Friday, August 04, 2006

They never learn, do they?

TCM at BBC science report a strange astronomical phenomenon. Here are a couple of extracts:

  • A pair of strange new worlds that blur the boundaries between planets and stars have been discovered beyond our Solar System
  • Their existence challenges current theories about the formation of planets and stars, astronomers report in the journal Science.

Let us all be very clear about this. God created, in human beings, the desire for scientific knowledge for the sole reason of being able to mess with our heads. Adam was the original hippy, just doing his thing, until he began to think about the laws of nature, bought himself a chemistry set, and before he could write “method, result, conclusion” suddenly his missus was twatting about with snakes.

We are not equipped to understand existence. We can speculate, theorise and argue about all of that shit, and if we enjoy that pursuit, then fine; but we should never forget that the rules can be changed at any time.

I shall continue to advocate an agnostic approach to the so-called laws of physics. If there are any young people reading this, then I suggest that you erase from your timetables the double Chemistry on Thursday afternoon, and instead familiarise yourselves with the works of Jerry Garcia. Look at your physics teacher. Do you want to finish up like that? He or she, too, was once an innocent adolescent about to be led astray by the bizarre notions of the ignorant. The choice is yours.

41 comments:

Carmenzta said...

Vicus, you are correct in that we will never, EVER really understand anything. I know and try to stay away from the faculty from all our mathematics and science departments, not only are they are very scary, but they all wear birkenstocks, yuck.

BUT, I believe that it is our search for knowledge that keeps us humble so I don't think we (or they) should throw in the towel.

My goodness, finally an intellectual post devoid of any references to inner thighs, engorged, thrust, etc.

Unknown said...

I came here looking for something I wouldn't understand and you surprise me by posting something coherent.

The nerve.

Vicus Scurra said...

Carmenzta, I am not sure whether you are complaining or commending.
Pamela, coherence is a flukey by-product of the production of tripe - think monkeys, Shakespeare and typewriters.

svlsd - text shorthand for civilised. Some other bugger got it wrong.

Anonymous said...

HEAR, HEAR!!!!!!

No time for that claptrap anymore. I'd rather be amazed on a daily basis. It's way more fun.

Signed,

A reformed reductionist.

Romeo Morningwood said...

TIME magazine was trying to cajole more subscriptions from the fundie Intelligent Design set with their recent article on Evangelical Geneticist Francis Collins. It was probably banned in Kansas anyway.

You are absolutely right.We are not designed (unable)to comprehend existence but it is so un-American to not have an answer for everything. Luckily for us pagans up here in Canada we absolutely thrive on ambiguity.

Be careful kiddies..if you are overly diagnostic about GOD you will die agnostic.

tom909 said...

Vicus, my physics teacher was hot. Obviously I wouldn't want to end up like her, but in my tiny little fourteen year old brain of the time, I sure would like to have given her one.
There, in one sentence I have brought back some well-needed balance to this otherwise overly spurious discussion.

jromer said...

amen mr. scurra. at the same time, i agree we shouldn't give up completely.

carmentza, I HAVE BIRKENSTOCKS!

pam, he's just trying to flirt with you. its the whole come here come here, go away go away bit.

Vicus Scurra said...

Tom. All of my physics teachers were distinctly unattractive. Do you think that that is the reason that I detest the sciences? We only excel at subjects when we have sex with the teacher? Perhaps I should have reciprocated those advances, and I could have been a world class athlete. And walked funny.
No, JR and others, we should not give up the pursuit of knowledge. We should just give up the notion that we will ever understand the nature of creation.

tom909 said...

Vicus, do you think that is why I am one of the world's leading physicians?

Vicus Scurra said...

You're not? Then pray explain that episode with the rubber gloves.

Anonymous said...

Carmenzta, afraid I must disagree. Some of engage in the search for knowledge not to keep ourselves humble, but to give ourselves the opportunity to say "I told you so" frequently to those who don't.

Mark Gamon said...

Spot on with that Jerry Garcia thing, Vic old chum.

Did you hear this morning's news? Apparently there's these astronomers building the perfect telescope for charting the uncharted outer reaches of the universe etc etc. And they've worked out what size of mirror is exactly right to do the job.

Guess what? 42 metres.

Somewhere beyond the outer reaches of human understanding, Douglas Adams is having a good chuckle this morning.

Anonymous said...

Both of my physics teachers were distinctively repulsive and female, not at all the promised young male fit things I had been promised when sent to Catholics girls school.

Never understood physics and hated the subject ever since.

Anonymous said...

SETI reports that they have recieved a signal from outerspace, but that it has somehow been interfered with from Earth.

I have an alibi.

Daphne Wayne-Bough said...

Why do we need to know?

Frontier Editor said...

My physics teacher was a short, ill-tempered retired Navy gunnery officer who demonstrated that physics did have one purpose - hitting people you didn't particularly care for with rather heavy projectiles before they could shoot back.

It looks like one country's "defense forces" is taking that lesson and forgetting the "shoot back" part.

tom909 said...

So why do we need to know - to be honest Daphne, as a Wayne-Bough you probably don't. After a couple of glasses of red I don't care one way or the other either.
But seriously, sunday morning and all that - and we should of course all be on our way to church now, not pissing around trying to be witty - if you do know what the human body is designed for then you can use it correctly.

Daphne Wayne-Bough said...

Back to cricket. Which side does Parmesan (or Harmattan?) play for? And what's this obsession with toilets?

Anonymous said...

Isn't Harmattan just across the bridge from Queens?

Dave said...

Vicus - I'm back blogging. You may be interested in the cricket statistics over at my place.

Vicus Scurra said...

Of course we are interested Dave, all of my readers (aMToNW) have been absorbed by your recent postings. Go over to Dave's everyone - the Jacques Cousteau of blogging. Where deep mid wicket has a whole new meaning.

jromer said...

vicus, what's happened to interpreter?

Vicus Scurra said...

Pavlov seems to have disappeared. Obviously the Gods of Blogging have taken exception to his constant attempts to introduce factual accuracy to these pages.

Unknown said...

Following on from Frontier Editor, by an amazing coincidence, my Navy gunnery instructor is actually a retired physics teacher, who insists that the shells we lob into deserts from sea can be in two places at once, and that Admiral Heisenberg was correct about his measurement conundrum. Shoot ...... BANG.

Carmenzta said...

Anna, I just hope you're not wearing them with white tube socks and bermuda shorts, like the whole physics department does. And they think they are really cool.

Raincoaster, can't we just say "fuck you" to those people? That way we don't have to keep searching for knowledge.

Vicus, I was doing both. Trying to save some time here.

jnstux - Denim evening wear for the gentlemen.

Anonymous said...

I don't try to understand but I do wonder. If there is a god, it is a mightily cruel one because not only did it give us things we can't understand it topped it all by giving us women to rub it in.

okhri: Thank you, word verification because I've been trying to remember his name for a while now (Ben Okri) because it will come in handy in a few days.

Vicus Scurra said...

Rub what in where?

Anonymous said...

and thus the blog comes full circle.

So to speak.

Anonymous said...

It. You know.

Vicus Scurra said...

You don't mean thingy do you?

tom909 said...

I love it when women rub it in.

Anonymous said...

Thread successfully debased.

Job done. Next...

Anonymous said...

Excellent comment Vicus.
Bytheway, I'm a scientist and I don't wear Birkenstocks - I can't afford them.

Vicus Scurra said...

Thank you Jaq.
I had no idea what birkenstocks were before this thread started. Now I have some idea (I still wouldn't recognise them) and have not benefitted from this knowledge. Therefore, taking a logical approach I deduce thus. Learning science is of no use. Learning about the wearing of birkenstocks is no use. Therefore, the wearing of birkenstocks is a science.
How I miss Pavlov. I hope he is OK.

Anonymous said...

Vicus,

Back to your original premise on teachers of physics, I can corroborate this, at least at a major Midwestern "Top 10" University. After having taught there myself and developing a healthy disrespect for the scientific method, I felt the following pretty much supported and finalised my conclusion about its addition of any substantial information to the already considerable amount of crap out there.

A friend of mine works as an administarative secretary to the current Chair of the Physics Dept. The Emeritus Chair-read that booted out because he was a complete loon but too important to bar from having a laboratory-was rumored to have pissed on, that's right, urinated on, a fellow physics scientist's laboratory experiment after breaking into his lab. A commentary, I am assuming, on his work. Apparently a letter to the editor of their peer-reviewed journal clearly did not possess the literary punch that he felt his colleague deserved. It was at that point I realised that science, in all its glory and reverence, was a crock.

bypwad-what his colleague ended up with at the end of the day.

Unknown said...

vicus, what's your shoe size? I shall send you a pair of birks.

Anonymous said...

I went over to Pavlov's, Vicus. He's just resting, I think. He posted there today.

Carmenzta said...

Kat, that was hilarious. I work as an advisor in a university. The three Ph.D.'s I work with are all emminences in their fields (Modern Languages, Finance and Psychology). The other day, one of them called me to her office. She's moving offices and is packing her books. The three of them were sitting there scratching their heads because they could not put a cardboard box together even though the diagram was on the bottom. I flew in there and luckily saved the day. They said they didn't know what they would do without me. Still wiping tears of laughter from my eyes.

vhqczh - answer: Gesundheit!

Anonymous said...

Carmenzta,

Indeed, it doesn't apply to all of them, but certainly a darn good few of them. I've seen them burn themselves, blow themselves up and any number of other mishaps that qualify them for a Darwin award. Then of course there's the ones that you had better be wearing your track shoes-trainers in the UK-if you get within 100 yards of them. But then it's your own fault for getting that close to them anyway. That's the Social Science bunch.

Anonymous said...

Never ask a man his shoe size. They all exaggerate.

Unknown said...

Shhhh Raincoaster....I was testing him! :grin: