🚀 go-pugleaf

This is getting ripe.

In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>The only distinction between much science fiction and science fact is the
>distinction between past and future.

No. Much of the speculation doesn't turn out, and much of reality turns out
to be unexpected. 

>     (1) DeBroglie writes a two page thesis discussing the matter-wave
>         duality.
>	 It took Einstein having seen the paper for it to be rescued.

Thank you for demonstrating that it is the scientists who are creative and
who are open to new paradigms. 

>         And even
>	 today Physicists get around having to accept the implications
>	 of the theory by the old trick: "well Newton was right to a
>	 first approximation."

Have you ever met a physicist ? Seriously ?

>     (2) For two hundred years or so, historians ...

I thought we were talking about science.

>     (3) For all the time that the bio-medical paradigm has been dominant
>	 in the health fields, alternate methods were never considered.

Practically every aspect of modern medicine is an alternate method, compared
to the way things were done a century ago. Or were you under the impression
that laser surgery, x-rays, and vaccination date back to the Pharoahs ?

>	 And now, we have the "Growth Factors" ..

Discovered the hard way by people who are disciplined researchers. They
would strongly resent your counting them as "alternate". They carry on the
tradition of scientific integrity and of high standards of proof.

>	 Yet they chose
>	 to initiate a slur campaign, solely because the man (Velikovsky)
>	 threatened the paradign of Gradualism and because he dared to
>	 question the Universal validity of Newton's law of gravity.
>	 Never mind whether his hypothesis (or paradigm) was tenable or
>	 not.  It did not matter. 

Velikovsky was self-evidently wrong, and he is still wrong. This can be
shown in several independent ways, any of which is enough to constitute
total disproof. The astronomers knew this. Velikovsky refused to modify his
theories to fit the facts. (Facts which have since been reaffirmed, not
refuted.) I don't find that admirable.

>	 Never mind that the very same kind of hypothesis has been 
>	 invoked to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs.  

No, it hasn't. Try reading more carefully.

>   Science is filled with bullshit detectors that have not used adequately
>   on themselves.

Crap. You try talking to some graduate students. They are looking for a hole
in the current theories, which they can expose, thus becoming famous. Just
how do you think weirdo stuff like quantam mechanics was discovered ?
Because of a hidebound resistance to change, I suppose.

>One can go on endlessly speaking about the immutable "outer reality" that
>none of us have direct access to.  It's irrelevant, because
>(1) It might not be there,
>(2) It does not NEED to be there, because we are doing just fine as it is.

What a lousy scientist you'd make. We're interested: if you're doing fine
without the knowledge we seek, why not shut up ?

>Then I must be the first of the bunch, which is very strange since I'm known
>to be highly gifted in many fields with knowledge that is both broad and deep.
>

You certainly haven't demonstrated that here. And by the way, it's not
spelled "hypocritism".

>And yet, despite the fact that this shows
>there to be nothing inherently absurd about Astrology, many scientists will 
>scoff just at hearing the very idea.  

The idea that planets influence you is subject to calculation, and hence can
be proved (and has been proved) absurd. On that count, they are fully
justified.  The idea that personality is correlated with birth season is
subject to study by survey. It has been done, and has also been found wrong.
(I won't say "proved" - I have standards. ) Maybe you need better BS
detectors, or maybe a better acquaintance with fact.

>Pardon me for the analysis, but I see a specialist who feels threatened by
>outsiders impringing on his "Sacred" knowledge -- which is why he speaks
>of them with such unwarranted hostility.

Who said I'm a specialist ? I learn. I continue to learn. I dislike the
pseudo because it wishes to avoid knowledge, while pretending to seek it.
I suppose you think astrology has made headway in the last century ?

And yes, I feel hostile. I don't like slander and insult and misinformation.

I also don't like protracted debates, so I will not reply publicly to any
rebuttal you may have.
-- 
	Don		lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu    CMU Computer Science