ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] Maxwell's Equations for Knowledge

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 23:20:04 -0400
Message-id: <53460DE4.9010201@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Dick,    (01)

Everything important is a judgment call.    (02)

> #2 and #3 are judgment calls, which only you can make for yourself.    (03)

No.  There is a systematic way to test judgment.  It's called science.
I recommend the following article by Richard Feynman:    (04)

    http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf    (05)

Ayn Rand's writings are examples of what Feynman calls Cargo Cult
Science.  What's missing from them is "scientific integrity":    (06)

> We've learned from experience that the truth will out.  Other
> experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you
> were wrong or right.  Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll
> disagree with your theory.  And, although you may gain some
> temporary fame, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist
> if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work.  And
> it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself,
> that is missing to a large extent from much of the research in
> Cargo Cult Science.    (07)

John    (08)

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J    (09)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>