sorry if it is a duplicate
Eva
--
I passed it on again, I hope you won't mind,
those people seem to have time to read
every article...
I just respond to a few things:
(Mike H.)
It was methane that was detected on Pluto and in the tails of comets,
according to Gold.
methane is the very simplest CH compound.
I belive astronomers found more complex stuff
than that, but not any longer C chains.
We have an astrochemistry department, I could ask...
I know the difference between a theory and a hypothesis and the sentence
quoted does not demonstrate such a confusion. Your reader also totally
misses my point. People like Wegener and Gold are not merely told their
data or their hypotheses are wrong - they are pilloried and vilified for
decades. Certain metaphors or images or ideas come to dominate science and
any contradiction is met with almost hysterical denial at times. This kind
of behaviour is a clear indication of of the non-rational in science, which
was the point I was trying to make. The non-rational is particularly
important when it comes to creating original ideas - creativity is a
marriage of intuition, emotion and rationality. Time after time, if you
read the history of science and technology, ideas come to people as
epiphanies at the most unusual and unexpected moments, not as a conscious
result of systematic and conscious analysis of the data. The patterning
typically happens in the unconsious. Poincare famously had one of his
most important insights, quite unbidden, as he stepped off an omnibus, for
example, though admittedly that was in mathematics, not science.
Theories seem to surface when there are enough data/
information is hanging around. Doesn't matter how
suddenly an idea surface, in the majority of cases
if that particular chap hadn't see the light,
there was somebody else quite near to it.
(Wallace? start with w anyhow)
In a very few cases some individuals indeed are
"ahead of their time". Which means, that there are
insufficient data around to convince the
science establishment, which yes, can be a bit
slow moving. However, relying on accumulated data,
peer review etc seems to be a very good method (best)
of working so far.
Remember, the vast majority
of ideas DO turn out to be wrong - which also is
part of the constructive database identifying
the areas where there is no need to look again.
The old greeks had some astounding speculative ideas
about dialectics and materialism, just to mention
the two that impressed me most... but they also had
a million of other such speculative ideas that
did not work out... They had no chance of
separating the valid from the wrong, they had no
sufficient data, sufficient tools.
As an example of a theory which did not arise from the data, take Darwinian
evolution. Historians of science accept that Darwin got the idea from
classical economics, from reading Malthus, if I remember correctly. Then
when he went on his famous voyage on the Beagle, the biological data fell
into alignment with the Malthusian idea in his mind. It is not even a true
theory, by the way, it is a tautology. But it is politically incorrect to
say in the hearing of biologists who are inclined (metaphorically) to stone
you for it.
I believe there was a chap around that also
had the same general idea as Darwin.
I also believe that his main stimuli for
his theory came from his travels to sepaated
habitats. Also his attempts to adapt his theory
to human society was a complete failure.
but let's see the skeptics response on this one,
they are very much into Darwin...
I can't figure why would the oil industry
shun Gold's ideas - they are not interested
in the science establishment, only in money,
and new technology is not even involved.
Eva
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