30 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
Leave "Terrestrialism at the Threshold"
Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form—and the local human passions and conditions and standards—are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good a...Folksonomies: anti-humanism
Folksonomies: anti-humanism
1 03 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
The Need for Explorative Education Tracking
Governments, employers, and other interested third parties still look to traditional institutions of education to verify that learning has taken place. Schools and colleges thus play the same centralized, closed system role that banks do in the financial system. Like banks that ensure the validity and authenticity of financial transactions, educational institutions award degrees of completion that “validate” (albeit poorly) that a particular learner has learned a certain skill, competency...24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Gedankenexperiment
However, the subject need not be an esoteric one for a gedankenexperiment to be fruitful. My own favorite is Galileo’s proof that, contrary to Aristotle’s view, objects of different mass fall in a vacuum with the same acceleration. One might think that a real experiment needs to be conducted to test that hypothesis, but Galileo simply asked us to consider a large and a small stone tied together by a very light string. If Aristotle was right, the large stone should speed up the smaller one...Folksonomies: thought experiment testability
Folksonomies: thought experiment testability
Gino Segre on the importance and validity of "thought-experiments," using Galileo's disproof of objects falling at different rates as an example.
10 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Questioning the Milgram Experiment
It appeared that sixty-five percent of people would torture someone to death, if pressured to do so. The results made their way into both psychology and cocktail party conversation. But were they correct? At least one woman doesn't think so. Gina Perry, for her book, Behind the Shock Machine, traced as many participants in the Milgram experiment as she could, and re-examined the notes of the experiment. Milgram claimed that seventy-five percent of the participants believed in the reality of t...Folksonomies: psychology ethics
Folksonomies: psychology ethics
1 
notes
notesThese questions raise an even greater objection to the validity of the experiment. If the results cannot be reproduced, because the experiment was unethical, then we shouldn't cite it a evidence of anything every. Science demands reproducible results, and without replication we do not have evidence.
09 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Humanism is Grounded in Empirical Reality
We base our understanding of the world on what we can perceive with our senses and comprehend with our minds. Anything that is said to make sense should make sense to us as humans; else there is no reason for it to be the basis of our decisions and actions. Supposed transcendent knowledge or intuitions that are said to reach beyond human comprehension cannot instruct us because we cannot relate concretely to them. The way in which humans accept supposed transcendent or religious knowledge is ...Folksonomies: humanism empiricism
Folksonomies: humanism empiricism
1 notes
notesRevealed knowledge serves no purpose because it is not shared by everyone.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Importance of Peer Review
Nobody knows more than a tiny fragment of science well enough to judge its validity and value at first hand. For the rest he has to rely on views accepted at second hand on the authority of a community of people accredited as scientists. But this accrediting depends in its turn on a complex organization. For each member of the community can judge at first hand only a small number of his fellow members, and yet eventually each is accredited by all. What happens is that each recognizes as scien...Folksonomies: science peer review
Folksonomies: science peer review
1 notes
notesEach of us can only understand a small portion of science, thus we need a collaboration of mind to determine truth.
29 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Geologists VS Physicists on the Age of the Earth
Geologists have not been slow to admit that they were in error in assuming that they had an eternity of past time for the evolution of the earth's history. They have frankly acknowledged the validity of the physical arguments which go to place more or less definite limits to the antiquity of the earth. They were, on the whole, disposed to acquiesce in the allowance of 100 millions of years granted to them by Lord Kelvin, for the transaction of the whole of the long cycles of geological histor... 1 notes
notesGeologists argued for a much older Earth than the Physicists allowed for.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Political Environmental Conundrum
Action regarding the environment requires objectivity, precision, accuracy, validity, replication, constructive criticism, and consensus. Scientists, engineers, and economists have to stay focused on putting accurate data into the hands of decision makers, while they explain their findings to the public, which, in the end, wields decisive power in a free society. Mechanisms must be developed to transform highly technical findings into governmental and economic policies.
If we can reach a po...Folksonomies: politics environmentalism
Folksonomies: politics environmentalism
1 notes
notesGingrich succinctly explains the political, scientific, and media schisms that promote inaction concerning environmental issues.
14 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
The False Dichotomy of Mind and Body
The arguments for the two substances [mind and body] have, we believe, entirely lost their validity; they are no longer compatible with ascertained science and clear thinking. The one substance, with two sets of properties, two sides, the physical and the mental—a double-faced unity—would appear to comply with all the exigencies of the case. 1 notes
notesIt is silly to have two substances, where there is actually one substance with two properties.
18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The Judges Become the Judged
36. When, under stress of pain, the witch has confessed, her
plight is indescribable. Not only cannot she escape herself,
but she is also compelled to accuse others whom she does
not know, whose names are frequently put into her mouth
by the investigators or suggested by the executioner, or of
whom she has heard as suspected or accused. These in turn
are forced to accuse others, and these still others, so it goes
on: who can help seeing that it must go on and on?
37. The judges must either s...Folksonomies: witch hunts paranoia
Folksonomies: witch hunts paranoia
1 notes
notesIn Witch Hunts, eventually you run out of people to prosecute, and you become the guilty.
