Most of the greatest minds have at one point been in fundamental disagreement with a larger community.
And just as often, most of the greatest minds have been at one point in fundamental disagreement with each other. I.e., they're often wrong. One aspect of being great is daring to make great mistakes.
However, the argument here is about Wikipedia being cited. Citing primary sources will not change whether or not the professor is in fundamental disagreement with the larger community. That said, primary sources are what the students should be using for their own research. One should not cite Wikipedia any more than one should cite Encyclopedia Brittanica - except for those very few rare cases, if any, where Wikipedia might actually be the primary source.
That does at least make it a better analogy. I also like your bit about Prince John. Seems a bit too clever for someone named after a feline. Did you steal this particular bit of intellectual property?
It's an amazing thing really -- putting all your work out there for review (essentially before AND after publication), for the simple satisfaction that you have made a contribution to the knowledgebase.
OK, let's be honest here. The reason we do it is not merely for that "simple satisfaction" (although there is some of that). If you're possibly going to be looking for a job in the near future, you need to be published - often and recently. If you're trying to get tenure, you need to be published. If you've got tenure, then, well, you don't need to be published, but it certainly helps your bargaining position if you're looking for pay increases, etc.
I agree with you that they clearly do not define it as an *inalienable* right as it can be taken away from you in case of invasion or rebellion. That does not mean it's not a right. (If "right" implied "inalienable", then why would anyone use the phrase "inalienable right"?) In fact, as I'm sure you recall, Gonzales himself used the word "right" when paraphrasing that part of the Constitution. (Do you, or do you not, think think that Gonzales' statement was stupid?)
Now, let's look again at what Gonzales said, and for sake of argument we'll replace his word "right" with "privilege":
The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the [privilege] of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the [privilege] shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion.
Can you make any sense out of that? How does saying a privilege shall not be suspended except in cases of X or Y not imply that you have that privilege except in cases of X or Y?
Maybe you want to play the game of let's fix Gonzales' statement to be what you want it to be:
The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the [privilege] shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion.
Does that still make any sense? Forget the semantic games, look at it pragmatically. From any practical point-of-view, what is he trying to say? Is he trying to imply that the Constitution was just being coy? That it's just stating that this privilege only exists in case of rebellion or invasion so that's the only time it can be suspened? Seriously, what in the world is he trying to say that makes any sense to you? Can you put it in your own words so that it makes some sense?
However, please keep in mind that what Gonzales did not say (and it seems you're implying) is that he was talking about a case of rebellion or invasion.
The energies that will be created in the LHC happen on a daily basis in our upper atmosphere. The only difference is that we will have detectors in the immediate vicinity.
Right. It makes sense "logically" (as in the computer science sense of the term only), but it doesn't make sense "logically" (as in the common sense use of the term). Furthermore, one could argue that English is a context-sensitive language (as opposed to context-free - and yes, I'm abusing the word "context" in an extraordinary rendition kind-of-way), and hence from the context (including the fact that it was built on Common Law, which includes the right of habeas corpus), the statement that you can't take away that right except in case of rebellion or invasion is a clear admittal of said right of habeas corpus. There's a reason that English isn't used as a specification language, of course.
Marbury v Madison was also the first case of Judicial Activism from the Supreme Court....
Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.
-TJ
The thing that a lot of people who complain about judicial activism seem to fail to realize (although I suspect it's not eluded your notice) is that 7 out of the 9 Justices were appointed by Republican presidents. That was true before GWB took office, and it's still true today.
You're splitting hairs that not even Gonzales split. Look at his own words: "It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion."
Do you actually think it's not a right, or are you just playing devil's advocate?
a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor
So, if we're going to get all technical, this is a right that was granted (as opposed to an inalienable right, perhaps). Therefore, Gonzales is wrong when he says "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus." No matter how you slice it, he's wrong - unless you're going to start arguing about what the definition of "is" is. (As in, technically, it doesn't say that, but it sure as hell implied that when it said the right/privilege could not be suspended. What do you think they meant, if not that the right/privilege was there in the first place?)
And in this case, what he's saying isn't stupid [or] treasonous, just a bit lawyery.
Did you actually read what he said? Here's the choicest part:
The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion.
Now, come on. Doesn't that at least qualify as *stupid*?
You'll notice that Specter gave him that out. Specter said:
The Constitution says you can't take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there's a rebellion or invasion?
Now, did Gonzales say "well there is a rebellion or invasion", or even "um, and in war!"? No, he said:
The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion.
Although there were only 6 Justices when the Constitution first went into effect, there were 10 Justices at the end of the Civil War (9 at the beginning), and are currently 9.
Furthermore, it was Marbury v. Madison that establshed the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter - in 1803.
I can't remember who was arguing the point, but in an IEEE publication someone brought up the interesting point that if you depend on the law to be too exact, you're basically giving criminals the ability to "hack" the system. I would suspect that writing a perfect law is as easy as writing code that will determine whether an arbitrary program will halt. That's why you want (good) judges to have the ability to "interpret" the law. Obviously, this suffers from the problem that bad judges also have the ability to interpret the law.
Now remember, you have to use real tin. Aluminum does not protect you from the Government's mind-control rays.;)
Seriously - with a Republican controlled Congress (until very recently, of course) and a Republican in the White House this "conspiracy" is still going on? Must be some powerful stuff.
Of course, the last time I used them was in elementary school.:) (We had a really cool teacher who taught some of us binary and hexadecimal stuff in 6th grade.)
When I want to sound older than I am, I also mention that the first president I voted for was Gerald Ford. Of course, as with the punch cards, it was in elementary school. It was the start of an excellent track record, too. I voted for Ford vs. Carter, then Carter vs. Reagan, Mondale vs. Reagan, Dukakis vs. Bush I, Clinton vs. Bush I (only "winner" I picked), Dole vs. Clinton, Gore vs. Bush, and Kerry vs. Bush (or, more accurately, anti-Bush vs. anti-Kerry). I'm batting 0.125.
About 5 years will have passed on Earth. This would not be merely academic, either. If you started to decelerate at the half-way point, it would take you almost 3.6 years to make the trip (both the acceleration and deceleration require general relativity and not just special relativity), and more than 5.9 years will have passed on Earth. If you then returned back to Earth, using the same strategy, you would be 4.7 years younger than your twin that you left behind.
A more interesting thought is of visiting Betelgeuse (pronounced "beetle juice"), which is about 520 light-years away. Accelerating for half the trip at 1 g, then decelerating, and returning with the same method, requires a total round-trip time of about 24.4 years, as experienced by the traveler. On Earth, well over a thousand years (~1,044) will have passed.
Every study I've seen has shown that there is a statistical correlation between the levels of estrogen in the body, and the interest in math & science. The more estrogen, the less interested the subject becomes (for both boys and girls.)
I've not seen any such studies, and I'd be interested in reading them. Do you have any links? I tried searching scirus.com and only came up with links like this one and this one. (That is, not particularly relevant.)
Actually, using Google Scholar, I did find this PDF (from a law school professor) that suggests what you mention. From that article, I was able to use scirus to find this abstract (from the journal Neuroscience) which supports your position.
I guess it is somewhat indicative of the nature of the beast that although I've also published in Neuroscience, I've never heard of these studies.
As you approach the speed of light, an equal amount of force (the "g" that you're feeling) results in diminishing acceleration. The figures I gave were for a constant force rather than for a constant acceleration (from the Earth frame of reference).
An alternative way to view it is that at any given point, you are accelerating away from the frame of reference that is traveling at the same speed as you (but that is not accelerating), at 9.8 m/s^2. Of course, this reference frame is, by definition, at rest, so you can never accelerate past the speed of light. Since velocities near the speed of light do not add linearly, you will also never exceed the speed of light from the reference frame of Earth.
It seems to me that if I was on that ship, I'd briefly turn off the engines (and risk radiation poisoning, particle damage), quickly turn the ship around the other way (lots of ways this can be achieved without engines), and then turn the engine back on. Voilà! Instant deceleration! Of course, I guess that might have made the story less interesting.
Actually, you can travel a light year in significantly less than a year, depending on how one defines "light year" and "year". For example, if you accelerated at 1 g towards Alpha Centauri (fun fact: 1 g is just over 1 ly/yr^2!), you would reach Alpha Centauri in about 2.25 years. Of course, looking back the original distance of 4 light years would now be shortened (thanks to that fella Lorentz). Bonus fact: as you pass Alpha Centauri, you will be covering 5 light years (as measured in the Earth frame of reference) per year (as measured in your own frame of reference)!
Slashdot Mirror
And just as often, most of the greatest minds have been at one point in fundamental disagreement with each other. I.e., they're often wrong. One aspect of being great is daring to make great mistakes.
However, the argument here is about Wikipedia being cited. Citing primary sources will not change whether or not the professor is in fundamental disagreement with the larger community. That said, primary sources are what the students should be using for their own research. One should not cite Wikipedia any more than one should cite Encyclopedia Brittanica - except for those very few rare cases, if any, where Wikipedia might actually be the primary source.
That does at least make it a better analogy. I also like your bit about Prince John. Seems a bit too clever for someone named after a feline. Did you steal this particular bit of intellectual property?
I wouldn't really consider it a racket, either. It just appears that way when you frame it a certain way.
OK, let's be honest here. The reason we do it is not merely for that "simple satisfaction" (although there is some of that). If you're possibly going to be looking for a job in the near future, you need to be published - often and recently. If you're trying to get tenure, you need to be published. If you've got tenure, then, well, you don't need to be published, but it certainly helps your bargaining position if you're looking for pay increases, etc.
Still, it's a racket.What I love is that they called it the "Robin Hood" effect. Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor - not to himself.
I agree with you that they clearly do not define it as an *inalienable* right as it can be taken away from you in case of invasion or rebellion. That does not mean it's not a right. (If "right" implied "inalienable", then why would anyone use the phrase "inalienable right"?) In fact, as I'm sure you recall, Gonzales himself used the word "right" when paraphrasing that part of the Constitution. (Do you, or do you not, think think that Gonzales' statement was stupid?)
Now, let's look again at what Gonzales said, and for sake of argument we'll replace his word "right" with "privilege":
Can you make any sense out of that? How does saying a privilege shall not be suspended except in cases of X or Y not imply that you have that privilege except in cases of X or Y?Maybe you want to play the game of let's fix Gonzales' statement to be what you want it to be:
Does that still make any sense? Forget the semantic games, look at it pragmatically. From any practical point-of-view, what is he trying to say? Is he trying to imply that the Constitution was just being coy? That it's just stating that this privilege only exists in case of rebellion or invasion so that's the only time it can be suspened? Seriously, what in the world is he trying to say that makes any sense to you? Can you put it in your own words so that it makes some sense?However, please keep in mind that what Gonzales did not say (and it seems you're implying) is that he was talking about a case of rebellion or invasion.
The energies that will be created in the LHC happen on a daily basis in our upper atmosphere. The only difference is that we will have detectors in the immediate vicinity.
Not at all. You merely have to project one of the dimensions down so that you're only considering a 10-dimensional space.
Right. It makes sense "logically" (as in the computer science sense of the term only), but it doesn't make sense "logically" (as in the common sense use of the term). Furthermore, one could argue that English is a context-sensitive language (as opposed to context-free - and yes, I'm abusing the word "context" in an extraordinary rendition kind-of-way), and hence from the context (including the fact that it was built on Common Law, which includes the right of habeas corpus), the statement that you can't take away that right except in case of rebellion or invasion is a clear admittal of said right of habeas corpus. There's a reason that English isn't used as a specification language, of course.
The thing that a lot of people who complain about judicial activism seem to fail to realize (although I suspect it's not eluded your notice) is that 7 out of the 9 Justices were appointed by Republican presidents. That was true before GWB took office, and it's still true today.
You're splitting hairs that not even Gonzales split. Look at his own words: "It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion."
Do you actually think it's not a right, or are you just playing devil's advocate?
Note also the definition of privilege:
So, if we're going to get all technical, this is a right that was granted (as opposed to an inalienable right, perhaps). Therefore, Gonzales is wrong when he says "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus." No matter how you slice it, he's wrong - unless you're going to start arguing about what the definition of "is" is. (As in, technically, it doesn't say that, but it sure as hell implied that when it said the right/privilege could not be suspended. What do you think they meant, if not that the right/privilege was there in the first place?)
I think you're thinking of Slartibartfast.
Did you actually read what he said? Here's the choicest part:
Now, come on. Doesn't that at least qualify as *stupid*?
Although there were only 6 Justices when the Constitution first went into effect, there were 10 Justices at the end of the Civil War (9 at the beginning), and are currently 9.
Furthermore, it was Marbury v. Madison that establshed the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter - in 1803.
I can't remember who was arguing the point, but in an IEEE publication someone brought up the interesting point that if you depend on the law to be too exact, you're basically giving criminals the ability to "hack" the system. I would suspect that writing a perfect law is as easy as writing code that will determine whether an arbitrary program will halt. That's why you want (good) judges to have the ability to "interpret" the law. Obviously, this suffers from the problem that bad judges also have the ability to interpret the law.
They should castrate anyone who clips off someone's fingers.
Now remember, you have to use real tin. Aluminum does not protect you from the Government's mind-control rays. ;)
Seriously - with a Republican controlled Congress (until very recently, of course) and a Republican in the White House this "conspiracy" is still going on? Must be some powerful stuff.
Of course, the last time I used them was in elementary school. :) (We had a really cool teacher who taught some of us binary and hexadecimal stuff in 6th grade.)
When I want to sound older than I am, I also mention that the first president I voted for was Gerald Ford. Of course, as with the punch cards, it was in elementary school. It was the start of an excellent track record, too. I voted for Ford vs. Carter, then Carter vs. Reagan, Mondale vs. Reagan, Dukakis vs. Bush I, Clinton vs. Bush I (only "winner" I picked), Dole vs. Clinton, Gore vs. Bush, and Kerry vs. Bush (or, more accurately, anti-Bush vs. anti-Kerry). I'm batting 0.125.
About 5 years will have passed on Earth. This would not be merely academic, either. If you started to decelerate at the half-way point, it would take you almost 3.6 years to make the trip (both the acceleration and deceleration require general relativity and not just special relativity), and more than 5.9 years will have passed on Earth. If you then returned back to Earth, using the same strategy, you would be 4.7 years younger than your twin that you left behind.
A more interesting thought is of visiting Betelgeuse (pronounced "beetle juice"), which is about 520 light-years away. Accelerating for half the trip at 1 g, then decelerating, and returning with the same method, requires a total round-trip time of about 24.4 years, as experienced by the traveler. On Earth, well over a thousand years (~1,044) will have passed.
I've not seen any such studies, and I'd be interested in reading them. Do you have any links? I tried searching scirus.com and only came up with links like this one and this one. (That is, not particularly relevant.)
Actually, using Google Scholar, I did find this PDF (from a law school professor) that suggests what you mention. From that article, I was able to use scirus to find this abstract (from the journal Neuroscience) which supports your position.
I guess it is somewhat indicative of the nature of the beast that although I've also published in Neuroscience, I've never heard of these studies.
As you approach the speed of light, an equal amount of force (the "g" that you're feeling) results in diminishing acceleration. The figures I gave were for a constant force rather than for a constant acceleration (from the Earth frame of reference).
An alternative way to view it is that at any given point, you are accelerating away from the frame of reference that is traveling at the same speed as you (but that is not accelerating), at 9.8 m/s^2. Of course, this reference frame is, by definition, at rest, so you can never accelerate past the speed of light. Since velocities near the speed of light do not add linearly, you will also never exceed the speed of light from the reference frame of Earth.
It seems to me that if I was on that ship, I'd briefly turn off the engines (and risk radiation poisoning, particle damage), quickly turn the ship around the other way (lots of ways this can be achieved without engines), and then turn the engine back on. Voilà! Instant deceleration! Of course, I guess that might have made the story less interesting.
Haven't you read "Rodney has four grandfathers"?
Actually, you can travel a light year in significantly less than a year, depending on how one defines "light year" and "year". For example, if you accelerated at 1 g towards Alpha Centauri (fun fact: 1 g is just over 1 ly/yr^2!), you would reach Alpha Centauri in about 2.25 years. Of course, looking back the original distance of 4 light years would now be shortened (thanks to that fella Lorentz). Bonus fact: as you pass Alpha Centauri, you will be covering 5 light years (as measured in the Earth frame of reference) per year (as measured in your own frame of reference)!
See, Einstein wasn't so mean after all.