Unfortunately, much of his work is lost, but Aristarchus of Samos did make a scientific argument for a heliocentric hypothesis. The only surviving Greek texts from that era are the ones that Medieval monks chose to copy, so all we have is critical commentary rather than the source. From Archimedes' The Sand Reckoner,
"But Aristarchus has brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses, wherein it appears, as a consequence of the assumptions made, that the universe is many times greater than the 'universe' just mentioned. His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the Sun remain unmoved, that the Earth revolves about the Sun on the circumference of a circle, the Sun lying in the middle of the Floor, and that the sphere of the fixed stars, situated about the same center as the Sun, is so great that the circle in which he supposes the Earth to revolve bears such a proportion to the distance of the fixed stars as the center of the sphere bears to its surface."
Archimedes rejected the heliocentric hypothesis based on an observation: There was no parallax observed in the stars. The incorrect assumption was made that the stars were not so far away as to make the distance from the Earth to the Sun insignificant. The lack of observable parallax was interpreted thus as evidence that the Earth was not moving. This is a misinterpretation of existing data, not a lack of ability to create a scientific theory.
So why does Switzerland, where most males from ages 19-34 are required to keep an assault rifle in their homes as part of their compulsory military service, have much less senseless deaths than the USA?
There just might be reasons other then the simple availability of tools.
Amazon.com is in Washington State. A separate company in Texas that is legally distinct from Amazon.com has been hired by Amazon.com to run a distribution center in Texas. Texas wishes charge a company in Washington State a tax on the import of goods into their state.
The US Constitution, Article 1, section 10 includes: "No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's [sic] inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress." Texas appears not to wish to follow the US Constitution.
No one who's bought anything on Amazon has had to pay sales tax.
This is false. I pay sales tax on every purchase I make from Amazon. I believe they have always charged Washington State residents sales tax for purchases. It's the other states expecting Amazon to enforce their laws for them that is the issue.
It's not NASA's fault, the actual press release says nothing of the sort.
The NASA press release described a system of at least 6 larger -than-earth planets, all much closer to their sun than Earth is. Late in the release, they mention that "Kepler will continue conducting science operations until at least November 2012, searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is predicted to take at least three years to locate and verify an Earth-size planet. "
Then Michael Cooney appears to have invented from whole cloth the title, "NASA Kepler finds family of habitable, Earth-size planets". I do have to admit that the Slashdot title is pretty close to the Cooney source, but the article is... not even close to what it claims to be its source material.
You have fundamentally missed the point. The issue is whether the hypothesis is falsifiable, not whether evidence could someday be discovered to support it. If no experiment can be done and no evidence could possibly be found that would show that it is incorrect, it's not a scientific question. Your hypothesis that something used to exist that all evidence thereof has been erased is very clearly not falsifiable- what evidence could possibly be found to show that it was false? There is no way to test it. Therefore it is not a scientific hypothesis by definition.
This does not mean that it's incorrect, simply that the scientific method does not apply to it. Belief without evidence is a matter of faith, not science.
Someone who was reasonably familiar with the scientific method would see that you've made no verifiable predictions, that your hypothesis that something 'used to exist but no evidence can possibly be found' is not falsifiable, and conclude that this is fundamentally not a question that can be addressed by the scientific method.
If you were to assert that this hypothesis was scientific, you would deserve criticism.
You believe a falsehood. Evidence unlawfully obtained by a private person is admissible, and Kernell wasn't a government employee. The Fourth Amendment protects against actions by government officials, not other private individuals. See BURDEAU v. MCDOWELL where a thief stole private papers which were nevertheless later used to prosecute the owner of the papers.
If that were your point, you expressed yourself poorly. In the post you reference, your sentence "In other words, if you want to be rational about it, then the only defensible position is agnosticism, not atheism." is an absurd false dichotomy - agnosticism is a epistemological position, while atheism is a position of personal belief. The two are orthogonal and compatible with one another. I believe that theism is irrational, so the binary alternative of atheism (I feel I must remind you that the word simply means "not theism") is the rational choice.
Moving on, and using your definition atheists who are "marked by militant or crusading zeal", most such atheists still do not fit your strawman that all of them are positive atheists. I'm not even sure that there's a correlation between zeal and positive versus negative atheism. For an example of a prominent atheist who might fit your zeal definition, Richard Dawkins does not hold a positive atheism belief- see his book "The God Delusion." Ascribing religious beliefs to a person that they do not hold is typically offensive to anyone, not just atheists. This makes particularly offensive your use of the particular strawman you're attempting to portray a diverse group as consisting entirely of.
You appear to be confusing the meanings of several of the words you are using. Religious agnosticism you seem to have mostly correct, it is an epistemological view that it's impossible to prove that a diety(or dieties) exist. This is entirely compatable with either atheism or theism, it's not a point on a spectrum. See agnostic theists such as Kierkegaard.
Atheism is a simple word, the a- prefix means not. The word means not theist... that's all. You appear to be attacking a strawman definition of atheism that involves "stating outright that there isn't one". This belief is held by a small subset but far from all atheists.
It is not at all surprising that there is a negative reaction to this sort of strawman characterization of a large group based on the beliefs of a small subset. If you were to say that all Christians believe that the earth is 6000 years old you might expect a similar negative response to that mis-characterization of a large group based on the beliefs of a small subset.
There is no shortage of politicians from both parties who claim to be for term limits! By a strange coincidence, they almost always happen to be running against an incumbent who has held office for a long time. For example, George Nethercutt defeated the sitting Speaker of the House in a campaign with term limits as a central issue. In the course of that campaign, Nethercutt solemnly promised to serve no more than three terms (six years), unlike his long-serving opponent. Opposition to term limits was a major reason for his victory, and the people spoke!
Nethercutt served in that office for five terms (ten years).
Could Congress constitutionally pass a bill imposing a truly flat tax of a fixed amount on all citizens in the amount of [the penalty for not buying insurance]?
Could Congress constitutionally pass a bill granting the amount of [the penalty for not buying insurance] to each citizen who has health insurance?
If your answers are yes and yes, we're arguing semantics because that's exactly equivalent to imposing a penalty for not buying insurance. If your answers are yes and no, are you equally enraged about the recent bill granting [an even larger amount of money] on the condition that you purchased a home for the first time? If you answered no to the first question, it would appear you just think taxation is unconstitutional.
Yeah, if only we'd adopted the entirety of the Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States back in 1790, a foot would actually equal 10 inches and the rest of the world might well be measuring using those units, rather than the system the French implemented slightly later. Ah well, at least we were the first to decimalize currency (With the arguable exception of Russia) as a result of that report.
... or inspire a debate on the true meaning of "ironic" but having the head of a leading aerospace firm and the former head of NASA die on an airplane seems kind of, well, ironic.
His many levels of experience in Aviation gave him the ability to take less damage from plane crashes. Alternatively, it may just be that I've played too many RPGs.
Clearly, we must use the traditional description, and say that they have "huge tracts of land". That should avoid any dirty connotations, if you know what I mean.
I agree that Regan advocated for and implemented a lot of the excesses of the early 80s- but I think his boss, Ronald Reagan, is the one who should be held responsible.
How do you figure that Canada has a higher per capita military presence in Afghanistan than does the US? Official ISAF troop contribution statisics are 2830 from Canada and 62415 from the United States. The total populations of the two countries differ only by about a factor of ten.
If the question is what proportion of the population has military experience, your sample set of the people you met while working in the military just might not be representative of the Canadian population as a whole...
Interesting, but that same site indicates that the average number of nights in January with a minimum temperature below -30C is 2.1. They don't even bother to list how many average below -40C, but it would be far less than that (10C is a big difference!)
It's quite clear that -40C is not typical for a Tuesday in January in Edmonton- in fact, when it gets that low it gets local press coverage as a notable event, analogous to what this earthquake is getting!
Slashdot Mirror
From Article I, Section 10:
Unfortunately, these unpatriotic Texas lawmakers do not seem to have read or have any respect for our Constitution.
Microsoft patented both the numbers zero and one back in 1998.
Archimedes rejected the heliocentric hypothesis based on an observation: There was no parallax observed in the stars. The incorrect assumption was made that the stars were not so far away as to make the distance from the Earth to the Sun insignificant. The lack of observable parallax was interpreted thus as evidence that the Earth was not moving. This is a misinterpretation of existing data, not a lack of ability to create a scientific theory.
The name of that movie was Star Wars. Lucas added the Episode IV bit for the first rerelease in 1978. Yes, he started messing with it even before ESB.
So why does Switzerland, where most males from ages 19-34 are required to keep an assault rifle in their homes as part of their compulsory military service, have much less senseless deaths than the USA?
There just might be reasons other then the simple availability of tools.
Amazon.com is in Washington State. A separate company in Texas that is legally distinct from Amazon.com has been hired by Amazon.com to run a distribution center in Texas. Texas wishes charge a company in Washington State a tax on the import of goods into their state.
The US Constitution, Article 1, section 10 includes: "No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's [sic] inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress." Texas appears not to wish to follow the US Constitution.
Hope that clarified the article.
This is false. I pay sales tax on every purchase I make from Amazon. I believe they have always charged Washington State residents sales tax for purchases. It's the other states expecting Amazon to enforce their laws for them that is the issue.
It's not NASA's fault, the actual press release says nothing of the sort.
The NASA press release described a system of at least 6 larger -than-earth planets, all much closer to their sun than Earth is. Late in the release, they mention that "Kepler will continue conducting science operations until at least November 2012, searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is predicted to take at least three years to locate and verify an Earth-size planet. "
Then Michael Cooney appears to have invented from whole cloth the title, "NASA Kepler finds family of habitable, Earth-size planets". I do have to admit that the Slashdot title is pretty close to the Cooney source, but the article is... not even close to what it claims to be its source material.
You have fundamentally missed the point. The issue is whether the hypothesis is falsifiable, not whether evidence could someday be discovered to support it. If no experiment can be done and no evidence could possibly be found that would show that it is incorrect, it's not a scientific question. Your hypothesis that something used to exist that all evidence thereof has been erased is very clearly not falsifiable- what evidence could possibly be found to show that it was false? There is no way to test it. Therefore it is not a scientific hypothesis by definition.
This does not mean that it's incorrect, simply that the scientific method does not apply to it. Belief without evidence is a matter of faith, not science.
Someone who was reasonably familiar with the scientific method would see that you've made no verifiable predictions, that your hypothesis that something 'used to exist but no evidence can possibly be found' is not falsifiable, and conclude that this is fundamentally not a question that can be addressed by the scientific method.
If you were to assert that this hypothesis was scientific, you would deserve criticism.
You believe a falsehood. Evidence unlawfully obtained by a private person is admissible, and Kernell wasn't a government employee. The Fourth Amendment protects against actions by government officials, not other private individuals. See BURDEAU v. MCDOWELL where a thief stole private papers which were nevertheless later used to prosecute the owner of the papers.
If that were your point, you expressed yourself poorly. In the post you reference, your sentence "In other words, if you want to be rational about it, then the only defensible position is agnosticism, not atheism." is an absurd false dichotomy - agnosticism is a epistemological position, while atheism is a position of personal belief. The two are orthogonal and compatible with one another. I believe that theism is irrational, so the binary alternative of atheism (I feel I must remind you that the word simply means "not theism") is the rational choice.
Moving on, and using your definition atheists who are "marked by militant or crusading zeal", most such atheists still do not fit your strawman that all of them are positive atheists. I'm not even sure that there's a correlation between zeal and positive versus negative atheism. For an example of a prominent atheist who might fit your zeal definition, Richard Dawkins does not hold a positive atheism belief- see his book "The God Delusion." Ascribing religious beliefs to a person that they do not hold is typically offensive to anyone, not just atheists. This makes particularly offensive your use of the particular strawman you're attempting to portray a diverse group as consisting entirely of.
You appear to be confusing the meanings of several of the words you are using. Religious agnosticism you seem to have mostly correct, it is an epistemological view that it's impossible to prove that a diety(or dieties) exist. This is entirely compatable with either atheism or theism, it's not a point on a spectrum. See agnostic theists such as Kierkegaard.
Atheism is a simple word, the a- prefix means not. The word means not theist... that's all. You appear to be attacking a strawman definition of atheism that involves "stating outright that there isn't one". This belief is held by a small subset but far from all atheists.
It is not at all surprising that there is a negative reaction to this sort of strawman characterization of a large group based on the beliefs of a small subset. If you were to say that all Christians believe that the earth is 6000 years old you might expect a similar negative response to that mis-characterization of a large group based on the beliefs of a small subset.
I would think that one would abbreviate the analog of ATP as ATAs- it can't very well be TriPhosphate anymore...
It turns out they are both at the end of a (very long) cul-de-sac.
There is no shortage of politicians from both parties who claim to be for term limits! By a strange coincidence, they almost always happen to be running against an incumbent who has held office for a long time. For example, George Nethercutt defeated the sitting Speaker of the House in a campaign with term limits as a central issue. In the course of that campaign, Nethercutt solemnly promised to serve no more than three terms (six years), unlike his long-serving opponent. Opposition to term limits was a major reason for his victory, and the people spoke!
Nethercutt served in that office for five terms (ten years).
Let's invert this.
Could Congress constitutionally pass a bill imposing a truly flat tax of a fixed amount on all citizens in the amount of [the penalty for not buying insurance]?
Could Congress constitutionally pass a bill granting the amount of [the penalty for not buying insurance] to each citizen who has health insurance?
If your answers are yes and yes, we're arguing semantics because that's exactly equivalent to imposing a penalty for not buying insurance. If your answers are yes and no, are you equally enraged about the recent bill granting [an even larger amount of money] on the condition that you purchased a home for the first time? If you answered no to the first question, it would appear you just think taxation is unconstitutional.
Yeah, if only we'd adopted the entirety of the Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States back in 1790, a foot would actually equal 10 inches and the rest of the world might well be measuring using those units, rather than the system the French implemented slightly later. Ah well, at least we were the first to decimalize currency (With the arguable exception of Russia) as a result of that report.
Don't tell me, they bought another school for half a billion?
... or inspire a debate on the true meaning of "ironic" but having the head of a leading aerospace firm and the former head of NASA die on an airplane seems kind of, well, ironic.
It would seem that you are not aware that Sean O'Keefe survived the crash.
His many levels of experience in Aviation gave him the ability to take less damage from plane crashes. Alternatively, it may just be that I've played too many RPGs.
Clearly, we must use the traditional description, and say that they have "huge tracts of land". That should avoid any dirty connotations, if you know what I mean.
I agree that Regan advocated for and implemented a lot of the excesses of the early 80s- but I think his boss, Ronald Reagan, is the one who should be held responsible.
How do you figure that Canada has a higher per capita military presence in Afghanistan than does the US? Official ISAF troop contribution statisics are 2830 from Canada and 62415 from the United States. The total populations of the two countries differ only by about a factor of ten.
If the question is what proportion of the population has military experience, your sample set of the people you met while working in the military just might not be representative of the Canadian population as a whole...
Interesting, but that same site indicates that the average number of nights in January with a minimum temperature below -30C is 2.1. They don't even bother to list how many average below -40C, but it would be far less than that (10C is a big difference!)
It's quite clear that -40C is not typical for a Tuesday in January in Edmonton- in fact, when it gets that low it gets local press coverage as a notable event, analogous to what this earthquake is getting!