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>Actually isn't it 25,25,50,100,200,300 so far, like the 1,1, at the start of the Fibonacci sequence?
exactly, which highlights that the sequence just shifted and is why I put the disclaimer on my prediction - we don't have enough evidence to reliably predict where it's going next -- or haven't been clever enough to see the real pattern (or there in no pattern and it is just a programmer's whim).
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algorithm is based on the number of posts required at each level: (so far 25, 50, 100, 200, 300)
Actually isn't it 25,25,50,100,200,300 so far, like the 1,1, at the start of the Fibonacci sequence?
Contrary to popular belief (at the base of many intelligence tests etc), there is no uniquely defined, "correct" way of continuing any finite number sequence.
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Good point! The philosophical problem of underdetermination. (Another friend of mine describes it as the 'theory-ladenness' of science and the empirical method.) Can be depressing if you think about it too much...
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>'theory-ladenness' <
I suppose you allude to the now-fashionable pursuit of "science studies", which I also find a rather depressing kind of meta-science.
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"science studies", which I also find a rather depressing kind of meta-science
Depressing, indeed. Meta-science - never. To be meta anything, I suggest, you must have some of the attributes of the original subject, and there is nothing scientific, logical, or rigorous about POMO relativism.
END_RANT
cheer
the sunshine(s because of hydrogen nuclei fusing under pressure into helium nuclei with the loss of mass - converted into energy - and NOT because dead white european males deemed it convenient to say so in order to maintain the suppression of women and ethnic minorities) warrior
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the sunshine(s because of hydrogen nuclei fusing under pressure into helium nuclei with the loss of mass - converted into energy - and NOT because dead white european males deemed it convenient to say so in order to maintain the suppression of women and ethnic minorities) warrior
Goodness me, Dearest, are you having a bad day? I hope not.
But--please, what is "meta-science", and POMO?
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are you having a bad day?
Not at all. Just wanted to play the intemperate (note - NOT incontinent) old man for a bit. Besides the topic is one of my bugbears.
But--please, what is "meta-science", and POMO?
Well, as you probably know, all modern philosophy is based upon a mistranslation. (Whaat? See Aristotle's books...)
Meta-science is, in a sense, the study of how people go about doing science - that is, science as a social activity. It is all tied in with what I call POMO - post-modernism/post-modernist relativism, where theorists (primarily from France - I dunno why - are those truffles hallucinogenic?) claim that science is effectively behaving fraudulently - because it is laying claim to 'absolute' knowledge whereas it is merely another social activity that (by claiming rationalism as its main tool) contributes to the oppression of women and ethnic minorities (amongst which groups the rationalist/empirical ideas invented by DWEMs [dead white european males] are not prevalent, since they are more in touch with the Earth Mother and their own feeling) - and all sorts of similar post-Freudian, mid-fraudian claptrap, mumbo-jumbo, gibberish and intellectual self-abuse.
Jean Bricmont and Alan Sokal have published a book, called Intellectual Impostures in the UK, and, I think Fashionable Nonsense (or some such) in the US, that exposes the complete lack of anything approaching logic, or science, in the meta-scientific world that the social scientists with physics-envy (analogous to - yes, you know what I'm talking about - envy) have constructed for themselves in order to cope with their green-eyed demons.
cheer
the sunshine (live and let live) warrior
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...which all seems to smack of the same sort of blather to be found in literary deconstructionism.
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And structuralism, and any other modern '-ism'. For instance, much though I feel for the position of African-Amercians and their desire for a heritage of their own, I do not feel they are going to get anything worthwhile with a fraudulent vision of Egyptology, as it is, I believe, now being taught in many universities Stateside...
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veteran
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laying claim to 'absolute' knowledgeshanks, Without wishing to put the cat among the pigeons, I think there is some merit in establishing that scientific thought isn't the be-all and end-all. I agree very strongly that such thinking shouldn't be used as a means of promoting any political agenda, let alone one that could be seen as favouring ignorance and laziness. But sometimes it's important to realise that theories are just theories, however well they have worked up to now, and that science doesn't have all the answers. It seems to me this is about restoring an appropriate awe and the ability to marvel at what is around us. Included in what's around us, of course, are many human creations - including those that would never have been possible without scientific thinking (and engineering, in particular). The Web is a particularly pertinent example.  I don't see this as depressing. And surely scientists are more worthy of respect as fellow (occasionally fallible and emotional) human beings rather than as pure rationalists. I suppose no scientist would actually claim to be a pure rationalist, but Science itself comes across as claiming pure rationality. Or is that just 'Shona-talk'??
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