joigus

You can have a plague, massive wiping out of genes, but the smallest sample get amplified by the founder effect later. And what previously was a Charlemagne differential gene (I suppose Charlemagne had genes for cellular respiration too) get amplified to almost universal proportions. It's kind of a mix, filter, mutate and stretch kind of dynamics.

Agreed. Language of itself can mislead you. Maths too. Experiments without theoretical analysis are devoid of meaning. Sheer observation can be a crook. It's a network of interrelationships, cross checks, that makes it all solid. Narrowing down the chances of being mistaken. Cladking doesn't even seem to know what a cat is. Most people have no problem with this.

The problem with this is that is sounds sooooo much like a particular philosophy... You simply can't escape philosophy. Break down the word into etymological pieces and you'll understand why.

Some days ago I learnt from @Strange that most Europeans are descended from Charlemagne. I've learnt many other things from him. But this one got me thinking (and still is) about the likely regular Jacks and Susans, and Joes and Marys, who were especially successful in the reproductive sense, but not particularly notorious, and got their genes pushed forward in human history.

Wrong paragraph, wrong book. Nothing about categories there; nothing makes much sense there either in today's context. You still sound cathartic.

@cladking Common categories are not Aristotelian (classical) categories. The concept of cat comes from the clustering together by family resemblance of particular instances of what we call cats, not by the definition of closed (mathematical) equivalence classes. There's even a mathematical theory for the concept you're groping towards: fuzzy sets. Overall, your discourse sounds cathartic, more than based on thought out concepts. You sound dissatisfied and you seem to want to voice your dissatisfaction. You should try some common-interest group based on emotions, rather than a scientific / philosophical battleground for your complaints. That's my advice, anyway. Edit: Here's an example of your "cats"

Read some Wittgenstein. And then some modern cognitive scientists. They've already developed the point you're trying to make.

Gross underestimation.

Sorry. You're right. You do make a point. I was under the influence of the last couple of comments I've had to answer to, which were quite pointless. Thank you. +1 You do make a good point here.

Told you. Thinking is hard, and you have opted for a simplified version of it. You've thrown away tens of thousands of years of human knowledge right there. Hardly the point.

Some of that.

Good question. +1. I suppose modern psychometric techniques are getting us closer to it.

I think you're living the "deductive only" delusion. Either that, or completely missing the essential connection between induction and deduction. Plus, may I say, everything most people are telling you here. There's a common understanding in science and rational thinking that apparently you're not privy to: All thinking starts with induction/observation (that comes first) Then: --> inference of patterns --> proposing definitions and laws --> deduction of both seen and previously unforeseen consequences --> Testing --> Refinement of induction --> confirmation/rejection of theory --> formulation of new theory or refinement of previous one. Something like that. It's long, it's arduous; it takes time, effort, money, and many brains working together. That is the process. You need to get over the axiomatic dream, or the illusion that induction and deduction occur in completely separate levels that don't talk to each other. That's not how it works. And the absolutely essential piece that closes the circle is experiment. As to connecting experiment, religion, and common sense as different motifs for "belief"... I think you've really lost your bearings there. Evidence and belief are not the same thing. It is true that the evidence is always affected by the theory as to its format; the language, if you will, in which the answer is presented. But the process by which we acquire evidence, and the one by which we acquire belief; plus the degree of certainty of both, the objectivity the achieve... It could hardly be more different.

You make some very good points here. +1. You also introduce an element which must have slipped my mind, which is the one of usefulness. This element of usefulness actually had more to do with the original meaning of my question. The ethical question, important though it is, was not what I had in mind. That doesn't mean I don't welcome any other aspects that other members may have in mind. I do. Also, I'm not saying that the ethical question is out of reach for rational thinking, which I think it is. Concepts such as common sense, equanimity and the like are quite useful (again) to get to working standards for ethics. Golden rule is the best example. I agree that potential for harm should not be the criterion upon which we base what we ought to know and what we oughtn't.

And a take-home lesson about diet. Maybe bad science is science unchecked by philosophical concerns?

Trying to use reason to understand the internal arguments of religion is as hopeless as trying to thread a needle through a loop.

I would just add "degrees of certainty" to your list, which I just assume you've thought about before. How you grade concepts in a meaningful and useful way is another matter, of course. I'm trying to get closer to precisely this concept you mention. Namely: What would be a good criterion for a "philosophy of science"?

Or maybe he just spent too many hours in the company of ovine mammals.

Thank you. +1 This connects with your observation on @studiot's post about some standards for good OP's: Please, keep working on it. I'm very interested in coming up with good standards for what aspects of philosophy scientists and engineers (whether they be experimentalists, theorists or computation-driven) would be well advised to be aware of. I know only too well that certain philosophies are too disconnected, too willing to disregard inductive principles, too vague, to be considered of interest for scientifically-minded people. Nothing to be sorry about. Fuzzy thinking has some value. You could even say that any rigorous thinking must start with fuzzy notions. I spent 10+ years living in a small village and became friends with a shepherd. Sometimes we'd start a casual conversation and he'd say, "why are we here?", "what's the meaning of life?" LOL I may be taking the whole for the part, but I think this guy is a representative example that illustrates your point pretty well. I think you're dead right. Your reputation is well deserved. Just one caveat: Some pretty bold, but pretty good, ideas have been trashed and then re-considered. When you think about it, Darwin's dangerous idea () was trashed ad nauseam in its day by a considerable number of people in academia. Who's to say that a new idea is to be trashed? Sorry for the rhetorical question.

Thank you all for very good points. Let me clarify further. The options could be re-phrased as, 0. Philosophy is never worth undertaking or learning about 1. Philosophy is always worth undertaking or learning about 3. Philosophy is worth undertaking or learning about only after a quality criterion has caught your attention in one of its many theories I didn't mean these categories to have Boolean closure, so to speak, but to be demographically/socially/statistically significant. If you think I've left something out that is significant, please tell me. Yes. Although a quantum Boolean Hamlet would have considered "to be and not to be" as a possibility. Or maybe "neither to be nor not to be".

Very nice. Thank you. +1

You're going a bit blurry here, in spite of my efforts to be concrete. Does philosophy make you uncomfortable? I sympathize (if not necessarily agree), but I can't do what you do. Philosophy always distracts me. +1. @Sensei is Boolean in nature.

Your point is well taken. By "philosophies" (countable English noun) I mean each and every particular philosophical theory, irrespective of their merits, whatever criterion we use to measure those. By "philosophy" (uncountable English noun) I mean the activity itself, which more or less can be associated with the grouping together of all philosophical theories. The activity itself. I suppose you can do that without losing much specificity. It's true, e.g., that some people reject philosophy flat-out. Those would be the ones that subscribe to option 0. On the one hand, it's possible that they have considered each and every philosophical theory there is and reject them all but keep "hoping for the right one" (in that sense, they would reject all philosophies so far but wouldn't have given up yet on philosophy altogether). On the other hand, there's the possibility that these people, at some point, grow tired of looking for philosophical arguments and finally decide to give up on philosophy altogether. That goes to show that you're right in that a finer distinction could be made, so I admit that I'm simplifying a little bit. But I don't think that I'm overlooking any big demographics here by identifying all philosophies with philosophy in general. I'm subsuming people who don't like any philosophical theory at all into the group of people who just don't think philosophy should be paid much attention. Would it be good because it might be right or might it be right because it would be good? "Bad" or "good" are defined in a particular sense in the options for the poll. They are not described "for themselves". Good: useless/too arbitrary/self-serving... Bad: has something useful (interesting points to consider)

I'm testing my first poll today. I've scanned for similar topics but wasn't able to find collocations "good philosophy" or "bad philosophy". Especially if your option is the third one, I'm very interested in your criteria, exceptions, and so on. Thank you very much.

This is key, I think. There are several interpretations. They're not theories. The theory is quantum mechanics. You can bet that one is correct. Why it is correct being so mathematically ad hoc is another matter. That's where the different interpretations come up. IMO, the transactional interpretation is much more beautiful and parsimonious, although I must say I don't know it in detail. The one with empty amplitudes and occupied amplitudes is also more plausible IMO, even though it's somewhat ugly. The consistent histories approach is another one. As of today, I'm not aware that any of these have been finally confirmed or rejected experimentally or otherwise. There are claims in every which direction last time I looked, but I don't think there is unanimous thinking about that by any means. As we speak, more physicists are considering arguments about these interpretations, or maybe even other possible interpretations. Which means the problem is not settled. The elementary-particle-physicists' community favours the many-worlds interpretation, but that's all, as far as I understand. That's because their favourite toys (mainly the Wheeler-DeWitt eq.) are formulated within that framework. So it's a matter of heuristics and model-building, nothing else. And that's my two cents.