Professor John Collier Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban 4041 South Africa T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031 email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za>>> On 2012/03/06 at 11:03 PM, in message <4a39e6c5-939f-49ba-bc6b-8af976028...@iase.us>, Steven Ericsson-Zenith <ste...@iase.us> wrote:
I'm not sure I would say that the Mars lander computational analysis of data is "interpretation." It seems to me to be a further representation, although one filtered by a machine imbued with our intelligence. Interpretation would be the thing done by scientists on earth. As a former planetary scientist, I would agree in general with this, but I also experienced new data that pretty much implied directly (along with other well-known principles) that lunar differentiation had occurred. (Even then, scientists had to interpret the results, but they were clear as crystal relative to the question.) I relied on much less direct data (gravity evidence and some general principles of physics and geochemistry) to argue for the same conclusion. My potential paper was scooped, and I hadn't even graduated yet. Both Harvard and MIT people in the field found my paper "very interesting" but lost complete interest when I was retrospectively scooped by firmer evidence. The moral is that nothing in science beats direct evidence, even the most appealing hypothesis. Nonetheless, your book sound interesting. Regards, John Please find our Email Disclaimer here: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
