From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: Epistemological Question
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 10:31:20 GMT

In article <1992Apr12.054456.25541@cs.tulane.edu>, pierce@navo.navy.mil (Jim M. Pierce) writes:
>In article <1992Apr10.061655.19315@cco.caltech.edu>, lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals) writes:
>|> Sorry, I left out an even more important criterion:
>|> 	0)  Do the events in the account satisfy the laws of nature as we know
>|> 	    them?
>
>     "uhm, StM. Back in the 19th century, scientists said rocks couldn't
>   fall from the sky. Today we call them meteors. { And when they land,
>   they are called meteroites. For those who don't know the difference..}.

Actually it was, I think, in the 18th century that Jefferson (I think) said
something along the lines of "I'd sooner believe that Yankee professors would
lie than that stones would fall out of the sky" in reference to meteorites.
But rocks falling out of the sky violated no known law of nature.  If you'd
asked a scientist to show WHY rocks couldn't fall from the sky, he'd have ended
up answering something like "They just can't."  Also, please note that in my
original post on this subject, I said that if the answers to all the questions
were "yes," I'd think it likely we had an historical incident, while if all the
answers were "no," I'd think it likely that we were dealing with fiction.  When
some of the answers are "yes" and some are "no," we definitely need to
investigate further to make any sort of firm decision.  Applying my four
questions to the question of meteorites:

	0)  Do the events in the account satisfy the laws of nature as we know
	    them?

	    Newton's theory of universal gravitation had been around for
	    awhile, and it was quite feasible to derive simple results of 
	    orbital mechanics.  The laws of nature, as then known, certainly
	    permitted the possibility.  It was only a refusal to accept some
	    of the implications of the laws of nature, as then known, that
	    caused the sort of rejection to which you refer.  So the answer to
	    this one is:

	    Yes.

	1)  Is there any claim made that the account I'm hearing can be
	    verified via physical evidence (even if that evidence is not
	    immediately accessible to me)?

	    Well, yes and no.  While there were claims of people having picked
	    up meteorites, there was nothing to distinguish them (given 18th or
	    19th century technology [remember, they hadn't developed the
	    concepts of isotopes to the point where isotopic distinctions would
	    have been useful, and they didn't even suspect the existence of
	    radioactivity, let alone radioactive dating]).  So count this as a

	    No.

	2)  Can I find several accounts that don't obviously spring from a
	    single original account?

	    There were a number of reports from different places.  Given the
	    state of communications and education back then, the answer to this
	    one has to be:

	    Yes.

	3)  Do the various accounts agree, more or less, on the features that
	    would have seemed most important at the time?                

	    Yes.

	4)  Do the accounts differ in minor details?

	    Please note that the example of meteorites doesn't really fit the
	    question originally asked in this thread.  Here, we're talking
	    about a number of similar events, rather than a single event. 
	    Bearing this in mind, and considering that reports of meteorites
	    DID differ in specifics, we'll give this one a:

	    Yes.

So the answer to four out of the five questions is Yes.  And what actually
finally convinced scientists of the existence of meteorites is the fact that a
reliable observer actually found one, still smoking, in a small crater.  This
made the answer to all five questions Yes.

>     My mother told me a few years ago that an encyclopdeia that she read
>  about 1938 showed the length of time it would take for a diesel locomotive
>  to get from the Earth to our moon. Thereby proving that space travel,
>  even to our moon, was impossible." NickD. not being picky, I hope...

Again, we're not talking about a law of nature.  We're talking about a
then-current engineering limit.  Also don't forget the (invalid) argument:  "A
rocket can't operate in space because it has nothing to push against."  This
one was a simple misunderstanding of how a particular system worked, and, like
the meteorite example, indicates a misunderstanding of Newton's laws; this time
his laws of motion.

Then, there were the arguments against the possibility of heavier-than-air
flying machines.  These were based on arguments having to do with the
power-to-weight ratio of engines at the turn of the century;  once again,
then-current engineering constraints, NOT laws of nature.  (By the way, anybody
out there except me know who it was who said, shortly after the Wright
brothers' first successful flight, something to the effect that airplanes could
never become successful as a means of transportation for businessmen?)

Since you've broadened the original question somewhat, I ought to add another
question to my list, and renumber them:

	1)  Is there actual physical evidence (as opposed to simply a claim
	    thereof)?  
	2)  Do the events in the account satisfy the laws of nature as we know
	    them?
	3)  Is there any claim made that the account I'm hearing can be
	    verified via physical evidence (even if that evidence is not
	    immediately accessible to me)?
	4)  Can I find several accounts that don't obviously spring from a
	    single original account?
	5)  Do the various accounts agree, more or less, on the features that
	    would have seemed most important at the time?
	6)  Do the accounts differ in minor details?
 
If the answer to 1) is "Yes," and the answer to "2)" is "No," then we've got a
case for looking for mistakes in our current formulation of the laws of nature.