proximity1

I'll offer as a logical exercise this variation on your assertions: If I take your reasoning chain as is, we have, first, a premise, namely "the physics of the finite observable universe does not leave out the possibility that the whole universe is infinite." that is the premise, which, in abstract form can be stated as "A does not preclude the possibility of B." Next, we have the following "conclusion," drawn, apparently, from the preceeding premise: " If this is the case, then an infinite universe with a finite age must have inflated at an infinite rate." Using the very same syllogisms, we may state, by the same logic, the following: Exp. " The physics of the finite observable universe does not leave out the possibility that the whole universe is made of expanding-Pink-Elephants (revised). If this is the case, then an expanding universe of Pink Elephants with a finite age must have inflated at an infinite rate." But, reading the conclusion, the reader is left to interpret the referent of "this" in ..."if this is the case, then"... (my emphasis added). But to what exactly does 'this' refer? Is it: "If this (i.e. "the possibility that the whole universe is infinite) is the case..(i.e. "the possibility that the whole universe is infinite)..then, an infinite universe with a finite age must have inflated at an infinite rate." or, is it, rather, "If this (i.e. "the whole universe is infinite ) then, an infinite universe with a finite age must have inflated at an infinite rate.".. As at least some should notice, the one (assumed as true), does not logically imply the other--the other being: "an infinite universe with a finite age must have inflated at an infinite rate." No one has yet explained how the logic of the OP is faulty. Instead, that logic has been persistently ignored by those who are disputing it here. First, the expansion theory itself is not yet a given. So, it could well be posited--as indeed, prior to the first hypothesis of an expansionary universe (whether that is interpreted as only "visible universe" or not,) it surely was posited--that there was no expansion process. The universe formed in certain unknown dimensions and since is (or is not) expanding at the present (or at any time past). Second, nowhere does any of Arch2008 post demonstrate how we may simply conclude that the universe is infinite. We're simply offered that it must be, because, apparently, since it may not be excluded "that the whole universe is infinite" then, an infinite universe with a finite age must have inflated at an infinite rate." This is at once circular reasoning and, as such, a form of petitio principii. That doesn't follow. And, logically, is false--no matter what the very smart people at NASA may actually believe or contend about the subject. Here, in this thread, the argument, its logic, is false and falls flat. The question posed in the OP is still unanswered (and still ignored) here.

For reasons which stem from a strict application of logic, I agree with Michael123456 @ post N° 13 and with Delta1212 @ post N° 2. No one has been able to explain how the problem as stated here: "Even if explansion during inflation was a number of times faster than light speed, the expansion rate was a finite number. Then how can it reach an infinite size in a finite period of time?" is escaped by word-play in which, at one point, it's objected that "universe" must (for reasons that remain mysterious to me) refer necessarily to "observable universe". It isn't difficult to re-state the OP and specify that by "universe" what is meant is not "merely" the "observable universe" but anything and everything else included, "observable" or not. Put that way, how is it possible to dispense with the logical problem of an "infinite space" having somehow "occurred" within what seems to me must be veiwed as a finite time-span? Unless we are now going to (again?) rework the meaning of time and its relation to space, we have a problem reconciling infinitely-expanded space within finite expansion-time, don't we? As for "distant parts" of the universe (visible or not) having somehow expanded (for a 'while'?) infinitely quickly--vis: Arch2008 @ post N° 14 : ..." So more distant parts may have expanded much faster, perhaps infinitely faster." ... I think the conceptual difficulty should be obvious there. Between "expanded much faster" and "perhaps infinitely faster" is a chasm that I defy any human consciousness to bridge. As applied here, "expansion" is necessarily a time-and-space relationship. That is, to "expand" we mean, inescapably, it seems to me, that in some physically real sense an area (that in which the expansion is taking place) is involved, or concerned, directly with a duration --in post N° 14 we are invited to imagine this duration as "infinitely faster"--(which, I add, happens already to imply a comparison somewhere: "faster" than what, exactly?) --- but, again, in the OP, we are before a logical problem, just as it's expressed in the OP: an "infinitely fast" duration over a finitely limited area? The implication of "infinitely faster" would seem to me to be that this speed "never ceased in its increased acceleration"--that is, its acceleration was infinite. So, in what sense does the term "was" apply there? An infinitely fast acceleration "ceased" at some point? When? When it "ran out time"? Or when it became "fast enough"? I think the problem as stated is still right where the OP left it. _________ appended: in fact, come to think of it, isn't "infinitely faster" simply a logical contradiction in terms--i.e. self-contradictory? "Speed" implies a rate, and a rate would necessarily imply something finite, wouldn't it? So, infinite speed is an apparent logical contradiction. That which is infinite cannot be "rated", clocked, timed, or, indeed, subjected to any sort of humanely-conceived measurement, can it?

RE: "I'm sorry, but when someone takes your money, even with the best of intentions, and flushes it down the toilet, that's stealing." Okay. Let's go with that. Q: Who stole/steals your money? Your A.: the Government, as in Ronald Reagan's "Big Gub'ment." And I say, fine. You're right. The "big government" did it/does it to you. Now, think: who is "big government" if it's not those in the top 0.1% of the wealth and income-holding public? These are the wealthiest of the wealthy. Their money finances both of the two main political parties--that is, the single-party system we have in which one wealth-party presents two faces--a Republican face and, beside it, a more-and-more Right-wing "Democratic Party", the one Franklin Roosevelt once belonged to. So wealth's money finances this one-party 'Two-party' fraud we have. It pays for the campaigns' expenses, the mega-millions in broadcasting party messages, the costs of travel, of equipment, food, lodging, --everything. All that money, in one way or another comes from the richest of the rich. Even people who work for hourly-wages, who live in a mobile home park and who give something to a candidate got that from their employers--other wealthier people. The only exceptions are the modest & low income self-employed who contribute to (guess who? The Republican Party and its candidates, mainly) political campains. But of these latter, even if you put all their contributions together, you couldn't finance a single afternoon's worth of a congressional or a presidential election campaign. So, in effect, they don't even make a "blip" on the radar-screen. Once money buys the parties, their election campaigns, finances both of the main candidates, what do we have? We have a system which is bought and owned. When you buy something, don't you consider it "yours"? Well, the wealthy people (you're not one of these) who've bought and paid for the political system, with all its electoral paraphernalia, they, too, expect that they own what they bought and paid for. There is a small--and a not very significant--- catch; these ultra wealthy do not always agree politically on every last fine detail of policy (tax policy included in certain cases). Instead, they dispute some of them. They argue --mainly in private, but also and always in public, for purposes of spectacle and distraction--over these details, fight, and oppose one plan with another. But these fights all boil down to how to divvy up the nation's wealth among themselves and virtually all the rest of us are left completely out of the important debates, the negotiations and the decision-making --except as bit-part players, or what Hollywood refers to as "Extras". You may hold a million dollars (for the moment) in various investments but you still constitute an "Extra" in the scheme I'm describing here. But, on those broad points of policy--which include taxes in many and certainly where their kind of wealth is concerned, they always agree, no matter what the television talking-heads tell you to the contrary. So, Big money, a.k.a. "Big Gub'ment, owns the system and its hired help--and in a few rare cases, its "own" are both of those at once the owning class and the hired help: as they are both elected official and stupendously wealthy fat-cat--that is, Senators and Congress members get their cues and their spending money from their elite owners and so, the tax system, which you say is stealing your hard-earned income, is a product of these elected officials, who, in turn owe their posts and their power to the organized money which financed their campaigns--year in and year out, for decades in many, many cases. Now, you don't like that? What are you gonna do about it? You have three basic options: 1) you can double-down, that is, try and make your way---as you see it, "earn your way" ---into the upper-stratosphere of the system-owning wealth--in which case, you'll be one of the "happy (extremely) few." 2) you can stay where you are and either smile at your good forune or grumble at your misfortune--that is, those big mean rich people taking your income in taxes. 3) or you can resist, fight, protest, etc. either with others who are by far the numerical majority but who have nothing even close to your investment portfolio (so far, that is); or on the side of the much better off, those similar to you in income, for example, or even considerably wealthier. In any scenario where you try the resistance route (unless, that is, you become a member of some armed terrrorist cell), you're condemned to working within the party and electoral system which, as I've already explained, is owned outright by the very same class who give the orders to Congress which results in your income being confiscated in taxes. So, briefly, you can either try and fight 'em or you can try and join 'em. Since your fairy-tale world view has it that one can always create more wealth, more riches--that is, by working harder, you can always get a bigger and bigger pile, why don't you simply do that and join the top 0.1% of the ruling class? When they (pretend to) pay more in taxes, they don't "feel it". Their lives go on, year in and year out, no matter what the Congress or the Markets do, just as they have been doing. At their level, a few score million dollars, or even one billion can be lost but not wept over for very long.

There are limits at some point to the capacity of any economy to add more workers to the economy. At those points, I don't see "more wealth" being "created" or "new businesses" being created or new market niches being served within those economies at a stall or already in capacity employment. It's sterile to speak of wealth as some hypothetical global "aggregate" which, because, in spite of stagnation or depression in some areas, there are some economies somewhere (supposedly) expanding, that this necessarily translates into increased wealth for any practical purposes for those other economies which are in severe retraction-- in, for example, conditions of increasing unemployment, falling purchasing power, falling effective or absolute wages. The only sense in which "more wealth," has valid meaning when one is claiming that "there can always be more wealth" is in showing that, within a given economic situation, more wealth, (i.e. a larger GDP, measured in a true-value manner) is actually a possibility. "More wealth" in China does not translate per se into "more wealth" in various other locales. So, chinese or argentine, or brazilian expansions are not examples of "more wealth" in, for example, the U.S. economy. Not only is that an issue in theory, its especially an issue as a practical matter since, in present economic conditions--namely, where powerful multi-nationals are capable of wage-and-employment dumping and tax-favor-shopping--- it is entirely possible for one nation's top industrial actors to create employment, produce goods or services, and reap huge profits all in ways and in locales which profit little or nothing to the national (i.e. "home"--a now often meaningless concept for these corporations)economies of these same multi-national corporations. Nor need they ever "repartiriate" their gains. Instead, they may simply park them in tax havens, or economies where, again, they have demanded and won a more favorable treatment from the national taxing authorities. In both theory and practice, "more wealth can always be created" is a snare and a delusion. It is also important as such because it serves to create false impressions and expectations, it gives undeserved credit to a welter of spurious economic beliefs which rely on an imagined limitless capacity for wealth creation, thus helping foster the idea that, if so, then it becomes ultimately an "economy's" or a business sector's or a coporation's or firm's fault, or, more particularly, an individual's fault if he or she fails to remain employed. since, the reasoning goes, "there could always be more wealth (opportunities) created." Real, not imaginary, employment capacity*--if that, after all, isn't what's being driven at by references to "more wealth creation" what point is there in touting this supposedly limitless capacity?--, far from being "peripheral to the arguments" is at the very center of them. When slumps occur, they can be world-wide in their effects; that is, all economies can at the same time deflate, with massive unemployment occurring everywhere at once or within very closely-spaced time periods--the same quarter, same semester, etc. In such circumstances, "more wealth" does not mean increased hiring, or wages, or factory expansion, or, in any meaningful sense, "more wealth" being created. Speaking of wealth, one can find it, lots of it, concentrated, in the holdings of a tiny fraction of a nation's population. Indeed, even if we assume no-limit wealth creation as a hypothesis, divorced from the factor of wealth's distribution, its creation isn't socially interesting to the general public --which may find itself excluded from whatever is supposed to count as wealth creation. _______________________________ from Chaper 5, (at page 37) "Expectation as determining output and employment", in Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,

Explain this part to us, please, very specifically, very precisely, with detailed supporting evidence and argumentation. I contend that you can't do that and, so, you won't do that; my hunch is that in asserting that "there can always be more wealth," you're mouthing an article of faith, something you accept uncritically, without examination. But it would be interesting to be proven wrong on that. Who says "there can always be more wealth"? You? Your economic theorists?

Though, to my intense dismay, I'm not up to following the math you present, I can at least recognize and appreciate something in your presentation; most of all, this resonates with me, " Universe doesn't classify particles like humans to some Protons, Neutrons etc. The only important factor is whether Stability Rule is obeyed or not." Whether others see it or not, there is very profound insight in that seemingly simple idea. Biologists would do well to grasp this for all its profound implications. I wish I had the foundations to really follow your ideas in their mathematical aspects. Alas, I don't.

for the " 'Reading reference' file" : “Clonal clues reveal cancer chaos”Journal name: : Nature Volume: 492Page: : 315Date published: (20 December 2012DOI: doi:10.1038/492315d / Published online : 19 December 2012 Nature link (subscriber access only) : http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v492/n7429/full/492315d.html Related news report concerning this study: Jane Finlayson / University Health Network, Toronto, CANADA http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/uhn-csi121212.php I'm not sure why this qualifies as "news"-- I would revise the headline to read: "Some researchers' recent work show they are beginning to catch up to decade-old fundamental breakthroughs by Kupiec, Sonigo, et al."

I'm less optimistic than you about the future. But, as you're a good deal younger than I, I'm pleased you're more optimistic. I often agree with your views and this thread is another example of why I find your posts interesting. I agree--we didn't (and don't) deserve to be up on that pedestal. I also agree that we are still evolving. For me, there can't even be a question about that. We're evolving and that shall go on as long as human-kind exists---and, whatever comes after us, in an evolutionary sense, will be "our descendants" and that of others from whom we are descended, just as we are descendants of earlier living organisms. But all other living organisms are also still evolving. We can point to forms that are in very great danger of extinction and others in lesser degrees of danger of it. I think we have only the slightest idea as to how near or far our own kind is to becoming extinct since so many variables are involved and so many of them can change so suddenly. Only with regard to technology does it seem to me that humans have "come a long way" from our primate anscestors (PAs). And I think that that is a great part of why we set such great store by technology--wrongly set such great store by it, in my opinion. Otherwise, we are, I think, still extremely close to our PAs in every way other than technology. If I find cause for hope, it's due to my view that our "species" (forgive that term, please) is so terribly pathetic that we have practically unlimited room for improvement and, unless we really do make a world-ending (that is, for our own kind) mess of it, we almost have to improve greatly from where we are--which is only technically advanced from where we started: ignorant, frightened, superstitous and dangerously impulsive. Science as a practical endeavor has aided in attenuating all of those tendencies. At the same time, it has also been touched and tainted by all of them since they're deeply part of our psyche. One improvement we should make and make soon-- a.s.a.p.-- is to reconcile ourselves to remaining permanently and solely on this, our home, planet. That should help encourage us to protect and preserve it--the only home we have and the only home we are likely ever to have. Clearly, I take a view which is poles apart from that presented by Phi for All @ N° 3, above. I regard PfA's assessment as a classic case of extreme anthropocentric thinking. I think it's really only our relatively stupendous ignorance as a "species" that permits one to view as credible such assessments as, or (We presume to be aware of "the future". Historically, our track-record of "awareness" is not much to be proud of.) ( For what?, a century? That's less than the blink of an eye in geological time. Since discovering uranium, we've haven't had time to draw a breath yet. I think talk of "surviving" the discovery of uranium is wildly premature.) ( ??? Since humans "norm" their social habits, taking whatever haphazardly comes, for completely random reasons, to be dominant, talk of our relative sanity is, again, it seems to me, a blushingly anthropocentric view of "sane" or "sanity".) Or it could be that our viewing aparatus conditions us to "look for" such "races" in all the wrong ways and places. The comment is fraught with a human's-eye-view-of "a world of assumptions" about what "other space-faring races" means. We know, of course, that this is intended to imply the construction of vessels with, of course, something analogous to what we think of as "crews". That is all so much "Star Trek"-thinking. ( Have microbes travelled in space? Not, of course, "intentionally," they haven't, as we see ithings. So, if they have, we don't count that as a "space-faring race". We're really looking for something that at least reads constructed measuring instruments calibrated on a mathematical basis. Unless and until we run into that, we wouldn't necessarily recognize a space-faring race or organism even if it made its home in our small intenstines and lived there since it first inhabited our pre-human anscestors' intestinal tracts. ) Leaving aside the fact that never, ever, in the entire known history of humankind have all its terrestrial members ever " work(ed) as a single human race towards these (or any) ends," I'm at a loss for how "working as a single human race towards these ends" is necessarily something that "can't be a bad thing for us here at home either." I think we'll be staying here for well beyond the "forseeable future," and that all of this "investment", which is the socially-uppercrust's wet-dream idea of 'progress,' would be better spent on efforts to develop a real and operating democratic form of government somewhere on Earth; better spent on reducing the gaping and growing gulf which divides the "haves" from the "have-nots" for which we are still far too little ashamed. If you really want to extrapolate from terrestrial human existence to a extra-terrestrial one, then the overwhelming evidence suggests that people shall do "out in space" all the same sorts of things they've done, for better and for so much for worse, here on earth. Why exactly anyone's moving into near-orbital space, or anything beyond that should make them as whole social groups significantly better than the earth-bound humans is an assumption for which I've seen simply zero evidence-based argument and only truly amazing anthropocentric wishful-thinking. But, again, our great strength is in the fact that our room for improvement is boundless--if we don't destroy ourselves first. "We've" been "here"--on earth--only the most fleetingly brief of moments. In that time, we've developped an out-sized pride in our own species that, indeed, it appears no other terrestrial organisms can match, though these latter are far, far, far, far more numerous, have existed eons longer than have "we," and are, by every measure of environmental adaptedness, every bit as "fit" or, more often, far "fitter" than is our kind to the habitats in which these more humble but numerically superior organisms live.

@ 121 So the "domains of applicability" make up then just one set among any number of potential factors which are subject to debates concerning theories. That suggests to me that if one can and does insist on any particular & convenient set for the "domains of applicability," this leaves all objectors out of the picture--indeed, as swansont wrote, "by definition." What are various scientists, if any, who question the set's propriety expected to do? ---just take the given "domains of applicability" as an uncontestable "given"? Or may those be subject to debate and disagreement? For, in light of your review, it would seem to be the assumed contention that there is to be no debate over where, in any given set of circumstances, the limits, in that set of circumstances, are to be indicated.

To give your point its due, in fact, we do "know" that things in this case could have been worse; so, on that, you're right. If one or two people were killed in the next similar instance, it's entirely proprer to consider that, "if the assailant hadn't been stopped," at whatever point he was stopped, that, indeed, things could very reasonably be thought to have had a potential to have been much worse. In this case, by the time the police got to the assailant, he'd already killed himself. So, the working hypothesis is that in something less than the time which elapsed in this case, a teacher or staff with a firearm might have intervened and saved more lives. That's of course a possibility. Using C Reffsmat's statistics above, in post N° 16, the homicide deaths by firearms (which is 36.7% of the total) comes to 11 505. 1% of that figure supposedly gives us the total school incidents of deaths by firearms (for the year 2009), which then amounts to: about 116 deaths. (This assumes homicides only--that is, no school shooting incidents are assumed in that figure in which a firearm was used in a suicide in which no other life was taken than the suicide's.) Then, reducing the scale to Oklahoma, alone, really puts the proposed law into perspective: this proposition to allow any CLEET trained teacher or staff of a public school to carry or keep a firearm--that is in response to how many actual school shootings in Oklahoma itself?, I wonder.

I agree with most of your observations, but in fact the current matter here is related to a proposed Oklahoma law--so far fewer than the totality of the nation's public school teachers are involved.

There's a formal term in logic for what you've just argued here. It's called, "begging the question," or petitio principii -- a form of circular argumentation. The question itself concerns the matter of the potential existence of previously unnoticed "deviations", "discrepancies", or what term you prefer. By presuming at the outset (or, "as a condition of the statement) that there are not any and could not be any since, "if there were, we'd have encountered them already in the course of scientific investigations" is precisely what it means to "beg the question." Are we to understand that in this forum, that is an acceptable and effective kind of argumentation? Because, if it is, there is simply nothing that can't be "proved" that way. One simply states as a prior conditional fact the conclusion one seeks to see "proven," and, Presto! "QED". Rubbish.

There is much in detail I'll have missed concerning the shooting incident; I heard that Lanza drove his mother's car to the school; assuming he parked it as close as possible to an entrance, how far should he have had to walk to break in to the building without being seen approaching, armed and dangerous? This I ask for practical reasons. Let's imagine the proposed law had been in effect and even further, (hard to imagine, but) some of the staff or teachers had easy access to a firearm--where, exactly, would that easy-access be? To be effective, it would have not only to be in the classroom, but in easy reach of the teacher since, in any realistic scenario, either a gunman gains entry to the classroom or he's seen and stopped prior to that--but how and by whom using what means? I don't see how the proposed law would be or could be made feasible. Elementary school teachers, wearing side-arms throughout their day--in the classrooms, in the halls, in the lunchrooms? Have the legislators considered the daily effect of all this on the children? And, then, suppose that few or no teachers elect to keep a firearm, despite (assuming passage) their right to do so? It strikes me as a truly bad 'good idea', allowing school teachers/staff to carry arms in and around the school. This measure "moves the problematics" to another venue. What then about school buses? Wouldn't there have to be an armed guard on-board each of those? The driver? A separate guard? My view of the moment is that there exists no good practical solution to the vulnerability of public schools. They may be made safer but not entirely safe. This kind of incident cannot be completely prevented short of taking measures which are themselves so extreme that "the cure" is overall untenable, unacceptably severe--even in a nation where such events can be expected to occur somewhere every few years or every year, though with fewer and varying losses of life. Remember that the objective was from the first suicidal. With that as a factor, preventive measures are hard-pressed to cover every potentiality.

(and your,) Frankly, I can't parse that. I'm not sure whether there's a word missing, such as somewhere between this ...", for a specified domain of applicability, "... and this, ..."also does not match nature well,..." or whether I just fail to grasp your syntax here but it doesn't make sense to me--nor does your "if, then ..." construction of the comment. Do you mean as a clause modified by "If," to include all of the following as in this variation? : "If we accept that a theory which matches nature well, as defined by experimental accuracy, for a specified domain of applicability ," then add the remaining text as you posted it, ..."also does not match nature well, as defined by experimental accuracy, for the same specified domain of applicability then ... It is a question of consistency." we get this: "If we accept that a theory which matches nature well, as defined by experimental accuracy, for a specified domain of applicability, also does not match nature well, as defined by experimental accuracy,for the same specified domain of applicability then ... It is a question of consistency." Is this more like what you are trying to say or less, please? I honestly can't tell. Nor do I really have a good idea of what, if that version just above is correct, this is supposed to mean, either. But, I want to mention another related point. If you're agreeing with me somewhere concerning your, ..."Right, so making the error bars on your experiment smaller could reveal new phenomena, indeed it did"... this suggests to me that the prior observation--namely, that our observations and accepted theories thus far can at any time be overturned, discredited, supplanted, by the discovery of new, unexpected data (based, of course, on observations) (ETA) --is also valid; thus, I don't see how you can also maintain that rah's contention (see Post 106: "Why must deviations have necesarily been observed?") is not a valid point---that is, our observations don't (and really can't) preclude an unexpected upsetting new observed data which falsifies much (if not all) of current accepted theory. That is, again, then, to ask: "Why must (these potential) deviations have necesarily been observed?" (My amendation between parentheses.) If you agree with my remark (at the top of this post's cited comments), then I don't see how you can object to rah's assumption--- implied in his question, "Why must deviations have necesarily been observed?" -- that we could well come to uncover these as-yet-unobserved "deviations".

Now I would like to pose some questions if this is more than a private-line conversation--and they touch on the matters concerning probable hypotheses, current theory, surprises to the current theories, etc. In general, I think I see the basic gist of rah's line of reasoning, questions, and where he's going and why. And in the main, I agree with much or all of that as I understand it. So, I'd like to go back to Post 101, where we have this (by ajb) : ..."There will most likely be "small corrections" to the current theories in suitable limits of the new theory, but these would have to be smaller than our current experimental accuracy. If not we would have seen these deviations from prediction already." ... and then consider that alongside this, from Post 103 (also by ajb) : "If the deviations from prediction are large, as compared to the experimental accuracy of what ever experiment has been done, then these deviations would have been observed. One would then most likely question the details of the theory." Notice, please, that in first cite, above, from Post 101, you (ajb) refer to what are apparently, speaking purely hypothetically in this context, various as-yet-unseen "deviations" ("from prediction"). You argue that, first, we don't have such deviations from prediction--not in this "large" sense, and, since we don't, as I understand you, this absence in and of itself lends weight to the view that (as it is implied) the current theory is consequently basically valid for that reason--the absence of significant observed deviations, that is. What I want to emphasize is your chain of reasoning: ..."but these (i.e. "small corrections) would have to be smaller than our current experimental accuracy. If not we would have seen these deviations from prediction already." In other words, we assume the theory is correct and accounts for everything because, if it did not, we would expect to see significant deviations from predictions; we don't see that, ergo .... we shouldn't expect to see it, is the conclusion I gather you are making either implicitly or explicitly. Now let's take what we have thus far and add the cite from Post 103, above: ""If the deviations from prediction are large, as compared to the experimental accuracy of what ever experiment has been done, then these deviations would have been observed." But from the previous post 101, we have it that there aren't any such deviations. So, you're positing some hypothetically here in Post 103, and then adding that,if they were large then these deviations would have been observed. It strikes me that this is a classic example of circular reasoning. Am I missing something? Let's review the reasoning chain: 1) We don't observe significant deviations from predictions ----> (ergo) current theory is sound 2) Sound because, if we obseerved large deviations, (this is from post 103; e.g. "If the deviations from prediction are large"...), then these deviations would have been observed." And this, I suggest, is what rah has aptly noticed is circular in character and simply does not follow logically. There is nothing inherent about our current observations that I am aware of which precludes these observations coming to be found incorrect due to their inadequacy either by measurement deficiencies or conceptual deficiencies (deficiencies in the current theory) --and all of that revealed in the course of some unexpected development in (ETA) newly observed data. Comments?

Ringer, thank you. I appreciate your giving it more consideration and your acknowledgement here.

more for the "reading reference file" : from the journal Nature 's EMBO Reports Cellular promiscuity: explaining cellular fidelity in vivo against unrestrained pluripotency in vitro by Gerald Schatten EMBO reports advance online publication 11 December 2012; doi:10.1038/embor.2012.198

I'll quote you again, " Every single person interacting in this thread has had no problems interpreting what has been said except for you. " How, I wonder, can you possibly assert this as a fact? You've stated categorically that each and every one of those interacting in this thread --that would include me, as I, too, have "interacted" in it-- "has had no problems interpreting what has been said except for you." ("you" referring to rah) You assert as a blanket fact that no one "interacting" "has had any problems interpreting what has been said" --those are your words. Then, you try to back-pedal with this, which is completely irrelevant to your assertion: "Since those interacting were answering the questions, it would be a pretty good assumption that they knew what he was talking about." What, though about others interacting? Not everyone "interacting" here is also among "those interacting were answering the question." But you conveniently ignore them--uh, me, for example. But, as I said above, you're mistaken since I have had "problems interpreting (some) of what has been said" --by others here, not, however, particularly by rah--though, in fact, as his reply comment to my comment shows, I didn't exactly correctly interpret every aspect of his meanings, either. But that wasn't my point. My point was that you are simply mistaken to claim what you've claimed--as I've twice explained--about no others (except rah ) having had any problems interpreting what has been said (i.e. written). (ETA): Re: "So rah either doesn't know common usages of words for some reason, or he is being purposefully obtuse." That's your opinion. But, again, you don't exhaust the possibilities with those two alternatives. There's the possibility that he posed the questions, "Why?" to elicit more information and because he found the responses inadequate for one reason or another. That would make those questions, as I have argued, completely pertinent. But you don't even admit that among the possibilities. P.S. by the way, English is my native tongue.

Uh, no. On several occasions I've found the "why" 's posed by rah perfectly pertinent. I don't know why you'd simply assume that just because no one else posed a "why," that no other reader/participants questioned the comments in the same or a similar way. E.g. : in posts 4, 8, 10 (especially), and 72.

I suspect you intended to write, ...' "between "was" and "were".' In any case, I note your e-mail address was deleted. You could use the feature at your profile-page to contact a potential candidate. How would determine your choice? A sample editing task? What level of experience/training are you requiring? Formal student (graduate, or undergraduate) only?

There are established professional agencies which handle such work--for a fee, of course. My advice, (which is free, just as you are free to take it or leave it,) is to decide one way or the other where your priorities are--cost saving or an imaginary perfection in editorial skill. Since your case is that of a researcher with a continuing need for Eglish-language editing of your present and future papers, you can choose the cut-rate route--that is, seek a student in your field or a related field and give him or her the time and patience to develop the skills necessary to produce finished work which is up to your standards or you can prefer a professional agency and pay its going rates for the work in question. As you must know, editing is an art, not a "science" and there is no one with a perfect (flawless) command of English--not even those whose mother tongue is English. And a truly first-rate command of English is not necessarily going to be found among those who are already experts in pharmacology. Reality is going to impose something of a compromise on your desire to find a candidate whose talents combine excellent knowledge of English, superb writing skill and expert knowledge of the realm of research in pharmacology and medical chemistry. That sort of person is rarer today than ever before for the simple reason that our societies' literary habits in both reading and in writing have declined across the board--that is, in all fields, sciences included. If you are determined to avoid resort to a professional agency, then I recommend you look for, as a priority, someone with the habits that come from long-standing practices of high-quality reading and writing as part of his or her culture; and then look next to the matter of your candidate's competence in scientific knowledge. This latter is something which can be gained in less time and with less effort than is required to make a fine writer-editor. Your editor should not be charged with vetting your papers' technical points, their scientific quality, in addition to their literary quality. You, not the English-editor, should ensure in the first place that the technical English vocabulary is correct, that you have not misplaced or confused a technical term--though, with practice, that is a skill an editor should also come to develop.

For clarity, let's bear in mind that the thread here begins with this, "Why should proponents of alternative theories learn accepted science first?" So, nothing in the question states or even implies that the term "proponents" does or must refer to a present or a former or a future scientist--that is, a would-be-scientist. It says only "proponents of alternative theories" (ETA) and it qualifies "learn accepted theories" with the word "first"--thus, neither is it implied that these proponents should never learn accepted science at all. It asks, rather, why they should first learn accepted science. A reader of the counter-views presented here thus far could fairly wonder if those arguing against the "position" as posed by rah mean to contend for some reason that no one, not even an a curious layman, should ever do other than to start by gaining a grounding in this "accepted science"---that would mean in practice that he could (or should) never pick up for study any text presenting an alternative theory in a field which he doesn't already know well--or a field in which standard theory he has at least a good grounding if not an expert's knowledge. Personally, I think that non-scientists should be receptive and attentive to developing a knowledge of accepted science (in the fields concerned) in the course of their acquainting themselves with alternative theories and, I'd add, for emphasis, that, in my view, the best scientist-proponents of alternative theories are indeed those who themselves are at once expert in their knowledge of accepted science (in the field(s) concerned) and impart an exceptionally good critical presentation of that accepted science in the very course of their presentations of their alternative theories.

No, I did not. Post 102 is by Ophiolite. My posts 101, 103 and 107 all respond to prior posts, and all reference the posts to which they respond. Post 108 is not mine, it is one by CharonY responding to me. Each of the posts by me, above, is directly relevant to the post I reference directly. So, yes, they are relevant to the prior comments--(none of which prior comments drew any objections from you)-- since they directly respond to comments addressed (other than in the initial case of 101 where I reply first to Ophiolite addressed to Anilkumar , @ 11 Dec 2012 - 19:28) to me personally.

I replied to a direct query (asked of Anilkumar) by Ophiolite from post 100 : "This is not how science is practised, therefore in your view science is practised incorrectly. How do you account for its success?" That question was asked and was asked without objections. Now you're objecting to my responding to it as not relevant to the thread? As the cited paper (by J.M. Nicholson) points out, the connection between issues and structures of funding and those of what theories experts/scientists entertain is direct, intimate and inextricable. The sentence I quoted, ""The novelty of an idea can be measured by how many ideas and people it contradicts." should have also included the sentence which followed it in the text, "The acceptance and funding of said idea is thus inversely related to its novelty." Please note the highlighted terms above. They are the very heart and substance of the thread's title: "Why are scientists seemingly reluctant to accept new ideas?" So, an active scientist, publishing in a professional journal, draws a direct connection--supported by citations--between funding and the general liklihood of acceptance of novel ideas in a given scientific field. Am I to understand that this relation is being denied, or is for some reason "out of order" in the context of this discussion? You've impugned the sophistication of the author's reasoning: "...But I also feel that it is overly simplicistic description of the issue ..." and you've impugned the author's credibility as lakcing in experience : "...it reads a bit like a piece from a grad student"... But you don't specify a single assertion in the body of the text nor a single link in the chain of reasoning as false, inaccurate or lacking in pertinence. So, I wonder, as to accuracy and pertinence, exactly what do you dispute in this article and why?

On that key point, then, we do disagree--and to put it briefly, RE "... In the long term the methodology works despite the weaknesses of humans, therefore - back to point 1 - I defend the methodology," as Maynard Keynes replied to those who insisted that in the long run standard economic theory holds up, "In the long run, we're all dead." As I think the OP and others here are trying to argue, the problem with your rosy view of it depsite the too simplistic résumé that "shit happens", is that this shit is not the exception. Rather, they are those interludes where some scientists show themselves (and us) the better part of science practice, that is what is the punctual aspect. Ordinarily, in the typical day to day, we have people--including many "scientists, (I daresay, most scientists in some respects) behaving badly." This is nothing peculiar to scientists. I can't point to any field of contemporary human endeavor and say, "There!, there is an example of a field where they only rarely go off the rails. Scientists should strive to be more like ..." Who or what is not, these days, suffering from chronic moral corruption? Our institutions, across the board are failing us. There is no reason why we should think that these trends leave scientists wiithout blemish--to put it mildly. However, "everybody does it, so ..." does not suffice as an exit strategy eithe, here. Our society lives and dies by how well scientists practice their crafts. If for no other reason than that this thread's topic is a crucial one. Yes, I'm distressed--but not merely because scientists "act like humans." That's just another way of pleading 'Nobody's perfect!' But that misses the points. No one claims we have or could have perfection. What's missing is a level that's far inferior to perfection. Scientists too often aren't even up to a respectable degree of non-perfection, that is the problem. And, as I understand your view, the standard procedures eventually amend those problems. I think the gist of the thread's OP is that, alas, they don't and we don't have reasonable cause to expect that they shall. This isn't just a question of whether and how,it eventually happens that one day, 'in the end,' better theory prevails over error. I grant that. And, again, my firm conviction is that both for better and for worse, more than any other factor, when one view or another claims an advance, it has come thanks to much chance intervention. Yes, scientists apply a full panoply of method; they aren't simply shooting completely blindly--though at times, frankly, they are actually using sheer guess-work efforts--but method, even conscientiously applied only reduces the chance factor, it does not and cannot ever eliminate it. But, again, this is when scientists are doing their work largely free of the worst influences of human nature as we currently see it exhibited (I want to disavow the view that our nature is fixed permanently as a phylogenic feature.) I think that the thread would have been cashiered long ago if the case were simply one of people behaving according to their usual bad habits but corrected and amended by the fine rigors of scientific institutions' corrective influences. Simply, that's the pre-purchase "demo version." Once home, and after the purchase warranty has passed, all the flaws come into view. In recent publications or broadcasts, I've heard or read it observed, astutely, that now, we no longer "enjoy" "progress,"--esp. technological progress, we suffer it. And that, as much as anything else, is inextricably bound up with the resistance by scientists to new--and so, unwelcome,--ideas. Technology is now driving scientists' research and their perceptions and their priorities. And the consequences are in part behind the fact that a curious and concerned person could launch a thread such as this and behind its garnering what could well be some eight hundred viewers passing notice. Among scientists, though it's very rare, it's possible to find a few who will directly address the topic openly and under their own names--though it has to be said that only exceptionally brave or reckless individuals will do that. I have referenced one, above, J. M. Nicholson, at Virginia Tech. (the current issue of Nature (Dec. 6) ). Since then, I've had the occasion to find and begin to read another brief essay by Nicholson on the same topic--this time, in BioEssays Journal, 34: 448-450 (bioessays-journal.com) "Collegiality and careerism trump critical questions and bold new ideas: a student's perspective and solution" Those with access via an institution--such as scientists typically have--can read the three-page, referenced, article. I recommend it. It's insightful and it's a brave piece of reasoning and well-written. I refrain from citing it at all except for this single brilliant observation, out of respect for its author and his and the publisher's (Wiley) copyright. "The novelty of an idea can be measured by how many ideas and people it contradicts." It deserves wide and thoughtful attention but, published in June of this year, I very much doubt that a search of this site via keyword would bring any mention prior to that in this present post. As a non-specialist observer of science and scientists, I'm heartened that there are some like J. M. Nicholson on their way (Up?) in science. But, how many like him are there? For an idea, just see how many similar articles you can find on this topic as he treats it. I suspect that there are very very few and for the obvious reason that they are not welcome--as he points out about the most original new ideas in science, as well. and, to end this post, a quote from Dr. Claude Bernard (translated and cited in Hadamard (1945) The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, (Princeton Univ. Press), "Those who have an excessive faith in their ideas are not well fitted to make discoveries." We're suffering from science practiced by those who, well-paid, even in cases, simply bought out and owned, have an excessive faith in the ideas that they are so well paid and promoted to propagate and defend against sometimes far better ideas which aren't favored by money and money's power.