Subject: Re: Mars Life Scam Rigged By NASA, NSF
From: virdy@pogo.den.mmc.com (Mahipal Singh Virdy)
Date: 6 Sep 1996 15:13:42 GMT
In article , wrote:
>
>That's true for areas of interest where you appear as a representative
>ofa nation. But, consider that you're doing something as a private
>citizen, not representing anybody and happen to do something
>important. All of a sudden various nations, ethnic groups etc. claim
>you as "our own". Don't you think that you may resentit a bit, under
>some circumstances.
It's all about recognition, always has been. Personally, we all want to
be role models for future generations. It has zero to do with the
individual's nationality. Consider that for the most part, "nations" are
temporal structures that historically have come and gone.
It's very childish to be "patriotic", IMO. Sure, one should love one's
people but the idea of putting country and nationalism above Humanity is
just dumb, dumber, and dumbest. (No, I've not seen any Movie by said
name.) But the bigger question is how Nations move to claim somebody as
their "own" after the fact of said somebody actually acheiving anything.
It's that sort of retro-re-claimation that results in resentment.
In my experience, such nationalistic attributes --- or the ascribing of
--- are childish exercises. Regardless, border patrols around country
boundaries to keep the right people in and the wrong people out is a very
dangerous proposition. In fact, most wars are over "property". I suppose
the new era brings promise of Language Wars (i.e., Canada, USA, ...).
Here's what I find amazing as an Indian who migrated to USA at the age
of seven. Grew up American by all accounts. Now, with my clearer more
mature perspective, I'm astonished at how closed USA really is. It's an
island of sorts. Modern technology and ISH and space-technology and all
that, yet the society is observably closed in regards to what happens in
the world outside USA's borders. And it amazes me to consider how such a
closed system is maintained. "We have the technology ..." cliche.
One could write volumes on this topic. Fortunately, I tire of writing
easily when it comes to writing of unpopular subjects. Still, USA is a
unique experiment in man's history. Allegedly a potpurri of mixed races
coexisting in material abundance. Yet consider how Americans really
live. They're schedules are fixed. They hardly know their neighbours.
They spend hours before the TV --- source of all inspiration.
Communication between people in face-to-face situations rarely happens.
The electronic credit card and checks get approved by some invisible
magic --- the shop owners have no reason to even try remember your face.
You as a customer can ignore everybody likewise.
I'm reminded of a story of an elderly man who saw a child trying to
climb out the grocery store cart in which it was sitting. The parent was
apparently not nearby. So the man started talking to the child to
protect it from falling --- whatever. Suddenly the mother came screaming
at the man telling him to get away from her child. Talk about your
embarrassing social interactions! The reality is --- people avoid
interacting with people in a masterful way. It's nearly an art. In the
real USA-world, everybody is guilty until proven innocent. Any stranger
talking to you is either a criminal or has something to sell you. Well,
that's the same thing. A little redundancy never hurt any writer.
My Orwellian Nightmare is this: American Corporations have a vested
interest in isolating people from one another --- to a maximum extent as
possible. In this way, the only alternative pasttime people will engage
in is watching TV or reading magazines or Internet. Mostly watching TV,
to be sure. By the TV these corpoations sell their products via ever
present advertising. So it is in their stock-holders' interests to get
as many people before the TV as possible. Hence --- you live your life
as you do. Is this a self-inflicted nightmare? No.
Perhaps all the world is like this. Perhaps it has been always like
this. Obviously, it can't be a good thing. The only people that people
seem to listen to --- even interact with --- are faces they see on TV. And
if you don't look like people on TV, you're life is quite isolated. Now
to close... in the USA TV people are at best of only two colors and
primarily one religion. TV people only have one language. They only
recognize two ends of the world --- New York and Los Angeles. In this
allegedly open USA, one is hard pressed to find foriegn TV shows.
Certainly it isn't easy. Then in the USA news you will always hear how
some foriegn country is refusing airing American TV shows. Case in point
is with Vietnam's recent incident. All this while I sit and wonder, when
was the last time USA aired anything Vietnameese? I have to wonder.
Because I have to rationalize under whose information controling and
brain-washing propaganda I was --- unbeknownst to me --- raised in.
Breaking from one's social prison is no easy task. Especially when
society doesn't see itself as a prison --- despite its actions. I speak
only of USA for I grew-up here. I wonder if other nations are just as
closed to other outside nations. If so, is the modern technology
increasing the level of self-imposed and governmental-supported
isolationism or is the technology tearing down these artificial and
invisible walls?
Btw, I'm a fun-loving joke-cracking have-many-friends OPTIMIST. But I
don't let that get in the way of me being a Realist. Presently, I
neither fear or worship BigBrotherTech. But I'd be a fool if I didn't
acknowledge that BBTech is flourishing.
What the hell was this thread about, Nationalism? Mars? WHAT! ;-)
Mahipal |meforce>
Subject: Re: Creation VS Evolution Survey Now Complete
From: moleary@dmu.ac.uk (Mark O'Leary)
Date: 6 Sep 1996 16:22:06 GMT
In article ,
david ford wrote:
> Pick a biochemical
>pathway. Ask yourself if the pathway could appear as the result of
>errors appearing in DNA, and construct a scenario that would allow for
>its construction. Then, come back, and describe to us at the gene level
>how you think it is possible for errors in DNA to be responsible for the
>biochemical system. You may have as much time as you like.
OK.
CAM in plants.
The required changes from either direction (C3 or C4) are quite simple.
There are even transitional forms on the way.
I fear it would requier a couple of years training to get you to the point
where a post-length explanation would mean much to you, but theres enough
pointers above for you to research the pathways and intermediates yourself.
(bonus clue to help: the C in CAM stands for Crassulacean).
The way your mind works is transparent: you come up with something you think
is really hard, you then assume it is therefore impossible. Secure in the
"knowledge" that the feat is impossible, you challenge someone to do it,
"knowing" they'll fail. When they actually succeed, you stop answering that
thread, and start another with a new "impossible" challenge. Thus, the above
"impossible" evidence for evolution in biochemical pathways has a history of
antecedents like the "impossible" protowhale transtionals and the
"impossible" transitional features of archaeoptryx and the "impossible" data
classes that would falsify evolution and so on ad nauseam. Your personal
incredulity and the fallacy it leads you into is fast drifting from the
amusing to the annoying. A demonstration that you are capable of learning by
acknowledging just once that something you thought was "impossible" is
actually well known and understood and that you have abadoned that
particular aspect of your case against evolution would be welcome at this
point.
M.
--
-=-=-=-=-=- -.-. .- .-.. .-.. -- . -.-. --- --- ... .-.-.- -=-=-=-=-
Mark O'Leary, Voice: Extn. 6201
Network & Communications Group. Email: moleary@dmu.ac.uk
De Montfort University, UK.
Subject: Re: Utter Futility of Arguing With Creationists
From: danlee@gate.net
Date: 6 Sep 1996 17:04:30 GMT
In <50juko$73j@cutter.cfw.com>, moorej@cfw.com (JeffMo) writes:
>
>
>
> ... If God decided to create our universe by
>simply setting into motion our little neighborhood ("universe") with
>all of its natural law and observable order, including Big Bang-type
>cosmology and evolution, who are the creationists to say that he
>*didn't* do it that way?
>
>JeffMo
>
"Who" they are - a subset of Christians who believe in the literal
interpretation of *some* parts of the Bible - they get to pick and choose
which parts are literal and which parts are poetry and parable. The common
justification for literalism is: if we don't believe in the historical "scientific"
accuracy of the stories in the Old Testament, then how are we to believe in
the accuracy of the New Testament? The Bible itself?
The key lies in the concept of "meaning." Christ told all kinds of parables,
and nobody quibbles about whether there really was a "prodigal son" or a
foolish man who built his house on the sand instead of on a rock. It's easy
to see why these stories have meaning, regardless of whether they did or
did not actually occur. Unfortunately, the greater "meaning" of the stories
told in the Old Testament are not always as apparent as the parables Jesus
told.
The Tower of Babel story sounds like a classic mythological tale that would
sufficiently explain (to someone in ancient times) why differences in
language exist. The lesson is that "God made it that way to teach us some
lesson about human pride, and when you encounter someone who speaks
differently, try to remember the lesson." In modern times we understand a
little better why two people who both speak English, one from a farm in the
deep South, the other from the middle of London, can barely understand each
other. That doesn't mean the parable is no longer valid - it is - but the
literalist who has forgotten the meaning of the parable will have no choice
but to believe that the story reflects an actual event, else why would it be
in the Bible?
The same holds true with the Creation parable. It is a classic tale that is
full of meaning, and anyone who has read Joseph Campbell will find many
object lessons buried within it. But someone who doesn't understand that
a story can have meaning whether it is factual or not is usually going to
miss the whole point of the story.
Especially if that someone's belief in God is fragile, and subject to collapse
if he comes to realize that the story may not have actually happened at some
point in time. Such a person CANNOT believe anything other than the literal
story of Creation without risking everything he stands for. Therefore to try
dislodge him from those beliefs is quite futile.
Dan
Subject: IMPACT OROGENY ON EARTH
From: pelorus@ltec.net
Date: 5 Sep 1996 22:44:02 GMT
IMPACT OROGENY ON EARTH
All of the terrestrial planets are pock-marked by impact craters, and the Moon
has half a dozen impact craters that measure over a thousand kilometers in
diameter. To the extent that the Earth has a significantly larger
cross-sectional diameter and is the dominant gravitational center in the
Earth-Moon system, it should have experienced multiple impacts that produced
crater rims measuring thousands of kilometers in diameter. Where are they?
For decades the paucity of impact-generated structures on Earth’s crustal
surface has been explained by the many differences that exist between our
home planet and the other terrestrial planets and moons. Earth’s atmosphere,
for example, is said to vaporize nearly all impactors measuring less than a
meter in diameter, so these objects don’t hit ground. Two-thirds of Earth’s
surface is covered by water, so the oceans both obscure and erase the effects
of impacts occurring at sea. Finally, the Earth’s crustal surface is in
constant plate tectonic motion, a reality that buries impact artifacts over
time.
It is true that Earth’s atmosphere vaporizes most small impactors. Two years
ago the USAF Space Command released several decades of previously classified
observations that high velocity, one to three-meter sized objects produce high
atmospheric explosions of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki magnitudes at a fairly regular
rate, and this same data indicates that smaller impactors collide with Earth on
a continuous basis. We may be impressed by atomic bomb class interactions
between relatively small high velocity rocks and Earth’s atmosphere, and would
be more awe-struck if these events were occurring at ground level. Earth’s
atmosphere protects us from these effects, but none of these collisions would
ever produce crater rims measuring in the 1,000+ kilometer scale.
It is also true that the oceans prevent many, obscure most, and erode all
impact crater rims formed upon the floors of seas. The oldest oceanic crust
is no more than 250 million years old, so it is not at all unreasonable to
expect that significant impact-inspired deformations of oceanic basins might
readily be removed by the dense spreading basalts that create and constitute
the oceanic crust. The oceans are so large that most will readily enclose and
contain crater rims measuring a thousand kilometers in diameter. This, of
course, would require that these impacts all occur dead-center in the oceans,
an unreasonable expectation.
A more likely scenario is one that portrays the very large impacts as events
whose associated crater rims affect the continental plates as often as they do
not. The land-based portions of these very large crater rims should look
like "mountains" the same way they do on other hardened planetary and lunar
structures. Very large impacts occurring in the central portions of oceans
should, in the very least, wash huge sea-shell containing sedimentary deposits
up onto the continental plates. As it turns out, the atmospheric surfaces of
over 70% of Earth’s continental plates do consist of sedimentary rocks. The
understanding and explicit teaching that these secondary sedimentary land forms
derive from impacts at sea is at least as old as Plato’s Timaeus and the "myth"
of a long lost Atlantis contained therein.
So let’s be generous, for the moment, and accept the wisdom of the ancients who
knew that large impacts at sea have repeatedly thrown huge waves of sea-floor
debris up onto the hard rocks of continental cratonic land. Is this why there
are no very large impact crater rims on the surfaces of the continents, crater
rims that should look like arc segments of mountainous circles having diameters
measuring thousands of kilometers in size? Have huge waves of ocean-borne
debris covered over the mountains with sedimentary deposits?
Have huge waves of ocean-borne debris blasted away the rocks of the circular
mountain systems that the Moon’s own surface tells us were once here on Earth,
too? Probably not. The very hard cratonic rocks that form the continental
roots (and the 30% of surface land that is not sedimentary rock) are billions
of years old. Much of this cratonic material forms the resilient shorelines
from which we go fishing in the seas. Large and small waves have lapped these
shorelines for unimaginably long periods of time, yet they persist.
Besides, all of the continental plates do have mountain systems that the seas
have not washed away or buried. Some of these mountain systems appear to be
very old, their sharp craggy edges polished by time, their sharp angular peaks
hewn into humps and hills. The Appalachian system of eastern North America is
like this.
In contrast to these, there are mountain systems that just "look" from their
sharp edges to be much newer than the Appalachians. The Rocky Mountains look
sharp, edged, and "young". The Andes look sharp, edged, and "new". The
Trans-Antarctic Mountains look fresh and recently cleaved. The Mackenzie
Range of Canada is rugged. The Kolyma Mountains of northeast Asia, and the
Himalayas of southeast Asia are also rough, raw, and peaked.
These mountains also form individual arc segments of a common circle. Actually,
it is more impressive than this because the Mackenzie Range of Canada, the
Rockies of the United States, the mountains that are Central America, the Andes,
the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, the western Australian Rise, the Philippine
Islands, the eastern Himalayans, the Kolyma Range of northeast Asia, and the
Brooks Mountains of Alaska form an almost perfectly round circle of connected,
co-simultaneously formed mountains on the surface of the Earth. It sure is
hard to explain how the collisions of moving plates created those Rocky
Mountains in the middle of America.
And isn’t it strange how huge shards of oceanic crust have been thrust laterally
up under the continental plates that surround and enclose the Pacific Ocean,
forming a circular "Rim of Fire" on the surface of our globe radially removed
from the largest active volcano of the world. That’s right, Hawaii, that
iridium-enriched volcano that dates somewhere between 65 and 70 million years
old is right in the very bull-eye center of this huge round circular rim of
rugged ragged mountains.
Nope, that circle of mountains can’t be an impact crater rim. As almost any
geologist knows, ours is a uniformitarian existence. Very large impacts don’t
happen here, just everywhere else.
On the other hand, if you’d like to know more about impact orogeny (e.g.,
mountain building), see "Hawaii: Tombstone of the Dinosaurs", Eos: Transactions
of the American Geophysics Union 75: 418, 1994.
If you’d like to know how the radiometric rock dates confirm the co-simultaneous
formation of this circle of mountains, read "Plasma Motions Following Lunar
Genesis: The Theory of Land and Life, Eos: Transactions of the American
Geophysics Union 75: 226, 1994.
If you just want to get away from uniformitarian doldrums, read Herbert R.
Shaw’s book "Craters, Chronologies, and Cosmos: A New Theory of Earth (William
Glen, ed.) 688 pages, 2000+ references, Stanford University Press (1995).
And, if you just want to know why meteorite ALH84001 is probably a
representative sample of Earth's oldest biogenic crust, you can take a look
at "The Impact Origin of Genetic Material", in Medical Hypotheses 38:
92-94, 1992.
If you want a full, complete, and comprehensive discussion of all of the above,
you'll just have to await the appearance of "Babel Rebuilt: The Biological
Derivation of Planck's Constant". In the meantime... there are thousands of
graduate-level theses suggested by the above.
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Subject: Re: Mankind's next step
From: Rudy Vonk
Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 19:13:39 +0200
I wrote:
> Louis M. Pecora wrote:
> >
> >
> > For the prize behind curtain 2, when did the base 9 new millenium take
> > place, assuming all counting started at the present base 10 year 1?
> > Anyone?
>
> Well, obviously on January 1, 2000 (base 9).
First, my sincere apologies for posting this before I realized I was
answering something that was cross-posted all over the universe. I am
deeply sorry, Messrs. Oceanographers, Satellite Navigators, etc.
Secondly, of course, I meant to say January 1, 2001 (or December 31,
2000, but _not_ December 31, 1888!)
--
___________________________________________
Rudy Vonk (business)
Oviedo, Spain (private)
Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.
(from "Twenty Past Midnight")
_________________________________________________
Subject: Re: Mars Life Scam Rigged By NASA, NSF
From: tdp@ix.netcom.com(Tom Potter)
Date: 6 Sep 1996 17:56:44 GMT
In <50pf36$t37@tel.den.mmc.com> virdy@pogo.den.mmc.com (Mahipal Singh
Virdy) writes:
>My Orwellian Nightmare is this: American Corporations have a vested
>interest in isolating people from one another --- to a maximum extent
as
>possible. In this way, the only alternative pasttime people will
engage
>in is watching TV or reading magazines or Internet. Mostly watching
TV,
>to be sure. By the TV these corpoations sell their products via ever
>present advertising. So it is in their stock-holders' interests to get
>as many people before the TV as possible. Hence --- you live your life
>as you do.
>
>Mahipal |meforce>
It is my perception that what divides people
is government and religion, not free market corporations.
The products of corporations tend to be essentials
like food, shelter and clothing, and the non-essentials
the corporations try to sell involve the concept
of socialization. The ads for beer, deodorants,
cosmetics, cars, travel, etc. tend to with socialization.
The main stock in trade of government is creating demons
and division. ( Gun owners, teenage gangs, Black militants,
Latino's, Arabs, Terrorists, Internet, drugs, etc. )
and use the people's fear of these demons to take freedoms
from the people and to obtain more security and goodies
for those in government.
The problem is that America has developed the science
( And art ) of communications to such a level as to
permit government to create and maintain a constant stock
of demons, and thus to keep society in a constant of
agitation.
When society begins to understand government's
motives and methods, and takes it much less
seriously, and acts to greatly reduces its' size,
society will make a giant leap forward.
Tom Potter http://pobox.com/~tdp
Subject: Re: Quiet, Please
From: hough@aladdin.gps.caltech.edu (Susan Hough)
Date: 6 Sep 1996 18:24:58 GMT
Teri Miller (shannah@rahul.net) wrote:
: In article ,
: Roger Musson wrote:
: >
: >Pardon me for intruding on a private argument, but I'm just getting this faint
: >feeling that all the arguments about moderation are turning out to be more of
: >a hassle than the posts which moderation was supposed to protect us from.
: >
: I completely agree with Roger. Oliver, Richard, if you want to
: keep haranguing each other, would you *please* take it to private
: email?
:
: In spite of my best efforts, my killfile has been completely
: unable to keep up with the random non-earthquake-related traffic
: on ca.earthquakes.
:
: I think that the cure has become worse than the disease, and that
: the patient is in serious danger of expiring.
(hi Teri). I wouldn't want to disagree with you too strongly, but I've
come to the conclusion that, on an on-going basis, there just doesn't
seem to be a huge volume of 'legitimate' posts. That is, as annoying
as some recent 'dialogs' have been, I do think it'd be possible to
start and continue a rational discussion...if there were interest in doing
so. Certainly when compared to some other newsgroups, the volume here
still isn't that bad (especially not when people are increasingly moving
towards kill files and more sophisticated news readers).
(go ahead, prove me wrong ;o)
Sue, speaking for myself
Subject: Re: Mars Life Scam Rigged By NASA, NSF
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 19:28:20 GMT
In article <50poks$d30@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>, tdp@ix.netcom.com(Tom Potter) writes:
>
>The main stock in trade of government is creating demons
>and division. ( Gun owners, teenage gangs, Black militants,
>Latino's, Arabs, Terrorists, Internet, drugs, etc. )
>and use the people's fear of these demons to take freedoms
>from the people and to obtain more security and goodies
>for those in government.
>
Sounds about right. I would put it this way: people need government
to deal with problems which are to big for them to deal with
individually. Thus any government has vested interest in convincing
people that they do have such problems. This is not to say that the
problems are always fake, sometimes they may be real. But, once a
government builds up in order to deal with a threat, be it real or
imaginary, it is obviously reluctant to scale back down. In such
situation the temptation to invent threats may be to big to resist.
... snip ...
>
>When society begins to understand government's
>motives and methods, and takes it much less
>seriously, and acts to greatly reduces its' size,
>society will make a giant leap forward.
I'm not holding my breath.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: Creation VS Evolution
From: puddin@ask.again.com
Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 20:20:57 GMT
On Sat, 07 Sep 1996 01:55:21 +1300, Stanley Watson
wrote:
Frank wrote:
Luciano d'Ilori wrote:
>
> What you're not taking into account is that the DNA molecule is a
> digital, error-correcting code.
>
> Because we can demonstrate that living things adapt to their
> surroundings, does not mean we've proved the neo-Darwinian theory
of
> evolution.
On Sat, 07 Sep 1996 01:55:21 +1300, Stanley Watson
wrote:
Frank wrote:
Luciano d'Ilori wrote:
>
> What you're not taking into account is that the DNA molecule is a
> digital, error-correcting code.
>
> Because we can demonstrate that living things adapt to their
> surroundings, does not mean we've proved the neo-Darwinian theory
of
> evolution.
On Sat, 07 Sep 1996 01:55:21 +1300, Stanley Watson
wrote:
Frank wrote:
Luciano d'Ilori wrote:
>
> What you're not taking into account is that the DNA molecule is a
> digital, error-correcting code.
>
> Because we can demonstrate that living things adapt to their
> surroundings, does not mean we've proved the neo-Darwinian theory
of
> evolution.
What I like to know how DNA or RNA which is so complex came to be by
mixture of amino acid and protiens? How does DNA multipled itself to
be
so many?
They follow certain laws. These may be called 'formative forces'.
S.W.
What I like to know how DNA or RNA which is so complex came to be by
mixture of amino acid and protiens? How does DNA multipled itself to
be
so many?
They follow certain laws. These may be called 'formative forces'.
S.W.
What I like to know how DNA or RNA which is so complex came to be by
mixture of amino acid and protiens? How does DNA multipled itself to
be
so many?
On Sat, 07 Sep 1996 01:55:21 +1300, Stanley Watson
wrote:
Frank wrote:
Luciano d'Ilori wrote:
>
> What you're not taking into account is that the DNA molecule is a
> digital, error-correcting code.
>
> Because we can demonstrate that living things adapt to their
> surroundings, does not mean we've proved the neo-Darwinian theory
of
> evolution.
On Sat, 07 Sep 1996 01:55:21 +1300, Stanley Watson
wrote:
Frank wrote:
On Sat, 07 Sep 1996 01:55:21 +1300, Stanley Watson
wrote:
Frank wrote:
Luciano d'Ilori wrote:
>
> What you're not taking into account is that the DNA molecule is a
> digital, error-correcting code.
>
> Because we can demonstrate that living things adapt to their
> surroundings, does not mean we've proved the neo-Darwinian theory
of
> evolution.
What I like to know how DNA or RNA which is so complex came to be by
mixture of amino acid and protiens? How does DNA multipled itself to
be
so many?
They follow certain laws. These may be called 'formative forces'.
S.W.
Luciano d'Ilori wrote:
>
> What you're not taking into account is that the DNA molecule is a
> digital, error-correcting code.
>
> Because we can demonstrate that living things adapt to their
> surroundings, does not mean we've proved the neo-Darwinian theory
of
> evolution.
What I like to know how DNA or RNA which is so complex came to be by
mixture of amino acid and protiens? How does DNA multipled itself to
be
so many?
They follow certain laws. These may be called 'formative forces'.
S.W.
What I like to know how DNA or RNA which is so complex came to be by
mixture of amino acid and protiens? How does DNA multipled itself to
be
so many?
They follow certain laws. These may be called 'formative forces'.
S.W.
They follow certain laws. These may be called 'formative forces'.
S.W.
Subject: Re: Mars Life Scam Rigged By NASA, NSF
From: Kennedy
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 21:46:03 +0100
In article <322F63A8.1A7D@bgu.edu>, Jim Kelly writes
>Kennedy wrote:
>> Without input from others, none of us learn anything
>
>Is that so. And when have you aquired/started using
>this philosophy?
All of my life - which is how I managed to obtain the position I
currently hold. Fortunately most of the individuals I have learned from
were genuine luminaries in my particular field, rather than sad
netsurfers with nothing much better to do than claim -falsely- that all
technology was developed by americans or decry those who attempt to
correct their ignorance and impart some limited knowledge into their
vacuuous minds.
>
>Myself, I'm another boring face in the crowd who has
>been wrong in the past and anticipate being wrong
>in the future as well.
That I can believe - but have I claimed to be any different?
Does the correction of wrong statements impart an aura of infallibility?
Perhaps the biggest difference is that I am no longer concerned about
others discovering my mistakes, on the contrary I encourage it. When
someone finds an error in anothers work then at least two people benefit
- the originator, the finder of the error and anyone else who goes on to
build on the corrected work. Of course the originator must be mature
enough to admit the mistake when it is pointed out. When an error is
ignored or simply overlooked time and time again then we all lose out by
slipping down the slope to ignorance while the error is embeded in
accepted fokelore. From your contributions here I can only assume that
you would be more comfortable with the latter.
>> I have many textbooks but confess I do not possess an almanac, sorry ;=)
>
>Sorry don't believe that one! :-)
There you go again, mistaking me for somebody that gives a sh!t about
what you believe. ;=)
However, just to clear your confusion, I will reveal my source(s) of
information about the claimed american inventors :
Baird & Bell - well, there can't be many Scots who don't know these two
invented television and telephone respectively - my grandmother even had
a couple of tea towels with this information on it! So I would suggest
that this is no more than 'common general knowledge'. Clearly not very
common in your sphere of orbit.
The Lumiere brothers - last year saw the centenary of the invention.
Most people who are aware of what goes on in the world would have
noticed the many celebrations of this event & I visited some of the
exhibitions in London commemorating it. So perhaps that was coincidence
- I didn't expect some dumb schmuck to claim this was not a French
invention only a year after the centenary of the event.
Shockley et al. - well yes, I did check that one in an old school
physics book before posting. I was aware that Shockley was born in
England himself, but I must admit I did not know that only one of his
fellow nobel laureates was born in the USA until I read it and checked
in some other textbooks to confirm it - I could give you detailed
references, but the information is in so many solid state textbooks that
I am sure you could find it yourself somewhere. Given the context of
the original claims, I simply couldn't resist posting the information on
all of them!
Now, Mr Kelly, please explain how I have - by pointing out that most of
the quoted inventions were not made by Americans, but by people from
several other countries - given you the impression that this information
came from some form of almanac. The only reason I ask is that an
obvious explanation is that you just have an enormous chip on your
shoulder - but I am sure there is more to it than that. Maybe "Old
Moore's" is the only book YOU possess or have read. :o)
_______________________________________________________
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers