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Post by theteacher on Jul 6, 2011 16:52:11 GMT -4
Carrying the Fire is where Collins makes his most clear and directed statement as regards this point. Great. I have the book right here on my desk. What page(s)? And what on the the page(s) would you like to comment?
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Post by theteacher on Jul 6, 2011 16:41:32 GMT -4
Looking at the stars is not necessarily important on a real moon mission. This is utter nonsense based on ignorance. Observing the stars and measuring their position with the sextant was basic to manual navigation. If that possibility had not existed, Apollo 13 would never have made it home. Why, for heavens sake, should they be denied, when they were so important, contrary to what you think? The entire press conference can be seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtE8EewIjpU&feature=relatedThey are asked two questions by that specific journalist beginning at 43.10. The first is about the nature of the lunar surface, and the second is, verbatim: “When you looked up at the sky, could you actually see the stars in the Solar corona in spite of the glare?” Neil Armstrong specifically answers: “I don’t recall, during the period of time that we were photographing the Solar corona, what stars we could see”. Then Collins adds to specify: “I don’t remember seeing any”, in the solar corona, that is! Collins doesn't remember seeing any stars in the solar corona. That is what he specifically answers. No more, no less.
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Post by theteacher on Jun 30, 2011 13:40:28 GMT -4
Interesting you mention it, as those two did it for me too. I had a hard time believing, that he said what he did. Sorry, when I say the LRO and the boot prints, I meant in a singular sense. He took Aldrin's bootprint, reduced it down to 1 or 2 pixels in width and layed it over the Apollo 11 LRO picture, and made a big song and dance about how easily the LRO pictures could be faked. That's what did it for me. I actually felt shocked that someone could present such an absurd analysis and still manage to negotiate the dangers of life without suffering an accident. Yes, that was the one, I primarily had in mind. Really incredible. It made me stop watching his movies, so my recollection of what was in what movie is fading...
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Post by theteacher on Jun 30, 2011 7:51:42 GMT -4
The LRO and bootprints did it for me. Interesting you mention it, as those two did it for me too. I had a hard time believing, that he said what he did.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 25, 2011 18:22:12 GMT -4
The moon hoax is pretty old hat and the media appear to have moved on. It will take a few years before we have a new generation of gullible people to sap for money to support the hoax proponents combined with a new generation of hoax proponents that can tap into the anxiety of the new generation. W. David Woods writes in the preface of his informative book "How Apollo Flew to the Moon": "One of my motives for writing this book was to provide a little of the knowledge that might help to refute the absurd assertion that Apollo was faked". I'd say that 20 % of the preface is devoted to the hoax claims. So I think the hoax claims have brought forward a vast amount of evidence, that was not at hand to begin with, and so when the "old generation" of hoax proponents die out, the situation is so much different that promoting the hoax "theory" will be a completely different task - even more old hat as you put it.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 17, 2011 7:44:35 GMT -4
A heavier object will fall faster because it the air resistance will make proportionally less impact on its acceleration due to gravity. Aristotle may have been possessed of a certain intuitive impericism. Your remark here made me realize, that I just reiterated a rather simplistic view. In Wikipedia it says: "A heavier body falls faster than a lighter one of the same shape in a dense medium like water, and this led Aristotle to speculate that the rate of falling is proportional to the weight and inversely proportional to the density of the medium". See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_physics#Life_and_death_of_Aristotelian_physicsSo you certainly have a point.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 14, 2011 18:59:40 GMT -4
Though these ideas are part of modern science, I don't think they are necessary to science as such. A lot of science does not at all include these ideas, and it is not necessary to include an axiom, that the laws of nature are the same on for instance the Moon as on Earth. That is based on - and is subject to - experience. I beg to differ. I think the axiom that the laws of nature are universal and unchanging is pretty basic to all of science. I would prefer to say, that that understanding has become pretty basic over time. I'll bet that the considerations of G. S. Ohm, when he discovered the numerical connection between voltage, current and resistance an formulated what we today know as Ohm's law, did not include, if that law obeyed an axiom of universality. I might lose of course though, if you can prove otherwise, but I don't think so. Absolutely. But how did the idea, that physical laws are the same everywhere, come into the heads of scientists and philosophers? No, not philosophers. Take Aristotle who didn't perform experiments. He claimed that the heavier the body, the faster it would fall. I mean if the physical laws were changing with time and place, it would be discovered by the experiments. So the notion that they don't, is a result of empiric experience with repeating experiments all over the world, and on the basis of the results it seems to be a reliable fact, that the laws are universal. So again it is a fundamental in science, but it didn't arrive in our heads out of the blue.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 14, 2011 18:30:59 GMT -4
I see science more as a practical activity emerging from everyday life in the process of solving practical problems with the goal of satisfying human needs throughout human history, and thus science is based on and emerges from human experience with nature. I see the purpose of science as to solve problems, not to discern truth about nature. That's engineering, not science. They're certainly closely related. Scientists figure out how nature works; engineers apply that knowledge to human wants and needs (aside from the human need simply to know how things work). Yes, in the modern world we make that distinction. But when we go back in history, it is not that obvious. Take for example Newton. Was he a scientist or an engineer? He was struggling with the problem of color aberration from the lenses in telescopes, and alongside with his study of the nature of light, believing that light was particles, he invented the reflecting telescope, which doesn't suffer from color aberration. So his considerations and conclusions concerning the nature of light were motivated by a practical problem, that no one knew how to solve. I think the word science may confuse this debate a bit, since the corresponding word in Danish - or German or Dutch for that matter - does not mean exactly the same as in English but is a broader term. What I have tried to contend is the notion, that science has developed out of human needs, and that a scientific approach to the world has become part of our culture and everyday behavior and problem solving - some of us, that is!. Therefore I find it meaningful to assign the description "scientific" to a lot of human activity, which not necessarily takes place in scientific institutions. Take for instance the gentleman, who made this website: www3.telus.net/summa/moonshot/index.htmWouldn't you say, that he has a true scientific approach to the problems, he is trying to solve? Contrary to him we have the average HB, who won't even go outside and take a photo of the stars just to see, what will happen. So when we teach science at school, the kids do not only learn about science, they learn how to perform and live science, so that their approach to the world around them - hopefully - becomes truly scientific.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 14, 2011 14:00:58 GMT -4
Edited for clarity, unfortunately after it has been quoted. It doesn't change the agreement though :-)
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Post by theteacher on Apr 14, 2011 10:21:16 GMT -4
Theteacher, I think we are looking at two views of the same thing and I have no disagreement with what you say. There is a practice of science and an empirical justification for its validity, but there is also a philosophical underpinning to its claims. Carl Poppers thoughts on falsifiability being a basic test for claiming a theory to be scientific is a recent example of the philosophical underpinnings of the practice of science. In other words, the ideas that drive the best practice of science comprise the philosophy of science and that the practice of science is a developing art. Many people in science balk at being compared to philosophy because modern philosophy contains some pretty wild speculation on metaphysics yet wants to be taken a a serious and robust field of inquiry. One of their problem is the absence of the equivalent of calculus. But there is a historical philosophical development which had to take place for modern science arise and the culmination of that work provides a strong underpinning for the claims of science. The strength of science, to me, is based in the correspondence between the co-development of its philosophy and practice and the continued progress from within the scientific community over the centuries to improve both. This gives strength to the claims of science as the best practice with which to learn about nature. Yes, this is well said. I totally agree with you here.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 13, 2011 18:09:50 GMT -4
Perhaps a bit of explanation is in order. It seems that we belong to different traditions in the philosophy of science. I see science more as a practical activity emerging from everyday life in the process of solving practical problems with the goal of satisfying human needs throughout human history, and thus science is based on and emerges from human experience with nature. I see the purpose of science as to solve problems, not to discern truth about nature. That may be the purpose of the philosophy of science, but science itself has emerged from human practical effort and experience and is thus prior to the philosophy of science. It is common through history to discover and apply scientific principles empirically without having any philosophy of science at all. Yes, but although philosophers assert that claim and are correct doing so imo, this specific insight is still a result of an interaction with nature in an ongoing process and thus a result of experience: It is more efficient to adopt the scientific approach to nature, an approach that discerns between the perception of nature and nature itself, than for instance a magical approach, that does not make that distinction, when it comes to manipulating nature in the interest of meeting human needs. Though these ideas are part of modern science, I don't think they are necessary to science as such. A lot of science does not at all include these ideas, and it is not necessary to include an axiom, that the laws of nature are the same on for instance the Moon as on Earth. That is based on - and is subject to - experience. Furthermore the laws of nature are descriptions of nature, not nature itself. Gödel was a mathematician and a logician, and the sphere of application of his theorems is logical systems, not systems of knowledge knowledge as such. Though scientific insights can be reached by the aid of logical systems for instance by the principle of induction, there is no absolute correspondence between the mathematical models and nature. Only experience with nature itself for instance systematized in the experiment will unveil, if the mathematical model has explanatory power concerning the problem at hand. I think I may not understand what you say here, but if you are saying, that the unprovability (is that a word?) of the scientific axioms give foothold for the skeptics, I think my stance is, that this is a false problem, because science by nature is not axiomatic but a human activity based on experience, so in the end all claims must pass the empirical test. So to me it is more fruitful to see science as a practical ongoing progressing activity, that yields insights more and more refined without ever totally corresponding with nature itself, and that is why knowledge is conditional, not because science is a system based on axioms, that can't be proven right. Even more when it comes to historic and forensic science - in my view - the skeptic is inevitably correct, as many have agreed, that certainty is unobtainable, and what is reasonable doubt ends up being a personal choice based on a personal judgment of the evidence at hand. Accepting that to begin with - and the skeptic kicks in open doors. I apologize if this is moving too much off topic. Edited for precision.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 12, 2011 17:40:18 GMT -4
I'm sorry about that... if you haven't closed your browser you might be able to go back to the edit screen and retrieve what you wrote. I can unlock the thread now that he is banned, I just didn't want him posting again before I could ban him. Again, I'm really sorry if you've lost a post. Don't worry. You did what you had to do.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 12, 2011 17:13:16 GMT -4
kimchijjigae has been banned permanently for making another sexist/misogynistic comment after having already received a temporary ban for the same behaviour. The comment has been moved to a hidden section of the forum. It seems the whole thread is locked except for this single post? That cost me an hours work!
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Post by theteacher on Apr 11, 2011 20:52:09 GMT -4
The level of proof takes into account the limits of knowledge, logic and the fundamental circularity of any philosophical system, such as science. The circularity arises from the fact that all systems of knowledge have axioms or statements that are untestable within the system. I think I may disagree here. Science is not a philosophical system, and it is not circulatory, as it does not rest on axioms, unless of course, you want to call the notion, that the world exists outside and independent from the human conscience an axiom. Science is an advancing process and a practical way of dealing with the world in the way, that it unifies theory and experiment. The basic tool subject - mathematics - rests on axioms, and those axioms cannot be proven within mathematics itself, but that is not a problem to science as long as mathematics actually works as an explanatory tool for the science, it is applied to, because the ultimate criterion for the reliability of a theory is the test. So if a scientific explanation is "correct" or not, depends on the degree to which it solves the practical problem, it arose from - imho. ETA: Alas I fell into the very trap, I intended to describe, and it disturbed my sleep, so I'm back at the keyboard with limited English and rusty theory of science :-) First: "Reliability" is a methodological term. I should rather have used the term "veracity" (?). Second: Science does not deal with verifying theories. Science deals with not being able to falsify theories. So what makes a theory "correct" is the inability to establish a better theory, although concurrent theories may exist alongside for a period of time. In the case of the OP's claim of "possibilities" we don't need to deal with them at all, because as long as they are not supported with evidence, they don't pose any threat to the reigning theory. A lot of events might well be shown to be possible, but these possibilities are still not relevant at all to the reigning theory, as what matters is, if there is evidence supporting the hypothesis that these "possible" - i.e. hypothetical - events actually took place. So "This is possible - prove me wrong" is probably impossible, but first of all it is completely irrelevant and doesn't have to be considered at all. In the case of the moon rocks, there is a very detailed theory explaining where they came from and how they got here. There is no evidence whatsoever supporting any other theory. The role of science is not to "prove", that the reigning theory is correct with any "certainty" but rather to evaluate any attempts to falsify the theory. So when this process has gone on long enough and the probability has reached a level, which is generally accepted as adequate for any practical purpose, we call that "certainty" - well aware, that the term is relative. So men have walked on the Moon and they brought rocks back to earth - most certainly! Good night - or rather good morning :-) - and my apologies to anybody who feels that I have repeated what they already wrote.
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Post by theteacher on Apr 9, 2011 18:14:01 GMT -4
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