The Importance of Theory

This piece, Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One on the Notes From Two Scientific Psychologists blog got my attention in three areas.

First, it is (sadly) a thorough and succinct statement of everything that my original field is struggling with. We don't have a baseline theory, and without one we can only argue from different viewpoints.

In my working field, W. Edwards Deming famously said (or is famously misquoted as saying?) "Without theory, there can be no experience." What me means (I think) is that unless you have a thorough baseline, you can only observe and react. No experience, no learning can be gained because learning and experience result from something in discord with what we believe. No belief, no discord, no experience, no learning.

The third area is that this article is a really good primer on what "science" is all about, and how the scientific method actually works to structure our advance of knowledge.

Without that thinking, you couldn't be reading this at all, unless I had handed you a clay tablet with the words scratched on it. All of our technology is built on the structured accumulation of knowledge. Without a baseline of theory, everything is as "right" as everything else. And that is the problem today - the attack on science we see in the media, from both the left and right wings of the political spectrum, is built on that fundamental premise.

Ideas = Things

For those of you who don't know what this is, let me explain. The image is a 3D model of the lower receiver of an AR-15 rifle.

In the USA, a firearm generally has one critical part that is considered the controlled item. This is the part that is, legally, a "gun." It has the serial number on it. All of the other parts are just that - parts, and are available to pretty much anyone.

If you have that controlled part, then you can buy the rest and build your firearm.

For the AR-15 rifle, that controlled part is the lower receiver. It is the part that hold the magazine, and contains the trigger and fire control parts. The upper receiver holds the barrel and pins to the lower receiver. You can order a complete upper receiver with a simple internet search and a credit card. You an buy one cash-and-carry from a retail store. The same goes for the parts and bits that go into the lower receiver.

One unique aspect of the AR-15 design is that the lower receiver actually doesn't have to deal with a lot of stress. It just holds things together. Though it is usually made of aluminum, there are commercially available ones made of tough composite plastics.

What makes this particular 3D model significant is that it appears on the "Thingiverse" site where people exchange such files for use on their 3D printers. Combine that with the fact that 3D printers are rapidly coming down in price, and today anyone who can afford a computer and is willing to hack a bit to get something working can have a 3D printer. While this design might be a little challenging for the home-units, it won't be for long.

It has always been legal in the USA for an individual to construct a firearm for personal use. A license is needed to transfer that a firearm that you made to another person, but not to make one. There are (onerous) restrictions against making full-auto weapons, silencers, and a few other things. In general, though, you can legally build pretty much anything you can purchase across the counter at a sporting goods store.

This hasn't been a real issue because making things like this is generally difficult, and requires specialized tools and skill. At least it did.

With 3D printing technology, you download the file, and press "Print."

The line has been crossed between possessing mere information and being able to easily turn that information into "things."

While an AR-15 with a lower receiver made from extruded ABS plastic is not likely to be as rugged as one machined from an aluminum forging, I have no doubt that it could be made to work.

In the Soviet Union, photocopiers and printing presses were dangerous things. They had to be licensed, registered, and were heavily regulated. Somehow, ideas spread anyway.

Now the same level of technology can make things, not just spread ideas.

hmmmm...

P.S. - the difference between an AR-15 lower receiver and its selective-fire military cousin is a slightly different internal geometry and another hole.

Government and Medical Fraud

Randi's challenge to homeopathy is simple. Prove your claims.
I have no issues with that at all.

Randi believes that it should be illegal for pharmacological retailers to sell these products, or at least illegal to sell them without some kind of information that states they are ineffective.

He implies that he believes that government should do more to regulate this industry.

Make no mistake, I believe that anyone making claims that homeopathic "medicine" works is lying. This stuff is some of the purest water you can get.

The question for me is "What is the government's role in regulating nothing?"

If I said "Drink this bottle of water and it will cure cancer" would you believe me?
You are stupid if you do.

New Bible draws critics of gender-neutral language

The NIV Bible is used by many of the largest Protestant faiths. The translation comes from an independent group of biblical scholars that has been meeting yearly since 1965 to discuss advances in biblical scholarship and changes in English usage.

OK - this makes sense. The bible is an old text, originally written in a variety of now dead languages. People who are concerned about translating it ought to be reviewing their work now and then.

But then it gets - well - hilarious interesting.

You see, the new translation is trying to accommodate the fact that the original language had gender-neutral pronouns. English does not. The convention in English, for centuries, has been to use male pronouns as the default when gender is neutral or unspecified. As our society has grown, though, that convention has become awkward.

OK - no big deal, right?
Well actually, apparently it is.
You see there are evangelicals who, well:

"Evangelicals believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture. We believe every word is inspired by God, not just the broad thought," he said.

So if the original text reads "brothers" — even if that word in the original language is known to mean "brothers and sisters" (such as the Hebrew "achim" or Spanish word "hermanos") — many evangelicals believe the English translation should read "brothers."

So, if I am understanding this correctly, because the English language does not include a gender-neutral pronoun, then their god "inspired" the use of the English convention of a gender specific pronoun and now that pronoun has taken on special meaning and defined gender roles with god.

And what defines "the original language?" We are back to English? And modern English at that. Are the original Latin, Ancient Greek, or earlier translations not "original language?"

Here is the rub:

Before the new translation even hit stores, it drew opposition from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an organization that believes women should submit to their husbands in the home and only men can hold some leadership roles in the church.

The council decided it would not endorse the new version because the changes alter "the theological direction and meaning of the text," according to a statement

Huh. So I guess these gender roles are only applicable to gods whose primary language is English, not Spanish or Hebrew, or for that matter Aramaic (which was likely the language spoken by Jesus, or at least the people in that time).

I guess that would mean that this god inspires different gender roles depending on the language being translated. That seems pretty complicated to me. Actually, I think a better word is "hypocritical."

Happy Pi Day (3.14)

Although Pi has been calculated to one trillion digits, this approximation of the number pi:


3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971


is adequate to calculate the circumference of a circle the size of the known universe to an accuracy of +/- less than the width of a hydrogen atom.

High Handed Hypocrisy

Gingrich would like to remind everybody that that marriage is between one man and one woman whom you abandon riddled with cancer on her hospital bed while you fuck the shit out of your mistress whom you later marry and cheat on with a third woman while screaming with Godly moral outrage about the infidelities of the president.

From http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/02/thrice-married-serial-adulterer-obama.html

Hold whatever view you want.
Then live by it.
But do not use the power of government to enforce your views upon others.

jeesh

Has Anyone Else Read Crichton's "Terminal Man?"

Trying brain pacemakers to zap psychiatric disease

WASHINGTON – Call them brain pacemakers, tiny implants that hold promise for fighting tough psychiatric diseases — if scientists can figure out just where in all that gray matter to put them.

Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, has proved a powerful way to block the tremors of Parkinson's disease. Blocking mental illness isn't nearly as easy a task.

But a push is on to expand research into how well these brain stimulators tackle the most severe cases of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome — to know best how to use them before too many doctors and patients clamor to try.

Michael Crichton was a visionary science fiction author whose message was "be careful what you mess with."

I am not in any way saying this research is dangerous, but I am pretty impressed by the man's vision in a book written decades ago.

Then again, there is a team in Russia working on cloning a Woolly Mammoth. Maybe not from DNA extracted from a mosquito, but still...

We live in interesting times where we can catch up with science fiction in our lifetimes.