond to your own post but in the unlikely event it's read I'll take the heat. I was thinking about how silly my math was, because a small nudge might have a huge effect on the outer orbit, but a relatively small effect on the perihelion.
The more I think about it, the more I think that we could someday be in a position where we're just gonna get hit, practically no matter what we do. Other times we could have a good opportunity to save ourselves. It depends on the relative projected angular momentums of earth and the rock at the projected collision point.
Just explode it far enough away that it doesn't even come close to breaking up the rock, just pushes it a tiny bit away from us. Then we probably won't have to worry about that rock again for a million years.
Otherwise, I'd hate to be the one to have to build those robots.
The more lead time we had, the farther away it would be when we got to nudge it. The earth is only 8,000 miles across. So, worst case scenario, we have to move it its relative trajectory enough so that it has changed by 8000 miles when it gets to us.
So, worst case (rock is going to hit the earch dead on, we need to nudge it 4000 miles), we would need to add about 0.45 miles per hour per year of lead time we have (how long before the rock will hit us can we get the missile next to the rock, NOT as how long before the rock will hit us will we know it is going to hit). I got this number like this:
Diameter of earth (called DEE) = 7926 miles Hours in a year (called YH) = 8760
DEE / YH = .9
We'd only ever need to nudge it by half the width of the earth, so 0.45 mph in the right direction would do the trick, if we could get the bomb(s) out there at least a year before it hit.
I'm sure the physics are more complicated than that, but I think the idea is pretty sound.
So perhaps what we need to do is spend more money and time looking for these things, to give us enough time to take care of it.
Of course, it mainly works for asteroids. who can predict the Oort Cloud?
The question of how much energy it would take to add 0.45 mph to X mass rock I leave as an activity for you. For a big rock, it's a lot of energy, but still doable. For a smaller rock, we could probably get away with a few months lead time.
This particular physics argument is far more than we can hash out here. Just out of curiosity, however, from what possible frame of reference would we be able to observe the earth not going around the sun?
Let's make this simpler:
The sun emits electromagnetic radiation in various wavelengths. It's a scientific fact. All sorts of theories have emerged from this fact.
Do you agree? Or do you believe that there is even a 10^-65 chance that some day we will discover the sun does not give out light?
I still want to know what you think the motives behind my beliefs are. If it helps I am agnostic and have been performing scientific research for about 7 years now.
With all due respect, I must say I'm surprised. You used the phrase "just a theory", which is usually a sure tell for either a creationist or an "intelligent design" advocate. You also argue like them.
You continue to conflate facts and theories. You say that I am "[describing theories] as absolute fact". In fact, I've done no such thing, but instead tried to get you to understand the difference between scientific theory and factual observation. And you may not realize you are talking philosophy here, but if that is the case you are speaking their language from ignorance. You can try to intermix them as much as you want, but those things we can directly measure and have measured are established facts. The theories try to explain the facts.
In fact, the standard definition of a theory is: the best explanation that fits the available facts . You seem to think I don't know what a theory is. I do. You don't. You are absolutely right that a core of scientific understanding is that theories can (and should) be challenged (though your phrasing - "just a theory" - betrays your motivations. no scientist would say that, they'd say, "best available theory", or something of the sort).
However, no scientist would describe the fact that the earth moves around the sun as "the theory of the earth travelling around the sun", or "just a theory". The earth travels around the sun. It's a fact. For you to call it a theory proves that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
What you're doing is taking a basic misunderstanding of scientific methods and applying them to your misguided worldview with flawed logic, and at the same time trying to suggest that scientists would agree with you. They wouldn't. If you want to persist in your views, you have every right. If you want to call it science, that is your right as well. It doesn't make you correct.
It's your right of course, and I agree with you on Disney, for more than just their DRM stance. The ironic thing with Piers is just that you would never know what his position was unless he had taken the time out of his day to answer your missives. Your sort of attitude is probably one reason many authors don't go to the trouble. They're bound to offend some people with whatever views they hold.
As far as DRM goes, I think you're putting the cart in front of the horse. It's more important (to me) that the copyright terms be reasonable in the first place than whether they use some silly copy protection scheme or proprietary formatting scheme.
If there was a reasonable law that said all copyrighted material had to be published into the public domain after a reasonable time, say fifteen years, who cares about DRM? Good luck getting that out of the Disney Congress though.
Well, that's almost entirely true. There is one example I can think of though, in which a company won a pretty big skirmish....
There's no copy protection in Quake3. However, there is a proprietary key that is required to play on the internet. If you give this key out to anyone, you can't both play at the same time, and you also run the risk that the person you gave it to will also give it out, and that eventually you won't be able to play on the internet. Noone has been able to reverse engineer legit keys, because the algo is secret, and is server-validated.
Of course, one could run a rogue server that didn't care about keys, and rogue clients could connect to it, but most of the servers out there are legit.
What's that got to do with whether you enjoy his fiction? It's like the Seinfeld where Elaine refuses to eat at Poppy's pizza place because he's against abortion.
Hell, I like some of L Ron Hubbard's stuff, and we all know what a psycho he was (he invented scientology, in case you didn't know).
The fact that he was even willing to discuss stuff with you is pretty impressive, even if you disagree. You may have no idea what other authors feel about your pet political issues, because they never interact with the public. Piers should be punished because he does interact with his fans?
You're evading the real issue - I know with 100% certainty that the earth is orbiting the sun RIGHT NOW.
Now, to prove that it will always orbit the sun, you move into the territory of theory. But it is a fact that it's happening right now, and you need to acknowledge that.
If you argue that maybe the sun isn't really there, or that what we see with our own eyes may not really be there, you are arguing about the philosophy of science, or epistemology (the theory of knowledge), and many epistemologists would not agree with you either.
Real scientists, who actually perform science and invent amazing things like computers and nuclear reactors would agree that some things are facts, and that other things are theories based on our observations of the facts.
The boundary between fact and theory is often blurred because a theory that has been around for a long time without showing flaws is often treated as an absolute. In effect an incontrovertable fact. It is not and will never be incontrovertable.
Once again, you ignore what I say and cling to your logical fallacy. The following is NOT a proof:
- Long held theories are sometimes regarded as facts.
- Sometimes long held theories are disproven
- There are no facts whatsoever.
Three does not follow from one and two. It's a non-sequitur. Furthermore, you're starting to commit another logical fallacy - argumentum ad nauseum. Just because you repeat it over and over again does not make it true. Before you say I'm also repeating myself, you are the one who is asserting a position - that nothing can be known with certainty. You have to prove that with some kind of logic, not just by repeating yourself and resorting to non-sequiturs.Actually, I like the definition you got out of the dictionary much better:
something that exists and can be seen, felt, tasted, etc., especially something which is unusual or interesting:
Something that can be observed with the senses is a pretty good definition of a phenomenon. It's also a reasonable definition of a fact.
I understand that science is sometimes wrong and that even that sometimes whole shifts in thinking occur. I also realize that psuedo-scientists use this fact to claim that everything in science is uncertain. This is patently untrue. Some things ARE certain. Some things are facts, and it is on these facts that theories are based.
The fact that some things which were perceived as facts in the past are now known to be untrue does not in any way prove that all facts are uncertain. There is a name for this logical fallacy in latin - Non Sequitur.
The facts are the ones that we can see, feel, touch, hear, taste, or smell.
You can make convoluted philosophical arguments that the nature of reality is illusory. You can argue about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. I just don't see any reason to believe the former or care about the latter. I can see that the earth goes around the sun, even from the vantage point of earth. You can tell me that I can't prove that I can see that. I say you're misguided.
That sort of thinking never could have built the computer, or the jet airplane. It's mental masturbation.
I have to point out that you did not make up this argument. You are referencing epistemological *theory*, which is rather ironic I think, given the circumstances.
I also must point out that not everyone agrees that it is impossible to prove that the ball exists, or that that is an especially valid question to ask in the first place. If I don't exist, what's the point of trying to define gravity anyway?
Real science takes observable *facts* and explains them with *theories*. Yes, there are such things as facts, and nearly all scientists agree with me. Personally, though I find it very fascinating, I don't count epistemology as a science, and a lot of other scientists feel the same way.
If you believe gravity is not a fact, I invite you to levitate.
The *fact* is, organisms change over time. We've observed it in nature and in the geological/archaeological record. The *theory* of evolution *explains* the observed *facts*. Period.
It is an observed FACT that the earth orbits the sun. Where in my post did I say that it was a fact that it has always done so?
The rest of your post is restating what I already said: The theory of gravity attempts to explain the observed facts. Call them "observed phenomenon", if you like. The definition of phenomenon is (dictionary.com):
1. An occurrence, circumstance, or fact that is perceptible by the senses.
Note that the word fact is used, right there in the first definition.
This idea that there are no scientific facts is a cancer. A lot of people believe it, it just so happens that many of them are not scientists. I'm not saying the philosophy of science is worthless, clearly we got the scientific method of empirical research from that branch of thinking. The ironic thing is that you are spouting epistemological *theory* to support your case that there are no scientific *facts*. Not that I agree for a moment that you have succesfully done so, nor will I agree with your misguided interpretation of epistemology.
You are making the all too common mistake of conflating observations and mechanisms (the "all science is just a theory" belief). The observation that the earth orbits the sun is inarguable. The theory of gravity is up for grabs.
You're lecturing me on epistemology, certainly one of the building blocks of science. Unfortunately, and I say this with all due respect, you are wrong.
There are theories in science, which are usually built to describe a mechanism to explain observable *facts*. The earth revolves around the sun. This is a fact.
The *theory* of gravitation describes the scientific mechanism behind the *fact* of the earth revolving around the sun.
You say I have a fundamental misunderstanding, but it is you who are conflating two ideas which are often misunderstood: theories and facts!
Yes, Velikovsky was sorta right about something wasn't he?
See, I'm an equal opportunity offender.
It's all part of the vast right-wing conspiracy. That guy wasn't really a lefty, he just posted some lefty crap using very bad grammar and spelling to get people to think that leftys are stupid. It's an ingenius plot, and I have to give him credit for it.
The epistemological argument that "nothing can ever be proven" is a useless statement. You don't get any mileage out of it when you are trying to build a nuclear reactor. It's kind of fun, in a way, to bandy about such meaningless bits of philosophy. But in the end they only serve to coddle this inclusive, relativistic culture we have created by making people think there is no such thing as fact or truth.
It's a fact that the earth goes around the sun. I can even prove it. To show that this is not a fact, you would have to resort to tedius, twisted philosophical arguments. To prove it, you just have to observe nature for a while.
It weren't no epistemologists what built the atom bomb. Do atom bombs exist? Well, let's just say that I don't want to be around one when it explodes to find out.
First off, speciation is not the only form of evolution, and even if it were true that we had never observed it (it is NOT true however), that would not be a disproof of evolution. It's one of the many false disproofs that pseudo-scientists love to use, but it has no basis in the actual, erm, science.
Evolution has occurred, and that is a fact. And my face is straight.
Actually, you should check yours. You are obviously very misinformed if you believe that it is only a theory that organisms change over time (i.e., through evolution). The "theory" refers to scientists trying to explain the available *facts*. If you believe that organisms do not evolve over time, you discard radioactive dating, archaeology, paleontology, biology, and many other ologies too numerous to name.
Evolution happened. That is a scientific fact. The *theory* is trying to explain how it occured.
That's a tautology. Your reasoning - the scientists are releasing a scientific paper. Their conclusions have political ramifications. Therefore they are making a political statement.
The fact is, the scientists are releasing a paper about science, and the fact it has political ramifications is just sad. Scientific facts are not political. They just exist.
By your reasoning, every textbook about evolution is a "political statement". Obviously, because there are politicians who disagree with it, it must be a political statement.
When it comes to political questions, sometimes the truth is in the middle. When it comes to science questions, such as whether or not global warming is happening and whether or not we are contributing to it and whether or not the icecaps are melting into the ocean at an alarming rate, well, the scientists are correct, and the administration is wrong.
Human carbon dioxide emissions raise the overall temperature. It's proven, and it doesn't need more study. If you disagree, you are wrong, just as wrong as you are if you disagree with the fact of evolution (as opposed to the *theory* of how it happened.) There is no middle ground here, there is science, and there is expensive wishful thinking in the form of industry/government supported pseudo-science.
I have a really hard time believing you. Spammers don't use their real address when spamming, for the most part. Sometimes they make it up, other times they use someone else's address to cause trouble for them. They give you a web link to their product.
If they included a real email address, the bounces and angry emails would make it nigh impossible to find the email from their potential customers. Back in my more naive days, I tried your approach and never even one time did the address in the email turn out to be a real address for the spammer.
If you had said that you visit the website and find a contact email link, I'd believe that, though you'd have to be fairly masochistic to click on one of those links. Reducing your spam volume by responding directly to the spam I don't buy for a minute. So what's the real story?