Anonymous Quotes to be Checked
Date: Fri Mar 26 1993 11:22:08
From: Mark Arvid Johnson
To: Leslie Rhorer
Subj: Re: Ozone hole
Attr:
science -------------------------------
-> Quoting Leslie Rhorer to Mark Arvid Johnson <- MAJ> I thought the scientific method involved people dispassionately
LR> Dispassionately? No, not necessarily. Objectively, yes.
You cannot be `objective' without being `dispassionate!' Examine the
following quote from a 1990 AP story about a museum display in London
devoted to 300 years of famous fakes and forgeries,viz.
"Mark Jones, an expert on coins and medals who assembled the fakes
from 26 museums in Britain and abroad, said the exhibition was "about
deception, about lying things whenever and wherever they are made.
"It's evidence of what people saw and valued in the art of the past
because a faked antique shows much more clearly than the real thing what
collectors valued. Fakes often reflect what people want to believe," he
said.
"When we fall in love we aren't totally rational in assessing our
loved one's qualities," Jones said. "You can fall in love with an object
but others will see through it because they don't share your love for
it."
You cannot be `obective' about a theory for are emotionally attached to.
MA> slightest bit of
MA> evidence against a theory, conclusively proven, conclusively disp
MA> that theory.
LR>Yes, but that does not mean that one simply discards the theor
LR>toto. Obviously, if the theory explains a great many
LR>things well, it is absurd to simply discard it if there is
LR>no better theory yet extant.
Nonsense. Evolutionists discarded the only extant theory about polonium
radiohalos because the conclusions were unacceptabe to them. Examine the
following quote from _The Skeptical Enquirer_, a pro-evolutionary
magazine:
"It is true that the halos are a tiny mystery, but all scientist who are
not creationist, as well as many creationist, expect the mystery to be
solved either by some overlooked aspect of of nuclear physics or by some
unusual geologic process"
The fact that Polonium halos exist at all indicates that the rock
containing them were formed very rapidly, and radiohalos in general
according to the physicists are much smaller than they should be if the
the rocks were as old as the geologist say. Yet the most obvious theory -
that the radiohalos indicate the earth is much yonger than previously
thought, is dismissed out of hand even without ANY alternate theory to
explain the existance of the radiohalos.
LR> What it DOES mean is that if
LR>we can't make the theory work by modifying it (which is the
LR>most usual case in such circumstances),
Any theory can be forced and twisted by special pleading to fit the facts,
but the question is does the theory ACCURATELY explain ALL the facts.
LR>even that is necessary. Many theories have areas where
LR>they work and areas where they do not. For example,
LR>Newton's theories work famously at low velocities, low
LR>accelerations, and under moderate gravity, so we still use
LR>them. Maxwell's equations work perfectly for EM
LR>frequencies substantially less than that of visible light,
LR>so when you build a radio, you talk to Maxwell, not to
LR>Planck.
Modern ENGINEERS use Newton's and Maxwell's work because they work in the
REAL world, but have long been abandoned as valid or accurate THEORIES by
modern SCIENTISTS