StructuredDream

Sent this letter to the White House today: Dear President Obama, Thank you for releasing some of the government memos authorizing torture, Americans can take pride in your courage doing so. Please establish an open, scientific investigation on U.S. torture and/or cruel/inhuman/degrading treatment. The investigation's report should recommend actions in the best interests of our citizens and the people of the world toward a peaceful future. I believe this official report is necessary to reaffirm America's commitment to the Constitution, international treaty obligations and human rights. It will strengthen U.S. national security, help to re-establish America's standing in the world, and may aid the long-term survival of our species. Sincerely, John C. ‘Buck’ Field

Given the crises in physics, could one get further out on a speculative limb than to pronounce limits of our future capabilities? Considering that we lack good definitions, much less reasonable dynamical models for our basic perceptions of reality, (fundamentals in physics: space-time, matter, force, and energy), we ought to avoid the unjustified certainties distinguishing some of the most dangerous and harmful ideological systems in the world - they are antithetical to science. While billions of dollars and thousands of man-lives are devoted to probing the fundamentals of physical reality, Seth Shostak, in his April 13th, 2009 Op-Ed conveys the widespread view that we already know the basic nature of reality's fundamentals, locality, and other observations. Certain of the nature, absolute limits, and relationships among the fundamentals as proponents of this view often are, there seems no reason not to circumscribe the range of possible technologies that will be capable to tran...

I had the opportunity to exchange emails with a very interesting Intelligent Design proponent, Casey Luskin. With minor edits for grammar, etc., here is our exchange: Dear Casey, I’m very grateful for the time and effort you invested in your reply. I’ve been frustrated in my attempt to identify a fallacy-free chain of reasoning which supports intelligent design, or even to understand exactly what it is, but your email and especially the Idea Center material has helped. I seem to have misunderstood how you are using ID – As I understand it now, the ability of natural random change under constraints to produce increasing complexity and order is denied. I believe this denial to be an error – although to test it scientifically, an intelligence admittedly must be involved: the science researcher. Having said that, the only denials of this type of which I’m aware are used in support of religious faith, (perhaps there are others). This does not in itself make the denial incorrect, but so...

Dear Dr. McLeroy, I am a researcher formerly living in Plano, and read a AAAS article suggesting (in alarmed tones) that revisions to our state's biology texts are intended to provide an opening for the teaching of creationism or ID. In some of your discussions and letters, there seems to be disagreement that evolution is the term for describing how our categorizations of individuals change over time when there is replication, variation, and selection. Contrary to the claims ascribed to you in "The Glencoe Motion", anyone can observe evolution with some time, a pen, selection criteria, and a photocopier, and there are many software packages which do this as well. The fact that our lifespan is insufficient to directly observe large-scale changes in biology, astronomy, geology, cosmology, etc. is hardly the fault of the species, life, space-time, or the processes involved. For example, our current inability in physics to explain "time", hardly seems appropria...

OK, I admit I haven't seen UFO Hunters on the History Channel, but with the creationists trying to cripple teaching of evolution yesterday in Texas and today in Florida, I had just answered a post by Protsman with: "An inability to see the conflict between good science and having a magical, invisible friend probably indicts one's grasp of scientific knowledge more than a third party grouping one with creationists, IMO. We might excuse members of the reality-based community for failing to distinguish between what appear objectively to be various self-delusions that each believer claims as virtuous faith." Flipping over to check email, I received a request to "Tune into the History Channel on Wed April 1 to see David [a friend] wax poetically on the subject of possible Mayan "greys". Apparently, the episode is titled UFO HUNTERS "THE GREYS CONSPIRACY". Working out reliable (if fallible) systems for producing revolutionary science is hard enough...

It is recognized that the need for strong scope control during development of a practice standard extension for revolutionary science (ERS) derives from the application area environment, one of rapidly evolving and expanding knowledge regarding revolutionary science and scientific creativity . Controlling scope creep in such environments is a challenge, when incorporating new findings would increase the value of the ERS. Criteria At this project's most well-defined boundary lies the scope of scientific paradigm change applicable to the ERS, which rests on a criterion test for simultaneously meeting several clear constraints. These include meeting the requirements of science, offering cognitive advantages, and reclassifying exemplars of previously developed paradigms. Concepts resulting from using ERS processes, tools and techniques will adhere to the hierarchical principles of stable conceptual structures: non-overlap, exhaustion, and inclusion. ERS scope criteria acknowledge the...

Here is my take on SRI's Conficker C "evolving snapshot "… The highly-organized group that developed a most-advanced Windows virus running on 2K, XP, and Vista platforms is continuing their work. The result? A Conficker C variant, discovered by SRI International on March 6 th , uses the 2 x encryption and 2 x compaction security of A & B variants, adding "a significant layer of code obfuscation". C is such an upgrade that "as little as 15% of the original B code" remains, and these upgrades make the situation equivalent in WoW terms to millions of dragons running amok in villages with big fangs, impervious armor, and magical abilities to become invisible and render harmless any armies and weapons brought against them. SRI believes the current internet addressing system could become unreliable, but based on the details, I think that horse has left the barn. There is no way to prove whether SRI's report you and I see is actually what we expe...