I just dug into the wordiness bag on the fly, and twisted one up.
.........
Largely a done deal (regarding sussing out theory and the making of), but what exactly it is, is still the question.
Modern works have us doing things at 'room temperature' that 20 years ago, were deemed impossible, so, the basics are proven, regarding the materiel it's self -as in moving away from highly implausible into scientifically possible with known parallel paths. It always was a done deal, it is the mainstream of science that has to get there... for it to have a broader meaning.
Sure thing Scott, pick the worst examples you can. After all, it's the right thing to do.
That one should come from a balanced central standpoint and look at things squarely and openly.
I've gotta say, you really nailed that honest open idealism. Gotta hand it to you.
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Regarding respect for science:
Revisited this Hudsonian blather from 12 years ago, and it's still oxymoronic gobbledygook amusement
"To the contrary, monatomic atoms of the same element behaves more like a ceramic in that they are generally poor conductors of both heat and electricity and are chemically inert. In addition, according to Hudson, monatomic elements exhibit the characteristics of superconductors at room temperature."
Plasmatrix - Monatomic Elements
Ain't the internet great for exchange of ideas???
Revisited this Hudsonian blather from 12 years ago, and it's still oxymoronic gobbledygook amusement
"To the contrary, monatomic atoms of the same element behaves more like a ceramic in that they are generally poor conductors of both heat and electricity and are chemically inert. In addition, according to Hudson, monatomic elements exhibit the characteristics of superconductors at room temperature."
Plasmatrix - Monatomic Elements
Ain't the internet great for exchange of ideas???
More correctly stated, you can see all kinds of rants attacking me there, one of which has already been linked here.
One thing about RAO - people there could actually figure out how to cut and paste text and quote properly. Looking around here, they must be lost arts.
You could always go back and re-live the glory days...
Actually, understanding and respecting science seemingly goes against the traditional anti-intellectual climate in the USA. I wonder what the genesis of the anti-intellectualism is, is it the anti-war and other movements in the 60's, or is it something deeper going back to the foundation of the country?
I'm not that old, and it seems that an increasingly large portion of youngsters nowadays can't spell, do simple math in their heads, use proper grammar, think critically, etc... Are students learning less because of the anti-intellectual climate, or the advent of computers, the fact that parents seem to care an order of magnitude more about their childrens' extra-curricular activities than their schoolwork, technological distractions, or???
'Twas ever thus. Every generation says the same thing about the next one.
If you haven't already, you'll enjoy Gross and Levitt's "Higher Superstition."
Except that there really is a dumbing down of the average - not so much at either extreme. People nowadays are seriously shocked that I can do something like 75*63 in my head - or even something like 8*15, nothing terribly difficult. I have heard of reports that mechanics on things like military equipment or manufacturing machinery nowadays are not equipped with the tools to understand the repair manuals of yesteryear. This may be because manufacturing has to a great extent been off-shored, or other factors.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...-intellectualism-and-the-dumbing-down-america
Now most people who bring up this topic seem to have some sort of political agenda or conspiracy theory of some kind. I'm not so sure this is a political issue and, just to be clear, I don't want to talk politics or conspiracy. I know people who seem to think that all scientific discovery comes with a political agenda to restrict our freedom.
I haven't read your reference, but found some interesting reviews on it.
these include attacks from the academic left-style writers he criticises:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~bi/labinger/bookreviews/4highersuperstition.pdf
'Higher Superstition': An Exchange by Paul R. Gross | The New York Review of Books
..and perhaps interviews by fanboys...
Higher Superstition Revisited: an interview with Norman Levitt - Butterflies and Wheels
One of these brings up another interesting bit of history 😉:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
Higher Superstition is a bit better focused since it's just the one pair of authors; Flight is a collection of papers from a lot of academics in different disciplines It's worth reading, but the participants have (thankfully) a wide variety of views.
I worked at an airplane factory for a change of scenery intermezzo, one of the gents there I was friendly with, stated that thinking made his head hurt.
Relativity is a state of mind.
(I'm still abacus generation, on occasion like to do square roots with an accuracy of two digits behind the decimal mark in my head as practice/challenge, but merely because I've been taught how to at university)
That's the best compliment I've ever seen about RAO and its participants. I glanced at it one day (this was about two decades ago) and ran screaming from the "professional audio reviewers" or whatever the posters thought they were.
I only saw it later when a thread was crossposted to the other rec.audio groups, and it was only when I looked to see that RAO was included in the group list that I "understood" what I was reading, or at least knew where it was coming from.
But as I said in the LoveFest thread, I'm pretty happy with diyaudio (I haven't noticed bad quoting, but it's far from the worst fault an online participant could have), though I really should spend a little less time online and a little more time actually building audio equipment.
Regarding more recent posts, I won't comment as the conversation may be approaching forbidden territory, but it's clear I've got some (more) reading to catch up on.
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