From: pierce@navo.navy.mil (Jim M. Pierce)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: Epistemological Question
Date: 12 Apr 92 11:38:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Apr12.113814.7407
Reply-To: pierce@navo.navy.mil (Jim M. Pierce)
Organization: POPS Operations
Nntp-Posting-Host-[nntpd-2885]: spop.navo.navy.mil

[ abreiviating for brevity, at 6:15 AM....]

In article <1992Apr12.103120.22887@cco.caltech.edu>, lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals) writes:
|> 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

   We must have read different books ! :-) 
  I have never heard of the Jefferson one before. I probably missed it.

|> 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:

  [ deleted for brevity..]

|> >     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.
 
   I fell for that, 'nothing to push against' argument until I read a book
  by Wiley Ley about Rockets.

|> 
|> 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.

    Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by 'a law of nature.' If we don't
  know something is a law of nature, how can we talk about it as if it
  were. { Hmm. That doesn't make any sense, even to me. } I'll try again.

   It was my understanding of the meteor 'disbelief' that scientists
 didn't believe it could/would happen, because it was impossible.
 Because Nature didn't/couldn't do that sort of thing. Kind of like
 believing in a 'rain of frogs' or 'a rain of blood' or 'etc.' 
 by many witnesses ! 
 Sorry. I think I'll go home in about
 an hour and get some sleep. I need it. Must be too much partying !

     Happy Birthday DM !!!

   { Gee Shonias, I blushed all over... }

   Uhm, StM, I understood all of your posts, I was just trying to
 come up with what I felt were contraindications in the 'scientific
 method' of earlier so-called scientists. But that reminds of something
 I saw in a James Burke program. Someone was quoted as saying how
 stupid early scientists must have been to not realize that the earth
 rotates, it was obvious. The other person said, "Well how would a sunrise
 look if the earth was the center of the solar system ?' Well, both
 physical relationships look the same. A sunrise with the Earth the
 center of the solar system and a sunrise of the Earth rotating on
 it axis and bringing the Sun into view look the same. Not that I can
 comprehend what this paragraph has to do with anything. I definately
 need some rest ! Later, I think... , but not right now ! Ack !
 
-- 
     pierce@navo.navy.mil  Jim Pierce aka Nick D.

    "I want a new saying...." me