Recently, Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas took to the floor of the House to talk about Wikileaks, transparency in government, and the case of Daniel Ellsberg, the 
Pentagon Papers, and the New York Times. He spoke about how the Iraq War was based on lies. He asked how the U. S. government should prosecute a citizen of Australia for publishing classified U. S. documents that he did not steal. Paul also said the following: “Revealing the real nature and goal of our presence in so many Muslim countries is a threat to our empire, and any revelation of this truth is highly resented by those in charge.”
Paul posed a number of questions at the end of his talk:
Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?
Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?
Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?
Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?
Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?
Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?
Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?
Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?
Thomas Jefferson had it right when he advised ‘Let the eyes of vigilance never be closed.’ I yield back the balance of my time.
Source: Huffington Post
– Elaine Magliaro
Slarti,
I have no issue with classifying science as a subset of art as a matter of taxonomy. It’s just that most people don’t in normal conversation. Most see the endeavors as discrete despite the facts than in visual arts, the very mathematical mechanics of perspective and proportion are key just as the mathematical relationships of the circle of fifths is key to western music. This is probably because the end products of those arts produce emotional responses more readily than the beauty of something like E=mc^2. Because the primary tool of science is reason, it’s easy to see where a superficial examination of art would lead to the conclusion it is manifestly different than science. As a matter of linguistics and the hierarchy of knowledge, your proposal is sound. I must stipulate that I’ve always found the boundary artificial, but than again, I read my first copy of Broca’s Brain until the spine fell apart.
Buddha,
Yes, our difference remains semantic (not that I object to getting our definitions sorted out – that’s what makes communication possible). Classifying the sciences as a subset of the arts makes the most sense to me, but as long as you define what you mean by ‘science’ and ‘art’ and are consistent, that’s fine with me.
Eyekra,
Yes, kids are born into the contract of their society which, in some cases, can literally be slavery. And yes, it’s a pretty fucked up lottery. Anyone may attempt to alter or escape the society (and social contract) they were born into, unfortunately this is not easily accomplished either from outside or within and the consequences of doing so unsuccessfully tend to be harsh. I don’t think this is right or wrong, just factually correct. The hope is that societies like North Korea will prove uncompetitive and change from within. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
Gyges,
‘Polestar Pilsner’ from Lefthand – I’ll check it out.
Carpe Crap,
Dance some more for us, 4th tier monkey boy.
ekeyra:
you still trying to educate these subversive progressives?
It isnt going to work, they are minted in college. It ruins them for life. Very few have the intellect to resolve the contradictions inherent in that belief system.
I mean look at Bubbha, he made a fool of himself and Bob Esq had to teach him a thing or 2.
Good luck trying.
Gyges youd be exactly right about how i feel about social contracts. Which makes me wonder why me and tony arent best buddies? Maybe it was because I was at least consistent in that I didnt state that “you owe society > 0” then proceed to deny the one social contruct you could use to justify that view.
Slarti,
Kids are born into slavery is basically what your saying? Thats a pretty fucked up lottery. What about the kids in say, north vietnam? or sub saharan africa? Are the just supposed to say, “thanks for the crushing poverty, heres what little money or property my family does have, hope you dont blow it on gold toilets for kim jong il”?
Slartibarfast:
“So what kind of pansy-ass combines wimp and pussy and gets woosy? Just sayin’. Even my spell check knows ‘wussy’ and flags ‘woosy’”
That was funny, thanks for the laugh. Your spell check is a woosy. Havent you ever seen Gold Finger? JB calls Pussy Galore
Poosy.
Slarti,
“To me the key is what sort of action you are undertaking . . .”
I submit you are seeing nothing more than the difference between pure and applied mathematics. If so, then once again, our difference is semantic. I will stipulate that pure mathematics is more art, but by its very application – the sort of action, applied mathematics becomes science.
This is also different from mathematics as applied chicanery, which would be numerology. 😉
Slart,
“I think Tony’s fundamental misunderstanding regarding the social contract is that it could only be valid if entered into deliberately and voluntarily.”
What’s really funny is that I’d be willing to bet that Ekerya holds a very similar view as Tony in regards to social contracts.
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/12/11/ron-paul-speaks-about-wikileaks-on-the-floor-of-the-house/#comment-184803
I’m always amazed at how quickly a throw away comment can turn into a long discussion here.
I agree with your taxonomy. Like I said, I think pretty much every field involves a theory and a practice; I’ll add to that that most roles in those fields involve a combination of both.
Also, “Polestar Pilsner” from Lefthand is the way to go.
Bob,
I think Tony’s fundamental misunderstanding regarding the social contract is that it could only be valid if entered into deliberately and voluntarily. If you remove that assumption, his argument falls apart – children are bound by the social contract of the society that they are born into, an exchange of some of their rights for the assistance they need to survive past their birth.
Buddha,
I don’t think mathematics is a science in either the modern or the classical definitions of the term. While math is an indispensable tool for most hard sciences, it is the study of an abstract logical construct, not an aspect of nature. If you wanted to make the distinction between pure math – extension of the logical construct – and applied math – use of the logical construct in scientific (classical sense) study – then I would agree that applied math is a science (or is the use of mathematics in the service of science), but I would still consider pure math to be art. To me the key is what sort of action you are undertaking – if you are creating new mathematics (whether you can’t imagine any possible scientific application or you are doing it to solve a specific problem), then you are acting as an artist, if you are using existing mathematics to conduct or facilitate a scientific study, then you are acting as a scientist.
CARPE CARP,
‘Woosy’ is a pretty wussy spelling of the word. From the urban dictionary:
So what kind of pansy-ass combines wimp and pussy and gets woosy? Just sayin’. Even my spell check knows ‘wussy’ and flags ‘woosy’…
Tony,
If you give up the conceit that you are the only person in this discussion arguing rationally then maybe we can have a civil and productive discussion, but that can’t happen until you admit the possibility that people with different points of view than yours are just reasoning from different axioms with different information (both of which may or may not be better than yours). I don’t think you’re being illogical, I think you have made bad assumptions and compounded them by unnaturally restricting parameters to binary values, but what I am sure of is that you’ve been an asshole who hasn’t shown respect any point of view that doesn’t agree with his own. If you cannot admit the possibility that you are wrong, you cannot judge the various arguments on their merits with any degree of objectivity. Or have you come up with an example of an unfalsifiable scientific hypothesis? If you can’t do that, then please tell me what would falsify your argument or admit that it isn’t scientific.
Gyges,
I’m not sure what a ‘pure’ science is, but I’ll take XKCD as definitive… (no one has more math/science/language geek street cred than Randall Monroe). I think that most science (especially hard science) requires a significant amount of engineering to conduct. The Large Hadron Collider was built (and is maintained) by engineers but it is used by scientists. In most cases scientists do their own engineering on their experimental apparatii, but it is not essential that this part of the enterprise be performed by the scientist.
Maybe the problem here is not a semantic one, but a hierarchical one – our definitions are not at fault, we’re just incorrect in placing science and art on the same level in our taxonomy of human endeavor. If the ‘arts’ are the various fields of human endeavor (at least anything involving creativity) and the ‘sciences’ are a subclass of the ‘arts’ I think that the classification of various activities becomes more straightforward and logical. What do you think?
“Good to know Popper’s still in play.”
Until Tony C can show me a hypothesis that is confirmed by an experiment that didn’t have the potential to falsify it, I’m going to consider Popper unfalsified. And I’ll always defer to your expertise on beer… (just give me a crisp, cold lager and I’m happy ;-))
carp 1 (kärp)
intr.v. carped, carp·ing, carps
To find fault in a disagreeable way; complain fretfully. See Synonyms at quibble.
n.
A fretful complaint.
A carp is any of various freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae. The common carp Cyprinus carpio is the most common and best-known species of carp.
I have officially changed my name. Take your pick
Bubbha is a Woosy:
sucks to be you:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woosy
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/hillsdale-mi/hillsdale-college-2272
Tier 1 Rank 88
are you right about anything?
How the hell can you be so wrong and so confident in your ignorance? Must be the “complete authority of the ignorant”.
Dance, woosy boy, dance.
Anyone for the categories?
And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too, Bob.
As to your remarks past the semi-colon, I was going to be getting to that. I felt the long way home offered a greater chance of displaying the underlying premises of law to someone who clearly didn’t know what the Hell they were talking about. Then I realized he’d never accept the logic because he didn’t come up with it himself. Zero utility is zero utility. Since he is infallible and all knowing (in his own mind anyway), I know a waste of time when I see one. He may not be a troll, but he’s hardly worth reading or wasting any more time on either. Ossified thinkers rarely offer much of value once you get past their initial offering.
_____
Chan,
Sorry. I missed your nonsense earlier.
First, if you went to a real school, you’d know the word you were looking for is spelled “wussy”, you half-wit.
Now regurgitate your course catalog descriptions again as if they were evidence you somehow have a well-rounded education and don’t go to an ideologically driven 4th tier school with a history of discrimination.
That was funny.
Dance, monkey boy, dance.
Buddha,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Thanks for the gift of relieving me of Tony whilst I finished up my Christmas shopping and engaging in other holiday related festivities.
The point where I gave up was when he said he never entered any social contract. Didn’t think you would go the long route of distinguishing between hard and soft science; thought you’d probably remind him that disposing of foundational/keystone premises within an entire discipline and replacing them by whim and caprice (so as to suit his current argument/sans having any comprehension of the discipline itself) is just fucking whacky.
Buddha,
One of these days I’m going to make you have to look up a word or phrase… Idempotency of entailment was a new one for me.
To borrow your tool analogy (see what I did there?), language is the tool we use to be understood. If we both understand the other, language has been well used.
Gyges,
Got to love me some xkcd! Biology’s objection to being left out is duly noted. As to both definitions being valid, that doesn’t fail the idempotency of entailment, so I have no problem with that assessment. Idempotency of entailment is probably at the root of more semantic disagreements than not.
Buddha,
I learned long a go not to argue definitions. Let’s just say that by your definitions of science and falsify you’re right, and by mine I’m right. Probably both definitions are valid. Our disagreement is semantics, and doesn’t really have anything to do with the point you were trying to make with Tony.
I think my wife and Slart would like to have a word with you about leaving biology out of the pure sciences, but I suspect you mean:
http://xkcd.com/435/
Gyges,
I think we’re still in the nebulous zone of applied sciences as art. “There’s a science of law,” and “law is a science” comports to this gray area. Both statements are true in varying degrees according to application and area of law.
In re falsifiability: “The fact that my arch falls doesn’t negate the theory behind a ‘keystone,’ it could just mean that I’m a crappy arch builder.” True enough, but that’s only a part of the goal of a performance analysis approach – to find out if the basic plan/approach is flawed or if it was a flaw in implementation. PA isn’t primarily a tool for rooting out false premises although it can function as such. It’s primarily a tool for optimizing systems by isolating which component is failing and why in light of the desired outcome of a given process. In this respect it is capable of both showing if the keystone was faulty by design (and thus falsified and you need to go back to square one) or if you’re simply a bad arch builder (indicating the process needs adjustment).
As far as “pure” sciences go, I think there are probably only two – math and physics – with a special adjunct for chemistry.
Buddha and Slart,
I was joking about the engineer\applied science comment I made to Buddha, but:
I think that there are very few “pure” scientific fields of knowledge. Pretty much ever field involves a spectrum with theory (science) at one end and application (engineering) at the other.
Advertising, which like law seeks to effect a group of people’s behavior. Do you doubt for an instance that there’s hundreds of people sitting analyzing the results of interviews, questionnaires, information on thousands of people testing theories about people’s reactions against the data? Do you think they really have all that much to do with the details of the latest major ad campaign?
Implicate in calling lawyers engineers, was the assumption that there is a system them to apply. However, I don’t think the field of law as a whole can be called a science. As I said there’s a difference between saying “there’s a science of law,” and “law is a science.”
By the way, I consider myself on the Engineer side of the spectrum. I’m all about the application. I think the difference between art and engineering is smaller than the difference between engineering ans science.
Buddha,
Your falsifiability is a qualitative judgment, this law is ineffective, this law is effective, etc. I’ll stipulate that that may falsify the theory behind that law. Or not, there are plenty of bad laws that are bad by design, the recent examples of councils passing laws meant to be enforced only against the homeless, springs to mind. Also, the law could just be badly implemented. The fact that my arch falls doesn’t negate the theory behind a “keystone,” it could just mean that I’m a crappy arch builder.
I still like my grammar example. I can provide evidence that you’re using the word science in a way contrary to it’s formal definition, but that in no way falsifies that you used the word science.
Slart and Tony,
I asked Slarti to come because I thought he’d find the conversation interesting, and because I wanted to know his opinion. I know enough to know that people know more than me on some subjects, and I’m curious enough to want to know what they think. To be honest, I think there’s been about 3 discussions here that I’ve been “the expert” in. They were all beer centered. I wouldn’t come here if I thought I had nothing to learn from the others involved.
I was pretty sure that he’d agree with me, and I was pretty sure that he’d look at it from a different perspective.
Slart,
Good to know Popper’s still in play.
Re: RT interview with founder of cryptome.org
‘Spy services feed info to whistleblowers to keep tabs on site visitors’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMRUiB_8tTc&feature=player_embedded#!
“Cryptome.org was publishing classified and secret documents long before WikiLeaks made headlines. Cryptome co-founder John Young told RT such sites are allowed to stay online so that spy services might keep an eye on their visitors. There is no secrecy on the Internet, John Young warned.”
Of course, most are well aware of his last point…
I didn’t even bother to read it, Tony.