08 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Science is Monism
Monism is the default worldview of natural science. In science, an explanation has to be grounded in empirical evidence. In a slightly different take, for a statement to be considered a scientific explanation, it must be falsifiable—there has to be some kind of test that could be applied to the statement to prove it wrong. For example, the statement that the moon is made of cheese is a scientific statement because it can be falsified. Facts can be brought to bear on the claim (such as the d... 1 
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notesScientific statements must be falsifiable.
20 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Learning About Forestry
How to start on my adventure—how to become a forester—was not so simple. There were no schools of Forestry in America. ... Whoever turned his mind toward Forestry in those days thought little about the forest itself and more about its influences, and about its influence on rainfall first of all. So I took a course in meteorology, which has to do with weather and climate. and another in botany, which has to do with the vegetable kingdom—trees are unquestionably vegetable. And another in ... 1 notes
notesHow Pinchot studied forestry, a subject that did not exist in his time, so he studied meteorology, geology, and botany.
12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Nature is a vast tablet, inscribed with signs
Nature is a vast tablet, inscribed with signs, each of which has its own significancy, and becomes poetry in the mind when read; and geology is simply the key by which myriads of these signs, hitherto indecipherable, can be unlocked and perused, and thus a new province added to the poetical domain. 
1 Geologists can read those symbols.
30 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Where Scientific Ideas Come From
No Geologist worth anything is permanently bound to a desk or laboratory, but the charming notion that true science can only be based on unbiased observation of nature in the raw is mythology. Creative work, in geology and anywhere else, is interaction and synthesis: half-baked ideas from a bar room, rocks in the field, chains of thought from lonely walks, numbers squeezed from rocks in a laboratory, numbers from a calculator riveted to a desk, fancy equipment usually malfunctioning on expens... 1 notes
notesNot just study, but long walks, arguments in bars, and all the ways fine art is produced.
29 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Geology is a Healthy Science
Apart from its healthful mental training as a branch of ordinary education, geology as an open-air pursuit affords an admirable training in habits of observation, furnishes a delightful relief from the cares and routine of everyday life, takes us into the open fields and the free fresh face of nature, leads us into all manner of sequestered nooks, whither hardly any other occupation or interest would be likely to send us, sets before us problems of the highest interest regarding the history o...Folksonomies: geology
Folksonomies: geology
1 notes
notesIt gets you out in the open air and trains you in virtues of observation.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Darwin and Abraham Lincoln Were Born on the Same Day
Charles Darwin (fig. 4.1) was bom on the same day as Abraham Lincoln—February 12,1809. Like Lincoln, he was a liberating force for humankind, but instead of freeing people from slavery, he freed biology from the bondage of supernaturalism. Philosophers of science have long pointed to Darwinian evolution as the greatest scientific revolution within biology, comparable to the role of Newton's or Einstein's revolutionary ideas in physics or the plate tectonics revolution in geology. Before Dar... 1 notes
notesAnd they both freed humans from chains that bound them.
01 FEB 2012 by ideonexus
To Spend 20 Years on an Epic Poem
I should not think of devoting less than 20 years to an Epic Poem. Ten to collect materials and warm my mind with universal science. I would be a tolerable Mathematician, I would thoroughly know Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Optics, and Astronomy, Botany, Metallurgy, Fossilism, Chemistry, Geology, Anatomy, Medicine—then the mind of man—then the minds of men—in all Travels, Voyages and Histories. So I would spend ten years—the next five to the composition of the poem—and the five last to ...Folksonomies: research
Folksonomies: research
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notesColeridge's described process sounds like scientific research, which is equally intense and epic.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Keep Your Dreams Sane
In geology we cannot dispense with conjectures: [but] because we are condemned to dream let us ensure that our dreams are like those of sane men—e.g. that they have their foundations in truth—and are not like the dreams of the sick, formed by strange combinations of phantasms, contrary to nature and therefore incredible. Folksonomies: empiricism imagination
Folksonomies: empiricism imagination
1 notes
notesIn science, conjectures must be sound and not devolve into flights of fancy.
13 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
Evidence in Geology is Overwhelming
The gradual advance of Geology, during the last twenty years, to the dignity of a science, has arisen from the laborious and extensive collection of facts, and from the enlightened spirit in which the inductions founded on those facts have been deduced and discussed. To those who are unacquainted with this science, or indeed to any person not deeply versed in the history of this and kindred subjects, it is impossible to convey a just impression of the nature of that evidence by which a multit... 1 notes
notesIn the layers of geological strata are written more evidence than any human witness could bare.
30 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
Geology is Like Putting a Puzzle Together
The world is the geologist's great puzzle-box; he stands before it like the child to whom the separate pieces of his puzzle remain a mystery till he detects their relation and sees where they fit, and then his fragments grow at once into a connected picture beneath his hand. 1 notes
notes...to find a complete picture form under the scientist's hands.
