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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
 Posted - 06/21/2007 : 05:38:31 [Permalink]
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Anyone every read Atlas Shrugged? The prediction was made that science has been and would continue to be used to present as fact the opposite of presented evidence. In fact the prediction was made that people would rely on the priesthood of scientific authority to deny what is seen with ones own eyes.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 06/21/2007 : 05:58:33 [Permalink]
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Well Jerome, here we are; Thursday morning and there is no essay sporting your byline gracing my desk. Why is this? You had plenty of time to write a mere thousand words or so on what is a very interesting topic.
If I were assigned it, I'd have started with Archaeopteryx and the Jurassic Period, some 206 to 144 million years ago.
Those were some remarkable times, when proto-birds first appeared in the fossil record. The great Sauropods roamed the land as did such odd creatures as Stegosaurus.
In the air, Pterosaurs ranging in size from that of a songbird to giants with wingspans of well over twenty feet glided effortlessly. These wondrous creatures and their kin would disappear entirely during the KT extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, but the progeny of the likes of tough, little Archaeopteryx would live on to ultimately soil our statues, free-load from our bird-feeders, and drive members of the Audubon Society to distraction by their stubborn refusal to be where they should be when a camera is to hand.
Archaeopteryx is known from eight fossils -- seven complete, and a single feather. It had a small, bipedal dinosaur's skeleton complete with a predator's dentition and a long, lizard's tail. Were it not for the feathers, it would have been classified as just another, rather nondescript, theropod dinosaur with long arms.
Archaeopteryx opened an inquiry; if this dinosaur was feathered, what others might have been? It would be many years before the answers came trickling in. Which brings us to Sinornithosaurus.
Sinornithosaurus appeared during the Cretaceous Period, 144 to 65 million years ago, along with the ceratopsian dinosaurs among many others, including the large and much publicized Tyrannosaurus rex.
Sinornithosaurus (known from two specimens) was a quick, agile little nuisance, scuttling about the forests preying upon anything it could overpower, and it was well equipped for the job. With long arms and the heavy, ripping claws on modified toes typical of Dromaeosaurs , and strong jaws, it was capable of bringing down prey even larger than itself.
And it was feathered with a downy fluff rather like that found on a hatchling chicken. It also had a shoulder girdle that allowed it to flap it's extended arms, another feature common to birds, but not so common in reptiles. Indeed, no living reptile has this girdle.
So what is the relationship between these two animals; one flying millions of years before the other came on the scene? Well, the fossil record tells us that true birds, direct descendents of Archaeopteryx and others similar to it, were flying overhead while cute & fluffy Sinornithosaurus was irritating it's neighbors on the ground.
But the main relationship is still something of an open question; one that might never be completely answered. As both animals had insulating feathers and were highly active, they were both probably endothermic (warm-blooded), as are birds today. Why else would they |
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 06/21/2007 06:09:11 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 06:21:26 [Permalink]
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Jerome wrote: | The prediction was made that science has been and would continue to be used to present as fact the opposite of presented evidence. In fact the prediction was made that people would rely on the priesthood of scientific authority to deny what is seen with ones own eyes. |
This only applies to people who don't bother actually looking at the scientific research in detail and learning more about scientific discoveries than what is covered by journalists who are not experts.
I know a lot of about physical anthropology and evolutionary psychology because I started studying it for fun in college and since graduating 6 years ago, I've kept up on the subject. I don't just accept everything. In fact, that is impossible since there are scientific disagreements about many things. Just the other day I was listening to a radio interview with a science writer who was talking about human evolution, and he mention one particular hypothesis as if it were accepted fact, and it happened to be a school of thought that I disagree with, so I started grumbling at the radio.
Pretty much everyone on SFN has a real passion for science. Keeping up with scientific discoveries is more than hobby with most people here - it is an essential part of our worldview and way of life. So your little analogy comparing us to mindless sheep in Atlas Shrugged is insulting to say the least. It is counter-intuitive to think the world is round instead of flat. But if you know the evidence for the world's roundness, it is more rational to accept that fact than your own eyes. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
 Posted - 06/21/2007 : 06:45:49 [Permalink]
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Filthy, thanks, I do enjoy your posts very much!
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 08:22:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Filthy, thanks, I do enjoy your posts very much!
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That, while not pertinant to the discussion, is gratifying. However, that gratification will fade quickly if it failed to encourage you to think, and to do a little research on and of your own.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 08:42:44 [Permalink]
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Last night in a discussion with Jerome I brought up cladisitics after he mentioned that archaeopteryx is classified as a bird. He had never heard of cladistics as the main tool for determining the closeness of relationships of all life on earth and grouping them (sister groups) based on their similarities to one another.
The answer to why is archaeopteryx is classified as a bird is because it has more similarities to birds then it does to dinosaurs. That said, it should be noted that there is no such thing in the classification nomenclature as transitional species. It had to be put somewhere, and by comparison of like features, it's a bird.
I had a short debate with an old earth creationist (in a church no less) on the subject of archaeopteryx. He asserted that since it was that it was classified as a bird, not transitional, case closed. I naturally pointed out that in order to stop there he had to ignore such things as the tail, the teeth and other anatomical features also shared by theropod dinosaurs. Once classified, he was willing to wave all of that away. To admit to any transitional species is to admit defeat from their point of view.
Anyhow, I think this would be a good time to educate Jerome on the method, most often used today to determined relationships and how, based on those relationships, certain assumptions can be made.
This article discusses cladistics and is specific to feathered dinosaurs and birds.
Dinasours and Birds
From the article:
What, then, is cladistics? Cladistics, or phylogenetic systematics, is a way of analyzing relationships that was first brought to the fore in the late 1960s, although it had been proposed in Germany decades earlier. By the early 1980s, it had demonstrated its practical and theoretical value to enough of the community of systematists that its methods became commonplace in studies of all branches of organisms, in most top scientific journals, and in the National Science Foundation's decisions about awards in systematic biology. Its influence has grown in succeeding years to the point that statements about evolutionary relationships are no longer taken seriously in the community of systematists unless backed by a cladistic analysis. This is true regardless of the type of organism and regardless of whether the postulated relationship is based on morphology, molecules, behavior, or fossils.
There is no guarantee that any given cladogram will not be revised or overturned by further study (new techniques are constantly being developed and revised); they are hypotheses that are meant to be tested, after all. But cladograms, unlike any other kind of evolutionary hypothesis of relationships, are explicit in their methods and the data on which they are based, and are testable. This gives them practical value. And because they restrict evidence to new. unique evolutionary features as a way of determining relationships among closest relatives, they are more consistent theoretically with the expectations of evolution than any other method. |
Here is a more general discussion of Cladistics from wiki.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 12:35:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Anyone every read Atlas Shrugged? The prediction was made that science has been and would continue to be used to present as fact the opposite of presented evidence. In fact the prediction was made that people would rely on the priesthood of scientific authority to deny what is seen with ones own eyes.
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Okay, we have now established that you get your paranoid/magical belief system primarily from two old works of fiction: Atlas Shrugged and The Holy Bible. I suggest doing a bit of nonfiction research, as Fil suggests.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 13:28:03 [Permalink]
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Thank you for the cladistics links, Kil. Though generally familiar with the concept, these give me a much better understanding of this valuable evolutionary tool.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 13:29:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Anyone every read Atlas Shrugged? The prediction was made that science has been and would continue to be used to present as fact the opposite of presented evidence. In fact the prediction was made that people would rely on the priesthood of scientific authority to deny what is seen with ones own eyes.
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Okay, we have now established that you get your paranoid/magical belief system primarily from two old works of fiction: Atlas Shrugged and The Holy Bible. I suggest doing a bit of nonfiction research, as Fil suggests.
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I wasn't going to comment, but damn Sam! This is the first time I've seen a work of fiction, other than the Bible, used as any sort of a reference.
Jerome, Jerome, Jerome. If Double Secret Probation teaches you nothing else, then let it be that the unsupported imaginings of some writer or other has nothing to do with much of anything beyond amusement, and should never be used as any sort of reference for any serious topic, including philosophical ones. And indeed, including some of my own.
To make any sort of an argument, you must first have credibility. To gain credibility, your argument must have factual strength. You must back it up with reliable reference, and this you have yet to do. Where's the beef, Jerome?
A few posts back up the road, you wrote something on feathers and their construction, giving exactly no reference. Now would be a good time to elaborate upon it, 'cause there are some folks here that don't know much about feathers beyond that a lot of them are quite pretty. Perfectly natural, that, but some of them just might want to find out a little more without going through a whole lot of google. 500 words and a couple of illustrations ought to cover it, by, say, Saturday morning....
A chance at redemption, Jerome, not to be wasted with imaginitive tripe.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 14:14:36 [Permalink]
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Filthy wrote:| This is the first time I've seen a work of fiction, other than the Bible, used as any sort of a reference. |
Well, there was me, when I referred to Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, as exposing the filth and corruption of the meatpacking industry, and thus causing regulatory reforms.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 17:40:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Feathers hook onto one another in wings. They do not look like rounded sections next to one another. This looks like a representation of wings. This does not look like feathers. |
I've no palaeontological qualifications whatsoever, but they kinda look like feathers to me.
Which "rounded sections are you referring to, the red ones or the green ones?
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John's just this guy, you know. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 17:50:11 [Permalink]
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Jerome said:
In fact the prediction was made that people would rely on the priesthood of scientific authority to deny what is seen with ones own eyes.
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As if your eyes are capable of providing detailed laboratory analysis of fossilized feathers....
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 18:08:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Filthy wrote:| This is the first time I've seen a work of fiction, other than the Bible, used as any sort of a reference. |
Well, there was me, when I referred to Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, as exposing the filth and corruption of the meatpacking industry, and thus causing regulatory reforms.
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Ah, but here we have a novel that was carefully researched and actually accomplished something concrete, unrelated to mere philosophy (90% of which is bullshit anyway. Show me a philosopher, and I will most likely be able to show you a mediocre intellectual with delusions of importance).
Y'know, an article on feathers was one of the first I ever submitted to a magazine. It was rejected several times and, while it was pretty good, I thought, I never rewrote it. I submitted it first to Argosy, a popular magazine in the '50s. It was mainly concerned with how to deal with feathers when dressing off game birds, but researching the piece, I learned a little about what an amazing item a feather is. I do hope that Jerome is doing the same as I, way back then. At least, he won't have to go to the library for it.
Shit, kids these days have it made!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 18:23:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Anyone every read Atlas Shrugged? The prediction was made that science has been and would continue to be used to present as fact the opposite of presented evidence. In fact the prediction was made that people would rely on the priesthood of scientific authority to deny what is seen with ones own eyes. |
Now, now, people. Many fiction writers have successfully predicted things. Look at Arthur C. Clarke and the communications satellite (or so he says).
No, what should be blowing up irony meters is that Jerome brought up this prediction in the context of a fossil for which he hasn't seen the evidence with his own eyes, but only through the lens of a camera. Perhaps only overexposed, digitized and smeared with JPEG artifacts, too. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 18:54:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Jerome said:
In fact the prediction was made that people would rely on the priesthood of scientific authority to deny what is seen with ones own eyes.
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As if your eyes are capable of providing detailed laboratory analysis of fossilized feathers....
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But, Dude there are no fossil feathers. Do you even read the knowledge from which you from your belief system.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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Xing Xu, Big Bird and the Six Day Shuffle
