From: ccw@prefect.uucp (26554-wood)
Subject: Re: dragons were dinosaurs?
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 19:57:07 GMT


>Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com) wrote:

>> This is a weird piece of sillyness that seems to have become an American
>> trademark.  Assuming something is impossible absent any evidence that it
>> is _is_ bad science.  However, the fossil record is more than sufficiently
>> complete that we _can_ say that it is impossible that humans and dinosaurs
>> ever co-existed.

[ claims by Larry Smith regarding geology (dinosausr =/= dragons), and
astrology examples, contested by Scott Barker deleted]

>>For an enormous range of cars, from different manufacturers and with no parts
>>in common to suddenly and mysteriously gain the miraculous power to
>>accelerate so far beyond their designed maximum rates that it is beyond the
>>ability of an alert driver employing their perfectly-functioning brakes to
>>stop or slow the car before running someone over, and to thereafter not show
>>any evidence that this was the case, is _impossible_.

iwsbarke@acs.ucalgary.ca (I W Scott Barker) writes:>

>Well, I've got you there. My car did in fact accelerate out of control for
>no apparent reason once. 

The reason is obvious; you stepped on the accelerator, when you thought
you were stepping on the brake pedal.  This explanation fits all the
physical evidence of your "event" (and every other event of this sort
that has been reported).  Unfortunatly, it ends up putting the
responsibility for this sort of thing back onto a rather upset human,
rather than "the manufacturer" or "the machine"

>Luckily, I didn't hit anyone, and did not go out of
>control, however, the only way I could stop it was to turn it off. The engine
>revved so much that the brakes *were* useless, even though they were
>functioning perfectly. After shutting it off, neither I nor the mechanic I
>took it to could figure out what happened, but it hasn't happened since. Thus,
>it was quite possible that I could have run someone over, and would have 
>had no evidence as to why. Thank god that didn't happen.

Try the following experiment.  Find a nice, big, empty parking lot, with
noone around.  Put your car at one end, press the accelerator to the
floor.  With your other foot, press the brake pedal as hard as you can. 
What's the result?  Your car stops, and the engine may (or may not)
stall/flood.  I have done this with two different cars, with identical
results (well, stopping distances were different.)  Some time later, my
car suddenly accelerated on me.  I did the "right thing" (which should
be included in every driver training course); I took my foot off the
pedals, and though "silly me, I pressed the wrong one," and then stopped
the car, within about 5 feet, with the brakes.

>> There are many other examples.  Every human being needs a reliable and
>> functional bullshit detector, it is sad that most every American has
>> had theirs disabled by this sad misinterpretation of the concept of
>> "tolerance".

>Back to science for a moment: it is an accepted truism that every scientific
>law is fact *until proven wrong*. 

How does a proposal _become_ a scientific law?  By being right so many
times, and so many ways.

>Thus, there is a built in "tolerance" to science today, which recognizes
>that human beings ARE NOT capable of DEFINITIVELY determining what is
>or is not possible.

>Scott Barker

Chris

Chris Wood     Bellcore     ...!bellcore!prefect!ccw
                         or ccw@prefect.cc.bellcore.com