Science as Selling Populism

[lfmorgan]

This is where we have arrived as I see it after 50 years of heavy participation and contributuion- I ask you, how do we get back to sharing truth because it rings with the dna in every cell of our body-- strickly a matter of physics gut feel as it was for Einstein? Einstein would not have a chance today with his early papers. We have Commercial Headed People calling the shots on what science is and is not all over the internet. We must and can do better! Another apt title for this thread is "Hey! Truth is not for sale! "This thread would offer to be a forum for just that--an open forum on what truth is at the level of Visualizable Einstein Material Points that fill the continuous field of space-time.

[foodchain]

This is where we have arrived as I see it after 50 years of heavy participation and contributuion- I ask you, how do we get back to sharing truth because it rings with the dna in every cell of our body-- strickly a matter of physics gut feel as it was for Einstein? Einstein would not have a chance today with his early papers. We have Commercial Headed People calling the shots on what science is and is not all over the internet. We must and can do better! Another apt title for this thread is "Hey! Truth is not for sale! "This thread would offer to be a forum for just that--an open forum on what truth is at the level of Visualizable Einstein Material Points that fill the continuous field of space-time.

 

I don’t know. If you look at string theory or more or less the multiverse concept I think it would be difficult to say what and what wont make it. I also think that you of course deal with a human element and more so any penalties that can inherit like a taste for art. I mean why the whole idea about the beautiful equation? Why does it have to be beautiful or satisfy first principals in the first place, the axioms themselves cant be explained in such a manner anyways, unless the combination of the two is to imply that a first principals are the axioms but that would imply that our current math uses correct or natural axioms that can model a natural or correct world.

 

See with evolution I would look at natural selection as an axiom, yet it can be derived from other sources such as reproduction and variation with or without inheritance. Which gluing together of these terms provides the grounds for natural selection though if it merely a biological axiom or mechanism really. Which I would also think highlights the question on if natural selection can then be viewed as a axiom simply because it might be a first principal required for life to occur in the first place.

[lakmilis]

See with evolution I would look at natural selection as an axiom, yet it can be derived from other sources such as reproduction and variation with or without inheritance. Which gluing together of these terms provides the grounds for natural selection though if it merely a biological axiom or mechanism really. Which I would also think highlights the question on if natural selection can then be viewed as a axiom simply because it might be a first principal required for life to occur in the first place.

 

lol. Am not gonna go there. the axiom is flawed even if the mechanisms described are [partially?] not. Where are the half humans, half species, etc?

 

[ecoli]

lol. Am not gonna go there. the axiom is flawed even if the mechanisms described are [partially?] not. Where are the half humans, half species, etc?

What's a half-species? Evolutionary theory doesn't predict their existence, so watch the strawman arguments.

[lakmilis]

So it predicts merely done products yes? sudden finished outcomes from a set of acute mutations?

 

Flop... out came a human from an ape embryo or ??

 

[Edtharan]

Flop... out came a human from an ape embryo or ??

That is the strawman argument. Evolution does not claim that is what happens. Evolution say gradual changes over many generations.

 

Ok try this little experiment (you can do it on paper, but if you can program it would be faster to code it):

1) Start by writing down a sentence (not too long, but any length will do).

 

2) Generate 100 random strings of letters, numbers and punctuation marks.

 

3) Rate each random string. To do this we will simply give 1 point for each letter/space/punctuation that is in that string that also appears in the sentence and an extra point if it appears in the same location.

 

4) Take the top 10 rated random strings and make 9 copies of each, however, you need to randomly select one letter/space/punctuation mark and randomly change it.

 

5) Repeat steps 3 and 4.

 

At first you will find that there appears none of the strings will closely match the initial string, even after some time it will appear like random collections. However, once this state has existed for some time, you will see a fairly quick transition towards the initial sentence.

 

But, at any point can you state that it when from completely random to the sentence in one (or a couple) of generations? This is a bit like your statement: "out came a human from an ape embryo".

 

The Random strings in this case would be like the Ape embryo and the sentence would be like the Human. There is no instant transition, but a gradual change from one to the other, with intermediate forms that contain both random symbols and coherent parts of a sentence.

 

However, this is not a complete model. In the real world there would be many different "solutions" to an evolutionary problem (like how to select the best mate, how to avoid predators or how to get the best food). In my example above, this would be like having several, different initial sentences.

 

If you did this, each sentence would be rated as compared to each sentence and only its highest score would be compared. In this situation you will find that sentences will emerge out of the process.

 

This is much more like real world evolution, as there is an ancestral form (the random strings) that evolve into the final forms (the target sentences).

 

In fact you could do this starting from a single sentence (rather than 100) and only keeping the top 10 sentences.