New theories are trash ?????

[Bignose]

It is interesting to note that scientists has taken as an evidence that the word evidence could be used to say the contrary it usually meant. For me, an evidence is about something that does not have to be proven, and for them, it is the contrary. What's the use of misdirecting us like that. Do they think the usual meaning the plebe is using will change to coincide with their meaning with time? Couldn't they have used the world "data" instead?

Definition of evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

 

Now, evidence itself can be questioned. If I use a broken thermometer that always reads 10* low and use that data to try to support an idea, the evidence really doesn't support my case. Same thing with the Patterson Bigfoot video. The video is not real clear and so as a piece of evidence in support of the existence of Bigfoot, it is pretty weak.

 

In a scientific setting, evidence is usually inspected very thoroughly. And as swansont noted above, people are always trying to improve on it. That's why we make sensors and scopes and detectors with improved accuracy. Not necessarily because we're rejecting previous evidence, but because we're just trying to eliminate any possible questions about that evidence.

 

In short, I don't think that your definition is really the commonly accepted one. I've never seen it used in that way, personally, though to be fair my incredulity on that matter is pretty weak evidence because it is only anecdote. I think the 'usual' meaning is the one in the dictionary I quoted above.

[Strange]

That they don't understansd the older culture is simple fact. .

 

It is not a "simple fact". It is an opinion. It is an assertion unsupported by any evidence. It is a belief.

 

(But I suppose I am only saying that because I am "unable to see The Truth" - which only makes you sound even more like a preacher.)

Edited September 25, 2014 by Strange

[Le Repteux]

Science is rife with terms that have a very narrow meaning as compared to the lay definitions, and sometimes used in opposite connotation. "Coincidence" is one example. In lay use, a coincidence is an episode of chance while in physics it is decidedly not. This is a reason you might see the phrase "the dictionary is not a technical reference" littered about the forum.

 

You're using evident/evidence to mean obvious, and that's not how science uses it.

Thank's for your answer Swansont, you're the best! But coincidently, the word coincidence has the same meaning to me whatever the use: a temporary interference between two events that did not have the same speed or the same direction before they met.

Definition of evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

I think that the important thing to remind is the number: the word evidence is subjective for individuals, but it becomes objective if it is used to describe the opinion many people may have at the same time of the same phenomenon.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Le Repteux

[Strange]

I think that the important thing to remind is the number: the word evidence is subjective for individuals, but it becomes objective if it is used to describe the opinion many people may have at the same time of the same phenomenon.

 

I don't think that is true. If it were, it would mean that there is objective evidence for the existence of God or aliens.

 

One person can be mistaken/deluded/dishonest and so can one million.

 

More accurately you are simply simply stating irrelevancy.

 

Yep, wave your hands and the objections disappear.

 

Pointing out that there is no evidence is not irrelevant on a science forum.

 

 

You probably feel that this is a refutation of my logic

 

No. I am just pointing out that you are making an unsupported assertion. That is all.

 

As it is unsupported by "facts" or logic, there is nothing to refute.

[swansont]

Thank's for your answer Swansont, you're the best! But coincidently, the word coincidence has the same meaning to me whatever the use: a temporary interference between two events that did not have the same speed or the same direction before they met.

 

How are you able to have a meaningful discussion with anyone if you use different definitions that they do for their words?

[Bignose]

I think that the important thing to remind is the number: the word evidence is subjective for individuals, but it becomes objective if it is used to describe the opinion many people may have at the same time of the same phenomenon.

I agree with Strange above. The number of people who believe in something doesn't really change whether that evidence is truly strong or not.

 

One could argue, this is actually the single most important thing that science has accomplished. That science has said that the quality of evidence is based on how well the measurements agree with the predictions. And nothing else. Nothing about popularity or prestige or commonality or bloodlines or number of degrees anyone has etc. Just simply how closely measurement and prediction agree.

 

I mean, there once was a time that many people thought the world was flat or the moon was made of green cheese. You can't tell me seriously that because so many people believed that, that at one time that would have been strong evidence?

 

There are a lot of people who still don't get this. They will commonly say things like "well, Einstein once wrote this....". The point is that it doesn't matter if it was Einstein, Newton, swansont, Strange, me, or my 3 year old niece who wrote it. It is only valuable if what they wrote is backed up by clear-cut objective evidence.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Bignose

[Le Repteux]

How are you able to have a meaningful discussion with anyone if you use different definitions that they do for their words?

Impossible, this is why I asked for precisions, and I guess it helped me understand the difference between the way we think and the way a community has to think if it wants to move for real in the real world.

I don't think that is true. If it were, it would mean that there is objective evidence for the existence of God or aliens.

 

One person can be mistaken/deluded/dishonest and so can one million.

When you give to a crowd the same meaning the word evidence has for an individual, you get many individual meanings of the same idea. But if you want a society to progress, you have to stick to the "data" meaning of that word.

I mean, there once was a time that many people thought the world was flat or the moon was made of green cheese. You can't tell me seriously that because so many people believed that, that at one time that would have been strong evidence?

I don't, and I guess it is clear.

[swansont]

The specifics of the discussion should take place elsewhere, but conjecture and evidence aren't the same thing.

[Le Repteux]

Le Repteux, this is kind of interesting because this goes back to what I wrote above. That evidence as presented is examined thoroughly. That what at first glance can seem strong, can sometimes be found to be weak. A lot of times people use logical fallacies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies to make their evidence sound better, but once you learn to spot these, you can see whose arguments are weak and whose are strong.

I sometimes take part to discussions about religion or philosophy, and after a while, the same feeling surges: nothing can be observed for real so anything can be said. What I suggest when it happens is to try to improve our notions of what intelligence is about, which means for me to plug my idea about how the mind physically works. Without any physical limit to respect, one can say anything he wants about everything. Some of you reproach me to be unscientific. This is wrong but I can't prove it. Of course my ideas are only ideas for the moment, but they are precisely ideas about the limits we should always be giving to our ideas.

[Phi for All]

Without any physical limit to respect, one can say anything he wants about everything. Some of you reproach me to be unscientific. This is wrong but I can't prove it. Of course my ideas are only ideas for the moment, but they are precisely ideas about the limits we should always be giving to our ideas.

 

Mainstream explanations serve as the physical limit we must respect. We also call it "the box", and you seem to pride yourself in your ability to think outside it.

 

Unfortunately, for some strange reason, you talk about limits for ideas but don't use the perfectly good limits the scientific method provides. You're standing obstinate, still demanding proof (which I told you before, science isn't interested in), claiming to be scientific while not using any of the tools correctly.

 

You obviously didn't like my engineer analogy, but I'm going to try again. If you're putting together one of those build-it-yourself desks from IKEA, do you use the instructions and tools they give you? If it calls for wood glue to hold wooden pegs in holes, do you use wood glue? If the instructions tell you that you have to put the body of the desk together BEFORE you put the drawers in, are you able to understand why? If you answered yes, then why do you insist on trying to do science without using the tools and instructions required?

 

You and cladking both seem to think scientists are unchanging robots who rely on rote learning to join the rest of "the herd" in their wrong assumptions about the natural world. Everyone's wrong but you're right. And so you avoid the very thing that could help you with your perspective, using "the box" the way it was meant to be, as a repository of the best explanations we have to date on various phenomena. That's what you guys are missing out on, and falling behind in knowledge because YOUR explanations are the ones that don't change.

[Bignose]

one can say anything he wants about everything

One surely can, but if one wants to be treated scientifically, then what they say won't just be accepted because they said it. It has to be backed up by evidence. That is at the very core of what science means.

[xyzt]

 

 

You and cladking both seem to think scientists are unchanging robots who rely on rote learning to join the rest of "the herd" in their wrong assumptions about the natural world. Everyone's wrong but you're right. And so you avoid the very thing that could help you with your perspective, using "the box" the way it was meant to be, as a repository of the best explanations we have to date on various phenomena. That's what you guys are missing out on, and falling behind in knowledge because YOUR explanations are the ones that don't change.

Spot on, two thumbs up.

 

You see, learning science is tough, it is so much easier to post nonsense. With the advent of the internet, so many out of the box "scientists" have sprouted.

Edited September 25, 2014 by xyzt

[Le Repteux]

Unfortunately, for some strange reason, you talk about limits for ideas but don't use the perfectly good limits the scientific method provides. You're standing obstinate, still demanding proof (which I told you before, science isn't interested in), claiming to be scientific while not using any of the tools correctly.

It has been formerly established that these limits were about data from observations, not about ideas, so any idea that does not contradict the observations should be considered by the Boxers (nice joke, isn't it?).

 

Some of you think that my idea about mass cannot work because atoms do not radiate constantly, which would contradict the data, and I answered that what has to be considered is what atoms exchange between them, not what we observe from the outside. Nobody knows what is going on between two atoms of the same molecule, precisely because nothing comes out of that interaction.

 

Some claim that actual theory does not fit mine, and that it prevails. They just do not respect the limits everybody should respect in order for the science to progress: the limits of our ideas.

 

Some say I have no maths to present: I did present some numbers, but nobody seems to care. If I had maths, it would probably be the same. On the other hand, the relativity formulas can be applied to the small steps the same way they can be applied to anything that moves fast.

 

You and cladking both seem to think scientists are unchanging robots who rely on rote learning to join the rest of "the herd" in their wrong assumptions about the natural world. Everyone's wrong but you're right.

Not exactly, we just say that scientists are humans, and that they have the same human needs than everybody else. One of these needs is to resist to change their automatisms, otherwise they would die, like everybody else. Are we wrong to defend our automatisms? All I know is that we don't have the choice. Am I right to pinpoint the problem? Who knows?

Edited September 25, 2014 by Le Repteux

[Strange]

Not exactly, we just say that scientists are human, and that they have the same human needs than everybody else. One of these needs is to resist to change their automatisms, otherwise they would die, like everybody else.

 

So now you are saying that scientists won't accept your theory because they will die if they do?

They are correlated with knowledge and especially the kind of knowledge we know forward and backward or visceral knowledge. It's what you know in your bones.

 

That sounds like almost the exact opposite of knowledge obtained by the scientific method. But what do I know.

[cladking]

You are studying the historical part of our ideas, so you call them events, and I am studying their physical part, so I call them motions. I guess I finally found a way to mix the two ideas: tying motion to evolution with the rope of change and resisting to change. Acceleration and resisting to acceleration for a body in motion, change and continuity for a society in evolution, change and resisting to change for ideas in evolution. To understand what I mean, I think that you only have to understand that there is no resistance to acceleration without an acceleration, and transpose the principle to our ideas, which then means that the resistance that we think others offer voluntarily to our ideas is completely subconscious, thus involuntary. Does that fit your thinking about the language?

 

I don't understand.

 

I think I could understand with more detail. I'm not quite as confident I could agree.

 

If I get a little time later I'll try to find one of your threads.

That sounds like almost the exact opposite of knowledge obtained by the scientific method. But what do I know.

 

 

There are many ways to gain knowledge. One can extrapolate existing knowledge to know that pushing a wooden paddle backward through water would propel a floating object (like a boat) forward. One might already be aware of the existence of boats and oars and know how to operate them in "theory". If one has a sufficuiently solid understanding of the factors and how his body and muscles react to the kind of work required he might be able to jump in a boat and take off like an old salt. But far more likely people will need to experiment a little and try different things to steer and propel the boat for maximum distance and efficiency without getting too far from land or finding himself up the creek without a paddle. This experience is visceral knowledge. The greater the experience the better the rower is capable of predicting the needs of the job. The greater the experience the greater his ability to accurately predict things like duration and best routes. The better he can correlate the knowledge of rowing with the knowledge of other things such as how close he can get to the waterfall without risking going over.

 

Knowledge is great. There i no knowledge that isn't great. But when it comes to one's ability to utilize, extrapolate, interpolate, and see interconnections between various aspects of knowledge, it is most easily done with things that are more integral to the knower. Some scientists can have visceral knowledge of complex ideas because he might see something like light bending around a star and know what he's looking at. Visceral knowledge is in most real ways simply experiential knowledge.

 

But knowledge is knowledge and there are an infinbite number of ways to acquire knowledge. A bird might learn each time it pecks the blue light it gets food from a researcher and this is knowledge; it is visceral knowledge. An artist might discover each time he fails to wipe the paint off one side of the brush it will drip and make a mess. You can teach a 10 year old that four times eight is thirty two but until he understands the concepts of division and addition this type of knowledge is not visceral. Until he understands that this is just a number like 2 ^ 5 or 33 less one it's just rote memorization and his ability to apply the knowledge appropriately is limited. It's still true and it's still knowledge but it might never be useful except to get a question right on the quiz.

 

A great deal of knowledge is certainly generated by the formal system of science. Science underlies moodern infrastructure and systems. Most of the ideas that invented these systems and inventions came from individuals with visceral knowledge of the various aspects of the existing systems and state of the art. Most of the invention of experiment which led to these systems was made by scientists who had a visceral knowledge of the paramters of the hypothesis and the capabilities of lab equipment, etc, etc.

 

Any knowledge can be useful and can lead to ideas. But among those who think in modern language it is highly beneficial to have an experiential relationship with that knowledge in order to create something new; an idea. This may well have always been true but moreso now.

[Strange]

And that is exactly why I think it is different from scientific knowledge.

 

You talk about knowledge which is learnt and, importantly, consolidated through experience or practice.

 

That is the opposite of scientific knowledge which is a purely intellectual understanding based on mathematical models and data, not experience. It is also provisional and subject to change so you need to make sure it does not become consolidated in the same way as experiential learning.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Strange

[cladking]

And that is exactly why I think it is different from scientific knowledge.

 

You talk about knowledge which is learnt and, importantly, consolidated through experience or practice.

 

That is the opposite of scientific knowledge which is a purely intellectual understanding based on mathematical models and data, not experience. It is also provisional and subject to change so you need to make sure it does not become consolidated in the same way as experiential learning.

 

And that is exactly why I think it is different from scientific knowledge.

 

You talk about knowledge which is learnt and, importantly, consolidated through experience or practice.

 

That is the opposite of scientific knowledge which is a purely intellectual understanding based on mathematical models and data, not experience. It is also provisional and subject to change so you need to make sure it does not become consolidated in the same way as experiential learning.

 

I believe our difference in this case is mostly just perspective rather than real. Obviously a scientist has to be dispassionate about his knowledge and I suspect you're referring largely to this. Having a vested interest in something is different than having experience with it as I'm understanding the terms. There's also a difference between the way individuals work and think and I suspect this is our primary difference in this particular instance, and perhaps, suggests our differences in general are caused by a fundamental difference. Specifically some scientists do maintain a very dispassionate and mostly intellectual relationship with their knowledge. These are the "smart" scientists who crunch numbers, and methodically explore a phenomenon to find answers or help find hypothesis. They are usually very adept at strings of logic and can do things like operate modern equipment or do a little computer programming. I strongly suspect based on your statement that this applys to you. But there are types of scientists who are intuitive and try to skip the work and go straight to the answers. To these latter people experience in much more beneficial.

 

"Consolidated" is a very apt word for what I'm talking about. How an idea arises or what process leads to it is far less important than whether it is right or not. Some methodology works best for various aspects of science. Whether knowledge is consolidated or not in an individual will be less important to some than others. But even the most methodical thinkers have probably consolidated the logic and techniques they apply to their work.

[Phi for All]

You see, learning science is tough, it is so much easier to post nonsense. With the advent of the internet, so many out of the box "scientists" have sprouted.

 

I think it's more like two people trying to navigate down a dark path, along a cliff covered in fog, to a potential goal. The first person decides to carefully feel his way so he makes sure the ground is solid, using tools designed to ensure each step is trusted and precise. This person can sense the goal but knows he needs to be smart if he wants to get there safely. This person also wants to make sure the path is trustworthy for the people who'll try to follow him. For this person, establishing a proper path to the goal shares equal if not more importance to reaching the goal.

 

The second person senses the goal and considers it to be more important to reach it by any means. This person takes leaps onto uncertain ground, hoping he can skip over all the tedious inching forward and slow progress. This person scoffs at the tools others use and develops his own unique tools that are easier for him to use, but can't be shared because he's the only one who knows what they're for. This person inevitably ends up stranded on a spit of land he leaped onto, only to find that his next step in any direction falls into the abyss. Yet this person still insists his way is better, even when he fails to reach the goal, and continues to tell the first person that he's wrong.

 

It's all a bit like ... the race is over, but the hare is still screaming at the tortoise that he's faster.

[Bignose]

True knowledge is visceral. ... It's what you know in your bones.

The problem is that this has lead people to wrong ideas. That's why science sticks to the dispassionate, objective, clear-cut, statistical significant difference between measurement and prediction.

 

A good example of this is N-Rays. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray Basically, some top French physicists were a little jealous of the the people who discovered X-Rays, electrons, etc. So, in their desire to discover something new, they basically fooled themselves into seeing something that wasn't there. They knew it in their bones that they had discovered something. It wasn't until years later that someone reported seeing N-Rays when a sample wasn't in the device that the truth was discovered.

 

Besides, how does one measure whose bones know something stronger? I may feel in my bones that there is a grand unification theory out there, but you don't. Exactly how do you really decide what is right? I know a guy who lost 2 fingers in an accident. My theories always trump his because I have more bones. But I lose out to the guy that was born with an extra rib. Who know who really wins? Babies. Babies are born with a lot more bones than adults have. We really should be capturing what babies know in their bones because they have so many more than the rest of us, right?

 

I'm sorry, but science has moved on past such foolishness. I am sure there were people who felt in their bones that the earth was flat, the moon was made of green cheese, heat was a fluid called phlogiston, and so on. But objective measurements took all of this down. Fervent belief in something, by one person who 'feels it in their bones' or in many thousands or millions of believers are still far weaker than objective, scientific evidence.

[cladking]

 

I'm sorry, but science has moved on past such foolishness. I am sure there were people who felt in their bones that the earth was flat, the moon was made of green cheese, heat was a fluid called phlogiston, and so on. But objective measurements took all of this down. Fervent belief in something, by one person who 'feels it in their bones' or in many thousands or millions of believers are still far weaker than objective, scientific evidence.

 

"Science" can't address this sort of question. Even the terms are not defined. After they are defined then someone would have to perform an experiment to find which is the more effective means to come up with new ideas; methodically or intuitively. Every researcher will use both of these methods on most problems being considered. Hypothesis formation tends to involve more intuition and analysis of experiment tends to involve a more methodical approach but each person is different and will strive for and reach solutions in his own way. Of course the rules of science and logic must be adhered to or he might end up on the spit of land.

 

It may be centuries before this sort of question can even be defined scientifically.

 

Of course the soft sciences are already making studies into it but the fact is some of the greatest scientists were (primarily) intuitive thinkers. There are many ways to skin a cat. There are infinite ways to view a cat. There is no "right" way to gain knowledge. Ideas are either reflective of reality and become established fact (knowledge) or they are not reflective of nature and will not become established. It is always the evidence and logic that make this determination whether in real science or in the softest sciences. Logically any theory that makes accurate predictions is almost positively correct in part. This is the nature of reality and nature. This is the reason ancient and modern sciences were invented to start with. People observed that patterns repeated. People saw that understanding the reasons for these cycles helped to be able to make predictions which improved peoples' lives. Modern science does the exact same thing in a different way. But the ultimate goal is still to understand nature; to make predictions that can make lives better or make money. In real ways hypothesis formation is a sort of prediction itself; one predicts that nature behaves in some way and an experiment can be designed to prove it. Untestable hypotheses are a dime a dozen until someone devises an experiment to test them.

 

Some people are good at only specific parts of science and some at all parts of science. Each person is an individual and has his own way of working and thinking and the only thing we share is modern language. We share the fruits of language. We share the perspective of modern language. We think we think ourselves into existence because this is how it seems from our perspective. We think we are intelligent and we always understand other people and their concepts.

 

Much of the problem is the extensive specialization now days. Even waste collectors specialize in trash or garbage. Each of us sees an increasingly narrow segment of nature making it harder to see anything that doesn't lie entirely within their narrow segment. This is exactly why things are so inefficient and waste is rampant.

[Bignose]

"Science" can't address this sort of question.

Baloney. Science absolutely can study this question. You can get a bunch of people together who believe something 'in their bones', get a bunch of other people who believe something based on being presented evidence, and see which group is more right.

 

You seem to just prefer thinking your ideas are right rather than actually exposing them to the rigors of science. You seem to prefer to wax on about ancient languages and modern languages and obfuscate what you're really talking about in the hope that no one dissects the gossamer and peers inside. You seem to prefer to play the role of the persecuted genius who is clearly so far ahead of everyone else but just can't get anyone else to see your genius. 'If only those curmudgeons could understand my ancient language, then they'd recognize my brilliance!!!' If you really cared about sharing what you think is your insight, you'd spend just a wee bit of time using our oh-so-primitive language and methods to help us poor underdeveloped chumps out.

 

Well, again, I'm sorry, but real science has moved on. If what you say is correct, the science of today in our 'modern' language can study it. And determine if you are right or not. But that would destroy the illusion you've build around yourself. It really appears to me that you don't have any interest in actually discussing your idea, because you know in your bones you are right, and how dare anyone question such a fundamental and obviously right belief.

 

You want to know what is really obscene about all this?

 

Science actually HAS studied these questions. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626367 http://www.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/certainty/overconfidence/The%20Role%20of%20Individual%20Differences%20in%20the.pdf http://psych.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/90%20JPSP%20constual.pdf

 

and so on and so on. If you'd get your head out of the sand and actually look at some of the work that has been done, you'd actually find that a lot of people have tried to answer questions like this. And study why people 'believe something in their bones'. Just because you're ignorant of the research that is out there, doesn't mean you can claim that science can't even begin to address it.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Bignose

[Arete]

I'll provide an example of how me and a colleague turned a speculation into what we're calling a "theory".

 

We are interested in a particular virus (a bacteriophage) which infects and kills bacteria. We noticed that the virus could kill bacteria which tended to have a particular protein in their cell wall (lets call it protein A), bacteria which didn't have this protein tended to be resistant. This led to the speculation that protein A was the binding site for the virus.

 

So our first step was to take a susceptible bacteria, and silenced the gene encoding protein A. We then infected bacteria identical in all respects, except for their expression of protein A with the virus. Ones expressing A died, ones with A silenced did not. This EVIDENCE allowed us to deduce that A was critical to viral infection, but it wasn't yet evidence that A was the binding site of the virus.

 

So we crystallized the part of A which sticks through the cell wall of the bacteria, and attached it to an artificial surface, to create a "lawn" of the part of protein A that a virus would see when encountering a bacterium. We then exposed this lawn to a high titration of virus, and analyzed it for the level of viral binding to the lawn. A lot of viruses had bound to the protein lawn. At this point, we concluded that we had substantial EVIDENCE that protein A was indeed the binding site for the virus, and were happy to publish a paper suggesting the theory that our virus of interest bound to the membrane protein A - which was necessary to enable viral infection.

 

So, that's how, in science, EVIDENCE can lead to a SPECULATION becoming a THEORY.

 

It's not through repetition, believing really hard, thinking you are smarter than everyone else, or walls of text.

[Bignose]

I strongly believe that if the science were done at Giza I'd be proven at least mostly correct.

 

I know in my bones what the result of a simple thread will be. I've done it many times before from every angle on a mutitude of sites.

 

Frankly I wish people would question me more and the more expertise they have the better.

 

I doubt there is anything important about how they built the Great Pyramid. What's important is why it's not being studied.

It's not a question about Egypt. That belongs in a separate thread.

 

It is a question about how you can think that knowing something "in your bones" is any more valid than flipping a coin, reading chicken entrails, or consulting a tarot card reader. Again, science has moved past this nonsense. Science accepts clear-cut, objective, significant evidence. Knowing something "in your bones" doesn't fulfill any of that.

[cladking]

 

It is a question about how you can think that knowing something "in your bones" is any more valid than flipping a coin, reading chicken entrails, or consulting a tarot card reader. Again, science has moved past this nonsense. Science accepts clear-cut, objective, significant evidence. Knowing something "in your bones" doesn't fulfill any of that.

 

I can't help but feel most of the difference of opinion here is more related to semantics than it is to epistemology. I don't think it really matters so much how you know what you know as it does how well you know it. You think I'm talking about people who know the moon is green cheese but I'm talking about knowing how to row a boat. I'm presuming the bones are part of a sane individual using logic, science, and facts as the basis of his perspective and undertanding.

 

This is a very minor point to me anyway. It is not intended to demean scientific knowledge or those who have it. It is not intended as an insult to those who organize or use their faculties in such a way as to not understand the point. I am hardly the first to make this observation and it has been made by many people since even before 2000 BC and as recently as the 20th century. It should be noted that some scientists do agree with the concept. It is primarily a philosophical concept much more than a scientific one. I doubt those before me were attempting to be insulting either. It appears to be derived from thought about the nature of the interplay of thought and action in the individual.

 

Perhaps if it were reworded it could ring more true but I don't intend to try.

I'll try to avoid use of the phrase here and will instead use something like "connected knowledge" since this seems more acceptable.

[Bignose]

I can't help but feel most of the difference of opinion here is more related to semantics than it is to epistemology. I don't think it really matters so much how you know what you know as it does how well you know it. You think I'm talking about people who know the moon is green cheese but I'm talking about knowing how to row a boat. I'm presuming the bones are part of a sane individual using logic, science, and facts as the basis of his perspective and undertanding.

 

This is a very minor point to me anyway. It is not intended to demean scientific knowledge or those who have it. It is not intended as an insult to those who organize or use their faculties in such a way as to not understand the point. I am hardly the first to make this observation and it has been made by many people since even before 2000 BC and as recently as the 20th century. It should be noted that some scientists do agree with the concept. It is primarily a philosophical concept much more than a scientific one. I doubt those before me were attempting to be insulting either. It appears to be derived from thought about the nature of the interplay of thought and action in the individual.

No it isn't. This has nothing to do with the instinct on how to row a boat. This goes all the way back to:

 

I'm sure it's a factor and I'm sure to date there is simply no alternative because to date there is no alternative to modern language.

I am patient and persistent and I'm most probably right.

Where you tell us that 'modern language' is what is preventing us from doing science as well as we ought to, but you can't actually cite anything to back that us. That you feel you are 'probably right'; that you know it in your bones.

 

This is the baloney I am calling you out on. Quit trying to change the subject, or dither away from what you've stated in your own posts. I want you to support your claim about how modern language is holding us back, or admit that there is no support and that your 'knowing it in you bones' is just your personal faith and of no use scientifically whatsoever.