"What can "precise terminology" mean without any stable referent? Precision _is_ about objective reality at least to some extent."
The referent could be different sorts of things, like waves or particles. The true nature of things forever remains unknown, but self-consistent precise descriptions are essential so that experiments can be conducted by different observers. > Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down. "But it is NOT "just like ... climate change deniers". Are you seriously making that equivalence?" People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right. Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with "...", gosh, I don't know why! > It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or > ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested > in the evidence. That's what I mean by corruption. "OK. I disagree, _if_ those people are up front that they put their monetary or ideological goals first. It's not bad faith or corruption, then. And you have to admit that by openly stating that activism is one of this new group's objectives, then it's a bit of a leap to accuse them of bad faith or corruption right off the bat. If it were bad faith, their true objectives would not be as obvious as they've made them." Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing from authority. The premise that there are any particular "positive" goals has not been demonstrated. It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion. At some point in their "inquiry" there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified. So lose the goals and follow the evidence. The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com