The Methodology Of Science

[analog]

Hello labelwench,

Welcome to our little community. I've noticed by your recent posts in other older threads that you must be an avid reader of the forums. If so, it's good to have more members who research the vast knowledge spread throughout the forum while also adding their own unique contributions. Some of the older threads are the best, and often they just need a fresh perspective to get them going again.

I hope you enjoy your time here, and let me know if I can help with anything.

later,

Tim

[labelwench]

Hello Tim,

Out of the dark and into the light, a most appropriate avatar.

The methodology of science greatly appeals to the logical side of my nature. I found the character of "Spock" most to my liking. Pure science, except when he found himself in conflict with his human nature. Fascinating....

And yet..... there are a great many "untestables" out there. Subjects, that for one reason or another, we have yet to design experiments for. I reserve, for myself at least, that all possibilities exist until proven otherwise.

T.O.E. community embraces persons of great divergence and offers a forum for respectful discussion by all. Thus far, it is a most enlightening exchange.

My personal experience lies in the areas of breeding and genetics of endurance sled dogs and horses, nutrition and conditioning for same, and human and animal psychology.

Thank you for the welcome, Tim, and I look forward to more of your work.

Lor-----

[Lloyd Gillespie]

Hi Tim, and all I'm going to say is: Excellente...!

Thanks A Trillion$$$

[Lloyd Gillespie]

And Greg, all I'm going to say is thanks for pointing out the Persian gifts to science, which are enormous, as you have done. That's why I've often mentioned Ibn Sina in my thread, as he was the universal uniter of his day of all areas of thought, from the same 'House of Wisdom' as was Abu Ali al-hasan ibn al-hasan ibn al-Haytham__The era of the great polymaths of Persia, or the Byzantine Empire...

Thanks...

I have to agree with Austin .... This is an excellent essay.

The Scientific methodology is a way of objectively testing your ideas for correctness.

The Father of this methodology was a guy called Abu Ali al-hasan ibn al-hasan ibn al-Haytham or much more simply Alhacen (born 965 in Basra, Persia)

His list of contributions to the world, and to science is enormous ... and if he had been born in Europe, today we would consider him another Galileo. He made only one mistake, and for that they tried to cut his head off, so he feigned insanity ... as all scientists do when threatened with religious persecution ... rotflmao

His method was basically

1.. Ask a question
2.. Do the research
3.. Construct a Hypothesis
4.. Test the hypothesis by experiment
5.. Analyse the data
6.. Repeat steps 4 & 5
7.. Draw a conclusion
8.. Communicate the conclusion


This is what Tim has to say:


This is what Alhasan has to say:


Tim, your a genius and you just didn't know it ... lol.

And if anyone needs needs to condense this into a simple rule: Be a Devil's Advocate, even to, and especially to, your own ideas.

cool bananas ... greg

[labelwench]

I spent a lot of time practicing my angles, stroke, spin, etc., and combined with my sharp eye, which assisted in my aiming (even with long shots down the table with ‘a lot of green’ as they say), it wasn’t long before I could make very difficult shots with ease. There wasn’t many positions I could be left at on the table that I couldn’t make something happen; even with a cluttered table with few options. I prided myself on this ability, but it wasn’t until I began to watch professionals on the television that I learned that many of the shots I was making were low percentage shots, which more often lead to a loss of control of the cue ball even if the object ball is pocketed. The genius of the game (which I learned from my studies) wasn’t in my ability to make complicated shots, which more often led to further complicated shots due to the needed force which was often applied to account for the distances and thin angles of the shot; the genius of the game was in the control of the cue ball, whereby there were no complicated shots and shooting distances remained a minimal, as a keen eye took back seat to the position I left myself in after the shot; more often only wanting a slight angle on the next shot which made the cue easier to control than a straight in which left less options due to the dynamics of the shot. Applying this logic with an ability to mentally keep several shots ahead of the game, which allowed for a shot strategy of the sequence in which to play, my game greatly improved as I exploited the fact that anyone could make the easy shots; thus if all my shots were left easy due to my knowledge of control, then my ability to do the seemingly impossible found itself more often out of service, except for when I found myself shooting behind a bad leave from the other player.

Is the process by which we think much different? Is it not our ability to simplify the hard to comprehend concepts that define our skill level in the mental game of billiards we play? Anyone can understand the simple; thus it’s our ability to learn the techniques (i.e. english, angle, stroke, etc, of thought) required to leave ourselves with simple conceptual shots to make with minimal distances between us and our objective whereby avoiding the force required to make quantum leaps that often leaves us out of control and in bad position on our next intellectual attempt, that establishes our level of genius within the game. Such great minds as Einstein, Galileo, etc., applied such logic while formulating such concepts as the Equivalence Principle, which became one of the fundamental background concepts of General Relativity, whereby interactive symmetry was exploited between the effects of a gravitational field and the pseudo-force experienced by an observer in a non-inertial (accelerated) frame of reference, which allowed a deeper insight into a more complex concept by merely investigating a much simpler scenario which better leant itself to mental and physical experimentation.
Originally posted by analog

By our sheer numbers of beings and endeavours, we have reached a point of information overload, the advent of the internet making obvious even more, the need to 'sort the fly specks from the pepper.'

Your critically analytical skills may prove to be of great service Tim. We are going to require persons who can 'cut to the chase' without losing the essential message. Furthermore, the ability to teach that skill to others may prove essential.

If one were observing the planet from outer space, with total dispassion, they would recognize the disparity immediately and wonder that a portion of a supposedly intelligent species could participate in "fiddling while Rome burns" to borrow a saying, rather than to act intelligently on it's own behalf, for the betterment of all mankind.

Regards,

Labelwench