Engineering News

It is simple. As far as it goes - and that is far enough for starter - I agree with Holzfeller #1.

Well said. GA

There are many things Science can measure, things about which it knows nothing and simply assumes as axiomatic: charge, mass, spin, space, time. What are these things, really, and why are they so? Take the 'familiar' electron for example. We use countless numbers of them every second, so why not?

What is an electron, really? It has charge, mass and spin, but what is it? And what are these things it has, charge, mass and spin? We speak of them as if we know what we're talking about, manipulate their mathematical representations in our equations, call the thing they belong to a 'lepton' and list it in our Standard Model alongside sixteen other bits of stuff about which we know nothing. We're no closer than the ancient Greeks to knowing much about any of it.

To limits of our instruments, an electron has no size. None whatsoever! A point in space having charge, mass and spin - that is all we know. Why is this point in space different from an adjacent point in which the electron is not present? What makes these two points different, and what is this thing we call 'space' that exists between them? We don't know. We can't answer that question! We can measure all we like and list all the properties of this stuff that makes up our Universe and call this list Knowledge, but we cannot call it Understanding. There is a huge gulf between the two.

There is so much we don't know even about the things we can 'see' and measure - let alone what we can't see and measure - and so who are we, then, to claim that we really know much about anything at all? We know so little, and understand even less.

Well said.

Our lack of understanding goes back thousands of years (and possibly results from us siding with the Greeks rather that the Chinese and others).

The Greeks gave us "Scientific Method" (as well as Philosophy, Mathematics & Kebabs!). They showed us how to categorize, standardize and prove. The Chinese concentrated more on how to encourage and engender the creative processes that lead to the right starting point.

It is very clear that the "Science" that really gets us places, that provides huge advancements for society and humanity, is brought on by very special minds, not by clever science, or by 'operatives' who have developed a good understanding of established norms and procedures, or who understand scientific method.

My question is, since "Scientific Method" is for automatons, computers & insects , where does 'Real Science' come from? Where do hypothesis come from? What makes that spark of genius that creates something worth pursuing with science? What turns a school dullard (from arguably one of the dullest of all nations) into a genius such as Einstein? How do scientists know which ideas to pursue? What is taught in schools and universities is norms and procedures and charts and measurements and standard models, etc, etc. Clearly it is not possible to teach 'Genius 101', but is there anything we could do to encourage, develop, promote it?

Yes, actually, but there is so much damage to undo: anti-intellectualism. It's everywhere and it's on the rise. I see it in my kids. My daughter and I had a really nice discussion about hydrogen-powered autos and the problems with current hydrogen-storage technologies, and she came up with some really interesting ideas (albeit a bit uninformed, given that she's only ten years old :) about using polymers. Yet, when she mentioned this in school, she was immediately shut down by her classmates and ridiculed with comments like, "Whatever!" "Who f***ing cares!" (yes, out of the mouths of ten-year-olds) "That's stupid!" and so forth, whilst the teacher looked on and said nothing.

This anti-intellectualism is killing the spirit of kids who might otherwise thrive and grow into worthy scientists, explorers and adventurers; people who dare to step outside this box which no-one has officially named, but which is called Ignorance.

I thoroughly enjoy your posts, btw. GA.

Ditto.

I understand exactly what you are saying.

I'm not sure where you are from, or based, but here in the UK all the emphasis these days in education is on how to take and succeed in examinations. There is no encouragement for curiosity, creativity seems to be actively discouraged and nobody is encouraged to think for themselves. Proscribed procedures and lists of "facts" taught by teachers (some good, some bad, doesn't seem to matter these days) who are themselves bullied and terrified by the establishment into following proscribed procedures and curricula. Real learning has gone by the wayside, and good teachers are not allowed to use their talents. And worst of all, the examinations upon which all efforts are focussed have themselves become rather meaningless. Actually, I'll take that back. Worst of all is that the kids start out keen and bright-eyed, but end up dazed and confused

My wife and I had the pleasure of going to a concert given by your Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd fame (not only was it a real pleasure, but my wife and I were given the tickets free of charge - tix worth $110 apiece - by a couple at a table next to ours at a local restaurant. It happened that we were talking to our waiter, a Pink Floyd fan, about Waters when this couple overheard us and offered the tickets for nothing. We didn't even know Rogers was in town and I offered to pay the couple for the tix, but they refused. We were both absolutely stunned by their generosity).

Waters' performance was at least as good (if not better) than Pink Floyd's concert I saw in L.A. years ago when PF was still a band. In his concert, Waters played clips taken from his epic film The Wall. School children on an assembly-line going through the public education system and emerging from the other side mutated and disfigured. It was very graphic and spoke accurately of the harsh reality of what is happening in our schools today. "We don't need no education; we don't need no thought-control."

At a different point in the concert was the psychotic school-master mocking Waters as a child for his poem 'Money.' It struck home, and so close what my own daughter experienced at the mouths of her classmates, with the teacher's nodding approval.

The concert was both fabulous and deeply disturbing in its dead-on accuracy.

Although what science knows is a small fraction of what could be known, what nonscience knows is an even smaller fraction of what science knows. Dr. Barash should feel a little better about that.

Yes, and even the nonscience 'experts' rarely agree with each other, and the best ones also say little but agree that they don't know it all, either.

This touches on something that drives me crazy....People that represent current thinking as fact rather than stating it as what it is.. eg. "what is currently believed to be true"....." the most currently accepted theory/hypothesis"...

Agreed. And if that weren't troublesome enough, of late the trend seems to be one of people personally attacking others - sometimes savagely - whose views disagree with their own. It's no longer enough to let the evidence - or lack of it - speak for itself. You see it even here, on CR4. I find this trend very disturbing.

There is a distinction between attacking views that merely differ from one's own, versus views that differ from reality.

It may be true that one could say "as far as we know now," but it is awkward to insert this phrase into every statement.

Yes, but aren't one's own views always representative of what one thinks is Reality? Do you know anybody who holds views which they believe don't represent reality? And so we're back at Square One: differing views, yes?

Moreover, it is one thing to attack a view, quite another to attack a person. We can challenge differing views, but is it really necessary to attack them? If one wants to persuade someone to come over to one's own camp, isn't it much more effective (and efficient) to make the idea attractive to them, rather than put them on the defensive so that they dig in their heels? It's like kicking someone in the behind until they become your friend. It doesn't make any sense.

It's a matter of calibration. I can understand that some persons are not amenable to my perfect knowledge (), but there are too many persons that seem not amenable to any knowledge at all ().

It's worse on religion forums than here.

Religion forums are easy: Everybody Is Wrong.

That's a pretty good estimate, once in a while modifiable to everybody but one.

No, there are certain areas in maths/science/philosophy that are so divorced from our perception of reality that our perceptions (of reality, etc.) cannot possibly colour our views. However, our views can still differ.

Beware of people who are too vociferous about their views. They usually have an axe to grind, and are the ones who have to resort to attacking people in order to defend their position, which they know is always weak and misguided. My age-addled mind has just thrown up the following, from a Greek philospher/scientist (can't remember who): "Diffidence is the weakness of the right-thinking mind".

Real scientists/thinkers usually do not have a point to prove. They will throw something out to all and sundry and timidly ask, "what do you think?". They usually have too good an understanding of reality to dare to say, "this is reality".

We often accept without question what we are told by experts because we know they are so much more clever than us (and because we are goaded into it by idiotic tv/media presenters). I don't see any reason why all published pronouncements should not be preceded with a government health warning along the lines of : "These are the views of certain experts at this moment in time only, and should not be mistaken for reality or gospel truth. Like the weather, things could change at any time. Leave your email address for live notifications about life, the universe and everything"

Possibly not. For those who understand the mathematics, the mathematics themselves are the reality. It isn't necessary for the concept to have a counterpart in sensory reality to have its own reality in the mind of the researcher, and the mathematics don't even need to be that advanced. Take complex numbers, for example:

I use complex numbers all the time in my work. That little i (ie, √-1) doesn't cause me any trouble even though it doesn't really make sense on its own. What makes sense are mathematical operations and equivalences it makes possible, and I accept this. For one thing it makes certain other mathematical operations much easier; certain trigonometric functions, and so forth. Those operations are as 'real' to me as any sensory reality in spite of the lack of correspondence with physical objects. Hilbert Space is another one: Hilbert Space has an infinite number of dimensions, none of which correspond to physical reality in any way. I use it because it is conducive to solving certain classes of problems. The rules of Hilbert Space are the reality. It's just a tool, really.

Probably the best analogy (I can think of, anyway) are the rules of a game, say, poker or football. They're made-up rules and, as such, quite arbitrary. There is no requirement for such rules to correspond to anything in Real Life, whatever that is.