🚀 go-pugleaf

>Read Omni instead of Scientific American.  It's much better because it has 
>all things Futuristic in it, be they science fact or science fiction (i.e.
>science yet-to-be-fact).

Don't read Omni. On the science side, it's for people who want to think they
are thinking.  It doesn't want to confuse the issues with mere facts.  On
the science fiction side, it can be good, but I find paperbacks a better
buy.

Do buy Scientific American. A Harvard Lampoon editor once said:  "The secret
of a good lampoon is to have better writing than the original.  That's why
we never did a Scientific American."

One reason it <<looks>> smaller is because they switched to thinner paper.
-- 
	Don		lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu    CMU Computer Science

In article <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
> Read Omni instead of Scientific American.  It's much better because it has 
> all things Futuristic in it, be they science fact or science fiction (i.e.
> science yet-to-be-fact).


I have read, and enjoyed many pieces of fiction in Omni.  A few of them
even had a note attached indicating that they were fiction.

I have read Omni cover to cover a couple of times.  I found *damn* little
science.
-- 
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

In article <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>Read Omni instead of Scientific American.  It's much better because it has 
>all things Futuristic in it, be they science fact or science fiction (i.e.
>science yet-to-be-fact).

... particularily, this months issue had an interesting article discussing
the research being done on a hot topic in Immunology : Growth Factors.
Possible outgrowths of this up-and-coming medical revolution are:

	 Fast healing (esp. for post-surgical treatment),
	 Treatment of memory disorders,
	 Controlling the white blood cell count (**already achieved**),
	 Controlling male sterility/ male contraceptive
	 Controlling cell growth
		 - understanding biogenesis, how cells divide & differentiate,
		 - understanding cancer, what triggers cell growth

The list goes on. A Nobel prize has already been awarded in this field (1986).

The magazine successfully deals with the issue of distinguishing between
Pseudo-Science and Science by not making it.  This is good for free-thinkers
whose minds are not constrained by hypocritical attitudes about knowledge
that they cannot go off on a random search into the unknown.  

As they (should) say, the only way to new knowledge is to improve a Pseudo-
Science until it becomes established as a Science (e.g. Physics, Psychology).
Omni provides a forum for that.

In article <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
> Read Omni instead of Scientific American.  It's much better because it has 
> all things Futuristic in it, be they science fact or science fiction (i.e.
> science yet-to-be-fact).

	Omni, unlike Scientific American, erodes the scientific ethos, which
I care about, and you should too unless you want to be Japanese vassals...


	Science is not facts. It's not theories. It's most certainly not 
pretty images. It's a world view based on a class of bullshit detectors...


It has no place for democratic determinations of what is the case; thus, 
Omni's UFO "reportage" is, in the absence of convincing evidence, mere 
pandering, more comparable to the supermarket tabloids than to Sci Am.

That's why I think Omni is a sort of Trojan Horse for the marching morons.


(UFO believers please flame me in talk.bizarre or /dev/null!)

Cheers,
	Ed

In article <2790@gryphon.CTS.COM>, edk@gryphon.CTS.COM (Ed Kaulakis) writes:
> In article <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
> > Read Omni instead of Scientific American.  It's much better because it has 
> > all things Futuristic in it, be they science fact or science fiction (i.e.
> > science yet-to-be-fact).

You should have added, "with no distinction between the two"

> It's a world view based on a class of bullshit detectors...

That is not a bad point. Those I know who read (and preach) Omni,
advocate the removal of your common sense.
> It has no place for democratic determinations of what is the case

Another fine point, science, or shall I say, existance, does not modify
itself due to our opinions.  How we see it may change, how it is, apart
from our looking is no different. 

(yes I know about quantum theory)- even those relationships were there
prior to our finding them.

> Omni's UFO "reportage" is, in the absence of convincing evidence, mere 
> pandering, more comparable to the supermarket tabloids than to Sci Am.
> 
> That's why I think Omni is a sort of Trojan Horse for the marching morons.

Indeed, I can't stand it's glossy national enquirer approach to the
stuff it couches in scientific terms. Are we all going to be armchair
scientific "experts" a-la-Omni?  Lets hope to God NO! 

I spend more time trying to explain to friends why an article is not
all that true, or mere speculation.  They keep thinking I am nuts, since
Omni prints what they like to believe in, then it must be true, and I
am old hat.  

But let us distiguish between epistomology, science, and belief structures.

The Omni-ites I know seem to want to beleive it, wheather it is true or
not, so long as it is what they want to believe.  This is a dangerous
trend and I have seen it spreading!

Perhaps this is not the place for *this* type of discussion, but the
circular reasoning that it involves is down right manipulative and
brain washing.  Moreover, our schools are full of such garbage techniques.

We've all heard how T.V. is geared to the 6th grade mind, and now Omni
wants us to worship the thoughts and dillusions of the same frame of
reference. (so does Dan Rather)  :-)

It is not so bad, *assuming* one is educated enough to catch all the
crap, but lately, crap is all that is fed, (in many circles of influence) 
so some have become used to eating it, and have taken to recommending it
to their friends as Gospel.  

And we wonder why American products and morale are down.. Some of us take
pride in what we do, the rest seem not to care about anything but money.

And the rest of us/life/truth/reality be damned.

(hmm, suddenly I feel a soap-box under my feet, better get down before
 I catch cold up here)

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+ uop!todd@uunet.uu.net                                               + 
+                 cogent!uop!todd@lll-winken.arpa                     + 
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In article <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>Read Omni instead of Scientific American.  It's much better because it has 
>all things Futuristic in it, be they science fact or science fiction (i.e.
>science yet-to-be-fact).

	...or fantasy (eg, the AntiMatter section).  :-)

--
Mark Meyer          USENET: {ut-sally!im4u,convex!smu,sun!texsun}!ti-csl!mmeyer
Texas Instruments, Inc.                                   CSNET : mmeyer@TI-CSL
(SET! TI-RESPONSIBLE-FOR-MSG? #!FALSE)
 "Would it save you all a lot of trouble if I simply gave up and went mad now?"

> We've all heard how T.V. is geared to the 6th grade mind, and now Omni
> wants us to worship the thoughts and dillusions of the same frame of
> reference. (so does Dan Rather)  :-)
> 
It is axiomatic that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence
of the (American) public.  America is the land of LCD, so don't be surprised
at the prolefeed in the media.  To date, however, this LCD orientation has
been the source of America's appeal around the globe.  Just look at what,
besides democracy, the US does export successfully: rock and roll, blue jeans,
movies, and TV.  These are targeted at the common Joe and Jose, so they are 
readily accessible.  If you want more narrowly targeted (i.e., bell curve 
ghetto) information, you'd best look elsewhere.  

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not knocking US culture because I believe that, 
for better or worse, it best reflects the tastes of the bulk of humanity. 
It may not be entirely to your or my liking, but it is undeniably appealing.
The best way to please everybody it to democratize the media, which is 
just what technology is doing.  That way, you need not be restricted
to managed information from biased prettyboy newsreaders like Damn Rather.

Anyway, think about this: Science and art no longer reflect the everyday 
experience of anyone.  It's too abstacted from life.  Don't be surprised
that humans prefer something more in tune with their reality, with a
dash of mystery thrown in.  Humans are basically irrational, not rational.

In article <2790@gryphon.CTS.COM> edk@gryphon.CTS.COM (Ed Kaulakis) writes:
>	Omni, unlike Scientific American, erodes the scientific ethos, which
>I care about, and you should too unless you want to be Japanese vassals...
>	Science is not facts. It's not theories. It's most certainly not 
>pretty images. It's a world view based on a class of bullshit detectors...
>
>It has no place for democratic determinations of what is the case..
>
>That's why I think Omni is a sort of Trojan Horse for the marching morons.


"... Marconi, who discovered radio, because he had accidentally been working
on the problem for years ..."	   [ Monty Python ]

The trouble with gee-whiz slick-photography speculative science is that it
supports the idea of effortless instant breakthroughs. Sure, penicillin was
discovered accidentally, one day, when a scientist noticed some
contamination on a slide. Sure. He only happened to have spent years
becoming a trained researcher with a lab full of equipment, and able
collaborators, and he only happened to spend the next several years of his
life on the grubby details. 

It's this long-haul aspect that makes high standards necessary. An edifice
constructed of a thousand contributions, can withstand only so many pieces
containing bullshit. If the Royal Society had had Omni's standards, we would
still be speculating about how migrating birds turn into toads.

I suppose that Omni-bashers are accused of stuffiness, and lack of
imagination. Hmm. Seems to me that the truly great leaps of imagination were
by people like Einstein, and Darwin, and Curie, and Pasteur. No Joe Newmans
in that crowd.

-- 
	Don		lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu    CMU Computer Science

In article <1221@uop.edu> todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
>In article <2790@gryphon.CTS.COM>, edk@gryphon.CTS.COM (Ed Kaulakis) writes:
>> In article <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>> > Read Omni instead of Scientific American.  It's much better because it has 
>> > all things Futuristic in it, be they science fact or science fiction (i.e.
>> > science yet-to-be-fact).
>
>You should have added, "with no distinction between the two"

The only distinction between much science fiction and science fact is the
distinction between past and future.

Science without novelty is ... well another oxymoron.

>
>> It's a world view based on a class of bullshit detectors...
>
>That is not a bad point. Those I know who read (and preach) Omni,
>advocate the removal of your common sense.

This is really cute.  Science demands the removal of your common sense
in many ways.  Another similarity? :-)

The story of bullshit detectors is the story of people getting burned for
saying never and then keeping others from disagreeing by unjustly using
their authority to cover for their ignorance.  Here are a few:

     (1) DeBroglie writes a two page thesis discussing the matter-wave
         duality.  It gets flatly rejected Physicists who really were
	 in no position to judge the paper's contents (with it being
	 only the mid '20's and all.)
	 It took Einstein having seen the paper for it to be rescued.
	 DeBroglie goes on to win a Nobel Prize for his work.

	 Even Einstein was never officially validated for his work
	 in developing Relativity.  No Nobel Prize here.  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.", as if gun powder was a first 
	 approximation to a nuclear weapon; or "the engineers will
	 never know the difference.", like computers are made with
	 mechanical gears or something.

     (2) For two hundred years or so, historians rigidly maintain the
         stance that America has remained unknown to the old world
	 until Columbus.  They succeeded in ignoring perfectly valid
	 evidence which they were in no position to evaluate (knowing
	 nothing about old-world cultures or new world cultures, 
	 depending on which way they specialized.)
	 This was true until the mid '70's when the scripts on this
	 continent falsely attributed to the indigenous population
	 were finally deciphered.  This opened the floodgates and
	 all the other evidence dismissed up to that time was
	 finally given a proper evaluation.
	 Many historians still maintain the stance that no longer has any
	 support.  Some have shown there to be racism and Euro-centrism
	 here.

	 One can see why many people just choose not to learn their
	 history (I was not one, since it's one of my major interests)
	 And they still go on denying that the cliff dwellings out in the
	 Southwest could have the remotest connection to the virtually
	 identical dwellings in North Africa ... and the Pima still sing
	 Aesop's fables as they were learned by their ancestors from
	 Alexandrian North Africa,

     (3) For all the time that the bio-medical paradigm has been dominant
	 in the health fields, alternate methods were never considered.
	 Since many of these originated in non-European medical traditions
	 they were usually considered to be "primitive shamanism". One could
	 include here Acupuncture, which is now finally accepted as
	 a valid alternate method.

	 It has taken an anti-trust lawsuit by the chiropractors to finally
	 get it across that the medical establishment's arrogance is 
	 malevolent.
         
	 A stigma had been attached for a long time to the notion that
	 there could be a link between our mind and our immunity.  This
	 had gotten seriously in the way of an objective evaluation of
	 this possibility, again by people who knew next to nothing
	 about the human immune system.
	 And now, we have the "Growth Factors", which have been shown to
	 control the growth and specialization of cells, among other things.
	 In particular, the white blood cell count can be currently controlled.
	 The nature of the mind body link, as discussed by nobel prize winning
	 researchers in this field, may lie in a communication that is 
	 mediated by growth factors.

     (4) Tesla.  Need I say more. There's the famous story of the smear
         campaign by Edison to discredit his idea of AC power that makes
	 me almost want to throw away my lamps and buy strobe lights (like
	 they have in classrooms and institutions).

     (5) In the early '50's the best selling work "Worlds In Collision" was
	 banned by hard-nosed astronomers who knew nothing about what the
	 book was talking about, by their own admission.  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.  One can easily see the prejudice
	 that many specialists have when they laugh derisively just
	 at hearing the very idea of worlds colliding.
	 Never mind that the very same kind of hypothesis has been 
	 invoked to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs.

   There's quite a few others, I just don't have the time to go on like this.

   What they all have in common is specialists lashing out at those who are
   threatening the sanctity of what they have spent investing so much time in
   (training).  Maybe if people would learn how not to learn so wastefully
   they would not need to focus their lifelong attention on one narrow
   field to the exclusion of all else.
   That's the problem: they've specialized, so they know practically nothing
   about anything else.  Hence they utterly lack the capabilities to 
   evaluate an outsider's claims on its own terms.

   Specialization is wrong, and also unnecessary.  People just have to learn
   to learn more efficiently to overcome the so-called information 
   explosion (which is really a communication breakdown.)

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

   As the unwritten saying goes: "The current paradigm is never wrong, until
   a better paradigm overtakes it -- only after all of the old proponents die
   off."

    These are the underlying sentiments behind my postings.

    The only rule of science that I can accept is that:
    anything goes, subject to consistency with what actually is.
    Nothing less is acceptable.

    We may not know what actually is, but we sure know when it's consistent.

>Another fine point, science, or shall I say, existence, does not modify
>itself due to our opinions.  How we see it may change, how it is, apart
>from our looking is no different. 

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.

... and because we have no direct access to it all of science reduces to
    convention.
    If our opinion changes, then so does reality.  Remember that what is
    real to us consists of the technology that we construct based on
    our knowledge.  As the opinions change, so does it ... then so does
    our reality.  TV's, witness, did not exist until Tesla.

>> That's why I think Omni is a sort of Trojan Horse for the marching morons.

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.

And I don't even read OMNI that much, but I find it good.  Fact or fiction,
they are both equally good.  I'm really suprised at how much others are
lashing out a magazine which I think is pretty cool.

Here's one you did not know.  Newton, spurred on by his success in Physics and
Mathematics, then sought to probe into the realms of Astrology, Theology and
other esoteric domains.  The man never changed, but people's hypocritism
made it seem like he did.  I mean, what if he had failed in his Physics
in his Calculus?  Would he have been considered a crank for having 
investigated those Pesudo-Sciences (as they basically were then)?  I think
the question answers itself.

The very question of Astrology itself may lie on the existence of seasonal
mating cycles that are vestigal from our evolutionary ancestors. What kind
of person one is may depend in part on what part of the seasonal cycle the
mother is in during conception.  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.  How dare they when most know next
to nothing about biology as it relates to the possibility raised above.
It's another case of prejudice leading one to inappropriately use his or
her (but usually his) authority.

>Indeed, I can't stand it's glossy national enquirer approach to the
>stuff it couches in scientific terms. Are we all going to be armchair
>scientific "experts" a-la-Omni?  Lets hope to God NO! 

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.
The mere fact that one specializes (an UNnecessary evil in this society)
is the problem.

>
>I spend more time trying to explain to friends why an article is not
>all that true, or mere speculation.  They keep thinking I am nuts, 

.. maybe they share in my analysis.

>And we wonder why American products and morale are down.. Some of us take
>pride in what we do, the rest seem not to care about anything but money.
>And the rest of us/life/truth/reality be damned.
>
>(hmm, suddenly I feel a soap-box under my feet, better get down before
> I catch cold up here)

Too late to worry about that now :-).

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

In article <25@avsd.UUCP>, govett@avsd.UUCP (David Govett) writes:

> that humans prefer something more in tune with their reality, with a
> dash of mystery thrown in.  Humans are basically irrational, not rational.

Oh I dunno, I find that science, (math and physics are what I am 
exposed to) does a very good job of explaining things and relating.
The problem is the education of the masses, they don't seem to want
to learn, and moreover prefer such foolishness to anything real.

This creates a temporal dissonance, but the money will follow the masses
because those out to make money, know the masses are too dumb to know
they are being taken.

I myself enjoy the beauty of order in chaos, and the whole picture of
things.  But then again, I am not like most people anyway!!


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There is a big difference between comparing the true genius of
men like Einstein, Newton, and Tesla--

With the foolishness of new age crystal worship, UFO-ology, and
psychological reletivisms.

Such comparisons are mere rhetoric, and perhaps this is why your
cross disciplinary interests were mentioned, to add weight to the
arguement.

It adds no weight to me, if Carl Sagan or some other "respected"
opinionator says something that is out to lunch, he/she/it better
back it up with persuasive arguments, or just go get his picture
on the cover of Omni or the Enquirer.

Time will tell, and experience has already told me the PREMISE of
Omni's approach is bad. If they were truely interested in Scientific
analyses, they would do it! Omni does not involve itself with that.

The system of Science is to tear down theories with other theories.
(i am aware this is a simplification, and i have no desire to write
about the scientific method, i presume you (collective) know what it is)
Omni's system is to say that since the concept is to be one of
editorialism and analyses, then that is what they will do.
And any form of editorializing is acceptable.  Too bad.

Unfortunatly, it is approached as a rhetoric to the method, and  not
with the emphasis on truely discovering the answers, by any real method. 
This technique serves to stroke the brains of those who enjoy a mix
of real ideas with imagination.

I have found with the study of science, or history, (or life) that
what is really going on, outstrips fiction if you take the time to
look.  The details of discovery and formations of opinions is far
better than Omni-esque attempts at mimickry... mimickry loaded with
psuedo reality.

Their argument is not one of science, but one of rhetorical epistomology
and it is done badly with bet-hedging where no expertise exists.

You want to find out? Read Physics Today, Physical Review Letters,
et. al. Professional Journals will tell you better what is going on
than anything off a newsstand, the trouble is, that is too much work
for *some* (most) people.

Maybe you like Omni, I see it as part of a growing problem of armchair
expertise in this country, that serves no other function than that of
making the truth harder to percieve.

Perhaps some might think that calling a spade, a spade is bad.
I have *had* it with the worship of thin-headedness.

And I mean worship. Such things are guarded with uninformed opinions,
and propagated by those who wish to conform to such models.

I see nothing to be proud of in such a system.

Understand, Omni, although it can be enjoyable is essentially a science
fiction rag, not a masterpiece of informative literature.

To compare "them" to Einstien's or Tesla's minds, and say that this
is the same as poor Joe pseudo-scientist struggling to prove something
is right there between the word "Bullshit" and the word "Crap" in my book.


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In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>		[a heck of a lot...]
>
>     (5) In the early '50's the best selling work "Worlds In Collision" was
>	 banned...

Pardon?  I thought the First Amendment prohibited that sort of behavior,
even in the early '50s.  (Was it banned because Velikovsky was a
Communist?  Improbable...)

>               ...by hard-nosed astronomers who knew nothing about what the
>	 book was talking about, by their own admission.

WIC was, if I'm not mistaken, a book about astronomy.  Are you saying it
was banned by astronomers who knew nothing about astronomy?

>                                                      ...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....

Did he have any evidence, based on contemporary experiments, that
Newton's law was not universal?

>	 Never mind whether his hypothesis (or paradigm) was tenable or
>	 not.  It did not matter....

Carl Sagan, in _Broca's Brain,_ has a chapter on Velikovsky's book, with
an appendix on the physics behind it.  In the appendix, he says that the
probability of some of the planetary maneuvers V. describes are so
unlikely that the book should have been titled _Worlds In Collusion._

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

The dinosaur-extinction hypothesis, as I understand it, is that dust
raised by a large meteorite striking the earth caused climactic changes
that the dinosaurs couldn't survive.

Velikovsky's hypothesis, at least as Sagan tells it, is that thousands
of years ago, a piece of the planet Jupiter was ejected into space, flew
toward the Earth, and, through the influence of its gravitational force,
parted the Red Sea so Moses could cross, stopped and restarted the
Earth's rotation at the appropriate biblical points, did lots of other
things I have neither memory nor space to recount, and then settled into
a stable orbit as the planet Venus.

Is that "the very same kind of hypothesis?"  Not in my book.

I have directed followups to talk.origins because that forum seems most
appropriate for Velikovskia.

>   Specialization is wrong, and also unnecessary.  People just have to learn
>   to learn more efficiently to overcome the so-called information 
>   explosion (which is really a communication breakdown.)

How?  I'd like to know.  Send a copy to Paul Gray, president of MIT, and
the MIT Provost's Office; I'm sure they'd like to know, too.

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

Not surprising.  Scientists are human.

>
>	[re an immutable, objective, outside reality]
>(1) It might not be there,
>(2) It does not NEED to be there, because we are doing just fine as it is.

It MIGHT AS WELL be there, because we are doing just fine assuming it is.

That sort of assumption led to the technology that this discussion is
being conducted with.  Imagine it the other way:

"Well, Joe, this particular set of chemicals isn't a semiconductor now,
but I'm sure if I just BELIEVE it is for long enough, it will BECOME a
semiconductor.  And if I BELIEVE for a little longer, it will turn into
a Cray supercomputer."

>    If our opinion changes, then so does reality.

At one time, it was the opinion of a vast number of researchers in the
Soviet Union, led by one Mr. Lysenko, that genetics was wrong and that
organisms were *entirely* a product of their environment.  Soviet
researchers who disagreed lost their jobs, sometimes their lives.  Joe
Stalin made sure that the *opinion* of the Soviet scientific community
was in line with Lysenko's.

Reality didn't change.  Reality won.  Genetics is now accepted even in
the Soviet Union.

-- 
sethg%athena.MIT.EDU@mit-eddie.UUCP -- CONVERT me, CONTRA lovers! --
sethg%athena.MIT.EDU@mitvma.BITNET| talk.politics.latin-america: YES 22 / NO 3
sethg@athena.MIT.EDU -------------| I need **81** more YES votes by March 31.

In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
> 
> The very question of Astrology itself may lie on the existence of seasonal
> mating cycles that are vestigal from our evolutionary ancestors. What kind
> of person one is may depend in part on what part of the seasonal cycle the
> mother is in during conception.  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.  How dare they when most know next
> to nothing about biology as it relates to the possibility raised above.
> It's another case of prejudice leading one to inappropriately use his or
> her (but usually his) authority.
> 

I don't believe that scientists scoff at astrology because they believe
it's inherently absurd.  Rather, they scoff because they see people
behaving in a very credulous fashion in the utter absence of any valid
evidence that astrological analyses or forecasts have any predictive
capability at all.

I studied astrology (the Rosicrucian interpretation) for some time
while I was in college.  I cast a fully-detailed horoscope for myself,
and looked up the interpretations of the various aspects, etc. in a
number of the standard reference works.  I was impressed at the degree
of detail that the interpretations provided, and was struck by the
"resonance" between what was written and my own view of myself...

... until I realized that I had made a substantial mathematical error
at the beginning of my calculations... I had miscalculated my time of
birth (in GMT) by several hours.  My miscalculation had thrown all of
the short-term angles completely out of whack, and about half of the
interpretations I had looked up didn't apply to me at all.

I looked up the correct ones, and once again was struck by how closely
these interpretations seemed to match my personality.  However, I was a
bit suspious at this point, and I picked out a number of other
interpretations from the books and random.  Once again, the same "sense
of rightness" arose... I felt that the interpretations applied to me,
even though they were chosen at random.  A wider reading of the
references led me to the conclusion that most of the various
personality characteristics, described as applying to people of
specific signs and aspects, would actually apply to a large fraction
of people in our culture.  I also noted that different authors had _very_
different interpretations of certain aspects... there was little or no
agreement on the details.

Some studies I've read of in the years since this incident have tended
to confirm my hunch.  A few double-blind studies have failed to find
any statistically-significant correlation between subjects'
astrological forecasts and well-studied aspects of human personality as
measured by (for example) the MMPI test.  "Spoof" tests (in which
people were provided with detailed astrological analyses that were
allegedly derived from the subjects' actual birthdates/places but which
were actually constructed at random) showed the same result that I
achieved by accidental miscalculation... the subjects tended to
identify strongly with the astrological analyses even though there was
_no_ connection between these analyses and their actual birthdates.
[I apologize for my inability to cite references for these studies.]

I agree with your suggestion above... there may(!) be some connection
between certain aspects of human personality and birthdate, seasonal
mating cycles, climate-at-time-of-birth, and similar factors.  Frankly,
I wouldn't be greatly surprised if some such factor, of greater or
lesser strength, were to be identified... humans are certainly subject
to day-length and light-exposure influences, among others.  HOWEVER:
there's a _big_ leap between saying "a connection may exist" and saying
"Astrology is scientifically valid"!

I also agree that valid scientific theories have been rejected by the
scientific establishment in the past due to inertia... it sometimes
seems that an old generation of scientists must often die off, and a
new generation mature into power, before a radical shift of viewpoint
can occur.  However... for such a shift of viewpoint to occur and have
any validity at all, the new point-of-view/theory MUST achieve a
certain degree of maturity... it must show itself to be _more_ able to
make valid predictions and withstand attempted disproofs than the
theories that it is intended to displace.

It's important to remember that these two points are really at the base of
the scientific method.  In order for something to be considered as a
scientifically-valid theory, it _must_ be able to make predictions (simply
explaining what's already been seen isn't sufficient), and it _must_
be testable and capable of disproof (which is why the ability to make
predictions is so important).  If an idea is impossible to disprove,
then it is _not_ scientifically valid.  It may be an attractive idea,
and it may very well be true(!), but it isn't a valid theory.

To the best of my knowledge, astrology in its current state is really
a set of beliefs that qualify in many ways as a religion.  It has not
achieved acceptance in the scientific community because solid, bias-free
evidence simply hasn't been presented to justify this acceptance.
There are many anecdotal reports of its usefulness, and many
testimonials to its worth;  there's no real evidence.  Should someone
perform a valid study (e.g. double-blind, with controls and a sufficiently
large test population) that does show a statistically significant
correlation between astrological analysis and human personality or
fate, then I think that people (scientists included!) will sit up and
pay attention.  But, until such scientifically-valid evidence has been
collected, people who believe in astrology have no right to claim that
they're being ignored.

Based on what I'm reading on the net, folks' major reason for disliking
Omni's approach seems to be that Omni pushes popular and attractive
hypotheses (psi, UFOs, etc.) in a credulous and uncritical manner;
Omni takes a "Gee, look at what might be so" stance without having the
intellectual honesty to ask "Well, if it's so, how can we test and
prove it;  if it isn't so, how can we test and disprove it;  what's the
REAL evidence?"

I tend to agree.  Some of the speculations published in Omni may turn
out to be the truth... but I don't believe that Omni's uncritical and
sensational attitude is doing ANYTHING to support an honest attempt to
find out what the truth really is.  I still read Omni occasionally...
primarily for the fiction articles... but I treat the entire "Anti-matter"
section as an example of the willingness of humans to accept ideas in
an uncritical fashion as long as the ideas are attractive and fill a
psychological need.



-- 

Dave Platt
  UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt     DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com
    INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@sun.com, ...@uunet.uu.net

In article <1077@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> lindsay@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:
>This is getting ripe.

Thank you for your apology, because there is a lot for you to apologize for
in your posting.

>In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>
>>     (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 who else would I have been talking about?  Just what are you assuming
anyway?

>
>>         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 ?

I am one.  Some of the best workers in General Reletivity are here too.
One was my thesis advisor.

But none of that matters, because your ad-hominom's are logically invalid
and dishonest ... and unprovoked.

>why not shut up ?

Try to remain coherent.

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

That's the problem.  Your hostility has nothing to do with me, it was evidently
already there.  There was no slander in what I said, nor insult and certainly
no misinformation, as you've tried to demonstrate with a dishonest style
of argument.

But there is plenty from what you are writing.  If you haven't the intelligience
to argue except though personal attacks, then don't waste your time on the net.

I expected to see an intelligient evaluation from you of what was a perfectly 
rational debate.  You apparently lack the experience to remain detached enough
from what you are arguing about while still adequately expressing you sentiments
coherently.

I can understand your basic sentiments, but they are totally misguided.  You
can't just go lashing out at people just because they maintain what you 
believe is pseudo-science, simply because you are really in no position to
determine that. The truth will make itself known through the requirement that
we be consistent with it.  There is simply no better way to know it since we
do not have God's view of the world.  Saying that you do is basically
blasphemous: it amounts to saying that you are God and that other people
who may have differrent means of accessing knowledge are inferior.  This is
where the racism creeps in, because other cultrues have typically used 
other means to access knowledge.

Yes, there is a problem somewhere there.  A nebulous one that has surfaced
in the panicked postings concerning Sci. Am.  It's the idea that Science is
going to the dogs.

Well, that is not the real problem.  It is symptomatic of something else ...
something much more serious: a total communication breakdown between the
different specialists of the different fields of science.

Not an information explposion, mind you.  That's just the way it would seem
when you have an increasingly fragmented science.

What I am trying to get across here is that much of the lashing out by
the scientists against the so-called pseudo-scientists is symptomatic of this
very condition.  Some of it has also been racially motivated and some by the
arrogance of European ethnocentrism.  The example I gave concerning history
is such an example.

One can tell that it is not the problem with the education of our people.
Rather, the problem is simply that many scientists have lost much of their
credibility in the eyes of the public, partly because of them having been
burned so often while lashing out at people wrongly believed to be 
pseudo-scientists.

... and yes I do read Scientific American occasionally ... but think it
    is a little too superficial to really be an adequate forum for 
    scientific discussion.  Then again, my standards are very high.

In article <5167@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
> 
A lot of stuff which I will summarize as saying that most scientists have no
imagination and that OMNI is a good science magazine.
> 

Now my impression of this argument is that after Mark sang the praises of
OMNI a lot of people wrote back and said that OMNI, whatever its virtues
as a fiction magazine, was painfully credulous and promoted belief
in pseudoscience.

Mark then responded by saying that, in fact, he believes every piece of
pseudoscientific drivel that has been popular some time in last fifty years.
(I may be exagerating this point.  I remember some praise of Velikovsky,
Astrology, various forms of ESP belief, and a little New Age stuff.)

It seems to me that he has conceded the main point.

As far as scientists having no imagination, some don't.  The very best
must rely on a dynamic balance between being willing to entertain
all kinds of ideas and a clear sense of the distinction between fantasy and 
reality.  Mark seems to be attacking people for having the second attribute,
one that OMNI magazine holds in low regard, but that is the attribute
which makes science possible.  No one has ever condemned creationists for
having no imagination.


> >Have you ever met a physicist ? Seriously ?
> 
> I am one.  Some of the best workers in General Reletivity are here too.
> One was my thesis advisor.
> 

If I were feeling hostile,  I might say that this proves that it is possible
to learn GR without knowing anything about science.  Sadly, one can say the
same about any particular discipline.  Instilling a critical sense is the
most difficult task facing a faculty member.  It's one that we frequently fail
to accomplish.  Instilling imagination, while also important, is frequently
superfluous, and when not, frequently impossible.

Finally,

> 
> One can tell that it is not the problem with the education of our people.
> Rather, the problem is simply that many scientists have lost much of their
> credibility in the eyes of the public, partly because of them having been
> burned so often while lashing out at people wrongly believed to be 
> pseudo-scientists.
> 

I would like to see an example of someone you think has been "wrongly believed 
to be pseudo-scientists" that is not such an obvious joke as Velikovsky et al.
Alternatively, who has been "burned" by pointing out his errors?
I agree that if the scientific community would refrain from making fun
of the Velikovskys and Uri Gellers of this world that people would
rarely get pissed off at scientists.  I had no idea that avoiding
popular anger was a criterion for a valid argument.

>     Then again, my standards are very high.

I'm just quoting this part for fun.
-- 
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

In article <1159@ut-emx.UUCP> ethan@ut-emx.UUCP (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) writes:
>In article <5167@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>> 
>A lot of stuff which I will summarize as saying that most scientists have no
>imagination and that OMNI is a good science magazine.

Whether it is most or not remains to be discussed, as I never used that 
qualifier.
>Now my impression of this argument is that after Mark sang the praises of
>OMNI a lot of people wrote back and said that OMNI, whatever its virtues
>as a fiction magazine, was painfully credulous and promoted belief
>in pseudoscience.
>
>Mark then responded by saying that, in fact, he believes every piece of
>pseudoscientific drivel that has been popular some time in last fifty years.
>(I may be exagerating this point.  I remember some praise of Velikovsky,
           ???????????
	   You can`t exxcuse yourself for lying.
	   Another smear tactic, I suppose?

>Astrology, various forms of ESP belief, and a little New Age stuff.)
            ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
	    Persistent, aren`t we?
>
>It seems to me that he has conceded the main point.
You mean to tell me that there is a point to all of your smearing and
bickering?  You just lost all your credibility in all your lying above.

As far as my beliefs go, there is absolutely nothing that I have posted to
indicate where I stand on the various pseudo-sciences.  I`ve purposely done
that to show right before your very nose what tactics one would go through
to smear someone who SEEMS to be slightly sympathetic to any of the pseudo`s.
I caught you and you seem to be screaming for having been caught in the act.

This is my stand: nobody has the right to try to suppress one or show
irrational hostility just because that person is working in a different
paradigm.  It is wrong and slanderous.  Yet you persist.  Stop it once and for
all.

I do not really read OMNI that much.  I have a couple back issues, also of
Sci.Am. and Discover.  The irony of it all is that both magazines (Sci.Am.
and OMNI) have the same kind of articles presented in much the same way.
Actually, OMNI`s coverage of the Ozone Hole (which predated Sci.Am.`s by
a month.) was a bit better.  OMNI also had fairly decent articles in this
month`s issue about Tesla and about the research in Growth Factors ... 
which I trapped other respondants into conceding are perfectly respectible
scientific topics.  The coverage was in no way superficial.

So the question in my mind was whence the incongruity?  
Shannon would be badly insulted to know that some of you posters had called
him a pseudo-scientist for his having been interviewed.  The only thing that
one could even call fiction or fantasy is whetever lies in the anti-matter
sections and the fiction section.
I would hardly call the Physicists` research into galaxy formation pseudo-
science, yet many of you are guilty of that very thing.

Obviously the hostility had nothing to do with me, as it was there in prior 
postings.  So the only thing that leaves left is hypocriticism ... a defensive-
ness at seeing one`s own paradigm crumble before himself. Such is to be expected
of people still living in the twentieth century whereas it is nearly the 
twenty-first.

None of the magazines mentioned would be very good for a good exchange of 
information on a deep level.  The true armchair scientist is one who would not
go to the library (which is exactly where I`m at) instead of buying one of 
those magazines.

So my true stand on these magazines: I use the library, what`s your excuse?

In article <1221@uop.edu>, todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
[elided good stuff]
> 
> The Omni-ites I know seem to want to beleive it, wheather it is true or
> not, so long as it is what they want to believe.  This is a dangerous
> trend and I have seen it spreading!
> 
> Perhaps this is not the place for *this* type of discussion, but the
> circular reasoning that it involves is down right manipulative and
> brain washing.  Moreover, our schools are full of such garbage techniques.
> 
> We've all heard how T.V. is geared to the 6th grade mind, and now Omni
> wants us to worship the thoughts and dillusions of the same frame of
> reference. (so does Dan Rather)  :-)
> 
> It is not so bad, *assuming* one is educated enough to catch all the
> crap, but lately, crap is all that is fed, (in many circles of influence) 
> so some have become used to eating it, and have taken to recommending it
> to their friends as Gospel.  
> 
> And we wonder why American products and morale are down.. Some of us take
> pride in what we do, the rest seem not to care about anything but money.
> 
> And the rest of us/life/truth/reality be damned.

	One man's opinion: there are interesting and interesting mental
tools, of great value to those that possess them and to their society,
that simply will not pass through an Average Daily Attendance:Grade Point 
Average:Multiple Choice filter. 

	In particular, interrelationships between pieces of knowledge 
or judgements about pieces of knowledge seem to be missing...

	It is time and past time we stole back our memetic heritage
from the tenured high-school teachers (horse laugh, no smiley).

(Followups to alt.flame, I'm getting off the sci.misc point here...)

	Luv,
		Ed	

In article <5183@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>
A cogent explanation of his views regarding things he probably doesn't support
and magazines he rarely reads.
>

I actually find that after reading Mr. Hopkins article that any commentary
would be superfluous.  I do, however, have a question.

Your reference to galaxy formation intrigues me.  Did you bring in that
analogy because
     1) you work in that field and wanted to mention your credentials?
     2) you can't tell the difference between the use of observation and
        theory in that field and in astrology (as a random example)?
     3) you were stuck for good analogy?
     4) you wanted to show that you too could insult people if you chose
        (which of course would be beneath you).
It would, of course, be libelous to impute any of these motives to you,
but I couldn't think of another.  

          Cheers


-- 
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

In article <2885@sfsup.UUCP>, glg@sfsup.UUCP (G.Gleason) writes:
(in a very well stated posting)
| In article <2724@ihlpe.ATT.COM> res@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt, AT&T-DSG @ Indian Hill West) writes:
| |As to the futurism aspect, I feel that the future will NOT be based on the
| |wishful thinking embodied in the pseudosciences (telepathic communications,
| |the world saved by noble UFO pilots, ones future foretold by ones birthdate,
| |etc.).  Rather, the future depends on applying our knowledge to the problems
| |at hand with undiluted vigor.
| 
| While I agree that the future will not be based on wishfull thinking, I
| would be careful about automatically labelling everything that does not
| fit into the conventional model pseudoscience.

I agree.  There are various levels of acceptance of scientific
theories.  The case of the plate tectonics theory leaps to mind as a
non-conventional theory at the time it was devised which later became
part of the conventional view.

| Just like last time, the "clasical" theory is very powerful and compelling
| but there are a couple of pieces of evidence that could unravel the whole
| thing, start a whole new ball game.  Einstien disliked the uncertainty
| priciple so much that he kept trying to push it to the limits of absurdity.
| The amazing thing is that the results just kept getting more absurd,
| rather than finding anything inconsistent with quantum mechanics.
| 
| I'm not a physicist, so I can't adaquatly bring these arguments to their
| conclusion but consider:
| 
| The ERP paradox (Einstien, etc. I don't remember the other names, but
| 	it is the one about two particles originating from the same
| 	original particle, so they are constrained to have opposite
| 	spins, and therefore measuring one means the other must
| 	instantaniously have the correct spin.)
| 
| Bell's inequality, which implies:
| 	Quantum mechanics fails
| and/or	Objectivity fails
| and/or	Locality fails
| 
| Any one of these failing may mean the world is a lot stranger than
| originally thought.  There are holes that can cover almost any of
| the popular pseudosciences.  This is not proof, but it opens the
| door, and real experiments will eventually tell us something about
| what is going on.

I agree with you that, as we learn more of the makeup of the universe,
we learn how strange it really is.  This is the normal pursuit of
science, seeking explanations for the as-yet-unexplained.

| What is my point?  Only that a lot of what gets passed off as science
| is nothing but conventional dogma.  

No.  What is passed off as science is the "currently accepted" view of
the universe, as derived from theory and experiment, and filtered
through human frailty.  It is very hard for me to accept the word
"dogma" applied to science.  To me dogma implies belief despite
contrary evidence.  While an individual scientist may be dogmatic in
believing his/her own pet theory, Science as a whole tends to move in
the directions indicated by evidence.  This is NOT to say that the
movement is rapid, or that Truth is accepted as self evident.  Rather,
it just says that the weight of evidence will eventually overwhelm
resistance.

| When Timothy Leary was experimenting ...

I am not very knowledgeable about Leary's work, so I cannot comment on
it in clear conscience, but I can, perhaps, present a different view of
some of the conclusions you reach.

| ... According to the standard model, his experiments should have
| been repeated and either verified, or refuted.

Agreed.  I do not know if anyone did try to do so.

| Instead conventional
| wisdom says these drugs are dangerous, and cannot be used by anyone,
| not even a scientific investigator,

I am not sure that that is true.  I have seen a number of articles
dealing with legitimate research into very potent drugs (hallucinogens,
barbiturates, etc.) for the treatment of a number of disorders.  It IS
recognized by the researchers that the drugs are dangerous and must be
handled carefully.  It IS NOT the view that NO-ONE can work with them.

| and everyone thinks Leary is nothing
| but a drugged out crackpot.

Certainly "everyone" loses respect for someone who becomes addicted to
the drugs he is researching, especially when "everyone" knows how
dangerous they are to the well-being and sanity of the drug user.  If
the researcher becomes this intimately involved with his work, then the
rest of the world is justified in viewing the results of that work with
some skepticism.  Is Leary a "drugged out crackpot?"  I do not know,
but I do view his pronouncements much more skeptically than I would if
he did not partake of his own medicine.

				Rich Strebendt
				...!ihnp4![iwsl6|ihlpe|ihaxa]!res

In article <5229@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:

>Half the difficulty in trying to refute or verify someone like Velikovsky is
>that practically noone has the requisite background to match the scope of
>his works.  At the very least, if he were wrong, it showed that specialization
>had crippled the ability of science to properly evaluate someone's hypotheses.

It is unfortunate that you have chosen V as your example.  His success in
impressing people relies solely on their NOT being able to evaluate it.
Experts in the various fields he feigns expertise have shown that his 
conclusions make no sense and, further, he usually gets his facts wrong
(often deliberately misquoting).  Why should anyone try to understand
V's "big picture" when it is built on sand?

>People who want to protect the integrity of science, without constraining 
>against new ideas should want to see the end to this mindless pursuit of
>ever-increasing specialization.

This, I believe, is a misconception.  While there is much specialization,
there is many (perhaps an equal number) of people trying to make sense of
it all.  The specialist are neccessary, and since they produce new facts
are much more visible.  On the other hand, much of the cross-synthesis
I have seen has been infertile. (The physics vs. mysticism angle has been
particularly barren.)

dana

In article <2311@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> dsr@uvacs.cs.virginia.edu.UUCP (Dana S. Richards) writes:
>In article <5229@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>
>>Half the difficulty in trying to refute or verify someone like Velikovsky is
>>that practically noone has the requisite background to match the scope of
>>his works.  At the very least, if he were wrong, it showed that specialization
>>had crippled the ability of science to properly evaluate someone's hypotheses.
>
>It is unfortunate that you have chosen V as your example.  His success in
>impressing people relies solely on their NOT being able to evaluate it.
>Experts in the various fields he feigns expertise have shown that his 
>conclusions make no sense and, further, he usually gets his facts wrong
>(often deliberately misquoting).

I'd be interested in seeing an example of this.  I've heard a lot about this.

>Why should anyone try to understand
>V's "big picture" when it is built on sand?

To see if it makes any sense.  It's the big picture we are primarily interested
in.  If the details prove inaccurate, often they can be refined to make things
consistent.  A good example of this is Infinitesimals before people like 
Robinson.  The underlying theory of infinitesimals actually turns out to be 
CONSISTENT, but back in the 19th century the concept was not made clear enough
to be consistent ... so it was virtually abandoned for 100 years until 
Robinson used Model Theory to give it a proper formulation.

It usually happens that the people who first come across the ideas do not have
them completely sorted out.  Consistency is something that is developed over
time.

>
>>People who want to protect the integrity of science, without constraining 
>>against new ideas should want to see the end to this mindless pursuit of
>>ever-increasing specialization.
>
>This, I believe, is a misconception.  While there is much specialization,
>there is many (perhaps an equal number) of people trying to make sense of
>it all.  

I'd go further and say that there is a growing trend in this direction.  

>The specialist are neccessary, and since they produce new facts
>are much more visible.  On the other hand, much of the cross-synthesis
>I have seen has been infertile. (The physics vs. mysticism angle has been
>particularly barren.)

Specialization, as I consider the term is exclusionary.  Committment and
persistence are still possible even when you concentrate one several fields.
This is something I call multi-specialization (for lack of a better name.)
It has the best of both worlds: an overall grasp of the big-picture AND the
depth that a specialist typically has.

The simple fact is that in the process of learning wwe are also META-LEARNING
(i.e. learning how to learn).  I believe, based on my experience, that there
is a threshold beyond which the accumulated experience with learning makes 
accquiring new expertises virtually effortless (but there is still the
time factor to some degree.)

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.

This shows that the depth of this guy's ``science'' is at the same level as
that of cheap paperback novels.

[much chatter deleted]

>    That's the problem: they've specialized, so they know practically nothing
>    about anything else.  Hence they utterly lack the capabilities to 
>    evaluate an outsider's claims on its own terms.
> 
>    Specialization is wrong, and also unnecessary.  People just have to learn
>    to learn more efficiently to overcome the so-called information 
>    explosion (which is really a communication breakdown.)
[...]
> 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.
> The mere fact that one specializes (an UNnecessary evil in this society)
> is the problem.

We are no more in the Renaissance, where Pic de la Mirandole could know
everything in every scientific subject. If one wants to have a deep knowledge,
it must be in a restricted field. Just avoiding specialization is laziness,
cultivating superficiality, knowing very few things on everything.
Overspecialization is bad too, one should combine a deep knowledge in a
specialized field with a broad general culture (a gaussian-shaped
depth/breadth diagram). But who can say that every specialist in a field is
ignorant in other ones?

Specialists have the right to be angered when ignorants pretend to know their
field better. Real science is hard work, there is no place in it for lazy
superficial minds, and hard work deserves respect.

[etc.]

> >> That's why I think Omni is a sort of Trojan Horse for the marching morons.
> 
> 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.

How modest he is! Real talented people don't have to boast about their gifts.
Their achievements speak for themselves.

				.....

And then this guy continues in further postings his propaganda for
Velikovsky...

Velikovsky was a psychoanalist, he did not know anything about scientific
astronomy. Did he try to verify if his elucubrations were consistent with the
laws of celestial mechanics? Did Mark William Hopkins make the calculations?

And I don't want to hear about the relationship of astrology to the obsevation
of seasonal cycles, etc.. I have never heard about an astrologer doing that.
They just repeat dogmas found in their books, which repeat, etc..

Next time someone tries to promote pseudo-science in sci.misc, he should first
give his scientific credentials. Otherwise it is better to move to
talk.religion.newage.

Christian Ronse		maldoror@prlb2.UUCP
{uunet|philabs|mcvax|...}!prlb2!{maldoror|ronse}

``So goodnight, kids, and remember...everybody has a pointer in their
  heart, set to that special someone...don't keep yours set to nil...''

		        		Basil Hosmer
		        		Kaptain Kloodge Saga

In article <434@prlb2.UUCP> ronse@prlb2.UUCP (Christian Ronse) writes:

This is almost even fun watching stuffed shirts getting their 
feathers ruffled ...
Enjoy it.

*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.
*
*This shows that the depth of this guy's ``science'' is at the same level as
*that of cheap paperback novels.

Cheap shot from cheap minds.

<ABOUT OBTAINING EXPERTISE IN A MULTITUDE OF FIELDS>:
*We are no more in the Renaissance, where Pic de la Mirandole could know
*everything in every scientific subject. If one wants to have a deep knowledge,
*it must be in a restricted field.

Not true.  In fact, it is very much the other way around.  If one wants to 
fully master a field then one must also have deep background in other related
fields.  

*Just avoiding specialization is laziness,

Just specializing in only one field is lazyness if we are to accept your
argument.

*cultivating superficiality, knowing very few things on everything.

Ditto.

*Overspecialization is bad too,

The "over-" is redundant.

*one should combine a deep knowledge in a specialized field ...

... in a **variety** of fields ...

*Specialists have the right to be angered when ignorants pretend to know their
*field better. 

Read: Specialists have a right to arrogance when their work is challenged by
people outside their fields. That is, they have a right to an enclave mentality.
This is effectively what you have just said.

* Real science is hard work, ...

Read: Real arithmetic is performing 1000 digit multiplications by hand because 
one does not want to be "lazy".

Real science is novelty followed up by perserverence in sticking it out to
its conclusion and to its details.  But NEVER forget that the whole process
is driven by novelty and the desire to know.

Real science is fun, that which some would call "hard work" is actually hard
and INTENSE fun.  One could spend DECADES at it, but this detracts none from the
point.

** ** That's why I think Omni is a sort of Trojan Horse for the marching morons.
** 
** 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.
*
*How modest he is! Real talented people don't have to boast about their gifts.
*Their achievements speak for themselves.

... and how envious you are!  One has the right to be honest about themselves 
without feeling shame for doing so, especially when one's talent is a product of
a long committment. I am who I am and I will make no qualms about saying so.

*And then this guy continues in further postings his propaganda for
*Velikovsky...

Maybe when you grow up so that you come to learn how to read English better,
then you'll come to realise that I am actually neutral in regard to V.

*And I don't want to hear about the relationship of astrology to the obsevation
*of seasonal cycles, etc ... 

Okay, I'm sorry.  I did not mean to make you cry.

*
*Next time someone tries to promote pseudo-science in sci.misc, he should first
*give his scientific credentials.

"Next time someone tries to breathe, he should first prove he/she is human."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: This disclaimer is completely invalid.

In article <2762@ihlpe.ATT.COM> res@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt, AT&T-DSG @ Indian Hill West) writes:
>In article <2885@sfsup.UUCP>, glg@sfsup.UUCP (G.Gleason) writes:
>(in a very well stated posting)
>| In article <2724@ihlpe.ATT.COM> res@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt, AT&T-DSG @ Indian Hill West) writes:

>| What is my point?  Only that a lot of what gets passed off as science
>| is nothing but conventional dogma.  

>No.  What is passed off as science is the "currently accepted" view of
>the universe, as derived from theory and experiment, and filtered
>through human frailty.  It is very hard for me to accept the word
>"dogma" applied to science.  To me dogma implies belief despite
>contrary evidence.  While an individual scientist may be dogmatic in
>believing his/her own pet theory, Science as a whole tends to move in
>the directions indicated by evidence.  This is NOT to say that the
>movement is rapid, or that Truth is accepted as self evident.  Rather,
>it just says that the weight of evidence will eventually overwhelm
>resistance.

Exactly my point, there is too much reliance on a "currently accepted"
view, which in effect slows down scientific investigations.  Too many
people just referencing other works for authority, that it often takes
decades for some errors to stop resurfacing after being retracted.

What I am saying is that the "currently accepted" theory is so well
taught that few "scientists" are creative enough to discover something
completely new, or self-confident enough to believe they could possibly
discover anything truely revolutionary.  We need to train our minds to
be more flexible, creative, etc.

>| When Timothy Leary was experimenting ...

>I am not very knowledgeable about Leary's work, so I cannot comment on
>it in clear conscience, but I can, perhaps, present a different view of
>some of the conclusions you reach.

Perhaps it would be better not to comment if you are not knowledgeable.

>| ... According to the standard model, his experiments should have
>| been repeated and either verified, or refuted.

>Agreed.  I do not know if anyone did try to do so.

>| Instead conventional
>| wisdom says these drugs are dangerous, and cannot be used by anyone,
>| not even a scientific investigator,

>I am not sure that that is true.  I have seen a number of articles
>dealing with legitimate research into very potent drugs (hallucinogens,
>barbiturates, etc.) for the treatment of a number of disorders.  It IS
>recognized by the researchers that the drugs are dangerous and must be
>handled carefully.  It IS NOT the view that NO-ONE can work with them.

I would not base an oppinion on a few articles.  I sure you are aware
that there is a lot of dis-information out on the topic of drugs, so
a deeper investigation is warranted.

>| and everyone thinks Leary is nothing
>| but a drugged out crackpot.

>Certainly "everyone" loses respect for someone who becomes addicted to
>the drugs he is researching, especially when "everyone" knows how
>dangerous they are to the well-being and sanity of the drug user.  If
>the researcher becomes this intimately involved with his work, then the
>rest of the world is justified in viewing the results of that work with
>some skepticism.  Is Leary a "drugged out crackpot?"  I do not know,
>but I do view his pronouncements much more skeptically than I would if
>he did not partake of his own medicine.

You provide a perfect example of what I am talking about.  You don't
know anything about the facts, and you're calling someone you don't
know anything about an addict.  You're comment about what "everyone"
knows is in the same catagory.  Leary report's zero "bad" trips because
of a positive set and setting, and that everyone was participating
because they wanted to.

There is a history of scientists trying things out on themselves.  In
this case it is probably a good idea for the researcher to have some
experience with the brain states he plans to induce it others.

Gerry Gleason

I'm no fan of astrology, but I have a question or three...

In article <1077@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, lindsay@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:
> In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
> >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.

Ok, first off, who's "proved" this, and how have they proved it?
It seems to me that since:

1.  Our brains are neurochemical devices that operate on a level somewhat
    close to molecular;
2.  Our personalities are affected by chemical (thus particle) reactions in
    our brains;
3.  Other plantes and solar bodies emit particles or affect particles that
    happen to be "in the neighborhood";

Then there is a possibility that planets and other objects floating around
could affect our actions.  Now we probably wouldn't be able to *predict*
any of these affects, so in effect they become nuisance varibs, but
hey...

I'm not willing to automatically reject all theories that would suggest
that "paranormal" events could be proved/explained with quantum physics,
neurochemistry or coin flipping.

> 	Don		lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu    CMU Computer Science

-- 
Just say NO to skate harassment.
Girls play with toys. Real women skate. -- Powell Peralta ad
J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007

In article <2118@coherent.com>, dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes:

> I tend to agree.  Some of the speculations published in Omni may turn
> out to be the truth...

Didn't one of the SciAm folks do some research that compared the
validity of SciAm predictions/statements in articles with articles
from our friend, the National Enquirer, and find that Nat'l Enq
was more accurate?

I remember an acquaintence (one I normally trust) telling me something
about this, but I don't remember the details.  It all has to do with
how the publication presents its ideas: "Wouldn't it be neat if it worked
like this..." vs "We've figured this out, and this is how it works.."

> Dave Platt
>   UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt     DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com
>     INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@sun.com, ...@uunet.uu.net


-- 
Just say NO to skate harassment.
Girls play with toys. Real women skate. -- Powell Peralta ad
J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007

> ...
>I remember an acquaintence (one I normally trust) telling me something
>about this, but I don't remember the details.  It all has to do with
> ...

An acquaintance of mine, (one I never trust unless he's being honest),
told be that the U.S has a Naval Base from which one can see Cuba
regardless of atmospheric conditions.

		Brad Sherman

Back in 1971, I was kicked out of a student council meeting at Case
Western Reserve U. for being too vociferous in my opposition to spending
funds to buy thousands of "Smiley-Face" buttons. They were to encourage
intercourse --verbal, of course-- among the students. So let me state
that the above comments may be sarcastic [{(`<\/>')}].

In article <465@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
>I'm no fan of astrology, but I have a question or three...
>
>In article <1077@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, lindsay@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:
>> In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>> >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.
>
>Ok, first off, who's "proved" this, and how have they proved it?
>It seems to me that since:
>




How about you?  I provide some assumptions, you do the calculations
and that way we may both be satisfied?

Known influences: gravity & electromagnetic
Test case for gravity:
test object 1 - closest planet: venus
test object 2 - biggest planet: jupiter
(ineligable:	sun:	you said PLANET
		moon:	ibid
		earth:	nolo contendre on that, piedro!
test object 3 - empire state building

Look up masses & distances.  What is the order they influence us?

Test case for EM radiation:
test object 1 - noisest EM planet: jupiter
test object 2 - WTOP FM 105 on your dial, Washington DC
test object 3 - doctor (ir emitter, 98.6, range < 1 meter)

Look up transmitting power, look up distance. rank.


What is the "relative influence"?  (See, I trust you!)


Disclaimer: Individuals have opinions, organizations have policy.
            Therefore, these opinions are mine and not any organizations!
Q.E.D.
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5

In article <1236@uop.edu>, todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:

> ...  The details of discovery and formations of opinions is far
> better than Omni-esque attempts at mimickry... mimickry loaded with
> psuedo reality.

Wait.  If I never take into consideration really, truely ludicrous ideas
-- how am I supposed to come up with new ideas?  Many great theorheticians
were laughed at, and some were made to revoke their original statements by
an *uniformed* populace.  Why not have a populace that is ready to accept
new ideas, even if those ideas are semi-valid?

If it's science fiction or science "fact" you're still going to have to
get out to the populace some concepts that they may not be ready for.
What better way than with science fiction, and trendy silly
ideas and theories?  Isn't that better than a nation of "I Love Lucy"
watchers?
 (A sort of unrealted comment:  My grandfather refuses to believe that
  a person has ever been into space.  His logic:  God would kill anybody
  that went up there, so NASA and all that must be a big fake. 1/4 :-)

> You want to find out? Read Physics Today, Physical Review Letters,
> et. al. Professional Journals will tell you better what is going on
> than anything off a newsstand, the trouble is, that is too much work
> for *some* (most) people.

Ok, fine.  Where do I find such wonderful purveyors of fact?  Not at the
7-11 down the street.  Univ of Houston library carries a few good things,
but those are fought for tooth and nail.  I have to subscribe, or hang
out at some really esoteric places to get my hands on a copy.
Once I find them, how do I understand them?  True, Sci_Am is a good
layman's mag, I've learned a lot from it...  Many "professional"
journals are difficult to read for us poor fools who aren't majoring
in the sciences.

> Maybe you like Omni, I see it as part of a growing problem of armchair
> expertise in this country, that serves no other function than that of
> making the truth harder to percieve.

Again, the "I Love Lucy" watchers that have a 4th grade science education.
I'd rather have some ill-informed, self-appointed experts than a completly
ignorant, *apathetic* populace ready to take up the hue and cry of anybody
with a good line of BS.

> Perhaps some might think that calling a spade, a spade is bad.

Nit pick:  "Calling a spade a spade" is a racist cliche'.  Like I said,
it's picky, but valid.

> And I mean worship. Such things are guarded with uninformed opinions,
> and propagated by those who wish to conform to such models.

Again, I'd rather have some people that are wrong, but trying, than people
that couldn't care less.  (Preferably, we'd all have "a computer with the
power of 10,000 Crays and the size of a sugar cube stuck behind our
ear." -- Tom Maddox, I think. :-)

> Understand, Omni, although it can be enjoyable is essentially a science
> fiction rag, not a masterpiece of informative literature.

Yeah, this is true.  It also points you in the right directions.  I started
out on s-f fiction and some other pulp crap.  Then moved up to Omni, and
now am into Sci_Am and a few other "factual" magazines.

> + uop!todd@uunet.uu.net                                               + 
> +                 cogent!uop!todd@lll-winken.arpa                     + 
> +                                 {backbone}!ucbvax!ucdavis!uop!todd  + 


-- 
... They'll take the place apart -- Any minute now -- I've seen it happen
before on Mercury where we put out a Cool Issue  -- And the law is moving in
fast -- Nova Heat -- Not locals, boss -- This is *Nova Heat* -- Well boss?"
-- from _The_Ticket_That_Exploded_, William S. Burroughs
J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007

In article <133@aplcomm.UUCP> jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu.UUCP (James W. Meritt) writes:
}In article <465@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
}>I'm no fan of astrology, but I have a question or three...
}>
}>In article <1077@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, lindsay@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:
}>> In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
}>> >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.
}>
}>Ok, first off, who's "proved" this, and how have they proved it?
}>It seems to me that since:
}>
}
}
}
}
}How about you?  I provide some assumptions, you do the calculations
}and that way we may both be satisfied?
}
}Known influences: gravity & electromagnetic
}Test case for gravity:
}test object 1 - closest planet: venus
}test object 2 - biggest planet: jupiter
}(ineligable:	sun:	you said PLANET
}		moon:	ibid
}		earth:	nolo contendre on that, piedro!
}test object 3 - empire state building
}
}Look up masses & distances.  What is the order they influence us?
}

Yeah, but the theory is that people are somehow _tuned_in_ to the
planets.  Also (a) the Empire State Building doesn't move around,
and (b) it's occluded from most persons.  By the way, sun and
moon are planets, astrologically speaking.

}Test case for EM radiation:
}test object 1 - noisest EM planet: jupiter
}test object 2 - WTOP FM 105 on your dial, Washington DC
}test object 3 - doctor (ir emitter, 98.6, range < 1 meter)
}
}Look up transmitting power, look up distance. rank.
}

See above.

The only valid test I can see would be to choose some metric
astrologers would agree on and measure a large population for
it (them) over a reasonable period of time.  We should then be
able to use our ingenious machines to determine whether there
was any correlation between astrological data and the results
of the measurement.  I don't believe the astrological columns
in the newspapers will pollute the measurement because they
contradict either other, insofar as they say anything.

Of course, if you "disprove" astrology, it's going to take
a lot of fun out of the world.  No more walking into a bar
and saying, "Hi, what's your sign?"  On the other hand....

                   In article <133@aplcomm.UUCP>:
	  jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu.UUCP (James W. Meritt) writes:

>                  In article <465@flatline.UUCP>:
>           erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:

>>                 In article <1077@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>:
>>        lindsay@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:

>>>                 In article <5143@uwmcsd1.UUCP>:
>>>    markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:

<REFERRING TO THE POSSIBLE CONNECTION BETWEEN SEASONAL MATING CYCLES AND
 THE PERSONALITY INHERITED AT THE TIME OF CONCEPTION>:
>>>>
>>>> And yet, despite the fact that this shows there to be nothing inherently
>>>> absurd about Astrology, many scientists will scoff just at the very idea.

<BLUFFING>:
>>> The idea that planets influence you is subject to calculation, and hence can
>>> be proved (and has been proved) absurd.

<CALLING ON BLUFF>:
>>Ok, first off, who's "proved" this, and how have they proved it?
>>It seems to me that since:
>>

<CALLING ON CALL OF THE BLUFF>:
>How about you?  I provide some assumptions, you do the calculations
>and that way we may both be satisfied?

<I HOPE THIS DOES NOT EXHAUST YOUR STACK LIMIT ... 7 ISN"T IT?>

<LAYING OUT THE CARDS>:
Time to step in here.  You want actual calculations?  Well, you'll get them.
You may not like the verdict however.  
>
>Known influences: gravity & electromagnetic
>Test case for gravity:
>test object 1 - closest planet: venus
>test object 2 - biggest planet: jupiter
>(ineligable:	sun:	you said PLANET
>		moon:	ibid
>		earth:	nolo contendre on that, piedro!
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Oh, you'd be suprised! At the right frequencies Jupiter predominates over
the Earth.

>test object 3 - empire state building

Let's put the moon in the calculations anyway for comparison.

GRAVITATIONAL EFFECTS:
To really do this justice, we should be taking Fourier components of the
gravity fields involved.  What you'll find will suprise you.

1 nano-G = 1 billionth of the acceleration of gravity 
	   (1000-million)th for European readers.

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING:             JUPITER:
1.17 millionth of a nano-G         20 nano-G (DC)
(DC component)                     AC components exist with a fundamental
No appreciable AC components.      frequency of .917 cycles per year.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^      Only the first several harmonics are
				   appreciable.

To calculate the AC components for Jupiter, find the Fourier series of
                                                     -1
        20.9 nano-G * [ 1 + .371 * cos (2 PI t / T) ]
where
			    T = 1.08 years ( = 1/.917)

I believe they are Legendre polynomials evaluated at .371 multiplied by 20.9.

I am assuming that the Empire State Building is a million (metic) tons and
about 1500 miles from where I sit (Milwaukee).

The DC components alone: Jupiter's is about 20 MILLION times larger.
You'd have to get within SEEING distance of the building for the gravity
fields to be the same.  Further, the Empire State building is not in orbit
so it does not have any appreciable frequency components other than DC.

The MOON:
36000 nano-G (DC).
AC components exist with a fundamental frequency of 12.5 cycles per year.

I've ignored the effects of the Earth's rotation here.  However, there are
harmonics with the fundamental requency of 1 cycle per day (thereabouts) that
cause tidal actions on the Earth.

Clearly, we are talking about response to low frequencies.  The real question
to ask is whether or not the fields of Jupiter and the Moon are drowned out
by the noise around the Earth.  The calculations involving the Empire State
Building answer that question fairly well.  NO.

... and this is the real issue here : the signal-to-noise ratio.

>Test case for EM radiation:
>test object 1 - noisest EM planet: jupiter
>test object 2 - WTOP FM 105 on your dial, Washington DC
>test object 3 - doctor (ir emitter, 98.6, range < 1 meter)
>
>Look up transmitting power, look up distance. rank.

Turn on your radio for that. It is a measuring instrument, after all.
A calculator, by the way, transmits in the FM band (at least the old ones do).

A historical note : Astrology and Astronomy did not become fully distinguished
until the end of the Middle Ages.  Up to that time, both had been studied under
the topic of "Astronomy", which was one of the four major fields in the
Quadrivium.  Now guess where the word "Trivia" came from?  (A meta-Trivia
question.)

In article <472@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
> In article <1236@uop.edu>, todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
> 
> > ...  The details of discovery and formations of opinions is far
> > better than Omni-esque attempts at mimickry... mimickry loaded with
> > psuedo reality.
> 
> Wait.  If I never take into consideration really, truely ludicrous ideas
> -- how am I supposed to come up with new ideas?  

You could think for yourself, built on a solid knowledge base.

> Many great theorheticians
> were laughed at, and some were made to revoke their original statements by
> an *uniformed* populace.  Why not have a populace that is ready to accept
> new ideas, even if those ideas are semi-valid?

Why not just have an informed populace, instead of a half-assed awareness?

> If it's science fiction or science "fact" you're still going to have to
> get out to the populace some concepts that they may not be ready for.
> What better way than with science fiction, and trendy silly
> ideas and theories?  

It will take more effort to reteach them the truth, than it would to
teach them the truth in the first place, that is a dismal excuse for
a reason.

> Isn't that better than a nation of "I Love Lucy"
> watchers?

Maybe that is what you watch, would you rather Omni make a T.V. show like
NOVA, only just psuedo science and UFO-ology??  That is as bad as using
Rambo as a roll model for international relations.

>  (A sort of unrealted comment:  My grandfather refuses to believe that
>   a person has ever been into space.  His logic:  God would kill anybody
>   that went up there, so NASA and all that must be a big fake. 1/4 :-)

Maybe you and your grandfather need to learn there are facts that exist
apart from your own conclusions.

> > You want to find out? Read Physics Today, Physical Review Letters,
> > et. al. Professional Journals will tell you better what is going on
> > than anything off a newsstand, the trouble is, that is too much work
> > for *some* (most) people.

> Ok, fine.  Where do I find such wonderful purveyors of fact?  
> Not at the
> 7-11 down the street.  
> Univ of Houston library carries a few good things,
> but those are fought for tooth and nail.  
> I have to subscribe, or hang

Thats right, do you subscribe to Omni?? You don't like having to really
look for facts?? Look at Science News, it will help.

> Once I find them, how do I understand them?  

Do what I did, *read* about them, and *ask questions* of people who will
tell you.

> Again, the "I Love Lucy" watchers that have a 4th grade science education.
> I'd rather have some ill-informed, self-appointed experts than a completly
> ignorant, *apathetic* populace ready to take up the hue and cry of anybody
> with a good line of BS.

Like Omni-- good line of BS.

> > Perhaps some might think that calling a spade, a spade is bad.
> 
> Nit pick:  "Calling a spade a spade" is a racist cliche'.  Like I said,
> it's picky, but valid.

It is invalid, you are assuming because I use an older euphemism that I
am a racist, I am not a racist, you are bordering on foolishness.

> > And I mean worship. Such things are guarded with uninformed opinions,
> > and propagated by those who wish to conform to such models.

> Again, I'd rather have some people that are wrong, but trying, than people
> that couldn't care less. 

You assume I don't care, I *do* care, that is the problem, you are
apathetic, you would rather tolerate error than not.

> > Understand, Omni, although it can be enjoyable is essentially a science
> > fiction rag, not a masterpiece of informative literature.

> Yeah, this is true.  It also points you in the right directions.  I started
With uniformed premise..

> out on s-f fiction and some other pulp crap.  Then moved up to Omni, and
> now am into Sci_Am and a few other "factual" magazines.

Keep going, you'll get better at it...

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In article <472@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
> In article <1236@uop.edu>, todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
> Wait.  If I never take into consideration really, truely ludicrous ideas

Btw- If the ideas are *truely* ludicrous, by your own definition, then
would you prefer to follow the white elephant?
Somthing that is at the onset untrue?
That is you seem to already know whats credible and what is not, and
you have a preferance for the incredible perhaps for some superstious
reason.


> > Perhaps some might think that calling a spade, a spade is bad.
> 
> Nit pick:  "Calling a spade a spade" is a racist cliche'.  Like I said,
> it's picky, but valid.

Earlier today I missed this trite crap.. but the term comes from cards,
not racism, (where it was later attributed to).

Whos a racist?

Rereading your posting, it is full of double standards. You can keep them.

           "Whattya mean 'WE' whiteman???" -- Mr. Sixkiller
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+ uop!todd@uunet.uu.net                                               + 
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In article <743@actnyc.UUCP> gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>By the way, sun and
>moon are planets, astrologically speaking.

I have noticed that when the sun is visible,  I feel warmer and my vision 
improves.  I guess the planets do affect us.
-ken

Opinions packed by weight, not by volume.  Some settling may occur in shipment.

(This is an addendum to something I posted minutes ago. Sorry.)

Since the earth's orbit is noncircular, the gravitational effect of the sun
varies by 170 nano-gravities in three months. Again, the effect of the most
powerful planet ( 18 nano-g in six months ) is completely dominated.

-- 
	Don		lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu    CMU Computer Science

>In article <472@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
>>Nit pick:  "Calling a spade a spade" is a racist cliche'.

In article <1294@uop.edu> todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
>... the term comes from cards, not racism, (where it was later attributed to).

Ah, but where did the *cards* come from?

In fact the origin is not racist but classist.  Swords (now Clubs)
symbolised the nobility; Diamonds, the merchants; Cups (Hearts), the
Priesthood, and of course, Spades, the working class: the farmers.

What matters now is whether the term is perceived as racist by
those who might perceive it as racist (a rather circular question,
but that which is considered offensive has never been based on logic).
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris

In article <11010@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
}>In article <472@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
}>>Nit pick:  "Calling a spade a spade" is a racist cliche'.
}In article <1294@uop.edu> todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
}>... the term comes from cards, not racism, (where it was later attributed to).
}Ah, but where did the *cards* come from?
}In fact the origin is not racist but classist.  Swords (now Clubs)
}symbolised the nobility; Diamonds, the merchants; Cups (Hearts), the
}Priesthood, and of course, Spades, the working class: the farmers.

This is not what my book* on the Tarot deck says.  It says clubs
derive from wands, and spades from swords.  The former represent
creative power, the latter force of any kind.  Those who are enthused
about the Tarot deck generally attribute its origins to a period long
before the late middle ages, when the class system alluded to above
was in operation in Europe.

*One of Waite's.

In article <794@actnyc.UUCP>, gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:

>                                           ...  Those who are enthused
> about the Tarot deck generally attribute its origins to a period long
> before the late middle ages, when the class system alluded to above
> was in operation in Europe.
> 
Yep, and those who are enthused about astrology generally attribute its
origins to ancient (like, millenially B.C.) Egypt.

-- 
Michael L. Siemon
contracted to AT&T Bell Laboratories
ihnp4!mhuxu!mls
standard disclaimer

>In article <11010@mimsy.UUCP> I wrote:
>}Ah, but where did the *cards* come from?
>}In fact the origin is not racist but classist.
[I deleted the various details]

In article <794@actnyc.UUCP> gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>This is not what my book* on the Tarot deck says.  It says clubs
>derive from wands, and spades from swords.  The former represent
>creative power, the latter force of any kind.
>*One of Waite's.

I made a number of errors in <11010@mimsy.UUCP>, although the origin of
the modern playing card (i.e., the reason we have the precise suits
that we do) is indeed classist.  The older symbolism may not have been
so, but that which survives in the standard English decks is.  (I
had carefully refrained from mentioning Tarot cards to avoid digressing
within the digression :-) .)

I am not sure about the clubs-from-wands bit, but the spades-from-
swords is rather likely.  (If anyone cares, a bit more information
can be found in _The_Straight_Dope_ by Cecil Adams.  It may be in
the `humour' section of your local bookstore, although it only
halfway belongs there.  A fun book, if not very deep.  I may post
the few paragraphs he has on the cards later.)

>Those who are enthused about the Tarot deck generally attribute its
>origins to a period long before the late middle ages ....

Some claim the early Egyptians had them, although there is no real
evidence for this, as far as I know.  I would not trust any of Arthur
Waite's claims without other corroboration; he was often more
enthusiastic than accurate (somewhat like me :-) ).  Various of his
proclamations seem to contradict each other.  What we do know is that
the modern cards evolved from Tarot decks sometime around the 1500s
and were more or less fixed by the 1800s (one can speculate here on the
effect of widely available printing presses and leisure time in the
expanding bourgeoise).
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris

In article <794@actnyc.UUCP> gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:

>This is not what my book* on the Tarot deck says (about the meanings of
>card suits - jack) Those who are enthused
>about the Tarot deck generally attribute its origins to a period long
>before the late middle ages, when the class system alluded to above
>was in operation in Europe.

>*One of Waite's.


Waite was lying, as usual. See Michael Dummett's "The Game of Tarot" for a
detailed and scholarly account of the *real* story behind the Tarot deck.
The "Egyptian" origin of the cards, and their "occult" significance, are a
late 17th-century French fabrication.
-- 
ARPA: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk       USENET: jack@cs.glasgow.uucp
JANET:jack@uk.ac.glasgow.cs      useBANGnet: ...mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!jack
Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Dept., Glasgow Univ., 17 Lilybank Gardens,
      Glasgow G12 8QQ, SCOTLAND     work 041 339 8855 x 6045; home 041 556 1878

In article <3060@whutt.UUCP> mls@whutt.UUCP (SIEMON) writes:

>Yep, and those who are enthused about astrology generally attribute its
>origins to ancient (like, millenially B.C.) Egypt.

Ah, but if we assume that the astrological zodiac originally bore
some resemblence to the actual stars, then its origin can be guessed
pretty well.  When was Aries really March 22 .. April 21?  In about
200 BC, give or take a couple of centuries.  That would make it a
piece of Hellenistic syncretism (which sounds likely to me, I confess)

In article <3060@whutt.UUCP> mls@whutt.UUCP (SIEMON) writes:
} In article <794@actnyc.UUCP>, gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
} >                                           ...  Those who are enthused
} > about the Tarot deck generally attribute its origins to a period long
} > before the late middle ages...
} > 
} Yep, and those who are enthused about astrology generally attribute its
} origins to ancient (like, millenially B.C.) Egypt.

Many ancient civilizations were _known_ to practice a combination of
astronomy and astrology, of which they left detailed records, and, I
am told, some usable observations.  But I don't think there is any
direct record of either Tarot cards and images, or the related Cabala,
before the Middle Ages.  Of course, those who are _really_ enthused
about the Tarot attribute its origin to Hermes Trismegistus.

In article <5101@aw.sei.cmu.edu>, firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:
> In article <3060@whutt.UUCP> mls@whutt.UUCP (SIEMON) writes:

> Ah, but if we assume that the astrological zodiac originally bore
> some resemblence to the actual stars...

Well, you are going to have to look into various calendar systems.

And remember that the Zodiacal stuff goes back as far as Enoch talking
to, er.. "the watchers"  (nuther subject)

You ever read "The Sirius Mystery?"

--a start on the concepts of questions pertaining to original information
and knowledge.

a start.