Just Flush It

[E.P. Grondine]

I concur. How are things going on the Texas coast?

[Frank Harrist]

I concur. How are things going on the Texas coast?

I live in northeast Texas, far from the coast. Although, if it keeps raining as it has been the coast will creep ever closer.

[uniface]

Let whomever is able to observe that the point I have continually reiterated is that

It is an elementary fallacy to judge the truth or falsity of a claim on the basis of its source. (This is known as “the genetic fallacy”).

This is a simple fact -- one hard won in the bloody mania of the Reformation, and still on shaky ground.

What the feeblewits reply -- in every case -- is that they they do not believe. In this they are childlike in the extreme, being unable to distinguish between the acknowledgement of an impersonal fact and the affirmation of a personal conviction. To them, these are one and the same.

Notice in this that while they take ascribing uncritical credulity to another as the gravest insult of which they are capable, they continually demonstrate this very habit if thought themselves, and at every turn.

Having disposed (as they imagine) of God as a reality in human affairs, they propose to set themselves up on his throne and pronounce such infallible judgements, in such a spirit of reckless disregard of the civilisation that has (unfortunately) failed to illuminate their minds to any appreciable degree as even a Renaissence Pope himself would quail at the prospect of.

Vanity, thy name is not "Woman." It is Would-Be "Scientists."

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Uni -

Because of your expertise in the NW sequence, I'm going to cut you some slack.

There's a difference between "could have been" and "was".

When "could have been" comes into conflict either with physics, or with "was",
than it simply "could not have been".

You can still use "could have been" for entertainment and storytelling.

Usually the people I "hang out" with are intensely into "is";
I specialize in "was".

[E.P. Grondine]

I concur. How are things going on the Texas coast?

I live in northeast Texas, far from the coast. Although, if it keeps raining as it has been the coast will creep ever closer.

Ah, right along the DeSoto's party's attempt to get to Mexico.

[kbs2244]

Usually the people I "hang out" with are intensely into "is";
I specialize in "was".

Well said E P
But with one problem.
We are always redefining what “was.”
Your work on the effects of impacts and DeSoto's path are classic examples.
You are trying to change the commonly accepted “was.”
If you are successful, we have a new "was."

[Frank Harrist]

De Soto's party may well have passed near this area. I'm in the northeast. If they came directly from what is now Arkansas into what is now Texas they would definitely have passed very near here and most certainly came into contact with the Caddo who inhabited most of the area. I live in almost the dead center of Caddo territory as it was back then.

La Salle was murdered, by his own men, not too far south of here. No one knows exactly where. His expedition was a total fiasco.

[Frank Harrist]

Usually the people I "hang out" with are intensely into "is";
I specialize in "was".

Well said E P
But with one problem.
We are always redefining what “was.”
Your work on the effects of impacts and DeSoto's path are classic examples.
You are trying to change the commonly accepted “was.”
If you are successful, we have a new "was."

Actually, a bunch of wrong "was'es" (?) are usually corrected until we get as close as possible to the actual "was". Of course in war the victors decide what "was".

E.P.=The Wizard of Was

[uniface]

Eeep, dismissing information in advance of consideration because you (impersonal, collective "you") don't like something about the source that transmitted it is just . . .

Words fail me.

[E.P. Grondine]

Actually, a bunch of wrong "was'es" (?) are usually corrected until we get as close as possible to the actual "was". Of course in war the victors decide what "was".

uni, Frank understands how "was" is done.

E.P.=The Wizard of Was

Thanks muchly Frank.
I hope there won't be any charge for that.

[Frank Harrist]

Actually, a bunch of wrong "was'es" (?) are usually corrected until we get as close as possible to the actual "was". Of course in war the victors decide what "was".

uni, Frank understands how "was" is done.

E.P.=The Wizard of Was

Thanks muchly Frank.
I hope there won't be any charge for that.

You're the one always soliciting donations. I just do this for love of the science.

[uniface]

Sure do. Same way it decided there were no pre-Clovis Americans (Siberians) right up to the point where everybody conceded that it had been obvious that there had been for ten or fifteen years.

You STILL can't separate what the data indicate from what it looks like after the pontiffs have pontificated on it and the process they used to get it there.

Same thing people do now when they reduce the reality of baseball to the abstractions of sabermetrics and then argue about math.

Bait-&-Switch at its most transparent (to anyone not invested in it).

[uniface]

There's a difference between "could have been" and "was".

When "could have been" comes into conflict either with physics, or with "was",
then it simply "could not have been".

You can still use "could have been" for entertainment and storytelling.

Usually the people I "hang out" with are intensely into "is"; I specialize in "was".

E.P. -- I respect your integrity. Really. I argue with you, but I do. I think it would be better if you'd register some of the points I make rather than (seemingly) regarding them as anomalous data, but at least that's better than one-who-will-not-be-mentioned ignoring everything incongruent with his set of fixed beliefs (while accusing me of unbridled belief myself).

Anyhow. Re. Physics (and Calculus and the rest of that mental universe): what you're referring to is Physics-as-Usual, which has been defiantly ignoring some pretty trenchant critical analysis. Partly because acknowledging the legitimacy of it would require some embarrassing rebooting, and partly because the analyses in question are coming from a non-tenured non-Piled-Higher-And Deeper.

IOW, "science as usual."

http://milesmathis.com/index.html

Enjoy