Incomplete Knowledge

Incomplete knowledge is the only working material a scientist has!



Anyone who says that “the debate is over” has stepped out of science into irrational dogma. In science, the debate is never over. Any idea, however well established, is open to refutation at any time. We are no longer dealing with science once people start saying “the debate is over.”

idlex

Talking about debates being over (but never in science), I was interested to read in the latest New Scientist that two prominent physicists are challenging Einstein’s Special Relativity. Of course the theory has not been harmonious with Quantum Theory for some time now, but attempts to unite the two have generally not tried to revise either, this time they are.

Einstein himself of course was revising Newtonian mechanics, for which ‘the debate had been over’ for many centuries, the proof was conclusive. If the debate on smoking has so far been over for a few years, and the debate on global warming for a few hours, I shouldn’t imagine that this is a very significant development.

Jack



It’s rather depressing that, with the exception of Jack, everyone seems to have pretty low opinion of Man. It seems that we no longer know what it means to be a human, but have a feeling that it cannot be much. As I have already said, it is not simply intelligence that marks us out as special. Dolphins have a higher intelligence than other animals and some apes may share much of our DNA, but that doesn’t bring them close to mankind in the order of things.

The motive behind these arguments is not their logical coherence, but the desire to knock humans off their pedestal. It occurs to me that the same distaste of human ‘arrogance’ that underlies these attitudes is the same one that motivates other causes, such as environmentalism. It is a plea for humility, designed to prevent the best from leaving the rest behind; a call for us to subjugate ourselves to the will of creatures who have scant awareness of their existence, let alone any comprehension of the ‘rights’ we have bestowed upon them.

What kind of model of man is this? This is the compassion of subservience: we regret causing other beings pain because we feel that we are not worthy. Genuine compassion, by contrast, is based on a fellowship of feeling. Humility is no basis on which to build commonality between human beings, who face each other as equals.

Steven says that dolphins show compassion for other animals, but then states that animals do not have an ethical code. So are their acts of compassion genuine or simply pre-programmed reflexes? This is a red herring. Mankind’s unique status doesn’t hinge on whether other animals possess comparable emotions. It hinges on our achievements and our demonstrable consciousness.

Comments:Tayles

a number of animals use tools, Dolphins and Primates not least. Birds have used tools in the form of dropping rocks to break open things, and more specifically about Dolphins:

Dolphin-human interaction is also employed in a curative sense at places where dolphins work with autistic or otherwise disabled human children.

In May 2005, researchers in Australia discovered a cultural aspect of dolphin behaviour: Some dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) teach their children to use tools. The dolphins break sponges off and cover their snouts with them thus protecting their snouts while foraging. This knowledge of how to use a tool is mostly transferred from mothers to daughters, unlike simian primates, where the knowledge is generally passed onto all the young, irrespective of sex. The technology to use sponges as mouth protection is not genetically inherited but a taught behaviour.

And Primates:
Two Bonobos, Kanzi and Panbanisha have been taught a vocabulary of about 400 words which they can type using a special keyboard of lexigrams (geometric symbols), and can respond to spoken sentences.

Conservation workers have seen the first evidence for tool use in wild gorillas. One instance, caught on film in the Republic of Congo’s Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, involved a lowland gorilla using a metre-long stick to test the depth of water ahead of her as she cautiously waded into a swampy pool.
In contrast, most examples of tool use in great apes are related to food extraction and preparation. Researchers argue that this new type of tool use may be more widespread, and could hint at abstract reasoning.

Comments: Jack

source: www.boris-johnson.com