Dekan

The next President of the United States of America will be a woman . That's obvious. There's been a (semi) "Black President" . He hasn't been much good. But he ticked the politically correct box, ie "black". The next box to be ticked must surely be "Woman President". After that, there'll be an openly Gay President. Then a Black Lesbian President. I empathise with what Americans are suffering. Their country used to be the hope of the world. Now it's being deliberately destroyed. "Republicans", "Democrats" , what difference does it make?

Yes, I think your claim is right. Philosophers didn't invent the scientific method. More likely - they actually resisted it. Because they didn't like the plain exactitude of Science. As an example - didn't one of them dismiss Galileo's 1610 epochal "Star Messenger" book, with its painstaking scientific diagrams of movements of Jupiter's satellites - by this snooty comment: "A dry discourse, devoid of all philosophy" As for intellectual clarity, I've always found more far more clarity in books written by scientists, than by philosophers. The philosophers were worthy in their time. Like in Ancient Greece. In those days, they deserved respect. Because they "loved wisdom", at a time when most people didn't. So the philosophers shouldn't be despised. But their "wisdom" didn't go very far. These days it's been replaced by modern Science, which is much better. I think we should thank the philosophers for some of their past efforts. And bid them adieu.

I don't care which it is, the word "Philosophy" makes me feel sick. Can't we get rid of it, and replace it by "Science" and "Engineering". These words feel good and wholesome. I don't want "Philosophy", it sounds repulsive

If someone posting here was a Doctor of Philosophy, would their posts be better than everyone else's, or just the same

Appreciate your reply. It shows the power of the Left-Wing media. They've apparently made some people think that all Conservatives, if not actually insane, are evil and driven by anger and greed. Thankfully most people are sensible, and don't fall for the media guff. We can still smell a load of carp, when it's pushed in our nostrils!

No, they're not actual quotes! I said they're "a completely hypothetical, but probably, representative, dialogue". We all notice that Liberals are fond of the word "hate" As I think the OP's quote demonstrates. Sorry if that wasn't quite clear.

I don't think Political Conservatism is a form of insanity. Rather, it's a rational consideration - that it's probably best to keep the existing system, until there are good reasons to change it. And the "good reasons" should be rational ones. Not ones based on appeals to emotion, or loaded language. The use of of loaded language is startlingly apparent in the quote from William Todd Schultz, in the OP's #1. In the short quoted passage, we see the following terms applied to views which Schultz didn't like: "Obviously drunk....hate....stupendously ruthless....hate....phallically obsessed....hatefest.....hate....death anxiety....dogmatism....close-mindedness....fear of threat....low self-esteem...." I mean really! Doesn't that kind of language repel anyone who wants to take a rational approach to political issues. But sadly, it does seem to be typical of some "Liberals". They denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them as "insane". Perhaps they think that Republican voters (about 50% of the US electorate) should be put in psychiatric hospitals to be cured of insanity? No - of course I know they wouldn't go that far. But there are some worrying aspects of the language used by Liberals. Especially - this is something everyone notices - their propensity to use the word "hate". As in this completely hypothetical, but probably representative, dialogue: REPUBLICAN: "I think it would be wise for the US to control the flow of immigrants into our country, so that our welfare services can cope, and our industries can make the best use of their talents" LIBERAL: "Why do you hate immigrants?" I'm not trying to start a slanging match, only observing an interesting linguistic phenomenon.

I would prefer to see Religion excluded altogether from a Science forum. Religion is not scientific, and belongs in the same class as Astrology.

Maybe OP is waiting for Quantum Computers. These won't need any programming languages at all - you just specify the question, then the Q computer sprays its superpositioned qbits around randomly until it hits good and spits out the answer.

Thanks Sensei. appreciate your post, and would like to pick up on two points from it: 1. You say "If you would do research before posting, and talk about only things that you know, you wouldn't have reputation points like you have....you wouldn't ask such silly questions" To which I'd offer this (off-topic) reply - hasn't Science made progress precisely because some people didn't do previous research, didn't care about reputation points, and did ask silly questions? Think of Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin. Suppose these three characters had posted their ideas on a 16th/17th/19th century equivalent of SFN. Wouldn't they have got very bad rep, and been blasted off? For not doing proper research into the crystalline spheres which obviously surround our centrally- positioned Earth. And for not realising that heavy objects must obviously fall faster than lighter ones? And failing to grasp that all animals were created in 4004 BC and obviously saved from the Great Flood via the accomodation provided in Noah's Ark? 2. But all this is not really germane to the thread. So - getting back on topic - computer languages and the learning of them - a. I can kind of understand the points you make in the last two paragraphs of your post. But couldn't a single language, such as BASIC, cope with all the isues you describe. I mean, an advanced version such as BBC-BASIC enables the programmer to create sub-routines or "procedures". These procedures can contain any amount of complex coding. And once created, they can be called, within the program, by a single command such as PROC- dosomething. That would seem to be all that's necessary. After all, doesn't all programming really boil to this simple proposition - how to make bits flip from "0" to "1" and vice-versa. I find it hard to accept that this simple task can't accomplished by one set of programming instructions. b. On learning programming languages - are kids still taught in schools to program computers? What programming language is used - is it the same in all schools, or do different schools use different languages?

All these different languages! Is it really necessary to have so many? I never do any research before posting (it prejudices the mind so). But I'd guess that the total number of computer languages ever invented, must be fast approaching the number of human languages currently in existence. Which is, purely from memory, some 4,000 or so. Of course, some of the computer languages are perhaps dead or moribund - is COBOL still around? What happened to Forth, and LISP (((aka "Lots of Irritating Silly Parentheses"))). Does Pascal still find favour in some quarters - it was very big in the 1980's. Or has it gone the way of ancient Algol. Can't we devise, and use, a single common-purpose programming language. Just as English is used as the common language for Science. OK, some posters justify the use of computer languages for specific purposes. As in AtomicMaster and Trumptor's posts above - if you're looking at the financial market, then learn Java...... Oracle and SQL programming deal with databases (apologies for conflating the posts). But isn't that a bit as if we were to say - if you're looking at physics, then learn German. Or - Russian literature deals with chemistry, so learn the Cyrillic script. I know these aren't good examples! Best I could do in the white-heat of composition. My point is - suppose we discarded all computer languages except one - say C++. Would that make it impossible to write programs to cater for all the problems that we use computers to solve?

Thanks John and jduff. Your posts show how programming has changed since my time, back in the 1980's. In those days, I used Sinclair Basic. That was very simple, and required only thinking step by step, logically, to write a program. And it was easy to learn - it had a syntax-checker, which wouldn't allow a wrong line to be entered. I still think that was a good way to teach programming. These days we have modern languages like C++. But doesn't C make you declare all variables in advance? That's quite annoying. It's not like Basic, where you can make up a variable as needed, when you want, "on the hoof" without having to go right back to the start and "declare" it. I suppose the "declaring" is necessary because C is designed to be compiled into machine code. And compilation is much easier if all the variables are known at the start, rather than suddenly popping up. But the requirements of a compiler shouldn't interfere with human freedom. Why should we comply with the machine? Basic isn't intended to be compiled, so it gives the programmer complete freedom to create variables as needed. It's a very nice logical language to work with.

Perhaps Java and Python have this advantage - they're hard to understand. So they give anyone who can program in them an aura of superiority, of mystique. Just like traditional mystiques, such as medical handwriting and legal phraseology. Which are designed to baffle the layman. And so preserve an elite status for professionals. As a layman, I think BASIC is easily the best programming language. It's simple and logical. Aided by REM statements, a well-structured BASIC program makes clear at each stage what it's doing, and why. Whereas, don't programs written in other languages, somewhat resemble Egyptian hieroglyphics?

The above posts are disturbing. Some of us come on here, expecting a rational discussion of scientific questions.

"Allah" is just the Muslim name for their God. "Islam" means "submission".