tpeo

I don't know what is the context of this quote, but this sounds like a deep misrepresentation of Popper's position. As far as I know, he explicitly addresses the issue of ad hoc and auxiliary hypotheses. Unless this is part of a bigger point about some the "fine-tuning" of theories i.e. just how much the main proposition can be off the mark given the additional hypotheses.

Comment · 8 years ago

I'd say that lambs are more associated with docility than with peace, and it's a very fair association to anyone who has ever had any contact with sheep. Animal symbolism seems to have much more to do with animal traits, animal behavior or supposed animal behavior (e.g. strength with bulls, courage with lions and altruism with the pelican) than anything else and I see no reason to break that pattern. Furthermore, if it were the case that the reverence of some animals were due to degree is which they are useful, compared to the degree to which they are removed from preferred human ecological niches, then the most revered animals on the earth should probably have been fish.

Comment · 8 years ago

There is more to life than smiling and talking to people on a daily basis.

Comment · 8 years ago

I'm not sure if 'philosophical' is the right word, but I'm sure there's a haiku in there.

Comment · 8 years ago

Supposing there's a 1955 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe in the middle of Antartica, which most likely there isn't, it didn't fall there from space.

I have no particular stakes on this discussion besides this one, I just dropped by to say this: I don't see any problem with the construction of that statement. At least as an informal or "folk" logic argument.

Comment · 8 years ago

>According to the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts.

What does any of this even mean?

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2012/05/09/th...

Comment · 8 years ago

>Copernicans like Thomas Digges, Christoph Rothmann, and Philips Lansbergen, spoke of the giant stars in terms of God’s power, or God’s palace, or the palace of the Angels, or even God’s own warriors. [...] The anti-Copernicans were unpersuaded.

If you aren't the guy to be in some way off put by the way science and religion were rubbing together in this instance or by the sort of historical baggage implied in it, then this is perhaps one of the funniest things -- as in genuinely funny -- about Early Modern science and philosophy. That's what I think, at least. Everyone kept invoking God as if that were an argument, but whenever tables turned and people went through the same motions on the listening side they just went "... yeah, nah, I don't think so."

Comment · 8 years ago

Where can someone read more about these neuronal adaptation induced injuries?

Comment · 8 years ago

The overall, just-worrying-factor of this aside, I think it's rather surprising that "someone, somewhere" is putting up CFC-11 in the atmosphere and somehow the only way people got a hold of this was by looking at the ozone layer. If that's indeed the case, that would be a reminder that though there's a lot of information about a lot of stuff nowadays, much of what matters to us can still be going on on completely in the dark.

EDIT: Alternatively, and more innocently, this could be due to the end of the life-cycle of several appliances in Second/Third World countries -- or maybe even First World (do you know anyone with an aging fridge?). While a lot of people might have done away with their old fridges a long while ago, those that didn't might be seeing them all fail nearly at the same time.

Comment · 8 years ago

I think the whole point of the paper which the writers at PBS might have glossed over is simply "we can reproduce this outcome with an extremely simple set of hypotheses". That's how I read it, at least, and that's something that's bound to cross the mind of someone familiar with agent based modelling. And if all they want is produce a power law distribution over income, that's all they need. Further model complications only become relevant if they lead off to new conclusions, or different outcomes from the generally expected outcome under particular circumstances. What you're suggesting would be, on the simple basis of some academic pragmatism -- and the fact that they still have to start from somewhere -- left to further studies, adding stuff to this model while citing the original paper.

But all that you're suggest would indeed bring back at least some degree of agency to the whole thing, even if just as being able to find, sort and act upon opportunities.